Crimea showers Syria with wheat, Ukraine cries foul

[Produced with Reuters colleagues Jonathan Saul and Maha El Dahan and published here December 19, 2022]

LONDON/DUBAI/BEIRUT, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Using a low-profile fleet of ships under U.S. sanctions, Syria has this year sharply increased wheat imports from the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea that Russia annexed from Ukraine, a sign of tightening economic ties between two allies shunned by the West.

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Syria resisting Russia’s efforts to broker Turkey summit, sources say

[Produced with Reuters colleagues Orhan Coskun and Laila Bassam and published here on December 2, 2022]

BEIRUT/ANKARA, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Syria is resisting Russian efforts to broker a summit with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, three sources said on Friday, after more than a decade of bitter enmity since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war.

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Facebook’s ‘double standard’ on hate speech against Russians

[Produced with my colleague Rina Chandran and published here on March 17, 2022]

BANGKOK/BEIRUT, March 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Facebook’s decision to allow hate speech against Russians due to the war in Ukraine breaks its own rules on incitement, and shows a “double standard” that could hurt users caught in other conflicts, digital rights experts and activists said.

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