Control at external European Union borders will be strengthened for all nationals, including those who benefit from the freedom of movement, EU officials announced on Friday, following an extraordinary meeting in Brussels. Internal border checks can be enhanced "at request."

"Strengthening the control at external [EU] borders is indispensable for the protection of European citizens, especially in the light of the recent terrorist attacks," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told journalists in Brussels, where European ministers responsible for justice, home affairs and security met to discuss immediate measures to fight terrorism.

​In this edition of 'The Debate' on Press TV, Sott.net editor Joe Quinn was interviewed alongside Michael Lane, president of the Washington-based American Institute for Foreign Policy, to debate the blow-back of Western support for the militants fighting against the Syrian government.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused Russia on Friday of launching airstrikes on a Syrian Turkmen settlement in northern Syria, and called on Moscow to concentrate on destroying the Islamic State militant group.

Earlier in the day, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said it had issued a note of protest with Moscow's ambassador to Ankara over Russian anti-terrorist airstrikes in Syria. The note, obtained by RIA Novosti, cited an alleged Russian Aerospace Forces strike on a Syrian Turkmen settlement in northern Syria.

"The Russian planes participate in strikes on the Turkmen villages. This is why I requested that the foreign minister summon the Russian ambassador to inform him of this and take necessary measures. The Russian ambassador was told that if the Russian Aerospace Forces are fighting IS, their actions must be directed against the IS," Davutoglu told reporters.

As it has been reported, the leaders of the International Union of Muslim Scholars drafted an open letter, stating that they "share a positive attitude towards the Russian Federation, which supports the Arabs and Muslims today." Moreover, the letter states that if any decision is to be made in relation to the Russian Federation, those making the decision must first consult Russia's Islamic theologians. The letter is truly unique, in fact, it says that the International Union of Muslim Scholars supports the actions of the Russian authorities in Syria. If there is at least a couple of sincere words in this letter, that means a lot, especially if one is to remember that the headquarters of this organization are located in Doha - the capital of Qatar, a Wahhabi state. Moreover, the letter states that the fate of Bashar al-Assad should be decided by the Syrian people themselves.

It would be an understatement to say that it's an unusual step, since this International Union is one of the most influential and authoritative Muslim organization in the world that brings together Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and even Ibadi Muslim, that are generally residing in Oman. There's at least 90 thousands of prominent Muslim scholars to be found in the ranks of this Union, including more than 40 of the most authoritative Russian theologians - those are muftis and rectors of the Islamic institutions of the North Caucasus and Volga regions. So, it's a truly influential organization.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is using the terrorist attacks in Paris to ramp up tensions in pursuit of Israel's geostrategic interests.

"Israel stands shoulder to shoulder with France in the battle against radical Islam," he declared in the aftermath of Friday's killings. "All terrorism must be condemned and fought equally with unwavering determination. It's only with this moral clarity that the forces of civilization will defeat the savagery of terrorism."

On Tuesday, Israel outlawed the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which it accused of fomenting violence by stating that Israel intends to take control of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Netanyahu's office issued a statement declaring: "For years, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement has led a mendacious campaign of incitement under the heading 'Al-Aqsa is in danger' that falsely accuses Israel of intending to harm the Al-Aqsa mosque and violate the status quo." The statement went on to claim that this agitation was responsible for "a significant portion of recent terrorist attacks."


The government said the banned movement was committed to Israel's destruction for the purpose of establishing an Islamic "caliphate." Police closed 17 organizations affiliated with the movement, raided more than a dozen of its offices, and froze the group's bank accounts.

Israel also approved the construction of hundreds of new homes in the Ramat Shlomo Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

With the mainstream media, at least the majority that is left of center, flooded with story after story touting Obamacare's success, the news coming this morning from Denver that Colorado's largest nonprofit health insurer and participant in that state's insurance exchange Colorado HealthOP is abruptly shutting down, forcing 80,000 Coloradans to find a new insurer for 2016, was a slap in the face for the Obama administration's crowning achievement.

According to AP, the health insurer announced Friday that the state Division of Insurance has de-certified it as an eligible insurance company. That's because the cooperative relied on federal support, and federal authorities announced last month they wouldn't be able to pay most of what they owed in a program designed to help health insurance co-ops get established.

Wait, wasn't the whole point behind Obamacare to subsidize health insurance for everyone, and especially the poor? Or was the whole point of the "Affordable" Care Act merely to herd as many Americans into the clutches of the few for-profits, after the non-profit cooperatives finally read the fine print and realized they have no chance of being profitable under the new regime?

The plot thickens: in a statement announcing its closure Friday, Colorado HealthOP said it was "well on its way" to repaying some $72.3 million it has borrowed from the federal fund. The co-op reported a net loss of $23 million last year. In other words, the company burned through some $23 million in taxpayer funds and it didn't even get a lousy shirt to show for it.

Ironically, on the company's website, we read the following about the Co-Op's business model:

if our revenues exceed our costs, the surplus will be reinvested to directly benefit members—through lower premiums, expanded benefits, or quality improvements.

Well, no risk of that ever happening now. What the insurer failed to point out is that if costs exceed its revenues, it will be promptly liquidated and massive corporations will be the sole beneficiaries.

The Mainstream Media is doing all it can to avoid addressing the obvious: naming, dissecting and damning ISIS's major backers and supporters. There are no such informative and sanguine reports being penned or published by the elite media; they are instead too busy gatecrashing the funerals of the fallen, wiping errant tears and taking selfies.

As usual, wilted pathos and not sound reason is what's being fed to the public after yet another horrific series of terrorist attacks.

But in this advanced age of the internet and its perpetually widening information highway, this will simply not do. Consumers of news on terrorism - which is practically most of humanity - would greatly benefit from learning the identities of the wizards behind the ISIS curtain. The MSM is not providing this vital service - this therefore leaves the burden of mass dissemination on the thin shoulders of private citizens and their blogs.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Israel, America, France and the UK. The Unmagnificent Seven.

This is the duplicitous, mass-murdering mafia that is in fact behind the rise and hectic spread of ISIS and its Takfiri Hydras. Every single terrorist act committed by ISIS terrorists was made possible by the dark generosity and political perversions of the Unmagnificent Seven. None of these conspiratorial nations are fighting terrorism, as they claim. They are instead willfully and covertly creating terrorism to advantage their mega global power grabs - and in the case of our government, using our tax dollars to do so, no less. In other words, we are today unknowingly paying for our own eventual slaughter by terrorists.

What do the globalists do when they want to create, reignite and keep their war on terror fought indefinitely? They simply carry out a series of false flag attacks using Muslim terrorist stooges as their hired guns to do their damage. That's what 9/11 was all about in the US, 7/7 in UK, the 3/11 train attack in Spain, the Hebdo Paris attack last January, and now this latest Paris encore reenactment part two. In any unsolved crime the first question asked is who benefits by motive with an actual means to execute the crime? In all of these tragic false flag events the global elite benefits in multiple ways. And it most definitely has the means by issuing marching orders to its owned and operated national governments, of course its favorite being the militaristic, brutal American Empire. The elite's agenda to polarize and destabilize the world politically and militarily manifests through the US foreign policy of regime change, nonstop war through divide and conquer methodology (i.e., Shiites vs. Sunnis, Euro-nationals vs. foreign migrants, Christians vs. Muslims, light skins vs. dark skins, West vs. East) and economic austerity through unpayable high interest predatory IMF bank loans to debtor nations from both the developing and developed world alike. Through this global theft and destruction, the ruling elite reigns supreme in absolute power.

U.S. media can not agree with itself if Russia is giving ISIS an airforce or if Russia pounds ISIS with the biggest bomber raid in decades. Such confusion occurs when propaganda fantasies collide with the observable reality.

To bridge such divide requires some fudging.

So when the U.S. claims to act against the finances of the Islamic State while not doing much, the U.S Public Broadcasting Service has to use footage of Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State while reporting claimed U.S. airstrike successes.

The U.S. recently claimed to have hit Islamic State oil tankers in Syria. This only after Putin embarrassed Obama at the G-20 meeting in Turkey. Putin showed satellite pictures of ridiculously long tanker lines waiting for days and weeks to load oil from the Islamic State without any U.S. interference.

The U.S. then claimed to have hit 116 oil tankers while the Russian air force claims to have hit 500. But there is an important difference between these claims. The Russians provided videos showing how their airstrikes hit at least two different very large oil tanker assembly areas with hundreds of tankers in each. They also provided video of several hits on oil storage sites and refinery infrastructure.

I have found no video of U.S. hits on Islamic State oil tanker assemblies.

Remember those old ads showing a senior couple lounging on a warm beach, captioned "Let your money work for you"? Or the scene in Mary Poppins where young Michael is being advised to put his tuppence in the bank, so that it can compound into "all manner of private enterprise," including "bonds, chattels, dividends, shares, shipyards, amalgamations . . . "?

That may still work if you're a Wall Street banker, but if you're an ordinary saver with your money in the bank, you may soon be paying the bank to hold your funds rather than the reverse.

Four European central banks - the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank, Sweden's Riksbank, and Denmark's Nationalbank - have now imposed negative interest rates on the reserves they hold for commercial banks; and discussion has turned to whether it's time to pass those costs on to consumers. The Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve are still at ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy), but several Fed officials have also begun calling for NIRP (negative rates).

The stated justification for this move is to stimulate "demand" by forcing consumers to withdraw their money and go shopping with it. When an economy is struggling, it is standard practice for a central bank to cut interest rates, making saving less attractive. This is supposed to boost spending and kick-start an economic recovery.

That is the theory, but central banks have already pushed the prime rate to zero, and still their economies are languishing. To the uninitiated observer, that means the theory is wrong and needs to be scrapped. But not to our intrepid central bankers, who are now experimenting with pushing rates below zero.

Locking the Door to Bank Runs: the Cashless Society

The problem with imposing negative interest on savers, as explained in the UK Telegraph, is that "there's a limit, what economists called the 'zero lower bound'. Cut rates too deeply, and savers would end up facing negative returns. In that case, this could encourage people to take their savings out of the bank and hoard them in cash. This could slow, rather than boost, the economy."