Aleppo reels from strikes as Russia accused of crimes

ALEPPO Syria’s Aleppo faced worsening food and medical shortages on Monday as warplanes again pounded the city after Western powers at the UN accused Russia of war crimes. A fresh wave of intensive air strikes hit the city’s opposition-controlled east from dawn on Mondayafter Moscow and Damascus faced fierce criticism at the UN Security Council. AFP WASHINGTON: As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton tried to convince voters as to who is the better candidate in the first of their three face-offs, Lester Holt, the moderator, would have quietly wished he did not do too bad himself. Moderators are in play this election cycle more than ever before in recent years.

Trump has already told moderators not to fact-check him like CNN’s Candy Crowley did with Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who sought to unseat President Barack Obama in 2012. She was viciously slammed as unfair by Republicans.

Trump, once again, went on to call moderators “unfair”, arguing they are mostly Democrats. “By the way, Lester is a Democrat. It’s a phony system,” he said recently. In fact, Holt is a registered Republican.

But Trump, who has only a nodding acquaintance with facts or none at all, has also said CNN’s Andersen Cooper, who moderates the second debate with ABC News’s Martha Raddatz, has treated him “unfairly” on his network, which the Republican calls the “Clinton News Network”.

The Commission on Presidential Debates, a non-partisan and