Adam Offord Buxton is an English actor, comedian, podcaster and writer. With the filmmaker Joe Cornish, he is part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe. They presented the Channel 4 television series The Adam and Joe Show (1996–2001) and the BBC Radio 6 Music series Adam and Joe.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
Fiona Elizabeth Bruce is a British journalist, newsreader, and television presenter. She joined the BBC as a researcher for Panorama in 1989, and has since become the first female newsreader on the BBC News at Ten, as well as presenting many flagship programmes for the corporation, including BBC News at Six, Crimewatch, Real Story, Antiques Roadshow, and Fake or Fortune? Since 10 January 2019, she has been the presenter of the BBC One television programme Question Time.
Tobias Simpson Menzies is an English stage, television and film actor. He is known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix's series The Crown, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and British Academy Television Award nominations. Menzies also played Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in STARZ's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in HBO's Rome and Edmure Tully in HBO's Game of Thrones.
Asma Fawaz al-Assad is the First Lady of Syria. Born and raised in London to Syrian parents, she is married to the 19th and current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.
Khan Shaykhun, sometimes spelled Khan Sheikhoun or Khan Shikhoun, is a town in the Maarrat al-Nu'man District, within the southern Idlib Governorate of northwestern Syria.
The Statue of Saladin is an oversize equestrian bronze statue depicting the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin located in front of the 11th century Citadel of Damascus in the Ancient City of Damascus in Damascus, Syria. The statue was designed by Syrian sculptor Abdallah al-Sayed. It was unveiled by the then Syrian president Hafez Assad in 1993, marking the 800th anniversary of Saladin's death.
Hafez Mohamad Makhlouf, also known as Hafez Makhlouf, is a retired Syrian colonel and former intelligence officer who was head of the Damascus branch of the General Security Directorate, Syria's civilian intelligence agency. He was a member of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's "inner circle" of close supporters.
Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) is an international travel photography award, founded by professional photographer Chris Coe and his partner Karen Coe in 2003. The competition runs annually and is open to entries from photographers of all ages and abilities. Each year an overall winner is presented with the 'Travel Photographer of The Year' award, with additional winners selected from each of the year's categories. The competition is judged by an international panel of expert photographers and editors, assessing as many as 20,000 entries from over 142 different countries each year.
Al-Dana is a town in northern Syria, administratively part of the Idlib Governorate, located north of Idlib, 38 kilometers west of Aleppo, and just east of the border with Turkey. Nearby localities include Sarmada to the southwest, Tell Elkarame to the south, Atarib to the southeast, Turmanin to the northeast, Salwah to the north and Qah to the northwest. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, al-Dana had a population of 14,208 in the 2004 census. The town is also the administrative center of the al-Dana nahiyah consisting of thirteen villages with a combined population of 60,058. Al-Dana was notable for its indigo dye industry which has since disappeared.
Al-Hatab Square is one of the oldest squares in the Syrian city of Aleppo. It is located in the old Jdeydeh Quarter, outside the historic walls of the Ancient City of Aleppo. The square suffered catastrophic damage during the Syrian civil war.
The civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War, or as it was sometimes called by the media, the Syrian Revolution, was an early stage of protests – with subsequent violent reaction by the Syrian Arab Republic – lasting from March to 28 July 2011, as part of the wider spread Arab Spring in the Arab world. The uprising, initially demanding democratic reforms, evolved from initially minor protests, beginning as early as January 2011 and transformed into massive protests in March.
Beit Junblatt is a historic mansion in Aleppo, Syria, built in the 16th century by a Kurdish emir of the Janbulad family.
Peter William Ford is an English diplomat who served as the British ambassador to Bahrain from 1999 to 2003 and Syria from 2003 to 2006.
The Hypogeum of Yarhai is a hypogeum from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra which flourished in the second and third centuries AD. It is considered one of the finest examples of Palmyrene funerary art. It's a mass grave which was built to contain the remains of the Yarhai family who commissioned it to be built in 108 AD.
Sian Clifford is an English actress. She is best known for playing Claire, the older sister of the titular character in the BBC comedy-drama series Fleabag (2016–2019) and also portrayed Martha Crawley in the ITV/Amazon Studios series Vanity Fair (2018). In 2020, she played Diana Ingram in the ITV series Quiz.
Alys Tomlinson is a British photographer. She has published the books Following Broadway (2013), Ex-Voto (2019) and Lost Summer (2020). For Ex-Voto she won the Photographer of the Year award at the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards. Portraits from Lost Summer won First prize in the 2020 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
Alice Birch is a British playwright and screenwriter. Birch has written several plays, including Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. for which she was awarded the George Devine Award for Most Promising New Playwright, and Anatomy of a Suicide for which she won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Birch was also the screenwriter for the film Lady Macbeth and has written for such television shows as Succession and Normal People.
Since the Syrian civil war, the United Kingdom has supported the Syrian opposition. The United Kingdom closed its embassy in Syria in 2011, and the Embassy of Syria, London was closed the following year.
