Via Al Monitor, an article on a new air bridge between Syria and Pakistan: A private Syrian airline began direct flights to Pakistan’s largest city today. Karachi is now Cham Wings Airlines’ 14th international destination. The airline is seeking to expand its global flight network, and public relations head Osama Satea said there is a demand for flights […]
Read more »Via National Interest, commentary on China’s long game in improving relations with Syria and the Middle East as a whole: As Damascus’ forces gradually recover more territory, with Idlib province being the last rebel stronghold, Syria is now entering a “postwar” phase. Yet while Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s forces have prevailed on the battlefield, his victory has […]
Read more »Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how associates of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, are making and selling captagon, an illegal amphetamine, creating a new narcostate on the Mediterranean: Built on the ashes of 10 years of war in Syria, an illegal drug industry run by powerful associates and relatives of President Bashar al-Assad […]
Read more »Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how Syrians in a poor, embattled enclave have turned en masse to solar panels to charge their phones and light their homes and tents: When the Syrian government attacked their village, Radwan al-Shimali’s family hastily threw clothes, blankets and mattresses into their truck and sped off […]
Read more »Via East Asia Forum, commentary on growing unlikelihood that China will rebuild Syria: A decade since the start of the Syrian civil war, debate on the conflict is shifting toward the rebuilding of the country. China is increasingly being touted as a leading candidate to address Syria’s post-conflict reconstruction at a time when Western powers and Syrian […]
Read more »Via Eurasia Review, an article on how Syria could become a key node in China’s infrastructure, telecommunications and energy-driven Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): China looms large as a potentially key player alongside Russia and Iran in President Bashas al-Assad’s post-war Syria. With Russia and Iran lacking the financial muscle and the United States and […]
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