Pravda: Putin Wants Russia and China to Fight the "West"!

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Tuesday, for a two-day official visit. Putin plans to sign more than a dozen bilateral documents during his meetings with Chinese officials. On June 6-7, he will take part in the Beijing summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, RIA Novosti reports. During his visit to China, Putin will coordinate positions of the two countries on Syria and Iran. As for the SCO, the sides will discuss the questions related to the penetration of extremists to Central Asia. Putin is making the trip to China against the background of the surging crisis on the financial market, and the increasing pressure that the West has been putting on Russia and China in terms of the Syrian and Iranian problem. To crown it all, the withdrawal of NATO's troops from Afghanistan may put the national security of the two countries at risk. The discussion of the most serious problems of international politics will show to which extent Russia and China are close to each other. The two powers do not accept the policies of the West! The main goal is to change "non-democratic" regimes. China and Russia share similar views on Syria and Iran. The same can be said about the role of the United Nations in international affairs. Moscow and Beijing stand against the interventions in Arab countries bypassing the UN. However, Russia promotes integration via the Eurasian alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization. China is less interested in these organizations According to Chinese experts, Putin wants to get Russia involved in integration processes in Europe in the first place. Asia comes second for the Russian administration, they say! 

RT: 2,000 Dead Americans - The Toll of the Afghan War!

The United States' war in Afghanistan reached a new milestone this week, when the death toll of Americans killed in the decade-long Operation Enduring Freedom reached 2,000. The US Department of Defense reports this week that Cpl Taylor J. Baune, 21, of Andover, Minnesota lost his life in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Wednesday. The marine wed his high-school sweetheart earlier this rear, only to be deployed overseas by the military and killed just three months later. The Pentagon has not released information about the cause of death. The Star Tribune reports that Baune's commitment with the Marines was slated to expire this year, at which point he was expected to retire from the Armed Services, because he did not intend on spending his life in the military. Now, however, he will live forever as a statistic in America's longest on-going war by becoming the two-thousandths US soldier to die during the post-9/11 response to al-Qaeda and Taliban-affiliated insurgents. The death of Cpl. Baune comes only weeks after the Defense Department revealed another shocking statistic: According to the Pentagon's latest research, the rate of suicide among active duty American soldiers is currently at around one-per-day. "It's a sign in general of the stress the Army has been under over the 10 years of war," Dr. Stephen N Xenakis, a retired Army brigadier general and a practicing psychiatrist, tells the Associated Press. "We've seen before that these signs show up even more dramatically when the fighting seems to go down and the Army is returning to garrison." US President Barack Obama flew to Afghanistan last month to finalize plans with that country's president, Hamid Karzai, that would expedite America's exit from the war. Operation Enduring Freedom has so far killed 2,000 US troops in roughly 3,900 days, but is expected to continue through 2014. 

RT: US Goverment Ignores Japanese Debris Heading this Way!

The United States is awaiting the arrival of debris three times its own size from Japan, but despite new objects washing up daily on the West Coast, Washington is "hoping" the problem will literally just disappear. Earlier this week, a 70-foot metal dock turned up on the Oregon shore. Japanese officials immediately identified its original home: The Japanese city of Misawa, which had been devastated by the tsunami in March 2011. The dock is only the forerunner of a much more dangerous wave of flotsam, Chris Pallister, who heads Gulf of Alaska Keeper, a coastal clean-up organization, told AP. "There are going to be a lot of drums full of chemicals that we won't be able to identify. I think this is far worse than any oil spill that we've ever faced on the West Coast or any other environmental disaster we've faced on the West Coast," continued Pallister, comparing the debris to the Exxon Valdez spill that devastated the region in 1989. West Coast politicians echoed the concerns of environmentalists, with Alaskan Democratic Senator Mark Begich calling the drift a "national emergency." He said the cleanup could cost $45 million. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service (NOAA), the organization responsible for such emergencies, only has $618,000 dedicated to tsunami debris removal. In fact, NOAA's entire budget is less than a tenth of the amount of necessary funds. It has said that it will be up to individual states to save their own beaches. In turn, considering the unpredictability of here the flotsam will land, individual states are hoping that the national government will create a central program from which resources can be allocated as needed. So, why hasn't the US government created such a program?

Zach Carter: Obama Trade Document Leaked!!

A critical document from President Barack Obama's free trade negotiations with eight Pacific nations was leaked online early Wednesday morning, revealing that the administration intends to bestow radical new political powers upon multinational corporations, contradicting prior promises: The leaked document has been posted on the website of Public Citizen, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive. "The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why US trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of trade negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has gone so far as to leak a separate document from the talks on his website. Other Senators are considering writing a letter to Ron Kirk, the top trade negotiator under Obama, demanding more disclosure. The newly leaked document is one of the most controversial of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. It addresses a broad sweep of regulations governing international investment and reveals the Obama administration's advocacy for policies that environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected, for eroding key protections currently in domestic laws!  

Dana Gabriel: Laying the Foundation For North American Security!

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently unveiled a northern border strategy. which seeks to address security concerns, while at the same time facilitating the flow of lawful travel and trade. The new plan promotes enhanced shared intelligence and joint law enforcement integration with Canada. It further builds on initiatives included in the Beyond the Border agreement and is part of ongoing efforts to lay the foundation for a North American security perimeter. On June 5, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the "Northern Border Strategy" (NBS) aimed at deterring and preventing terrorism, smuggling, trafficking and illegal immigration. In a press release, she explained how the new plan, provides a unifying framework for the Departments work, focused on enhancing the security and resiliency along our northern border while expediting legitimate travel and trade with Canada. In order to accomplish these objectives, the NBS seeks to improve information sharing and analysis within within DHS, as well as with key partners. The Department will also enhance coordination of US-Canada joint intradictions and investigations, deploy technologies to aid joint security efforts along the border, and continue to update infrastructure. The NBS parallels the National Northern Border Counter-narcotics Strategy issued in January. It also supports goals outlined in the US-Canada Beyond the Border action plan, which focuses on addressing security threats early, facilitating trade, economic growth and jobs, integrating cross-border law enforcement, as well as improving infrastructure and cyber-security.

Shepard Ambellas: Micro-Nukes and the World Trade Center?

When it comes to the World Trade Center towers and Building 7's collapse on that dreadful day in September of 2001, one thing is for sure, the actual impact from the planes DID NOT CAUSE the collapse of the massive steel structures that stood above the New York skyline, nor did the jet fuel or fires. It is also a fact that micro-nukes do exist, and have since the 50's. The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) was a family of man-portable nuclear weapons fielded by the US military in the 1960's, but was never used in actual combat. The US Army planned to use the weapons in Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion: US Army Engineers would use the weapon to irradiate, destroy, and deny key routes of communication through limited terrain such as the Fulda Gap. Troops were trained to parachute into Soviet occupied western Europe with the SADM and destroy power plants, bridges, and dams. The project, which involved a small nuclear weapon, was designed to allow one person to parachute from any type of aircraft carrying the weapon package and place it in a harbor or other strategic location that could be accessed from the sea. Another parachutist without a weapon package would follow the first to provide support as needed. The two-person team would place the weapon package in the target location, set the timer, and swim into the ocean, where they would be retrieved by a submarine or a high-speed surface water craft. In the 1950's and 1960's, the United States developed several different types of lightweight nuclear devices. The main one was the W54, a cylinder 40 by 60 cm (about 16 by 24 inches) that weighed 68 kg (150 lbs). It was fired by a mechanical timer and had a variable yield equivalent to between 10 tons and 1 kiloton of TNT. On 9/11, there is little doubt that multiple bombs were detonated in the WTC complex. This fact can not be disputed, and is clearly documented by hundreds of videos and backed up by many eye witness testimonies!

Arianna Huffington: Iraq and Iran. A Partnership Made in America

With the war there officially "ended" and most of our troops back home, Iraq isn't getting much ink these days, but the story is far from over: Iraq's closest partnership is no longer with the US, but with its Shiite neighbor, Iran. I point this out not to add to the fear-mongering and saber-rattling currently fashionable in DC, but to highlight the absurdity of rattling those sabers at Iran without acknowledging the role our disastrous war in Iraq played in making Iran more powerful. "The war in Iraq will soon belong to history," proclaimed President Obama as he marked the occasion of bringing the last troops home, but while the military chapter of that disastrous undertaking might belong to history, its consequences belong very much to the present: Obama Trade Document Leaked, Reveals New Corporate Powers And Broken Campaign Promises. Wave of Bomb Attacks Kills 53 in Iraq! DOJ Takes Big Action Against Florida Voter Purge! Mitt Romney Wrong By Billions On Federal Spending! Greeks Withdrawing Cash, Stocking Up On Food Ahead Of Election! Marlo Thomas: You can't judge a book by its cover. But you can absolutely judge a magazine that way, because the cover is a good indication of what the magazine cares about. And that is precisely, why 40 yearsago, women everywhere began grabbing Ms. magazine with both hands. From the start, and continuing today, those covers have instantly told you that Ms cared about what women care about!