War

The president-elect’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. has reportedly met with a leading secular figure in the Syrian opposition to discuss ending Syria’s civil war. Russia expects to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria with the help of the new US administration. Trump Jr. met with Randa Kassis, a Syrian politician who strongly supports Russian intervention, at a high profile meeting in Paris last month and discussed a “way to cooperate with Russia” to stop the war in Syria, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Fidel Castro, RIP

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara led a people’s rebellion against Fulgencio Batista, who had established himslf as a dictator in a military coup in 1952. In 1959 the Batista regime collapsed.

Israeli settlers have been forced to flee as wildfires have started to spread through areas near to settlements in the occupied West Bank. According to a police spokeswoman on Saturday nearly 1,000 settlers were forced to leave the Halamish settlement near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as 45 settler units were either damaged or destroyed by the fires. The blazes, fueled by drought and high winds, were raging in many locations throughout the Israeli-occupied territories on Friday . The fire in Israels third largest city Haifa has forced some 80,000 people to flee.

The first U.S. combat death in Syria occurred Thursday when a Special Forces member died from wounds sustained by an ISIS improvised explosive device, says CNN, citing the Pentagon. U.S. forces suffer their first casualty in northern Syria on Thursday while engaged in an offensive against ISIS. CNN Politics reports: This marks the first time a US service member has been killed inside Syria since a small number of US Special Forces were sent there last year to advise and assist Syrian forces battling ISIS, also known as ISIL.

Two Syrians living in the occupied Golan Heights have been sentenced to jail by an Israeli military court for blocking an Israeli ambulance that was transporting al-Nusra militants for treatment. Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that on Thursday the court sentenced Amal Abu Saleh to seven years and eight months in jail and issued a fine of more than 3,000 dollars. The other Syrian, Bashira Mahmoud was sentenced to 22 months in prison. She was fined 1,000 dollars.