Politics

A huge explosion has been reported in Ankara close to the Turkish parliament building. At least five people were reportedly killed in the explosion the city’s governor has said and up to a dozen more injured #Explosion hits military dormitory in central #Ankara – Turkish broadcaster NTV — LBCI News English (@LBCI_News_EN) February 17, 2016 According to local media a military dormitory was hit A Turkish police official quoted by the Reuters news agency said the blast was caused by a vehicle exploding. Photos on social media showed large plumes of smoke rising from the area.

With Turkey on the brink of going to war with Russia and, implicitly, Iran, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is looking for an excuse to invade Syria. 

The rebels Turkey and Saudi Arabia back are staging what amounts to a last stand at Aleppo and the Kurdish YPG is moving to cut the Azaz corridor, which would effectively mean that Turkey has no way of resupplying the insurgency.

For the past five days, Ankara has been shelling the YPG in a futile attempt to stop their advance. 

Rod Dreher points to Patrick Ruffini’s tweets on Trump from yesterday, and says this:

Which, I suppose, means a brokered Republican convention. Mayhem. If Trump is denied the nomination, it’s hard to see his people accepting that. It’s hard to see him accepting it.

China may not have troops or planes in Syria but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a part of World War III.

Even as the eyes of the world are now trained squarely on the Mid-East where the Russian and Iranian assault on Aleppo is set to draw the Saudis and the Turks into a ground war, the dispute over a tiny chain of islands in the South China Sea is still simmering.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has suspended the use of a chemical used to kill mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, after doctors voiced concerns that it may be the actual cause of brain defects in newborns. The state government’s move followed reports from the Argentine group Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST) and Brazilian Collective Health Association (Abrasco)  which both suggested that the larvicide, not the Zika virus, was responsible for the alarming spike in microcephaly.