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BBC News
07-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
North Korea holds first Pyongyang International Marathon in six years
North Korea has staged the Pyongyang International Marathon for the first time in six years, welcoming some 200 foreign runners to pound the streets of the reclusive country's marathon, which was launched in 1981, took place annually in April to celebrate the birth of its founding leader Kim Il Sunday's marathon, the race was last held in 2019, wherein 950 foreigners participated. North Korea sealed itself the following year, when the Covid-19 pandemic Korea has been slow to reopen since, allowing only Russian tourists into its capital since last year. Runners have had to enter the country as part of an organised tour group, as was the case before the Tours, a Beijing-based travel agency listed as an "exclusive partner" on the event website, offers six-day marathon tours at 2,195 euros ($2,406) including flights to and from Beijing. "The Pyongyang Marathon is an extremely unique experience as it provides an opportunity to interact with locals," the agency wrote on its marathon route took participants past landmarks across the city, including the Kim Il Sung stadium, the Arch of Triumph built to commemorate Kim Il Sung's role in resisting Japanese rule, and the Mirae Future Scientists' Street said to be a residential district for scientists and engineers. Pictures online show the stadium - where runners start and finish their race - filled with spectators, many of them cheering and waving gold-coloured paper Kum Dong, a North Korean runner, told Reuters news agency: "The eyes of our people on me helped me to bear the difficulties whenever I feel tired."There is no publicly available information on race Korea had only statred to scale back Covid-19 restrictions in the middle of 2023. In Feburary, it allowed some Western tourists into the remote, eastern city Rason, but suspended those tours just weeks after.
Boston Globe
17-02-2025
- Boston Globe
Experts push to restore Syria's war-torn heritage sites, including renowned Roman ruins at Palmyra
Advertisement Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011 and soon escalated into a brutal civil war, Palmyra was Syria's main tourist destination, attracting around 150,000 visitors monthly, Ayman Nabu, a researcher and expert in ruins said. Dubbed the 'Bride of the Desert,' 'Palmyra revitalized the steppe,' he said. Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up The ancient city was the capital of an Arab client state of the Roman Empire that briefly rebelled and carved out its own kingdom in the third century, led by Queen Zenobia. In more recent times, the area had darker associations. It was home to Tadmur prison, where thousands of opponents of the Assad family's rule in Syria were reportedly tortured. The Islamic State group demolished the prison after capturing the town. ISIS militants later destroyed Palmyra's historic temples of Bel and Baalshamin and the Arch of Triumph, viewing them as monuments to idolatry, and beheaded an elderly antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to overseeing the ruins. Between 2015 and 2017, control of Palmyra shifted between the Islamic State and the Syrian army before Assad's forces, backed by Russia and Iran-aligned militias, recaptured it. They established military bases in the neighboring town, which was left heavily damaged and largely abandoned. Fakhr al-Din al-Ma'ani Castle, a 16th-century fortress overlooking the city, was repurposed by Russian troops as a military barracks. Nabu, the researcher, visited Palmyra five days after the fall of the former government. Advertisement 'We saw extensive excavation within the tombs,' he said, noting significant destruction by both Islamic State and Assad government forces. 'The (Palmyra) museum was in a deplorable state, with missing documents and artifacts — we have no idea what happened to them.' At the theater, the Tetrapylon, and other ruins along the main colonnaded street, they documented many illegal drillings revealing sculptures, as well as theft and smuggling of funerary or tomb-related sculptures in 2015 when the Islamic States had control of the site, Nabu said. While seven of the stolen sculptures were retrieved and put in a museum in Idlib, 22 others were smuggled out, Nabu added. Many pieces likely ended up in underground markets or private collections. Inside the city's underground tombs, Islamic verses are scrawled on the walls, while plaster covers wall paintings, some depicting mythological themes that highlight Palmyra's deep cultural ties to the Greco-Roman world. Two men stood on the ruins of the Temple of Bal, which was destroyed by ISIS in 2015, at the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria. Khalil Hamra/Associated Press 'Syria has a treasure of ruins,' Nabu said, emphasizing the need for preservation efforts. He said Syria's interim administration, led by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has decided to wait until after the transition phase to develop a strategic plan to restore heritage sites. The UN's scientific, educational and cultural organization UNESCO, said in a statement that the agency had since 2015, 'remotely supported the protection of Syrian cultural heritage' through satellite analyses, reports and documentation and recommendations to local experts, but it did not conduct any work on site. In 2019, international experts convened by UNESCO said detailed studies would need to be done before starting major restorations. Beyond Palmyra, other historical sites bear the scars of war. Advertisement Perched on a hill near the town of Al-Husn, with sweeping views, Crac des Chevaliers, a medieval castle originally built by the Romans and later expanded by the Crusaders, was heavily bombarded during the Syrian civil war. On a recent day, armed fighters in military uniform roamed the castle grounds alongside local tourists, taking selfies among the ruins. Hazem Hanna, an architect and head of the antiquities department of Crac des Chevaliers, pointed to the collapsed columns and an entrance staircase obliterated by airstrikes. Damage from government airstrikes in 2014 destroyed much of the central courtyard and the arabesque-adorned columns, Hanna said. Some sections of Crac des Chevaliers were renovated after airstrikes and the deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2023 that struck a wide area of neighboring Turkey and also Syria, Hanna said. However, much of the castle remains in ruins. Both Nabu and Hanna believe restoration will take time. 'We need trained technical teams to evaluate the current condition of the ruin sites,' Nabu said.
Arab News
17-02-2025
- Arab News
Experts push to restore Syria's war-torn heritage sites, including renowned Roman ruins at Palmyra
PALMYRA, Syria: Experts are returning to Syria's war-ravaged heritage sites, hoping to lay the groundwork for restoring them and reviving tourism, which they say could provide a much-needed boost to the country's decimated economy after nearly 14 years of war. Once-thriving landmarks like the ancient city of Palmyra and the medieval Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers remain scarred by years of conflict, but local tourists are returning to the sites, and conservationists hope their historical and cultural significance will eventually draw international visitors back. Palmyra One of Syria's six UNESCO World Heritage sites, Palmyra was once a key hub to the ancient Silk Road network linking the Roman and Parthian empires to Asia. Located in the Syrian desert, it is renowned for its 2,000-year-old Roman-era ruins. It is now marked by shattered columns and damaged temples. Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011 and soon escalated into a brutal civil war, Palmyra was Syria's main tourist destination, attracting around 150,000 visitors monthly, Ayman Nabu, a researcher and expert in ruins said. Dubbed the 'Bride of the Desert,' he said 'Palmyra revitalized the steppe and used to be a global tourist magnet.' The ancient city was the capital of an Arab client state of the Roman Empire that briefly rebelled and carved out its own kingdom in the third century, led by Queen Zenobia. In more recent times, the area had darker associations. It was home to Tadmur prison, where thousands of opponents of the Assad family's rule in Syria were reportedly tortured. The Daesh group demolished the prison after capturing the town. Daesh militants later destroyed Palmyra's historic temples of Bel and Baalshamin and the Arch of Triumph, viewing them as monuments to idolatry, and beheaded an elderly antiquities scholar who had dedicated his life to overseeing the ruins. Between 2015 and 2017, control of Palmyra shifted between Daesh and the Syrian army before Assad's forces, backed by Russia and Iran-aligned militias, recaptured it. They established military bases in the neighboring town, which was left heavily damaged and largely abandoned. Fakhr Al-Din Al-Ma'ani Castle, a 16th-century fortress overlooking the city, was repurposed by Russian troops as a military barracks. Nabu, the researcher, visited Palmyra five days after the fall of the former government. 'We saw extensive excavation within the tombs,' he said, noting significant destruction by both Daesh and Assad government forces. 'The (Palmyra) museum was in a deplorable state, with missing documents and artifacts – we have no idea what happened to them.' At the theater, the Tetrapylon, and other ruins along the main colonnaded street, Nabu said they documented many illegal drillings revealing sculptures, as well as theft and smuggling of funerary or tomb-related sculptures in 2015 when Daesh had control of the site. While seven of the stolen sculptures were retrieved and put in a museum in Idlib, 22 others were smuggled out, Nabu added. Many pieces likely ended up in underground markets or private collections. Inside the city's underground tombs, Islamic verses are scrawled on the walls, while plaster covers wall paintings, some depicting mythological themes that highlight Palmyra's deep cultural ties to the Greco-Roman world. 'Syria has a treasure of ruins,' Nabu said, emphasizing the need for preservation efforts. He said Syria's interim administration, led by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, has decided to wait until after the transition phase to develop a strategic plan to restore heritage sites. Matthieu Lamarre of the UN's scientific, educational and cultural organization UNESCO, said the agency had since 2015, 'remotely supported the protection of Syrian cultural heritage' through satellite analyzes, reports and documentation and recommendations to local experts, but it did not conduct any work on site. He added that UNESCO has explored possibilities for technical assistance if security conditions improve. In 2019, international experts convened by UNESCO said detailed studies would need to be done before starting major restorations. Crac des Chevaliers Beyond Palmyra, other historical sites bear the scars of war. Perched on a hill near the town of Al-Husn, with sweeping views, Crac des Chevaliers, a medieval castle originally built by the Romans and later expanded by the Crusaders, was heavily bombarded during the Syrian civil war. On a recent day, armed fighters in military uniform roamed the castle grounds alongside local tourists, taking selfies among the ruins. Hazem Hanna, an architect and head of the antiquities department of Crac des Chevaliers, pointed to the collapsed columns and an entrance staircase obliterated by airstrikes. Damage from government airstrikes in 2014 destroyed much of the central courtyard and the arabesque-adorned columns, Hanna said. 'Relying on the cultural background of Syria's historical sites and their archaeological and historical significance to enthusiasts worldwide, I hope and expect that when the opportunity arises for tourists to visit Syria, we will witness a significant tourism revival,' he said. Some sections of Crac des Chevaliers were renovated after airstrikes and the deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2023 that struck a wide area of neighboring Turkiye and also Syria, Hanna said. However, much of the castle remains in ruins. Both Nabu and Hanna believe restoration will take time. 'We need trained technical teams to evaluate the current condition of the ruin sites,' Nabu said. The Dead Cities In Northwest Syria, more than 700 abandoned Byzantine settlements called Dead Cities, stretch across rocky hills and plains, their weathered limestone ruins featuring remnants of stone houses, basilicas, tombs and colonnaded streets. Despite partial collapse, arched doorways, intricate carvings and towering church facades endure, surrounded by olive trees that root deep into history. Dating back to the first century, these villages once thrived on trade and agriculture. Today, some sites now shelter displaced Syrians, with stone houses repurposed as homes and barns, their walls blackened by fire and smoke. Crumbling structures suffer from poor maintenance and careless repurposing. Looters have ravaged the ancient sites, Nabu said, leaving gaping holes in search of artifacts. Local visitors carve names and messages into centuries-old walls. Sheep enclosures dot the ruins, plastic debris blending with ancient stone. Moustafa Al-Kaddour, a local resident, returned after eight years. Touring the ruins with family members he brought from Quneitra, he reflected on childhood memories. 'This is where we went to school,' he said, pointing in the distance. 'In the middle of class, we used to leave and come here to see the ruins.' 'My feelings are indescribable,' Al-Kaddour, who also saw his father for the first time in years, told the AP. 'My brain still cannot comprehend that after eight years, by God's will, we made it back home.' He said the Assad forces had established a military position in the village, subjecting the ruins to heavy shelling and gunfire. The area was then controlled by rebels, who made the area off-limits to most Syrians and international tourists, unlike Palmyra, which still saw some visitors during the war. The Dead Cities were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2011 as an open-air museum, said Nabu. Idlib province alone hosts 'over 1,000 heritage sites spanning different time periods – about a third of Syria's total ruins,' he added. Beyond the bombings and air raids, looting and unauthorized digging have caused significant damage, Nabu said, adding that new construction near the ruins lacks planning and threatens preservation. 'Tens of thousands' of looted artifacts remain undocumented, he said. For those documented, authorities are compiling case files for international circulation in coordination with the Directorate of Antiquities and Museums to locate them and hopefully retrieve them.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Syrians back to famed Palmyra ruins scarred by IS
Syrians are once again picnicking and smoking shisha amid the ruins of ancient Palmyra, once desecrated by jihadists but still awe-inspiring, and open to the public following the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad. The city's renowned ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were twice overrun by the Islamic State group, which proceeded to destroy many of the most famed structures. Although they were driven out, the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia and Iran, then set up military bases nearby, effectively barring public access. Open to the public once more, Yasser al-Mahmoud, 54, was among dozens of formerly displaced Syrians rediscovering the beloved landmarks that still bear scars of war. "We used to come here every Friday, before" the war, Mahmoud said, pouring hot tea into glass cups placed atop a massive column's stone base. "Now we're back and we can reconnect with our memories," he said, standing near his wife and children. "People are so happy," he said. Spread out across the ruins, families were carrying bags of food and making tea, while young people smoked shisha. "We really missed the ruins. We haven't been here since 2015," when IS first invaded the area before being forced out for good in 2017. Mahmoud said he wanted to reopen his stall selling trinkets and jewellery once visitors returned to Palmyra -- which attracted more than 150,000 tourists a year before civil war broke out in 2011. Nearby, two huge columns forming a squared arch stood amid a sea of rubble -- all that remained of the Temple of Bel after IS jihadists detonated explosives inside it. - Illegal excavations - Known to Syrians as the "Pearl of the Desert", Palmyra was home to some of the best-preserved classical monuments in the Middle East before Syria's 13-year war. But IS launched a campaign of destruction after capturing Palmyra, using its ancient theatre as a venue for public executions and murdering its 82-year-old former antiquities chief. The jihadists blew up the shrine of Baal Shamin, destroyed the Temple of Bel, dynamited the Arch of Triumph, looted the museum and defaced statues and sarcophagi. While the jihadists are gone, danger still looms over Palmyra. The director general of antiquities and museums in Syria, Nazir Awad, told AFP he was concerned about illegal excavation. There are guards, he said, "but I don't think they can do their work to the fullest extent, because of random and barbaric excavations across very wide areas". People looking for ancient artefacts to loot are using heavy machinery and metal detectors that are "destructive", adding that the digging was "destroying layers of archaeological sites, leaving nothing behind". - 'A military zone' - The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Assad's allies established "military sites and positions" in Palmyra and its archaeological sites, even taking up residence in its hotels. In a sign of their presence, Israeli air strikes in November on the modern city killed 106 Tehran-backed fighters, according to the British-based monitor with a network of sources in Syria. Former rebel fighter Khaldun al-Rubaa, 32, said Palmyra had been turned "from an archaeological site into a military zone" that was off-limits to visitors. He worked at Palmyra's ancient sites from childhood, giving tourists camel rides and, like many Palmyra residents, tourism was his main source of income, he said. Now that Assad-allied armed groups and foreign armies have left, Rubaa has returned home, hoping to trade his arms for a camel. He held a picture on his phone of him as a young boy riding his camel, killed in the fighting, with the Arch of Triumph in the background. "Palmyra and the ruins have been through horrors. The site has seen IS, Iran, the Russians, all of the militias you could think of," he said. Yet he is among the lucky ones able to settle back home. After 12 years of displacement Khaled al-Sheleel, 57, said he has yet to return to his house, destroyed in an Israeli strike. He now works as a taxi driver, mostly carrying residents wishing to visit or return home. "We have no homes, we cannot return," he said. But "despite the destruction, I was overjoyed, I knelt on the ground and cried tears of joy when I returned" for the first time. dco-ohk/aya-lk/dcp
