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This file photo released on Monday, Sept 10, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows smoke rising from a Syrian government airstrike, in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File)
This file photo released on Monday, Sept 10, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows smoke rising from a Syrian government airstrike, in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File)

Displaced Syrians return to homes

BEIRUT -- Thousands of people who were recently displaced by violence in northwest Syria have returned home after a Russia-Turkey deal that averted a government offensive on the last major rebel stronghold, Syrian opposition activists said Wednesday.

The United Nations said that in the first 12 days of September, more than 38,000 people were internally displaced by an intense government aerial bombing campaign in Idlib and neighboring provinces. Most of them headed toward the border with Turkey, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

It said more than 4,500 are estimated to have spontaneously returned to their homes shortly afterward when government bombardment stopped.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that some 7,000 people have returned to their towns and villages since Monday when Russia and Turkey announced the deal.

The demilitarized zone will be established by Oct. 15 and be 9-12 miles deep, with troops from Russia and Turkey conducting coordinated patrols.

Israel to update Russia on air raid

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Israel's offer to share detailed information about its air raid that triggered fire by Syrian forces that downed a Russian reconnaissance plane, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

Syrian forces mistook the Russian Il-20 for Israeli aircraft, killing all 15 people aboard on Monday. Russia's Defense Ministry blamed the plane's loss on Israel, but Putin sought to defuse tensions, pointing at "a chain of tragic accidental circumstances."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Putin on Tuesday to express sorrow over the death of the plane's crew, blamed Syria and offered to dispatch Israel's air force chief to Moscow to provide details.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that Russian experts will study the data to be provided by the Israeli air force chief.

While the Russian leader took a cautious stance on the incident, he warned that Russia will respond by "taking additional steps to protect our servicemen and assets in Syria."

Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said Wednesday that those will include deploying automated protection systems at Russia's air and naval bases in Syria.

Colombia cocaine yield teems again

Colombia's cocaine production has never been higher, surpassing levels seen before U.S. President Bill Clinton started the Plan Colombia counter-narcotics program.

The amount of land planted with coca shrubs rose 17 percent to 422,550 acres last year, enough raw material to produce 1,379 tons of cocaine, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Wednesday. That's more than triple the output five years ago.

Coca output now surpasses the previous record of 402,781 acres in 2000, the year Plan Colombia started. The U.S. has given Colombia more than $10 billion in aid over that period.

Plan Colombia didn't change conditions in the country's cocaine producing regions, which suffer from an absence of the state, land titles, roads or legal economic opportunities, said Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.

A 38 percent slump in world coffee prices since the start of 2017 also has led some farmers to switch to coca.

Virtually all of the world's cocaine comes from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

A Section on 09/20/2018

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