Free Republic

A Russian destroyer had to open warning fire as a Turkish fishing vessel sailed on a collision course towards them and didn't respond to calls from the warship, the Russian Defense Ministry reported. Following the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Turkish military attaché about "the possible harmful consequences of the reckless actions by Ankara against the Russian military contingent, involved in tackling international terrorism in Syria." "Deep concerns were voiced over another provocative action by the Turkish side against the Russian patrol ship Smetlivy in the Aegean Sea, which forced them to open warning fire...in order to avoid...

While U.S. policymakers worry about the propaganda techniques of ISIS in drawing thousands of Islamists into the fight against the West, America's adversaries in the Arab/Muslim world as a whole, as well as Russia and China, continue to make inroads into the U.S. media market. Indeed, on Thursday in Moscow, the premier Russian propaganda channel, RT (Russia Today), is holding a conference marking its 10th anniversary as an outlet for Kremlin propaganda.

That sounds more dramatic than it actually was. Turkey sent around 150 soldiers and two dozens tanks to Bashiqa, just northeast of Mosul in what Ankara described as an effort to replace an existing contingent of around 90 troops that have supposedly been on a "training" mission with the Peshmerga for the better part of two years. As we documented over the weekend, this is hardly the first time the Turks have entered the country. However, the circumstances are quite different this time around. That is, this isn't a anti-terror mission aimed at tracking the PKK. Over the weekend, we...

The Turkish opposition has given the country's leader a cold shower, telling President Erdogan to heat his palace with dung instead of gas after he stated that Turkish people are used to suffering and can do without Russian supplies.

Russia's Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", had this to say: "We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation" by Turkey. But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to...

Unlike Soviet propaganda, Russia’s information warfare does not crudely promote the Kremlin’s agenda. Instead it is calibrated to confuse, befuddle and distract. In the words of Peter Pomeranzev and Michael Weiss, modern Russia has weaponized information, turning the media into an arm of state power projection. Their nihilistic approach is best summed up by the motto of the Kremlin's premier TV arm, RT (formerly Russia Today): “Question more.” Russian disinformation does not aim to provide answers, but to provoke doubt, disagreement and, ultimately, paralysis.

WASHINGTON — Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who helped found the English-language news service Russia Today, has been found dead in an upscale Washington hotel room. The Russian Embassy in Washington on Friday confirmed the death of Lesin, whose body was discovered Thursday. Russia Today reported on its website that Lesin, 57, died of a heart attack. Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Officer Sean Hickman said that officers were called to the Dupont Circle Hotel about 11:30 a.m. Thursday and found a man dead. Russian Embassy spokesman Yury Melnik confirmed that the man was Lesin. Russia...

A prominent Russian millionaire with high-level ties to the Kremlin has been found dead inside a Washington hotel, a Russian official and a senior U.S. official told ABC News. Mikhail Lesin, the former head of media affairs for the Russian government who's been accused of curtailing the country’s press freedoms, had been staying at Hotel Dupont when he was found Thursday, according to officials. It's unclear why the long-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Washington, but the Metropolitan Police Department is now investigating his death. On Thursday, U.S. authorities notified the Russian embassy in Washington that one...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,What you are about to see is more evidence that the growth of poverty in the United States is wildly out of control.  It turns out that there is a tremendous amount of suffering in “the wealthiest nation on the planet”, and it is getting worse with each passing year.  During this election season, politicians of all stripes are running around telling all of us how great we are, but is that really true? As you will see below, poverty is reaching unprecedented levels in this country, and the middle class is...

Germany now is somewhere at the edge of anarchy and sliding towards civil war, or to become a "banana republic without any government," says Hansjoerg Mueller of the Alternative for Germany party. Bavarian official Peter Dreier called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to tell her personally that if Germany welcomes a million refugees, his town of Landshut will only take in around 1,800. Any extra will be put on buses and sent to her Chancellery in Berlin. RT: He says he's going to send them to Berlin, but does he have the power? Hansjoerg Mueller: The person who wants to send...

There is a potential black swan event taking place in Turkey on Sunday and no one seems to care. That is, the media isn’t devoting nearly enough coverage to Turkish elections considering the impact the outcome will invariably have on the situation in Syria, on the fate of the lira, and on the Pentagons strategy with regard to embedding spec ops with the YPG. As a reminder, Turkey held elections back in June and the outcome did not please President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. AKP lost its absolute majority in parliament thanks in no small part to a relatively strong showing...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-31/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-russian-airplane-crash

One point we’ve been particularly keen on driving home since the beginning of Russian airstrikes in Syria is that The Kremlin’s move to step in on behalf of Bashar al-Assad along with Vladimir Putin’s open “invitation” to Washington with regard to joining forces in the fight against terrorism effectively let the cat out of the proverbial bag. That is, it simply wasn’t possible for the US to explain why the Pentagon refused to partner with the Russians without admitting that i) the government views Assad, Russia, and Iran as a greater threat than ISIS, and ii) Washington and its regional...

Red Cross personnel on the ground in Syria have not reported any 'airstrikes' allegedly delivered by Russian jets on civilian targets including hospitals, the medical charity’s top executive told RT. Since Moscow started its air campaign in Syria on September 30, Western media have been publishing reports that Russian jets are targeting civilians. Last week, Russia was accused of bombing a number of hospitals in Syria, an allegation flatly denied by the Russian Defense Ministry. Dominik Stillhart, director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has people on the ground in Syria, told RT he is...

I am wearing my asbestos underwear for this one.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a new target in the revived cold war with Washington — the U.S. dollar. The website Russia Today* reported Tuesday that Mr. Putin has drafted a bill to block the use of both the American greenback and the euro in trade between the bloc of countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, including Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The measure “would help expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade payments and financial services and thus create preconditions for greater liquidity of domestic currency markets,” the Kremlin said in a...

Germany’s plan to phase out nuclear energy and switch to renewables by 2022 is unrealistic as the country is doomed to remain dependent on fossil fuels like oil and gas for the next 70 years, energy expert Matthias Dornfeldt told RT. Renewables can’t replace fossil fuels overnight because there’s not enough infrastructure, said Dornfeldt in an interview with RT. He believes the 21st century will be the century of gas, as the 20th century was the century of oil. “We are going to be dependent on oil as well as on gas, as I see, for the next 50, 60,...

At least 43 people were killed and more than 40 injured in three car-bomb attacks in Baghdad, Iraqi medical sources said Saturday. The three attacks took place in Shia neighborhoods, the sources said.

RT Spanish started broadcasting in Argentina on Thursday, which makes it the first foreign TV channel on national television in the Latin America country. It will be available for over 80% of the country’s 42 mln population. A joint initiative of the two countries was made possible by the presidents of Russia and Argentina, Vladimir Putin and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who inaugurated the 24/7 broadcast during a video conference. President Putin said he was sure that “the launch of a Spanish-language Russian channel in Argentina will make Russia much more understandable and will promote the further rapprochement between the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Kremlin-backed Russia Today news network has rolled out a provocative ad campaign that takes a sharp poke at U.S. media and the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The pitch is aimed at convincing Americans of the merits of Russia Today - or RT - as an alternate news source to U.S. networks. Featuring a stylized image of former U.S Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations, one ad reads: "This is what happens when there is no second opinion. Iraq War: No WMDs. 141, 802 civilian deaths." The campaign includes two other...