As the Russian-brokered Tafas agreement in the western countryside of Daraa between the Syrian regime and the Central Committee enters into force, the regime is now seeking to take over the towns outside its control in southern Syria before the upcoming 2021 presidential elections.

The latest arrests come three months after Egypt released Soltan’s cousins from arbitrary detention. Egyptian security forces have raided the homes of Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan’s relatives and arrested two of his cousins in what his US-based advocacy group Freedom Initiative described as a “campaign of retaliatory aggression.”

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy recently commissioned its last batch of Type 056A corvettes specialized in coastal defense, with the total number of the Type 056 series reaching 72, as analysts predicted on Wednesday that China could then shift focus to produce more larger warships as part of …