Jon Lee Anderson reports from Damascus. Plus: the insidiousness of the entrepreneurial economy; fear and hope on the subway; and the roots of Trump’s aggressive nationalism.

Books recounting torture in Syrian prisons or texts on radical Islamic theology now sit openly in Damascus bookstores, no longer traded in secret after iron-fisted ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster. Mustafa al-Kani,

Built on a hill 30 kilometers from Damascus, the Saidnaya prison has instilled terror in generations of Syrians: a place of damnation where men are "neither alive nor dead," in the words of the poet Faraj Bayrakdar, arrested for "communist activities" and who survived 14 years of detention in various prisons across the country.

DAMASCUS - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is set to meet Syria's new rulers this week in Damascus, two Syrian sources said on Tuesday, in the first visit by Russian officials since Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad was toppled.

Travelling from Syria’s Highway 42, which runs from Tabqa to the city of Homs, you can see the corpse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Getting to Homs and from there to Damascus requires driving

Saudi Arabia's top diplomat said Friday the kingdom was seeking to help Syria's new authorities secure the lifting of international sanctions, during his first visit to Damascus since Bashar al-Assad's overthrow.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud will visit Damascus on Friday and meet with top officials in the new Syrian administration, a Syrian official said on Thursday.

After the ouster of Syria's longtime leader Bashar al-Assad last month, Israel's military has taken up a new post in the demilitarized buffer zone created in Syria after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Muhajireen presidential palace in central Damascus, one of the Syrian capital's most beautiful architectural landmarks, bears few scars from the looting that took place in December 2024 as the end of Bashar Al Assad's regime loomed.

Officers say the move aims to instil a sense of morality as they race to fill a security vacuum after dismantling ousted president Bashar al-Assad's notoriously corrupt and brutal security forces.

Wafa Mustafa had long dreamed of returning to Syria but the absence of her father tarnished her homecoming more than a decade after he disappeared in Bashar al-Assad's jails.