This week on Behind the Headlines we spoke with Daniel Estulin, award-winning investigative reporter and author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, Deconstructing Wikileaks and TransEvolution: The Coming Age of Human Deconstruction. Estulin hosted a weekly show - 'From the Shadows' - on RT Spanish and has a documentary on the Bilderbergers coming out this summer.

Running Time: 02:04:00

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Boris Nemtsov was shot in the back last night as he walked with his Ukrainian girlfriend near the Kremlin in Moscow. Nemtsov ran unsuccessfully for office in 1989 before eventually being elected to Russia's parliament in 1990. As deputy minister for economic reform under Yeltsin, he failed to actually deliver economic reform amid the August 1998 economic crisis and it cost him his job.

In 1999 he founded the Union of Right Forces (SPS), along with fellow liberals Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar. The SPS was directly sponsored by the US government (via USAID) in 2002, after which it became openly critical of Russia's new President Putin (surprise!). This fact alone establishes Nemtsov and SPS as agents of Western efforts to destabilize Russia and therefore not representative of any significant section of the Russian people. Indeed, in the 2003 election, the SPS failed to reach even the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament.

Realising real politics wasn't for him, Nemtsov decided to try his hand at legalized money laundering banking, joining Neftyanoi Bank which, with Nemtsov as director, was investigated and shut down in 2005 for money laundering and fraud.

In 2004 he joined the Ukrainian government of Mister-US-backed-Orange-Revolution Victor Yushenko, as an 'economic adviser'. He was kicked out of the job in 2006 because of complaints from cabinet members that he was criticizing their decisions.

In case you haven't noticed, a war has been raging all around you for the past 12 months. Not a 'hot' war, but a massive propaganda war of the kind that usually precedes such military action.

The US' full-spectrum disinformation offensive against Russia began in earnest back in 2006 with the death by polonium poisoning of anti-Putin campaigner Alexander Litvinenko. Despite the fact that, before Litvinenko, the only murderers with previous form for death-by-polonium were those responsible for the murder of Yasser Arafat, the Western media immediately and persistently pointed to Putin as the culprit in Litvinenko's murder.

Earlier this year a UK government inquiry into his death began and the same allegations, based on the "everyone knows Putin's a thug" school of a priori, evidence-bereft, legal argumentation were made. One small piece of information revealed by the inquiry that completely undermined the claim that Putin had anything to do with the death of Litvinenko was, however, studiously ignored by the Western media.

According to the British government's story, the arch 'anti-Putin crusader' was dispatched by two FSB agents who administered the radioactive poison to him by offering him the rest of the pot of tea (about half a cup) they had ordered in a London hotel. The problem with this claim is that Litvinenko himself spontaneously arranged the meeting with the two men just a few hours before he met them. So to believe that the two agents killed their former compatriot, we have to assume that they somehow suspected that Litvinenko was going to ask them for a meet-up and had been carrying around a stash of Polonium for just such an occasion. In addition, one of the agents introduced his 8 year old son to Litvinenko, even telling him to shake his hand, after Litvinenko had drunk some of the supposedly radioactive tea. Litvinenko's wife, Marina, told the inquiry that at the time of his death Litvinenko was working for MI6.

Putin's somewhat famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference is presented as the moment when Russia publicly and unilaterally 'broke' with the West. But Putin's comments in Munich were made on the back of several years of US and British government covert and overt attempts to destabilize the Russian government and force it to accept the reality that the anglo-American empire rules supreme. Rather than bow to this pressure, Putin chose to administer a dose of truth and reality to the warmongers:

"The history of humanity certainly has gone through unipolar periods and seen aspirations to world supremacy. And what hasn't happened in world history? What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious, not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia - we - are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves. Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?"

Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your host Harrison Koehli and fellow Sott.net editors as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

This week, we discussed a range of topics, from Jihadi John and prisons in the USA to the glorification of psychopathy in American culture, and the latest in Ukraine.

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT.net, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:54:00

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about some courageous women who dared to speak up against the fascism in Ukraine. There is, however, another group of people there who cannot speak up for themselves, and who are even less equipped to deal with life in a war zone: the children.

The relatively peaceful world that the children of East Ukraine knew before the 'Maidan' is long gone. Living under constant bombardment, in bomb-shelters, sometimes without one or both parents and witnessing horrific scenes is scarring these children in a way that, even with proper attention and care, will take a long time to heal. My own mother-in-law was 6 years of age when the German army quickly overran Paris in WWII. Although the attack was short, the trauma of the bombings, sirens and bomb-shelters left her scarred for life with chronic nervousness and anxiety attacks. Now think of the children in Donbass and the ongoing terror campaign that the Kiev junta is waging there - for close to a year now, and with little respite in view.

President Poroshenko is fully aware that he is making the children in Donbass suffer. This was made very clear in a hate-filled speech he gave in the Rada (Ukraine's parliament) last year:

...we [in Ukraine] will have work - they [in the Donbass] won't. We will have pensions - they won't. We will care for our children and pensioners - they won't. Our children will go to school, to kindergartens - their children will sit in cellars. They don't know how to organize or do anything. This, ultimately, is how we will win this war.

In the early 80s' the world was shocked by headlines reporting violence against abortion clinics, staff and doctors by religious fundamentalist groups. The first such reported case was the kidnapping of Hector Zevallos, an abortion clinic owner and operator, and his wife, by three men identifying themselves as the Army of God. Zevallos and his wife were held for eight days. Since that time, there have been further kidnappings, bombings of clinics, murders and attempted murders of staff and supporters, hundreds of death threats and over 150 cases of assault and battery by anti-abortion activists. The violence has since spread from the United States to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

And the violence continues today, with the 2012 bombings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin and the firebombing of the Ladies Clinic in Pensacola, Florida, the site of the 1994 murder of Dr. John Britton and his attendant James Barrett and a previous bombing on Christmas Day, 1984 (the quartet of perpetrators later calling the bombing "a gift to Jesus on his birthday").

The actions of these Pro-Lifer terrorists leave many people confused. How can anyone care so much about a cause like pro-life versus pro-choice that they are prepared to carry out violent attacks and protests, death threats and smear campaigns? How can one's fundamentalism lead one to take such seemingly contradictory actions - to kill in order to uphold the "thou shalt not kill" commandment?

But such is the mindset of the religious terrorist. One becomes so wrapped up in their cause, no matter how misguided, that these seeming contradictions don't hold any water. It's what's commonly referred to as "being a complete whackjob".

The Health and Wellness show on the SOTT Radio Network covers topics of health, diet, science, homeopathy, wellness culture, and more. Tune in weekly!

Running Time: 01:46:00

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Here's the transcript of the show:

Welcome to the radio network of SOTT.net, your media source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. The Behind the Headlines talkshow takes place each Sunday on the SOTT Radio Network. Analyzing global impact events that shape our world and future, and connecting the dots to reveal the bigger picture obscured by mainstream programming, Behind the Headlines is current affairs for people who think.

From the crisis in Ukraine to the ISIS in Iraq, from increasingly extreme weather to surviving in a world ruled by psychopaths, your hosts, their colleagues (and occasional guests) explore the deeper truths driving world events by exposing the manipulations behind what passes for 'news'.

One year on from the dramatic events that ushered in an extremist government in Ukraine, and with a delicate ceasefire in place between East and West, we'll be looking at where things might go from here.

Behind the Headlines airs live this Sunday, 22 February 2015, from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 7-9pm UTC / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:46:00

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Here's the transcript of the show:

This week Harrison Koehli and fellow Sott.net editors talked about the growing poverty and homelessness in America, dispelling many of the myths, biases and stereotypes of the homeless population. We discussed how the structure of our society contributes to people finding themselves homeless and how many state and local governments are criminalizing the homeless as well as those who are attempting to help. We also explored some creative solutions that individuals and some cities have enacted to shelter the homeless, and what we might do to help those in need.

Running Time: 01:14:00

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In late November 2013, the 'Euromaidan' in Kiev began as a popular protest against a generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine's economic and military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.

The EU had made the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and "gas princess" Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the rather severe economic impact the EU Association Agreement would have had on the Ukrainian economy, made it impossible for a consensus in the Ukrainian government to be reached, despite the fact that Yanukovych urged Parliament to put aside their differences and ratify the agreement. In fact, the EU's insistence that Tymoshenko be released appears now to have been designed to ensure the EU-Ukraine Association agreement failed and Yanukovych blamed for that failure and removed from office. Whatever the case, when the agreement was not signed, Ukrainians took to the streets in protest, right on cue.