BEIRUT: The number of Syrian refugees who died after a storm struck while they were attempting to cross the Lebanese-Syrian border has risen to 15, a security source told The Daily Star.

Turkey to crush ‘terror army’ to be set up by US in Syria: Erdoğan President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Jan. 15 threatened to thwart the creation of a U.S-backed 30,000-strong border security force manned mostly by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said regarding the Turkish Armed Forces' Operation Olive Branch: "This operation has a lesson to give, not only to the terror organisations but to the whole world. This lesson is to demonstrate that this operation is conducted also for democracy."

On Dec 19, 2017, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said that the government was considering a Chinese proposal to use renminbi (RMB or yuan) instead of the US dollar for payments in all bilateral trade between China and Pakistan.