John KerryMail.com

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — The U.S. says Secretary of State John Kerry did not break any rules when he stayed in a glitzy hotel owned by a tycoon blacklisted because of ties to Myanmar’s former military regime.

In a country where cronies own almost all the biggest and best-known firms — including hotels in the capital Naypyitaw — Kerry would have been hard-pressed to find anywhere else to stay during the gathering of Southeast Asian foreign ministers this past weekend.   Continue reading “John Kerry stayed at US-blacklisted Myanmar hotel”

Jenise Wright.Mail.com

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. (AP) — The parents of a 6-year-old Washington girl found slain last week sat in a courtroom as a judge ordered a 17-year-old boy under investigation in the child’s death and sexual assault held on $1 million bail.

Prosecutors in Kitsap County filed court documents Monday saying they had sufficient evidence to hold Gabriel Gaeta on first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances, felony murder and first-degree rape of a child. They are pursuing the case in Kitsap County Superior Court, where Gaeta is expected to be tried as an adult.   Continue reading “Teen held on $1 million bail in death of girl, 6”

Farmer Nikos Mitrou, 80, poses next to a mechanical grape crusher at Mylonas' winery in the city of Keratea, east of Athens (Reuters/John Kolesidis)RT

There is growing dissent in the EU over policies that led to a de fact trade war with Russia. Meanwhile the countries not toeing the line are reaping the benefits, irritating those who jumped on the sanctions bandwagon.

Greek members of the European Parliament demanded Sunday that the EU cancel sanctions against Russia. MEPs Kostantinos Papadakis and Sotiris Zarianopoulos said in a letter to some senior EU officials that Russia’s ban on food import from the EU, which was Moscow’s response to anti-Russian sanctions, was ruinous to Greek agriculture.   Continue reading “Sanctions bite-back: Bickering, EU infighting over Russia retaliation”

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)RT

Hillary Clinton criticized her former boss President Barack Obama in a new interview, citing the “failure” of his administration to contain the spread of Islamic jihadists in Syria who are now marching through Iraq.

Clinton told the Atlantic in an interview published Sunday that the administration – of which she was a part of as secretary of state during Obama’s first term – faltered when it did not do enough to actively lead in coordinating insurgent factions fighting Bashar Assad’s government in Syria. This power “vacuum,” she said, led to the rise of the extremist group Islamic State that has since splintered away from Al-Qaeda and is violently gaining territory in northern Iraq.   Continue reading “Hillary Clinton bashes Obama’s foreign policy for giving rise to Islamic State in Iraq”

Reuters/StringerRT

A grisly photograph showing a young boy, said to be the son of an ISIS rebel, holding the severed head of a slain Syrian soldier, proves the ‘hideous atrocities’ the terrorist group is capable of, said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The picture, taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqa, was posted on the Twitter account of Khaled Sharrouf, an Australian citizen who traveled to Syria last year and is now an Islamic State fighter.    Continue reading “Photo of boy holding decapitated Syrian soldier’s head ‘barbaric’ – Australia PM”

Mail.com

SYDNEY (AP) — The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

Previously, the U.S. had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks. The officials wouldn’t say which U.S. agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn’t the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.   Continue reading “US sending arms to Kurds in Iraq”

Marlene Pinnock, Caree HarperMail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Marlene Pinnock said she thought she was going to die as a California Highway Patrol officer straddled her, repeatedly punching her head on the side of a Los Angeles freeway.

During an hour-long interview with The Associated Press on Sunday — her first public comments since the July 1 beating was caught on video by a passing driver — Pinnock spoke haltingly or in a whisper, occasionally putting her hands to her temples and grimacing.   Continue reading “LA woman punched by patrolman speaks”

The fourth prototype Т-50 fifth generation jet fighter (RIA Novosti)RT

In 2016, the Russian military will start deploying two advanced weapons, the fifth-generation fighter jet PAK FA and the long-range surface-to-air missile systems S-500, chief of the Russian Air Forces said.

Lieutenant General Viktor Bondarev gave an outline of his branch’s modernization plans, including the build-up of Arctic infrastructure, in a radio interview with the Russian News Service station on Sunday.   Continue reading “Russia to deploy fifth-gen fighters, S-500 missiles in 2016”

Ron Paul (AFP Photo / Brendan Smialowski) RT

Former Congressman Ron Paul said the US knows ‘more than it is telling’ about the Malaysian aircraft that crashed in eastern Ukraine last month, killing 298 people on board and seriously damaging US-Russian relations in the process.

In an effort to inject some balance of opinion, not to mention pure sanity, into the ongoing debate over what happened to Malaysian Flight MH17, Ron Paul is convinced the US government is withholding information on the catastrophe.    Continue reading “Ron Paul: US ‘likely hiding truth’ on downed Malaysian Flight MH17”

Displaced families from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar west of Mosul (Reuters / Ari Jalal)RT

Extremists from the Islamic State have killed at least 500 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said. Some of the victims were buried alive.

The killings reported by Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to Reuters add to a long list of atrocities reportedly committed by the radical group in Iraq and neighboring Syria, where it wants to create a caliphate.   Continue reading “ISIS killed 500 Yazidis, buried some alive incl women and children – Iraq”

Ferguson police shootingMail.com

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say the 18-year-old black man who was shot and killed by police in suburban St. Louis was unarmed.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told The Associated Press that the man who was killed did not have a gun. Police have not disclosed his name, but family members say it was 18-year-old Michael Brown.   Continue reading “Police: Black teen shot in Missouri was unarmed”

Reuters / WHO / Tarik Jasarevic / Handout via ReutersRT

While Ebola, the deadly disease spreading through parts of West Africa, has no cure, specific treatment or vaccine, there are several experimental drugs being tested in US labs. Now the FDA has lifted its hold on one of those drugs.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave Tekmira Pharmaceuticals verbal confirmation that they modified the full clinical hold the regulatory agency had placed on the company’s experimental TKM-Ebola drug, enabling the potential use on Ebola patients, Tekmira said in a statement.    Continue reading “FDA eases restrictions on experimental Ebola drug as CDC warns of ‘inevitable’ spread to US”

RT

US oil giant ExxonMobil and Russia’s Rosneft will continue joint exploitation of the Russian Arctic despite Western sanctions, the American company said as the two giants launched exploration drilling in the Kara Sea.

“Our cooperation is a long-term one. We see great benefits here and are ready to continue working here with your agreement,” Glenn Waller, ExxonMobil’s lead manager in Russia, told President Vladimir Putin during a videoconference call.

The Russian leader hailed the exploration project as an example of mutually beneficial cooperation that strengthens global energy security.   Continue reading “ExxonMobil, Rosneft start joint Arctic drilling in defiance of sanctions”

RT

A supposed US submarine was detected and “forced out” by the Russian anti-sub forces after it violated the country’s boundary waters in the Arctic, a high-ranked source within the Russian Navy’s headquarters said.

“On August 7, a foreign submarine, presumably belonging to the US Navy’s Virginia class, was detected in the Barents Sea by the alert forces of the Northern Fleet,” the source told Russian media.

According to the source, a group of anti-submarine vessels and an anti-submarine Il-38 aircraft were sent into the area on a search and trace mission.    Continue reading “Russian Navy ‘forces US submarine out’ of Arctic boundary waters – report”

James Brady, Sarah BradyMail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trying to bring a case against John Hinckley Jr. in the homicide of former White House press secretary James Brady could prove difficult for prosecutors, given the three decades that have passed since he was shot in an assassination try on Ronald Reagan and because a jury ruled that Hinckley was insane when he opened fire, an attorney and law professor said.

A medical examiner determined that Monday’s death of Brady at age 73 was a homicide, even all these years later, with an autopsy revealing the cause to be the gunshot wound to the head he suffered in 1981 and its health consequences, District of Columbia police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said in a news release Friday.    Continue reading “Charges in Jim Brady’s homicide could prove tough”

Mail Online 

It was supposed to be over, America’s war in Iraq. So all the old emotions boiled up anew as Americans absorbed the news that U.S. bombs were again striking targets in the nation where the United States led an invasion in 2003, lost almost 4,500 troops in the fight to stabilize and liberate it and then left nearly three years ago.

In interviews across the country, from the 9/11 memorial in New York to the Iowa State Fair and an Arizona war monument, Americans voiced conflicted feelings as airstrikes began Friday, ordered by President Barack Obama who had fulfilled a campaign promise when he withdrew the last U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011.    Continue reading “As bombs fall over Iraq, old emotions rise in US”

Eric GarnerMail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Police have become increasingly at odds with Mayor Bill de Blasio over the appearance he is taking sides against them after the chokehold death of a black suspect last month — a conflict that has prompted the city’s top law enforcement official to do damage control by calling the mayor “very pro-cop.”

What angered many was a recent forum in which the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the biggest critics of the New York Police Department, was seated alongside the mayor, a liberal Democrat, and the police commissioner as he lambasted law enforcement and suggested the mayor’s mixed-race son would be a “candidate for a chokehold” if he were an ordinary New Yorker. The image was seized on by critics of the administration and plastered on the cover of the New York Post with the headline “Who’s the Boss!”   Continue reading “Police-mayor tensions mount over chokehold death”

British Foreign Secretary of State for Foreign an Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague (L) and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen unveils the logo of the NATO Wales' summit before a family picture as part of a Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting in Brussels on June 25, 2014. (AFP Photo)RT

Peace activists have set out on a three-week ‘Long March on Newport’ to protest against September’s NATO Summit. Police say they have drafted in 9,000 officers to face the protesters in one of the UK’s biggest ever police operations.

More than 20,000 activists from around the world are expected to take part in demonstrations during the summit, where a week-long peace camp and a counter summit are among some of the events planned in what has been billed as Wales’ largest protest in a generation.   Continue reading “Anti-NATO protesters begin 192-mile march on summit”

Reuters/Blair GableRT

Annoyed potential immigrants are planning to sue the Canadian government after Ottawa canceled the so-called ‘millionaire visa’ program, which had allowed tens of thousands of well-off foreigners to gain fast-track visa entry.

The scheme was temporarily frozen in 2012 due to a backlog of paperwork; however, the Canadian government announced in February that it was going to scrap the program permanently.   Continue reading “No longer welcome: Canada blocks fast-track visa program”

The South Lawn and the White House is pictured in Washington August 7, 2014. (Reuters/Larry Downing)RT

A security breach at a White House lawn prompted a brief lockdown of the territory and led to a delay of President Obama’s briefing on Iraq. The intruder the Secret Service confronted was smaller in size than they might have expected.

It was a toddler who sneaked away from his parents: he managed to squeeze through the iron bars of the White House fence and set out on a walk across the lawn.   Continue reading “Obama’s briefing delayed by toddler causing White House security alert”