BEIRUT, Lebanon: At least 46 people were killed in suspected Russian air strikes on several areas of Idlib province in northwest Syria on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The Britain-based monitor said those killed in the strikes, on three locations in the province, were mostly civilians.The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions […]
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups have told the United States they will not leave Aleppo after Moscow called for talks with Washington over a full withdrawal of rebel fighters from the city’s besieged eastern districts, a rebel official said on Sunday. Speaking to Reuters from Turkey, senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said the message was delivered to U.S. officials in contacts on Saturday following the statement from Russia, […]
By Harry Pearl | SYDNEY SYDNEY Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Sunday he was confident a refugee resettlement deal with the United States would go ahead, despite White House comments which seemed to cast doubt about its future under a Trump Administration. White House deputy spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters the deal to resettle in the U.S refugees currently held at Australian-funded offshore processing centres […]
BEIRUT Syrian rebel commanders in Aleppo will not surrender eastern Aleppo to government forces, a rebel official said on Saturday, after Russia said it was ready for talks with the United States on the withdrawal of all rebels from the area. “I asked the factions, they said ‘we will not surrender’,” said Zakaria Malahifji, the head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim faction, speaking from […]
By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD No food or fuel has reached Mosul in nearly a week and the onset of rain and cold weather threatens a tough winter for more than a million people still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, residents said on Saturday. Iraqi troops waging a six-week-old offensive against the militants controlling Mosul have advanced into eastern city districts, while other forces […]
Submitted by Robert Parry via Strategic-Culture.org, Under the cover of battling “fake news,” the mainstream U.S. news media and officialdom are taking aim at journalistic skepticism when it is directed at the pronouncements of the U.S. government and its allies. One might have hoped that the alarm about “fake news” would remind major U.S. news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, about […]
By Tom Perry, Isla Binnie and Vladimir Soldatkin | BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States about a withdrawal of all Syrian rebels from eastern Aleppo where advances by the Russian-backed Syrian army and its allies threaten to deal a crushing blow to the rebellion. An official with an Aleppo rebel group accused Russia of backtracking on ideas agreed […]
newslide Jolie and Pitt could lose adopted sons Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s troubles just got worse. According to radaronline.com, their adopted sons Pax and Maddox could be taken away from them. Pax’s birth mum, Pham Thu Dung, is set to be released from prison soon and when she is, she says she wants her son back. Jolie adopted 13-year-old Pax when he was three years old. […]
ALEPPO, SYRIA: Syrian government forces have recaptured half the former opposition stronghold of east Aleppo, a monitor said, with the UN now facing a “race against time” to aid children forced out by the bloody offensive.President Bashar Assad’s forces have made swift gains since their offensive against Aleppo — once Syria’s commercial powerhouse — began on November 15.Tens of thousands of civilians have streamed out of the […]
By Isla Binnie | ROME ROME European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is convinced the fall of rebel-held areas of Aleppo to the government would not end the war in Syria, she said on Saturday. “I’m convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war,” Mogherini said during a panel discussion at a conference in Rome war with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura. Syrian […]
Opec’s production cut this week to bolster oil prices may strike many as a throwback to an earlier era, but it hinged on a very modern method of communication: a messaging group between the smartphones of Saudi Arabia’s delegation in Vienna and Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. For a royal priding himself on being a tech savvy moderniser in the kingdom, the use of a popular encrypted messaging service may […]
Egypt, which has seen its influence wane, is seeking allies and relevance wherever it can find them, even if that means shelving concerns about Iran. Continue reading the main story While Russia’s goal seems to be to expand its influence and pave the way for the international rehabilitation of Mr. Assad’s government, the scrambling of alliances remains in motion and the results unclear. The new relationships are […]
Authored by William Blum, originally posted at Strategic-Culture.org, On November 16, at a State Department press briefing, department spokesperson John Kirby was having one of his frequent adversarial dialogues with Gayane Chichakyan, a reporter for RT (Russia Today); this time concerning U.S. charges of Russia bombing hospitals in Syria and blocking the U.N. from delivering aid to the trapped population. When Chichakyan asked for some detail about […]
BEIJING China’s Foreign Ministry has expressed concern after Yemen’s armed Houthi movement and its political allies formed a new government, in what appeared a blow to U.N.-backed efforts to end 20 months of war in the country. Diplomats had hoped the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa, would hold off on putting together a cabinet of their loyalists and instead form a unity government with their Yemeni […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United Nations General Assembly began talks on Friday on a draft resolution that would demand an end to fighting in Syria amid frustration by some states and rights groups over U.N. Security Council deadlock on the nearly six-year conflict. More than a third of the 193-member General Assembly this week asked for a formal meeting to be held […]
By Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Islamic State will attack Europe again, security chiefs warned on Friday, and may add car bombs, cyber and chemical warfare to its local arsenal as European militants drift home after reverses in Syria and Iraq. Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, said it was impossible to know for sure how many militants were already in Europe plotting. A report […]
ABU DHABI // “Building nations is not complete without safeguarding heritage,” Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed told the Safeguarding Cultural Heritage Conference in the capital on Friday. The deputy chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council was addressing the first day of the conference, where attendees heard reports of past atrocities as a prompt to forging meaningful outcomes for the future. The conference concludes Saturday, with the adoption of […]
When Dala Farouki Kakos was a child, her parents invested in three Syrian chests, with matching mirrors, in the traditional sadaf style – on the understanding that they would be passed on to Kakos and her two siblings once they were grown up and had homes of their own. Beautifully embellished with mother of pearl, Kakos’s set has accompanied her on her travels around the world, and […]
BEIRUT: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for an immediate cease-fire in Syria on Friday, describing the situation in Aleppo as critical and saying that President Bashar Assad was unfit to rule.Asked about Assad at a news conference in Beirut, Cavusoglu said it was undeniable that the Syrian leader was responsible for 600,000 deaths and that somebody with that record should not be running a country. Source
By Aradhana Aravindan and Marius Zaharia | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE A Singapore minister said on Friday the threat of an extremist attack was higher now than earlier this year as hardline Islamists are increasingly pushing their agenda in neighbouring Indonesia. Law and Home Affairs Minister Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam, speaking to the Foreign Correspondents Association in Singapore, did not specify whether the threat had increased just in the city state […]
A terrorist cell formed by a group seeking recognition from the ISIS terror network is already operating and planning a big attack in Manila. This comes as the Philippine capital was placed on its highest terror alert for the first time in 16 years following the arrest of two alleged militants over a makeshift bomb planted near the US Embassy on Monday. A senior police officer, who […]
Russian President Vladmir Putin played a crucial role in helping OPEC rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia set aside differences to forge the cartel’s first deal with non-OPEC Russia in 15 years. Interventions ahead of Wednesday’s OPEC meeting came at key moments from Putin, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, OPEC and non-OPEC sources said. Putin’s […]
December 1, 2016 by: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris François Hollande announced on Thursday night that he would not run for a second term in next year’s French presidential elections. The unprecedented decision was driven by his historically low popularity ratings, which left him little chance of success against centre-right candidate François Fillon and far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen. He would also first have had to […]
Saudi Arabia’s aviation agency was attacked last month by an aggressive computer virus intended to disrupt high-profile government targets, officials and experts said on Thursday. The attack, which experts say emanated from outside the country, used a version of Shamoon, malware used to target the Saudi energy sector four years ago. Similar kinds of data-clearing software were used in 2014 against the Las Vegas Sands and Sony. […]
