When Russia’s fourth-term dictator President Vladimir Putin poured his particularly chilling scorn on the idea of liberalism last week his demeanour, his stone-cold certainty suggested he is not a man to tolerate opposition.

Izz Alkarajeh emerged from direct provision to open one of Cork’s most exciting new restaurants – Izz Cafe. Joe McNamee on our new migrant chefs, their respective cuisines and the impact on our native dishes

The great American comedian George Carlin had a terrific routine in which he talked about the language used in American football, writes Michael Moynihan.

Brian Maguire returned from Aleppo intent on painting the reality of what he’d seen in the Syrian city, writes Alan O’Riordan.

Rival US and Russian resolutions to extend the mandate of experts trying to determine who was responsible for chemical attacks in Syria have been defeated at a heated Security Council meeting that reflected the deteriorating relations between Washington and Moscow.

Syria's foreign minister has told world leaders that his country is "marching steadily" toward the goal of rooting out terrorism and "victory is now within reach".

A Russian-built plane used by the Syrian air force conducted a sarin gas attack in the spring that killed at least 83 civilians and sparked a retaliatory US strike, a UN investigation has found.

THE city of Vienna lies at the heart of this difficult but rewarding novel which was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

The UN said it is using newly opened land routes to expand food deliveries to areas around the Syrian city of Raqqa, where US-backed forces are battling Islamic State militants in their self-declared capital.

‘Russian hackers’ are blamed for everything, the latest being breaching Qatar’s news agency, sparking a row with the Saudis. This makes no sense, says Leonid Bershidsky.

An attack by Islamic State on an area held by the Syrian government in southern Aleppo province has been repulsed by troops and allied fighters, the military reports.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that air strikes had seriously damaged the medical centre in Abdin village, in Idlib

The evacuation of more than 3,000 Syrians from four areas as part of a population transfer has been postponed a day after a deadly blast killed more than 120 people, many of them government supporters.

LATEST: At least 100 people have been killed in the blast near evacuation buses outside Aleppo city, the Syrian opposition rescue service says.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned on Wednesday that US President's Trump administration will take action against chemical attacks in Syria - if the UN Security Council fails to act.

Desperate Syrians fleeing the devastating war in their country are finding refuge in sub-Saharan Africa.

A federal judge has blocked US President Donald Trump's administration from enforcing his new travel ban against a Syrian family looking to escape fighting in their native land by fleeing to Wisconsin.

Danish photojournalist Daniel Rye endured beatings, torture, cramped spaces and hunger as a hostage of the Islamic State in Syria, topped off with the regular threat of beheading, writes Cormac O’Keeffe.

Every Sunday, the gymnasium along Beirut’s airport highway echoes with the shouting and laughter of dozens of Syrian children enjoying a rare escape from a grim and confined life in exile.

A Syrian family tells Joyce Fegan all they have endured since fleeing Aleppo after Islamic State burnt their house down. They have slept rough in Turkey and lost a sister on a raft to Greece before arriving here in December.

Your letters, your views...

Every cloud has a silver lining and 2016 proved to be no exception. Gwen Loughman looks at the year that was through eight Irish people who made the year that bit brighter

Syrian President Bashar Assad is prepared "to negotiate everything" at talks set to begin in Kazakhstan, as he seeks to cast himself as a peacemaker after his forces recaptured Aleppo last month.

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

The death toll in the car bomb attack on a busy market in a Syrian rebel-held town along the Turkish border today has risen to 43, activists and rescue workers said.

Reynald de Chatillon was a Crusader whose name “lives in infamy in the bestiary of Islam”, a man relegated by historians “to the lower levels of hell”. Jeffrey Lee has written a new biography of him. Expect blood and perfidy.

When dealing with the conflict in Syria and other areas, US policy has largely been ineffectual. It needs to do more than just express moral outrage, says Christopher R Hill.

Angela Merkel is telling Germans that their country is stronger than terrorism and the government will do everything to ensure "security in freedom".

There has never been a year in my memory when so many uncharacteristically hostile attitudes

Pope Francis has wished Christmas peace on people scarred by wars and those who lost loved ones to terrorism that he says is sowing "fear and death" in many cities and countries.

Syrian army experts are dismantling explosives and booby-traps left behind by rebels before they left the last neighbourhoods they held in the northern city of Aleppo, according to state TV.

Russian officials investigating the assassination of their ambassador to Turkey have vowed that the killing would not disrupt efforts to repair the two countries' relationship.

Russia, Iran and Turkey are ready to act as guarantors in a peace deal between the Syrian government and the opposition, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Ten buses carrying civilians from two Shiite villages besieged by rebels in northern Syria are on their way to government-controlled areas, a Syrian activist group and a Lebanon-based TV station have said.

France has struck a compromise with Russia on a United Nations resolution that it said would prevent "mass atrocities" in besieged areas of Aleppo, Syria, where thousands of trapped civilians and rebel fighters await evacuation in freezing temperatures.

Suzanne Harrington shares her Christmas to do list

A deal to evacuate trapped civilians and fighters in war-ravaged east Aleppo and two Syrian villages has been thrown into doubt after assailants torched six buses assigned to the operation.

An agreement has been reached to allow "humanitarian cases" to leave two besieged government-held Shiite villages in north-western Syria, a step which would allow the evacuations of civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo to resume, Hezbollah's media arm and a monitoring group have said.

Evacuations from eastern Aleppo remain suspended until rebels allow residents of two besieged Shiite villages to leave to government-controlled areas, according to Syrian state TV.

The US president Barack Obama says the world is in horror at the Syrian regime's assault on the city of Aleppo.