United States

Russia has criticised US plans to position troops, tanks and other armored vehicles full time along NATO’s eastern borders, and said that Moscow is preparing a “completely asymmetrical” response to the deployments. Alexandr Grushko, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO said on Thursday that Moscow would not act like a “passive observer” but would rather undertake all those military measures needed to counter the “totally unjustified increased military presence.” Press TV reports: “Of course, our response will be completely asymmetrical.

For Japan, the post "Shanghai Summit" world is turning ugly, fast, because as a result of the sliding dollar, a key demand of China which has been delighted by the recent dovish words and actions of Janet Yellen, both Japan's and Europe's stock markets have been sacrificed at the whims of their suddenly soaring currencies. Which is why when Japanese stocks tumbled the most in 7 weeks, sinking 3.5%, to a one month low of 16,164 (after the Yen continued strengthening and the Tankan confidence index plunged to a 3 year low) it was anything but an April fool's joke to both local traders.

Authored by Gaius Publius via DownWithTyranny.com,

The Sanders- and Trump-led (for now) political rebellion is not going to go away. There are only two questions going forward:

The UK will ship 700 kilograms of nuclear waste in the United States under a new deal signed by Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday.  An anonymous government source confirmed that the Prime Minister agreed the deal at a nuclear security summit in Washington and will mark the largest ever shipment of highly enriched uranium in history. In return the U.S. will send Europe another type of nuclear waste that can be used to produce medical isotopes for cancer treatments.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Qaddafi on his way out, Bashar al Assad is next.

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 21, 2011