Syria

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Reuters reports: Syria is trying to sell gold reserves to raise revenue as Western and Arab sanctions targeting its central bank and oil exports begin to bite, diplomats and traders said. Western sanctions have halved Syria’s foreign exchange reserves from about $17 billion, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday after a meeting with [...]

Reuters reports: A handful of soldiers in blue caps put a tentative United Nations presence on the ground in Syria on Monday, predicting success for their mission to stabilize a shaky four-day-old ceasefire even as shells continued to fall. Charged with overseeing an end to 13 months of violence, the unarmed multinational squad of six [...]

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The Associated Press reports: Syria’s opposition called for widespread protests Friday to test the regime’s commitment to an internationally brokered cease-fire that the U.N. chief described as so fragile it could collapse with a single gunshot. Regime forces halted heavy shelling and other major attacks in line with the truce that began at dawn Thursday, [...]

The Associated Press reports: A fragile cease-fire brokered by the U.N. took hold in Syria on Thursday with regime forces apparently halting widespread attacks on the opposition, but there were reports of scattered violence and the government defied demands by international envoy Kofi Annan to pull troops back to barracks. A civilian and a Syrian [...]

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The Washington Post reports: Conflict in Syria burst into neighboring Lebanon and Turkey on Monday, with one Lebanese cameraman killed and at least four people injured in fighting on the Syria-Turkey border. The attacks, on the eve of a deadline under a fading U.N.-backed deal for ­Syrian troops to withdraw from cities and cease hostilities [...]

The Los Angeles Times reports: He doesn’t have a cellphone and doesn’t use regular phones. He avoids his home and mostly ventures out under cover of night, a cap pulled low on his head to conceal his identity. “For 11 months, I have not been in a public place, not in a restaurant or a [...]

The cartoonist, Andy Warner, presents illustrated guide to the 1949 coup—possibly CIA-assisted—that plunged the country into decades of political turmoil. [Continue reading...] Share

Tony Karon writes: That which has not been achieved on the battlefield can rarely be achieved at the negotiation table, and the harsh reality facing Syria’s opposition is that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has not been defeated, nor is it in danger of imminent collapse. Assad has promised, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi [...]