(Middle East Eye)-When the highly contagious, crippling and potentially fatal polio virus reappeared in war-torn Syria in 2013, nearly two decades after it had been eradicated in the country, Khaled Almilaji was a key player in containing the outbreak that threatened millions inside and beyond...

Syrian musician Kinan Azmeh has toured the world for years to international acclaim but his planned return on Thursday to his home in the United States has been thrown into uncertainty. The clarinettist and composer, who won standing ovations in Beirut on Wednesday night at the final...

(Eqtsad)- Medication crisis and shortage of most kind of drugs in Damascus is highly mentioned at social media websites, as people talk about lack of medicine and the difficulty of getting it in the capital, besides expressing anger on the regime and officials of the pharmaceutical sector...

(BBC)- Mariam Hammad, despite every adversity of war and hardship, is trying to be a student in Aleppo in the dark heart of Syria's civil war. "My city has turned to ruins," she says. Despite being in constant danger, forced out of her home twice by shelling and living without...

After nearly 24 hours of exhausting travel from war-ravaged Syria, the Abu Assaleh family arrived in Philadelphia, brimming with excitement to begin their new life in the United States. The Christian family of eight had waited more than 13 years since first applying for the immigration visas...

(Daily Mail)- A Syrian boy with cancer may not be able to come to the United States for much-needed treatment following Donald Trump's controversial immigration ban. Seven-year-old Mohammad's hopes of traveling to America to receive cancer treatment are put on hold after Syrians were...

Despite the chaos at airports around the world on Saturday, some travelers from the affected countries, desperate to get back to their families, still tested their luck on Sunday, hoping that the restrictions had somehow eased. One of them, Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian academic and human...

took his first step toward resettlement in the United States three months ago, submitting to an initial round of security screenings. His dreams of a better life were crushed when President Donald Trump issued an indefinite ban on displaced Syrians entering the United States....

(The Guardian)- Matthew Heineman’s return to Sundance after his Oscar-nominated Cartel Land is a triumphant one. Where his previous film was a journalistic masterclass in taking access to the extreme, City of Ghosts instead turns the camera on heroic journalists themselves. In doing so,...

(Al-Monitor)- The Assi River and orchards surrounding the river separate al-Waer district, a northwestern suburb of Homs, from the city. Despite its proximity to strategic sites such as the military academy, the military hospital and Homs’ refinery, the district was considered a paradise and a...

(The Guardian)- Bana al-Abed, the seven-year-old girl whose tweets from Aleppo gave devastating insights into the Syrian war, has pleaded with Donald Trump to “do something for the children of Syria” in an open letter. Bana amassed hundreds of thousands of followers for her messages...

A Syrian family of pastry chefs, the Sakkas, once delighted the people of Homs with their sugar-soaked Levantine delicacies, until a rain of bombs turned them into refugees. Now, after a four-year odyssey, they have reopened the family's sweet-tooth haven in Berlin, a baklava shop called the...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Om Mahmoud, 50, recounts the intimate details of her loss and forced migration from the al-Khaldiyeh neighborhood in the central city of Homs. Om Mahmoud was forced to leave in 2012 by the regime forces and auxiliary militias. She left behind three graves and a...

The street looks as if it was hit by an earthquake and the bombed-out building in a former rebel-held northeastern neighborhood of Aleppo is deserted — except for the second-floor apartment where Abdul-Hamid Khatib and his family are staying. There is no electricity or running water....

(Al-Arabiya)- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be suffering from an eyelid twitch in his left eye as a result of psychological pressures, according to sources in Moscow. In its Saturday edition, the London-based pan Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted these sources as saying that after...

(Al-Jazeera)- A letter from a young woman to her fallen husband, a pro-Assad fighter in Syria, was recently published in Tasnim News, one of Iran's most prominent news agencies affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). "This shrine [the Zaynab shrine] is sacred ... I am...

(New York Times)- Nisreen al-Najjar thought the worst was behind her family when it fled to Jordan from war-torn Homs in Syria. Then, two years later, though safe from the shelling and the Syrian civil war, her son Hisham, who was 5, began to rapidly lose weight. When Ms. Najjar...

(Eqtsad)- Prices of firewood in the of Idlib countryside have risen due to the recent cold weather conditions, according residents and traders, as it is considered the main source for heating. Firewood prices have risen by 20% to 25% and shortage was noticed in the amount of dry firewood and...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Residents of the Syrian capital have been living under constant fear of violent robberies and theft. They fear thieves can enter their houses anytime due to continued electricity outage. According to the “Syrian Days” pro-regime website, instances of violent theft have become...

Alone in her room at an overcrowded retirement home in Damascus, Naz Ashiti thumbs through photographs of her daughters overseas, her eyes lingering on features she has not seen in years. Sending ageing family members to a retirement home was once unthinkable for most Syrians, but...