(Corbett Report) Last-minute negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal in Atlanta this past week finally ended on Monday when trade ministers emerged with a deal. It’s a testament to the secrecy and apathy that has surrounded the entire TPP process that most people didn’t even know these negotiations were taking place, let alone that a deal was near. Nevertheless, the completed deal is now on its way to member countries for ratification.

So what is the deal? Who is behind it? Why are so many opposed to it? And what’s next? Here’s a primer on what you need to know as the TPP deal enters the home stretch.

What is it?

The TPP is a so-called “free trade agreement” that is the largest such deal since NAFTA. If ratified it will cover 12 countries, impacting over 400 million people and nearly 40% of the world’s GDP. Member nations of the TPP negotiations include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

What does it do?

We do know that the TPP agreement is a 30 chapter document dealing with everything from agricultural tariffs to intellectual property to wildlife conservation to customs and financial services. It will impact the auto industry, dairy farmers, pharmaceutical companies (and their patients), even people who share files online. In short, it is a comprehensive agreement.

We do not know what the text actually says. We have a rough idea based on leaked drafts of previous negotiating texts and the pronouncements of various officials privy to the talks and the ridiculously vague summaries of the US Trade Representative and other official bodies, but the text itself has yet to be released for public consumption.

This is a reflection of the unprecedented secrecy that has shrouded these negotiations, including restricting members of US Congress’ access to the negotiating text to classified briefings and basement readings and paramilitary security with helicopter surveillance patrolling TPP summits for would-be protesters.

Who wins?

In a word: business. No, not mom and pop corner store business, big multinational corporate business. But you probably could have guessed as much already. After all, there’s a reason the US Business Coalition for TPP existed, let alone spent over $1.1 million buying off Congressmen ahead of the “Fast Track” trade authority vote earlier this year.

Hollywood and the MPAA can celebrate more stringent international enforcement of their “intellectual property” to bolster their failing business model. Big Pharma likewise will benefit from mores string enforcement of their patents to prevent smaller countries from selling generic copies of their signature drugs. American dairy farmers are winners, gaining greater access to Canadian markets. American manufacturers will win as relaxed rules make it even easier to ship jobs to developing Asian countries. Vietnamese manufacturers benefit from that outsourcing even as they dodge the “labor organization” bullet.

In every case, the clear common denominator is that big business is going to win big time if the deal gets through.

Who loses?

Pretty much everyone else. That’s why you’ll see an extraordinary range of people opposed to this deal, from the mainstream left (Hillary Clinton) and the mainstream right (Mike Huckabee) to the controlled “alternative” left (Noam Chomsky) and the controlled “alternative” right (The New American) to libertarians and environmental groups and trade unions and basically everyone who isn’t in favor of crony capitalism. Only a truly bad deal could bring together such a disparate bunch. And this deal is bad.

A member loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) waves an ISIL flag in Raqqa June 29, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A recruiting push by Islamic State militants via thousands of Twitter accounts and other social media postings remains one of the biggest threats facing the United States, a high-level U.S. military official said on Wednesday.

Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said he was particularly concerned about radicalized youth in the United States who were "in receive mode" but not communicating back.

U.S. authorities could potentially track recruits who communicate with Islamic State recruiters, but it was tougher to identify potential recruits, such as the shooter who killed five servicemen in Tennessee in July, Gortney told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council think-tank.

Gortney said heightened security at military bases around the United States - now at the highest level in nearly four years - would likely remain in effect for "quite some time," given the government's inability to predict when or where such attacks could occur.

"It’s going to be a long slog," Gortney said, adding that the United States need to counter Islamic State's narrative. "It's a war of words. ... We have to go after and break this pattern of radicalization."

Gortney said the U.S. government was doing a comprehensive review of its efforts to counter Islamic State's recruitment drive, but the fight needed to be led at the local level by parents, communities and schools, not the military.

Gortney ordered increased security in May, affecting everything from recruiting stations to National Guard posts and military bases and camps in the continental United States, Alaska and U.S. territory in the Caribbean.

The move came after two men opened fire outside an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Garland, Texas; they were shot dead by police. The two were later found to have had contact with militants, including a British man linked to Syria-based Islamic State rebels.

Investigators believe the Garland attackers and the Tennessee shooter principally radicalized themselves through Internet contacts, and were not directly ordered or encouraged to carry out the attack by Islamic State leaders.

Gortney said his staff was working with the intelligence community to understand when the threat level could be lowered, but warned it would be a "glacial" process.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Syrian chief of staff: Russian strikes helping new ground offensive to eliminate 'terrorists'

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria's chief-of-staff has declared a wide-ranging ground offensive by Syrian troops, a day after government forces advanced in a multipronged attack backed by Russian airstrikes and cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea.

Gen. Ali Ayoub says the Russian strikes have facilitated an expanded military operation to eliminate "terrorists." The Syrian government refers to all armed opposition against President Bashar Assad as terrorists.

Syrian activists said government troops pushed Thursday into rural parts of Latakia province.

Activist Ahmad al-Ahmad said on Wednesday, fighting that focused on rural Hama and Idlib province in northwest sparked intense clashes, with rebels repelling government troops from at least one village.

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian airstrikes in Idlib killed at least seven civilians on Wednesday.

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Russia strikes tipping Syria war in Assad's favor?

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian troops and allied militia backed by a fresh wave of Russian air strikes and cruise missiles fired from warships attacked rebel forces on Thursday as the government extended a major offensive to recapture territory in the west of the country.

Rebel advances in western Syria earlier this year had threatened the coastal region vital to President Bashar al-Assad's control of the area and prompted Russia's intervention on their ally's side last week.

In a further show of force, the Russian defense ministry said missiles fired from its ships in the Caspian Sea hit weapons factories, arms dumps, command centers and training camps supporting Islamic State forces.

The Russian defense ministry said its air force hit 27 Islamic State targets, including a number of training sites, overnight in the provinces of Homs, Hama and Raqqa, Interfax news agency reported.

Ground forces loyal to the Syrian government targeted insurgents in the Ghab Plain area in the west of the country, with heavy barrages of surface-to-surface missiles as Russian warplanes bombed from above, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a rebel fighting there.

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In this photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official web site, Wednesday …

It said rebels had shot down a helicopter in Hama province in western Syria. It was unclear if it was Syrian or Russian.

Syria said it had set in train a major military operation in a war that began more than four years ago as an attempt to unseat Assad through street protests and has now killed 250,000 people, sent millions into exile as refugees, and drawn in armed forces from world and regional powers.

Assad's armed forces "have launched wide-ranging attacks to deal with the terrorist groups, and to liberate the areas which had suffered from the terrorist rule and crimes," Syria's army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayoub, was quoted as saying by state media.

NEW FIGHTING UNITS

Ayoub did not say which areas were being targeted. He said new fighting units, including one called the Fourth Assault Corps, had been set up to wage the campaign and the army now held the military initiative.

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A man comforts a woman whose relatives were killed, at a site hit by what activists were airstrikes …

The Observatory's head, Rami Abdulrahman, said an assault launched by the army and its foreign allies on Wednesday in nearby areas of Hama province had so far failed to make significant gains, however.

"At least 13 regime forces were killed ... The clashes also killed 11 (rebel) fighters," he said in a statement, and the numbers were expected to rise as more casualties were confirmed.

Around 15 army tanks and armored vehicles had been destroyed or immobilized by rebel missile strikes, Abdulrahman and an opposition activist on the ground said.

Wednesday's operation in Hama appeared to be the first major assault coordinated between Syrian troops and militia on the ground, and Russian warplanes and naval ships.

The Ghab Plain, also in Hama, lies next to a mountain range that forms the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect.

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A civil defence member gathers unexploded cluster bomblets that activists say were fired by the Russ …

Recapturing it from the alliance of rebel groups, including al Qaeda's Nusra Front which thrust into the area in late July, would help secure Assad's coastal heartlands and could provide a platform to drive the rebels back from other areas.

A fighter from the Ajnad al-Sham insurgent group who uses the name Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi told Reuters that Russian jets had been bombing since dawn. It was not the first time the Russians had bombed the area, but this was their most ferocious attack, he said, speaking via an Internet messaging service.

"There is an attempt by the regime to advance but the situation is under our control," he said.

"God willing we will repeat the massacre of the north Hama countryside as happened yesterday," Hamawi added, referring to the strikes on the tanks. "We have faced more violent attacks than this in the past."

ANGER OVER AIR SPACE

Russian air strikes started last week and have mostly focused in areas of western Syria where Assad has sought to shore up his control after losing swathes of the rest of the country to insurgents including the Islamic State group.

Russia says it is fighting Islamic State in Syria. But while the group has been the target of some of its air strikes, it has no foothold in the areas of western Syria targeted in the attacks on Wednesday and Thursday.

For about a year before Russia joined the fighting, a U.S.-led coalition has been mounting air strikes of its own intended to defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. On Wednesday the coalition launched 18 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and two in Syria, a statement said.

Neighboring Turkey has been angered by violations of its air space by Russian warplanes and NATO said it was prepared to send troops to Turkey to defend its ally.

"NATO is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey against any threats," NATO Secretary-General Jens toltenberg told reporters as he arrived for a meeting in Brussels of the alliance's defense ministers which is likely to be dominated by the war in Syria.

At the meeting, Turkey appealed to its NATO allies to shore up missile defenses aimed at shooting down Syrian rockets, after Germany said again that it would withdraw its Patriot batteries and the United States was set to do the same. NATO is now waiting for other nations to plug those gaps.

(Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Peter Millership)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a news conference after the NATO Force Integration Unit inauguration in Vilnius, Lithuania, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Robin Emmott, Sabine Siebold and Phil Stewart

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Turkey appealed to its NATO allies on Thursday to shore up missile defenses in the country aimed at shooting down Syrian rockets, as Germany said again that it will withdraw its Patriot batteries and the United States was set to do the same.

NATO is now waiting for other nations to plug those gaps.

Days after Russian jets violated Turkey's airspace near Syria, Ankara's NATO envoy urged the U.S.-led alliance to continue to deploy air defense systems, according to two people briefed on talks at a defense ministers meeting in Brussels.

While NATO's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he was prepared to send ground forces to defend Turkey, the situation raised questions about NATO's strategy in the country, which shares a border with both Syria and Iraq.

Germany's defense minister said Berlin would go ahead with plans to switch off its Patriot batteries in Turkey next week and withdraw most of the soldiers operating them before Christmas. All soldiers and materiel are due to be withdrawn by the end of January.

"This decision (to withdraw the Patriots) is right," Ursula von der Leyen said as she arrived for the meeting.

"The question is what danger can be warded off in which way," she said. The comments appeared to suggest that the Turkish air force is capable of intercepting fighter jets.

Backing up that suggestion and acknowledging that there were discussions about ways to reassure Turkey and deter Russia, Stoltenberg told journalists after the morning session: "What we now see is other kinds of challenges. But again, we are discussing with different allies, with Turkey, how and in what format we can support them."

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Men on motorcycles inspect a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russ …

As Russian and U.S. planes fly combat missions over the same country for the first time since World War Two, NATO is eager to avoid any international escalation of the Syrian conflict that has unexpectedly turned the alliance's attention away from Ukraine following Russia's annexation of Crimea last year.

NATO deployed its Patriot missiles in January 2013 in Turkey and Spain now has batteries in place to confront ballistic missiles launched by Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States will withdraw its Patriot deployment any day for modernization. France and Italy are understood to be willing to join Spain, but no decision has been taken, people familiar with the discussion say.

Spain's Defense Minister Pedro Morenes said this week that although he was concerned by Russia's incursion into Turkish airspace, his nation's Patriots were deployed to defend "against attacks with missiles coming from Syria".

Since 2012, NATO has detected several hundred ballistic missile launches with Syria, emphasizing what it sees as the need for an effective defense of Turkey.

READY, WILLING AND ABLE

Officials at the U.S.-led alliance are still smarting from Russia's weekend incursions into Turkey's airspace near northern Syria. In public comments, Stoltenberg says the alliance's support of its 28 allies is unwavering.

"NATO is ready and able to defend all allies, including Turkey against any threats," he said as he arrived for the meeting.

"NATO has already responded by increasing our capacity, our ability, our preparedness to deploy forces including to the south, including in Turkey," he said, noting that Russia's air and cruise missile strikes were "reasons for concern".

The incursions of two Russian fighters in Turkish airspace on Saturday and Sunday has brought the Syria conflict right up to NATO's borders, testing the alliance's ability to deter a newly assertive Russia without seeking direct confrontation.

While the United States has ruled out military cooperation with Russia in Syria, NATO defense ministers will discuss how to encourage Russia to help resolve the crisis, betting that Moscow also wants to avoid being bogged down in a long conflict.

For 40 years, NATO's central task was deterring Russia in the east during the Cold War, but now, after a decade-long involvement in Afghanistan, the alliance is facing a reality-check close to home, with multiple threats near its borders.

Divisions between eastern NATO members, who want to keep the focus on the Ukraine crisis, and others who fret about Islamic State militants, risk hampering a unified response from the 28-nation North Atlantic alliance.

France and Britain, NATO's two main European powers, are understood to be willing to see the alliance use its new 5,000-strong rapid reaction force beyond NATO borders, potentially helping stabilize post-conflict governments in Libya or Syria.

Others nations, including Poland and the Baltics, want a permanent NATO presence on their territory to act as a credible deterrent to any further effort by Russian President Vladimir Putin to gain influence in former Soviet states.

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton in London; Editing by Louise Ireland)