Word: damascus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...been described by organizers as the most ambitious gathering of the movement to date. It came within weeks of a decision by several Sunni groups - including the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Iraqi Hamas and Ansar al-Sunna - to unite in advance of an expected American military withdrawal, and meet in Damascus to unveil their new alliance. Conference organizers said that this week's event fell victim to logistical hurdles. Less than 200 of the 600 people invited showed up, a result of coalition roadblocks and security measures as well as the fear of reprisal from government forces after their return...
...convention of Iraqi insurgents was scheduled to take place Monday at the resort-like Sahara Hotel outside Damascus but, within hours of the plenary session actually starting, the Syrian government suddenly canceled the summit. However, high-level representatives of much of the Iraqi nationalist insurgency, remained at the venue informally negotiating and laying out a framework for what a post-U.S. Iraq would look like...
...massive exodus of Iraqis that has already swelled the populations of neighboring Jordan and Syria. But Ali is late: whatever jobs may have existed in Jordanian and Syrian universities have been scooped up by Iraqi academics who got there first; Ali has made one futile job-hunting trip to Damascus. Now Jordan and Syria are beginning to turn people back from the border. Ubaid is concerned that it may be years before they can get married. "I will be an old maid, with no teeth, and he will have no hair," she jokes. The alternative, of course, still seems even...
...conversation with somebody from a different part of the world," she says. "But from the start, I sensed that Mohammed and I had a special bond." The two kept up their online friendship for several months before it developed into something deeper. They then arranged to meet in Damascus. Any trepidation that Subhi, 29, may have felt before the meeting vanished within seconds. "She was exactly the person she appeared to be on Skype: vivacious, smart and open-minded," he says. Terpstra, 37, says she left Damascus convinced they had to get married. The two are now waiting...
...Democrats are predictably skeptical of the party's recent "spend wisely" hosannas. "It's a miracle," says Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, sarcastically. "It's a St. Paul conversion on the road to Damascus." Obey, chairman of the House appropriations committee, was the architect of a plan to keep earmarks secret until the appropriations bills passed both houses, at which point they would be all but impossible to remove individually via votes on the house floor, as traditionally has been the case. Republicans were outraged at the maneuver and, sensing an opportunity, called out their opponents for a lack of transparency...