First of all, how involved is the Turkish government in all of this? There is no way in the world that an endless parade of trucks carrying ISIS oil could have marched through Turkish border checkpoints without the cooperation of the central government. Secondly, what did Obama know and when did he know it? The US military has far better surveillance capabilities than the Russians do, and so it seems absolutely absurd to suggest that Obama didn’t know what was going on.

As an American, I am utterly embarrassed that our “leaders” would continue to try to deny what Turkey is doing after everything that has come out. By flat out lying to the world, we are losing any credibility that we had left. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stolen oil has been smuggled into Turkey, and our government still has the audacity to try to tell us not to look behind the curtain?

No wonder why most people over in Iraq are convinced that the US is actually on the same side as ISIS. They don’t trust anything that we have to say anymore.

‘The Teflon Chancellor’? ‘Mummy Merkel’? Germany’s very own Iron Lady: the most powerful woman in the world? The unflappable leader who steered the European Union back to calmer waters, while keeping her own economy strong? What on earth is going on? Just a few months ago, it seemed Angela Merkel could do no wrong. She was the cherished Chancellor – in the top job since 2005 and beloved back home in Germany, while seemingly bossing around the boked of the European Union on an international stage. But, suddenly, her shine is beginning to tarnish.

You don’t have to look hard to find the reason why. Mrs Merkel’s decision to throw Germany’s doors open to refugees was the political equivalent of betting all your chips on red. It was always going to be a risky and potentially divisive move. The German Chancellor is known for her cool, calm political calculation and strategy. Her policy on refugees, however, didn't seem to come from the head but the heart.

Mrs Merkel has so far refused to back-down from her policy or impose a limit on the number of asylum seekers the country will take. Some 950,000 are believed to have entered Germany this year – considerably more than the official government forecast of 800,000. The numbers, inevitably, will keep growing. In November alone a record 192,827 asylum seekers crossed into the country, according to border police figures.

But it’s important to emphasise that it’s not all disaster for the German Chancellor. There’s no obvious challenger waiting in the wings, and her party is comfortably ahead in the polls. The Christian Democrats are on 38 per cent compared to their nearest rival, the Social Democrats, on 25 per cent. So she’s safe… for now. But if this year of crisis has taught us anything, it’s that politics is a volatile and fickle business.

Most European states believe that Greece has badly mishandled its responsibilities on border control, and following refusal to accept wider European help in tackling the crisis, the EU is now threatening Greece with expulsion from Schengen. Such action would essentially divorce Greece from the main body of the EU. As with Britain, which is not a member of Schengen, border controls would have to be established to patrol passage from Greece to the rest of the EU.

The EU is able to threaten expulsion because Greece is reluctant to accept limited offers of help, including humanitarian aid and a special mission from Frontex, Europe’s hopelessly inadequate version of a federal borders agency. This refusal is not because Greece believes it needs no aid; it is because it thinks the offer grossly deficient. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

Exactly the same thing happened over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Limited relief was offered by the EU, but on terms and conditions which Greece found unacceptable. In the end, it was forced to capitulate, the alternative being expulsion from the Euro, which even Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, found unconscionable. That will very likely be the outcome of the Schengen fiasco too.

Internal power struggles and the desire to emerge as the leading Arab power threaten to make the key Western ally a source of instability, according to the BND intelligence service. “The current cautious diplomatic stance of senior members of the Saudi royal family will be replaced by an impulsive intervention policy,” a BND memo widely distributed to the German press reads.

The memo focuses particularly on the role of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old son of King Salman who was recently appointed deputy crown prince and defence minister. The concentration of so much power in Prince Mohammed’s hands “harbours a latent risk that in seeking to establish himself in the line of succession in his father’s lifetime, he may overreach,” the memo notes.

“Relations with friendly and above all allied countries in the region could be overstretched.” Prince Mohammed is believed to have played a key role in Saudi Arabia’s decision to intervene in the civil war in Yemen earlier this year. Both he and King Salman want Saudi Arabia to be seen as “the leader of the Arab world” and are trying to extend its foreign policy “with a strong military component and new regional alliances,” the BND analysts write.

Prince Mohammed is believed to want to succeed his father as king, but he is currently second in line to the throne, behind the 80-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, King Salman’s nephew. Analysts at the Royal Bank of Canada recently described the jockeying for position inside the extensive royal family as “Saudi Arabia’s Game of Thrones”.

Accusing Britain and the West of "supporting terrorists", the hated Syrian dictator - who stands accused of using barrel bombs and chemical weapons on his own people - urged the US-led coalition to stop striking targets in Syria. He also revealed Russia's bombing was only going to get "stronger", telling Czech TV that there was now "no way back" for Vladimir Putin and his warplanes.

And he blasted Turkey over the downing of a Russian jet, saying the Turkish president had "lost his nerve". Assad said: "Since the beginning of that (US-led) coalition, if you want to talk about facts, not opinion, since the beginning of that coalition, ISIS (Islamic State group) has expanded and the recruiting from around the world has increased.

"While since the participation of Russia in the same fight, so-called against terrorism, ISIS has been shrinking. And al-Nusra of course and the other terrorist groups. So this is reality. The facts are telling. The war against terrorism is continuing. The Russian support or participation is going to be stronger. It is stronger anyway. There is no way back in that regard."

In addition, a frigate will escort the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle while German satellite data will be delivered to the partners. The mandate for the mission came at the request of France, which wants to win partners for the fight against the IS terrorists after the attacks in Paris.

The Bundestag still must approve the mandate to post a maximum of 1,200 soldiers, which shall apply for a period of one year, beginning January 1. If passed on Friday, as expected, the first two Tornados and a tanker could be flown to Turkey next week, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

America’s anti-Assad ally, Qatar, the chief financiers of the Muslim Brotherhood, negotiated with the neutralist Lebanese government, to swap the 26 imprisoned Al Qaeda jihadists for 16 Lebanese soldiers who had been captured by Al Qaeda in Lebanon. Lebanese and Syrian Al Qaeda are called Al Nusra. Al Nusra had captured these soldiers in Lebanon this past summer.

Lebanon will get its 16 soldiers back, and Al Qaeda (Al Nusra) will get its 26 fighters back, including the former wife of ISIS’s founder, Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. London’s Daily Mail headlined about her on 21 February 2015, “Scheming Bride of ISIS they all idolise: Mesmerising tale of wife of terror chief who inspires girls to join bloody ranks.” So, she’s free again, to rejoin the US-led forces.

The scientists concluded that nearly 33 percent of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost at a speed surpassing nature’s ability to replace diminished soil. “Soil is lost rapidly but replaced over millennia and this represents one of the greatest global threats for agriculture,” said Duncan Cameron, professor of Plant and Soil Biology at the University of Sheffield, as quoted by Phys.org. He added that “erosion rates from ploughed field’s average 10-100 times greater than rates of soil formation.”

The erosion of soil has mostly occurred due to a loss of structure caused by the continuous disturbances of crop planting and harvesting. If soil is repeatedly turned over, it is exposed to oxygen and its carbon is released into the atmosphere – a combination which results in the soil failing to bind as effectively. As a result, the soil’s ability to store water decreases, which negatively impacts its ability to effectively act as a buffer to floods and a healthy base for plants. Deforestation has also been dubbed detrimental to soil health.

The researchers, who spoke at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change on Wednesday, described the loss as “catastrophic,” adding that major changes to agricultural practices must be made.

Perhaps among Obama's advisors there are a few who are not drowning in hubris and can understand this sea change. Sputnik news reports that some high-level security advisors to Obama have advised him to withdraw US military forces from Syria and give up his plan to overthrow Assad. They advised Obama to cooperate with Russia in order to stop the refugee flow that is overwhelming Washington's vassals in Europe. The influx of unwanted peoples is making Europeans aware of the high cost of enabling US foreign policy. Advisors have told Obama that the idiocy of the neoconservatives' policies threaten Washington's empire in Europe.

Several commentators, such as Mike Whitney and Stephen Lendman, have concluded, correctly, that there is nothing that Washington can do about Russian actions against the Islamic State. The neoconservatives' plan for a UN no-fly zone over Syria in order to push out the Russians is a pipedream. No such resolution will come out of the UN. Indeed, the Russians have already established a de facto no-fly zone.

Putin, without issuing any verbal threats or engaging in any name-calling, has decisively shifted the power balance, and the world knows it.

Washington's response consists of name-calling, bluster and more lies, some of which is echoed by some of Washington's ever more doubtful vassals. The only effect is to demonstrate Washington's impotence. If Obama has any sense, he will dismiss from his government the neoconservative morons who have squandered Washington's power, and he will focus instead on holding on to Europe by working with Russia to destroy, rather than to sponsor, the terrorism in the Middle East that is overwhelming Europe with refugees.

If Obama cannot admit a mistake, the United States will continue to lose credibility and prestige around the world.

“Since last weekend, migrants going to the hospitals must be accompanied by police with K-9 units. Many migrants have AIDS, syphilis, open TB, and many exotic diseases that we, in Europe, do not know how to treat them. For now, the local hospital staff has not come down with the diseases they brought here, but, with so many hundreds of patients every day — this is just a question of time.”

In one shocking incident a medic also claimed how migrants stabbed the doctors who tried to save a tiny eight-month-old baby which had been “dragged across half of Europe for three months.” She said: “The child died in two days, despite having received top care at one of the best pediatric clinics in Germany. The physician had to undergo surgery and two nurses are laid up in the ICU. Nobody has been punished. The local press is forbidden to write about it, so we know about it through email.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced during a news conference that he had asked Garry McCarthy, police superintendent since May 2011, to resign. The mayor also said he was creating a new police accountability task force. The white officer, Jason Van Dyke, was charged a week ago with first-degree murder in the killing of Laquan McDonald. The video, from a patrol car's dashboard camera, was released on the same day.

High-profile killings of black men at the hands of mainly white law enforcement officials in US cities have fueled demonstrations for some two years, stoking a national debate on race relations and police tactics. Emanuel, a Democrat and former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, said he was responsible for what happened in the case, the same as the police superintendent. He said the creation of the task force was meant to rebuild trust in the police department of one of the country's largest cities.

At the suggestion of his economic chief, Cardinal George Pell, Francis has set up a “Working-Party for the Economic Future” which brings together the Secretariat of State, or prime minister’s office, the Vatican Bank and other agencies. Francis has told the panel “to address the financial challenges and identify how more resources can be devoted to the many good works of the Church, especially supporting the poor and vulnerable,” Danny Casey, director of Pell’s office at the Secretariat for the Economy, said in an interview.

The pope’s initiatives come as five people stand trial in the Vatican over the leak of confidential documents in two books published last month that described corruption, mismanagement and wasteful spending by church officials. Those on trial deny wrongdoing.

Francis, 78, has pushed for more openness and transparency in Vatican financial and economic agencies but he has faced resistance from the Rome bureaucracy.

It’s the latest sign of the major change in sentiment sweeping across Scandinavia’s biggest economy as the Sweden Democrats - a party with neo-Nazi roots - forces itself into the mainstream of Swedish politics. It became the country’s third-biggest party in last year’s election and managed to block the government’s first budget, forcing it to form a pact with the core opposition parties in an effort to prevent the Sweden Democrats from disrupting lawmaking.

The government is tightening rules for family re-unifications and enforcing border controls. While the measures have had some effect, Loefven said the inflow of asylum seekers is still unsustainable and has urged other EU countries to do more. As many as 190,000 asylum seekers are expected to arrive in Sweden this year alone, a development that is overwhelming authorities in a country of 10 million where housing shortages are already an issue.

Held three weeks after the Paris attacks that left 130 people dead, the referendum was originally scheduled to take place in 2016 but was moved up so it wouldn't interfere with the campaign for Britain's EU referendum, due to be held before 2017. A majority of left- and right-wing parties in the Danish parliament approved the principle of a referendum in December 2014, despite the opposition of the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP).

The party, which emerged as the country's second-biggest in June legislative elections, has held significant sway over Danish politics for more than a dozen years, providing right-wing minority governments with support to pass legislation in parliament in exchange for its tighter immigration policies. "More EU? No thanks," read the DPP's campaign posters.