War

Following the landslide victory by Prime Minister Abe in Japan's Sunday elections, which left his ruling coalition with a supermajority allowing him to change Japan's constitution, Abe wasted no time in signalling a push towards his long-held goal of revising Japan's post-war, pacifist constitution, however as Reuters reported earlier, Abe would "need to convince a divided public to succeed." Parties in favor of amending the U.S.-drafted charter won nearly 80% of the seats in Sunday’s lower house election, leaving the small, new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) as the biggest

One day after Rex Tillerson's visit to Saudi Arabia, which came as part of the US Secretary of State's concerted efforts to curb Iran's rapidly expanding influence in the region, including boosting the clout of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia in Shiite-majority Iraq, and urging Iranian militias to leave Iraq as the "fighting against ISIS comes to an end", Tillerson made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan's capital Kabul, where he is in discussions with President Ashraf Ghani about the United States’ policy towards South Asia.

Authored by Dan Glazebrook via RT.com,

Exactly six years ago, on October 20th, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered, joining a long list of African revolutionaries martyred by the West for daring to dream of continental independence.

From the first moment chemical weapons were used on the Syrian battlefield, the American public was led to believe that only one side could possibly be responsible. The constant refrain in the echo chamber of US government officials and the mainstream media was that only the Assad government possessed chemical stockpiles and the technological capability of deploying such heinous weapons, therefore blame for each and every chemical attack from Ghouta to Khan Sheikhoun was laid at the feet of Assad and the Syrian military.

The unexpected decision by President Trump to amend an emergency Sept 11 order signed by George W Bush, allowing the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired air force pilots to address what the Pentagon has decribed as "an acute shortage of pilots" caught us by surprise. After all, this was the first time we have heard of this particular labor shortage - perhaps there was more to this executive order than meets the eye. Indeed, a just released report may help explain the reasoning behind this presidential decision.