Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 39:09 | Size: 35.85M In this week's installment of the Al-Masdar Podcast, Brad Blankenship is joined with Dr. Max Abrahms to discuss his structural model of terrorism, one that is radically different from our basic intuitions. Also joining us is Mojtaba Masood, providing his experience and insights into the discussion. Dr. Abrahms is an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University. Dr. Abrahms is a member at the Council on Foreign Relations and works for The Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. Mr. Masood is a London-based documentary filmmaker and political analyst. You can view Mr. Masood's documentary here .

(TASS) At least 40 ceasefire violations by armed groups have been registered in the past 24 hours in Syria, including 20 breaches in the region of Aleppo, 15 ― in the Damascus province, and five ― in the Latakia province, the Russian Center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria said in its daily news bulletin posted on the Russian Defense Ministry’s official website on Saturday. "Armed groups, which have announced joining the regime of cessation of hostilities, delivered fire from mortars and small arms in the Damascus province ― on the populated localities of Harasta, Jobar, Bala al-Kadima, Douma, and the positions of government forces on Abu Ali mountain in the Latakia province. At 1:15pm, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the city of Damascus came under mortar fire, no one was hurt," the document says. In the Latakia province, militants shelled the village of Jourin and used an unmanned aerial vehicle with an explosive device that left a civilian wounde

By John Pilger TJC: Please tell us about your new film, The Coming War on China . JP: The Coming War on China is my 60th film and perhaps one of the most urgent. It continues the theme of illuminating the imposition of great power behind a facade of propaganda as news. In 2011, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’ of US forces: almost two-thirds of American naval power would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific by 2020. The undeclared rationale for this was the ‘threat’ from China, by some measure now the greatest economic power. The Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, says US policy is to confront those ‘who see America’s dominance and want to take that away from us’. The film examines power in both countries and how nuclear weapons, in American eyes, are the bedrock of its dominance. In its first ‘chapter’, the film reveals how most of the population of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific were unwittingly made into nuclear guinea pigs in a programme whose secrets –