UNHCR announced on Tuesday that more than 2 million Syrians have fled the country since

The war is now well into its third year and Syria is hemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs, the UNHCR statement read. a

further 4.25 million people have been displaced inside Syria, according to data from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). This makes the country’s refugee crisis “unparalleled in recent history,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.

Israel claims joint US missile launch in Mediterranean for 'target practice'

Israel says it carried out a “joint” US missile launch in the Mediterranean, having earlier claimed ignorance. Russian radars detected two ballistic rockets fired in the region on Tuesday, sparking widespread speculation over who was behind the launch.
The Russian Defense Ministry initially reported that 'two ballistic objects' were picked up on radars in the central Mediterranean and were moving towards the East. Later, citing a security source inside the Syrian government, RIA Novosti reported that the rockets had fallen into the sea. 

source rt.com

UK giving export licenses to sell Syria nerve gas chemicals

The British government has given an explanation that an export license was granted for the export of chemicals which were supposedly bound for a company based in Syria that was involved in manufacturing processes which would require chemicals like that. I’m still concerned, however, because of course the export licenses were issued at a time when the situation in Syria had already deteriorated, and this issue has just been raised in the House of Parliament, which your viewers will be able to see behind me, during defense questions, where defense ministers had to explain why it was that the UK would even consider granting an export license. 

There’s also a parallel development to this, which is that ministers are having to acknowledge that the UK trained senior Assad military officers in the UK over a number of years. 

source rt.com

13 dead in Baghdad violence

Thirteen people, including an anti-Al-Qaeda militant and his family, were killed in shootings and a car bombing in Baghdad on Tuesday. The worst incident occurred when gunmen stormed the house of a Sunni militia member opposed to the terror group in a southern suburb, killing him, his wife and three children. Two others were shot dead in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood, while four bodies with gunshot wounds to the back were found in different locations around the Iraqi capital, officials said. Meanwhile, in the town of Jbala just south of the capital, a car bomb detonated near a restaurant, killing two people and wounding seven others.

Egyptian court orders closure of 4 TV channels

Al Jazeera Egypt and three other TV channels will be shut down following an order from an Egyptian court, reports the BBC. Seven Al Jazeera employees were taken into custody last week and held for five days without charges. Authorities released four of them on Sunday. The arrests came after Al Jazeera’s offices were raided and equipment was seized by Egyptian authorities.

Egyptian helicopters assault Sinai Islamist bases

Egyptian Air Force has launched a sudden assault against militant groups in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. The operation has been initiated in response to unceasing attacks by Islamist extremists against Egyptian military personnel in the area.
A couple of Apache gunships fired at least 13 missiles at extremists’ bases, reportedly killing and injuring dozens of militants. The missiles have hit three targets in two locations, in Muqataa and Touma, near the border with the Gaza Strip, where militants got together for meetings.

source rt.com

Assange requests investigation into US actions against WikiLeaks

In the 48-page affidavit Assange describes evidence of US military intelligence investigations directed at WikiLeaks and himself dating back to 2009 and up to the most recent FBI searches in 2012-2013.

“The subject of this affidavit concerns two events involving Sweden and Germany. These events occur within the context of publicly reported FBI activities against WikiLeaks in the UK, Denmark and Iceland from 2009 to the present, which concern my work,” Assange writes in the affidavit.

The WikiLeaks founder touches on two “previously unreported events”. The first reveals Assange’s “physical surveillance by US military intelligence … in Berlin held on 26-30 December 2009.” The results of which were used “to convict Bradley Manning of 'Wanton Publication’”.

And the second incident concerns the “illegal seizure” of Assange’s suitcase on September 27 2010, while he was on a direct flight within the “Schengen border-free area from Stockholm Arlanda to Berlin Tegel” airports.

The suitcase contained three laptops that had “WikiLeaks material, associated data and privileged communications” on them.

Part of that material included “shocking evidence of a serious war crime; the massacre of more than sixty women and children by US military forces in Garani, Afghanistan.”

Evidence of this US military operation had been “corroborated by testimony in the Bradley Manning hearing.”

“The suspected seizure or theft occurred at a time of intense attempts by the US to stop WikiLeaks' publications of 2010,” the affidavit states.

source  rt.com