Newly named Syria PM calls for ‘stability and calm’

Syria’s new transitional prime minister Mohammad Al-Bashir chairs a meeting of the new cabinet in Damascus on December 10, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 11 December 2024
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Newly named Syria PM calls for ‘stability and calm’

  • “Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” Al-Bashir said in first interview since being appointed
  • Blinken said the future government of Syria should be “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian”

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new transitional prime minister on Tuesday said it was time for “stability and calm” in the country, two days after longtime president Bashar Assad was toppled by militants in a lightning offensive.
The militants appointed Mohammad Al-Bashir as the transitional head of government to run the country until March 1, a statement said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged all nations to support an “inclusive” political process in Syria, saying the United States would eventually recognize a government if it meets such standards.
“Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” Al-Bashir told Qatar’s Al Jazeera television in his first interview since being appointed.
A senior official told US broadcaster NBC that Assad was in Moscow, after he fled Syria as a militant alliance swept into Damascus on Sunday, ending five decades of brutal rule by his clan.
Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the leader who headed the militant offensive, had announced talks on a transfer of power and vowed to pursue former senior officials responsible for torture and war crimes.
His group, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch and is proscribed by many Western governments as a terrorist organization, though it has sought to moderate its image.

'Unity, inclusiveness'
Blinken said the future government of Syria should be “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian.”
Laying out US priorities, Blinken said the new government must “uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities” and allow the flow of humanitarian assistance.
The United States wanted the next government to “prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism,” he added.
Although they no longer hold any territory in Syria, the extremists of the Daesh group remain active.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Daesh fighters killed 54 government troops after capturing them as they fled across the vast Syrian desert.
The UN envoy for Syria said the groups that forced Assad to flee must transform their “good messages” into actions on the ground.
“They have been sending messages of unity, of inclusiveness,” Geir Pedersen said.
“What we need not to see is... that this is not followed up in practice in the days and the weeks ahead of us,” he added.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned of the risks of sectarian violence and a resurgence of extremism. “We must avoid a repeat of the horrific scenarios in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.”
Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes, millions of them finding refuge abroad.
Golani, who now uses his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa, vowed: “We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people.”

Thousands missing
The fall of Assad has sparked a frantic search by families of the tens of thousands of people held in his security services’ jails and detention centers.
As they advanced toward Damascus, the militants released thousands of detainees, but many more remain missing.
Syria’s White Helmet rescuers on Tuesday called on Russia to pressure Assad into providing maps of secret jails and lists of detainees as they race against time to release prisoners.
A large crowd gathered Monday outside Saydnaya jail, synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule, to search for relatives, many of whom had spent years in captivity, AFP correspondents reported.
“I’m looking for my brother, who has been missing since 2013. We’ve looked everywhere for him, we think he’s here, in Saydnaya,” said 52-year-old Umm Walid.
Crowds of freed prisoners wandered the streets of Damascus, many maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger.
The United Nations said whoever ended up in power in Syria must hold Assad and his lieutenants to account.
UN investigators who for years have been gathering evidence of horrific crimes called Assad’s ouster a “game-changer” because they will now be able to access “the crime scene.”

Strikes
While Syrians were celebrating Assad’s ouster, the country now faces enormous uncertainty, and it is unclear whether the dreams of democracy so many sacrificed their lives for will be realized.
Further complicating prospects, the Israeli military said it had conducted hundreds of strikes on Syria over the past two days.
Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, called on Israel to stop.
“We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop,” he said.
The Britain-based Observatory said Israeli strikes had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria.”
The monitor said the strikes targeted weapons depots, naval vessels and a research center that Western governments suspected of having links to chemical weapons production.
Israel, which borders Syria, also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
Israel backer the United States said the incursion must be “temporary,” after the United Nations said Israel was violating the 1974 armistice.
The Israeli defense minister said the military had orders to “establish a sterile defense zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence.”


Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday

Updated 15 February 2025
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Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday

  • “Beyond the emotional burden and difficult experiences he faced in captivity, he had to bear this horrible loss on the first day that he left from there,” his brother told Israeli Army Radio

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would take a hard stance on Saturday on Gaza, the Palestinian enclave for which he has proposed a US takeover and where a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants is in place.
 

 


Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters

Updated 15 February 2025
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Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters

  • “We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time,” it said
  • The Lebanese army intervened to disperse the protesters

BEIRUT: The outgoing deputy commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon was injured Friday when protesters attacked a convoy taking peacekeepers to the Beirut airport, the force known as UNIFIL said in a statement.
“We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time,” it said.
The Lebanese army intervened to disperse the protesters. The army said in a statement that acting commander Maj. Gen. Hassan Odeh had contacted UNIFIL and promised to “work to arrest the citizens who attacked its members and bring them to justice.”
Demonstrators have been blocking the road to the airport and other roads in the capital to protest a decision by Lebanese authorities to revoke permission for a passenger plane from Iran to fly to Beirut on Thursday, leaving dozens of Lebanese passengers stranded.
The decision to ban the Iranian plane came after the Israeli army issued a statement claiming that Iran was smuggling cash to the militant group Hezbollah via civilian flights.
Lebanon’s civil aviation agency said Thursday that “additional security measures” meant some flights were temporarily rescheduled until Feb. 18 — the same day as a deadline for Israel and Hezbollah to fully implement their ceasefire agreement, including a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.


Syria receives local currency printed in Russia before Assad’s fall

A view of the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 14 February 2025
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Syria receives local currency printed in Russia before Assad’s fall

  • Syria has been facing a liquidity crunch since Assad’s ouster, with Syria’s new central bank governor, Maysaa Sabreen, saying in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against a surge in inflation

DAMASCUS: Syria’s central bank said a batch of Syrian currency had arrived at Damascus airport from Russia, where banknotes were printed under the rule of toppled President Bashar Assad, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported on Friday.
The central bank did not specify the amount of currency that had arrived, but a source with knowledge of the matter said it was in the “hundreds of billions of Syrian pounds,” equivalent to tens of millions of US dollars.
The source said the cash had been printed in Russia under Assad’s rule but had not been shipped to Syria by the time he was toppled in early December 2024.
Syria’s new leadership ordered the Russian company printing the currency to stop after Assad fled to Moscow, the source said, without providing details on what prompted Friday’s delivery of the previously printed cash.

BACKGROUND

A source said the cash had been printed in Russia under Bashar Assad’s rule but had not been shipped to Syria by the time he was toppled in early December 2024.

Syria has been facing a liquidity crunch since Assad’s ouster, with Syria’s new central bank governor, Maysaa Sabreen, saying in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against a surge in inflation.
Syria’s pound has strengthened on the black market since the new leadership took over, helped by an influx of Syrians from abroad and an end to strict controls on trade in foreign currencies.
It traded 9,850 pounds to the US dollar on Thursday, according to exchange houses closed on Friday.
According to statements by the central bank, the official foreign exchange rate has stayed around 13,000 pounds to the US dollar.
But that has sparked concerns about liquidity in Syrian pounds.
The central bank only has foreign exchange reserves of around $200 million in cash, sources said, a considerable drop from the $18.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund estimated Syria had in 2010, a year before civil war erupted.
Russia is hoping to retain the use of naval and air bases in Syria under its new leaders.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Syria’s President Ahmad Al-Sharaa on Wednesday, the first call between the two leaders since Assad’s ouster.
The Syrian presidency said Putin had invited Syria’s new foreign minister to visit Moscow.

 


Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage

Updated 14 February 2025
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Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage

  • Wells, pumps destroyed during the war
  • Israel claims it has repaired some damage

BEIT LAHIYA: A ceasefire has enabled some Gazans to go back to their ruined homes without fear of Israeli airstrikes, but they have returned to a severe water crisis.

“We returned here and found no pumps, no wells. We did not find buildings or houses,” said 50-year-old farmer Bassel Rajab, a resident of the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
“We came and set up tents to shelter in, but there is no water. We don’t have water. We are suffering.”
Drinking, cooking, and washing are a luxury in Gaza, 16 months after the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Rajab said he sometimes walks 16 km, hoping to shower in Gaza City. Some Palestinians have dug wells in areas near the sea or rely on salty tap water from Gaza’s only aquifer, contaminated with seawater and sewage.
The Palestinian Water Authority estimates it will cost $2.7 billion to repair the water and sanitation sectors. Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as well as shortages of food, fuel,  and medicine before the wells were destroyed in the war.
The Palestinian Water Authority said in a statement on its website that 208 out of 306 wells had been knocked out of service during the war, and a further 39 were partially out of service.
“There is a big shortage as the occupation (Israel) is preventing the entrance (into Gaza) of drills, excavators, machines, equipment, and generators that are needed to operate wells and to dig them,” said Beit Lahiya Mayor Alaa Al-Attar.
Attar said small companies were trying to fix the wells but had minimal equipment.
He added: “We are trying to establish new wells to mitigate the severity of the water crisis at this stage.”
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military that manages humanitarian activities, has said it has coordinated water line repairs with international organizations, including one to the northern Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-Israel ceasefire has been in force since Jan. 19.
Gazans hoping to one day rebuild are squeezed by shortages of water, food, medicines, and fuel in Gaza, which was grappling with poverty and high unemployment even before the war erupted.
Youssef Kallab, 35, says he has to carry heavy water containers to the roof of his home using a rope. The municipality supplies water every three days.
“We do not have the strength to carry it up and down the stairs. We have children, we have elderly. They all want water,” Kallab said as he lifted water containers.
Twelve-year-old Mohammed Al-Khatib says he has to drag a cart for 3-4 km to get water.
Mohammed Nassar, a 47-year-old Palestinian supermarket owner, said he has to walk for miles to fill buckets from a water pipe despite health problems and cartilage damage.
“We turn a blind eye to the pain because we have to,” he said.

 


Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge

Updated 14 February 2025
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Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge

  • The aim is to have “an environmental and social impact, but also an economic gain,” Cheriha said, adding that refurbished products can be up to 60 percent cheaper in a country where the average monthly salary is around 1,000 dinars ($310)

TUNIS: Engineer turned social entrepreneur Sabri Cheriha hunches over a washing machine at a small depot in a suburb of Tunisia’s capital, the unassuming home of a startup he launched to tackle the country’s mounting electronic waste problem.
Cheriha said there were about 8 million household appliances and 9 million cell phones in use across Tunisia, but once these devices break down or are replaced, “there’s no service to dispose of them properly.”
WeFix, the startup that won him a second-place regional social entrepreneur award last year, stands out by offering an “all-in-one service,” providing collection, repairs, and recycling to reduce e-waste.
The aim is to have “an environmental and social impact, but also an economic gain,” Cheriha said, adding that refurbished products can be up to 60 percent cheaper in a country where the average monthly salary is around 1,000 dinars ($310).
The startup “avoided” 20 tonnes of waste in 2023 and 80 tonnes last year, according to its founder, who anticipates handling another 120 tonnes this year.
“When we talk about ‘avoided waste,’ we’re also considering the resources needed to manufacture a single washing machine — 50 or 60 kg of finished product require over a tonne of raw materials,” he explained.