What’s the Story of Aleppo?

In 2001, Portugal decriminalised the possession and use of all illicit drugs. It was a move designed to mitigate the country’s public health crisis, which at the time meant Portugal had one of the worst rates of overdose deaths in Europe, as well as the highest rate of HIV among ...  Show more

At the beginning of this year Bulgaria, considered as one of the poorest countries in the European Union, became the latest to officially join the eurozone. Bulgaria’s legal tender since 1881 had been the lev, but since the mid-1990s it had been pegged to other European currencie ...  Show more

The battle of Stalingrad was arguably the most important strategic battle of the Second World War. The Germans and their allies were eventually defeated by Russian forces after a long, brutal conflict and siege of the city. Aleppo has been described as Syria’s Stalingrad – the co ...  Show more

We're with Jwanah Qudsi for Episode 139 of The Beirut Banyan. Click to watch: https://youtu.be/k6nqDg9gWjA Jwanah is the founder of Aleppo Heritage Fund - an NGO dedicated to preserving the old city of Aleppo - and an urban planner / urbanist. We discuss Aleppo’s current reconstr ...  Show more

A fuzzy team photo from the 1980s sends Tim Whewell on a journey to track down football players from a small town in northern Syria who were once the champions of Aleppo province. In the last four years of war their hometown, Mare'a, has become a war zone – bombed by the Assad re ...  Show more

Over the last several weeks an estimated 140,000 people have been displaced by escalating fighting in Idlib, Syria.