CNN on 12 November reported Obama administration is suddenly focused on removing Assad as the core of its anti-ISIS strategy, once again submitting to Turkey and Arab Gulf states that enabled ISIS to begin with, and are actually contributing very little to the anti-ISIS efforts to be dictating such orders to Washington.

Moreover, these demands are harmful to US security interests - redefining US anti-ISIS mission to one of anti-Assad mission - and thereby potentially drawing in Eurasian powers of China, Russia and Iran into open military conflict against the US.

Presently the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis is actually tacitly supporting the US-led coalition, and Assad is allowing US use of its airspace to strike ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups.


Now, Ankara, Riyadh and Doha's obsession on removing Assad and hoping to replace him with a proxy Islamist regime is throwing a monkey wrench into coalition efforts. With Islamist strongholds spanning from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Egypt, this risks turning the Eastern Mediterranean into an Islamic Lake, a threat shared by Israel as well as EU members Cyprus and Greece.

This is also a threat to US' Noble Energy, Italy's ENI, Korea's KOGAS, Russia's Gazprom, and other stakeholders such as Jordan, Egypt, and Asian consumers interested in the newly discovered natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As such, removing Assad for a probable Islamist replacement that will also persecute the Christian, Kurdish, Druze and Alawite communities in Syria; escalate the conflict by drawing in two nuclear powers of China and Russia; harm development of hydrocarbons in the Levantine Basin and further regional instability, is not in US or EU's security interest.

And it is definitely not in China's interest.

Islamic State militants have beheaded US aid worker Peter Kassig even though he converted to Islam, a video posted on social media shows.

Kassig, 26, was captured on October 1, 2013, by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants on his way to the city of Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria.

After conversion during captivity, Kassig took the name Abdul-Rahman.


The footage reportedly shows Jihadi John murdering Kassig. This comes despite earlier reports that the extremist, who has executed other UK and US hostages, was wounded in an airstrike on a top-level extremists' meeting in Iraq last week.

The video showing Kassig's death is part of 15 minutes of footage, which depicts IS militants beheading several other men. The victims have been identified as officers serving under the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In the video the extremists deliver warnings to the US, UK and other countries.

Islamic State militants first showed him in the video of the beheading of UK aid worker Alan Henning, who shared a prison cell with Kassig. After Jihadi John, an IS executioner with a London accent, killed Henning, he also threatened Kassig would be next.

Video claiming to show a Syrian boy rescuing a girl amid heavy gunfire lauded as heroic chronicle of resistance now revealed as 100% fraud - filmed in Malta. Just one of many lies perpetuated by Western media.

Fox, the London Telegraph, and the Daily Mail all published articles promoting a video claiming to show a Syrian boy rescuing a young girl amid heavy gunfire during Syria's ongoing conflict.

Did the election last week really mean that much? I took to my Twitter account on Tuesday to point out that the change in control of the Senate from Democrat to Republican actually means very little, despite efforts by politicians and the mainstream media to convince us otherwise. Yes, power shifted, I wrote. But the philosophy on Capitol Hill changed very little. The warfare/welfare state is still alive and well in Washington.

Some were critical of my comment that, "Republican control of the Senate equals expanded neo-con wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming!" But unfortunately my fears were confirmed even sooner than I thought. Shortly after the vote, President Obama announced that he would double the number of US troops on the ground in Iraq and request another $5.6 billion to fight his war in the Middle East.

The President also said on Wednesday that he would seek a new authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Syria. He said that a new authorization was needed to reflect, "not just our strategy over the next two or three months, but our strategy going forward." That sounds like boots on the ground in an endless war.

Several European governments believe Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is flouting EU values by drifting into the Kremlin's orbit but are unsure how to respond.

At a time when most EU states are isolating Moscow and turning their thoughts to stiffer sanctions as Ukraine's ceasefire crumbles, Orban has alarmed many of his peers by establishing closer ties with Russia.

Orban, 51, has said the EU "shot itself in the foot" by imposing sanctions on Russia; he signed a deal with Moscow to build a nuclear power plant; he stopped shipping gas to Ukraine and he wants to accelerate work on the Russian-backed South Stream pipeline that Brussels opposes.

"We do not want the sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU to be undermined," Gunther Krichbaum, Christian Democrat President of the European Affairs Committee of the German lower house of parliament, told Reuters.

Wasn't this [Australian] government all about stopping boats?
How exciting was it last night when the news came through that Russian warships were steaming towards Australia!

Clearly our Prime Minister's hardline approach to making hollow threats had awoken a sleeping giant, right? What hell hath this shirtfronting wrought!

Social media exploded with Red Scare terrors worthy of the Cold War, and as recently as this afternoon a certain other news outlet was still declaring that "A convoy of heavily armed Russian war ships, including at least one high powered missile cruiser, are cruising international waters to Australia's north, Defence has confirmed."

But before you start rushing for the fallout shelters ahead of Red Dawn Down Under, it's worth pointing out a couple of teensy-tiny things.

One is that the "convoy of heavily armed Russian war ships" is actually a destroyer, a cruiser, a supply ship and a tug: armed, yes, but not exactly an invasion fleet.

Secondly, the reason they're going past is twofold: the cruiser and destroyer are doing live-fire drills in the South China Sea, and the other two ships were berthed in Jakarta as part of the Indonesian Defence Expo. Indonesia, you might recall, is to our north.

Thirdly, they're transiting through international waters and Australia's defence forces were alerted of their passage and have been monitoring 'em. It's not like they've just appeared over the horizon.

The trade war between the EU and Russia is hurting business all over Europe. And while political gains from the standoff are debatable, business losses are as real as it gets. As the sanctions escalate tensions, bringing about the smell of war, entrepreneurs are piling pressure on their governments to stop the stand-off before it's too late. Antonio Fallico, an Italian banker with extensive experience of doing business in Russia, shares the white-collar view on the economic conflict.

Has Russia reached the limit of its diplomatic tolerance of the US and its NATO allies? The announcement this week that Moscow is to begin deploying long-range bombers in the Gulf of Mexico - America's own backyard - suggests so.

The move may seem like a reckless ratcheting up of tensions between the old Cold War rivals. The Tupolev Russian strategic bombers in question are nuclear-capable, and as expected the decision to patrol the Caribbean seas sparked a stern response from Washington, warning Moscow of risks.

But the first point to note is that Russia is not doing anything illegal. It has a legal right to fly its warplanes in any international airspace it chooses, as do all nations, to perform training maneuvers.

Even Washington officials have begrudgingly acknowledged Russia's legal right to do so. The Christian Science Monitor quoted Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren as saying, "Russia has a right to fly in international airspace".

However, we can be sure that the hawks in Washington will be fuming at what they see as Vladimir Putin's "audacity" to order warplanes within striking distance of the US. For the de facto American War Party of Republicans and Democrats, the latest Russian move confirms their accusations that President Putin is trying to flex "Soviet-era muscles". Or, as American NATO commander General Philip Breedlove put it, Russia "is messaging us that they are a great power".

Media reports on Saturday claimed that Russian President Putin was planning to spurn the G20 leaders breakfast on Sunday and leave the farcical psychopathic love-in early. Within a few hours however, a Kremlin spokesman denied that Putin had any such plans. If the idea of an early exit did happen to cross the mind of the Russian president, it would be entirely understandable. From the moment Putin arrived in Australia, most of the G20 leaders have acted like the discourteous, arrogant, obnoxious quislings of empire they are.

While in Washington they stubbornly pretend that the United States is merely fighting against international terrorism manifested in ISIL in Syria and Iraq, in reality the White House is actively preparing for an operation to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. The other day President Obama ordered the shipment to Iraq of 1,500 US troops to train the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces for armed confrontation with the forces of the "Islamic State" (IS). The first 50 soldiers have already arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan.

But then the question arises - are American soldiers arriving for the fight in Iraq or to prepare a base for the invasion of Syria? Especially when you consider that a week ago the Peshmerga of the Iraqi Kurdish leader M. Barzani went through Turkey to the Syrian city of Kobani, clashing with the forces of the IS on Syrian soil. But Barzani is known to be an ally of Washington on which he has placed his bet in creating an independent Kurdish state in Iraq, and possibly Syrian Kurdistan. Thus, Ankara finally allowed Kurdish groups to pass through its territory, on the firm insistence of Washington. At the same time a permanent overland logistics route was worked out for Kurdish militia through Turkish territory.

And another important point is the recently shifting centre of gravity of the confrontation with the IS to the Syrian vector. The fight against IS troops in Iraq has entered a sluggish phase. With the active participation of the United States, Ankara and Riyadh have maximally equipped a segment of the armed Syrian opposition at the expense of "repainted" Islamists from the pro-Saudi "Dzhabhat en-Nusra" and the remnants of the Syrian Free Army fighters (SFA). At the same time the possibility of air support to these units by the Turkish and Saudi Air Forces is under serious consideration. They are already regularly making reconnaissance flights over Syrian territory.