There were several other significant developments this year. The emergence of billionaire property magnate Donald Trump as US presidential contender marks the full outward degeneration of American politics, whereby demagoguery, racism and fascism have entered into mainstream public discourse. This is while US police violence against African-Americans and other minorities reaches epidemic proportions; and federal state powers of surveillance and arrest continued to erode civil rights.
US-backed aggression in YemenA foreign war of aggression on Yemen by a US-backed military coalition of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states demonstrated a descent into lawlessness, where the United Nations appears more impotent than ever to uphold international law. Thousands of Yemeni civilians have been slaughtered by US-supported bombardment on residential areas lasting nine months and counting, yet Western media have largely overlooked those crimes, focusing instead on allegations of violations against civilians by Russian warplanes in Syria.
The conclusion in July of the P5+1 nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers was hailed as a triumph of diplomacy by US President Barack Obama. Of lesser note in the Western media was the decision by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to terminate its 10-year investigation into alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development. The IAEA said it had concluded there was no evidence of any Iranian activity to build a nuclear bomb. That means 10 years of Western claims against Iran have been trumped-up and the rationale for crippling Western-imposed economic sanctions on Iran is likewise null and void. So when are Washington and its European allies going to compensate Iran with billions of dollars for damage inflicted for no legal reason on its economy and nation's health?
US provocation towards ChinaWith so much apparently going in the news, the tensions between the US and China have probably not received the attention deserved. Nevertheless, these tensions are truly alarming. The US has made several provocative military intrusions on China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, the latest one being a B-52 bomber that "accidentally" made a flyover. It is noteworthy that the US aggression came only weeks and months after China's President Xi Jinping made his first-ever state visit to the US earlier this year. President Obama may say the US welcomes "the peaceful rise of China." But all the indications are that the US is doing everything to antagonize Beijing and to thwart its perceived global power status.
US allies in S. China Sea want expanded American presence in region -- Pentagon chief http://on.rt.com/6v88
RT "@RT_comThis year, the US Pentagon nominated China and Russia as primary "national security threats." This is while the US ratchets up gratuitous tensions with both countries in the South China Sea and through NATO expansion around Russian territory. NATO's enlisting of former Soviet country Montenegro in the Balkans as its newest member is further testimony to the relentless expansion of the US-led military alliance since the end of the Cold War nearly 25 years ago -- in flagrant contradiction of past agreements with Moscow not to let NATO encroach on Russian interests.
Yet the year ends with the US and its European allies slapping more economic sanctions on Russia over alleged infringements in Ukraine, when conflict in the latter country is clearly, and provably, a result of the kind of Western interference that Putin highlighted at the UN.
Putin made a seminal speech at the UN General Assembly in September when he clearly called out rogue powers who have trashed international law with illegal military, political and economic interventions overseas. The deterioration of legal standards, sovereignty and explosion of conflicts and terrorism in many parts of the world can be directly attributed to the machinations of the United States and its European partners. "Do you see now what you have done?" asked Putin before the UN.
70 years on, Russia still leads the battle against barbarismThe year 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when Nazism and European fascism was defeated mainly through the military might and sacrifices of the Soviet Union. Notably -- and appropriately in a profoundly true sense -- the commemorations held in Moscow to mark that epic victory against fascism were not attended by the political leaders from the US, Britain, France and other European countries, owing to their alleged disputes with Russia over Ukraine.
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