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<span class="date-display-single">Sun, 12/08/2012</span> </div>
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<div class="glw-authors">By <span class="glwnews-article-location"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1126">Tony Iltis</a></span></div><div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-image">
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<img src="http://www.greenleft.org.au/sites/default/files/imagecache/frontpage-lead-article/syria.jpg" alt="" title="" class="imagecache imagecache-frontpage-lead-article imagecache-default imagecache-frontpage-lead-article_default" width="140" height="105" /> </div>
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<p>The 50-year rule of the Ba’ath Party in Syria looks to be effectively over.</p>
<p>In the past month armed clashes have spread to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the largest city, Aleppo. Armed opposition forces have taken control of several border points. On August 6, Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected to the opposition.</p>
<p>The regime of Bashar al-Assad — who inherited the presidency in 2000 from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in a 1970 military coup — no longer controls the country.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51863" target="_blank">read more</a></p>