https://umran-six.vercel.app/ Umran is the bilingual, evidence-first record of Syria's reconstruction — tracking the money, the projects, the schools and the power lines, for Syrians everywhere and for the people deciding whether to invest in them. en https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/syria-reconstruction-gulf-run-enterprise https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/syria-reconstruction-gulf-run-enterprise A summary of Modern Diplomacy's analysis: by the time American firms reached Damascus's July forum, Syria's ports, airports, power grid and telecoms were already allocated to a small circle of Gulf conglomerates — operating with almost no competition law. The Rebuild Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/how-sanctions-relief-works https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/how-sanctions-relief-works Sanctions on Syria were never a single switch. The United States dismantled its programme in stages through 2025, ending with Congress repealing the Caesar Act outright in the NDAA 2026, and the EU and UK moved on parallel tracks. What survives is targeted: designations on named individuals, chemical-weapons and arms controls, and the compliance caution of banks that spent a decade being punished for touching Syria. Legal permission and practical access are different things, and the gap between them is where most Syria transactions still die. Explainer: Sanctions Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/property-titles-bottleneck https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/property-titles-bottleneck Rebuilding Syria's housing is estimated at $75 billion — the biggest single component of the reconstruction bill and the one with no commercial buyer, no assigned donor and no announced state programme. Capital will not enter without security of title, and Syrian title is compromised by destroyed records, wartime displacement and expropriation, informal pre-war construction, and inheritance claims scattered across a diaspora of millions. Every housing finance instrument anyone has proposed — diaspora bonds, mortgage markets, pooled property funds — assumes a clean registry that does not currently exist. Fixing the registry is slower and less photogenic than pouring concrete, and nothing else starts until it moves. Explainer: Property Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/stabilising-the-syrian-pound https://umran-six.vercel.app/explainers/stabilising-the-syrian-pound Three things stabilised the pound, and only one of them was monetary. Territorial consolidation handed the government roughly 88 percent of national oil production, which cut the fuel import bill and flipped the budget to a 1.4 percent surplus, removing the deficit that had been financed by printing money. Sanctions relief and the return to SWIFT restored a formal channel for foreign currency. Redenomination on 1 January 2026 — 100 old pounds to 1 new pound — then removed the zeros, which is cosmetic but not pointless. Inflation fell from 129.9 percent in 2023 to 11.5 percent in 2025. What has not happened is a fall in the real cost of a household month. Explainer: Currency Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/the-216-billion-question https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/the-216-billion-question Syria's reconstruction bill is ten times its annual output. The money currently on the table — pledges, memoranda, aid — covers a small fraction of it, and much of that is not money at all. The Rebuild Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/reconnecting-faster-than-rebuilding https://umran-six.vercel.app/articles/reconnecting-faster-than-rebuilding Inflation fell from 130 percent to 12 percent in two years. The budget flipped to surplus. Ports, banks and oil fields came back online. None of it has yet reached the household. The Rebuild Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT