A decade of destruction wng.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wng.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
US, UK, France, Germany, Italy condemn Syria’s presidential election 1 Hours
A Syrian voter shows a ballot with the pictures of the three candidates in Syria’s presidential election, including President Bashar al-Assad (right), before casting her vote in Damascus on May 26, 2021. (Photo: Louai Beshara/AFP)
WASHINGTON, DC (Kurdistan 24) – The foreign ministers of the US and four major European powers issued a statement on Monday, the day before Syria’s presidential election, strongly criticizing the vote.
“We, the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America wish to make clear that Syria’s May 26 presidential election will neither be free nor fair,” the joint statement of the five senior diplomats began.
Non-resident Scholar
Sam Dagher is an American-Lebanese journalist and author who has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 16 years. He was the only reporter for a major Western media outlet based fulltime in Damascus in 2012-2014 and writing openly under his byline. He was briefly detained by Assad’s henchmen in an underground prison and later expelled for reporting deemed unfavorable to the regime. Sam contributes to The Atlantic and before that was senior correspondent at The Wall Street Journal and previously reported for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Agence France Presse. He has covered some of the biggest stories since 9/11 including the conflict in Iraq and Arab Spring uprisings. Sam was among the first reporters to shed light on the Assad regime’s brutal surrender-or-starve tactics and the influx of Iran-backed sectarian militias into Syria, atrocities of Libyan militias and their looting of one of Africa’s largest weapons depots,
Asma Assad s many lives, from banker to warlord and princess afr.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from afr.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Syria
How a girl from west London became the unlikely winner of Syria’s war
WhatsApp
Last summer a photograph of Syria’s First Lady circulated on social media. At the time, government troops in north-west Syria were battering the last pockets of rebel resistance to the regime. The picture showed Asma Assad, her husband Bashar al-Assad and their three children standing on a wind-swept hilltop, flanked by soldiers in camouflage. Bashar, dressed in an anorak, trainers and an untucked polo shirt, looks more suited to corralling the kids for a Sunday walk than torturing dissidents. Asma stands more stiffly, arms by her sides, wearing white jeans, trainers and the kind of aviator sunglasses beloved of Middle Eastern strongmen. She is at the centre of the photo; Bashar, president of Syria, hangs awkwardly at her shoulder.