Egypt's Ambassador to Russia, Mohamed El-Badri, has said that his country will continue to investigate for as long as needed the causes of the crash of a Russian passenger plane in Sinai on October 31, RIA Novosti reports.
IS claimed responsibility for the disaster, saying that its local affiliate planted a bomb made from a soft drink can on board the flight.
El-Badri told RIA Novosti today that various parties are involved in the investigation, including Russia, Egypt, and the airplane manufacturer.
Syria's political and armed opposition factions are meeting today in Saudi Arabia for a conference aimed at pursuing peace talks.
Representatives are expected to attempt to agree a common position from which to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad's government.
The IS group has -- of course -- not been invited. Neither has Syria's powerful Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Al-Nusra Front. The Syrian Kurds, who control swathes of northern Syria, have also not been invited.
The BBC says that the ultraconservative Salafist Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham, which aims to build an Islamic state in Syria after ousting Assad, is attending. Ahrar al-Sham is part of the powerful Jaish al-Fatah rebel alliance that includes the Al-Nusra Front.
Jaish al-Islam, another Islamist rebel group that operates mostly around Damascus, is also attending. So is the moderate Southern Front alliance.
There is a growing disconnect between Washington and Baghdad in the U.S.-led coalition's fight against the IS group in Iraq, AP reports.
The growing split has been highglighted by the series of rows over foreign forces on Iraqi soil, AP says, including the outrage this week from Baghdad over media reports that Turkish troops were deploying to a base outside IS-controlled Mosul in northern Iraq.
"In truth, a few hundred Turkish trainers have been present in Iraq for months, working to train Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Sunni militiamen. Their presence, while not publicly advertised, appears to have been done in coordination with both Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in Iraq's north," AP points out.
Most children living in IS-controlled Raqqa do not go to school, the Syria Direct news website reports.
Syria Direct has interviewed Hamoud al-Mousa of the activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, who says that children in Raqqa have few options.
"Most stay inside all day as their families prevent them from going outdoors out of fear for their lives. Those who do go out do so to work or sell different items to earn money for the family. Also, many children have pledged allegiance to IS out of this necessity," Mousa said.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that Ankara will impose sanctions on Russia if needed but remains open to talks with Moscow, Turkey's Today's Zaman reports.
Moscow has imposed economic sanctions on Turkey in the wake of the November 24 downing by the Turkish Air Force of a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border.
The Bank of France has cut its forecast for fourth-quarter growth, confirming that business has been affected by the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, Bloomberg reports.
The IS group claimed the attacks, which killed 130 people.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that he wants to visit Baghdad as soon as possible amid a row over Turkish troops deployed in northern Iraq to train Iraqi soldiers in the fight against IS.
Davutoglu said the troops were in Iraq to protect against attacks from IS and accused those who said otherwise of "deliberate provocation," Reuters reports.
The Iraqi government says that it never invited the latest deploment of Turkish troops to northern Iraq and that it will complain to the United Nations if Ankara does not pull them out.
Erdogan's Son Denies Russia's IS Oil Trade Allegations
The son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied Russian allegations that he and his family were profiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from IS-held territory in Syria and Iraq.
"We build offices in Istanbul ... We do not do business in the Mediterranean, in Syria or Iraq," Bilal Erdogan was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera newspaper, talking about his own corporate concerns. Bilal controls several ol tankers via his company and partnerships in other companies, Reuters says.
"[IS] is an enemy of my country. [IS] is a disgrace. It puts my religion in a bad light. They don't represent Islam and I do not consider them to be Muslims."
Russia's Defense Ministry said last week that it had proof the Erdogan family was benefitting from illegal smuggling of IS oil.
Defected Tajik Police Chief Disabled After Air Strike, No Longer Useful To IS
A senior Tajik police chief who defected to the IS group has "become an invalid and is no longer useful to IS," a Tajik law enforcement source has told RFE/RL.
Gulmurod Halimov made headlines in May when he appeared in an IS video after defecting to the extremist group.
The law enforcement source said that the information about Halimov's current condition was reported by 26-year-old eyewitness who recently escaped from IS in Iraq and surrendered to the Tajik authorities.
The eyewitness told the Tajik police that he had lived in the same apartment as Halimov, who was wounded in a U.S.-led air strike in June. Halimov was wounded in the leg and in the head, and his health has been seriously affected, the eye witness said.
Images of Halimov with bandages covering his head and one leg circulated on the Internet in June.
A Mandarin-language song that the IS group claims to have released shows the need for closer global cooperation against terrorism, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.
"Terrorism is the common enemy of mankind," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, according to Reuters.
IS's propaganda wing Al Hayat claims to have published the recording at the weekend.
The Mandarin nasheed -- an Islamic a capella song -- is four minutes long and is titled "I am a Mujahid."
Its lyrics, chanted by a man, say " To die fighting on the battlefield is my dream."