Syria

Weaponising climate politics? Or ensuring climate action unity? — The United Arab Emirates is hosting the next global climate change conference, COP28, and has controversially invited Syrian dictator-president Bashar al-Assad. This move has been denounced by many Western leaders, given the horror of the Syrian civil war driven by Assad and his deplorable war crimes against his own civilians…

As a general rule, BBC and other corporate media articles are not worth even dignifying with a read if they relate to any of the following countries: Russia, China, Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Yemen, North Korea, Belarus, occupied Palestine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba or Bolivia (Note: the above list is not exhaustive) …

Here are the key facts of this story, as agreed upon by ¹Guardian, ²Syrian Network for human rights, ³Middle East Monitor, ⁴Al Jazeera, and ⁵BBC News. A report from the nonprofit watchdog Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) released on Thursday claimed that as many as 14M Syrian refugees face…

What is a female political activist like Nassima al-Sadah, who says she was tortured in a Saudi Arabia prison, to make of Zelensky’s visit to the Arab League Summit, which is a whose-who of male non-democratic rulers? What am I to make of it! She might point out, “listen to…

In a significant humanitarian effort, Tajikistan has repatriated 109 women and children from detention camps in Syria. The move demonstrates Tajikistan’s commitment to ensuring the safe return of its citizens and providing them with an opportunity to rebuild their lives. The women and children were among thousands who had been…

Just over 200 miles north of Damascus on the banks of the Orontes River lies Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city with a pre-2011 population of 800,000. It’s an ancient city; its biblical name was Hamath and is thought to have been the capital of the Caananite kingdom, thus tracing its…

The name Assad has been inextricably linked with Syria’s fortunes since 1970, when Hafez al-Assad (above), while defence minister, came to power on the back of an intra-party struggle within the ruling Baath Party, which culminated in him staging the coup that put him there. Thereafter he initiated his self-styled…

A former journalist who worked for publications linked to Iran and Russia appeared in an American court this week accused of spray-painting a swastika and the word “Azov” on a synagogue in Michigan. A detective told the court that Randi Lucile Nord, 35, had “planned to do as many hate…

Inspired by the 19th May birthday of Malcolm X (the American human rights martyr would be 98 today), the 2023 Saudi-brokered ‘MUHAMMAD ACCORDS’ — a successor agreement to the 2020 Abraham Accords — would see the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, invite Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader…