Latest news with #postwar recovery
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Syrian Sectarian Strife Threatens to Upend Post-Assad Transition
Almost eight months since Bashar Al-Assad's fall, deadly sectarian clashes in southwestern Syria have exposed one of the biggest challenges to the country's postwar recovery — the new leader's failure to forge national unity. After fighting broke out earlier this month in the province of Suwayda between the Druze religious minority and Bedouin tribes, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa deployed forces seeking to quell the violence. But reports by independent monitors said government forces — most of whom, like Sharaa, belong to the country's Sunni Muslim majority — instead sided with their co-religionists, the Bedouin and allied militias, to target the Druze.
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Saudi business delegation arrives in Syria; deals worth $4 billion to $6 billion seen being signed
RIYADH, July 23 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's investment minister led a business delegation travelling to Syria on Wednesday, where they were expected to sign deals worth $4 billion to $6 billion as part of Riyadh's efforts to support the country's post-war recovery. The Gulf kingdom has been a crucial supporter of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's government, which came to power after toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December and is now seeking to rebuild Syria after a 14-year civil war. Saudi Investment Minister Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, who brought around 130 Saudi businesspeople to Damascus, is set to hold meetings with Syria's leadership ahead of a two-day investment conference opening on Wednesday, according to people due to attend. Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Moustafa said at a press conference on Wednesday that Syria will sign 44 agreements with Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth nearly $6 billion. The agreements cover various sectors, including energy, telecommunications, financial and banking, investment funds and others, the minister said. Some of the agreements will be signed between the government and private companies, he said. Saudi state-run Al Ekhbariya television reported on Tuesday that the agreements to be signed between Damascus and Riyadh would be worth over $4 billion. During his visit to Syria, Saudi Arabia's Al-Falih and his Syrian counterpart launched a cement factory project on Wednesday in Adra Industrial City in the Damascus countryside, the first white cement production project in the country, with an investment worth $20 million, Syrian state news agency SANA said. Al-Falih also broke ground on an integrated retail project by Saudi investment firm Ethraa Holding that is worth 375 million riyals ($99.96 million) in investments. Saudi Arabia has shown interest in Syria's energy and hospitality sectors, as well as airports, a diplomat and a Syrian businessman familiar with the matter told Reuters. The two countries are also expected to launch a joint business council, said the Syrian businessman. The investment conference had initially been scheduled to take place in June, but was delayed due to the war between Iran and Israel. It is going ahead this week despite sectarian clashes in Syria's southern city of Sweida that have left hundreds dead. The violence is a reminder of the lingering instability in Syria, even as foreign investors explore opportunities. Companies, many from Gulf states and Turkey, have expressed interest in rebuilding Syria's power generation capacity, roads, ports and other damaged infrastructure. Syria has signed a $7 billion power deal with Qatar and an $800 million agreement with UAE-based port company DP World in recent months. U.S. energy firms are also set to draw up a master plan for the country's energy sector. For its part, Saudi Arabia, along with Qatar, paid off Syria's World Bank arrears, opening the possibility of new lending. Syria's al-Sharaa made his first trip abroad as president, to Saudi Arabia in February. And the kingdom's Crown Prince and de-facto ruler Mohammed Bin Salman successfully lobbied U.S. President Donald Trump to lift sanctions seen as holding back private investment. ($1 = 3.7516 riyals)
LBCI
5 days ago
- Business
- LBCI
Saudi business delegation arrives in Syria eyeing $4 billion in deals
Saudi Arabia's investment minister led a business delegation travelling to Syria on Wednesday, where they were expected to sign deals worth around $4 billion as part of Riyadh's efforts to support the country's post-war recovery. The Gulf kingdom has been a crucial supporter of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's government, which came to power after toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December and is now seeking to rebuild Syria after a 14-year civil war. Saudi investment minister Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, who brought around 130 Saudi businesspeople to Damascus, is set to hold meetings with Syria's leadership ahead of a two-day investment conference opening on Wednesday, according to people due to attend. During his visit to Syria, Saudi Arabia's Al-Falih and his Syrian counterpart launched a cement factory project on Wednesday in Adra Industrial City in Damascus' countryside, the first white cement production project in the country, Syrian state news agency SANA said. Reuters
The Guardian
19-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Britain is great at muddling through. But imagine if its leaders knew where they were heading
Like a chronic ailment, strategic incoherence gnaws at everything Britain does in the world. Keir Starmer's real achievement in resetting relations with mainland Europe – witness the recent visits of the French president Emmanuel Macron and the German chancellor Friedrich Merz – does not obscure, and in a way even highlights, this deeper confusion. After 1945, Winston Churchill envisioned Britain's global role at the intersection of three circles: the British Commonwealth and (then still) empire; the Europe whose postwar recovery and unification he strongly supported; and the United States. As Commonwealth countries have formed stronger ties elsewhere, the first circle is no longer of strategic significance. Having committed itself in the 1970s to the most developed political and economic form of the second circle, now the European Union, Britain has withdrawn from it. With the revolutionary nationalism of President Donald Trump, the third circle is also fading fast. So here's an 80-year countdown of Britain's strategic circles: three … two … one, going on none. Instead of being at the intersection of three circles, Britain finds itself caught between three elephants. 'There are three elephants in the room and we just have to be careful we don't get trampled' is how one British official described to the Financial Times Starmer's attempt to navigate between the global economic powers of the US, EU and China. Just like Tony Blair a quarter-century ago, this government has talked of Britain being a 'bridge' between Europe and the US. But what kind of a bridge can it be today, when the UK is outside the EU and Trump is putting in question the whole transatlantic relationship, with a special animus towards the EU? There was only ever one way to take Brexit to its logical conclusion, and that was to become an offshore Greater Switzerland, a north European Singapore. To seek profit wherever you could find it, whatever those states were doing to their neighbours or their own citizens; to be a nation with the morals of a hedge fund. Ironically enough, the European country that comes closest to this cynical 'multialigning' is Viktor Orbán's Hungary, a full member state of the EU. But this was never a serious option even for the majority of Brexiters, who had five or six different (and generally vague) visions of what a post-Brexit Britain should be. For most Britons, it would be completely incompatible with our sense of what Britain should do and be in the world. With Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Britain's Churchillian instincts kicked in again and have brought us to a place where we are working shoulder to shoulder with countries such as France, Germany and Poland for the defence of Ukraine and Europe as a whole. Merz and Starmer have just signed a German-British treaty that gives a framework for enhanced cooperation in many areas. Faced with uncertainty about Trump's commitment to nuclear deterrence on Nato's eastern flank, Macron's state visit to the UK produced the unprecedented announcement that Europe's only two nuclear-weapon powers will 'coordinate' their nuclear deterrents and 'there is no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by both nations'. This takes us back to the strategic question. If we are prepared to risk even our very national existence for the defence of Europe, wouldn't it make sense to have some say in how that Europe develops? And if you're a government that has staked everything domestically on economic growth, as Starmer's has, wouldn't it help to get closer to your largest single market? The situation now is that Britain is fully committed to the defence of Europe but has none of the economic advantages of belonging to the EU. Indeed, it even has to pay a price – for example, in concessions to the French on fishing – for the privilege of contributing to the rest of Europe's security. Addressing British parliamentarians, Macron said: 'The European Union was stronger with you, and you were stronger with the European Union.' True on both counts. But of the two sides, Britain is definitely the more weakened. In the language of diplomacy, Britain is now the demandeur wherever it turns, wanting something from the other party. Indeed its diplomatic triumphs, be they in the 'reset' with the EU or the trade deal with Trump, largely consist in the removal of obstacles that didn't even exist before. The only strategically coherent long-term answer to this conundrum would be for Britain to rejoin the EU, painfully swallowing its pride and accepting that the new membership terms would be less favourable than those it had before. Halfway houses, such as the UK-EU customs union proposed by Britain's Liberal Democrats, would bring some modest economic advantage. Only full EU membership would give the large-scale economic benefits and the political influence in shaping the future of Europe – and, through Europe, the world. In a jungle full of elephants, you'd better be – or at least ride on – one yourself. Any British government seriously committed to advancing the national interest should keep in mind that long-term strategic logic. But British politics is nowhere near this point. Not even the Liberal Democrats advocate Breturn and the political running is being made by the country's most successful anti-European politician, Nigel Farage. People in the EU see this and are themselves in no mood to start thinking about remarriage. The wounds of Brexit are still sore and the disjuncture between security and economics works better for them than it does for Britain. Anyway, the EU has more than enough on its plate already. So what's left? Muddling through. Fortunately, muddling through is something of a British speciality. Some years ago I read an article about Britain in a German magazine which talked of die Philosophie des Durchmuddelns. (Only Germany could turn muddling-through into a philosophy.) Strangely maladroit in domestic politics, Starmer has been remarkably adept at forging good relationships with leaders such as Macron, Merz and Ursula von der Leyen, as well as Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He has shown real leadership on Ukraine and certainly delivered on his promise to Make Britain Serious Again. His cabinet is full of individuals who, like him, seem well-intentioned, competent and decent. A little boring perhaps – but a glance at the Trump administration shows you there are worse things than that. The UK has a heap of problems, but so does every European country I know. British democracy has survived the stress test of Brexit better than US democracy is surviving that of Trump. Socially and culturally, there is still much to be said for Britain's everyday tolerance, creativity and humour. So if anyone can make a success of muddling-through, Britain can. But Britain would muddle through better if it had a clearer idea of where in the world it wants to be in 10 years' time. As I believe it says in the Talmud: if you don't know where you want to go, any road is good. Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist
