United States

Scientists have discovered a massive pool of molten carbon stretching 1.8million square kilometres under the Western United States. The massive reservoir, 350km beneath the earths surface with a temperatures of more than 1,000C and covering an area almost the size of Mexico, has cast doubts over previous estimates of carbon levels inside the Earth. RT reports: The discovery was made by a team from the University of Royal Holloway London using the world’s largest array of seismic sensors that identified the carbon from vibrations generated in Earth’s upper mantle.

On the same day that it emerged Russia has secretly deployed controversial new cruise missiles and buzzed a US Navy destroyer, a Russian spy ship was reportedly spotted off the East Coast of the United States. On Tuesday morning the Vishnya-class intelligence ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, was spotted patrolling off the coast of Delaware. It comes at a time when the Trump administration is trying to find a replacement for national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday.

First a spy ship off the US East Coast, now a banned missile.

According to the NYT, Russia has (not so) "secretly" deployed a new ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile in violation of a 1987 treaty with the US which helped end the Cold War, despite complaints from American officials.

The last time a Russian spy ship was spotted in relative proximity to the US, was in September 2015, when shortly after five Chinese naval ships were observed in the Bering Sea, U.S. military satellites identified a Russian spy ship - capable of cutting undersea communications cables and other sensors - off the coast of Kings Bay, Ga., home to the U.S. Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine fleet. Needless to say, the US navy - and Pentagon - were quite displeased: after all it is only Russia that is allowed to be surrounded by NATO forces.

Western Interests Aim To Flummox Russia

Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson

An article by Robert Berke in oilprice.com, which describes itself as “The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News,” illustrates how interest groups control outcomes by how they shape policy choices.