Reporting by Faris Rifai (Eqtsad)- Rachid al-Saied, a Syrian pharmacist, lost along with two of his brothers, two large hospitals in eastern Deir Ez Zor province after the regime forces destroyed them after the start of the revolution. He owned the largest share in the hospital, but...

( The Globe and Mail )- At 2 a.m. in the midst of Ramadan in 2012, Mohamed Sharbaji got a call from a neighbour of his Aleppo home: “There are men with guns in your house.” In the moment before that conversation, Mr. Sharbaji was a man of influence. A former business owner and land...

(Eqtsad) The harsh weather conditions, the consecutive years of drought and the repeated attacks on water resources in Daraa Governorate have led to the drying up of some dams and water sources. The loss of these water resources have contributed to the decline in agricultural areas and...

(The New York Times)- Nine animals that had been kept alive — barely — at a damaged zoo on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, were evacuated and taken to a rehabilitation center in Turkey last week. The animals — three lions, two tigers, two bears and two hyenas — were trucked from Aalim...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Directorate of Education of the opposiiton Interim Government in Damascus suburbs is trying to find effective solutions to the negative effects of school-aged children dropouts which has spread widely throughout the Eastern Ghouta. The director of education in the...

(Eqtsad)- After the border crossings with Turkey opened to visitors, loved ones met after long absences and many families were reunited. The opening of the border crossings coincided with the decision to reduce the escalation of tension, and the general calm witnessed in northern Syria in the...

From Palmyra to Paris, Ahmad Joudeh, the Syrian Billy Elliot, is set on showing the real image of his country and erasing the horrors of Daesh (ISIS). The vocalist Sanga, Joudeh’s friend and admirer, invited the dancer to Paris for a special one-off performance, accompanied by a song written...

Six Syrian actors battled a fraught U.S. visa process to tread the boards in New York this week, seeking to impress upon American theatergoers the human cost of a war raging halfway round the world. Nothing could be further from the typical summer entertainment in this city of flamboyant wealth...

(Eqtsad) Working and earning a living online is still relatively weaker in the Arab world compared to the West, but with the emergence of an Arab generation that is technologically savvy, many have become more experienced and willing to experiment with online initiatives. Young Syrian are among...

(Eqtsad)- The moment she saw her name on the district representative’s list of families set to receive a food basket, her eyes light up with joy as if she had won a kilogram of gold. Um Hassan, from al-Ghouta who is taking care of her three orphaned grandchildren, is one such woman who was very...

( The Guardian )- When they still lived back home in Derik, northern Syria, Silva Hassan Namo and her family would gather each evening around the television to watch the latest episodes of their favourite Mexican telenovelas. Even after civil war forced them to flee to Iraq, the family would...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Syrian engineer Mohammed Aboush and a number of his colleagues launched, “The Failure of the coup in Turkey,” game, through Google's store on the occasion of the first anniversary of the coup against the legitimate government in Turkey. Speaking to Zaman al-Wasl, Aboush...

(Eqtsad) In the heat of summer, and with the temperature rising to over 40 degrees Celsius in Homs province, swimming pools become a refuge and necessity to counter the heat wave. There are no regular swimming pools in the villages, towns and cities of Homs’ besieged northern countryside, but...

(The Daily Mail)- Their country has been engulfed in a catastrophic civil war for years, but an element of normality can be see on Syria's west coast. Pictures taken yesterday show Syrians paddling in the sea in Wadi Qandil, which is north of the seaside city of Latakia. The government...

When Abu Ahmad stepped out of his house in Raqqa after a night of heavy airstrikes, he found several of his neighbors lying dead in the street. “I went out the next morning just to inspect,” he said. “I swear to God, cats were eating the corpses.” “We couldn’t do anything with the dead...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Chechen minority in eastern Syria, known as al-Jazira al-Souriya,  has been dwindling after the Kurdish Democratic Union Party took control of Ras al-Ain, north of al-Hasakah and the Khabour River source area, which were considered the central areas of their...

The scene in Syria's besieged rebel-held town of Douma is almost surreal -- tables laden with food to break the Ramadan fast are surrounded by the crumbling carcasses of bombed-out buildings. The open-air meals are a rare treat in the town in the Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus, made...

Her childhood shattered by "grown-up stuff", Myriam Rawick was only eight years old when she began recording her terrifying experiences during the siege of Aleppo, Syria's second city. "I woke up one morning to the sound of things breaking, people shouting 'Allahu Akbar' ('God is greatest'...

Reporting by Faris Rifai (Eqtsad)- The situation of Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan seems to be better than that of their peers in the neighboring countries of asylum, although they suffer from the material hardship that has been going on for years after the budget cut by...

By Maryam Maruf and Kanishk Tharoor ( BBC )- When Syria's civil war came to the city of Aleppo in 2012, Zahed Tajeddin was cut off from his 450-year-old home. He worried about it, but it survived - and he later discovered how it served as a life-saving medical centre for people living under...