The Syrian government used toxic gas eight times over a five-month period in different areas of Syria, a group that monitors the conflict said Tuesday. The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said gas had been used between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31 last year, mostly in Idlib, the...

(Brookings- Shadi Hamid)- U.S. policy toward Syria is a fascinating, if depressing, case study. Many of my friends and colleagues who work on Syria—nearly all of them, in fact—have been baffled by President Obama’s approach to the Syrian conflict. The administration’s apparent...

Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier (Washington Post)- As Russian planes decimate Aleppo, and hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria’s largest city prepare for encirclement, blockade and siege — and for the starvation and the barbarity that will inevitably follow —...

Four miners trapped underground for 36 days in a collapsed Chinese gypsum mine were pulled out late Friday, a rescue hailed as a "miracle" in a country with a poor track record on industrial accidents. The final operation to save the men trapped more than 200 meters (660 feet) underground took...