Word: syrian
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Like many exiled writers from the contemporary Arab world (Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Syrian poet Adonis), an elusive homeland has always been on Sinan Antoon's mind. Antoon left Baghdad in 1991 after the first Gulf War to study in the U.S. Now an associate professor of Arab-Islamic culture at New York University, he returned to his bedeviled hometown for the first time in the spring of 2003, to co-direct the anguished documentary About Baghdad, following the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq...
Indeed the culture still celebrates people like Jamal Hamieh, a down-to-earth but shrewd farmer from Taraya village. Protected by a private army drawn from the Hamieh clan, he hosted Mafia dons, Colombian drug lords and New York gangsters, and threw lavish parties for top Syrian military intelligence officers based in the Bekaa, plying them with whisky, women and thick wads of $100 bills. Hamieh received expensive presents in return from his grateful clients. One gift was a brand-new Porsche which Hamieh, unaware of the car's status value, blithely destroyed in a matter of days by driving...
...advance the aim of establishing a Palestinian state. She apparently plans to invite several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Syria, to Annapolis. Saudi Arabia chairs the Arab League committee which promotes the 2002 Arab peace initiative; and Syria seeks the return of the occupied Golan Heights from Israel. Syrian President Bashar Assad said last week his country will not attend if the Golan is not discussed. The Saudis are also hesitant, preferring to withhold tacit recognition of Israel until significant progress is made toward a Palestinian state. Jordan and Egypt, which already have peace treaties with Israel, are concerned...
Bomb kills anti-Syrian lawmaker and others...
Lebanon's American-supported ruling coalition - made up of Sunni Muslims and some Christians - wants the presidency for one of its own, in order to press forward with measures intended to stop what they see as examples of Syrian and Iranian interference: weapons smuggling and political assassinations. But Hizballah, which wants a candidate who won't interfere with the Shi'a Muslim militant group's attempt to rearm itself for the seemingly never-ending struggle with Israel, has found common cause with those Christians who have been suspicious of the Lebanese government's alliance with America. (Many Christians worry that...