Posted by Matthew Barber Drones & Intervention   We included a report in a previous post that the CIA is eyeing Syria for the use of drones. Now a report by Chuck Hagel and David Boren suggests that the drone program is aberrant and problematic for the CIA: U.S. intelligence too focused on killing suspected [...]

The Central Bank has managed to bring the Syrian pound back down into a manageable trading range. It had plunged to an exchange rate over 100 pounds to a dollar. It is now below 100 to a dollar. How did it do this? Reports are that the central bank sold only 2 million dollars. Yes, [...]

The decision to suspend imports for goods that have over 5% custom duties was supposed to be “temporary” when it was announced on September 22. The temporary nature of the decision was evident this morning when the decision was cancelled merely 12 days after it was adopted. SANA made the news official after the weekly Tuesday [...]

Syria Faces A New Economic Reality By Ehsani for Syria Comment Sept 26, 2011 The recently announced import suspension prohibits the import of  all products that have a customs duty of over 5 percent. This notice also covers countries that Syria signed a free trade agreement with (Turkey, Ukraine and the Arab countries for example).  [...]

This morning, the official journal of the EU announced the seventh set of sanctions imposed on Syria. Two individuals and six companies were added to a list of people and entities facing assets freeze and travel ban. In addition to the earlier sanctions on importing or exporting energy products, an important prohibition on investment in [...]