The decision to commit military personnel and hardware is a shift for Germany, which has resisted such direct involvement in the conflict. It still has no plans to join France, the United States and Russia in conducting air strikes in Syria. "Today the government took difficult but important and necessary decisions," Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters after meeting with lawmakers. "We are standing with France, which was hit by these inhuman attacks from IS."

Chancellor Angela Merkel promised the support, which must still be approved by parliament, during talks with French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Wednesday. Berlin expects to commit four to six Tornado jets, provide satellite support, refueling planes and a frigate to help protect the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which the French navy has sent to the eastern Mediterranean to support air strikes in both Syria and Iraq.

But as Pope Francis begins his first trip to Africa on Wednesday, he will also face a powerful and assertive Roman Catholic Church in Africa that is wary of calls to make the institution more welcoming to people who are divorced, gay or cohabiting without being married.

“Yes, we are more conservative,” said Bishop Renatus Leonard Nkwande, of the Tanzanian diocese of Bunda. The African bloc’s role, he said, is “to defend the teaching of the church, the teaching of the book.” Both Africa and Francis himself, the first pope from Latin America, symbolize the importance of the southern hemisphere to the future of the Catholic Church worldwide.

According to the publication, the son of Turkish President, Bilal Erdogan, is associated with terrorists and ISIS' control of oil flow in the country. It is a fact that Russian aircraft launched massive strikes on the oil fields of the terrorists, causing Turkish authorities to use its last straw. The umbrella of the Turkish authorities with the terrorists is of a cooperative nature, many experts constantly say. In mass media there were photos published of the heir to the Turkish leader posing next to the leaders of the "Islamic state".

Turkey deliberately interferes with the conduct of Russian military operations in Syria, because ISIS terrorists were transporting, to Turkey, cheap oil, and the Russian planes are destroying columns of trucks, — says military expert, Director of the Center for Strategic Conjuncture Ivan Konovalov. Recall that the RF ATT bombers struck a powerful airstrike on the oil fields of ISIS terrorists. For two days, Russian aircraft bombed the oil farms, the refineries, and several columns of trucks.

"Hello Barbie is a terrible toy that threatens children's privacy…" said Josh Golin, CCFC's executive director. “We must stop Mattel and ToyTalk from spying on children's private play and spawning a whole host of eavesdropping imitators." Google's patent describes toys that are equipped with microphones, speakers, cameras and a Wi-Fi connection.

These 'toys' are always on, listening for a trigger word. The toys use a trigger word which causes them to wake up and turn their gaze towards the person addressing them, they also check if the person talking is making eye contact. The patent adds, that making the device look "cute" should encourage even the youngest members of a family to interact with it. "Young children might find these forms to be attractive," it says.

Hello Barbie is equipped with speech recognition and archives every session, which 'parents' (not law enforcement wink, wink) can access to spy on their kid's conversations. "Hello Barbie includes enabling speech recognition (so we can provide meaningful responses to what you and your children say) and archiving play sessions of children for their parents to access."

Hello Barbie's audio recordings are shared with third party vendors… "Hello Barbie may share certain transcripts of recordings with Mattel, which will be used solely for the purpose of enabling Mattel to assist us in improving the scripting of Hello Barbie. We share audio recordings with third party vendors who assist us with speech recognition…" How long before DHS/Police use these ‘toys’ to spy on EVERY family?

The single currency cannot survive if the free movement of people granted by the passport-free travel zone ends, the president of the European Commission said, in the starkest warning yet. Mr Juncker could only watch this summer after state after state reintroduced border controls in a desperate attempt to halt the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants. The Paris terrorist attacks led France to announce indefinite border checks.

"We have to safeguard the spirit behind Schengen,” Mr Juncker told the European Parliament. “Yes, the Schengen system is partially comatose. But those who believe in Europe, its values, its principles and its freedoms, must try to breathe new life into the spirit behind Schengen.

"If the spirit leaves our hearts, we will lose more than Schengen. A single currency does not exist if Schengen fails. It is not a neutral concept. It is not banal. It is one of the pillars of the construction of Europe."

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, issued an ultimatum on Wednesday to EU leaders to embrace Mr Juncker’s troubled migrant relocation scheme or see the collapse of free movement. Mrs Merkel drove the policy to relocate 160,000 people around the EU against the heads of eastern European states. Two months on, the project has flopped. Member states have offered just 3,000 places and 159 people have been moved.

Bild newspaper has published the testimony of a paramedic who saw an explosive device in an ambulance before the Germany vs Netherlands game which was cancelled on Tuesday night after French intelligence tipped off German authorities about an impending attack involving three bombs to be detonated at the stadium and another two at a bus stop and a train station.

Authorities later claimed that no explosives were found, but the paramedic says he witnessed the bomb and was “told not to talk about it” after special forces arrived on the scene. Three police officers have also reportedly been disciplined for leaking information about the alleged discovery of the bombs. German authorities may have decided to conceal the fact that the explosives were found in order to prevent panic amongst the fans who had gathered around the stadium before the match.

However, given that German police have been caught covering up rapes and other crimes involving migrants flooding into the country via the wave of refugees in order to not legitimize critics of the migrant influx, could the decision to cover-up the discovery of the bombs have been made under a similar justification?

Conservative Merkel faces splits in her right-left coalition and pressure from EU states, including France, over her insistence that Germany can cope with up to 1 million migrants this year and that Europe must accept quotas to take them in.

In a 40-minute speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament, Merkel said the security threat level in Germany was high but insisted that people must carry on with normal life. "The strongest response to terrorists is to carry on living our lives and our values as we have until now - self-confident and free, considerate and engaged," she said to loud applause.

Popular support for Merkel, who this week marked a decade in power, and her conservative party has waned in the last three months due to the influx of migrants.

"Over these past months we have been encouraging the parties to take affirmative steps to reduce tensions and demonstrate a genuine commitment to a two state solution. I think we may be reaching a pivotal point now where both sides have important decisions to make for the future and we obviously hope that they make choices that will advance the prospects for lasting peace."

Kerry met with both Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday in Jerusalem and Ramallah to urge both to take steps to calm tensions after a spate of unrest. But he left without a concrete breakthrough and said he would continue to press both leaders on the issue in coming weeks.

"There is a clear link between the protection of nature and the building of a just and equitable social order." Francis has taken on a vocal role in the fight against climate change, injecting a moral voice into a debate usually dominated by economic and political concerns.

His remarks come on the eve of a United Nations climate conference in Paris which will gather more than 145 world leaders for a 12-day summit aimed at securing a climate rescue pact. The 78-year-old pontiff said environmental concerns should be at the forefront of "responsible" economic development.

One OPM letter was provided to WND by an individual who had the following records compromised:

• Social Security number

• Address

• Date and place of birth

• Residency

• Education history

• Employment history

• Personal foreign travel history

• Information about immediate family

• Information about business and personal acquaintances

• Fingerprints

• Other information used to conduct a background investigation

And, as WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah wrote in his Monday column, when Congress finally got around to investigating the massive cyberbreach, officials from OPM, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security all refused to testify. “It’s almost as shocking as the administration’s negligence in permitting the cyber-attack in the first place,” Farah wrote. “It’s a cover-up, plain and simple. It’s stonewalling on a scale that puts Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to shame.”

A third reason is that, assuming Turkey’s claim of a 17 second airspace violation is true, 17 seconds is not long enough for a Turkish pilot to get clearance for such a serious and reckless act as shooting down a Russian military aircraft. If the SU-24 was flying at a normal speed rather than one that would be unable to keep the aircraft aloft, the alleged airspace violation would not have been long enough to be noticed. A shootdown had to have been pre-arranged. The Turks, knowing that the Russians were foolishly trusting to the agreement that there be no air to air encounters, told pilots to look for an opportunity.

Turkey’s explanation to the UN Security Council gives itself away as a lie. The letter states: “This morning (24 November) 2 SU-24 planes, the nationality of which are unknown have approached Turkish national airspace. The planes in question have been warned 10 times during a period of 5 minutes via ‘Emergency’ channel and asked to change their headings south immediately.”

As SU-24 are Russian aircraft, as Turkey is able to identify that the aircraft are SU-24s, how then can the nationality of the aircraft be unknown? Would Turkey risk shooting down a US or Israeli aircraft by firing at an unknown aircraft? If the SU-24 takes 17 seconds to fly 1.15 miles, the SU-24s would have only traveled 20.29 miles in five minutes. Does anyone believe that a supersonic aircraft can fly at stall speed for 17 seconds, much less for five minutes?

Do not expect any truth from any Western government or from any Western media. Governments and media know that the Western populations are uneducated, unaware, and can be relied upon to accept any preposterous story. In the West the Matrix has a firm grip. The Russians need to wake up to this fact.

Speaking for the first time since the incident yesterday, Mr Murakhtin said he knew the region like the back of his hand and "couldn't possibly have flown into Turkish airspace". Mr Murakhtin was rescued early on Wednesday by Russian and Syrian commandos and was speaking in televised comments from the Russian Hemeimeem air base in Syria.

Mr Murakhtin, who was at the controls, said Turkey did not give any visual or radio signal before the jet was shot at an altitude of 6,000, he told Russia's Rossiya 1 channel. Mr Murakhtin added that he wants to keep flying missions from the base "to pay them back for my commander".

"There were no warnings, either by radio or visually. There was no contact whatsoever," TASS quoted Murakhtin as saying at a hospital in the Syrian province of Latakia, where Russia has an airbase. "If they wanted to warn us, they could have shown themselves by taking a parallel course. There was nothing. And the missile hit the tail of our aircraft suddenly; we did not see it in time to do an anti-missile manoeuvre."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday called on Amazon.com Inc to remove "irresponsible and offensive" subway advertisements for a new television show featuring Nazi-inspired imagery. The advertisements for "The Man in the High Castle" completely wrap the seats, walls and ceilings of one train on the heavily utilised shuttle line that connects Times Square and Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

The show depicts an alternate reality in which Nazi Germany and Japan have divided control over the United States after winning the Second World War. The advertisements include a version of the American flag with a German eagle and iron cross in place of the stars, as well as a stylized flag inspired by imperial Japan.

"While these ads technically may be within MTA guidelines, they're irresponsible and offensive to World War Two and Holocaust survivors, their families, and countless other New Yorkers," said de Blasio, referring to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway system. "Amazon should take them down."

Amazon representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Obama convened his National Security Council on Tuesday to discuss the recent string of attacks by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), which claims it has created a caliphate taking in huge swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Washington and Paris have stepped up their fight against IS, with France launching its first strikes from a newly deployed aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean and the United States calling for more international cooperation against the group. Underlining heightened global fears of attacks after violent extremists killed scores in Mali, Lebanon, Nigeria and Turkey in recent weeks, the US government issued a worldwide travel alert warning American citizens of 'increased terrorist threats.'

But Obama 'was briefed that there is currently no specific, credible threat to the homeland from ISIL,' the White House said in a statement.