Moscow offers new concrete plan to US to end Syria crisis

Here is a round-up of global news developments:

• The Syrian army reaches the vicinity of the militant-held Tal Rif'at town in Aleppo province, near the Turkish border. The army's getting prepared to start an all-out offensive and liberate the town. Tal Rif'at is among the last areas near the Turkish border that the militants still hold.
• Russia's top diplomat says Moscow has offered a proposal to the US which includes a concrete plan aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added that Turkey’s opposition to the inclusion of Syrian Kurds in the international talks is arrogant and no other side agrees with it.
• Turkey summons the US ambassador after Washington said it does not consider Syria’s Kurdish forces as terrorists. The US supports the Kurdish Democratic Union Party or the PYD which fights against Daesh in Syria. Earlier, the Turkish president called on Washington to choose between Turkey and the PYD. 
• Turkish police have clamped down on protesters in the Kurdish-populated city of Diyarbakir. Government forces used stun grenades and water cannons to disperse the crowd who were fulminating against Ankara’s deadly military campaign as well as curfews in the southeast.
• Iraqi army officials say the central city of Ramadi has been fully cleansed of Daesh terrorists and there are no more remnants from the terror group there. Iraqi government forces entered the city last December following weeks of preparation. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has promised to clear the whole country of ISIL terrorists this year. 
• Protests have intensified in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah against the Kurdistan region's government over unpaid salaries. Last week, officials in the Kurdistan region announced that all government employees except security personnel would only receive partial salaries. The Kurdish region has been hit hard by the global slump in oil prices.
• China says it has detected its first imported case of Zika. A Chinese man who has contracted the viral disease had travelled to Venezuela. Zika has been blamed for a significant increase in the number of Latin American children born with abnormally small heads and brains.
• France’s National Assembly has approved a bill stripping convicted terrorists of their French nationality. The law allows police to conduct searches without judicial warrants, ban public gatherings and put people under house arrest. Since the 2015 Paris terror attacks, authorities have been calling for imposing emergency measures to deal with terror threats.

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