The SDF has dispersed protesters in Hassakeh City after they attended a demonstration against the government siege of the city reports Al-Masdar. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dispersed protesters on Wednesday that attended a demonstration against the siege imposed on the city by their troops.

A Syrian opposition member has criticized the lack of agreement over the Constitutional Committee writes North Press. Member of the Syrian opposition National Coordination Committee (NCC), Munther Esper, said that the Constitutional Committee is one of the achievements of the Astana talks, which was accepted by the US, and given …

Iran is continuing to push into Daraa with the Fourth Division, claiming to be searching for Islamists, which is refuted by locals in the area reports Baladi News.

As Moldova and Russia spar again over Moscow’s military presence in the breakaway region of Transnistria, BIRN looks at what it would take to end this decades-long dispute. Relations between Moldova’s new elected pro-European president, Maia Sandu, and Russia started off on the wrong foot when Sandu immediately vowed to …

Local versions of Facebook have been launched in Poland and Hungary, though experience shows that technology ventures conceived with politically biased and nationalistic motives rarely succeed. Poland and Hungary have seen the launch recently of locally developed versions of Facebook, as criticism of the US social media giants grows amid …

The Czech Communist Party’s brazen siding with China worries parts of the political establishment and the security services, especially given it provides support to the minority government in return for influence on policy. Facing a panel of stern officials backed by red flags in a cavernous chamber, a pudgy grey-haired …

A Biden administration initiative to centralise power at state level in Bosnia – while decentralising it at local level – will not necessarily bring any more stability and inclusion to the country. With a change to the US administration in sight, discussions about expected changes in Washington’s policy towards the …

Kosovo must make use of a new, more sympathetic, administration to leverage US support on core issues affecting its security, legitimacy and energy supply. With Joe Biden now inaugurated as US president, Kosovo has four years to leverage assured support. Biden has more foreign policy experience than any other recent …

The prosecution file in a case of alleged electoral fraud in a remote Albanian region in 2016 lays bare an industrial-scale campaign of vote-buying and intimidation up and down the ranks of the country’s ruling Socialist Party. As yet, no one has faced justice.

Ankara and Athens, starting in 2002, held 60 rounds of talks before their exploratory efforts came to a halt in 2016. After a five-year-long pause the rivals agreed to resume talks on January 25, starting the 61st round. “The idea that a strategic — so-called strategic — partner of ours …