USA - Collins dictionary went with “brat”. Oxford chose “brain rot”. But in a brutally divided country, the US’s premier dictionary skipped the slang: Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “polarization”. The announcement comes in an election year that put the concept on display, as Kamala Harris warned of fascism under Donald Trump, while Trump resorted to name-calling and claimed his opponent was running on “destruction”. As the dictionary put it, polarization “happens to be one idea that both sides of the political spectrum agree on”. Merriam-Webster defines polarization as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.” In other words, as Peter Sokolowski, the dictionary’s editor-at-large, told the Associated Press, it “means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the center”.

PHILIPPINES - More than 87,000 people have been evacuated following the eruption of a volcano, with fears that it could erupt again. Some 87,000 people have been evacuated after Mount Kanlaon erupted in the Philippines, spewing out a towering plume of ash and superhot streams of gas and debris down its western slopes. There are fears that it could erupt again, so authorities have scrambled in an attempt to keep as many people as safe as possible. Visibility across the central regions is poor as a result of the ash cloud. At least six domestic flights and one Singapore-bound flight were cancelled and two local flights have been diverted. Although no fatalities have as yet been reported, Philippine chief volcanologist Teresito Bacolcol said the area poses a huge risk to residents and the evacuations are essential.

TAIWAN - The approach of a fleet of 90 Chinese naval and coastguard vessels has put the Taiwanese military on high alert as Beijing accelerates its menacing of the self-ruled island. Taiwan said the ships, the largest number sent by Beijing towards the country in months, were targeting the “entire island chain”. An official in Taipei told Reuters: “They are meant to achieve total military intimidation by positioning to control the inner part of the island chain.” The show of force eclipses the 34 Chinese naval vessels and 125 aircraft that were deployed in October. Taiwan said the vessels were seeking to establish seven zones of “reserved airspace”, apparently in preparation for large-scale war games. Taiwan accuses China of pursuing “grey zone” manoeuvres, including daily air force and navy activity, that fall short of warfare but increase pressure on the island’s military.

SYRIA - The country is a patchwork of armed factions and opposition groups – trying to reconcile feminists with jihadists will be tough. As they celebrate the downfall of the Assad regime, many Syrians have been too busy revelling in their present joy to worry about the future. Few would begrudge them their moment. Yet Viktor Chernomyrdin’s famous aphorism will be lurking in the back of many minds among those who watch the Middle East: “We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.” Syria remains a patchwork of armed factions and opposition groups with wildly different, frequently competing aims. They will all be jostling for a privileged position under the new dispensation, ideally at the expense of their rivals.

RUSSIA - Within hours of Syrian rebels entering Damascus, Russian state television attempted to downplay the significance for Moscow of the collapse of President Assad’s regime, the Kremlin’s biggest ally in the Middle East. It was a hard sell. When President Putin launched a military campaign in Syria in 2015, the move was portrayed in Moscow as evidence that Russia was re-emerging as a global power with the potential to challenge the West. Over the following years, the Kremlin spent billions of pounds on propping up Assad, while milking the optics of its military intervention, even flying western journalists to its air and naval bases in Syria. The message was clear: Russia was in Syria to stay. Yet by Sunday evening, after Assad and his family had been granted asylum in Moscow, Kremlin propaganda had switched to telling Russians that the dramatic events in Damascus were relatively unimportant.

MIDDLE EAST - No country is better placed than Turkey to emerge as the great winner from the fall of Assad. While the extent of Ankara’s involvement in last week’s rebel advance remains unclear, Turkey has provided the longest, the strongest and at many times the most controversial support for the armed Syrian opposition. From Barack Obama’s refusal to honour the red line he drew over the Assad’s regime’s use of chemical weapons to the oscillating commitment of various Arab allies, Turkey was the only state that never gave up on the Syrian opposition.

IRAN - Iran is teetering on the brink — why this could make regime more dangerous than ever. 2024 must rank as one of the worst years for the Iranian regime. Israel has humbled and decapitated Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon, with key assassinations along the way, including Revolutionary Guards commanders and Hamas leaders. The deaths of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash earlier this year scuppered succession plans for Tehran into the bargain.

SYRIA - The fall of Assad is a disaster for Putin. More dominoes may fall across the Middle East. The events now unfolding in Syria could bring many things: the beginning of the end of three, maybe four wars, the unravelling of the so-called axis of evil – or the dawn of a new dark age which will propel millions more refugees to Europe. We may see all of these. The direction of travel, I believe, will be apparent within days.

SYRIA - Allies and rivals eye up each other to see how the dust will settle in Syria. The fall of President Assad will reverberate far beyond Damascus as the great powers that backed the various sides in the Syrian conflict emerge from the wreckage of his regime as winners and losers. “Turns out nuclear countries can lose wars,“ said Aleksandar Djokic, a political analyst, referring to Russia. “Lose strategic interests, be humiliated — and still no nuclear holocaust is unleashed.”

ISRAEL - Israel’s Army Radio reported Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had seized the peak of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in the region, as a precaution against the advance of Syrian rebels as the Assad regime collapsed. The mountain, covered in snow during the winter months, is the highest in the region, and a key strategic point. Israel has a military base on the mountainside, but Syria has long had a military base on the peak of the mountain itself. The move marks the first time Israeli troops have been on the peak of the mountain since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israel has cautiously welcomed the demise of the Assad regime, a fierce enemy for more than five decades. However, Israel stressed the danger of both sides in the Syrian fight, noting that the rebels include Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists.

USA - The US has confirmed that more than 75 ISIS targets were hit as part of efforts to "disrupt, degrade, and defeat" the terror group. ISIS targets in Syria have been hit with a barrage of US airstrikes in an attempt to wipe the terror group from the earth. US Central Command (CENTCOM) posted on X this evening that "over 75 targets" were struck in the centre of the country "using multiple US Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s". CENTCOM explained that "the strikes against the ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, to prevent the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria".

SYRIA - In the end there was no final stand or fearsome battle to salvage the regime — instead, the dictator’s soldiers left their weapons and fled. Just about the time Bashar al-Assad was packing his bags and preparing to flee Damascus, Syrian state television was playing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on loop. The president’s office said he was busy with “constitutional tasks”.

SYRIA - President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that the US military should stay out of the fast-escalating conflict in Syria, where a dramatic rebel offensive reached the capital and threatened the rule of Syria’s Russian- and Iranian-allied president. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” Trump declared on social media. As world leaders watched the stunning rebel advance, with its potential to alter the balance of power in the Middle East, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser separately stressed that the Biden administration had no intention of intervening. “The United States is not going to ... militarily dive into the middle of a Syrian civil war,” Jake Sullivan told an audience in California.

TURKEY - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has voiced support for the jihadist insurgency in Syria, urging the Islamists to continue their march to Damascus, various media outlets reported on Friday. Militant forces in Syria led by the group Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, last week launched a surprise assault from their base in Idlib, targeting the province of Aleppo. Over the past week, the militants have driven back government forces and captured significant chunks of territory in Aleppo and Idlib, and on Thursday surrounded the key city of Hama.

MIDDLE EAST - Iran is abandoning its Syrian ally following rapid gains made by Islamist rebel forces, who are now closing in on the capital Damascus. “Iran is starting to evacuate its forces and military personnel because we cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” a prominent advisor to the Iranian regime, Mehdi Rahmati, told the New York Times. “The bottom line,” he said, “is that Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table.” The unspoken reason Iran is leaving Syria is that Israel smashed Iran's proxy Hezbollah, fatally weakening its ability to carry out operations outside of Lebanon. Abandoned by Iran, and with Russia unable to help, Assad's own poorly led and disorganized army won't be able to stem the tide. The Syrian army abandoned the second-largest city, Aleppo, while barely firing a shot. Now the Islamist army is rolling south, headed for Damascus.