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The ones that really nettle them come from Syrians.

Opposition activists and citizen journalists pop up everywhere: in hotel lobbies, on sidewalks, even at a breakfast table overlooking snowcapped mountains.

Here in neutral and secure Switzerland, Syrian government delegates used to meeting journalists only inside a government-controlled bubble are finding that almost anyone can come up to them anytime, anywhere, and ask anything.

A three-day humanitarian cease-fire in the Syrian city of Homs was supposed to be a small breakthrough, a moment of relief for civilians trapped in a grim civil war.

Though few expect the international peace talks that resume in Geneva on Monday to end the war, many hope they will make life less brutal for ordinary Syrians by creating local cease-fires and opening up access to aid.But what took place in Homs highlights the tremendous difficulties plaguing even modest humanitarian efforts, making it unlikely that the episode will emerge as a model to be repeated elsewhere.

The United Nations estimates that almost a third of the nine million Syrians in need are in hard-to-reach areas and that access to many of them has been deliberately obstructed. While human rights groups say the government is responsible for most of the sieges, rebels, too, have tried to starve out their enemies.

Security officials say Lebanese forces have fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace.

It was the first time since the outbreak of the Syria's conflict three years ago that the Lebanese military took action to prevent Syrian warplanes from violating its airspace.

Syrian forces have fired toward Lebanon in the past, trying to deter rebels from fleeing to the neighboring country or from sheltering in Lebanese border towns.

Why It Takes Two Years forSyrian Refugees to Enter the U.S.

after the Paris attacks, the House voted to further tighten screening procedures. Since 2011, the United States has admitted fewer than 2,000 Syrian refugees.

13. Some cases referred for additional review. Syrian applicants must undergo these two additional steps.

The first planeload of Syrian refugees from camps in Jordan and Lebanon will arrive in Canada on Thursday,

Another such aircraft will arrive in Montreal on Saturday, he told legislators.

The Liberal government plans to resettle 10,000 refugees from Syria’s four-year-old civil war by the end of the year and a further 15,000 by the end of February.

Syrian families have been settled in Texas and in Indiana, the groups helping them said Tuesday, defying efforts by the conservative states' governors to stop their arrival.

A family of six went to live Monday near relatives already living in the Dallas area

Another couple and their four daughters were settled in Houston on Monday night by a different resettlement agency, Refugee Services of Texas. An additional nine refugees are expected to arrive later in the week.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday evening to thank Russia's Vladimir Putin personally for his military support, in a surprise visit that underlined how Russia has become a major player in the Middle East.

It was Assad's first foreign visit since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria that has also bolstered Assad's forces.

The Kremlin, which said it had invited Assad to visit Moscow, kept the visit quiet until Wednesday morning, broadcasting a meeting between the two men in the Kremlin and releasing a transcript of an exchange they had. Putin said he hoped progress on the military front would be followed by moves towards a political solution in Syria, bolstering Western hopes Moscow will use its increased influence on Damascus to cajole Assad into talking to his opponents.Assad's confidence is likely to be boosted by the visit, which comes as his forces wage counteroffensives in western Syria against insurgents backed by Assad's foreign opponent, as well as Islamic State militants.

Ali was 16 years old and badly malnourished.Workers for UNICEF

The city is controlled by rebels and under siege by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

The UNICEF team screened the children they found in the hospital. They found 22 children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition, according to a statement Friday from Hanaa Singer, the organization's representative in Syria.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned Syria it would be "very unwise" to use poison gas in Eastern Ghouta amid reports of chlorine attacks.Mr Mattis did not say President Trump would take military action, but the US struck Syria last April after a suspected gas attack in northern Syria.Fierce fighting is continuing and the Syrian army says it has surrounded a major town in the rebel-held enclave.More than 1,000 civilians have been reported killed in recent weeks.The Syrian military has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the region - the last major opposition stronghold near the capital Damscus - from those it terms terrorists.

Mr Mattis said Mr Trump had "full political manoeuvre room" to respond to chlorine use.

The Syrian army says it has completely surrounded the town of Douma and cut the remaining rebel-held area into two, according to a statement made by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is fighting on the side of the Syrian government.

The latest attempt to punish Syrian regime leaders failed after the two permanent members voted against a resolution to impose sanctions for Damascus' use of chemical weapons, the first vetoes by Russia and China before US Ambassador Nikki Haley.

"Russia and China made an outrageous and indefensible choice today," Haley said, speaking in the Security Council chamber after the vote. "It is a sad day on the Security Council when members start making excuses for other member states killing their own people."

The veto was the seventh time Russia has blocked a Security Council resolution aimed at the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past five years, protecting its Syrian ally from any diplomatic action

Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy.

said on Wednesday that a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria’s oilfields.

Trump emphasized that US troops were “safe” and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.

A rocket attack on a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters killed six civilians and wounded over a dozen people on Thursday, Syrian rescuers and a war monitor said. Both blamed U.S-backed Syrian Kurdish forces for the attack.

The town of Afrin has been under control of Turkey and its allied Syrian opposition fighters since 2018, following a Turkey-backed military operation that pushed Syrian Kurdish fighters and thousands of Kurdish residents from the area.

Turkey has carried out three military offensives into Syria, mostly to drive the Syrian Kurdish militia away from its border.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the bombing of eastern Aleppo, which his forces recaptured from rebels last month, was justified.

In comments to French media that were published by Syrian state news agency Sana, President Assad described the devastation of eastern Aleppo and killing of civilians as "painful for us as Syrians to see", adding: "Every war is bad."

According to the UN, 36,000 people were evacuated from east Aleppo to opposition areas in Idlib and western Aleppo countryside, while 38,750 crossed into west Aleppo.

Syrian opposition: Shelling in water-rich valley kills 7

Syrian opposition activists say government shelling has struck a village in a rebel-controlled area near Damascus, killing at least seven civilians and injuring several others, in violence that has tested the country's fragile cease-fire.

Fighting has raged in the valley that provides the Syrian capital with most of its water supply, restricting the flow since Dec.22, despite talks to stem the violence.

e Syrian regime, angered the US and the Western-backed Syrian oppositi

The invitation to Iran, a key ally of the Syrian regime, angered the US and the Western-backed Syrian opposition.

The peace conference, due to begin on Wednesday, is the biggest diplomatic effort to end the three-year conflict. More than 100,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced in the war.

The United States and 10 Arab and European nations expressed support on Tuesday for the convening of a peace conference next month in Geneva to begin negotiations on a political settlement to end the bloody civil war in Syria.

John Kerry acknowledged that the moderate Syrian opposition had not yet decided whether it would attend.

It reiterated that a transitional government should be established as part of a political settlement

A separate proposal to regulate working conditions for the refugees was recently submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. If the measure passes, as expected, Syrians will be able to apply for conditional work permits with their new ID cards, something that is likely to foster resentment in regions where unemployment is high.

That job competition, as well as the emergence of violence and higher crime rates in cities with high concentrations of Syrians, has soured the Turkish public on the refugees, with two-thirds of Turks now favoring more restrictive policies, according to the 2014 Transatlantic Trends Survey.

“Most Syrian refugees live in urban areas, and the conditions are deteriorating as winter sets in, but none of their real needs, like housing, are met properly,” said Metin Corabatir, deputy director of the Center for Immigration and Asylum Studies.

Turkey's Erdogan denounces US support for Syrian Kurds

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at the US over its support for Syria's main Kurdish group.

sea of blood", he said.

The Syrian accusation, in a statement carried by the official news agency, was the first time that President Bashar al-Assad’s government had held the Americans responsible for bombing a Syrian military facility since the United States began airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria more than a year ago.

A statement from the United States-led Combined Joint Task Force said that the coalition had conducted four airstrikes on Sunday, “all against oil well heads,” about 35 miles from the base. “We did not strike any vehicles or personnel targets in this area,” the statement said. “We have no indication any Syrian soldiers were even near our strikes.”

“We’ve got a radar track showing a Backfire bomber flying directly over the town that the Syrians named a few minutes before the first claims that we killed some Syrian troops,”

Approximately 150,000 Syrian refugees, mainly Kurds, fleeing threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Monday’s U.S.-led airstrikes have crossed into southern Turkey

tens of thousands of refugees, the majority of which are women, children and the elderly. They arrive exhausted and depleted after walking miles to safety on rough roads and carrying their belongings. 

had no doubt Syrians represented the largest refugee population in the world. In the three and a half years since the conflict began, 3.3 million Syrians have fled the country and 6.5 million have been internally displaced. As the war with ISIS intensifies, said Guterres, so too will the flood of refugees.