BEIJING: Thousands of Chinese legislators erupted into enthusiastic applause on Monday over plans to give President Xi Jinping a lifetime mandate to mould the Asian giant into a global superpower. China's rubber-stamp parliament met in the imposing Great Hall of the People for an annual...

Bashar Assad said Sunday his forces must push on with their campaign to retake the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta from rebels, despite mounting international calls to end the bloodshed. Assad's forces have seized over a quarter of the enclave on Damascus's eastern edges after two...

Syrian regime troops and allied militias have captured a number of villages and towns in a rebel-held region near the capital, in the largest advance since a wide-scale offensive began last month, state media and activists reported Sunday. Syria's Central Military Media said regime...

Advances by Syrian regime forces into rebel-held eastern Ghouta are causing many people to flee, a pro-Syrian opposition television station and a witness in the enclave said Sunday. Orient TV said advances by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad had triggered wide scale displacement....