Word: bashar
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Saturday, many Syrians will celebrate their Independence Day by driving up into the foothills of Mount Hermon and picnicking amid the apple blossoms in that portion of the Golan Heights that remains under Syrian control. In recent years, the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used the occasion to call for Israel - which has occupied most of the Golan Heights since the war of 1967 - to return the territory in exchange for an end to the conflict between the two countries, which have officially been at war since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. But the Syrian...
...Saif say that talk of serious change is merely a ruse. "It is all just a game," says Hassan al-Amin, who runs an exile website from London. "Saif cannot do anything without his dad's blessing. They have a great relationship." Skeptics point to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad promised change but has brought few reforms since his father Hafez died in 2000. In neighboring Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal could face a similar predicament if he runs in next year's presidential elections. (See "Why the U.S. Is Back on the Road to Damascus...
...funded by aid from the U.S., Europe and the Islamic world, which helps pay the salaries of government workers and funds new infrastructure projects. In 2008, Fayyad held a conference in Bethlehem, looking to begin the next phase - private development - and got some takers, including a Palestinian developer named Bashar Masri who is building an entire new city for 50,000 just outside Ramallah. "We could not have done this without Fayyad's reforms," Masri told me. "I mean, you deal with the police or with bureaucrats. They don't ask for a bribe. That never happened in Palestine before...
Unlike many U.S. embassies in the Arab world that have been forced by security concerns to move from the center of capital cities to fortress-like suburban compounds, the Damascus embassy still occupies prime real estate - just a stone's throw from the residence of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syria's much feared state-security apparatus keeps close tabs on everyone entering and leaving the embassy; it also helps keeps the embassy relatively safe from the occasional jihadist sneak attack. In turn, living close to the Americans may help Assad sleep more easily at night, say Damascene wags, because...