Syria

One month after the WSJ reported that Israel had been secretly funding the Syrian rebel opposition to Assad's regime for years in hopes of keeping the Syrian political situation unstable and preventing the Syrian - and Iranian - regime's military from becoming a substantial threat, overnight Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday that Israel opposes the cease-fire agreement in southern Syria that the United States and Russia reached "because it perpetuates the Iranian presence in the country."

It started two weeks ago, when Turkey warned publicly it was preparing for military intervention in Syria, while accusing the US of creating a "terrorist army" (it wasn't referring to ISIS, but US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia YPG). As a reminder, YPG forms a major part of the U.S.-backed campaign to capture Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa, and whose forces are seen as a terrorist organization by Turkey. The group currently controls a pocket of territory in Afrin, about 200 km (125 miles) west of Raqqa.

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 in Hamburg injects new hope into the complicated relationship between the United States and Russia. Only time can confirm whether there is any basis for this hope.

When taxi and bus drivers take journalists into Syria via the Beirut-Damascus Highway these days, there's a common greeting that has become a kind of local tradition as the drivers pull into their Damascus area destinations.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via Asia Times,

China and Syria have already begun discussing post-war infrastructure investment; with a 'Matchmaking Fair for Syria Reconstruction' held in Beijing

Amid the proverbial doom and gloom pervading all things Syria, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune sometimes yield, well, good fortune.