A few months ago the Western media was filled with ridicule of Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, as it steamed into battle off the Syrian coast.
Barack Obama never had any intention of quietly riding off into the sunset, to respectfully allow President Trump to do the job he rightfully won in November.
Once a Saul Alinsky disciple, always a Saul Alinsky. Once a community organizer, always a community organizer.
Barack Obama is a man who prefers working behind the scenes to further his deadly narcissism. “Lead from behind” is his motto.
The modern Turkish Republic was founded on 23 October 1923.
It was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a man who wanted to break fully from the Ottoman past and forge a new nation-state based on the principles of secularism, modernity, and education that would include a Latin script for the Turkish language.
Perhaps most interestingly, he was also a man who forged a good relationship with Vladimir Lenin of the Soviet Union after centuries of war between Ottoman Turkey and Tsarist Russia.
On Monday, February 8, the human rights organization Amnesty International published a 48-page report accusing the Syrian government of mass executions and tortures in Saydnaya prison. According to the watchdog, between September 2011 and December 2015, an estimated 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed.
Yesterday Friday 10th February 2017 I wrote a brief analysis of the Judgment of the appeal court of the 9th circuit in the case involving US President Trump’s ‘travel ban’ Executive Order.
Whilst the decision of the appeal court of the 9th Circuit went against President Trump yesterday by refusing to reinstate immediately his ‘travel ban’ Executive Order, its Judgment strongly suggests to me that he will eventually get it reinstated.
That President Trump is up against the entrenched hostility of some of the US bureaucracy has been highlighted again by malicious leaks which have been spread in the media about his recent telephone conversation with Russian President Putin.
These leaks claim that Trump checked with his aides during the call the New START arms control treaty – agreed in 2010 between Russia and the Obama administration – the subject of whose renewal Putin is supposed to have touched on.
Russian President Putin – facing accusations from Western leaders of orchestrating a ‘disinformation’ campaign intended to distort outcomes in Western politics – has now intervened in the whole discussion of how contemporary news is reported.
He has done so in the most droll way, highlighting once again his mischievous sense of humour, by sending a facetious message of congratulations to the Italian newspaper La Stampa on the occasion of its 150th anniversary.
Putin’s message reads as follows
The Russians are going into overdrive to contain the diplomatic damage from the Russian air strike that killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded eleven others near Al-Bab in Syria on Thursday.
Russian President Putin immediately telephoned Turkish President Erdogan to offer his condolences, and the Russian and Turkish Chiefs of General Staff have also spoken to each other. Here is the Kremlin’s summary of President Putin’s conversation with President Erdogan
