The Syrian army will reduce airstrikes and shelling in eastern Aleppo to allow the civilians to leave the besieged territory, the general command said in a statement Wednesday.

Aleppo has seen intense fighting over the past few months, with the Syrian army and local militia forces managing to encircle large groups of militants in the eastern districts of the city. "The command of the army made a decision to reduce the number of air forces and artillery strikes against the positions of terrorists to help the civilians who wish to leave for safer regions," the statement said, as quoted by the SANA news agency

Russia's Defense Ministry has cautioned the US-led coalition of carrying out airstrikes on Syrian army positions, adding in Syria there are numerous S-300 and S-400 air defense systems up and running.


Russia currently has S-400 and S-300 air-defense systems deployed to protect its troops stationed at the Tartus naval supply base and the Khmeimim airbase. The radius of the weapons reach may be "a surprise" to all unidentified flying objects, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson General Igor Konashenkov said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, any airstrike or missile hitting targets in territory controlled by the Syrian government would put Russian personnel in danger.

The defense official said that members of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria are working "on the ground" delivering aid and communicating with a large number of communities in Syria.

This is not about Donald Trump. And I mean it.

From the moment the first scribe etched a paean of praise to Nebuchadnezzar into a stone tablet, it's reasonable to conclude that never in history has the media covered a single human being as it has Donald Trump. For more than a year now, unless a terror attack roiled American life, he's been the news cycle, essentially the only one, morning, noon, and night, day after day, week after week, month after month. His every word, phrase, move, insult, passing comment, off-the-cuff remark, claim, boast, brazen lie, shout, or shout-out has been ours as well.

In this period, he's praised his secret plan to destroy ISIS and take Iraqi oil. He's thumped that "big, fat, beautiful wall" again and again. He's birthered a campaign that could indeed transport him, improbably enough, into the Oval Office. He's fought it out with 17 political rivals, among others, including "lyin' Ted," "low-energy Jeb," Carly ("Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?") Fiorini, "crooked Hillary," a Miss Universe ("Miss Piggy"), the "highly overrated" Megyn Kelly's menstrual cycle ("You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever"), always Rosie O'Donnell ("a slob [with] a fat, ugly face"), and so many others.

He's made veiled assassination threats; lauded the desire to punch someone in the face; talked about shooting "somebody" in "the middle of Fifth Avenue"; defended the size of his hands and his you-know-what; retweeted neo-Nazis and a quote from Mussolini; denounced the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs and products while outsourcing his own jobs and products; excoriated immigrants and foreign labor while hiring the same; advertised the Trump brand in every way imaginable; had a bromance with Vladimir Putin; threatened to let nuclear weapons proliferate; complained bitterly about a rigged election, rigged debates, a rigged moderator, and a rigged microphone; swore that he and he alone was capable of again making America, and so the world, a place of the sort of greatness only he himself could match, and that's just to begin a list on the subject of The Donald.

Although Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has praised his vice presidential pick Mike Pence's debate performance on Twitter, sources close to the campaign say Trump is upset the Indiana governor upstaged him and threw him under the bus.

Conventional wisdom says that Pence won the vice presidential debate over Democrat Tim Kaine on Tuesday night. Pence's background as a talk radio host appeared to help his cause, while the senator from Virginia came across as the attack dog defense attorney he once was.

Pence scored his victory, however, by not only declining to defend Trump's offensive statements, but denying that the billionaire businessman hadn't said the things he's been recorded as saying.

Instead, the Indiana governor "spent most of the debate defending a Trump that doesn't exist," the Washington Post's Amber Phillips wrote, while National Review Executive Editor Rich Lowry said: "Pence evidently decided to pretend that he is on a ticket with an utterly conventional Republican... [and his] sidestepping of Trump is the big asterisk on his night."

On Twitter, Trump supported his VP, saying that Pence did "a great job" and that he "won big." Of the nearly 50 messages about the debate that Trump tweeted or retweeted, only three appear to have been written by Trump about Pence's performance. The rest were either written by others or were attacks on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton or Kaine.

As the Syrian Arab Army dug in for a fight against the self-declared Islamic State on September 17, they were struck by an air raid that killed 62 soldiers and injured 100 more. The culprit was a foreign military that has never been attacked by, and has not declared war on, Syria. Two weeks later, that same nation's military killed 22 soldiers in a strike inside Somalia, another country which it had never been attacked by nor declared war on. The very next day the New York Times published a stinging editorial decrying flagrant violations of international law by an "outlaw nation."

The Times, of course, was not referring to the perpetrator of both attacks: the United States government. Each act was a clear violation of Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter prohibiting the use of force against another nation and demanding respect for its sovereignty. But the "supreme international crime" of aggression did not merit mention in the Times, who saw something far more sinister than carrying out illegal massacres across countries and continents in the actions of "Vladimir Putin's Outlaw State."

Russia, according to the Times' righteous defenders of international law, is guilty of violating "not only the rules intended to promote peace instead of conflict, but also common human decency." The editorial board finds not only disregard for the law, but the absence of standard ethics accepted by civilized people and societies. It is a pretentious way of saying that Russia's leaders are sociopathic, lacking the humanism and benevolence of Americans and their allies.

A Cardiff man has been charged with six terrorism-related offenses, including concealing plans for a terrorist attack on a USB stick disguised as a cufflink.

Samata Ullah, a computer technician from Grangetown, a suburb of the Welsh capital, stands accused of supporting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

The 33-year-old, who has also been charged with the possession of written materials on guided missiles for "a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism," will appear at Westminster Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

Ullah was arrested last month following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police counter terrorism command with support from the Welsh extremism and counterterrorism unit.

His alleged offenses took place between December 31, 2015 and September 22, 2016.

The Clinton Foundation refiled three years of tax forms after it emerged that the charity failed to disclose all of its donors.

Both the Foundation's Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and Clinton Healthcare Access Initiative (CHAI) re-filed financial statements on Tuesday. Foundation officials told CNN that the charity may not have filed "certain supplementary financial information" for three years. The large charity has 10 offshoots, the largest of which is CHAI, which files its own financial statements in New York.

The news comes a day after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the Trump Foundation to cease soliciting donations as it had failed to register as a charity, which followed revelations that Donald Trump may have avoided paying taxes for up to 18 years.

While Clinton was quick to blast her rival on his tax returns, Republicans are likely to jump on her foundation's own apparent tax omissions.

"It has come to our attention that the copies of the Clinton Foundation's consolidated audit reports filed with the Charities Bureau from 2012-2014 may not have included certain supplementary financial information related to affiliates of the Foundation,"said foundation officials.

Missing from the filings are details of foreign donors to these affiliate arms of the foundation.

The awakened world is still reeling in shock from the Right Livelihood Award being given to the US and NATO state construct, the White Helmets. The White Helmets have been proven to be no more than a support network for Al Nusra Front and associated extremist terrorist groups. In many documented instances, the White Helmets are more than a support group and have been accused of carrying out criminal acts alongside the recognised US coalition armed and funded terrorist factions. Ultimately, the White Helmets contravene all international laws regulating the behaviour of a proclaimed humanitarian NGO.

Top Washington officials are discussing striking positions of the Syrian military without a UN Security Council resolution. Bombing air force runways with missiles fired from coalition planes and ships is being considered.

Barack Obama holds the keys to World War Three in his hands.

Top Washington Officials, the Clinton Campaign, and main stream media (including The Washington Post and New York Times) have thrown their full support behind Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, in an effort to not have the last terrorist strong hold of East Aleppo be liberated by the internationally recognized Syrian government.

The WaPo is talking about Russian war crimes. Talk about a parallel universe. Russia, the country that has been invited legally under international law, is being accused of war crimes because it is fighting to liberate Aleppo from Al Qaeda and ISIS control...while the uninvited (in Syria illegally) United States, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey fight to keep Al Qaeda alive.

The Syrian war is a world conflict involving all the Great Powers and all the ideologies of the modern world.

Whilst many are eerily forecasting the possibility of a Third World War which would begin in Syria, there is another question that ought to be asked.

Has the Third World War already begun there?

Syria is the crucible in which all of the major world powers are fighting and each is fighting for a specific ideology in addition to the more utilitarian matters of control over territory and the economic enrichment which this implies.