Citing a series of geopolitical, economic and social setbacks faced by the United States since the turn of the century, geopolitical analyst and Sao Paulo Business School Professor Antonio Gelis-Filho argues that global policy planners must prepare to deal with the "improbable, but by all means possible, Soviet-style collapse of the United States."

The man responsible for overseeing Fifa's reform process in the current crisis has confirmed that Russia and Qatar may be stripped of their World Cup hosting rights if conclusive new proof of corruption emerges.

"If evidence should emerge that the awards to Qatar and Russia only came about thanks to bought votes then the awards could be invalidated," said Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of Fifa's audit and compliance committee, in an interview with the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung. "This evidence has not yet been brought forth."

Scala has made similar comments before but in light of the ongoing Swiss investigation and confirmation that the FBI has now widened its probe to include 2018 and 2022, his intervention takes on a new significance.

New evidence has emerged, meanwhile, alleging that the former Fifa vice president Jack Warner used a $10m payment from Fifa, made on behalf of South African World Cup organisers, for money laundering, personal loans and credit card payments.

The new evidence, obtained by the BBC, appears to show how the 2008 payments from Fifa - ostensibly for a Diaspora Legacy Programme promised by South African World Cup organisers - ended up in accounts controlled by Warner.

JTA Supermarkets, the largest chain in Warner's native Trinidad & Tobago, received $4.8m, according to accounts seen by the BBC.

The US indictment that charged 14 Fifa officials of 47 counts of racketeering and fraud had earlier alleged that Warner "laundered the funds through accounts held in the name of a large supermarket chain and affiliated investment company in Trinidad".

The Canadian media has highlighted Prime Minister Harper's one on one meeting with Ukraine's president Poroshenko in Kiev (June 5, 2015). The official story which has been fed to Canadians is that Ottawa is providing "non-lethal aid" as well support to the country's civilian police force:

"We supply a range of non-lethal military equipment," Harper said... While disappointed about this, Poroshenko praised Canada for supporting Ukraine since "the first hours" of his presidency and said the military aid it had provided to his country, such as medical kits and mobile hospitals, "addressed an acute problem. (National Post, June 6, 2015, emphasis added)

Harper also announced that Canada would be sending 10 police officers to Ukraine to help reform the country's security sector in a partnership with the United States.

Harper announced the $5 million project during a visit in which he watched training exercises by police cadets. ... (CP News 24, June 6, 2015, emphasis added)

"Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious."—George Orwell

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said—about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption—while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama's warning that the nation needs to do some "soul searching" about issues such as race, poverty and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high. Just recently, in Texas, a white police officer was suspended after video footage showed him "manhandling, arresting and drawing his gun on a group of black children outside a pool party."

Americans' private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo pill intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, "The theater we've just witnessed allows decision makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what's actually transpired is hardly major change."

Taxpayer dollars are still being squandered on roads to nowhere, endless wars that do not make us safer, and bloated government agencies that should have been shut down long ago. A good example is the Transportation Security Administration, which, despite its $7 billion annual budget, has shown itself to be bumbling and ineffective.

And military drills are still being carried out on American soil under the pretext of training soldiers for urban warfare overseas. Southeastern Michigan, the site of one of the many military training drills taking place across the country this summer, has had Black Hawk helicopters buzzing its skies and soldiers dressed for combat doing night combat drills in abandoned buildings around the state.

In other words, freedom, or what's left of it, is being threatened from every direction. The threats are of many kinds: political, cultural, educational, media, and psychological. However, as history shows us, freedom is not, on the whole, wrested from a citizenry. It is all too often given over voluntarily and for such a cheap price: safety, security, bread, and circuses.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) group of hackers who support the Syrian government broke into and defaced the US Army's official website on Tuesday redirecting it to an image promoting the Syrian Army.

The Israeli government, which has never declared what is widely considered to be an extensive nuclear weapons program, built and detonated "dirty bombs" containing nuclear material over years of testing.

The project consisted of 20 detonations with explosives laced with a radioactive substance, according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Mini-drones measured radiation levels and sensors logged the force of the explosions.

In interviews with the paper, researchers were quoted as saying that the tests were only defensive and conducted to see how such an attack by a hostile force would impact the country. Most of the detonations were carried out in the desert and one was performed at a closed facility.

Brennan, who has served as CIA chief since March 2013, offered the following admission during an appearance on Face the Nation:

"I think the president has tried to make sure that we're able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests."

The GDP of the BRICS countries may surpass that of the G7 within two or three years, as it has already hit $32.5 trillion and rising, claims State Duma Foreign Relations chief Aleksey Pushkov.

"In 2014, the total gross domestic product of BRICS countries reached 30 percent [of the world's GDP - Ed.]. This is less than that of the G7, but the difference is seven or eight percent. The combined GDP of the BRICS countries, according to the International Monetary Fund is $32.5 trillion [by purchasing power parity - Ed.]; the G7's is $34.7 trillion. Given that the BRICS members mostly show much higher growth rates than the G7, we can assume that in the next two or three years the aggregate GDP of the BRICS countries will exceed the G7's," said the head of the State Duma Foreign Relations Committee, Aleksey Pushkov, speaking to reporters at the first BRICS Parliamentary Forum in Moscow.

He went on to say that BRICS should make this Forum regular, preferably annual, and when that happens, it would help to make the world more equitable and multipolar, based not on the superiority of one country over the other, but on the balance of interests.

The economic center of the world is changing, the developed West will have to share its influence and authority in the global arena with players like BRICS, said Pushkov.

Does the Army expect that there will soon be "disaster stricken" areas all over the country? As you will see in this article, a job advertisement has been posted on a federal website seeking workers that "will provide emergency support to disaster stricken areas throughout the US". This was originally reported by Shepard Ambellas of Intellihub, but it is not receiving nearly as much attention as it perhaps should. What parts of the nation does the U.S. Army believe will soon be "disaster stricken"? By itself, this job ad wouldn't be raising that many eyebrows, but when you combine this with the unusual number of "military training exercises" that are taking place all around the country and with the very strange movements of military equipment that have been reported recently, it gives the appearance that the U.S. military is feverishly making preparations for something big.

The Islamic State militants launched an offensive on the eastern entrance of the Lybian strategic city of Misrata on Sunday. As result, four security personnel were killed and three others were wounded. Last week, five people lost their lives and six others were wounded after Takfiri terrorists attacked the western gate of Misrata. Lybia is beset with a profound political crisis as it currently has two rival governments, one based in the capital Tripoli and the other in the eastern city of Tobruk.

The forces of the Hezbollah managed to drive al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front militants out of Qarnat al-Tannour Heights on Sunday. According to the sources, a large number of the militants were killed and injured in the operation by the resistance movement and many others fled the area. The recaptured area overlooks the three key valleys of Uwaiss, Atneen and al-Khayl in Arsal barrens, the sources added.