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By the pool, glistening, oiled, and muscular bodies gyrated to a juiced-up version of Adele’s “Someone Like You.” Atop huge speakers, a Russian dancer swayed suggestively in front of the young, beautiful Syrian set drinking imported Lebanese beer with salt and lemon. Behind them, columns of smoke were rising—signs of car bombs and explosions, of an encroaching war. One woman in a tight swimsuit playfully squirted a water gun, joking that she belonged to the pro-government militia, the Shabiha, meaning ghosts or thugs, which is believed to be responsible for a recent massacre of more than 100 people, many of...

From their Instagram feeds they appear to be just like other young people enjoying the summer time: backflipping into water, chilling at a pool bar, basking in a sundrenched meadow. But the photos belong to a group of Syrians who have maintained their privileged lives, despite the war ravaging their country. They’re Alawites, the country’s minority sect and its elite. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and many in his ruling government belong to the group, which comes from a strand of Shiite Islam. They dwell in Tartous and Latakia, perched on the Meditteranean on the Syrian coast, where there are few...

ISTANBUL: Images and video footage allegedly showing trucks belonging to Turkey's state intelligence service carrying weapons en route to jihadist rebels in Syria were published Friday in a Turkish daily. The Turkish government has vehemently denied earlier claims that it is arming rebels fighting in Syria and accused dozens of prosecutors, soldiers and security officers involved in the searching of trucks of attempting to bring it down by suggesting that it is doing so. Earlier this month, Turkey arrested four prosecutors who ordered searches in a similar incident in January 2014 and they are now in prison pending trial. More...

MOSCOW — If there was one weak spot in Russian support for the Kremlin’s aims in Ukraine this year, it was the population’s strong aversion to sending in Russian troops — something Russia denies doing, despite mounting international evidence to the contrary. Now, Russia can ignore that evidence — as well as any questions citizens might raise — since President Vladimir Putin signed a decree classifying certain peacetime deaths of soldiers as state secrets. Putin signed an order Thursday making the deaths of Russian troops lost during “special operations” a secret, amending a previous decree that limited such secrecy to...

A newly released intelligence report from the Pentagon shows that the U.S. government knew that supporting jihadists in the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would produce a fundamentalist Islamic State in Eastern Syria — and that Obama’s supposed “anti-ISIS” coalition knowingly backed ISIS and other Islamic terrorists for precisely that purpose. The heavily redacted Defense Department report, obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows once again that, contrary to the false narrative peddled by the establishment press, the rise of the savage terror group known as ISIS was actually deliberate policy. Now, the...

As he prepared for his presidential run over the last year or so, a hawkish Sen. Ted Cruz has said U.S. policy in the Middle East and elsewhere is a mess because of President Obama’s weakness — particularly his failure to enforce his own “red line” after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons. “A critical reason for Putin’s aggression has been President Obama’s weakness,” the senator said in a typical appearance, on ABC News last year. “You’d better believe that Putin sees that in Syria,” Cruz added. “Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.” This takes quite...

Lawmakers in Russia have announced plans to use prison labour to help drive down the cost of hosting the 2018 World Cup by forcing them to take jobs that ordinary Russians won't do. Politician Alexander Khinshtein, from the ruling United Russia party, has said he is drawing up proposals which would see inmates taken to work in factories producing materials for the games. Meanwhile Alexander Rudy, head of Russia's prison service, has said that he was keen to use prisoners for 'tasks that, let's say, wouldn't appeal to the ordinary citizen.'

Actually, it’s the Swiss who are probing the 2018 World Cup award to Russia, and the US bid was for the 2022 World Cup that went to Qatar.  Vladimir Putin won’t let those facts get in the way of a good anti-American rant, of course. The Russian strongman publicly questioned why the US would have any interest or jurisdiction over a legal argument that doesn’t involve its own citizens, which also turns out to be … not true: Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of meddling in FIFA’s affairs and hinted that it was part of an...

MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. Russia’s official emblem of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be unveiled late on Tuesday night in Moscow, reflects the soul and heart of Russia, Sepp Blatter, the president of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), said. The official emblem of the 2018 World Cup will be unveiled late on Tuesday night in the Russian capital during the Evening Urgant television talk show by FIFA President Blatter and Secretary General Jerome Valcke, jointly with Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who is also the chairman of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) and Fabio Cannavaro, captain of...

Ever since ISIS began its bloody rampage across the Middle East, many of us have been suspicious of their origins. The West seemed perfectly willing to support the rebellion against Russian backed Assad, but as soon as those supposedly “moderate” rebels formed ISIS, they turned against them (according to the media at least). But according to a recently declassified document, the US government knew more than they were letting on (gasp) in regards to the formation of ISIS. The seven page document, which was dated August 12th 2012, was attained by Judicial Watch through a federal lawsuit. It reveals that...

Russia's army is massing troops and hundreds of pieces of weaponry including mobile rocket launchers, tanks and artillery at a makeshift base near the border with Ukraine, a Reuters reporter saw this week. Many of the vehicles have number plates and identifying marks removed while many of the servicemen had taken insignia off their fatigues. As such, they match the appearance of some of the forces spotted in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev and its Western allies allege are covert Russian detachments.

Belarus's recent leaning towards pro-Western nations in the Middle East follows fast on the heels of rapprochement with the West. On 6-7 May, Joint Belarus-Saudi Committee on Cooperation will meet in Riyadh. On 15 April, Belarus opened an embassy in Qatar. Establishing closer links with the very centres of conservative Arab bloc allied with the West is a milestone in Belarusian foreign policy. In the past, Minsk enjoyed amicable relations primarily with the so-called radical republican regimes in the Middle East. Saddam's Iraq, Qadhafi's Libya, Assad's Syria, as well as Ahmadinejad's Iran figured among Belarus's main partners. The shift towards...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina argued that “titles are just titles” and Hillary Clinton’s “track record” includes the collapse of the Middle East and the failed Russian reset on Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC. Fiorina said, “I come from a world where titles are just titles, and talk is just talk. It’s only in politics where titles and words mean a lot. In the rest of the world, it’s actually about what have you done, actions speak louder than words. People want to know are your words and your actions consistent and are they consistent over time. And so,...

The world is sinking under too much debt and an ageing global population means countries' debt piles are in danger of growing out of control, the European chief executive of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has warned. Andrew Wilson, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said growing debt piles around the world posed one of the biggest threats to the global economy.

Russia is using crematoriums on wheels to burn the bodies of its soldiers who die fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, Bloomberg's Josh Rogin reports. “The Russians are trying to hide their casualties by taking mobile crematoriums with them,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry told Rogin. “They are trying to hide not only from the world but from the Russian people their involvement.” The mobile crematoriums — which burn about eight to 10 bodies a day, according to Ukraine security service chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko — reveal how far Russia is willing to go to hide its military...

Social media has given a voice to many all over the globe -- and the government of Russia may silence them by threatening to ban social media sites such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Roskomnadzor, a government agency that supervises communications, information technology and mass media (including social media) in the country, late last week asked the three tech companies to comply with Russian laws that many outsiders believe amount to censorship. "In our letters we regularly remind companies of the consequences of violating the legislation," Vadim Ampelonsky, a spokesperson for Roskomnadzor, told Reuters.

Obama desecrates Memorial Day. The U.S Military will now be committed to advance an Islamic Grand Caliphate. Hard to imagine? Its easy if you try, by simply reading our report. Yesterday, on Memorial Day we open the papers to read the headlines Turkey and US ‘agree in principle’ to provide air support for Syrian rebels. And it wasn’t the president of the United States or a spokesperson from the White house that broke the news, but through the mouth of the Turks, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister told the pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper in comments published Monday on Memorial Day.On Memorial Day, the Turks told...

MOSCOW: The leader of France's far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, visited Moscow Tuesday for talks with the speaker of the lower house that were closed to press. Le Pen previously met the speaker Sergei Naryshkin, Russia's fourth most important official and a member of the ruling United Russia party, in April last year. Le Pen's party in November came under fire for taking out a 9 million euro loan with a Russian bank. Russia has sought to cosy up to European politicians who have criticized the European Union for imposing sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, including...

Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk is lobbying Washington to convince American firms to buy up Ukraine in the country’s planned flea market of state controlled enterprises. “The Prime Minister of Ukraine has urged U.S. partners to actively use the investment opportunities offered by the privatization campaign in Ukraine, particularly in the energy sector,” a statement posted on Ukraine’s governmental website said on Monday.

...During NATO's 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania, the issue was discussed and, after opposition from France and Germany, a decision was made to offer neither Ukraine nor Georgia a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) — essentially a path for Ukraine to receive membership — at that moment. Vague promises of NATO membership in the future were made, but the United States later appeared to drop its support for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Russia's brief war with Georgia in August 2008 helped underscore the decision's importance, but NATO and Ukraine held further talks in December. Again, however, no specific...