Politics

Syria have accused Turkey of deliberately supporting ISIS by providing covering fire for ISIS militants, and doing business with the terrorist organisation by purchasing illegally smuggled oil.  Political analyst Stuart Rollo told Russian media why he thinks Turkey is continuing to support ISIS in the Middle East. Sputniknews.com reports: “I think Turkey thought they could shape the Syrian conflict in their favor. They thought the Syrian government would fall within a month like it did in Egypt and Tunisia but it didn’t turn out that way.

Submitted by Yonathan Amselem via The Mises Institute,

Progressives are often good people with good intentions. However, modern Progressivism has evolved into something so shapeless and amorphous as to amount to little more than a belief in “things that sound nice.” Mainstream Progressives have done an abysmal job of outlining precisely, in their view, the proper role of government and what (if any) limiting principle(s) apply to the state as a whole.

Everything Is Now a Taxpayer-Funded “Right”

Two weeks ago, we noted - with some amusement - that Ukraine has defaulted to Russia on a $3 billion obligation. To be sure, the move wasn’t unexpected. 

“I have a feeling that they will not pay us back because they are crooks,” Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said previously. 

Here, in a nutshell, is what happened. 

On our way to documenting Turkey’s arrest of two generals and a colonel who dared to stop a weapons-laden MIT truck in route to Syria, we said that “if there’s a silver lining to last Tuesday’s downing of a Russian Su-24 warplane by two Turkish F-16s it’s that the world is now starting to scrutinize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia released budget numbers which showed that the kingdom ran a deficit in 2015 that amounted to some 15% of GDP. 

To be sure, that was far better than feared, but it’s still a disaster and reflects just how much damage Riyadh’s two wars are inflicting on the monarchy’s finances.