Today, the sixth of March 2020, Mikhail Bogdanov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and African Countries, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia received the representative of the leadership of the Syrian opposition Front for Change and Liberation, the head of the Moscow Platform of the Syrian opposition, Kadri Jamil.

On Sunday morning, the first of March, the Turkish Minister of Defense announced the new Turkish aggression in Syria as "Operation Spring Shield", so that this operation joins the group of "Shields", "Springs" and "Branches" that the Turks take as covers for their operations.

Various media outlets circulated the “world.bymap.org” report on the ranking of countries of the world according to the proportions of their populations that fall below the poverty line. Syria topped the rankings with 82.5% of its population falling under the poverty line, a figure that does not differ much from the 2019 UN figures, which estimated this rate at 83% for Syria. The aforementioned percentages are also close to the local estimates, including those of “Kassioun”.

Today, the work to implement the Sochi Agreement – and not only talk about it – is dominating the Syrian scene.

There is an atmosphere of wailing and mourning that is dominating the Arab media and political circles with regards to the “Deal of the Century,” as if Trump merely announcing it means its realization.

Prior to 2011, estimates of the looted proportion of the annual GDP resulting from corruption in Syria ranged between 20 and 40 percent. While obtaining accurate estimates now is more difficult, it is not difficult to envisage that this proportion has increased.

The US President and the Prime Minister of the Zionist entity announced today, Tuesday, January 28, additional (but not finalized) details of what they call “the Deal of the Century”. This so-called “Deal” included – as expected and revealed in many previous leaks by US, Zionist, and Arab officials – several points that blatantly contradict all international resolutions relevant to the Palestinian cause, and all the rights of the Palestinian people – mainly, their right to an independent state with Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital, as well as the right of return (of Palestinian refugees).

Signs of grave danger for Syria, as a country and people, are accumulating rapidly. Indicators of danger to Syria's geopolitical unity come not only from the US attempts to push towards partition of Syria, but also from the fact that this danger coincides with other economic, social and humanitarian dangers.

There is almost a consensus on that the shift towards economic liberalization in 2005 laid the basis for the 2011 explosion.

Kassioun's previous editorial entitled "Higher Escalation for Faster Withdrawal", saw in the assassination of Soleimani an American act aimed at preparing the ground for a faster withdrawal from the region, covered with a torrent of escalation. Just hours after the issuance of issue no. 947 of our newspaper, events began to confirm the validity of this conclusion, starting with the decision of the Iraqi parliament and the "American draft message to Iraq", up to Trump's statements himself (and beyond) in his last interview with the American right-wing channel Fox News in which he clearly expressed his “no objection” and even his “desire” to get out of Iraq, Syria and the Middle East as a whole.