I am delighted to announce that I have been contacted by the editors of the new website Russia Insider and that I have accepted their offer to collaborate with them. I did agree to this not only because I knew several of the excellent contributors to this project, but also because I truly believe that it is a much needed, timely and very important project (please see Russia Insider's "About" page for more details and background) Check out today's CrossTalk where the Editor in Chief of Russia Insider, Charles Bausman, is one of the guests.

A very good project, with very good people doing something very important - how could I refuse?! I gratefully accepted. I strongly believe that bringing the true story about modern Russia is crucial, especially for the English speaking world. At a time when everything Russian is demonized and some crazy, but powerful, maniacs are dreaming about yet another war (Cold or Hot) against Russia, it is absolutely crucial to deconstruct the warmongering anti-Russian propaganda and to replace it with a much more complex and nuanced understanding of the true Russia, not the fictional Land of Mordor the Neocons are trying to portray.

There have been many conflicts between the West and Russia in the past, but for the first time, in the age of the Internet, we - in the West and in Russia - have the means to stop the current one and to prevent it from turning into yet another a full-scale continental war. We need to fight that "information war" and we need to win it.

Please help us fight this war and contribute in any way you can: first and foremost, spread the word about Russia Insider on the social media, post links to the Russia Insider homepage on your blogs and websites, subscribe to the Russia Insider YouTube channel, subscribe to the newsletter (on the homepage), help us organize a crowdfunding for the site or join our community of contributors. Last, but not least, sign up for the RSS feed and make sure to check the Russia Insider website at least once a day. I am absolutely delighted and honored to be associated with this project which I believe will become a key player on the international scene. Kind regards, The Saker

The numbers are rolling in…and they’re impressive in a odd way. Based on numerous news reports, somewhere in the neighborhood of 310 to 400 thousand people participated in the People’s Climate March on Sunday, September 21, 2014 in New York City. The parade was, of course, a precursor for the U.N. Climate Summit 2014, which begins tomorrow. Yet the results of the U.N.’s Global Survey for a Better World, also known as MyWorld2015, show “Action taken on Climate Change” at the very bottom…the abyss…of things that matter most to families around the globe. Looks like the 310 to 400 thousand people who marched in Manhattan yesterday have priorities that are out of touch with the rest of the occupants of this lovely planet. Considering the object of the U.N. meeting, maybe the marchers should have been calling for “honest and responsive government“, which ranked much higher than climate.

Steven Koonin ■ Climate Science Is Not Settled
WH fence jumper was “concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing” and wanted to alert the president

Tony Abbott: 'The delicate balance between freedom and security may have to shift' ● Australians have been warned that their freedoms might have to be restricted for the sake of national security, as the government prepares to introduce counter-terrorism laws to crack down on Australians fighting for militant or terrorist groups. In a speech to the Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the "delicate balance" between freedom and security would have to shift for some time in light of the heightened terror risk. His address comes just days after the largest anti-terrorist raids in Australian history were carried out in Sydney and Brisbane, and a week after Australia's terror threat level was increased from medium to high. Mr Abbott warned that there could be "more restrictions on some so that there can be more protections for others". He said the curtailing of some freedoms was necessary to send an "unambiguous message" that Australians who joined terrorist groups will face the full force of the law.

Mike Head ■ Australian terror raids provide pretext for police-state laws
The Guardian: Abbott: reduction in freedom necessary to save lives from terrorism threat

David D. Kirkpatrick ■ The United States has conducted an escalating campaign of deadly airstrikes against the extremists of the Islamic State for more than a month. But that appears to have done little to tamp down the conspiracy theories still circulating from the streets of Baghdad to the highest levels of Iraqi government that the CIA is secretly behind the same extremists that it is now attacking. "We know about who made Daesh," said Bahaa al-Araji, a deputy prime minister, using an Arabic shorthand for the Islamic State, on Saturday at a demonstration called by the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to warn against the possible deployment of U.S. ground troops. Sadr publicly blamed the CIA for creating the Islamic State in a speech last week, and interviews suggested that most of the few thousand people at the demonstration, including dozens of members of parliament, subscribed to the same theory.

The Mistral-class helicopter carrier Vladivostok, carrying the first crew of some 200 Russian sailors, has finished a series of tests early Monday morning. ● The Vladivistok set off from the French port of Saint-Nazaire for sea trials on September 13, and is scheduled to go to sea again on Tuesday with its second crew on board, according to a RIA Novosti source. The $1.2 billion contract for the manufacture of the Mistral-class ships between French ship builder DCNS and Russia's state-run arms trade intermediary Rosoboronexport was signed in June 2011. The first carrier, the Vladivostok is to be deployed by the Russian Navy in 2014, while the second ship, the Sevastopol, will arrive in 2015.

The heaviest rainfall in 50 years has resulted in more than 400 deaths in the Kashmir region – with thousands still trapped on rooftops – as residents in both India and Pakistan are criticizing their governments for not doing enough to help them. In India, at least 217 people were reported to have died by Tuesday, with another 47,000 evacuated from their homes. The city of Siringar was still submerged, as were more than 2,000 other villages. The Indian Air Force has been pressed into action and has air-dropped over 550 tons of relief. Eighty medical teams have established emergency health services in state-run health centers and schools. “The damage is shocking. People have been stranded on the rooftops of their homes for the last three days in some parts of Kashmir,” said a senior official from India’s National Disaster Response Force. He added that they would have sent in disaster response teams earlier, but “we were all caught off guard because there was not a single warning issued by the weather office. The flash floods took us by surprise.” Although India’s meteorological department did forecast heavy rain in Kashmir for last week, the nation’s media reported the Central Water Commission, which issues flood warnings, did not warn the northern state of Kashmir, where the downpours were heaviest.

A retired US Navy admiral says the United States should keep its nuclear weapons in European countries in the wake of Russian activities in Ukraine. ● "Withdrawing our relatively few weapons would be the absolute wrong signal at this moment," former NATO chief James Stavridis said. The United States and Russia last year agreed to reduce their tactical nuclear weapons, but the deal is unlikely to complete after the recent tensions between the two countries over the crisis in Ukraine. The US military has roughly 200 B61 nuclear bombs and it has deployed them in five NATO countries stretching from the Netherlands to Turkey.

Washington should respect the sovereignty of Syria in its attempts to deal with the Islamic state, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a phone call with his US counterpart, John Kerry. ● Lavrov and Kerry talked on Sunday at the initiative of the US Secretary of State, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. During the conversation, the Russian FM stressed “the importance of coordinated action... by the international community aimed at countering the threat” coming from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). However, he warned against “double standards” and “distortion of facts” during the battle against the terrorist group, which has declared a caliphate in the occupied territories of Syria and Iraq. Lavrov underlined “the necessity for strict adherence to the UN Charter and international law as well as unconditional respect for Syrian sovereignty during the implementation of plans by the US-led coalition, which includes the use of force," the statement by the ministry said.

SANA: Moscow calls for respecting Syria sovereignty in the war against ISIS

MAVEN spacecraft has entered Mars' upper atmosphere, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported. ● "This was a very big day for MAVEN," David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland was quoted as saying in a press release published by NASA Sunday. MAVEN was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida November 18, 2013. Its journey took 10 months, during which the spacecraft covered a distance of 711 million kilometers (442 million miles). According to NASA, MAVEN's mission is to take measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars' upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind. The measurements will provide information down to where the upper and lower atmospheres meet, giving scientists a full profile of its upper tier.

NASA: NASA’s Newest Mars Mission Spacecraft Enters Orbit around Red Planet

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Scientific American: Touchdown Site Selected for Comet Lander