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The EU has provisionally agreed to provide Turkey with €3 billion+ to supposedly spend on 'stemming the migrant flow' along with an easing of visa restrictions and a promise of accelerating talks about Turkey's accession to the EU. The EU has now conceded it is powerless to stem the tide of migrants and refugees on its own, and has opted to open Europe's doors to 75 million Turks. Through its desperate attempts to try and sort out the migrant crisis, the EU has shoved all its cards into the hands of the autocratic President Erdogan. This deal with Turkey will...

Click link for video regarding the provisional EU decision to give Turkey 3 billion Euros to 'stemming the migrant flow', ease their visa restrictions, and fast track Turkey's EU membership.

At this point, it’s abundantly clear that the US is on the wrong side in the Mid-East. Washington has always resorted to covert operations and support for unsavory characters on the way to bringing about regime change in countries whose governments aren’t deemed conducive to American interests. That’s nothing new. Usually, however, there’s at least a semi-plausible argument to be made for why Washington feels the need to support one side over the other. In Syria, there’s no such argument.

The Syrian government said on Monday four warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition had targeted a Syrian army camp in Deir Ezzor province on Sunday, killing three soldiers and wounding 13 more, calling the incident an act of aggression. The jets fired nine missiles at the camp on Sunday evening, Syria's foreign ministry said in a statement flashed on state television. It is the first publicly declared incident of its type since the United States and allied countries began bombing Islamic State in Syria more than a year ago.

The Turkish opposition has given the country's leader a cold shower, telling President Erdogan to heat his palace with dung instead of gas after he stated that Turkish people are used to suffering and can do without Russian supplies.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump made the shortlist for TIME magazine's 2015 Person of the Year for his "populist rhetoric" in the 2016 presidential election that has "stirred debate about the party's future."The magazine released its shortlist Monday morning with Trump making the cut among other finalists including Black Lives Matter activists, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (pictured) urged Saudi Arabia on Sunday to stop supporting religious radicals amid growing concern among some lawmakers in Berlin about the funding of militant mosques by the world's biggest oil exporter. The unusual criticism of the Gulf state follows a report by Germany's foreign intelligence agency which suggested that Saudi foreign policy was becoming more "impulsive". The German government rebuked the BND agency for making such suggestions about Saudi Arabia, an important business partner which is involved in international talks to find a political solution to the Syria crisis. "We need Saudia...

Turkey just can't seem to help itself when it comes to escalations in the Mid-East. First, Erdogan intentionally reignited the conflict between Ankara and the PKK in an effort to scare the public into nullifying a democratic election outcome. Then, the Turks shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. Finally, in what very well might be an effort to protect Islamic State oil smuggling routes, Erdogan sent 150 troops and two dozen tanks to Bashiqa, just northeast of Mosul in a move that has infuriated Baghdad. We discussed the troop deployment at length on Saturday in "Did Turkey...

Russia's Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", had this to say: "We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation" by Turkey. But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel urged Saudi Arabia on Sunday to stop supporting religious radicals, amid growing concern among some lawmakers in Berlin about the funding of militant mosques by the world's biggest oil exporter. The unusual criticism of the Gulf state follows a report by Germany's foreign intelligence agency which suggested that Saudi foreign policy was becoming more "impulsive". The German government rebuked the BND agency for making such suggestions about Saudi Arabia, an important business partner that is involved in international talks to find a political solution to the Syria crisis.. "We need Saudi Arabia...

Groups that have received support from the United States or its allies have turned their guns on each other in a northern corner of Syria, highlighting the difficulties of mobilizing forces on the ground against Islamic State. As they fought among themselves before reaching a tenuous ceasefire on Thursday, Islamic State meanwhile edged closer to the town of Azaz that was the focal point of the clashes near the border with Turkey. Combatants on one side are part of a new U.S.-backed alliance that includes a powerful Kurdish militia, and to which Washington recently sent military aid to fight Islamic...

This side of the father-and-son isolationist firm Ron Paul & Son, it's unheard of for a conservative Republican to attack neoconservatives by name. But that is exactly what Texas Sen. and rising presidential candidate Ted Cruz is doing. And he might be tapping into a philosophy of national security reflecting the preference of most Americans. In a Bloomberg interview over the weekend, Cruz accused his rival for the GOP nomination, Marco Rubio, of "military adventurism," even linking him to Hillary Clinton. "Senator Rubio emphatically supported Hillary Clinton in toppling (Moammar) Gadhafi in Libya. I think that made no sense," Cruz...

BEIRUT (AFP) - Syrian Turkmen rebel fighters have seized three villages from the Islamic State group near the Turkish border in clashes that killed 13 from the ethnic minority, a monitor said Saturday. "This is the first time that Turkmen fighters have led the battle against IS in the area, and that comes after they received support from Turkey," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. He did not provide details on the alleged assistance. The Britain-based group said the 13 fighters killed since Friday were members of the Sultan Murad Brigades, made up...

In a somewhat depressing show of the farce that is Europe's immigration policy, local media reports "apocalyptic scenes" on the northern Greek border where "economic migrants" who are not entitled to leave Greece's provisional camps are fighting with 'refugees' who are entitled to leave, and head into other European nations. Petrol bombs and stones flew through the air, fists, kicks and wrestling on the ground as migrants hindered refugees from entering Macedonia (FYROM). People have injured, trampled and faint, among them many babies as some migrants tried to pass together with the refugees and were apparently hindered with stun grenades...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry on Saturday accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the trafficking of oil into Turkey from Syrian areas under Islamic State control, after Washington called the amounts involved insignificant. "When US officials say they don't see how the terrorists' oil is smuggled to Turkey... it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts," the ministry said on its Facebook page. "The declarations of the Pentagon and the State Department seem like a theatre of the absurd," the statement added, suggesting that Washington "watch the videos taken by its (own)...

Haider Al-Abadi: "The unauthorized presence of Turkish troops in Mosul province is a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty"

The 28-nation US-led group agreed to start the entry process at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this morning, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. The move will be seen as a warning to the Kremlin that its influence in the region is waning, despite a show of strength during last year's annexation of Crimea and the subsequernt bombing campaign in Syria. In retaliation, Russia has warned that Montenegro will be punished for the action.

Letters of intention from France and Germany to use Turkey’s strategic İncirlik air base in their operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - or “Daesh” in the Arabic shorthand that governments prefer to use - reportedly reached Ankara this week. The İncirlik base is only 150 km from where a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 jet on Nov. 24 after it crossed into Turkey’s air space on the border with Syria. It is also just 170 km from the Khmeimim air base in Syria near Latakia, where Russian air forces are stationed. It...

With NATO member Turkey's recent downing of a Russian aircraft sparking fears of WWIII, a rather politically incorrect question needs to be asked: should a Muslim nation have NATO membership? Having a country as part of the NATO alliance is no small matter. Since an attack on one member nation is considered an attack on all, an escalation of the Russian-Turk crisis resulting in military action against Turkey by Russia could, conceivably, lead to a WWIII. This is why it's imperative that NATO members be rational actors. As to this, I have a theory about the shoot-down of the Russian...

Syria: As A Bonus It Annoys The Turks December 1, 2015: After initially avoiding ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant) targets in Syria Russia has switched its air power from attacking Syrian rebels doing the most damage to the Syrian government to ISIL. The switch came in early November when Russia realized that it was indeed, as ISIL claimed, a terrorist bomb that brought down an airliner full of Russian tourists over Egypt on October 31st. Then came the ISIL Paris attack on the 13 th and suddenly France and Russia were allies in Syria and going after...