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Political Prediction Market: Clinton's odds rise again
November 8, 2016

Washington (CNN) Hillary Clinton's odds of winning the presidency rose from 78% last week to 91% Monday before Election Day, according to CNN's Political Prediction Market.
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Now, Clinton's odds stand at 91% while Trump's fall to 9%, a steep decline from the 23% he had one week ago on October 31.

The media shouldn't turn into a tool for forces seeking to escalate the situation in Venezuela by spreading fake news, the Russian Foreign Ministry said accusing the opposition of resorting to violence in the ongoing coup attempt.

"Objective" reporting is of the "utmost importance" for Venezuela, the ministry said in a statement as it called on the media around the world to avoid spreading false reports that would only make the situation on the ground worse. This serves the agenda of those players who want to plunge the Latin American nation into chaos, it said.

Moscow then accused the US-backed Venezuelan opposition led by the self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido, of a brazen attempt to draw the armed forces into clashes and use the unfolding chaos to seize power.

"The radical opposition in Venezuela has once again returned to violent methods of confrontation," the ministry said. "Instead of peacefully settling political differences, they have taken a course designed to whip up conflict, and provoke breaches of public order and clashes involving the armed forces."

The Foreign Ministry also called on all sides of the political conflict inside Venezuela to stop violence and avoid bloodshed as it urged the international community to encourage all "responsible" forces in Venezuela to return to dialogue to resolve their differences.

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The surge in military spending has been fueled by the exacerbating rivalry between the US and China, as well as the strained situation in Asia where India increased its spending by 3.1 percent and Pakistan by 11 percent.

Even though the numbers indicate that Moscow is not the country fueling a new arms race, SIPRI reported that a huge uptick in military spending by Poland (growing by 8.9 percent), the Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania and several others are due to the purported Russian scare.

While Trump has been behind a drastic increase in the Pentagon budget and that of NATO, the US president has recently lamented that the money would be better spent elsewhere, calling on China and Russia to "get together" and stop "making these weapons."

"A lot of this spending, particularly in the case of Saudi Arabia and India, is for political reasons," Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the Pentagon, told RT. New Delhi and Riyadh seek to "curry favor" with Washington by purchasing the US weapons in hope for concessions in other areas, he explained. "A lot of that is aimed at trying to help the US defense industry to stay ahead [of their competitors] and hire more people," he explained, adding that the issue of the military expenditures has a "clear economic dimension."

"There is no good reason" for larger defense budgets, Ted Seay, a former US diplomat and senior policy consultant with the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), told RT. It is the West's fear of the perceived 'Russian threat' that has in fact led to destabilization on the European continent, he noted.

"There are military provocations taking place between NATO and Russia where there should not be any far in the 21th century when there is no logical reason for any confrontation between Europe and Russia," Seay said.

"There is not a military situation that necessitates [the likes of] Latvia or Poland to find a solution in greater military spending. It simply does not exist in this age. But there are people who seem to be intent on creating confrontation and encouraging the NATO countries to spend more money with no good reason."

Anyway, the latest trends show that the world is unlikely to see easing of tensions on the international arena anytime soon, Seay warns. "Too many people have too much money invested in war," he said.