The UN resolution on a democratic transition in Syria assumes this can happen under Assad's rule. The US is now openly blocking with Russia over support for the dictatorship.
Russian naval forces got in a confrontation with Turkish vessels in the Black Sea, with control of contested oil platforms off the Crimean Peninsula at issue.
Turkey's prime minister accuses Russia of "ethnic cleansing" with air-strikes targeting Turkmen in Syria—as Ankara continues to attack Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq alike.
Human Rights Watch called on the US to cancel a pending arms sale to Saudi Arabia in the absence of serious investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations in Yemen.
A growing split between secular and Islamist elements of the FSA is unfortunately mirrored by a breach between Kurds and Ankara-backed Arab and Turkmen forces.
Tahir Elci, a prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer, was gunned down by unknown assailants while delivering a press statement in Diyarbakir, Turkey.
The situation in northern Syria is escalating amid Russo-Turkish brinkmanship, with Turkmen villages coming under intense Russian bombardment.
After Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane over Syria, Vladimir Putin openly accused Ankara of backing ISIS—echoing a charge Kurdish forces have been making for months.
Residents of the ISIS-held northern Syrian town of Manbij have held unprecedented protests against jihadist rule, according to activists who got the word out via social media.
A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for apostasy and abandoning his Muslim faith after he protested the kingdom's religious police.
Saudi Arabia has executed 151 people so far this year, the highest number since 1995—contributing to a global spike in use of the death penalty.
The new Kurdish-Arab alliance in northern Syria continues to advance into ISIS-held territory—in spite of efforts by virtually all the regional powers to sabotage it.
