Amude, Syria // At seven every morning, a cheerful voice crackles over the airwaves of northern Syria. As people stumble out of bed, or rub the sleep from their eyes on their way to work, they tune in as Avin Shekhmous launches into her two-hour programme about health issues.
The content of the show ranges from dispelling urban myths to providing more serious medical advice, a valuable service in a country where the war has put an acute strain on health care.
At 9am, the 28-year-old Ms Shekhmous bids her listeners good bye, takes off her headphones and steps out of the studio into the office space of Arta FM – the only independent radio station in the Kurdish-dominated north of the country.
“I like working in the media, and I want to change the mentality of the people here,” she says before settling down to prepare for her next show.
After four years of civil war, news in Syria is dominated by the fighting. Broadcasting has not remained immune, as the various factions try to control the flow of information.
Arta has bucked this trend since it went on air two years ago in the town of Amude located on the border with Turkey. The station strives to remain impartial, and focuses its reporting not on the war, but on the everyday lives of people living in Rojava, as the autonomous region in northern Syria is known.
“We want to enable people to hear about other issues than war, violence and guns. So that they learn about tolerance, and respect and acceptance of others,” says Siruan Hadsch Hossein, Arta’s founder.
Mr Hossein’s family left Syria for Germany in 1990 when he was 13. He became a radio journalist after graduating from university, and spent time in the Middle East teaching media training courses. When the civil war in his native Syria broke out, he saw a gap in the market and an opportunity to make a difference.
Funded by the US government-backed organisation Creative, the station has grown rapidly. It now employs 75 people spread over five offices, all located in the autonomous region. Its broadcasts cover topics ranging from the dire state of Rojava’s roads to the education system, where Kurdish is being introduced for the first time by the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD).
To emphasise its non-partisan approach and to reflect the ethnic diversity of northern Syria, it transmits in Kurdish, Arabic, Aramaic and Armenian.
Syria’s religious and ethnic pluralism has come under threat from ISIL and other extremist groups. This diversity was skilfully manipulated by the Assad regime to create divisions within society and so prevent effective opposition to its rule.
The consequences of this divide and conquer approach linger on, and Arta is working to break these barriers.
“There is still a lot of mistrust between the communities. We are trying to promote unity. From the start, our team consisted of Kurds, Arabs and Christians,” says Mr Hossein.
Arta’s philosophy centres around promoting civil society, which can serve as the basis for a functioning democracy in northern Syria. It also tries to instil hope in a population which has lived through years of war. During this time, many families have lost relatives on the frontlines.
With work scarce, and basic services like electricity intermittent, many residents of Rojava have joined the millions of Syrians who have fled the country in the hope of a better life in Europe.
Arta is trying to convince people to stay, and to work towards a better future in Syria. Mr Hossein, who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker, says that the expectations of refugees are vastly inflated. Integration is far more complicated than anticipated, the job market hard to enter, and those who make the dangerous journey to Europe end up with a lower quality of life than at home, he believes.
“We tell them that it is better to live here with difficulty than to move abroad,” says Mr Hossein.
Immigration is not the only issue on which Arta sets itself apart. Its refusal to act as a government mouthpiece, and its habit of posing tough questions about the moribund infrastructure, struggling health system and a dire economy sometimes puts it on a collision course with the authorities.
The PYD, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), officially ascribes to a form of grassroots democracy it calls “democratic confederalism”, in which power is devolved to local councils. In practice, decision making is often top down, and an authoritarian style of governance is hard to shake in a country that has been ruled by the autocratic Assad regime for decades.
“Some officials can act very arbitrarily at times,” says Mr Hossein.
Arta’s journalists can struggle to obtain the requisite government permissions, and on a few isolated occasions have been threatened by an irate official.
But while the authorities eye the station warily, they have not shut it down, and Mr Hossein believes that acceptance of Arta’s independent reporting is growing.
The station and the government share some common goals. The PYD is keen to promote gender equality, which has led to thousands of women joining the ranks of the party and its armed wing. Arta is equally serious about improving women’s rights, which is reflected in the high proportion of female employees and its programming.
For all its idealism, the government has yet to deliver on its promises, according to Ms Shekhmous.
“Women now have the same right as men to and pick up a gun and fight. But we still don’t have real equality,” she says.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Company%20Profile
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Results
5.30pm Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Turf) 1,400m
Winner Spirit Of Light, Clement Lecoeuvre (jockey), Erwan Charpy (trainer)
6.05pm Maiden (TB) Dh82,500 (Dirt) 1,900m
Winner Bright Start, Pat Cosgrave, Saeed bin Suroor
6.40pm Handicap (TB) Dh92,500 (D) 2,000m
Winner Twelfthofneverland, Nathan Crosse, Satish Seemar
7.15pm Handicap (TB) Dh85,000 (T) 1,600m
Winner Imperial Empire, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
7.50pm Handicap (TB) Dh92,500 (T) 2,000m
Winner Record Man, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
8.25pm Handicap (TB) Dh92,500 (D) 1,600m
Winner Celtic Prince, Fabrice Veron, Rashed Bouresly
Heavily-sugared soft drinks slip through the tax net
Some popular drinks with high levels of sugar and caffeine have slipped through the fizz drink tax loophole, as they are not carbonated or classed as an energy drink.
Arizona Iced Tea with lemon is one of those beverages, with one 240 millilitre serving offering up 23 grams of sugar - about six teaspoons.
A 680ml can of Arizona Iced Tea costs just Dh6.
Most sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, five teaspoons of sugar in a 500ml bottle.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
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TUESDAY'S ORDER OF PLAY
Centre Court
Starting at 2pm:
Elina Svitolina (UKR) [3] v Jennifer Brady (USA)
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) v Belinda Bencic (SUI [4]
Not before 7pm:
Sofia Kenin (USA) [5] v Elena Rybakina (KAZ)
Maria Sakkari (GRE) v Aryna Sabalenka (BLR) [7]
Court One
Starting at midday:
Karolina Muchova (CZE) v Katerina Siniakova (CZE)
Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) v Aliaksandra Sasnovich (BLR)
Veronika Kudermetova (RUS) v Dayana Yastermska (UKR)
Petra Martic (CRO) [8] v Su-Wei Hsieh (TPE)
Sorana Cirstea (ROU) v Anett Kontaveit (EST)
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Day 1 results:
Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)
Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
if you go