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Uprising’s guest expert Arun Gupta, Independent Journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, In These Times, The Progressive, and Truthout, and co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and the Indypendent, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki claims Syrian air strikes have hit Sunni militants, calling it a win-win for both governments. The Guardian newspaper is reporting that “Syrian warplanes struck near the border crossing in the town of Qaim on Tuesday, hitting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis).” The strikes have apparently taken place on the Syrian side of the Iraq-Syria border. However, state-run news outlets in Syria denied the news, citing a source that, “refuted allegations made by malicious media outlets.” The US has criticized President Bashar Al Assad over Syria’s civil war, although it has declined to use force. But, the US nominally supports Iraq’s regime which it helped to install. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article about the story.

The entry into the US of thousands of unaccompanied undocumented minors, mostly from Central America, has posed a serious conundrum for the Obama Administration. Now, El Salvador’s Ambassador to the US has told the press that US officials raised the possibility with him of chartering flights of children back to El Salvador. Ambassador Rubén Zamora criticized the plan saying it, “doesn’t make sense.” And, the LA Times is reporting this morning that the Obama Administration “has slowed plans to announce revisions to deportation policies, including one that would stop most deportations of foreigners with no criminal convictions other than immigration violations.” Click here for an Al Jazeera article about the El Salvador story, and here for an LA Times article about Obama’s policy changes.

The Swedish based department store Ikea, announced plans this morning to raise the base wages of its workers in all of its US stores, to an average of $10.76 an hour. The raise represents a 17% increase. Wages will be set differently at different stores according to the costs of living in the cities where the stores are based. This comes just days after Gap Inc. announced an increase to $9 an hour for its 65,000 employees nationwide. Eventually this will increase to $10 an hour. Click here for a Think Progress report about Ikea, and here for a Chicago Tribune article about Gap.