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Iraqi officials have reportedly revoked the broadcaster's license, marking the third time Al Jazeera has been banned in Iraq. The news organization says it was told it had violated codes of conduct and other rules. The Qatar-based news organization on Wednesday said its bureau in Baghdad had been shut down after the government accused it of violating laws. According to the pan-Arab broadcaster, Iraq's Communications and Media Commission (CMC) accused the company of "violations of the official codes of conduct and broadcasting rules and regulations." Those rules and regulations were issued in 2014 to regulate media coverage of the "war...

California politicians have voted down a proposal to designate May 26 - the actor's birthday - as John Wayne Day. The idea was rejected after some said Wayne had made racist comments against blacks and Native Americans. The resolution for John Wayne Day was submitted by Assemblyman Matthew Harper, who described Wayne as the "prototypical American Hero, symbolizing such traits as self-reliance, grace under pressure, resolve and patriotism." But Harper's colleague Lorena Gonzalez said Wayne's movies showed a lot of Native Americans being killed and that they sanctioned the white occupation of the continent. Assemblyman Luis Alejo also complained that...

A Russian official has criticized Washington's lack of authorization from Syria to deploy troops. The UN warned Damascus and Moscow of increased violence against civilians after a hospital was bombed, leaving 30 dead. Moscow sees the deployment of an additional 250 US military personnel in Syria as an affront to Damascus' territorial sovereignty, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's state-owned TASS news agency on Friday. "If we are talking from the position of the foreign minister, we - of course - cannot not be concerned over the fact that the US carries out such actions without coordination with...

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. The body of senior lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko killed when carrying out a combat task in Syria has been delivered to Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday. "Following special joint steps taken with the participation of representatives of the Syrian authorities and the Kurdish militia, the officer’s body has been delivered to Moscow," the ministry said. The farewell ceremony with military honors will be held as agreed with his relatives.

... If Syria’s largest city is surrounded by government troops, the strategic situation in Syria could change very rapidly for the worse, not only for Syrians, but also for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—and for the Obama Administration, which has banked heavily on the crumbling peace talks to end five years of civil war and an expanding presence for ISIS amid the chaos. The encirclement would also be a major strategic advance for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has drawn his forces in Syria, but has also been helping the Assad regime conduct more focused military operations under a two-month...

An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket traveling at 2,900 mph, about 27 miles above the earth disintegrated 2 minutes and 19 seconds into its flight from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station. It was a severe blow to NASA, still reeling from two previous failed Space Station resupply missions. The SpaceX failure is a reprieve for Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft that will remain the prime Space Station servicer, despite recently renewed US sanctions against Russia. The SpaceX launch, its seventh robotic cargo mission to the International Space Station, was running at what NASA called “on course, on track” before...

The first thing to notice is how rapidly Elon Musk's SpaceX is altering the market for government-sponsored rocket launches. Witness how frequently the words "to compete with SpaceX" appear in industry statements and press coverage. To compete with SpaceX, say multiple reports, the United Launch Alliance, the Pentagon's traditional supplier, is developing a new Vulcan rocket powered by a reusable engine designed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. Because of SpaceX, says Aviation Week magazine, Japan's government has instructed Mitsubishi to cut in half the cost of the Japanese workhorse rocket, and China is planning a new family of kerosene-fueled Long...

According to a Tuesday piece in Motherboard, Noam Chomsky, a philosopher and political commentator, and Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and cosmologist, had a public dialogue about space exploration. Being both men of the far left, they concluded that space travel should be best left to robots and conducted by governments. The conclusions are the exact opposite of what the prevailing trends are in space policy.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz supports NASA's human space exploration program as a national priority that deserves congressional support. USA Today reports if NASA's program goes as planned, astronauts could travel to Mars by the 2030s. Cruz, a Tea Party Republican, said developing a rocket and capsule that could cost tens of billions of dollars is "critical" to ensuring American's leadership in space. "It is imperative that America has the capability to get to the space station without the assistance of the Russians," Cruz said Tuesday while chairing a hearing before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Space and Competitiveness. "The Commercial...

National Space Society Opposes Senate Gutting of Commercial Crew Program [and investing in Russian economy] The National Space Society (NSS) strongly opposes the Senate Appropriations Committee’s $344 million (27%) cut of the 2015 Commercial Crew budget requested by the Administration. The Senate cuts were $100 million more than those recently passed by the House. NSS stands with NASA administrator Charles Bolden when he said “By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts into space – and to continue to invest hundreds of millions...

The drama surrounding funding for NASA’s Commercial Crew program has started up once again. In the wake of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s cutting funding for the program by over $300 million, supporters have fallen back on familiar patterns of futile complaining. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden claimed that the funding shortfall would delay the restoration of American spaceflight capability by as much as two years. Bolden was mild compared to some of Commercial Crew’s supporters on the Internet.

Space makes for strange relationships. With NASA’s Space Shuttle shuttered since 2011, American astronauts have hitched rides to the International Space Station inside Russian Soyuz rockets for the past four years. But ever since Russia claimed Crimea and supported a separatist movement in Ukraine, the United States and Russia haven’t exactly been on great terms. Congress passed punitive sanctions on Russia, and in retaliation, Russia forbade the sale of rocket engines to the American military. Yet the Pentagon, which is currently supplying the Ukrainian military with vehicles, now needs a little help getting its military satellites to space. So it's...

A glitch in a Russian space launch may have sent part of a rocket and its payload -- a satellite -- plummeting down onto southeastern Siberia, according to Russian state-run media reports. It is the second space mission failure for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, in less than a month. And the mishap occurs on the anniversary of a similar loss in 2014.

According to state-owned Россия-24 news channel, President Vladimir Putin addressed a delegation of Ukrainian Orthodox Church and reiterated that nothing can shake Russia's perpetual blood alliance with Ukraine in spite of all malicious efforts exerted by the ruling junta in Kiev, adding, " rising neo-Fascism in Ukraine is like the infectious Gangrene which can spread across the European continent , and we, the people of the Russian Federation and descendents of the Soviet Union , we are determined to stop this plague." "Should Turkey not stop supporting al-Qaeda's Syria branch, I am indeed eager to end the job the late...

There is a reason it’s called Russian Roulette. Russians really are by nature reckless and irresponsible people. And Putin’s dangerous games are one day going to end in tears, even as he and the Russian public are gloating over their most recent childish (but extremely dangerous) antics. With a foolhardy devil-may-care buzzing of a U.S. warship, the Kremlin once again demonstrates that Russia is a growing threat to global peace and security. And the ecstatic reaction of the Russian public to this incident underlines just how much Russia is moving towards a full war footing while America and Europe blithely...

Senator Ted Cruz with Cavuto speaking about the IMF in the Ukraine aid package and Hobby Lobby issue before SCOTUS.

Washington has jumped at the opportunity to provide massive amounts of weapons to Syria's so-called moderate rebels amid the ongoing ceasefire; it seems that the White House is not bothered by the fact that half of its arms have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note. Rebel fighters from the First Battalion under the Free Syrian Army take part in a military training on June 10, 2015, in the rebel-held countryside of the northern city of Aleppo The Syrian ceasefire is hanging in the balance, former Republican congressman Ron Paul and political analyst...

Damascus, April 12, Interfax - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sees no future for his country and the entire region without the Christian presence, Hieromonk Stefan (Igumnov), secretary for inter-Christian relations at the Moscow's Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, told reporters after a meeting with al-Assad on Tuesday. "During the talks today, Bashar al-Assad noted that Syria has traditionally been a multi-faith country, and both its future and the future of the Middle East is inconceivable without the Christian presence," he said. According to him, al-Assad noted the crucial peacekeeping and humanitarian role of the Russian Orthodox Church in efforts...

The story of Putin’s fabled billions is a case study of something which people passionately believe in independently of any facts. As often happens in such cases, those who believe in that thing then hunt around for facts to prove it true. Every so often they come up with facts they claim proves it true. On careful examination however it turns out they do nothing of the sort. When that is pointed out to the true believers it does not change their belief that what they believe is true. Instead they retreat into denial and set off hunting for new...

A senior Russian official says Moscow has started delivering S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who spoke on Monday on Ekho Moskvy radio, wouldn’t say how many systems have been delivered or provide any other specifics. […] The S-300 deal has long worried the U.S. and Israel, which see it as destabilizing. …