Dec 29, 2014 – Our Weekly Selection

Articles on ISIS’ Islamic tax and governance crisis, the growing role of the private sector in the oil market, the cost of the conflict on Lebanon and several other articles.

Syria conflict has inflicted $20 billion loss on Lebanon: Minister: “…infrastructure planned to last for 15 years will now have to be changed in just two because of intensive use” due to the presence of 1.1 million refugees from Syria, he added.”

WHO says Syria approves medicine deliveries to Aleppo, other areas: “A plunge in vaccination rates from 90 percent before the war to 52 percent this year and contaminated water have allowed disease to take hold.”

ISIS Imposes Zakat Tax on Aleppo Merchants: “ISIS distributed sums of money to poor families in Raqqa, telling people that this money is ‘Zakat’ collected from the rich of the city.”

ISIS’s Governance Crisis (Part I): Economic Governance: “ISIS’s financial and economic state-building measures aimed at creating an “ideal caliphate” for Muslims are failing, leading to an economy on the brink of tatters.”

Satellite images show 290 heritage sites in Syria damaged by war: U.N.: “Satellite imagery indicate that 290 cultural heritage sites in Syria, whose history stretches back to the dawn of civilization, have been damaged by its ongoing civil war.”

Syria Liberalises its Oil Sector as its State Weakens and Regime Cronies Profit: “The Syrian government is increasingly relying on the private sector to reduce shortages of oil products in the market.”

In exile, Syrians build the country they never could under regime: “We are like the kids that are put in a small room in the house and suddenly all the locks were broken and we went out to see the world, to see the cars for first time,” he says. “So we need to grow up a little bit.”