Baath Party official Faisal Mekdad was appointed on Sunday as Syrian Foreign Minister, a post that has historically been given to loyalist Sunnis who acted as the public face of the regime since the Assad family rule began five decades ago.
The official news agency said President Bashar Al Assad issued a decree naming Mr Mekdad to succeed former foreign minister Walid Al Moalem, who died last week.
Mr Mekdad was Mr Moalem’s deputy and like his boss, he championed the crushing of peaceful protests against the regime, which started in 2011 in the southern province of Deraa.
Deraa is the home province of Mr Mekdad, who joined the Baath Party, becoming a high-ranking member of the student union, the mission of which was to help the regime to destroy dissent at universities in Syria and abroad.
Mr Mekdad was also the country’s representative at the UN in New York and led the Syrian delegation to the failed Annapolis Conference in 2007 to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks.
He is protege of former deputy president Farouq Al Shara, who is also from Deraa but who angered the regime and was dismissed for not supporting the crackdown on the revolt. The vice presidency is a nominal position.
Mr Mekdad kept rising in regime ranks although Mr Shara has disappeared from public view since 2012 and he is believed to be unable to leave Damascus.
One European official described Mr Shara as “a dead man walking”.
Since Hafez Al Assad took power in a 1970 coup that furthered the grip of Alawite officers, Syria has had four foreign ministers and they have been all Sunni.
Former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam, who died this year, was foreign minister from 1970 to 1984. He was succeeded by Mr Shara until 2006.
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Volunteers can now submit DNA samples at a number of centres across Abu Dhabi. The programme is open to all ages.
Collection centres in Abu Dhabi include:
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How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
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