Because I Can Cindy Marie

The Pentagon has now tracked 15 flights of Russian Antonov-124 "Condor" flights into Syria and has seen two more Russian ships offload military cargo - including half a dozen tanks - according to the latest intelligence, a defence official told Fox News.

Russian T-90 tanks have been seen by independent observers on the perimeter of Latakia airport on the Mediterranean coast, not far from the Russian naval base at Tartous.

Last weekend two Russian naval tank transport ships were seen docking in Tartous, and Latakia airport has been extended and re-surfaced.

The drastic increase in Russian support for the Syrian regime could be seen as an attempt to prevent it collapsing under a successful rebel onslaught by the Army of Islam, the Jaish al Islam, which is not associated with Islamic State.

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A statement was issued after the newly elected party leader had refused to answer questions over the make-up of his shadow cabinet, which has been criticised.

Mr Corbyn had pledged to ensure half of the shadow cabinet is made up of women, but some politicians noted the most senior posts had all gone to men.

Labour MP Diana Johnson tweeted: "It is so very disappointing - old fashioned male dominated Labour politics in the top positions in Shadow Cabinet #notforgirls."

But Mr Corbyn's office argued the so-called great offices of state were an outdated concept and that society had changed significantly.

This echoed the comments of Labour's new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, who said they did not recognise the traditional "hierarchical nature" of the jobs.

The statement issued in response to concerns over gender balance in the shadow cabinet said: "For Labour our proudest achievement is the creation of NHS.

"We are the party that delivered comprehensive education.

"We are the party that founded the open university, and that established and will defend the trade union and employment rights.

"The so-called 'great offices of state; as defined in the 19th Century reflect and era before women or workers even had the vote, and before Labour had radically changed the state."

Previously, Mr Corbyn had been pressed repeatedly by Sky News about why none of the key posts had gone to women but he did not respond.

As Mr Corbyn walked to his car outside Parliament early this morning, Sky's politics reporter Darren McCaffrey asked: "How do you face this criticism that there simply are not enough women in senior positions in the shadow cabinet?"

Mr Corbyn refused to answer, and continued walking as McCaffrey addressed several further questions to the Labour leader.

"Why do you just keep walking and not answer the question? Are you just going to keep walking?" McCaffrey said.

Eventually, Mr Corbyn said to a staffer: "There are people bothering me."

"Jeremy, we're not bothering you. We're just asking legitimate questions about your shadow cabinet appointments," McCaffrey replied.

The new Labour leader had been locked away in the opposition Chief Whips in the Commons from early Sunday afternoon with Rosie Winterton, his new chief whip and a team of close advisers.

Later, McCaffrey said only a small number of MPs actually visited Mr Corbyn in person yesterday, including Andy Burnham, David Lammy and Lord Falconer but most of the shadow cabinet was formed in frantic conversations.

Of all the people Mr Corbyn could have chosen to appoint as his most senior colleague, few could have been more divisive and uncompromising than John McDonnell.

He is a Labour MP who has spent his political career calling for radical overhaul of the UK economy.

While in reality his ideas may not constitute a wholesale overthrow of capitalism, they are nonetheless more controversial than any which have thus far been proposed by a major political party.

They include dramatically raising taxes on the wealthiest earners, bringing them back to 1970s levels; stripping the Bank of England of its independence; forcibly splitting up Britain's banks; abolishing all business tax breaks and introducing price controls on energy, rail and bus fares.

And all these on top of the controversial policies put forward by Mr Corbyn, including the nationalisation of Britain’s rail, energy and banking systems, and "people’s quantitative easing", under which the Bank of England would print money to finance public investment projects.

Of course, we have yet to learn whether all or indeed any of these policies will find their way into Labour’s next manifesto, but they nonetheless raise a question: do they suggest that Britain and its electorate are moving leftwards, or are they a cry of desperation from a Labour party frustrated with years of suppression?

It will take some years to find out the answers. In the meantime, we now have more ideological distance between the two major parties in Parliament than ever before.

Another question is whether that will drag the Conservatives to the centre, as they attempt to win over moderate Labour supporters, or push them further to the right, in the absence of strong centrist opposition.

As the country and its citizens had become richer, rendering everyone middle class, those old divisions between right-wingers who wanted lower taxes and left-wingers who wanted higher public spending were supposed to disappear.

But look at British politics today and you'll realise that precisely the opposite has happened.

With Jeremy Corbyn now in charge of the Labour party, the gap between the left and right leaning parties has never been wider.

Quite what Mr Corbyn's economic policies will consist of will become clearer in the coming weeks and months - they may well change their complexion now he has a large party to represent.

But to judge from his comments and proposals during the leadership campaign, Corbynomics may well even take the party to the left of Michael Foot.

There are the staple Labour policies: taxes are to be increased - particularly the highest rate, which will go back up to 50%.

There will be a special increase in National Insurance (income tax in all but name) for the wealthiest.

There will be a tax clampdown on companies and individuals, which promises to raise many billions.

There will be free tuition fees and higher public spending all round. A massive scheme of public investment projects will be paid for by coercing the Bank of England to print money.

The rail network will be re-nationalised, as will the energy companies and even the banking system. And all this before one gets to Mr Corbyn's foreign policy and defence proposals.

It all amounts to the most radical set of political proposals from a major party in decades.

Some might quibble and suggest that Foot's 1983 manifesto was more radical - but don't forget that at that stage, even after a full term of Margaret Thatcher, both taxes and spending were far higher than they are now.

Public expenditure was about 47% of gross domestic product; tax revenues amounted to about 44% of GDP.

Today public spending is under 40% of GDP and tax revenues are about 36% of GDP.

In other words, since then, the UK has become a significantly lower tax, lower-spending economy than it was in the 1980s.

One of the questions the rise of Mr Corbyn demands is whether that is likely to change. Will the presence of a far-left opposition leader in the Commons move the needle among the general public?

After all, the Chancellor has shown time and time again that he would be willing to steal ideas from his political opponents if they chime with the public mood.

Then again, it is difficult to see a Corbyn economic policy that George Osborne could easily adopt.

Rail nationalisation may be a popular idea, but privatisation was a Tory idea of the 1990s (further implemented by Labour under Blair, it should be added). The banks are currently in the process of being privatised.

When it comes to taxes, the Chancellor is actually in the process of raising them ever so slightly, but largely in order to meet his fiscal targets. His surplus rule makes big spending plans near-impossible.

Most fundamentally, it is not clear that Britons are particularly keen on a dramatic change to the country's fiscal profile.

Since the late 80s, leaving aside in recession times, public spending has been kept tightly between 35% and 40% of GDP. Taxes have barely risen much above their current level of 36% of GDP.

Such statistics may seem anodyne, but their stability would seem to suggest that Britons are relatively comfortable with taxes and spending where they are.

Who knows: perhaps Mr Corbyn will be able to move the needle. But it will take an extraordinary shift, given how reluctant voters seemed to be for even Ed Miliband's comparatively smaller tax increases at the last election.

The official Xinhua news agency said that guidelines issued by the Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council, China's cabinet, included plans to merge some state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and allow part-privatisations.

Xinhua said the government expected "decisive results" by 2020.

"The SOE system should be more modernised and market-oriented. It should make for higher economic vitality, higher control, greater influence and SOEs will be more risk-resistant."

China has more than 100 SOEs - many of them utilities, infrastructure and mining firms - with 25,000 more at a local government level, employing millions.

Companies such as China Mobile and the massive ICBC bank have remained in state hands because they are seen as crucial to national security.

The support from Beijing has meant SOEs have enjoyed preferential rates on loans but many are now suffering as the availability of credit dries up across the country - a core reason behind China's economic woes.

It is hoped that new investors can bring greater experience though many might be put off by the threat of state interference and the country's recent stock market crash.

There would also be huge pressure to maintain employment, as a big worry for the Chinese authorities is the prospect of social unrest arising from the economic slowdown.

Sheng Hong, director of the independent research group the Unirule Institute in Beijing, exercised caution on the reforms, saying they were "not meaningful" and failed to address critical issues including curtailing monopolies.

He told the AP news agency: "They have been only playing with words and don't intend to carry out real reform."

Credit conditions may be about to get further squeezed in China.

Stocks across Asia, including China, fell on Monday as investors continued to fret on whether the US Federal Reserve would start raising interest rates this week from their 2008 low.

Rising borrowing costs would exacerbate the loss of super-cheap money from quantitative easing - hitting not just China but wider emerging markets.

The latest factory output data from Beijing disappointed, growing by 6.1% in August, adding to worries about China's industrial activity after exports fell 5.5%.

The worse-than expected data - coupled with the prospect of rising US rates hitting credit availability and exchange rates - has left China at risk of missing its GDP growth forecast of 7% for this year.

All devices from the iPhone 4s onwards should receive a notification that the software - iOS 9 - is available to install.

As well as being offered as a free upgrade for owners of older models of the iPhone, it will come pre-installed on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models.

The big new feature is Apple News, a platform which publishers can send stories directly to consumers.

Users choose their favourite news sources, and the articles are then streamlined into one continuously updating feed.

The Notes app is also beefed up, with the ability to add check-lists, inline images, basic sketches, and web links.

You can also add items from whatever app you are in directly to Notes.

A number of other smaller tweaks have been made, including to the reintroduced search screen and the app-switching mechanism.

Meanwhile, those using iPads will see a number of device-specific changes.

The main one is that two apps can now "snap" side-by-side on screen, allowing you to multitask.

And while watching a video or making a FaceTime call, it is possible to swipe the video to the bottom of the screen while you work on something else in another app.

Apple customers are advised to back up before upgrading, so they are safe if anything goes wrong.

Because the file size is hefty, it is wise to be connected to a power source while downloading and installing the software.

:: Harold Wilson

Labour and the trade union movement were almost one-and-the-same thing for many years. The party was formed by the unions, was funded by them, and remained inextricably linked to them. 

Indeed, the role of the party in the first place was as a mechanism to get working-class union members into Parliament.

Harold Wilson, in the 60s and 70s, has come to epitomise the "beer and sandwiches" era, where union leaders were routinely consulted on major decisions. 

But Wilson also led the party into its first confrontation with the TUC. In 1969 he asked his employment minister Barbara Castle to write a new policy governing industrial relations, called 'In Place of Strife'.  Though to modern eyes it seems mild, it was ferociously - and successfully - resisted by the unions.

:: Neil Kinnock

Though well within living memory, the 1980s was a whole different era for trade unions compared to now. With more than 12 million members they truly represented a vast swathe of the British workforce. But one thing was the same as today - a Tory government determined to clip their wings.

Margaret Thatcher's succession of bills saw the biggest retreat in union power since the "beer and sandwiches" days. 

Kinnock's battles against the hard left within the Labour Party had an echo in his relations with the TUC. While his alliances with most unions were strong, he came under attack for criticising the National Union of Mineworkers for not having a ballot for strike action.