In a move that has undermined the ceasefire deal, Syrian rebels declared a new battle against government forces on Monday. Sign of escalating violence is also threatening to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The rebel groups, which included factions fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and powerful Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, said in a statement they would respond “with force” against any government forces that fired on civilians.
Defying UN sanctions, Kim Jong-Un personally supervised the testing of North Korea’s new anti-missile system on Saturday. The test was the latest in a series of missile trials as tensions run high on the divided Korean peninsula. It also came as a two-day nuclear security summit was being hosted by Barack Obama in Washington, at which North Korea was the focus of the US president’s talks with leaders from China, South Korea and Japan.
The North Korean ambassador to the UN told reporters that a semi-state of war exists in the divided Korean peninsula. Pyongyang remains defiant in the face of threats of a nuclear first strike and will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as a deterrence measure against US and South Korea, according to top Pyongyang envoy So Se Pyong.
Submitted by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
Right now I'm on a Metro North train heading the NYC. I’ve been invited to sit on an advisory council at the UN on building a sustainable energy future.
I’ll let you know how the meeting goes, after I take a few selfies to immortalize the experience in case I'm not invited back.
Submitted by Alex Newman via TheNewAmerica.com,