De Mistura strives to consolidate Syrian peace talks

Here is a round-up of global news developments:

• The UN Special Envoy to Syria is stepping up efforts to consolidate peace talks on the Syrian crisis. Stephan de Mistura has held talks with representatives of the government. He is expected to meet with the so-called High Negotiations Committee from the Saudi-backed opposition groups later on Tuesday.
• Syrian troops gain more ground in their battle against foreign-backed militants, liberating Har-datnin village, north of Aleppo province. On Monday, army units also targeted terrorist groups in the towns of Baynon and Hariatan on the road leading to Turkey. They also secured several villages in the eastern and southern countryside of Aleppo.
• Britain has launched a probe into over 160 cases of alleged unlawful killing and maltreatment during the country’s military involvement in Afghanistan. Hundreds of British forces are accused of killing more than 50 Afghans in over a dozen separate incidents. The alleged abuses took place between 2011 and 2013.
• A group of Palestinians have gone on hunger strike in the Gaza Strip in solidarity with a hunger striking inmate in an Israeli jail. The strikers including officials, journalists and former prisoners are calling for Muhammad al-Qiq’s release. The solidarity campaign will continue until Thursday.
• Israel expels the Palestinian manager of the al-Aqsa Mosque from the holy site in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds. Sheikh Najeh Bkirat has been summoned by Israeli police and ordered to keep away from the mosque and the surrounding areas for six months. Bkirat says he was detained for hours.
• Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has won the Iowa caucuses in the first vote of the US 2016 presidential election. Votes in the Democratic race are still being counted. According to the campaign of Hillary Clinton, she has defeated Bernie Sanders by less than one percent.
• Nearly 30 people have been killed in US drone airstrikes in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar. Local officials say those killed were members of the Daesh terrorist group, which has gained a foothold in Afghanistan in recent months. They say a Daesh-affiliated radio station has also been destroyed.
• Honduras declares a state of national emergency in the face of the rise in Zika virus cases to an alarming rate. The Health Ministry says it has recorded over 3-thousand and 6-hundred infections since mid-December. Government figures show one-thousand confirmed cases since Wednesday.
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