Russia has admitted making a mistake after its warplanes violated Turkey's airspace. Ankara has accepted the matter, saying there is no ill feeling between the two countries. But NATO called a meeting on Monday to discuss the "latest developments."


The incident, which occurred on Saturday, saw Turkey scramble two F-16 jets after a Russian military aircraft crossed into Turkish airspace near the Syrian border.

Ankara also claimed that a MiG-29 fighter jet, which is used by both Russia and Syria, harassed two of its F-16's on Sunday by locking radar on to them, as they patrolled the Turkish-Syrian border.

"Our position is very clear, we'll warn any country that violates our borders in a friendly way. Russia is our friend and neighbor. There is no tension between Turkey and Russia in this sense. The issue of Syria is not a Turkish-Russian crisis," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told HaberTurk TV, as cited by the Hurriyet Daily, following diplomatic communications between Ankara and Moscow.

"What we have received from Russia this morning is that this was a mistake and that they respect Turkey's borders and this will not happen again," Davutoglu added.

The Central African Republic is teetering on the brink of catastrophe, with millions of people cut off from vital humanitarian aid amid a renewal of deadly sectarian clashes. What is scarcely being reported, however, is that the murky involvement of American special forces could tip the country into all-out civil war.

In the past week, dozens of civilians have been killed in clashes between Christian and Muslim militias in the Central African Republic's capital, Bangui. The latest round of violence was sparked after a Muslim taxi driver was attacked and decapitated by machete-wielding gangs. That in turn led to reprisals against Christian communities.

UN humanitarian aid chief Stephen O'Brien warned that the country was on the brink of disaster with more than 40,000 people having fled the capital in recent days. In total, some 2.7 million people - half the country's population - are at risk of being cut-off from the humanitarian aid upon which they depend for survival. The worsening sectarian strife is simply making it too dangerous for relief agencies to operate.

Potentially adding fuel to this crisis is the disclosure last week that US Special Forces are liaising with one of the militia sides in the Central African Republic (CAR). The group the US forces have struck up a liaison with are known as the Seleka rebels, whose members are mainly Muslim.

For the past two years, the Seleka have engaged in a low-intensity war with the rival Christian "anti-Balaka" faction in a power struggle for control of the country. The CAR is rich in gold, diamonds, timber and uranium. The landlocked state has a landmass equivalent to that of its former colonial ruler France, yet a population less than 10 percent of France's. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, the country has witnessed five coup d'états, some with French covert involvement.

The US' Pivot to Asia (P2A) is obviously aimed against China, and Washington's ultimate plan has always been to assemble a coalition of countries that can contain the global supergiant. As the Pivot enters into its fourth year soon, the contours of the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) are beginning to take shape, and it's become evident that it's going to be centered on the Philippines. The island chain's geopolitical connectivity potential can easily be harnessed to link together the CCC's various players, and it's also subservient enough to the US to the degree that it has ignored the exceptionally dangerous consequences of potentially hosting multilateral forward operating bases against China.

As apocalyptic as the US' end game scenario may be for regional multipolarity, it's not at all assured to succeed, as there are quite a few contingencies that could develop between all of its assorted partners in preventing them from linking up in the Philippines and actualizing the Asian NATO. The article is thus divided into two parts; the first one describes the forecasted composition of the Asian NATO and explains the bilateral relationships that make it possible, while the second one investigates the multitude of factors that could impede its formation and/or lead to its eventual unravelling.

The Asian NATO

Prior to commencing the study, one must first understand exactly what is meant by the "Asian NATO". The author explored the genesis of this concept in his earlier work on how The US Is Juggling Chaos And Coordination To Contain China, and it boils down to formalizing the CCC in order to simultaneously split ASEAN between anti-Chinese states (like the Philippines) and those that behave pragmatically towards it (like Cambodia), and create a formalized mechanism for the US to coordinate further anti-Chinese moves in the region. The Philippines are the logical staging ground for this endeavor owing to its de-facto mutual defense guarantee with the US and the overlapping strategic partnerships that it has with Japan and soon Vietnam (which are its first and second respectively, not counting the 'special relationship' with its former American colonizer).

Leaders of the US and the UK have recently slammed Russian airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, claiming they only make things worse. These allegations are "totally unacceptable," MP from the Left Party in Germany Wolfgang Gehrcke told RT.Trends Russian anti-terror op in Syria.

"Just for once I'd like to hear the US president say: 'Yes, we've made a mistake,' and expiate enmity. What I get to hear instead is insults and allegations addressed at Russia, and this is totally unacceptable."

Israeli fighter jets have launched airstrikes on an area in the central Gaza Strip while another Palestinian is shot to death by Israeli troops.

The early Monday attacks, which hit two sites belonging to the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, were carried out after rockets were allegedly fired from the enclave towards an uninhabited area in southern Israel.

There has been no word on the possible casualties and damage inflicted by those strikes.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian youth during clashes in the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

According to doctors and police sources, Huzeifa Othman Suleiman, 18, succumbed to his wounds after being transported to a local hospital.

Suleiman is at least the third Palestinian killed by Israeli troops since Saturday, amid simmering tensions between Israel and the Palestinians in the area.

Earlier in the day, Israeli forces fatally shot a young Palestinian, identified as Fadi Samir Mustafa Alloun, near the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Israeli-occupied Old City of al-Quds (Jerusalem), citing he was involved in stabbing of an Israeli illegal settler.

On Saturday, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian claiming he was complicit in the stabbing.

Israel's 50-day military aggression against the Gaza Strip, which started in early July and ended on August 26 last year with a truce that took effect after indirect negotiations in the Egyptian capital Cairo, left nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, dead. Over 11,100 others - including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people - were also wounded.

The UK government has said it intends to change legislation in order to prevent local councils divesting from the arms trade and Israeli human rights abuses.

Announcing the plans, a Conservative spokesperson said that "Labour's Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, alongside Labour-affiliated trade unions, are urging councils to use their procurement and pension policies to punish both Israel and the UK defence industry."

The spokesperson continued: "Hard-left campaigns against British defence companies threaten to harm Britain's £10 billion export trade, destroying British jobs, and hinder joint working with Israel to protect Britain from foreign cyber-attacks and terrorism."

The proposed amendment to legislation will be aimed at stopping councils from incorporating the concerns of human rights campaigners into their pension and procurement policies.

According to Communities and Local Government Secretary Greg Clark, such a step would be a challenge to "the politics of division."

The language used by the Conservatives, including the claim that divesting from companies complicit in Israeli atrocities "poison[s] community relations", mirrors the rhetoric of pro-Israel lobby groups.

Clark added that "divisive policies undermine good community relations, and harm the economic security of families by pushing up council tax." Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock said: "We will...prevent such playground politics undermining our international security."

As soon as Russian air forces began bombing terrorists in Syria, a perfectly timed and thoroughly planned anti-Russian media campaign was launched in the Western media. In those loud and defiant cries to stop bombing "valuable US assets in the region" one can clearly trace the true goals and objectives of Washington and its associates. It is clear that the ultimate goal is to represent Russia as a monster, the ultimate aggressor, for it to replace the American enemy №1 - terrorism in the foreseeable future.

Biased "experts" are already sensing the imminent Russian defeat, predicting that Syria will become "a new Afghanistan" for Russia, but for some reason they keep forgetting about the "American Vietnam." Russian experts at "Voice of America", for instance, are saying that Russian air strikes can serve as a catalyst for global jihad, since extremists can take advantage of Moscow's actions in Syria to recruit new fighters. One can only note that the same jihadists, despite the fact that they are supposedly being bombed by the international coalition led by the United States, for some reason, are not waging jihad against the latter. Apparently, the answer lies in the fact all these terrorists are being paid with American money.

Scores of Islamic State militants have reportedly fled Syria in fear of an upcoming large-scale Syrian Army offensive.

More than three thousand militants from the Islamic State, Jabhat Al-Nusra and Jaish al-Yarmouk jihadist groups have left Syria for Jordan, fearing the forthcoming Syrian Army offensive, Russia's news agency Ria Novosti quoted a military source as saying.

"At least three thousand militants from the Islamic State, the Al-Nusra and the Jaish Al-Yarmouk fled to Jordan. They are afraid of the army's advance on all fronts and the Russian aircraft airstrikes," the source said.

According to the source, the Syrian army on Sunday attacked militants from the Islamic State and the Jabhat Al-Nusra" in the suburbs of the capital Damascus and the provinces of Deir Ezzor and Homs, as well as near the city of Palmyra.

In Deir Ezzor, about 160 militants were reportedly killed during the fighting, while the army's assault on Holms and Palmyra left at least seventeen militants dead.

In a bizarre announcement no doubt designed to coincide with Russia's bombing campaign against ISIS, Israel now claims they suddenly "uncovered" the "first suspected ISIS cell" in Israel well over one year since the ISIS show began, during which time ISIS has remarkably never attacked Israel.

Unfortunately for Israel it's well known throughout the world that not only is Israel one of the primary players behind ISIS but that ISIS will show up anywhere in the world, except Israel. ISIS has not even once attacked Israel as it has with other countries like Iraq and Syria, both which happen to be on Israel's list of countries they (Israel) wanted to break up for the so-called "greater Israel" plans long ago declared.

Despite the fact that Israel is a stone's throw away from where ISIS originated and an attack on Israel would be more efficient, more realistic and much more meaningful from an "ISIS" point of view, no such attack has ever been done. Instead, we've been asked to believe all this time that ISIS would prefer to travel all the way to the United States, thousands of miles across the ocean to attack American cities. This, according to Western mainstream media and politicians, was such a sure thing that many politicians and Middle East "experts" were warning Americans by the end of 2014 of the inevitable ISIS attacks coming soon. Criminal Leon Panetta even boldly came out and stated that ISIS was a "30 year war." The goal back then was to make ISIS seem greater than god. That this god of terrorism refused to attack next door neighbor Israel remained a mystery. But now that Russia is destroying Israel's ISIS with real air attacks posing a threat to Israeli plans in the Middle East we see that this whole ISIS mystery is about to change.

McCrae Kittelman, a 17-year-old student at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, northwestern US, where authorities responded to yet another mass shooting, spoke over the phone to Fox News anchor Shep Smith as he and others hid in a school building adjacent to the crime scene.

Kittelman told Smith that he and others had heard "there are two shooters and only one is in custody," before Smith quickly corrected Kittelman by relaying what the media has been saying - that there was only one shooter and that he was "down."

When Smith asked if they heard shots, Kittelman said that actually nobody heard any shots, and so people think the shooters might have been professionals using silencers.

Watch below, via Fox News and Mediaite...