Council of Ministers (Syria)

Coordinates: 33°30′9.00″N 36°16′10.62″E / 33.5025000°N 36.2696167°E / 33.5025000; 36.2696167 The Cabinet of Syria is the chief executive body of the Syrian Arab Republic. According to the Constitution of Syria:

Current cabinet

President Bashar al-Assad accepted the entire cabinet's resignation after a meeting on 29 March 2011. Al-Assad then appointed outgoing Prime Minister Muhammad Naji al-Otari to continue as caretaker prime minister until a new government is appointed. On 3 April 2011, Assad appointed Minister of Agriculture Adel Safar the new Prime Minister. On 6 April 2011, the state-run al-Ekhbaria TV channel said that Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, Minister of Defense Dawoud Rajiha, Minister of Endowment and Religious Affairs Mohammed Abdul-Sattar Al Sayed, and Minister of Presidential Palace Affairs Mansour Fadlallah Azzam would remain in the new cabinet. On 9 April 2011, DayPress News reported the new cabinet was expected to be announced in the next week. On 14 April 2011, a new cabinet was officially announced.

Syrian people

The Syrian people (Arabic: الشعب السوري‎ / ALA-LC: al-sha‘ab al-Sūrī; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܝܢ‎) are the inhabitants of Syria, and their ancestors who share a common Levantine Semitic ancestry. The term also refers to the citizens of Syria, regardless of ancestry, mother tongue, ethnic identity, or culture.

The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years.

The Syrian republic has a population of nearly 17 million as of 2014, in addition to 4 million Syrian refugees. The dominant racial group is the Syrian descendants of the old indigenous peoples who mixed with Arabs and identify themselves as such in addition to ethnic Aramean. The country also includes the following ethnic minorities: Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians, Greeks, Kurds, and Turkmens.

The Syrian diaspora consists of 15 million people of Syrian ancestry, who emigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Colombia), Australia, and Africa.

Syria

Coordinates: 35°N 38°E / 35°N 38°E / 35; 38

Syria (ⁱ/ˈsɪ.rɪə/; Arabic: سوريا‎ or سورية, Sūriyā or Sūrīyah), officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia. De jure Syrian territory borders Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest, but the government's control now extends to approximately 30–40% of the de jure state area and less than 60% of the population.

A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Syrian Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians,Mandeans and Turks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, and Yazidis. Sunni Arabs make up the largest population group in Syria.

In English, the name "Syria" was formerly synonymous with the Levant (known in Arabic as al-Sham), while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Its capital Damascus is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.

Bashar al-Assad

Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بشار حافظ الأسد‎ Baššār Ḥāfiẓ al-ʾAsad,  pronunciation  Levantine pronunciation: [baʃˈʃaːr ˈħaːfezˤ elˈʔasad]; born 11 September 1965) is the President of Syria, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Ba'ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party's branch in Syria. On 10 July 2000, he was elected president succeeding Hafez al-Assad, his father, who had led Syria for 30 years and died in office a month prior. In both the Syrian presidential election, 2000 and subsequent 2007 election, Bashar Assad received votes in his favor in the upper 90th percentile in uncontested elections where other candidates were not permitted to run against him. On 16 July 2014, Bashar Assad was sworn in for a new seven-year term, after his victory in the controversial June presidential election against two regime sanctioned candidates, the first contested presidential election in Ba'athist Syria's history.

Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital, in London, specialising in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel was killed in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000, Assad married Asma Assad, born Akhras.