Venezuelans will go to the polls on Sunday 6th December to elect deputies to the National Assembly. A combination of factors have made this one of the most difficult challenges the Bolivarian Revolution has faced in the 17 years since President Chávez was first elected in 1998. Either the revolution is completed, or it will be defeated.

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.