Issue 38

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Issue 38 – September 2026

Justice, Rights & Civil Society

The old bargain between religion and state lives on

Grand Mufti Hassoun’s life sentence has opened the book on religious co-option. Will anyone turn the page?

Economy, Aid & Reconstruction

Currency confusion

Syria’s redesigned bank notes have erased two zeroes and the Assads’ portraits. They have also confused locals and foreigners alike

Arts & Culture

Who can afford a burger in the new Syria?

A restaurant review of Cali in Damascus

Diplomacy

UK support to Syria’s new chapter

Peter McDermott, the outgoing Development Director for Syria at the FCDO, takes stock of the UK’s aid response

Book Review

Revolution without reckoning

A review of Aliza Marcus’s book ‘Resurgence & Revolution: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight in Turkey and Syria’

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