Germany pledged €1.58 billion ($1.78 billion) for Syria at a conference hosted by the EU and the UN. While the event raised a total of $7.7 billion, charity association Oxfam said the sum was "simply not enough."

Italian police released video of a seizure of a 14-tonne haul of amphetamines made by the Islamic State group in Syria, calling it the biggest seizure of such drugs in the world.

From Syrian war crimes to US hypocrisy in the Julian Assange case, the global "erosion of human rights standards" is of critical concern, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer tells DW.

French authorities have seized €90 million of real estate from Rifaat Assad and sentenced him to four years in jail. The court found he stole vast sums from the Syrian public purse and laundered it across Europe.

For the first time anywhere, Syrian intelligence officers are facing trial — in Germany. The court aims to probe the defendant's alleged crimes as well as cast light on Bashar Assad's system of torture and oppression.

To the south, Syria and Idlib province where Ankara says it is now directly targeting pro-Assad forces after last week's killing in an air strike of 34 Turkish soldiers. With Russia backing Damascus in its bid to retake the last-rebel held enclave in Syria, we ask just how far it can escalate between now and Thursday's planned trip by Turkey's President to Moscow.

The number of those displaced due to the conflict in the region is now believed to be 900,000. The UN's Relief Chief said "individual interests" need to be dropped to aid the humanitarian operation.

From consolidating Iranian influence in Iraq to waging war against the "Islamic State" in Syria, General Qassem Soleimani was an instrumental figure for Iranian aspirations in the region. DW examines his life.

Syrian local activists organise a football game in a muddy field in a camp for the internally displaced west of Sarmada town in Syria's rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, near the border with Turkey. The latest round of violence in Syria's nearly nine-year-old war, saw regime forces upping their deadly bombardment of the northwestern province of Idlib, pushing, in December alone according to the United Nations, some 284,000 from their homes in the jihadist-run region of some three million people.

Activists distribute Christmas presents to displaced Syrian children living in the Washukanni camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in the mainly Kurdish northeastern Syrian province of Hasakeh. The gesture is part of the "We are with you" campaign organised by Kurdish Syrian youths living abroad who decided to send gifts to displaced children as a result of the eight-year-old conflict in Syria.

Two Syrian families pack their bags and flee their homes not knowing where to go. Like them, tens of thousands of people have fled Maaret al-Numan region, located in jihadist-held Idlib province, since December 16, following an uptick in airstrikes, according to the United Nations.

China and Russia have been sharply criticized for vetoing a UN resolution to extend cross-border aid to Syria. Aid groups have warned of a humanitarian disaster if the life-saving assistance were to stop.