In February 2012, a year into the Arab spring, Syria’s Fourth Armoured Division, under the command of Bashar’s younger brother, Maher, trained its artillery on Homs in western Syria.

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In February 2012 Bashar seemed to be offering a veiled apology for his dalliances, sending her a country-and-western song with the lyrics: “I've made a mess of me/The person that I've been lately/Ain't who I wanna be.

She had toyed with charity work early in her marriage, and now sought to unify her projects within a single organisation, the Syria Trust for Development.

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Throughout the Arab world the hopeful dreams of a decade ago have been crushed, but nowhere more bloodily than in Syria. After her death, a former schoolteacher—who had kept one of Elena's report cards for decades—attested that she had failed nearly all of the subjects that were then taught in Romanian schools (Behr 67). Over the course of a month the regime’s response became more vicious: first goons, then snipers, then heavy artillery.

A new railway line was planned to connect Damascus to the ancient Assyrian cities in the underdeveloped north-east.

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When the family gathered for meals they made a point of conversing in their impenetrable Alawite patois.When Sunni Islamist dissidents rose up against Baathist rule in Hama in 1982, Hafez razed whole sections of the city to the ground. Perhaps her most powerful potential opponent is Maher, Bashar’s younger brother, who still commands the feared Fourth Armoured Division of the army.

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To others, she was a sphinx-like enabler whose silence was violence: every time she appeared at Trump’s side, she was normalising his assault on democracy. It’s this bitter tooth-and-nail fight for survival while also maintaining serene perfection and femininity,” she says.She received a double starred first in English from Trinity College, Cambridge and her writing has appeared in the TLS, the Guardian, the Independent and the Mail Online among others. Nicolae refused to share power with her and Elena's gender and lack of education barred her from true political ascendancy within the Party. Asma’s father, a cardiologist at a private hospital in Kensington, was known for his preoccupation with money.