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Syria

Geopolitics

Triumph Of Immunity: Why Assad's Return To The Arab League Matters

Two pressing factors have weighed on the Arab League to reintegrate the accused war criminal: refugees and narcotics. But it speaks to a larger weakness of the international community to see that justice is carried out.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Sweet revenge! That's how it looked for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, arriving Thursday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to attend the Arab League summit. It's a first appearance in more than a decade, since the exclusion of Damascus from the regional organization. Syria was reintegrated on May 7 and Assad’s presence at the Jeddah Summit marks his great return.

Syria had been excluded from the Arab League when Assad’s regime repressed what was initially a peaceful, popular uprising in 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. It's since been a decade in which he tortured and slaughtered, used chemical weapons, besieged cities. And yet, he’s still here, fundamentally thanks to the support of Russia and Iran.

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Middle East, Realpolitik: Inside Assad's Return To The World Stage

The Arab League has readmitted Syria, ending the regime's ten-year isolation. This is a defeat for the West — and an admission by the Arab states that there is no way around Assad.

-Analysis-

BERLIN — He has killed civilians with poison gas and barrel bombs, bombed cities to rubble, imprisoned and tortured his countrymen and triggered the largest refugee crisis since World War II. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was among the world's most ostracized and isolated politicians — but now he is returning to the world stage.

The 22-member Arab League voted by a majority on Sunday to readmit Syria to its fold. As a result, Assad can now participate in regional summits again, 12 years after the Syrian civil war began. The next summit is scheduled for May 19 in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The Arab family first disowned him when he shot down peaceful demonstrations against his corrupt regime. Like the West, most League member states called for Assad's resignation and supported groups fighting his forces.

Recently, however, some Arab states have sought to reconnect with him. Why are they rehabilitating the mass murderer now?

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Syria's TV Industry Takes Another Crack At Comedy — Is That A Joke?

After a decade of conflict, once-popular Syrian comedies have lost their shine. New shows are trying to revive the country's golden era of TV, but comedy is a tough sell in a country still living under a brutal dictatorship.

The “Golden Era” of Syrian comedies, when shows produced in the country were a sought-after commodity on Arab satellite stations, has been over since the 90s. Since then, the Syrian conflict has clearly hastened the decline of the medium.

Now, a new batch of Syrian comedies are trying to revive the style — but is it too late?

The series Bokaat Daw ("Spotlight"), which went on the air in 2001, was a landmark of Syrian drama. The show dared to take on forbidden themes and subjects, at a time when TV shows were more often propaganda disguised as entertainment, and when everything was subject to strict government control, with whole episodes sometimes censored.

The oppression and violence Syria experienced during the first years of the revolution pushed some filmmakers away from comedy, which some felt didn't fit the dramatic experiences the country's people were living through. Confronting the Syrian regime through comedy also became more complex than ever.

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The Direct Link Between Turkey's Earthquake Toll And Global Real Estate Markets

The shoddy homes that collapse on their inhabitants in Turkey's recent earthquake were badly, and hastily, built as part of a worldwide real-estate fever typically fueled by greedy governments indifferent to safety norms and common sense.

-Analysis-

There is bitter irony in an earthquake striking a zone already decimated by terrorism and war, where the vulnerable must suffer from natural destruction on top of their rulers' cruelty or, at best, cynical indifference. Under such calamitous conditions, how is one to interpret the observation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the February quakes that killed more than 40,000 were fate's work?

The countries hit, Turkey and Syria, lie on a seismic powder keg. They have shaken before and will keep shaking, and nothing can be done about that. But much can be done to prevent the natural vulnerabilities that threaten so many countries becoming disasters of Biblical proportions. Something can always be done to mitigate the harm of even a 7.8-level quake and its aftershocks striking at the end of a freezing winter night.

Talking of the clash of tectonic plates is confusing, as the scale can boggle the mind. But it refers to the movements of vast plaques, 70 kilometers thick, that rub against each other while shifting in opposing directions. Even without a cataclysm like the earthquakes, such movements can push up the ground a few centimeters a year to form mountain ranges over millions of years.

In this process, rocks on their edges accumulate enormous amounts of pressure that are suddenly released in quakes as they snap, before moving.

Our short time on this planet has amply shown the impact of a shifting earth on our fragile civilization and socio-economic organization.

And while science has evolved and can better predict earthquakes, it has yet to do it well enough to allow for a city's evacuation.

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This Happened

This Happened In Turkey — Photo Of The Week

The Feb. 6 earthquake, with a magnitude of at least Mww 7.8, has destroyed thousands of buildings in southern and central Turkey, as well as locations across the border in Syria. Many of the more than 20,000 dead were killed in those collapsing buildings.

Yet even as we try to tally to the toll of the disaster, each victim is a tragedy all on its own. And from far away, photographs help remind us of this truth.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Idlib Nightmare: How Syria's Lingering Civil War Is Blocking Earthquake Aid

Across the border from the epicenter in Turkey, the Syrian region of Idlib is home to millions of people displaced by the 12-year-long civil war. The victims there risk not getting assistance because of the interests of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, reminding the world of one of the great unresolved conflicts of our times.

-Analysis-

Faced with a disaster of the magnitude of the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria, one imagines a world mobilized to bring relief to the victims, where all barriers and borders disappear. Unfortunately, this is only an illusion in such a complex and scarred corner of the world.

Yes, there's been an instant international outpouring of countries offering assistance and rescue teams converging on the disaster zones affected by the earthquakes. It is a race against time to save lives.

But even in such dramatic circumstances, conflict, hatred and competing interests do not somehow vanish by magic.

Sometimes, victims of natural disasters face a double price. This is the case for the 4.5 million inhabitants of Idlib, a region located in northwestern Syria, which was directly hit by the earthquake. So far, the toll there has reached at least 900 people killed, thousands injured and countless others left homeless in the harsh winter.

The inhabitants of Idlib, two-thirds of whom are displaced from other regions of Syria, live in an area that is still beyond the control of Bashar al-Assad, and they've been 90% dependent on international aid... which has not been arriving.

To put maximum pressure on these millions of people, the Syrian government and its Russian ally have gradually restricted the ability to get humanitarian aid to them.

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This Happened

This Happened—November 6: Raqqa Revisited

At the height of the Syrian Civil War, a group of forces came together to reclaim the northern region of Raqqa from the Islamic State. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who were largely comprised of Kurdish fighters, led the offensive.

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Geopolitics
Carolina Drueten, Christine Kensche

Erdogan's Opening? Why Turkey Sees Ukraine War As A Chance To Target Kurds In Syria

As the leaders of Turkey, Iran and Russia meet to discuss the situation in Syria, the West is closely watching Turkish President Erdoğan's moves on Kurdish separatists in northern Syria, now that Moscow is focused on Ukraine.

-Analysis-

It wasn't long ago that Moscow dictated what happened in Syria. Vladimir Putin has been the most important ally of Syria's regime, which would have likely collapsed long ago without Russia's support.

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But the war in Ukraine has shifted the political balance in the region — and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can see his chance.

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Ideas
Deniz Yücel

Why Should We Give Military Support To Ukraine? Remember The Kurds

Six years ago, when ISIS attacked Kobanî, in Syria, the Kurds put up a heroic resistance, as the Ukrainians are doing now. But the city was only saved because the West supported the Kurdish fighters – support that is not forthcoming for Ukraine today.

-OpEd-

In October 2014, Islamic State (ISIS) fighters attacked the Kurdish-majority city of Kobanî in northern Syria with U.S.-manufactured heavy weapons, which they had seized earlier that year in the Battle of Mosul. As those defending the city were pushed back to a few remaining streets, Stéphane Charbonnier wrote a thought-provoking article in the left-leaning French daily newspaper L’Humanité.

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“I am not Kurdish, I can’t speak a single word of Kurdish, I cannot name a single Kurdish writer, I know nothing about Kurdish culture. But today I am Kurdish. I think in Kurdish, I speak in Kurdish, I sing in Kurdish, I weep in Kurdish. The besieged Kurds in Syria are not just Kurds; they are humanity fighting against the darkness. They are defending their lives, their families, their country, but whether they want to or not, they represent the last bulwark against the advance of the ‘Islamic State’. They are defending us, not against a distorted version of Islam, a religion that the terrorists of ISIS do not truly represent, but against barbarism and mob rule.”

Charbonnier, known by his pseudonym Charb, was editor-in-chief at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Four months after that article was published, he – along with nine of his colleagues and other victims – was murdered by this very same “barbarism and mob rule.”

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Migrant Lives
Marie-Luise Goldmann

Ukrainians In 2022 vs. Syrians In 2015, Why Some Refugees Get A Warmer Welcome

As people open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, some in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are criticizing the lack of a similar welcome for Syrians in 2015. Do we have a responsibility to offer the same level of help to all those in need — and are we even capable of that? The answer might just be found in philosophy.

-Essay-

BERLIN — The war in Ukraine has moved many to open their homes to refugees, but this warm welcome has also sparked criticism, with some asking why so many Germans are now happy to have a Ukrainian under their roof when they wouldn’t have done the same for a Syrian in 2015.

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There are many reasons for this. Nigerian author Ayo Sogunro tweeted, “Can't get it out of my head that Europe cried about a 'migrant crisis' in 2015 against 1.4 million refugees fleeing war in Syria and yet quickly absorbed some 2 million Ukrainians within days, complete with flags and piano music. Europe never had a migrant crisis. It has a racism crisis."

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Geopolitics
Ofer Laszewicki*

Syria, The Laboratory For Putin's Brutality In Ukraine

Putin is increasing his attacks on Ukrainian civilians and may be preparing to use chemical weapons. But these horrific tactics are not new — they were perfected by the Russian army during a brutal war in Syria.

As he walked the apocalyptic streets of Kharkiv last week, BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville cited what he called the "Russian attack playbook." Indeed, the shattered city in northeastern Ukraine evokes the destruction of the Syrian city of Aleppo.

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The scenes are strikingly similar: at the local hospital, aware that they could be the next target, medical workers pile injured children and women into the corridors. The beds by the windows would be deadly in the event of an attack.

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Geopolitics
Laura-Mai Gaveriaux

Ten Years Of War And One Of COVID, Syria Facing Economic Abyss

The economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, coupled with COVID-19 travel restrictions, are causing the already war-ravished nation to drown in even greater misery.

SYRIA-LEBANON BORDER — Near a checkpoint on the border between Syria and Lebanon, 50-year-old Joelle says that conditions are simply "unbearable." A member of a Christian family originally from the city of Homs, she has spent the past 30 years in Masnaa, in the Lebanese Beqaa Governorate. In all that time, things have never been this bad, she explains.

For many Syrian residents, the 375 km-long border between Syria and Lebanon has always been an ecosystem where they earned their income. Back and forth trips between the two countries were common. But today, 10 years since the war that ravaged Syria began, the area is now mainly an observation post for all the upheavals that these two interlinked economies are experiencing — even if movements of goods and people have never been fully interrupted.

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