President Bashar Al-Assad’s handshake with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on September 22 marks a significant step in Syria’s reintegration into the global diplomatic sphere. Despite much fanfare, however, it is unlikely that promises by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi’s “to take ties to a new level” will materialise into investments in Syria’s cash-strapped economy, given the recent decrease in China’s footprint in the country and Syria’s distressed business environment.

An often-overlooked chapter in Syria’s war economy relates to the obscure system of prisons; from the confiscation of assets of detainees, to the extortion of families of detainees and forcibly disappeared who pay bribes attempting to secure their release or seek information about their whereabouts. Both constitute an income for the Syrian regime that remains difficult to quantify.

In September, a Syrian business delegation visited Greece and signed an agreement with the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce, one of the first such agreements at this level after more than a decade of diplomatic isolation and international sanctions.

The Israeli retaliation after the Hamas’ attack on October 7 has led to violent echoes in the region: from deadly flare-ups in the Lebanese-Israeli border, exchange of fire in southern Syria, Israel’s airstrikes at Damascus and Aleppo airports, to U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq targeted in drone attacks by Iranian affiliated groups. In recent years, Syria has become the scene of an Israel-Iran proxy war, but if the Israeli-Gaza war further escalates and Syria is dragged into a full-fledged war with Israel, prospects for the war-torn and cash-strapped Syrian economy would be dark.

Binance Holding Limited has been fined USD 4.3 billion for breaching U.S. sanctions in jurisdictions, including Syria. This is one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), the world’s largest multilateral climate fund, has granted USD 1.9 million to the Syrian government in the past four years but could potentially attract much more. Countries must enhance the technical capacity of national institutions through a ‘Readiness Program’ to access GCF funds. As of August, GCF has funded 709 ‘readiness requests’ worth a total of USD 527.6 million across 142 countries. In the case of Syria, the GCF has so far disbursed USD 873,300 out of the total USD 1.9 million granted.

The U.S. recently announced the unsealing of three federal cases investigating a network that allegedly sold millions of barrels of Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in Syria, China, and Russia.

Earlier this month, Iraq accused Syria of obstructing the Euphrates River flow into Iraqi territory, leading to a water diplomacy clash between Baghdad, Damascus and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

The United States has doubled down on its Syria sanctions strategy with the passing of the ‘Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023’ at the House of Representatives on February 14.

Syrian civil society groups are advocating for the establishment of an intergovernmental Syrian Victim Fund that would distribute among Syrian victims and survivors the estimated USD 1 billion that Western states have obtained in Syria-linked violations – from domestic court judgements to fines for sanctions violations – since the outbreak of the 2011 conflict.

Four days after surviving one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in recent memory, three Syrians countered Greek authorities’ narrative of how a fishing vessel carrying 750 people capsized and sank off the coast of Pylos on June 14. Only 104 people survived the boat’s sinking, while 80 bodies have been recovered. More than 550 people are estimated to remain missing in the Calypso Deep, the deepest of the Mediterranean Sea.

For eight years, Marwa had managed to avoid seeing any video or audio recording of Bashar al-Assad. But this past Friday, videos of Syria’s leader greeting Arab heads of state at this year’s Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia flooded her phone. “For the first time in eight years, I heard his voice,” she said from Jordan, which she fled to from Syria in 2013. “It was like an internal tragedy.”

Incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fell less than one point short of reaching the 50 percent of the votes needed to claim victory in Sunday’s parliamentary and presidential elections, and will face opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in a runoff vote on May 28.

Since April, Lebanese authorities have launched an unprecedented deportation campaign against Syrian refugees, arbitrarily arresting more than 1,100 people and deporting more than 600, a high-level humanitarian source told Syria Direct. At least four deportees have been detained upon their return to Syria.

Saudi diplomats visited the Iranian capital on Saturday to discuss the reopening of both countries’ embassies, taking the latest material step towards restoring relations under a tripartite agreement announced by Riyadh, Tehran and Beijing in March.

The failure of the international community to help hundreds of people under the rubble in northwest Syria in the days following the devastating February 6 earthquake encapsulates the ills of the aid sector in Syria, a country ravaged by more than a decade of conflict.

“You want to leave peacefully, or do we need to use force?” Five Turkish police officers stood facing Bilal* in the shelter for earthquake survivors in the city of Mersin, southern Turkey where he was staying with his family last month. He was still in shock after losing 15 relatives in the February 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria four days before.

The day after the earthquake, Ali al-Khalaf picked up a shovel and began digging graves. So far, the 30-year-old has helped bury more than 500 people in a mass grave in Atma, northwestern Syria. “We couldn’t number and name all the graves we dug,” al-Khalaf said.

Loujain has proudly decorated her living room with pictures from a recent photo exhibit in which she told her story as a Syrian transgender woman. The images cover the walls of the apartment she shares with her boyfriend in Beirut, a safe space she has carved out for herself after years of struggle, homelessness and torture in a Syrian prison.