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Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks to a group of Belgian reporters in this handout picture provided by SANA on February 7, 2017, Syria. SANA/Handout via REUTERS Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks to a group of Belgian reporters in this handout picture provided by SANA on February 7, 2017, Syria. SANA/Handout via REUTERS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said U.S. President Donald Trump prioritizing the fight against jihadists by Islamic State was promising although it was too early to expect any practical steps, state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday. Trump has indicated he might cut U.S. support for Syrian rebels and might help Syria in the fight against Islamic State. He has made defeating Islamic State a core goal of his presidency and signed an executive order asking the Pentagon, the joint chiefs of staff and other agencies to submit a preliminary plan on how to proceed within 30 days. Assad was quoted by SANA as telling a group of Belgi

White House backs up president’s claim that media is deliberately ignoring terror attacks by releasing list riddled with errors   Trump claims media is deliberately ignoring terror attacks David Smith  in Washington The White House has distributed a list of 78 terrorist attacks to support Donald Trump’s claim that the media is failing to properly report them. But the list includes many atrocities that received blanket western media coverage including the  Paris Bataclan attacks , the Nice truck killings  and the  San Bernardino shootings . Many others including the  Sydney siege  and Germany’s  Christmas market attack received wide international coverage. The list also includes multiple errors and spelling mistakes, including ‘San Bernadino’, and for no apparent reason excludes terror attacks in Israel. Images of Trump in a bathrobe flood Twitter after Sean Spicer says he 'doesn't own one' The release comes after the US president told military leaders in Tampa, Flor

The Pastillon's fake ad for a "Börder Wåll."The Pastillon Assembling an Ikea bookshelf may be difficult, but designers from the satirical site  The   Pastill on  have envisioned Ikea instructions for a project that looks truly back-breaking: Trump's border wall. They created  a tongue-in-cheek ad  for a "Börder Wåll," making fun of Trump's real-life proposal. Less than a week after Inauguration Day, Trump  reiterated  his plans on Twitter to build a 1,900-milelong wall along the US-Mexico border. Construction could cost American taxpayers an estimated  $15 billion to $25 billion , though Trump says Mexico would eventually  pay for the wall  through taxes or trade. Maintenance and hiring 21,000 border-patrol agents could cost an additional $2.1 billion a year, according to CNBC and  an analysis  by Politico. From that perspective, the designers are offering their fake flat-pack wall for a bargain: $9,999,999,999.99. Inside, the presumably very large

Saudi Arabia has pounded the port of Hudaydah in Yemen to stop the shipping of humanitarian aids into the war-ravaged country. Saudi forces have also prevented ships from entering the Yemeni port for over 20 days. The United Nations has voiced concern about the severe consequences of a long-term Saudi-imposed blockade on Yemen, which is facing a humanitarian crisis. Senior editor of Veterans Today from Ohio, Gordon Duff, believes that Russia is the power that can stand against the US-Saudi agenda in Yemen and stop the crippling war against the impoverished Arab state. “This is the war that is never going to end” unless the United Nations Security Council and one of its five permanent members, especially Russia, steps in to open the ports in Yemen, control humanitarian aid and bring about a reasonable ceasefire, Duff told Press TV. “There is a huge amount of silent complicity in the war on Yemen, which has been fought as a war against the people,” but Moscow has the capability to interv

More than half of Britain’s major businesses are already experiencing the implications of leaving the EU, a survey shows. Over half of Britain’s major companies have experienced the negative impacts of the country’s pending withdrawal from the European Union (EU), shows a new survey of British business leaders. About 58 percent of bosses from Britain’s largest 500 firms think their businesses are already facing the implications of last year’s public vote to leave the EU, according to an Ipsos Mori poll published on Monday. This is while, only 11 percent of the respondents thought the outlook of the divorce has worked to the benefit of their businesses. In June last year, nearly 52 percent of Britons voted to end the country’s decades-long membership in the EU. The decision meant that while the UK would free itself from the EU regulations and have more control over its borders, it would lose access to the Single Market, a scary prospect for businesses that relied heavily on the t

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference after a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Igor Dodon at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, January 17, 2017. The Kremlin said on Monday it wanted an apology from Fox News over what it said were "unacceptable" comments one of the channel's presenters made about Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly described Putin as "a killer" in the interview with Trump as he tried to press the U.S. president to explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart. O'Reilly did not say who he thought Putin had killed. "We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. Fox News and O'Reilly did not immediately respond

US President Donald Trump Iran has “total disregard” for the United States, says President Donald Trump, repeating his rhetoric against the nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers, including Washington. The accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is “the worst deal I’ve ever seen negotiated,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. Since he started campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, the New York billionaire has on several occasions spoken ill of the JCPOA, giving promises ranging from an immediate repealing of the deal to renegotiating it. His Sunday appearance still  left the “door open,”  as Fox News put it on its headline. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. The new president also parroted the anti-Iran rhetoric, promoted by the GOP and his cabinet members,  accusing  Tehran of supporting terrorism. “They’re sending money all over the place and weapons, and you can’t do that,” he said. “That deal, I would have lived

US Senator Bernie Sanders (Photo by AFP) Donald Trump is a “fraud,” says Senator Bernie Sanders, blasting the US president for breaking his campaign pledges by installing billionaires in his cabinet. Sanders, whose presidential bid revolved around fighting Wall Street and corporate interests, told CNN on Sunday that Trump was effectively “working for Wall Street.” “It is hard not to laugh to see President Trump alongside these Wall Street guys,” the Vermont senator said. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. This guy is a fraud. This guy ran for president of the United States saying ‘I, Donald Trump, I’m going to take on Wall Street. These guys are getting away with murder.’ Then suddenly he appoints all these billionaires,” he added. Many of Trump’s cabinet picks are self-declared millionaires with proven ties to Wall Street. His designated Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, for example, is a former partner at Goldman Sachs. Gary Cohn, the president of the notorious financial fir

France's far-right party leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday told thousands of flag-waving supporters chanting "This is our country!" that she alone could protect them against Islamic fundamentalism and globalization if elected president in May. Buoyed by the election of President Donald Trump in the United States and by Britons' vote to leave the European Union, Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-EU National Front (FN) hopes for similar populist momentum in France. With hitherto favorite Francois Fillon, a conservative, embroiled in scandal over his wife's job, and rising centrist star Emmanuel Macron as yet untested, Le Pen's FN says it can thwart polls that see her losing in a second round run-off. "What is at stake in this election ... is whether France can still be a free nation," Le Pen told supporters at her campaign launch rally. "The divide is not between the left and right any more but between patriots and globalists." In 144 "

 The Trump administration's immigration order barring citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries and temporarily blocking refugees was in legal limbo on Sunday after an appeals court denied the Department of Justice's request to restore the ban. The overnight ruling dealt a further setback to Trump, who has denounced the judge in Seattle who blocked his executive order on Friday. In tweets and comments to reporters, the president has insisted he will get the ban reinstated. In a brief order, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's request for an immediate administrative stay of the judge's ruling had been denied. It was awaiting further submissions from the states of Washington and Minnesota on Sunday, and from the government on Monday. Trump says the 90-day travel ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day bar on all refugees, are necessary to protect the United States from Islamist

An alliance of U.S.-backed militias started a new phase of its campaign against the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa on Saturday, aiming to complete its encirclement and sever the road to militant strongholds in Deir al-Zor province. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement the action was being undertaken with "increasing support from the (U.S.-led) international coalition forces" through both air strikes and backing from coalition special forces on the ground. The SDF, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, launched its multi-phased campaign in November aimed at encircling and ultimately capturing Raqqa. It is the main U.S. partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. Islamic State is also being fought in a separate campaign by the Turkish army and Syrian rebel groups northeast of Aleppo, and on several fronts across Syria by the Syrian government backed by the Russian air force and Iranian-backed militia. Jordan, part of the U.S.-led coal