Abu Muhammad al-Golani is an Islamist fanatic, a head-chopper (although only in moderation) and the leader of the Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate that is classified by the United States as "terrorist''.
The climate deal almost 200 countries agreed to in Paris at the weekend was far better than most insiders dared to hope even a month ago.
President Barack Obama spoke this week about a mass shooting in the United States for the 17th time in the past seven years.
Most powerful new technologies are double-edged.
The key fact is the Russian plane, by Turkey's own admission, was in Turkish airspace for precisely 17 seconds.
Independent journalist Gwynne Dyer, of London, discusses reactions to the Paris attacks.
''Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret,'' said Dr Strangelove to the Soviet ambassador in Stanley Kubrick's classic film of the same name. Fifty...
Salami tactics are useful when dealing with problems that are too big to resolve in one go. Muster all your resources and deal with one aspect of the problem. Come back later, when your resources have grown, and hack off a different piece. Repeat as necessary, until the problem disappears.
As always after a major terrorist attack on the West, the right question to ask after the slaughter in Paris is: What were the strategic aims behind the attack?
deterrent,'' General Sir Nicholas Houghton said, ''I say you use the deterrent every second of every minute of every day. The purpose of the deterrent is you don't have to use it because you effectively deter.''
''I can't stand him. He's a liar,'' then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy told US President Barack Obama four years ago, in a conversation about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
There's an old joke that goes: why did the Canadian cross the road?
No good deed goes unpunished.
The death toll from the twin suicide bombs at a peace rally in Ankara on Saturday has reached 128.
It's more than a week since the Russians began their airstrikes in Syria, and the others that have already been bombing there for over a year, the United States and some other Nato countries, are working themselves up into a rage about it.
There is a small but significant industry in the United States that predicts the ''coming war'' with China, and Atlantic Magazine is foremost among reputable American monthlies in giving a home to such speculation.
It all happened very fast, in the end.
The ceasefire in the war in eastern Ukraine, the so-called Minsk-2 agreement, was signed last February, but they never actually ceased firing.
The sheer dithering cluelessness of European Union leaders faced with an unexpected surge in the number of migrants seeking refugee status in EU countries challenges all our previous definitions of incompetence.
''We understood the responsibility to stay alive over choosing suicide,'' said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, defending his decision to end his rebellion against the European Union's tough terms for bailing out the Greek economy.
