Russian energy major Gazprom has delayed the start of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project due to the political crisis in Turkey, according to the company's Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev.

"Due to the fact that the installation [of the pipeline - Ed.] did not begin as planned, we are no longer speaking of December 2016," he told reporters on Monday. Talks on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline between Moscow and Ankara were de facto halted in mid-June as Turkey had no cabinet. Earlier this month, the Russian Energy Ministry said it expected an intergovernmental deal on the pipeline to be signed after a new Turkish government is formed in November.

Turkish Stream has replaced the South Stream project to deliver Russian gas to Southern Europe, which was suspended in December as the EU blocked its implementation.


Turkish Stream will be made up of four threads, each with the capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters. The pipeline will travel 660 kilometers under the Black Sea, followed by 250 kilometers in the European part of Turkey.

The first line of the Turkish Stream will cost $2.9 billion and is expected to meet the growing demands of the Turkish market.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued recently that the nation's economic recovery was being stunted by people who were "doing too good with food stamps, Social Security and all the rest."

In an interview that was published on Monday, McConnell told Politico that the 2016 presidential race was a "critical election" to restoring "the growth rates and the greatness we've had most of our history."

The Kentucky Republican reportedly "scoffed" at the idea the economy was improving.

McConnell said that business leaders complained to him that they had "a hard time finding people to do the work because they're doing too good with food stamps, Social Security and all the rest."

A US-based company attempted to break into the web-site of the Russian Electoral Commission on the eve of the single national Election Day, the body's chief Vladimir Churov told the press.

"Yesterday someone attempted to hack our web-site and alter the data there making 50,000 requests per minute. They failed and we have already established the culprit - it's a company based in San Francisco," Churov told reporters at the press conference dedicated to the national unified Election Day that took place on Sunday.

The Russian official said that documented proof of the attack would be prepared before the end of the week and forward them to law enforcement agencies in the United States.

In last year's public address, Churov said that his agency possessed information about certain "foreign foundations" planning provocations at Russian regional elections.

This article originally appeared at DWN, translated by Frank Jakob exclusively for SouthFront

In a surprise move Germany left the anti-Putin-alliance formed by the USA: Germany is now officially welcoming Moscow's readiness to act in Syria and is starting an initiative together with the Russians and the French to bring an end to the war. This is to stop the constant stream of refugees. Germany has ordered thousands of soldiers into readiness.

Germany surprisingly left the alliance formed together with the United States which intended to block Russia's entry into the Syrian conflict.

Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen told Der Spiegel that she welcomed president Putin's intentions of joining the fight against the extremist organization "Islamic State". It would be a matter of mutual interests, she said.

A speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added, Germany would welcome additional efforts of Russia in the fight against IS. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even announced the starting of a joint venture between him, Russian foreign minister Lavrov and their French colleague Laurent Fabius with the aim of bringing the Syrian civil war to an end. Lavrov and Fabius are expected to arrive in Berlin this Saturday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called upon the US-Ministry of Defence to coordinate their efforts with the Russian military. Because both sides are actively invested in Syria it would be paramount for the US to reinstate the previously ceased operational cooperation with Russia, said Lavrov on Friday in Moscow. This was intended to avoid "unintentional incidents". Russia's military drills in the Mediterranean would be in accordance to international law. Larvrov explained furthermore, that Russia would keep delivering weapons to the troops of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to support their struggle against the extremist organization of Islamic State (IS).

Anyone inclined to believe in divine retribution will find pause for thought over the latest calamity in Saudi Arabia, where a giant crane smashed into its Grand Mosque over the weekend, killing more than 100 pilgrims.

Worshippers were gathering in the top mosque at Mecca for Friday evening prayers when one of the construction cranes foresting the holy city toppled, crashing through the roof and crushing hundreds of people below. Blood-splattered corpses lay strewn across the floor of the mosque, as shell-shocked survivors struggled to make sense of the freak disaster. Apparently, heavy rain and gusts of wind had caused the metallic structure to keel over.

The incident comes as nearly two million Muslims from across the globe are due to gather in Mecca during the next two weeks for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Mecca — reputed to be the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed — is undergoing extensive property development. Some critics have accused the Saudi authorities of exploiting the unique spiritual status of the city in order to make way for expensive apartments and hotels to generate lucrative tourism profits.

Among the construction companies to have secured juicy contracts are firms owned by the ruling House of Saud. There are strong suspicions of cronyism and bribery plying the construction boom in Mecca. This has in turn led to lax regulation in safety standards and building controls. The use of cheap unskilled labour from the Indian subcontinent is also a factor.

Mecca and the other Saudi city Medina associated with the Prophet are considered the two holiest Muslim sites on Earth. Saudi King Salman, as for his predecessors, is referred to formally as "the custodian of the two holiest sites of Islam", as well as being the sovereign leader of Saudi Arabia.

Nevertheless, for many Muslims around the world, the House of Saud is seen as a disgrace to Islam. In recent years, the Saudi rulers are heavily implicated in sowing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia branches of the faithful across the entire region. The House of Saud professes a fundamentalist version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, which views others Muslim sects with disdain as somehow being "apostate" or "infidel".

The religious chauvinism of the Saudi rulers is closely aligned with the extremist views and practices of sundry Al Qaeda-linked terror groups, including the so-called Islamic State network in Syria and Iraq. The Wahhabi condemnation of Shia Muslims as "heretics", applied also to non-aligned Sunnis and Christians, explains why these terror groups have persecuted such communities with ruthless beheadings and other barbaric abuses.

But the link between the Saudi rulers and the al-Qaeda-type extremistsis much more than an abstract sharing of sectarian religious views.

Police have dropped an investigation into a Westminster VIP pedophile ring that allegedly murdered a 15-year-old girl at a "vile" orgy in the 1990s after finding no evidence to support the key witness's claims.

In January the witness, known as "Darren," claimed he saw a senior Conservative MP lure the teenage girl into a "medical room" at a pedophile party in London's Dolphin Square apartments.

The eyewitness, who claims he was trafficked for sex, told the Daily Mirror: "I never saw her leave that room, in fact I never saw her again. I fear she may have been killed."

Speaking about the "horror," Darren claimed he was also abused by the group while doing work experience, aged 15, at the Thornham Manga estate in Suffolk, alleging that the convicted child molester Peter Righton was involved.

Latvian Internal Affairs Minister Rihards Kozlovskis announced that he will not be attending an emergency meeting of the EU's security ministers in Luxemburg on Monday over the continent's burgeoning refugee crisis, saying his country's government has not been able to come to a consolidated position on taking in additional migrants, Delfi reports.

Kozlovskis had earlier warned that disagreements among the country's ruling coalition government could make Latvia the only country in the EU not to accept refugees.

Interior ministry advisor Dajga Holma expressed Monday that it is critical for the issue to be "resolved on the internal political level" as soon as possible. Latvian media has reported that Kozlovskis and members of the Alliance party will discuss the issue with President Raimonds Vejonis, who had stated earlier that Latvia "cannot distance itself from the humanitarian crisis faced by our partners."

On Friday, local media reported that the country's ruling coalition, including the center-right Unity Party, the nationalist National Alliance, and the centrist Union of Greens and Farmers, had been unable to come to an agreement on accepting additional migrants, with the nationalists and greens dissenting from Unity's position on accepting 526 persons in addition to the estimated 50 people the country has already taken, and the 250 Riga had pledged to take last month.

According to the RaiNews 24 television channel, the Italian authorities are also bolstering inspections on trains.

The move followed Germany's introduction of temporary border controls on its southern border with Austria, claiming the recent influx had stretched the country's capacity to the limit. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told the media that the new border controls would be in place for at least a number of weeks.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic have also introduced temporary border controls with Austria.

EU countries are introducing restrictive measures in an attempt to cope with the influx of migrants into the bloc as a result of instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Over 500,000 migrants have arrived in the European Union since the beginning of 2015, according to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

European Central banks keep demanding the return of their gold bullion from the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, reducing the gold stockpile kept under the streets of Manhattan to its lowest level in decades; economist Lew Rockwell is convinced that the move is an indication that Europe is desperately striving for independence.

Gold always glitters, and once upon a time, the reputation of the United States as a safe place to store nationally-owned gold reserves offshore did as well.

However, many economists, such as Economist Lew Rockwel, are now convinced that this may not be the case, and insist that US supplies are rapidly becoming depleted.

It all started in 2012, when Germany attempted to request that the US repatriate its gold. It was followed by The Netherlands, France, Belgium and, finally, Austria.

Moscow notes the growing role of Latin America in the development of international relations, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, said Monday.

"I would like to stress that we see Latin America as an emerging center of the multipolar world, the one which plays an increasingly positive role in international affairs from year to year," Naryshkin said during a meeting with Vice President of Brazil Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia.

Cooperation with Latin American countries is an important direction of Russia's foreign policy, the lawmaker added.

"We share quite similar views on many challenges of today's world, and it makes us natural allies," he said.