Category World News

The Syrian army is telling civilians to evacuate parts of the rural Aleppo governorate after accusing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of building up troops in the area, following days of deadly fighting inside Aleppo city, as concerns rise over a new front in the simmering battle.

A “humanitarian zone” was expected to remain open on Thursday from 9am local time (6:00 GMT) to 5pm (14:00 GMT), allowing residents to leave Deir Hafer and Maskana in the eastern countryside. The army declared the areas closed military zones and sent in their own reinforcements earlier this week.

“A convoy this heavily armed, carrying troops, is far more than a show of strength,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi from Deir Hafer, as soldier-laden military vehicles streamed down the roadway.

“This represents how committed the Syrian government is to counter areas currently under SDF control,” he added.

At least 23 people have been killed in clashes between the United States-backed, Kurdish-led SDF and the Syrian army that have gripped Aleppo for more than a week. Although a March deal promised to incorporate the SDF into Syrian state institutions, talks over incorporation have since stalled, leading to the renewed conflict.

A ceasefire announced on January 9 allowed SDF fighters to trickle out of Aleppo’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud Kurdish neighbourhoods to parts of northeastern Syria, where the SDF runs a semi-autonomous zone.

In Deir Hafer and Maskana, the military called on the SDF to withdraw to the other side of the Euphrates river, located east of the contested zone. The two sides have exchanged limited fire.

The government has also accused the SDF of carrying out drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after government officials hosted a news conference at the site.

The SDF, for its part, has accused the army of escalating attacks on infrastructure and facilities in Deir Hafer.

‘Eagerly awaiting’ incorporation deal

On Wednesday, Syria’s military closed off several roads in the al-Safira area of rural Aleppo province “for security reasons and to ensure the safety of citizens”, state news agency SANA reported.

The SDF troop buildup in the area included fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and other “remnants of the former regime”, the agency added.

The PKK carried out a 40-year armed struggle in Turkiye, and Turkish officials said they were closely watching Syria’s latest round of fighting. Nuh Yilmaz, Turkiye’s ambassador to Damascus, travelled to Aleppo this week “to witness the restoration of peace and stability”.

“We are eagerly awaiting the implementation of the [March] agreement without the need for war,” Yilmaz told reporters. “This way, there will be no need for war, fighting or other methods, and we can all focus on a development agenda in peace.”

On Thursday, ‍Turkish ‍Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the SDF must show good intentions ‍and break ⁠out of a cycle of violence.

One rural Aleppo resident, Zuhair, told Al Jazeera that people were desperate to flee “but there’s nowhere to go”.

“Wherever you go, there is bombing,” he said. “We want to be stable. We want to live. I swear, we’re tired.”

The Syrian Interior Ministry, meanwhile, released a group of SDF fighters in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood after securing the defection of an unknown number of SDF fighters.

Video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera Mubasher showed a group of several dozen men leaving a detention centre in Aleppo and boarding buses.

In a statement on Telegram, the ministry wrote those released were “found not to be involved in criminal acts or to have blood on their hands”.

“This step aligns with the state’s policy of opening the doors of return for all those who have gone astray and have not committed crimes against civilians,” it added.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa emphasised in an interview aired on state TV on Wednesday that he admired the “courage” of the Kurdish people, arguing that the December 2024 ousting of President Bashar al-Assad was the first “real response” to injustices against the community in decades.

But he also lashed out against the SDF, saying the group has refused to allow civilians to safely evacuate from the recent fighting and has pushed off efforts from the US and France to mediate a ceasefire.

The interview was intended to air on Shams TV in Erbil, the centre of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, but was spiked because of al-Sharaa’s hardline stance against the SDF, The Associated Press news agency reported.

A day after warning of possible ‘serious consequences’ over protests in Iran, US President Donald Trump told reporters he’s been told the killing of protesters has stopped but insisted the situation would be closely monitored.

From Carlos Alcaraz to Jannik Sinner, and Aryna Sabalenka to Coco Gauff, the world’s top tennis players have arrived Down Under as the year’s first Grand Slam gets under way in Melbourne this week.

The famous blue hard courts will see all-time great Novak Djokovic continue his search for a record-extending 11th Australian Open and 25th Grand Slam title amid the modern-day rivalry between defending champion Sinner and world number one Alcaraz.

In the women’s draw, Sabalenka will once again attempt to win her third Australian Open title but will face a tough challenge from Iga Swiatek, Gauff and Amanda Anisimova.

And thousands of fans will brave the Australian summer to catch the biggest stars of the game in action.

Here’s all you need to know about the Australian Open 2026:

When does the Australian Open 2026 main round start, and when are the finals?

The first round of men’s and women’s singles matches starts on Sunday, January 18.

The women’s singles final will be played at the Rod Laver Arena on Saturday, January 31, and the men’s singles final will be played at the same venue a day later.

Where is the Australian Open played?

The first Slam of the year is played on the hard court venues located at Melbourne Park. Apart from the Rod Laver Arena, the other main courts are the Margaret Court Arena and John Cain Arena.

Who are the Australian Open defending champions?

Madison Keys stunned two-time champion Sabalenka to win her first Slam in the 2025 final in three sets.

In the men’s final, it was a Jannik Sinner masterclass as the Italian overcame Germany’s Alexander Zverev in straight sets for his second Australian Open title.

Will Djokovic play in the Australian Open 2026?

The Serb pulled out of the Adelaide Open, which is seen as a warm-up event for the Australian Open, saying he wasn’t “physically ready” for the tournament.

While the tennis great didn’t reveal whether it was an injury or simply a need to rest his body before the Slam, he did confirm his plans to arrive in Melbourne ahead of the first round and has been named in the tournament’s draw.

Who are the favourites to win the Australian Open 2026?

An exciting mix of former champions and current top-ranked players count among the favourites to lift the title at the end of two weeks.

Carlos Alcaraz: The world number one has not played a competitive match since the ATP Finals against Sinner in Turin, Italy, where he lost to the home favourite in straight sets. However, he ended 2025 on top of the ATP rankings after racking up wins at the end-of-year hard-court tournaments. The Australian Open is the only Grand Slam title to have eluded him, and top-seeded Alcaraz will be eager to set that record straight at the beginning of the new tennis season.

Jannik Sinner: After losing the US Open final to Alcaraz, Sinner went on to win four of the five ATP tournaments he played, including the ATP Finals at home. The defending champion will be looking to complete a “three-peat” at the only Grand Slam he’s won more than once.

Daniil Medvedev: The former US Open champion endured a topsy-turvy season in 2025. While he has not appeared in a Grand Slam final since the 2024 Australian Open, the Russian began the current season with a statement win at the Brisbane International. Despite dropping out of the top 10, with his current ATP ranking of 12, Medvedev will be one of the dark horses in Melbourne.

Aryna Sabalenka: Despite spending most of 2025 on top of the women’s rankings and entering three Grand Slam finals, Sabalenka was able to win only the US Open title to end her year on a high. The Belarusian has evolved her game from hard-court expertise to progress further on grass and clay. She will relish the opportunity to win her third Australian Open title after missing out last year. Sabalenka enters the tournament as the top seed, after winning the Brisbane title without dropping a set.

Iga Swiatek: The unassuming Polish player has won the most women’s singles Grand Slam titles (6) among the current crop of top WTA players but she has yet to get her hands on an Australian Open trophy. Swiatek experienced mixed results at majors in 2025 but tasted success at Wimbledon in a near-faultless final. The 24-year-old began the year with a United Cup team win for Poland against Switzerland and arrives at Melbourne ranked second.

Amanda Anisimova: While Anisimova lost both Grand Slam finals – Wimbledon and US Open – that she entered last year, the American has swiftly climbed back into the WTA rankings since making her return to the game in 2024 after stepping away briefly in 2023, citing mental health concerns. Currently ranked fourth in the world, the 24-year-old has shown the ability to knock out top seeds in major tournaments and will be one to watch in the women’s draw.

Who are the top seeds?

Men’s:

1. Carlos Alcaraz (Spain)
2. Jannik Sinner (Italy)
3. Alexander Zverev (Germany)
4. Novak Djokovic (Serbia)
5. Lorenzo Musetti (Italy)
6. Alex de Minaur (Australia)
7. Felix Auger-Aliassime (Canada)
8. Ben Shelton (USA)
9. Taylor Fritz (USA)
10. Alexander Bublik (Kazakhstan)

Women’s:

1. Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus)
2. Iga Swiatek (Poland)
3. Coco Gauff (USA)
4. Amanda Anisimova (USA)
5. Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan)
6. Jessica Pegula (USA)
7. Jasmine Paolini (Italy)
8. Mirra Andreeva (Russia)
9. Madison Keys (USA)
10. Belinda Bencic (Switzerland)

Can there be Sinner vs Alcaraz, and Sabalenka vs Gauff finals?

The top two seeds are placed in opposite halves of the men’s singles draw and can meet in the final, should they qualify.

Djokovic and Sinner are in the same half and will be on a collision course to meet in the semifinals, while Alcaraz could meet last year’s runner-up, Zverev, in his semifinal.

In the women’s draw, a final meeting between Sabalenka and Swiatek could materialise. Swiatek could meet Anisimova in the semis, while Gauff is in Sabalenka’s half of the draw and the pair could meet in the semifinals.

Has Venus Williams qualified for the Australian Open 2026?

Williams was given a wild-card entry for the Australian Open, and will play at the tournament for the first time in five years.

The 45-year-old will become the oldest woman to compete in an Australian Open main draw and could meet Gauff in the second round of the Australian Open, more than six years after they first played each other in a major.

Gauff was 15 when she beat the seven-time major winner in the first round at Wimbledon in 2019 in her Grand Slam debut.

Why is Roger Federer at the Australian Open 2026?

Federer will headline the “Battle of the World No 1s” exhibition event that serves as the launching event for the Grand Slam.

The Swiss great will be back on Rod Laver Arena for the first time since he retired in 2022 as the Grand Slam at Melbourne Park introduces an inaugural “opening ceremony”.

Held on the evening before the tournament starts on January 18, it will include a tribute to Federer, who won the Norman Brookes trophy six times among his 20 major titles.

He will also join four-time Australian Open winner Andre Agassi and Australians Pat Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt for a star-studded match.

How to buy tickets for the Australian Open 2026?

Tickets are up for grabs on the tournament’s official website.

How much is the prize money for the Australian Open 2026?

The total prize money on offer will be $74.9m, while the men’s and women’s singles champions will receive $2.79m each.

How to follow and livestream the Australian Open 2026?

The tournament will be shown by local and terrestrial broadcasters, as well as digital streaming services around the globe.

India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course.

The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi, a mountainous district overlooking the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas, which separates the plains of Jammu from the Kashmir valley.

Of the 50 pupils who joined the five-year bachelor’s in medicine (MBBS) programme in November, 42 were Muslims, most of them residents of Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one was a Sikh. It was the first MBBS batch that the private college, founded by a Hindu religious charity and partly funded by the government, had launched.

Admissions to medical colleges across India, whether public or private, follow a centralised entrance examination, called the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency (NTA).

More than two million Indian students appear for NEET every year, hoping to secure one of approximately 120,000 MBBS seats. Aspirants usually prefer public colleges, where fees are lower but cutoffs for admission are high. Those who fail to meet the cutoff but meet a minimum NTA threshold join a private college.

Like Saniya Jan*, an 18-year-old resident of Kashmir’s Baramulla district, who recalls being overwhelmed with euphoria when she passed the NEET, making her eligible to study medicine. “It was a dream come true – to be a doctor,” Saniya told Al Jazeera.

When she joined a counselling session that determines which college a NEET qualifier joins, she chose SMVDMI since it was about 316km (196 miles) from her home – relatively close for students in Kashmir, who often otherwise have to travel much farther to go to college.

Saniya’s thrilled parents drove to Reasi to drop her off at the college when the academic session started in November. “My daughter has been a topper since childhood. I have three daughters, and she is the brightest. She really worked hard to get a medical seat,” Saniya’s father, Gazanfar Ahmad*, told Al Jazeera.

But things did not go as planned.

‘No business being there’

As soon as local Hindu groups found out about the religious composition of the college’s inaugural batch in November, they launched demonstrations demanding that the admission of Muslim students be scrapped. They argued that since the college was chiefly funded from the offerings of devotees at Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, a prominent Hindu shrine in Kashmir, Muslim students had “no business being there”.

The agitations continued for weeks, with demonstrators amassing every day outside the iron gates of the college and raising slogans.

Meanwhile, legislators belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which has been accused of pursuing anti-Muslim policies since coming to power in 2014 – even wrote petitions to Kashmir’s lieutenant governor, urging him to reserve admissions in SMVDMI only for Hindu students. The lieutenant governor is the federally appointed administrator of the disputed region.

In the days that followed, their demands escalated to seeking the closure of the college itself.

As the protests intensified, the National Medical Commission on January 6 announced that it had rescinded the college’s authorisation because it had failed to “meet the minimum standard requirements” specified by the government for medical education. The NMC claimed the college suffered from critical deficiencies in its teaching faculty, bed occupancy, patient flow in outpatient departments, libraries and operating theatres. The next day, a “letter of permission”, which authorised the college to function and run courses, was withdrawn.

‘The college was good’

But most students Al Jazeera talked to said they did not see any shortcomings in the college and that it was well-equipped to run the medical course. “I don’t think the college lacked resources,” Jahan*, a student who only gave her second name, said. “We have seen other colleges. Some of them only have one cadaver per batch, while this college has four of them. Every student got an opportunity to dissect that cadaver individually.”

Rafiq, a student who only gave his second name, said that he had cousins in sought-after government medical colleges in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir. “Even they don’t have the kind of facilities that we had here,” he said.

Saniya’s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, “everything seemed normal”.

“The college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,” he said.

Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college’s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. “Logic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don’t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,” he told Al Jazeera.

Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was “absurd” given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. “There is a system in place that determines it. A student is supposed to give preference, and a lot of parameters are factored in before the admission lists are announced. When students are asked for their choices, they give multiple selections rather than one. So how is it their fault?” he asked.

Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI’s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, via telephone for comments. He did not respond to calls or text messages. The college has issued no public statement since the revocation of its authorisation to offer medical courses.

‘They turned merit into religion’

Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.

Salim Manzoor*, another student, pointed out that Indian-administered Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, also had a medical college where Hindu candidates are enrolled under a quota reserved for them and other communities that represent a minority in the region.

The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the “legitimate sentiments” that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. “This college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,” BJP’s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. “The college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings. There’s no question of the issue being about Hindus and Muslims.”

Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to “suffer due to NMC’s decision” and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. “These children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them. We will have supernumerary seats, so their education is not affected. It is not difficult for us to adjust all 50 students, and we will do it,” he said.

Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college. “People generally fight for having a medical college in their midst. But here, the fight was put up to have the medical college shut. You have played with the future of the medical students of [Kashmir]. If ruining the future of students brings you happiness, then celebrate it.”

Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah’s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 – making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine – stakeholders. “This means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-administered Kashmir] can go and study there. In a few decades, the college would have churned out thousands of fresh medical graduates. If a lot of them are Muslims today, tomorrow they would have been Hindus as well,” he told Al Jazeera.

Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to “communalise” the region’s education sector. “The narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,” he said.

He pointed out that Muslim-run universities, not just in Kashmir but across India, that were recognised as minority institutions did not “have an official policy of excluding Hindus”.

Back at her home in Baramulla, Saniya is worried about her future. “I appeared for a competitive exam, which is one of the hardest in India, and was able to get a seat at a medical college,” she told Al Jazeera.