Syria's building codes, including the Syrian Arab Code for seismic design, are dated and, far more fatally, unenforced, and the 2023 earthquakes showed what that gap costs. A comparison with Jordan, Israel, the UAE, Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Italy and the UK shows the fix is institutional: an independent code authority, regular updates and real enforcement, not better paper.
Syrian public life has been compressed into forced binaries: with the government or against it, loyalist or traitor, believer or infidel. This essay argues for the position the binary cannot process, supporting the state where it serves the nation and condemning its documented abuses. Holding the government accountable is not betrayal; it is citizenship.
Executive Summary The new government in post-Assad Syria faces a crucial moment. Instead of acting like a mature government, a worrying pattern has appeared. Their approach to rule is reactive, almost childish, like a brutal militia rather than a proper state. This “eye for an eye” thinking, marked by quick reactions and using force, is
The Assad state carried “ghost employees” for decades, and dismantling that payroll is a genuine and urgent reform. It is also a decision about who eats next month, taken by a government with little fiscal room and no reliable count of the people it is about to release. This argues for sequencing the social safety net ahead of the layoffs, and treats the missing data as the central problem rather than a footnote.
Brené Brown calls the habit of ranking pain comparative suffering: the belief that empathy is scarce and must be rationed. In Syria that private habit has scaled into a public mechanism, a hierarchy of suffering in which communities compete for aid, attention and recognition. Dismantling it is a precondition for healing and reconciliation.
How Shared Leadership Can Rebuild Syria The tragic sinking of the cargo ship El Faro in 2015 offers a powerful warning. This disaster, caused by rigid top-down leadership, extends far beyond the maritime world. In his book “Leadership is Language,” David Marquet uses this incident to show how well-meaning leaders, if they stick to traditional
At last, the Assad regime has fallen after a long and painful era. While this historic event carries profound hope for a new Syria, it also stirs complex and difficult emotions for many of us. What many of us are experiencing is the fear of losing the victim role.
The Ecstasy is Over, Reality Kicks In: Rebuilding Syria Starts With You Three weeks have passed since the fall of the Assad regime. This was a moment of great triumph and relief for many. But as the celebrations end, we must face a clear truth: the hard work of rebuilding our homeland begins now. And
This research presents a simplified analysis method aimed at reducing energy demand in Syrian residential buildings by implementing highly cost-effective and structurally feasible passive design solutions. An optimised envelope specification is recommended based on thermal simulation across different building materials, glazing types, and climatic zones.