LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Syria: United States
built 636 days ago
Immediately after the bombing, many nuclear-proliferation experts in the United States and Europe expressed doubt that Syria had the money or the scientific capability for a secret atomic program. They ... questioned whether North Korea would be desperate and greedy enough to sell nuclear wares to Syria. The new photos now have skeptics admitting they may have been mistaken.
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Syria has during the recent years become more open towards Western powers, and there has been ease on internal opposition. Still, Syria is a country with heavy state control on all sectors of life.
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Syria is aiming to replace its oil-fired power plants with natural-gas-fired plants, in order to free up oil for export and to avoid becoming a net oil importer in a few years. Since then, existing power stations have undergone maintenance and four new generating plants have been built (including the 600-MW al-Zara gas/oil plant near Hama, completed by Mitsubishi in November 2000). Also planned are the 300-MW Zeizoun plant and the 630-MW Tishreen hydro station. Overall, Syria hopes to add 3,000 MW of power generating capacity by 2010, at a probable cost of around $2 billion, but progress toward implementing these projects has been slowed by a lack of investment capital. Foreign-owned power projects are still not under consideration.
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From the beginning of the internet in Syria the authorities prevented access to free email services provided by prominent websites like Yahoo, Hotmail, Maktoob etc. (17). This meant that citizens had to use the state-controlled local email service which could be easily controlled, monitored and censored. In 2004 some of these websites were unblocked. However, experts believe that the authorities acquired new security and censorship equipments to censor the emails on these servers and so the situation in terms of freedom remains unchanged (18). The authorities re-blocked Hotmail on 17 July 2006 (19).
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Syria should immediately release writers and activists detained solely for expressing their opinions or reporting information online, Human Rights Watch said today. Syrian authorities have held two men in incommunicado detention since June for expressing online views that are critical of the Syrian government. Authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts of the detained men to their families. On September 23, the Supreme State Security Court sentenced a third man to two years in prison for posting online comments that displeased the authorities.
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On June 1, Syria assumed the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council. The council presidency rotates each month based on the alphabetic order of its 15 members. Syria's two-year membership on the Security Council began January 1, 2002 in a move ADL derided as "ironic and sad."
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