Syria

Read recent Syrian news stories and current events on Newser.com

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Syria Fires Official After He Met With US

While peace talks become increasingly less likely

(Newser) - Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil was yesterday given the boot for holding meetings "without coordinating with the government," the New York Times reports. The meetings in question? The one he had with the US ambassador to Syria on Saturday may be at the top of the list;...

Was Tiananmen Crash a Suicide Attack?

Death toll hits 5; police eye Xinjiang region

(Newser) - The death toll following yesterday's SUV crash in Tiananmen Square has climbed to five, with two tourists—a Chinese man and a Filipina woman—dead along with the vehicle's occupants. "It looks like a premeditated suicide attack," says a Reuters source. If so, it would be...

WHO Confirms Polio Outbreak in Syria

Finds 10 cases in first outbreak in 14 years

(Newser) - WHO has confirmed it: Syria is experiencing its first polio outbreak in 14 years. The UN body has confirmed 10 cases in the country so far, and another 12 potential cases are being investigated, the BBC reports. Most victims are under two years old and likely were never vaccinated, a...

Syria Chemical Weapons Team Can't Reach 2 Key Sites

First weapons deadline may be missed

(Newser) - The Nobel Peace Prize-winning group tasked with inspecting Syrian chemical weapons sites and destroying production equipment may miss the first major deadline of its mission. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it has visited 21 of 23 sites disclosed by the Syrian government, but security concerns have...

Angry Over Syria, Saudis Back Away From US

Intelligence chief wants more aggressive approach against Assad

(Newser) - Following his country's decision to reject a UN Security Council seat , Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is edging away from the US specifically: Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud told European officials that his country will reduce its secret work with the CIA on training Syrian rebels, reports the Wall ...

Syria's New Woes: Polio, Flesh-Eating Parasites

Vaccination program breaks down

(Newser) - Syria's clerics last week gave the starving people of Damascus the OK to eat dog , and the bad news has not ended there. The World Health Organization now suspects polio has returned to the country. If verified, these would be the first recorded cases there since 1999. And it'...

Clerics: Desperate Syrians May Eat Dogs

Damascus suburbs being starved out

(Newser) - The days of dogs and cats living in Damascus or its hard-hit suburbs might be numbered, at least according to local clerics. With reports surfacing of regime loyalists using starvation tactics against rebel-held areas like Muadhamiya, Syrian clerics have issued a fatwa telling the faithful that is OK to eat...

Funny Time for Assad: I Deserved the Nobel


 Assad Makes 
 a Funny: 
 I Deserved 
 the Nobel 
WORST JOKE EVER
Oct 14, 2013 12:51 PM CDT

Assad Makes a Funny: I Deserved the Nobel

Meanwhile, terrible things continue happening in Syria

(Newser) - That Bashar al-Assad sure is a kidder. When asked today to comment on the Nobel Peace Prize—which was awarded to the UN group currently working to dismantle his chemical weapons arsenal—the Syrian ruler quipped that it "should have been mine," the AFP reports. The comment came...

Syria Inspectors: We Need Hours-Long Ceasefires

OPCW is having trouble getting to some suspected production sites

(Newser) - One week ago, Ban Ki-moon told the UN Security Council that the toughest part in the process of wiping out Syria's chemical weapons would come next month, when the actual destruction begins, reports the New York Times . Tougher than this, apparently: The Nobel Prize-winning Organization for the Prohibition of...

7 Red Cross Workers Kidnapped in Syria

Team was trying to bring medical aid to dangerous rebel-controlled area

(Newser) - Another high-profile kidnapping in Syria's civil war: Gunmen have abducted a team of seven workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross, after stopping their convoy early today in northern Syria, according to an ICRC spokesman. The abduction took place near the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province...

Syrian Rebels Executed Villagers: Human Rights Watch

Opposition forces tried to 'kill entire families': report

(Newser) - In August, Islamist rebels in Syria executed almost 200 unarmed villagers—pro-regime members of the minority Alawite sect—in Latakia province, Human Rights Watch said in a report today. Opposition forces sometimes even tried to kill "entire families," or else killed adult males and held the women and...

Nobel Committee Turned to Twitter to Find Winner

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons currently working in Syria

(Newser) - A 16-year-old won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but, no, it wasn't Malala . Instead, the honor goes to the group currently at work trying to get rid of Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons in Syria—the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, reports the LA ...

Bachmann: 'We're in God's End Times'

Because Obama is 'sending arms to terrorists'

(Newser) - Michele Bachmann says we're facing "God's end times," and she finds the proof in President Obama's actions in Syria. He recently waived some arms-export rules in order to offer "non-lethal assistance" to the opposition there, according to the National Security Council, the Hill notes....

Destruction of Syria's Chemical Weapons Begins

Inspectors have 9 months to destroy 1K tons

(Newser) - And it's on: Disarmament experts have begun the massive undertaking that is dismantling and destroying Syria's estimated 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons. The UN-endorsed inspectors have only nine months to get rid of the entire arsenal—the tightest deadlines the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons...

Assad: I Won't Make Peace Deal With Rebels

But admits his gov't has made mistakes

(Newser) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad admits he's made mistakes ... but gassing his own people wasn't one of them. "We did not use chemical weapons," he insists in a new interview with German magazine Der Spiegel . "This is a misstatement. So is the picture you paint of...

Assad: I May Run Again Next Year

But not if Syrians don't want me: interview

(Newser) - Syrian president Bashar Assad says it's still too early to say whether he'll run for re-election in next year's presidential vote. Assad says "the picture will be clearer" in the next four to five months because Syria is going though "rapid" changes on the ground....

Aid Barred From Gassed, Starved Syrian Town

'Let them starve,' says one pro-regime fighter

(Newser) - A month after a sarin gas attack in Moadhamiya outside Damascus, Syrian officials have blocked aid workers from getting food and medical supplies into the town, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some 12,000 residents, including some rebel fighters, have been forced to forage, picking olives, vine leaves, figs, and...

Syria's Assad: I'll Comply With UN Resolution

Says he's open to talks with opposition if they give up their arms

(Newser) - Bashar al-Assad is vowing to stand by the terms of the United Nations' resolution last week to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, reports the AP . "Of course we have to comply," he told Italian television in an interview today. "This is our history to comply with every...

Syria's Weapons Inspections Start Next Week

Security Council adopts resolution, though it doesn't include penalties

(Newser) - The first international inspectors will be on the ground in Syria Tuesday to start assessing the nation's chemical weapons, reports Reuters . The move is part of a UN resolution adopted unanimously last night by the 15-member Security Council demanding that Bashar al-Assad's illegal arsenal be destroyed. The AP...

Russia Will Send Troops to Syria's Chemical Sites

5 key members of Security Council reach a deal on resolution

(Newser) - The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have finally agreed on the wording of a resolution that requires Syria to destroy its chemical weapons, reports the New York Times . As part of the deal worked out mainly between the US and Russia, Moscow and some former Soviet republics...

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