War

From the time AKP lost its absolute majority in parliament in June of last year, Turkey has been a hotbed for violence.

A suicide bomber killed more than two dozen people in Suruc the month after the elections, setting the stage for six months of turmoil including a deadly blast in Ankara that left more than 100 dead in October. Some have suggested the Erdogan regime staged the attacks in an effort to show Turks why a “strong” AKP government is necessary to keep the "peace".

A tongue-in-cheek report issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that Russian officials are “praising” U.S. President Barack Obama for his development of a “miracle bomb” after the U.S.

There’s a lot wrong with Roger Cohen’s complaint about the “limits of American realism,” but these statements stood out as the most obvious errors he made:

There is little doubt that President Vladimir Putin would today have overrun at least one of the Baltic countries, absent their NATO membership.

Putin has created havoc precisely in the no man’s lands — Georgia and Ukraine — rather than in the NATO lands.

On Saturday, some 1,700 people turned out for a PEGIDA rally in Cologne, where demonstrators protested Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migrant policy in the wake of the sexual assaults that occurred on New Year’s Eve in the city center.

Ultimately, riot police were called in to disperse the crowds who held signs calling for the expulsion of “Rapefugees” and the ouster of Merkel.

Just moments ago, unidentified gunmen stormed a mall in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing 10 and taking some 75 hostages. 

Although no one immediately took credit for the assault, the most likely culprit is of course ISIS, which is struggling to hold onto key territory in the country in the face of a resurgent Iraqi military and persistent attacks from Iran's Shiite militias.