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Uprising’s guest expert Arun Gupta, a Journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, In These Times, The Progressive, and Truthout, analyzes today’s news headlines.

Russia has announced it will begin patrolling areas near the U.S. with long-range bombers. The Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced, “In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.” Australia said it has already begun monitoring a Russian naval fleet heading West. Time reports that there may have been, “nearly 40 incidents involving Russian forces in a ‘standoff’ with the West, including allegedly sending a submarine into Swedish waters.” The military tensions are a reflection of an on-going spat between Russia and the West centered on Ukraine, an issue that is likely to be taken up at the upcoming G20 meeting this weekend. Click here for a Time article about the story.

Just over a week after the midterm elections, the lame-duck Congress is taking up an issue that has proven to be very unpopular with the public: approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Both chambers of Congress have taken up bills to approve the pipeline, sponsored by rival Senate candidates in the key oil and gas-rich state of Louisiana. Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu sponsored the Senate version of the bill, while Republican House member Bill Cassidy, who ran against Landrieu for her Senate seat last week and faces her in a run-off, sponsored the House version of the bill. President Obama has expressed disapproval of the timing of the bills and could wield his veto if the bills pass. Click here for a Reuters article about the story.

And finally, in his last few weeks as Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid has attempted to revive the USA Freedom Act, a bill intended to curb some aspects of the NSA’s mass surveillance program. A version that was not as strong as the Senate’s, passed the House earlier this year. Meanwhile, the Associated Press has just published an exposé revealing a quiet and massive expansion of surveillance drones deployed domestically along the US-Mexico border. More than 10,000 drone missions have taken place over the border since last Spring, prompting the ACLU to warn against turning the US into a, “surveillance society” in which people’s every move “is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by the government.” Click here for a Guardian article about the USA Freedom Act, and here for a Commondreams article about the expansion of domestic drones.