Hello, my name is Omar, I am 14 years old and live in Damascus, Syria
In this text my idea is that you learn more about my country.
Syria is a country situated in the Middle East, that is on the west coast of the Mediterranean, our neighbours are Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.
The people who live in my country are called Syrians.
My country has an area of 185.000 km² approximately, and our capital is Damascus, many people say it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and this is a big pride for us.
In total there are 19,405,000 Syrians, of which 4,700,000 people are of my city, Damask.
With regards of politics, our president is Bashar al-Assad, who is the son of a former president of Syria. He worked as an ophthalmologist and spent time in the UK where he continued his political career. From 1997 to 1999 he was a Colonel in the army. And in 2007 he and his party won the elections. The Prime Minister is Muhammad Naji al-Otari.
When our current president got the power Syrian joined many international organizations which include:
United Nations Development Program: which contributes to improve the quality of life of nations.
International Organization for Migration: to help resettle people displaced by Wars.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), created to promote and accelerate the industrialization in developing countries.
Our population is mostly Arab, but in the north we find Armenians, Turks and other immigrant people, everybody with their own language. Also, many Palestinians live in Syria.
70% of our population are Sunni Muslims, there are also other Muslim groups, and the rest are Catholics. There are also some Jews.
The Syrian population is used to migrating to other countries, especially UK and USA, but it is also a country that receives migrants, for example Jordan, Palestinian, etc.
In my opinion we live very well in Syria, our Life expectancy for men is 69 years and in women of 72, but I think this is improving as the medical care is progressing a lot.
Our economy is pretty bad. That’s why my family wants to live in Spain; my father lives there.
Our environment is so OK, only one company damages the environment, Dara Starch industry. It produces a large amount of liquids and powders with Starches which damage the environment.
I can’t talk much about economics because I don’t know a much information but I know that our Gross Domestic Product (GDP)was $ 83 billion in 2007, and our idh was 0.721.
That is all I hope you already have an idea of my country now, it's true that it's not perfect but every time it comes close to perfection
Goodbye and see you soon
Omar Alshaeb
4D
