Syria army retakes more than half of rebel-held east Aleppo

Syrian troops have moved deeper into the city of Aleppo, taking 60 percent of rebel-held areas, a monitor says. But the EU's top diplomat says the fall of the city will not end the Syrian conflict.

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Syrian government forces and allied troops have advanced further into rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo, recapturing some 60 percent of the terrain held by rebels since mid-2012, a group monitoring the country's long-running conflict said on Saturday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the district of Tariq al-Bab had been taken overnight to Saturday by the Syrian army and allied forces. Recapturing the area means that the road from the government-controlled west of the city to the international airport to the east of Aleppo, also held by the regime, is now open.

The advance by government forces has caused more civilians to flee, either to remaining rebel-held districts further to the south, Kurdish-controlled areas, or those held by the government. Some 50,000 people are thought to have left the area so far.

More than 300 civilians have been killed in the ferocious assault on east Aleppo since November 15, according to the Observatory, with nearly 65 civilians killed by rebel fire in the west during the same period. Government forces have been backed by airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force, Moscow being a long-time ally of Assad.

The growing violence has aroused international outrage, with the UN warning that east Aleppo could become "a giant graveyard."

No end in sight?

Losing eastern Aleppo would by the biggest blow yet to rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad in the country's more than 5-year-old war.

However, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Saturday that she was sure the conflict would continue nonetheless.

UNICEF, the UN's children's agency, says nearly 20,000 children have fled

"I'm convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war," she said at a conference in Rome.

At the same meeting, the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he hoped some means could be found to prevent the situation in Aleppo degenerating even further.

"I was feeling it would be a terrible battle ending up by Christmas-New Year. I hope the battle will not take place, that there will be some type of formula," he said.

More than 300,000 people have been killed so far in Syria's conflict, which had its roots in peaceful, Arab Spring-inspired anti-government protests in March 2011. More than half of the country's population has been displaced.

Opinion: India without cash - Modi has lost his bet

India wants to go digital and cash becomes outdated overnight. Prime minister Modi certainly wants to do the right thing. But with the demonetization move his calculation just doesn't add up, writes Katja Keppner.

Why does a head of government declare 86 percent of the cash on hand in his country to be invalid in a shock-and-awe move? Without any prior warning. Did he really believe that such a monetary shock therapy would free India from its black money? That 98 percent of the Indian population who do not pay any taxes, will do so in the future? That the national economy of a country, where 90 percent of transactions are carried out in cash, can slide into a "cashless future" - virtually overnight? There is evidence that he really thought so!

The end does not justify the means

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the reputation of being a real workhorse. A lone fighter, whose ambitious goal is to lead India into a new future. To lift the country's miserable out of poverty. To attract investors. India is to grow, shall turn digital and has to be transformed into a cash-free economy. On Twitter, Modi proclaimed that by invalidating the 500 and 1,000 rupee bills he had turned every single citizen into a soldier in his fight against corruption and black money. His objective is right - but the end does not justifiy the means.

Katja Keppner reports 

For more than three weeks, people have been standing in long lines to get cash from ATMs. With their hands full of useless rupee bills, cheques or ATM cards. But many are left out in the cold, empty-handed. In some cases, the daily cash limit has been reached, in other cases the ATM simply quits working. The banks are completely swamped. In rural areas the situation is even more dramatic: There are villages where no cash has been in circulation for days. People barter and pay in kind. Can this be the future?

After initial appaluse and cheers that people hiding black money had been caught with their pants down, the sentiment in India is about to change. New rules are being issued on a daily basis, an indication that the Modi administration had been poorly prepared to deal with the aftermath of the announcement. Exemptions are being declared and revoked on a regular basis. Counterfeit bills of the newly issued 500 and 2,000 rupee notes are already in circulation.

Trust: the real value of a currency

Modi's demonetization gambles with the confidence of more than a billion Indians. It seems as if Modi has underestimated the value of this political currency. Because an economy can only grow if there is trust in a country's currency. Some economists have already called Modi's currency policy as "blind" and "dumb," since Modi has apparently ignored that more than half of the Indian population still doesn't have proper access to banking services.

Many of those 600 million people have to walk for a whole day or travel on a pick-up truck to the next town to go to a bank. Most of them don't even understand what they see on the display of an ATM – not to talk of comprehending the significance of a PIN code.

Exactly these people are the ones who are suffering right now. They don't have easy access to their banking account via a mobile app on their smart phone. They cannot order goods and services online while sitting on their couch, like many millions of middle-class Indians do every day. Coolies and other day laborers complain that their children don't have enough to eat. Street hawkers complain that they are not able to sell their vegetables, let alone buy new merchandize. Farmers complain that they don't have cash to buy new seeds. The ones who have cash, are hoarding it instead of spending it. The economy is under shock. And nobody believes in Modi's promise anymore that this shock will be overcome by the end of the year. Neither that the new rupee bills will banish India's black money. The prime minister has simply lost his bet.

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