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Vladimir Putin delivered the Annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. The Address was traditionally delivered at the Kremlin’s St George Hall.

Twenty years after the Imia issue brought Greece and Turkey on the verge of an armed conflict and created the “grey zones in the Aegean Sea”, Ankara claimed again on Wednesday that the Greek islet of the Dodecanesse was “Turkish territory.”

This statement came by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in a written form while he was answering a question of opposition MPs asking about “the status of the islands, islets and rocks in the Aegean.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Thursday said „I pay homage to Italian leadership“ in tackling crises in the Mediterranean, speaking at the Med 2016 conference in Rome.

Am 1. Dezember hält der Präsident der Russischen Föderation, Wladimir Putin, seine traditionelle und jährlich stattfindende Ansprache vor der Föderalen Versammlung. Traditionell wird er die Lage im Staat erläutern und die Schwerpunkte der russischen Innen- und Außenpolitik zusammenfassen. Der Pressesprecher des russischen Staatschefs, Dmitri Peskow, hat angekündigt, dass es „vom Inhalt her eine besondere Rede“ sein wird. RT Deutsch überträgt die Ansprache aus dem Georgssaal des Moskauer Kremls mit deutscher Simultanübersetzung. Der Live-Stream beginnt um 12.00 Uhr Ortszeit (10.00 Uhr MEZ).

Putins spricht über Lage der Nation (2016) (4)

In Bezug auf den Kollaps der Rebellen in Ost-Aleppo und sich abzeichnende Frontverschiebungen meint Simonarson:

Hätte Erdogan wirklich al-Assad stürzen wollen, dann wäre Aleppo nicht gefallen. Er hätte das „Schutzschild Euphrat“ den Fokus darauf legen lassen, die Belagerung zu durchbrechen. Aber das tat er nicht.

Vielmehr könne sich die Türkei nun auf die Einnahme von al-Bab konzentrieren, erläutert der Chefredakteur. Er fügt hinzu:

Die einzige große Möglichkeit, die Erdogan hat, ist die Befreiung al-Babs vom IS. Aber soweit wir wissen, wollen Russland und al-Assad ihn dort nicht. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob das überhaupt klappen könnte. Die kurdischen YPG und die syrische Armee haben sich miteinander verbündet. Sie wappnen sich für eine eigene Offensive auf die Stadt.

ARD-aktuell verschweigt al-Qaida in Aleppo. Für Chefredakteur Gniffke ist Telepolis zunächst „keine seriöse Quelle“, er korrigiert dies aber später

Kann es sein, dass die Tagesschau in einer Komfortzone arbeitet, sozusagen im Himmel des Journalismus, unbelästigt von Einwänden und Fakten, die ihr Bild von der Welt Widersprüchen aussetzen?

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Rami Jarrah (who is widely cited as an authority by mainstream Western media) posted the Arabic leaflet dropped by Syrian regime forces and the English translation by Human Rights Watch, which has been widely circulated. I will provide to you my translation of the original Arabic and you judge how reliable the translation by Human Rights Watch is. The Arabic says (in full): „Read and Repeat. This is the last hope. Save yourselves. If you don‘t evacuate those areas soon, you shall be finished off (or vanquished or destroyed). WE have provided you with a safe passage to exit. Take your decision fast. Save yourselves. You know that all have abandoned you and left you by yourselves to face your destiny and they won‘t provide you with any help. General Command of the army and armed forces.“

PS The word annihilation is very specific and has an equal Arabic equivalent „Ibadah“ which does not appear in the original Arabic.

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Led by the elite Tiger Forces, the Syrian Arab Army broke-through Fatah Halab‘s defenses at the Youth Housing Complex, resulting in the latter‘s mass retreat from this strategic site in the Halwanyah District of east Aleppo.

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(29.11.2016)

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Under the 2001 authorization, the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with a specific organization, not every Islamist militant in the world. But that authority has proved elastic.

One of the most undercovered aspects of Obama’s legacy has been how he has waged war, unilaterally expanding the original 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks almost beyond recognition. It’s currently being used to legally justify the administration’s war on Isis in about a half dozen countries (that we know of), despite Isis not being in existence at the time AUMF was passed. It’s also being used to authorize action against a host of other groups, though who they are is classified.

If you don‘t recall, the AUMF granted the President the power to use „all necessary and appropriate force“ to go after those who „planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.“ That‘s already fairly broad, but over the years basically our entire government has pretended that (1) the AUMF included the ability to also target „associated forces“ (even though it does not) and (2) it allowed the President to simply lump in anyone he wanted as an „associated force“ allowing him to bomb them without any Congressional authorization.

The European Commission is planning to propose the creation of a fund for military procurement and research, as part of wider plans for an EU defence union.

Das Multinationale Korps Nord-Ost (Multinational Corps Northeast, MNC NE) ist eines der schnell verlegbaren Obersten Hauptquartiere der Alliierten Streitkräfte in Europa der N.A.T.O.

She added that most UN aid was being sent to militant-held areas, including areas controlled by the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terror group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

The report comes as the humanitarian situation in the terrorist-held parts of Aleppo City in northwestern Syria has been the focus of attention, with rights groups warning of a humanitarian disaster there.