The downing of a Russian jet in Syria by the Turkish military was clearly a provocation on the part of the Turkish president Erdogan. His aim was to stop an alliance being formed between Russia and the West in Syria. He has achieved the opposite with Turkey now more isolated and the major world powers coming closer to each other.

This morning, the Turkish military shot down a Russian military aircraft on the border with Syria. What is quite clear is that this was a blatant provocation by the Turkish ruling clique. Alan Woods explores the ever increasing geo-political contradictions that are coming to the fore in the Middle East and Syria.

Last Friday, Paris was the scene of mass slaughter in which at least 129 people were shot down in cold blood. These atrocities mark a new and sinister development in the steady expansion of attacks attributed to or claimed by the so-called Islamic State. There is dynamite in the very foundations of our society.