( AFP )- The US Navy said Saturday it had sent a carrier-led strike group to the Korean peninsula in a show of force against North Korea's "reckless" nuclear weapons program. The move will raise tensions in the region and comes hard on the heels of a US missile strike on Syria that was...

( The New Arab )- Up to 10,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon have been served eviction notices by the Lebanese army, ordering them to leave their informal settlements near an air force base in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon's The Daily Star reported on Saturday.  The refugees affected by...

( The Guardian )- Malcolm Turnbull has called on Moscow to pull Bashar al-Assad into line, referring to Syria as a client state of Russia. “The onus is now on Russia to pull Assad into line,” Turnbull said in Papua New Guinea before flying to India for his first official visit. “Let’s be...

( Reuters )- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in an interview that she sees regime change in Syria as one of the Trump administration's priorities in the country wracked by civil war. Defeating Islamic State, pushing Iranian influence out of Syria, and the ouster of...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Al Jabha Al Shamiya rebel group freed Saturday two former army defectors who refused to rise the Turkish flag in the border town of Azaz, activists said. Brigadier general Sabri al-Awad and Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Zaino, two Free Syrian Army commanders, were arrested by...

( Reuters )- U.S. Navy Admiral Michelle Howard said on Saturday U.S. cruise missile strikes on an air base in Syria had destroyed the means to deliver chemical weapons from that base, and the U.S. military remained ready to carry out further strikes if needed. Howard, the four-star officer...

( The Guardian )- In the quiet streets of Khan Sheikun this week, as people wept for and buried the dead from a sarin attack, they also braced for the sound of warplanes in the skies above them, and the next attack. On Saturday the planes came back, killing a woman and injuring one other...

( The Guardian )- A warship armed with cruise missiles has joined the Russian battlegroup off the coast of Syria as part of Moscow’s response to US cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airbase of Shayrat. Russia’s angry declarations, a world away from hopes of a rapprochement voiced in...

( AFP )- The army chiefs of Russia and Iran discussed the U.S. strikes in Syria by phone Saturday, and vowed to continue the fight against "terrorists" and their supporters, Iranian media reported. The two chiefs of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri and General Valery Gerasimov,...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- At least 21 civilians were killed Saturday when Russian jets struck the northern Idlib province with international forbidden bombs, local reporter said. At least 18 people lost their lives in cluster bombs attack the town of Awarm al-Joz, as well three more people were killed...

( AFP )- Influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr Saturday called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down, also calling on Washington and Moscow to stop intervening in the conflict. The young Najaf-based Shiite cleric condemned the killing of 87 people, including 31 children, in a...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian air force is moving its warplanes to the Russian-controlled Hmeimym airbase in Latakia province and to the civil airports over fears of new U.S. air strikes, military source told Zaman al-Wasl. The International airports of Damascus, Qamishli and Aleppo to be a...

( Reuters )- North Korea said on Saturday U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airfield on Friday were "an unforgivable act of aggression" that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was "the right choice a million times over". The response by North Korea's foreign ministry, carried...

( Reuters )- The Turkish Red Crescent does not expect a fresh wave of Syrian refugees to head for Turkey after the chemical attack in the northwestern province of Idlib earlier this week, the humanitarian organization's head said on Saturday. Kerem Kinik also told Reuters that a new refugee...

( AFP )- Arab League chief Ahmed Abdul Gheit warned Saturday against a "dangerous escalation" in Syria after a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase following an alleged government chemical attack. "The Arab League rejects regional and international powers' attempts to politick over the...

( AFP )- The U.S. airstrikes this week were aimed at a Syrian air base, but almost certainly got the attention of another adversary — North Korea. Heading into the first talks between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, North Korea was the front-and-center...

( AFP )- Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has cancelled a scheduled visit to Moscow next week, his office announced Saturday, saying "developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally". "My priority is now to continue contact with the U.S. and others in the run up to...

( AFP )- At least 15 civilians, including four children, were killed in a suspected U.S.-led coalition airstrike Saturday near ISIS' Syrian bastion Raqqa, activists said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 17 people were injured in the strike on Heneyda, and that the...

( The Guardian )- Is regime change in Syria back on the US agenda? For most of Syria’s six-year civil war the US has been pushing for the departure of Bashar al-Assad, even if former president Barack Obama was unwilling to use military options to remove him. Donald Trump had conspicuously...

( Associated Press )- The future of hundreds of asylum seekers languishing at an Australian-run detention center in Papua New Guinea remained in doubt Saturday, with the leaders of both countries declining to provide details about what will happen to the men if a deal to resettle them in the...