Colorado farmers face widespread damage after floodwaters

Colorado farmers and ranchers are bracing for widespread damage to the agriculture industry from floodwaters that have caused property losses estimated at nearly $2 billion. The main concern is for the state’s No. 1 cash crop, corn, which yields between 140 million and 180 million bushels annually, Reuters reported. Agriculture pumps $41 billion a year into the state's economy and employs 173,000 people.

18 police killed in northeastern Afghanistan ambush

Militants in northeast Afghanistan killed 18 police in an ambush, the Interior Ministry said Friday. The police convoy was caught in a firefight in the remote province of Badakhshan on Wednesday when officers were returning from an anti-insurgent operation, AFP reported. The ministry said 13 others were wounded in a “terrorist attack in Warduj district of Badakhshan.

Georgian MPs cut PM’s powers

The Georgian parliament has unanimously voted to cut some of the prime minister’s powers in a new constitutional model. It was adopted in 2010 and will come into effect after the presidential election set for October 27. This model significantly widens the PM’s powers, and cuts the president’s. Parliamentarians on Friday passed a constitutional amendment curtailing the PM’s powers when changing cabinet members. The clause, which allowed the premier to ask for a confidence vote if his draft bill is not endorsed, was also amended.

Surkov returns as Putin’s aide in charge of cooperation with CIS, Abkhazia, S.Ossetia

Top Russian politician, Vladislav Surkov, has been appointed presidential aide and will deal with social and economic cooperation issues with Russia’s allies, specifically in the South Caucasus. He resigned as deputy prime minister in early May. While in government, Surkov was in charge of priority national programs. His new appointment was announced on Friday evening, hours after the State Duma approved another presidential aide, Tatyana Golikova, as the head of the Audit Chamber. Surkov will be in charge of the same issues Golikova was responsible for, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.

House of Representatives votes to derail ‘Obamacare’

The US House of Representatives on Friday passed legislation to fund federal agencies from Oct 1 to Dec 15, but at the same time put Barack Obama’s new healthcare package into the sidings. The bill preserves spending cuts at an annual rate of $986.3 billion and permanently defunds the Affordable Care Act. 

The Republican dominated House sent the measure to the Democrat controlled Senate by 230-189 votes. There, it is expected to pass without defunding the Obamacare law. If the bill gets to the White House with the stripped healthcare provision, Obama would veto it. 

Should the president and the lawmakers fail to agree on the stopgap funding, most operations would come to a halt in less than two weeks. The Senate is set to consider the bill by Sept 26. They could have a simple majority vote that would strip the health-care defunding language once they end debate on the House measure. The Affordable Care Act is a health care reform, which seeks to ensure that all American citizens are covered by health insurance

EU is ‘incapable’ of pursing common goals on Syria

The EU’s main problem in regards to Syria is “lack of political will,” former MEP Glyn Ford told RT as he discussed NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen’s speech which stated that a military strike option should be kept open.

Rasmussen said on Thursday that the option of carrying out a military strike on Syria must remain available. "I think, irrespective of the outcome of the deliberations in the UN Security Council, the military option will still be on the table," he said at an event organized by the Carnegie Europe think tank.

In response to the comments, former MEP Glyn Ford told RT that European Nations are deeply divided over Syria. Moreover, he said that EU members are “completely incapable of military integration and political integration in terms of actually pursuing common goals.”

source rt.com

Chemical weapons watchdog postpones meeting on Syria

The world’s chemical weapons watchdog has postponed a meeting to discuss the recent Russia-US plan to destroy Syria’s chemical arsenal. The news comes as Damascus handed over an inventory of its stockpiles in line with the joint proposal.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it would announce a new date and time for the meeting “as soon as possible.”

Diplomatic sources told AFP that a draft text to be discussed at the meeting had yet to be agreed upon by Moscow and Washington. The Hague-based OPCW has already postponed the meeting several times over the past week.

The organization’s 41-member Executive Council, which is comprised of ambassadors from different states, is due to discuss a plan agreed upon by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his US counterpart John Kerry following three days of talks in Geneva last week.

source rt.com