When earlier today we read a report in the Greek Enikonomia, according to which Greek taxpayers would be forced to declare all cash "under the mattress" (including inside) or boxes that contain more than 15,000 euros as well as jewelry and precious stones (including gold) worth over 30,000 euros, starting in 2016, we assumed this has to be some early April fools joke or a mistake.

After all, this would be merely the first step toward full-blown asset confiscation, conducted so many times by insolvent governments throughout history, once the government cracks down on those who made a "mistake" in their asset declaration form or simply refuse to fill such a declaration, thereby making all their assets eligible for government confiscation.

It was not a joke.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved the list of agricultural products, raw materials and foodstuffs of Turkish origin, banned from import to Russia from January 1, 2016.

In addition to the vegetables and fruits already announced by the Russian authorities, the list now includes poultry (frozen parts and byproducts of chickens and turkeys), salt and fresh cloves.

Russia has also put on hold its mixed intergovernmental Russian commission for trade and economic cooperation with Turkey, suspended negotiations on an intergovernmental agreement on trade and investments and on a midterm program for cooperation in the scientific-technological and cultural fields for 2016-2019 and suspended the visa-free regime for all Turkish ordinary passport holders, starting from January 1, 2016.

Around 1,250 trucks carrying Turkish exports have been blocked from entering Russia and are stranded at border posts awaiting clearance, a senior shipping industry representative told Reuters on Monday.

Six days after NATO-member Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in the first known incident of its kind since the Cold War, calls for calm have gone largely unheeded. Ankara refuses to back down and Russia responds with sanctions.

"Russia has not given permission to Turkish trucks for entry or transit passage for the past four days," Fatih Sener, Managing Director of Turkey's International Shippers Association (UND) said in an interview.

Sources at Russian gas giant Gazprom say work on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project might be frozen in response to the recent downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey. Two sources, whose names were not mentioned in the reports, made the announcement on Tuesday amid a current row between Ankara and Moscow, which prompted the latter to impose a series of sanctions on Turkey. Officials in the company have so far made no decision, Gazprom sources said, adding that they are waiting to receive instructions from President Vladimir Putin over the issue.

"We're expecting that the head of state, in all likelihood, could declare a freezing of Turkish Stream, or at least some kind of timeout should be announced," said one source, while the second noted that they hope the Turkish Stream project would be "pushed back by a few years, rather than completely cancelled."

Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev had said before that the Kremlin's sanctions on Turkey could affect Turkish Stream among other projects. The pipeline aims to transit Russian gas, via Turkey, into southeastern Europe as part of Gazprom's efforts to diversify the routes by which it supplies gas to Europe, which is its biggest export market.

Representatives from video sharing website YouTube and parent company Google have met with a high-ranking Israeli official to discuss ways in which "inflammatory material" can be censored on the web.

Tzipi, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Jewish State, met with representatives of Youtube and Google last week to elaborate ways of enhancing cooperation in censoring content that's "inciting violence and terrorism," Middle East Monitor reported.

A joint mechanism of "monitoring and preventing" publications that qualify as inflammatory by Israeli authorities is set to go into effect soon, according to the Hebrew daily Maariv.

A video that seemingly bolsters Russian claims of Turkish government complicity with the Islamic State, highlights the casual relations between the terror group and Turkish officials.

Turkey has been accused of being one of the main benefactors of the ISIS terror group, accused of providing logistics, financing and military hardware. These accusations are particularly startling as Turkey is a member of NATO, a collective security group obligated to go to war if a member state is attacked. It would be a seemingly dangerous proposition to allow a state that basically props up the Islamic State, which then uses the group as a geopolitical weapon, to be in such a strategically important group.

The amateur footage reportedly shows ISIS militants and Turkish border guards holding a relaxed conversation near the Syrian city of Kobane, according to the Daily Mail. The amateur footage, taken near Zarova Hill on the outskirts of Kobane, was uploaded to YouTube on October 28, 2014.

According to the report in the Daily Mail:

It appears to show two heavily armed militants wandering nonchalantly up to the Turkish border fence - displaying shocking bravado as they smile and wave at the camera.

They are met by what appears to be a military vehicle full of security officials who, despite carrying weapons themselves, do little more than break into conversation with the jihadis, who eventually wander off back into Syria while shouting 'Allahu Akbar'...

The clip begins with the two apparent jihadists lighting fires near a group of cars, which are believed to have been abandoned by desperate Kurdish families who fled Kobane in recent weeks when ISIS militants stepped up their attacks on the city.

After appearing to realise they are being filmed from inside Turkey, the pair start walking towards the border fence, stopping only to mockingly wave at the amateur filmmaker.

As they reach the border fence, an armoured military vehicle belonging to Turkish border guards speeds up to meet them. Heavily armed officials jump out the back of the car and - after briefly talking on their radios, simply engage the men in conversation.

At one point the situation appears tense and a border guard scampers towards the militants with his gun briefly raised, but he stops seconds later and also begins talking to the men.

After several minutes chatting, the militants wander off, defiantly raising their index finger to the sky to represent jihadism while chanting 'Allahu Akbar' - a phrase that translates as 'God is the greatest'.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asks -- where's the 9/11 video of Muslims cheering the attacks?

On Morning Joe on Monday, Donald Trump yet again proved that that he can't, he won't, and he don't stop when it comes to asserting that he saw American Muslims celebrating the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

MSNBC contributor Willie Geist asked him if he thought "there's any chance that video you think you saw in Jersey City was the video of people in the West Bank celebrating September 11th," to which a dour Trump replied, "to bring it up again — it's so wonderful you brought it up again — this is why you can't get away from these subjects."

Blaming the media for his own inability to substantiate claims he still stands by might not be the most logical of argumentative avenues to travel, but he's determined. "I saw it on television," he said, "fourteen years ago I saw it on television."

And if you don't want to take his word for it, he noted — yet again — that "I have received hundreds of calls and tweets from people" who also claim to have seen it.

Tony Blair went to war in Iraq despite a report by South African experts with unique knowledge of the country that showed it did not possess weapons of mass destruction, according to a book published on Sunday.

God, Spies and Lies, by South African journalist John Matisonn, describes how then president Thabo Mbeki tried in vain to convince both Blair and President George W Bush that toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003 would be a terrible mistake.

Mbeki's predecessor, Nelson Mandela, also tried to convince the American leader, but was left fuming that "President Bush doesn't know how to think".

The claim was this week supported by Mbeki's office, which confirmed that he pleaded with both leaders to heed the WMD experts and even offered to become their intermediary with Saddam in a bid to maintain peace.

In his latest appearance on PressTV's World News, Sott.net editor Joe Quinn was asked to comment on US President Obama's statements regarding the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 bomber by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet last week. Have a listen to US foreign policy explained in under 3 minutes...

As Islamic State commits atrocities throughout Syria, the militant group continues to make money from human trafficking and sex slavery. RT spoke with three people who managed to flee the violence.

One woman spoke about the brutal acts committed by Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL). "They cut off heads and kidnapped girls and women and took them to Raqqa. What were the slaves guilty of? This is a sin," she told RT.

A man spoke of the hypocrisy surrounding ISIS, recalling that while the group insists that females remain modest, they strip their slaves to make money. "They forced women to be fully covered and never show any part of the body," he said. However, they made their slaves strip in order to sell them. Women are not allowed to show anything. If someone was caught on the streets during prayer, she would be given 100 lashes."

Another man recalled the kidnapping of Christian women and girls, as well as the destruction of churches. "They stole property and destroyed churches. Our Christian sisters were seized. Some of them were taken hostage and held for ransom,"he said.

Sex slavery and human trafficking has been a typical method of raising revenue for ISIS. Earlier this month, the remains of up to 80 enslaved Yazidi women were discovered in Iraq. The women were believed to be between the ages of 40 and 80, leading to speculation that the group was only after younger women.