Syria Steps up Fuel Rationing as Shortages Hit Mobile Network 

People shop for fruits and vegetables, as poor access to safe water fuels cholera outbreak in Syria, in Damascus, Syria November 8, 2022. (Reuters)
People shop for fruits and vegetables, as poor access to safe water fuels cholera outbreak in Syria, in Damascus, Syria November 8, 2022. (Reuters)
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Syria Steps up Fuel Rationing as Shortages Hit Mobile Network 

People shop for fruits and vegetables, as poor access to safe water fuels cholera outbreak in Syria, in Damascus, Syria November 8, 2022. (Reuters)
People shop for fruits and vegetables, as poor access to safe water fuels cholera outbreak in Syria, in Damascus, Syria November 8, 2022. (Reuters)

Syria announced cuts on Tuesday to the amount of fuel it provides to government workers to help cope with shortages that have led a number of mobile phone towers to go offline. 

Prime Minister Hussein Arnous ordered a 40% reduction in the amount of fuel provided to government workers and restrictions on official travel for non-urgent purposes, according to a statement. 

Public transport was exempted, said the statement, which blamed shortages on delays in shipments and US sanctions. 

Subsidized fuel is already hard to come by in Syria, with people often waiting weeks for notifications to receive less than a full tank of gas. Those who can buy non-subsidized fuel must brave long queues at petrol pumps. 

Fractured by a more than decade of conflict that has frozen on most fronts, Syria's economic crisis is exacting an increasingly heavy toll that the United Nations says has left more people than ever in need of humanitarian aid. 

The once-productive Syrian economy, already hit by extensive damage to infrastructure and industries during the war, has plunged further since 2019, when contagion from neighboring Lebanon's financial crisis led the Syrian pound to collapse. 



Trump, Egypt's Sisi Discuss Gaza, Yemen

US President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meet in 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meet in 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Trump, Egypt's Sisi Discuss Gaza, Yemen

US President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meet in 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meet in 2018. (AFP/Getty Images)

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and discussed topics including Yemen and Gaza.

In a post on his social media platform, Trump said the pair discussed US military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, as well as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and “possible solutions” to the conflict, as well as “military preparedness.”

Trump said the call went very well.