Syria News Wire

The first edition of the new English-language daily, Baladna, is now available online.
Its cover story is the long-awaited plan to ban cars from the Old City. The full-colour paper, which has a cover price of 25L, seems to be targetting younger readers: stories on changes to military service, new housing for young people, environment and [...]

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The much anticipated Baladna English launches in a few hours.
The pre-launch excitement has even made it into the Guardian. But it’s been a long wait. Originally pencilled in for a May 2009 launch, this got pushed back a number of times. But finally, 9 December 2009 is the date Baladna English will hit newsstands.
The [...]

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And just who is the ‘Sexy Brit‘? Asma Al-Assad, of course.
This story tells me two things: first the Syrian government is finally realising the power of Asma to rebrand Syria’s image in the West.
And second, it speaks volumes of the Sun’s cheap racism. The Sun is Britain’s biggest newspaper, read by 3 million people a [...]

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There is a battle going on, over at Wikipedia, over the use of the word “occupied”. You can help.
Some fans of Israel seem to think it is acceptable to call the Syrian Golan Heights – which have been occupied by the Israeli army since 1967 – as merely “disputed territory”.
There is no “dispute”, it is [...]

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Syria is getting a brand new daily English-language newspaper.
Stephen Starr reports that it will be called Baladna, and will have a similar format to its sister Arabic-language paper of the same name.
‘Our Country’ will be twenty-four pages long, and will be published five days a week. It will be edited by Reem Maghribi, who is [...]

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The long awaited Syrian Drama channel has finally launched. Although someone forgot to take the ‘test transmission’ label off the screen.
At first, it will only broadcast Syrian made productions. There has been a long discussion about whether to show drama from around the Arab World, or whether this should be a celebration of Syrian drama.
But [...]

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A new site has just launched. Herdict tracks which sites are inaccessible by asking users to tell them. And it’s now available in Arabic.
Here’s what Herdict has to say:
Let’s say you find a site inaccessible…normally, you might call or e-mail your friends and ask them if they’re experiencing the same thing. With Herdict Web, you can [...]

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The UN school bombing in Gaza. More than 40 Palestinian refugees died as they sheltered from the attacks. What followed was one of the biggest controversies Israel has faced for years.
And this is when it all got explosive. Israel claimed Hamas fighters were firing rockets from within the school. The UN said is was 99.9% sure [...]

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The first response to my call for articles is from Wassim – thanks Wassim, read his blog here.
In “A choice of words”, Wassim looks at the way the sympathies of Western analysts show in the language they use. He picks the example of the Hamas-Fateh conflict in Palestine.
A choice of words
While commuting to work this [...]

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By Hazim Bitar via Golaniya.
“Two hours north of Amman, Jordan, an Arab Hollywood is emerging, in Damascus, Syria. Along with it, a flurry of digital filmmaking activities is starting to give Syrian New Cinema shape.
Syria is the Arab country with the most developed cinema and audiovisual production infrastructure east of the Mediterranean. Syrian TV drama [...]

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