Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Secretary of state seeks to reassure Middle East that US is not abandoning region
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has vowed the US and its allies will “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria as he sought to reassure Middle Eastern nations it was not withdrawing from the region despite Donald Trump’s call for troops to return home.
In a keynote speech delivered in Cairo, pitched as the centrepiece of his nine-country regional tour, Pompeo called for a common stand against Tehran. “It’s time for old rivalries to end, for the sake of the greater good of the region,” he said.
US security chief tempers withdrawal claims, jeopardising Turkey’s plans to target Kurdish groups
Turkey has asked Washington to hand over its bases in Syria as the Trump administration appeared to reverse plans to withdraw from the country’s north-east on Tuesday, jeopardising Ankara’s plans to launch a widespread military operation targeting Kurdish groups.
The fresh row between the two Nato allies broke out as the US national security adviser, John Bolton, visited Ankara to row back on a surprise announcement by Donald Trump in December that US forces would leave Syria imminently, abandoning Kurdish proxies who had led its ground war against the Islamic State terror group. Turkey views those same Kurdish groups as mortal foes.
Stranded in arrivals in Kuala Lumpur for eight months, Hassan al-Kontar was granted asylum to make Whistler his home
Hassan al-Kontar has been living in Canada for just under a month. But the Syrian refugee – who made global headlines after becoming stranded in a Malaysian airport for more than eight months in 2018 – is so busy with media requests that he jokes he has only managed to get out into the snow a handful of times.
“It’s very much like living in the airport, all the interviews. But obviously you cannot compare the two of them,” says Kontar, 37. “Whistler is an amazing place. There is nothing but nature, fresh air, wonderful people and beautiful snow.”
Adviser indicates long stay for troops while president claims he never said withdrawal would be quick
US troops will not leave north-eastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and US-allied Kurdish fighters protected, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday, signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks. Achieving such conditions will likely take months or even years.
Attack comes after Trump said he would withdraw US troops as ‘we have defeated Isis’
Two British special forces soldiers have been seriously injured in a missile attack by the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria. The incident is thought to have happened on Saturday morning and the soldiers were airlifted by US forces for medical treatment.
Rudaw, a Kurdish news outlet, reported that the British soldiers were hurt in an attack on a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) base in the town of Deir ez-Zor, in the east of the country.
Trump made controversial decision to withdraw US troops
John Bolton to discuss pullout with Netanyahu and Erdogan
The US could leave some troops at a key military outpost in southern Syria, a Trump administration official told reporters on Saturday, despite the president’s controversial decision to withdraw all troops from the war-racked country.
For all his antics on the Mexican border, the US president is right to be withdrawing troops from Syria
For a Briton to spend time in the US just now is a blessed relief. Whole days pass, and no talk of Brexit. It is as if a pall has lifted from the art of conversation. But the US has its own deep divide, slashing through the populist body politic. It is Donald Trump and “America first”.
Trump has become a phenomenon. Like Samson in the temple, he seems able to topple the entire edifice of policy. Down crashes America’s government machine for the sake of a wall, world trade is devastated, stock markets plummet, alliances lie in ruins. It is astonishing what one man can do to the world, virtually alone.
British foreign secretary says Russian support for Syrian regime means change unlikely
The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has admitted for the first time that Russian support for the Syrian regime means Bashar al-Assad will remain in power for some time.
The UK has been at the forefront of calls for the Syrian president to leave office as part of a transition to a new government, but over the past year British diplomats have acknowledged that Assad would have to be allowed to stand in any UN-supervised democratic elections in Syria.
The outlook is bleak for key countries including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya
Just over eight years ago, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in a bitter one-man protest outside a government office against the government. Within hours, demonstrators took to the streets of his small town, Sidi Bouzid. By the time he died in hospital just overtwo weeks later, protests had spread across the country, would soon topple the president and spill beyond Tunisia, in a regional convulsion dubbed the Arab Spring.
The Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, which controls a swathe of the north and northeast, said it had agreed with the government to form joint committees to discuss the major issues after a first round of talks on Thursday and Friday. The SDF's political arm, the Syrian Democratic Council, said the aim was to "clear the way for a broader and more comprehensive dialogue" and forge a "roadmap leading to a democratic and decentralised Syria".
Between them the Damascus government and the Syrian Democratic Forces control some 90 percent of the country, after a series of Russian-backed victories over rebel groups in recent months saw the government reassert its authority over much of the south. The delegation from the SDF's political wing is discussing the future of the autonomous administrations it has set up in areas of northern and northeastern Syria under its control, the alliance official said.
More rebel fighters with their families boarded buses to leave southern Syria on Saturday under deals with the regime, a war monitor said, after hundreds reached opposition territory in the north. On Saturday evening, a second bus convoy prepared to leave Quneitra province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"If Congresswoman Gabbard doesn't show up for a debate -- and by not doing so, then I don't an opportunity to speak. Or any other candidate," said Campagna.
On left: How Castro's media depicted Jews That's Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin depicted as a murderous little monkey.) "Gal Gadot is on board to produce and possibly star in a movie based on Peter Kornbluh's Politico article "'My Dearest Fidel': An ABC Journalist's Secret Liaison With Fidel Castro." "When I first read Peter's article, I was entranced by his thrilling account of a complicated, fascinating woman in the midst of a high-stakes, real-life drama," Gadot said.
A key 'mainstream' media theme in covering the Israeli army's repeated massacres of unarmed, non-violent Palestinian civilians protesting Israel's military occupation in Gaza - killing journalists, a paramedic, the elderly and children - has been the description of these crimes as 'clashes'. This has been a clear attempt to obfuscate the fact that while two groups of people are involved, only one group is being killed and wounded.
In this file photo released on Sunday, April 22, 2018 by the Syrian official news agency SANA, smoke rises after Syrian government airstrikes and shelling hit in Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood held by Islamic State militants, southern Damascus, Syria. Syria's military said Monday, May 21, 2018, that it has liberated the last neighborhoods in southern Damascus held by the Islamic State and has declared the Syrian capital and its surroundings "completely safe" and free of any militant presence.
Mouaz Moustafa , the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, is shown with Sen. John McCain as they visit Syrian rebels in May 2013. Moustafa says his "letters of hope" effort was meant to show the people of war-torn Syria "that they have not been forgotten."
The fate of a remote U.S. military base in southern Syria captures the contradictions at the heart of President Donald Trump's Iran policy. The tiny outpost at Tanf, surrounded by vast desert, was established during the battle against the Islamic State.
Thousa... Teachers hoping to sustain their momentum from spring protests face an early test in Kentucky as scores of educators are running for seats in the state legislature. . File-This Feb. 25, 2018, file photo shows Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin speaking during the panel Caring for our Veterans at the National Governor Association 2018 winter meeting in Washington.