Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is believed to be capable of going to great lengths to maintain his grip on power, which could lead to his ultimate downfall, expert on Central Asia Henry Kamens wrote for New Eastern Outlook. [...]

Sputnik is a major new media brand with modern multimedia centers in dozens of countries. Sputnik is uniquely positioned as a provider of alternative news content and as a radio broadcaster. Offering a fuller picture of the world with a truly diverse range of views, Sputnik tells the untold. [...]

Digital rights groups are sounding the alarm after sources reportedly confirmed on Monday that the controversial cyber-surveillance bill formerly known as CISA has been slipped into the "must-pass" omnibus spending bill that Congress is expected to vote on later this week. [...]

Sweden reached a deal Sunday that will allow authorities to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living under asylum for the past three years. Assange's legal team said the deal will allow the case to move forward while ensuring his safety. [...]

It is a shameful episode in the US history and the bottom line, said Ray McGovern, former CIA officer. If you want to encourage people to become terrorists, there is no better place to do it than in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, he added. British resident Shaker Aamer was held at Guantanamo Bay for almost 14 years, and has spoken to the media for the first time since his release in October. [...]

Greece has signed its first major privatization deal granting control of over a dozen regional airports to a German company. The agreement is part of international creditors’ demands to privatize state assets to secure €86 billion in bailout funds for Athens. The €1.23 billion contract gives a 40-year lease to the Frankfurt airport operator Fraport. [...]

'The Big Short' exposes and attempts to deconstruct the subprime mortgage collapse and disaster of 2008. Wait until Hollywood hears about derivatives! 'The Big Short' opens nationwide on December 23 and as Variety notes, it details the “sprawling account of the byzantine financial instruments that brought global commerce to its knees.” [...]

Amid the nation’s terrorism fears, President Barack Obama's approval rating has plummeted to nearly a record low. It now stands at 43 percent, as seven in 10 Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a recent poll. [...]

US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Russia at the request of the White House, with ending the Syrian conflict and countering terrorism dominating the agenda. The top US diplomat is also to hold a meeting with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. [...]

Hillary Clinton has extended her lead in the race for the White House, beating Bernie Sanders in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll by 30 points in the battle for Democrat contender. But it's her email account that's making headlines here in the UK. Specifically, emails from George W. Bush's secretary of state Colin Powell ahead of Britain joining the American war on Iraq. [...]

As the war in Syria and Iraq drags on, and violence in Afghanistan continues, the War on Terror seems to be lost. Will the US rethink its strategy? Will Washington have enough courage to admit mistakes and learn lessons? Will other countries - including Russia and Iran - be able to overcome their differences and unite in the face of terror? We ask CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer [...]

Robert Baer just made an incredibly important admission that for me comes way too late, but still it’s good to know. The former CIA officer admits he was given millions of dollars which he used successfully to bribe politicians in Yugoslavia to betray their country’s interest. Robert Baer describes how the US brought democracy to Yugoslavia by destroying it. [...]

Turkey’s two neighbors and historical adversaries Greece and Bulgaria have witnessed sporadic protests denouncing Ankara’s remorseless in the shooting down of the Russian Su-24 plane, as well as NATO warmongering in general. Several dozen [...]

The FSB, SVR and GRU in Russia, while drawing all the right connections, cannot help but conclude that Washington is letting Cold War 2.0 escalate to the boiling point. Imagine Russian intel surveying the geopolitical chessboard. A Russian passenger jet is bombed by an affiliate of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. [...]

Patrick Schmidt was unemployed and living in California when he bought an old school bus for $4,500 in March. He drove it to Vegas where he and his father renovated it into a home on wheels. They spent $9,000 to turn the bus into a house, before Patrick took it for a spin all the way to Florida, traveling through 30 states. [...]

The Ukrainian economy is set to contract 12 percent this year, while inflation is forecast to reach 50.8 percent, according to the World Bank. The main reasons for the slowing economy and rising inflation are the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine and a fall in trade with Russia. [...]

Turkey’s president has blamed the downing of the Russian Sukhoi bomber on the pilots, who were “negligent and did not heed the warnings,” adding the incident should not affect strategic relations between the two nations. “We wouldn’t have wanted to come across such a [situation], but looking from another perspective, a mistake has been made in our sovereign area. [...]

As the leader of the international coalition against Islamic State, the US failed to ensure the implementation by its Turkish allies of the Syria air safety agreement, which was signed between Moscow and Washington, the Russian Foreign Ministry says. [...]

Ankara and Washington contravened the UN resolution on financing terrorism by failing to inform the Security Council about Islamic State illegally trafficking stolen oil, Russia’s UN envoy has said. “We’ve got serious complaints about [...]