Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have been joining forces in secret to carry out air strikes on Libya, anonymous high-ranking US officials told the media. The two countries have reportedly coordinated and launched the attacks twice in the last week.

Both Egypt and the UAE launched the strikes without informing the US or seeking its consent, the officials told the New York Times.


"We don't see this as constructive at all," one of the officials told the newspaper, which reported that diplomats were "livid" about the strikes. Libya is a conflict-torn area with both the UN and Western powers seeking to quell the violence.

The chorus of allegations about a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has President Poroshenko calling for an emergency meeting of the country's security and defense council, while the Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is calling for a Russian asset freeze.

"I have made a decision to cancel my working visit to the Republic of Turkey due to sharp aggravation of the situation in Donetsk region, particularly in Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo, as Russian troops were brought into Ukraine," Petro Poroshenko said in a statement on his website.

The Russian representative to the OSCE Andrey Kelin has given a firm response to the allegations, saying that "We have said that no Russian involvement has been spotted, there are no soldiers or equipment."

"Accusations relating to convoys of armored personnel carriers have been heard during the past week and the week before that," he said. "All of them were proven false back then, and is being proven false again now."

"There is no sense in these accusations," he said.

Picture this scenario. A brother and sister squabbling with one another. Something's gone wrong, they're blaming each other, fighting, and generally at each other's throats. Along comes the boy from next door who pokes fun at one of them and starts pestering them. Brother and sister rapidly put aside their differences, join forces and deal with the boy from next door.

The saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has played itself out many times throughout history and, while geo-political relationships may not be as close as siblings, the forming of alliances and the repercussions from having joint enemies can be profound.

During the second World War Stalin realized that he needed the Allies to defeat a Nazi invasion, and in turn the Allies realized that the Soviets were necessary for the war effort. In any other scenario the Allies would have been arch enemies of Stalin and vice versa.

During the Cold War a similar setup occurred with the Soviets and Chinese aiding North Korea during the Korean War, and then aiding the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

On a country specific basis many a dictator has been propped up and supported by Governments pretending to their citizens that they in fact abhor the acts of such people. A controlled media and messaging ensure that the vast majority of citizens don't think too much or dig too much. Government, after all, is largely in the business of marketing. Mobuto Sese Seko, Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, and currently the Saudi Royal family. All strategic at some point in time.

Alexander V. Zakharchenko: As you all know, a week ago we announced our plan to attack. We started it yesterday. Until yesterday we have been preparing for the attack, examining trophy equipment, arming the crews, and testing communication between different military formations.

I can now proudly announce that we formed 2 tank battalions, 2 full artillery brigades, 2 Grad divisions, 1 mechanized infantry battalion, 3 infantry brigades and a special purpose assault airborne brigade. All these units have now received Army numbers. The communication system has been regularized and 2 field hospitals and 1 maintenance brigade have been formed.

We have begun testing all these units in battle. Yesterday we began an attack on the Amvrosiyivka enemy group. According to our data, in the course of the offensive, the enemy lost about 45 units of military equipment, we captured 14 units of military equipment, and about 1,200 people were killed and wounded.

There are two cauldrons at the moment, in Amvrosiyivka and Starobeshevskaia. We started to advance at 4 a.m. on Elenovka, where the fighting is still going on. 2/3 of Elenovka is under our control. We hope to clean up these areas before nightfall. However, the offensive will not end at that. We will continue until we free all populated areas in the Donetsk National Republic. The army is ready and we have the support of the people. There will be more and more prisoners.

A leftist MP is urging changes to the law that would bar people convicted of corruption from official posts and receiving increased pensions.

MP Oleg Mikheyev of the Fair Russia parliamentary caucus told reporters that the new bill concerns those who commit crimes "against the state authority, the interests of civil service and the interests of municipal power bodies." The politician further explained it meant bribery and graft. The bill also bans the employment as civil servants of anyone who had been sentenced to five or more years in prison for economic crimes.

"Officials must completely lose the opportunity to capitalize on their posts," the MP said.

The politician said the authors of the bill had based it on the experience of Singapore, and added that it had practically extinguished corruption using such methods.

According to the present rules civil servants receive increased pensions - the bonus for 25 or more years of service can reach 70 percent of average salary of the last working year.

The FBI has been ordered to investigate allegations that claim the agency intimidated a witness and compelled him not to testify at a recent trial over evidence related to the Oklahoma City bombing.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, US District Judge Clark Waddoups scheduled a November 13th hearing on the matter, in which Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue accused the FBI of threatening to eliminate a former undercover agent's health benefits if he took the stand. The former agent reportedly knew convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh.

The core of the issue is that Trentadue claims the FBI has surveillance video revealing McVeigh carrying out the Oklahoma City bombing with an accomplice. The FBI adamantly denies that such video exists, and the government has insisted repeatedly that McVeigh acted alone in the event that killed 168 people.

The witness involved in this whole situation, John Matthews, was scheduled to testify regarding this alleged video in July, but withdrew at the last minute. Trentadue - as well as a freelance journalist named Roger Charles - stated that when he spoke with Matthews about his absence, the former agent told them the FBI threatened him.

"He was told he should take a vacation and that if he did testify he should suffer from a case of the 'I don't remembers,'" Trentadue told the judge back in July, as quoted by local Fox 13 News.

Russia Beyond the Headlines: There has been repeated speculation, particularly in the Western media, that Russian troops could be deployed in Ukraine and even that they have already crossed the border into Ukrainian territory. Is such an action possible in your view?

Sergei Lavrov: Unfortunately, the mass media continue to spread rumours, distorted information and even outright lies. Recently there were claims by Ukraine that its artillery destroyed an armoured column that had allegedly crossed from Russia into Ukraine, and the British media even said they witnessed the incursion. No evidence, however, was presented, and even the U.S. State Department could not confirm the incident. We view all such stories as part of an information war.

RBTH: But a real war is happening on the ground. What can Russia do to resolve this crisis?

S.L.: Our stand is crystal-clear - we want peace in Ukraine, which can only be attained through broad national dialogue in which all regions and all political forces of the country must participate. This is what Russia, the US, the EU and Ukraine agreed in Geneva on April 17. At the recent meeting in Berlin of the foreign ministers of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, no one objected to confirming the Geneva Statement. The point is for Kiev to stop war games and to abandon the illusion that the deep crisis in Ukraine can be resolved by winning the war against your own people. It is deeply saddening that the US and the EU continue blindly to support anything Kiev does.

Let's recall another document that Kiev and the West try to forget. On February 21, an agreement on settling the crisis was signed by Viktor Yanukovych, Arseni Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleg Tyagnibok and witnessed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland. They now say the agreement "has been superseded by events" because [former Ukraine president] Mr. Yanukovych left the country. But let me remind my colleagues that the February 21 agreement listed as the number-one priority the commitment to a government of national unity. Does this goal depend on the personality of Mr. Yanukovych? Isn't national unity a universal principle for any country that wants to stay whole? Instead of honouring this commitment, the opposition leaders staged an armed coup and publicly declared they had created a "government of the winners". Unfortunately, the logic of "winner takes all" remains the thrust of Kiev's actions, resulting in thousands of victims among civilians, hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons, as well as an almost totally destroyed social infrastructure in many cities and towns in eastern Ukraine.

The Western media have proven for all to see that it comprises either a collection of ignorant and incompetent fools or a brothel that sells war for money.

The conclusive evidence is the media story of the armored Russian column that crossed into Ukraine and was destroyed by Ukraine's rag-tag forces that ISIS would eliminate in a few minutes. British reporters fabricated this story or were handed it by a CIA operative working to build a war narrative. The no longer reputable BBC hyped the story without investigating. The German media, including Die Welt, blared the story throughout Germany without concern at the absence of any evidence. Reuters news agency, also with no investigation, spread the story. Readers tell me that CNN has been broadcasting the fake story 24/7. Although I cannot stand to watch it, I suspect Fox "news" has also been riding this lame horse hard. Readers tell me that my former newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, which has fallen so low as to be unreadable, also spread the false story. I hope they are wrong. One hates to see the complete despoliation of one's former habitat.

The media story is preposterous for a number of reasons that should be obvious to a normal person.

The first reason is that the Russian government has made it completely clear that its purpose is to de-escalate the situation. When other former Russian territories that are part of present day Ukraine followed Crimea, voted their independence and requested reunification with Russia, President Putin refused. To underline his de-escalation, President Putin asked the Russian State Duma to rescind his authority to intervene militarily in Ukraine in behalf of the former Russian provinces. As the Russian government, unlike Washington or the EU governments, stresses legality and the rule of law, Russian military forces would not be sent into Ukraine prior to the Duma renewing Putin's authority so to do.

War criminals awaiting trial at the detention center operated by the International Criminal Court in The Hague are treated better than detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, The New Republic reported Tuesday.

"The legal requirements for the detention facilities at The Hague and at Guantanamo are identical, but the conditions of imprisonment are nothing alike," Jessica Schulberg, an investigative reporter for The New Republic, said.

A comparison of the two detention centers carried out by Schulberg shows major differences in the treatment of detainees.

While prisoners at The Hague are free to move around in the building from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and use the kitchen, gym, library and spiritual room, inmates at Guantanamo's Camp Seven, the most secure camp in the detention center, are only allowed to spend four hours a day in a recreation room, accompanied by one other prisoner. Solitary confinement also prevents detainees from engaging in group prayer, an important part of Islam.

Guantanamo also forbids visits and phone calls, while The Hague permits visits and even assists prisoners' families with travel expenses when needed. Detainees at The Hague are also allowed to make phone calls and send letters. Guantanamo inmates may send letters as well, but communication is slow and limited, Schulberg writes.

"Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves."―D.H. Lawrence

No matter what your perspective on the showdown between locals and law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, there can be no disputing the fact that "local" police should not be looking or acting like branches of the military.

Unfortunately, in the police state that is America today, we're going to find ourselves revisiting Ferguson over and over again. Every time an unarmed citizen gets shot by a police officer who is armed to the hilt, or inclined to shoot first and ask questions later, or so concerned about their own safety, to the exclusion of all else, that everything becomes a potential threat, we'll find ourselves back in Ferguson territory again.

Here's the thing, though: whether or not it ever gets reported, whether it incites any protests or marches or showdowns of epic proportions, whether it elicits any outrage on the part of the citizenry, Ferguson is already happening over and over again, all around us.

It's happening in small towns and big cities alike every time a citizen gets stopped and frisked for no better reason than they "look" suspicious. It's happening on the nation's highways and byways, where corporate greed disguised as road safety is making a hefty profit off of drivers who have the misfortune of passing a red light camera or a speed camera or a license plate reader. It's happening in the privately run jails, which are teeming with prisoners doing time for nonviolent crimes that should have landed them with a slap on the wrist and a fine instead of hard time and forced labor.

It's happening in our airports and train stations and shopping malls, where menacing squads of black-garbed, jack-booted, up-armored soldiers disguised as law enforcement officials are subjecting Americans to roving security checkpoints, allegedly in the pursuit of terrorists. And it's happening in the schools, where the school-to-prison pipeline is fully operational and busy churning out newly minted citizens of the American police state who have been taught the hard way what it means to comply and march in lockstep with the government's dictates.

Young Alex Stone didn't even make it past the first week of school before he became a victim of the police state. Directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses, Stone wrote, "I killed my neighbor's pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business." Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.