Vladimir Putin gave another of his end-of-year press conferences last week-nationally televised events consisting of an always-curious combination of Q&A, opinionating, offhand banter, observations on a wide range of domestic and international affairs, and the Russian president's appraisal of his own record. This was his 13th such outing and weighed in at three hours and 42 minutes. Putin again had some interesting things to say, though one could scarcely glean this from Western press reports, and certainly not from the US media. Beelzebub is never deserving of serious attention.

Russians I respect have sometimes told me that, while some features of Putin's domestic performance merit criticism, on the foreign-policy side their support is more or less shoulder-to-shoulder with Putin. I view the distinction as important; it seems to go some way to explaining Putin's standing in opinion polls, which hovers consistently above 80 percent. He had plenty to say last Thursday on Russian politics, the economy, the domestic opposition, and other such matters. I will leave those questions aside as the business of Russians: It is when Putin speaks on global affairs that it is everyone's business.

Here are four topics Putin addressed last Thursday that are worth thinking about. I draw from a pared-down list:

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has targeted a Hamas military facility in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the area, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

"In response to the rocket fired towards Israel earlier this evening, an IAF aircraft targeted a military compound belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas in southern Gaza. The IDF holds Hamas accountable for events in Gaza," the IDF said on its Twitter page.

Donald Trump has issued a strongly worded tweet warning Iran that "the US is watching" following the deaths of 20 people in anti-government protests that are sweeping the country.

Writing on Twitter, the US president also criticized the Iran Deal, an agreement struck by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in which sanctions were lifted against the Islamic Republic in exchange for a guarantee not to pursue the development of a nuclear weapon.


Trump's latest tweet follows a series of other missives over the New-Year period in which he labelled Iran the "Number One State of Sponsored Terror." He also condemned the restriction of mobile access to social-media platforms like Instagram and Telegram.




Meanwhile, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry has hit back at the US president, saying that Trump should focus on his own country rather than tweet about civil unrest abroad.

A German MP from the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Beatrix von Storch, has had her social media accounts blocked over a tweet targeting Muslims. She also faces a criminal probe under a new German law.

The outburst that landed Von Storch in hot water was a reaction to a post on Twitter from Cologne police. The department offered New Year greetings and linked safety information in a series of messages in German and other languages, but it was the post made in Arabic that prompted the MP's outrage.

"What the hell is going on in this country? How come an official NRW [North Rhine-Westphalia] police account tweets in Arabic? Do you intend to appease these barbaric gang-raping hordes of Muslim men in such a way?" von Storch, who is also a deputy head of the AfD faction in the German parliament and a member of the far-right party's federal executive board, wrote on Twitter.

The Israeli PM has advocated regime change in Iran, saying that if the Tehran government collapses, Israelis and Iranians will be "great friends." He then ridiculed Iran's claim that foreign players were behind recent protests.

Benjamin Netanyahu was responding to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had earlier suggested that Israel was involved in the recent unrest.

"When this regime [the Iranian government] finally falls, and one day it will, Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again," the PM said in a video statement Monday afternoon. In the 90-second-long video Netanyahu praised the protesters who have rallied since Thursday, saying that they "seek freedom and justice."

The Israeli parliament has passed a law requiring a two-thirds majority in any future vote to cede parts of Jerusalem to a foreign authority. The change from requiring a simple majority makes a two-state solution less likely.

Under the new legislation, Israel's 120-seat Knesset would have to cast 80 votes in favor of relinquishing any part of Jerusalem, rather than the 61 required before by default. The bill, which was proposed last summer by the far-right Jewish Home coalition party, was passed by a majority of 64 to 52, according to the Times of Israel.

The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded to the passage of the law with a statement, which said that Israeli lawmakers had de facto declared a war against Palestinians and Islam's holy sites in Jerusalem's old city.

A new Declaration of Independence for 2018

Now that 2017 has ended with a whimper it is possible to look forward to what the new year might bring. Nuclear armed North Korea is the potential flash point for a new war, but unless leader Kim Jong-un is actually intent on personal and national suicide, it is unlikely that Pyongyang will take the steps necessary to escalate and trigger such an event. Far more dangerous is the Trump White House, which seems to confuse acting tough with acting smart. Every time Secretary of State Rex Tillerson mentions negotiating he is contradicted by Nikki Haley or the president saying that diplomacy has played out, but the reality is that the incineration of the Korean peninsula and the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions, which such a war would inevitably produce, might just be a bridge too far even for the generals and assorted psychopaths that appear to be running the show. Which means that at a certain point the diplomats, perhaps in an arrangement brokered by Russia or China, will have to take over. Let us hope so anyway.

And the United States has also shot itself in the foot regarding Russia, an adversary with which Donald Trump once upon a time wanted to improve relations. But that was all before a politically driven Russiagate happened, turning Moscow into the enemy of choice once again, as it once was during the Cold War. In any event dealmaker Trump did not appreciate that you can't improve relations when you threaten a vital interest of those you are wanting to improve relations with. The United States and its allies persist in running military exercises right on Russia's borders under the false assumption that President Vladimir Putin heads an expansionist power. The recent decision to sell offensive weapons to Ukraine is a move that serves no American interest whatsoever while at the same time threatening Moscow's vital interests since Ukraine sits right on its doorstep. It is a bad move that guarantees that relations with Russia will continue to be in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future.

The Empire of Chaos threatened to throw the world into an unfathomable darkness. Instead, an Axis of Resistance has arisen
The New American Century project was supposed to extend the original American century (the 20th) by thwarting Eurasian integration (including Africa) and maintaining US hegemony. Rather than sit back as economic development transforms vast swathes of Asia and Africa, anglo-American imperialists wrecked country after country and used the chaos produced to justify their sales pitch of the world being one big war zone that must be 'managed' by the world's policeman. Nice work if you can get it.

But this modus operandi has suffered a heavy defeat. Islamic State (IS) - a geopolitical chess piece of the US - lies in ruins two years after the Russian intervention in Syria and the world's bully is walking around with a black eye. 16 years after 9/11 unleashed the imperialist reign of terror, Vladimir Putin has made the first decisive move to halt it. The US and its proxy forces can no longer terrorize the world with impunity.

President Bashar Assad has appointed new ministers for defense, information and industry in the latest cabinet reshuffle, as the Syrian war enters its seventh year.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has appointed General Ali Abdullah Ayyoub as defense minister, Mohammed Mazen Ali Yousef as industry minister and Imad Abullah Sarah as information minister, state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.

This is the latest cabinet reshuffle in Syria, where the lingering war on terrorism entered its seventh year.

According to reports circulating widely in Israeli media today, the United States has quietly given Israel the green light to assassinate Iran's top military officer, Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The leader of Iran's most elite force also coordinates military activity between the Islamic Republic and Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah, and Hamas - a position he's filled since 1998 - and as Quds Force commander reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, and oversees Iran's covert operations in foreign countries.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have vowed to crack harshly down on protests currently gripping multiple major cities across the country, now in their fifth day, and after a particularly bloody night which saw 12 demonstrators killed - some of them reportedly shot by security forces.