As EU leaders met with the Turkish PM to finalize a €3 billion ($3.18bn) deal on easing the Syrian refugee crisis, his Greek counterpart criticized Turkey’s “mercurial” pilots for airspace violations that cost billions but in no way help to tackle people-smuggling through borders on the ground. Alexis Tsipras took to Twitter to point out that it was ironic that while having billions of [...]

The first time a NATO member has downed a Russian plane in a half-century. Turkey has shot down a Russia jet, and the two pilots were reportedly killed. What will be the fallout of this, coming at this sensitive time on the war on Syria? In this edition of the debate, we’ll discuss what possible motives Turkey would have by this act, and how this would impact the Vienna talks held over Syria [...]

The downing of the Russian Su-24 by Turkish fighter jets and NATO's reaction to the incident have demonstrated clearly the misuse and misquotation of international law by apologists for the US and its allies, Australian-based Barrister at Law James O'Neill stresses. [...]

While Britain's Prince Charles has recently blamed the Syrian crisis on global climate change, the ongoing strife prompts many questions; what lies at the root of the Syrian war and what information was contained in secret dossiers which Putin handed Western leaders at the G20, political analyst Phil Butler asks. [...]

President Barack Obama – always sensitive to neocon criticism that he’s “weak” – continues to edge the world closer to a nuclear confrontation with Russia as he talks tough and tolerates more provocations against Moscow, now including Turkey’s intentional shoot-down of a Russian warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border. [...]

A Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot after Turkey downed Russian jet on Tuesday appeared to be Turkish ultranationalist and a son of former mayor in one of Turkish provinces. Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey’s Elazig province. [...]

The NATO aggression against Russia, which was expressed in the form of an attack on the Russian Su-24 bomber, could not occur without the approval of the alliance’s senior management, noted Christopher Black, an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. “The murder of one of the pilots, shot by ISIS [ISIL] terrorists while parachuting to the ground, is a war crime for which Turkey and [...]

Turkey's aggressive strike on the Russian Su-24 has clearly demonstrated the impotent rage of those who planned to redraw the map of the Middle East, British political writer and journalist Dan Glazebrook emphasizes. Syria appears to be a hard nut to crack for the "regime change camp," British political writer and journalist Dan Glazebrook notes, adding that Turkey's shooting down of the Russia [...]

Make no mistake, US author Stephen Lendman stresses, by downing Russia's Su-24 aircraft Turkey committed a clear act of war against a nonthreatening nation. By striking Russia's Su-24 Turkey has obviously committed an act of aggression against Russia; however, it is highly naive to believe that President Erdogan acted alone, unilaterally deciding to attack the Russian plane, US author and syndi [...]

Terrorism index shows nine-fold increase since 2000. In 2014, the number of lives lost to terrorism around the world increased by 80 percent, the highest level ever. The majority of such terrorist activity occurred in the largest refugee-producing nations, a Global Terrorism Index (GTI) showed. The GTI, developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), comprehensively studies the patterns [...]

It all started with French President Francois Hollande, after the Paris attacks, having the temerity to advance the idea of France working together with Russia in the same coalition against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip “no excuse” Erdogan thought NATO and Russia by this time would be at each other’s – Cold War 2.0 – nuclear throats, while Washington had bru [...]

Doctors Without Borders is challenging the Pentagon over the findings of internal probes into the bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz on October 3, saying the military's conclusions offer "more questions than answers" and that claims of "human error" simply don't correspond to the available facts. [...]

RT reporter Roman Kosarev, who was recently caught in shelling in Syria, says the atrocities he has seen at hotspots such as Syria and Eastern Ukraine have at times rendered him speechless, but this is also where unprecedented compassion can be found. We live in scary times. War, death, destruction, tears, hunger, refugees, indifference, carelessness, the glorification of the heinous and vulgar [...]

After 14 years, trillions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of people dead – with violence expanding, not abating – perhaps it’s finally time to admit that the Bush-Obama “War on Terror” has been lost and that a new strategy addressing root causes is required, as Nat Parry describes. [...]

Turkey appears to have deliberately shot down a Russian warplane as a provocation designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, a ploy that seems to have sucked in President Obama as he tries to look tough against Russia to appease his neocon critics, writes Robert Parry. President Barack Obama – always sensitive to neocon criticism that he’s “weak” – continues to edge the wo [...]

Turkey has been consistent in pursuing its own agenda: to pretend to be fighting ISIS while settling scores with one of the two parties that are actually capable of fighting ISIS on the ground – the Kurds, says Foreign Affairs Editor Srdja Trifkovic. As a Russian Su-24 fighter jet operating over Syria was shot down, RT discussed with experts the reasons and possible consequences of this incid [...]

Turkey has taken responsibility for shooting down a Russian fighter jet near the border with neighboring Syria on Tuesday, as both Moscow and Ankara put forth conflicting narratives about what led to the incident which has sparked an emergency meeting of NATO allies and strong rebuke from Russian President Vladimir Putin. [...]

A Russian warplane has gone down near the Turkish-Syrian border after an apparent attack. Turkish and Russian sources have given conflicting reports about the incident, which has the potential to escalate the tension between Russia and NATO member Turkey.   [...]

'Another destructive bombing campaign is no solution whatsoever,' anti-war campaigners warn. 'It risks intensifying and widening what is already a catastrophic war.' As British Prime Minister David Cameron declared from Paris on Monday his desire to escalate the UK's military campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) in both Iraq and Syria, campaigners are looking to Jeremy Corbyn to see whethe [...]

These days the media are overflowing with comments and analyses of last Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. One particular angle is consistently ignored – or banished: religion. This is a curious omission since the terrorists themselves issue statements that indicate that religion is their motivation. [...]

US policy in Syria should shift from ousting President Bashar Assad to siding with other powers who share a common interest in fighting ISIS, former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in an interview with CNN. Combating Islamic State (former ISIS/ISIL) is not about making an alliance with Moscow, former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told CNN's Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” [...]

Britain has once again been forced to call in foreign help after it says it spotted a Russian submarine off the west coast of Scotland. Despite the presence of French and Canadian patrol planes and Royal Navy ships, no trace of the sub has been found. The alleged Russian vessel is believed to have been seen at least 10 days ago in the area, and the search to find the sub has been taking place e [...]