Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed Tuesday to bolster a fragile truce in Syria but rebels and Damascus made no progress towards a broader settlement to end the war after two days of talks.
Armed men with links to Muslim rebels stormed a prison early on Wednesday (Jan 4) in the southern Philippines, killing a guard and freeing more than 150 inmates, police said.
Calm prevailed most Syrian cities on Saturday, since a nationwide ceasefire was activated at midnight Friday, despite some clashes, a monitor group reported on Saturday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov voiced his concerns over possible U.S. arms deliveries to Syrian rebels in a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The evacuation of the remaining rebels from Syria's northern city of Aleppo will start soon, the Syrian army said on Thursday.
Restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, has been seen as critical to the fortunes of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a multi-sided civil war now in its sixth year.
Syria's army and allies pushed into rebel-held parts of Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.
Air strikes killed at least 73 people in rebel-held Idlib province, including 38 in the city of Maarat al-Numan, on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the war, reported.
The rapid victories the Syrian army is achieving in the northern city of Aleppo and the possible quick retrieve of the city will be the Syrian government's biggest win in the five-year-old war, and the rebels worst defeat, analysts say.
The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swath of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.
A seven-day ceasefire declared by the Syrian army expired at midnight, with no immediate announcement of its extension on Monday (Sept 19).
People in government-controlled areas in the northern city of Aleppo have different opinions about the ceasefire that went into force Monday evening, as those who have suffered by the rebels highly doubt the prospects of the truce, while the better-offs wish the truce could succeed.
Intense battles between extremist rebels and Syrian army continued Friday in the central province of Hama, where the rebels shot down a Syrian aircraft, killing two pilots, according to a monitor group.
A leftist rebel group announced Saturday that it is declaring an indefinite unilateral ceasefire with the government effective from midnight Sunday, extending a week-long truce it declared last week that lapsed on Saturday.
The Philippine government and communist rebels on Friday agreed to implement a "unilateral" ceasefire for an indefinite period after week-long peace talks in Oslo to end Asia's longest-running insurgency.
The communist rebels have urged Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to free more prisoners as peace talks between the government and the rebels resume this week in Oslo, Norway to end Asia's longest communist insurgency, the rebels said in a statement on Monday.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to declare a ceasefire on Saturday to reciprocate a week-long truce that the communist rebels announced, presidential communication secretary Martin Andanar said.
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