Now that the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime has been toppled, Syria’s new leaders have tried to appeal to Western governments to build closer ties and lift harsh sanctions on the country. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, declared Assad’s rule over on 8 December , after the rebel group they spearheaded took control …

Liberal leader Peter Dutton has made his case to become prime minister, rallying the party faithful at an event in Melbourne, where the Coalition must make in-roads to win back government at the federal election. The Coalition hopes to make the Albanese government the first one-term government in almost a century, and has eaten away at Labor’s popularity over the …

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed how he got President-elect Donald Trump to shift his attention away from annexing Canada at their meeting last year. Trudeau shared that Trump’s plan to make Canada a U.S. state came up during his trip down to Mar-a-Lago late last year. ‘We started musing back and forth about this,’ Trudeau recalled about his meeting with Trump. ‘And I started to …

Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun will visit Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Lebanese Presidency said on Saturday. The Saudi crown prince invited Mr Aoun to visit the kingdom during a phone call with the new president, the Lebanese Presidency said on X. No date was given for the visit. Lebanese lawmakers elected Mr Aoun as head of …

Lebanon and Syria will work together to secure their land borders, as well as to delineate both land and sea borders, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said during a visit to Damascus on Saturday. “It is among the priorities to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” Mr Mikati said at a joint press conference in the Syrian …

Residents of Idlib in north-west Syria still talk of the time when Bashar Al Assad’s father, Hafez, visited the city soon after seizing power in the 1970s. Instead of receiving a hero’s welcome, he was pelted with shoes and vegetables. Locals claim it was these events that led to the marginalisation of Idlib long before the province became the final redoubt for rebels seeking to …

Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has said holding elections in Syria could take as long as four years. This is the first time he has commented on a possible electoral timetable since Bashar al-Assad was removed earlier this month . Drafting a new constitution could take up to three years, Sharaa said in an interview with the Saudi state-owned …

Many key political issues revealed in newly released cabinet papers from 2004 could easily have been ripped from the headlines of 2024. The National Archives released hundreds of papers on Wednesday from the year former Prime Minister  was at his political zenith after defeating Labor’s Mark Latham. The documents reveal the rationale for Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war which …

Former prime minister Scott Morrison and wife Jenny have rung in the New Year with the Trumps at a red carpet event in Palm Beach, Florida. The US president-elect and wife Melania hosted the gala at their opulent Mar-a-Lago estate, inviting around 300 guests. Attendees reportedly included the world’s richest person Elon Musk, the next vice president JD Vance and …

A US Army veteran who drove a pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans, killing 14 people, had originally planned to kill his family, says the FBI. But the terror suspect was concerned about the types of headlines such an attack would generate. So he changed his plans because he wanted the media coverage to focus …