Damascus, Jan 6 : Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's youngest son arrived in Damascus last month after spending eight years in Iran, the regional daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Wednesday.

Omar bin Laden told the London-based daily that his 16-year-old brother, Bakr, arrived in Damascus on Christmas Eve.

"It was a joyful moment for the family ... but the joy will not be complete until all my siblings arrive safely from the Iranian capital," Omar was quoted as saying.

Damascus - Syria has opened a new oil and gas processing station to help boost the country's production capacity, local media reported Sunday.

The Hayyan station opened Saturday near the city of Palmyra, some 200 kilometres north-east of Damascus. It has the capacity to process 600 barrels of oil per day and 650,000 cubic meters of gas.

Oil Minister Sufyan al-Allawi said the cost of the project was about 450 million dollars.

Another new station with a production capacity of 3.7 million cubic metres of natural gas is scheduled to open in 2011, officials said.

Damascus - A Syrian boy was killed when he fell into a manhole that had been covered only with cardboard, the Damascus daily al-Watan reported Wednesday.

Rescue workers combed the city's sewer system for hours before locating Ayash's body 15 kilometres away, near a sewage-treatment plant.

Mohammed Ayash and his mother had just visited the boy's grandparents when the two stopped to run some errands on the way home, the paper reported.

When his mother turned her back on the child for a moment to pick up her shopping bags, Ayash had disappeared. Unknown to the mother, he had fallen into a manhole and drowned in the sewage pipe.

Damascus  - Two Syrians have been released after spending 25 years in Israeli prisons, the Syrian official news agency SANA reported Friday.

"Israeli occupation forces released Thursday the two Syrian captives Bishr Soleiman al-Makt and Asem al-Wali after 25 years during which they defied all forms of torture by the hands of Israeli jailers," SANA reported.

The released prisoners were quoted on Syrian television as saying they were confident of "the return of the Golan Heights to Syria and the freedom of all other captives."

Damascus  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has banned smoking in public places, including government offices, restaurants and cafes, reports said Monday.

Violations of the new law, which also applies to the smoking of water pipes, or nargillah, are to result in a fine of up to 5,000 Syrian pounds (100 dollars).

The sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to people under 18, tobacco advertisements and the manufacture and import of all kinds of sweets or toys made in the shape of cigarettes has also been outlawed. (dpa)

Damascus - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz left Damascus Thursday ending his two day "historic" visit to Syria, in which he held political and economic talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Saudi Arabia has called on Syria to take part in efforts to solve inter-Palestinian problems, support Iraq and Lebanon as well as cooperating to fight terrorism and extremism in the region, sources in the Saudi delegation told the German Press Agency dpa.

Damascus - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will start a two-day visit to Syria on Thursday during which he will hold talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Chavez, who was in Algeria on Wednesday, heads a delegation that includes Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro, the Secretariat of the Presidency and ministers of mining, energy, petroleum, and trade.

Damascus  - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki arrived in Syria on Tuesday for security and economic talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The visit, which will tackle border security between the two countries, comes one week after a military US delegation visited Damascus to discuss curbing the crossing of foreign fighters into Iraq.

Baghdad and Washington have repeatedly accused Damascus of allowing fighters to cross into Iraq.

Damascus - A US military and political delegation arrived in Syria on Wednesday for talks on the situation in Iraq and security in the region, two weeks after US Middle East special envoy George Mitchell's last visit to Damascus

The six-member delegation, headed by Mitchell's assistant Frederic Hof and Michael Moeller of the US Central Command, discussed border security between Syria and Iraq and curbing the crossing of foreign fighters into Iraq.

Damascus - A mother and her child were killed when a four-storey building collapsed in a slum in northern Syria, the official Tishreen daily reported Sunday.

Two other women were injured when the building in an informal settlement in the north-eastern province of Latakia collapsed on Saturday, the paper said.

The governor of the province said he would form a special committee to investigate the case.

More than 35 per cent of Syrians live in informal housing, often ramshackle structures, according to a government study published in May.(dpa)

Damascus  - British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ivan Lewis said Tuesday that there was an "unprecedented opportunity" for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"We believe that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to resolve one of the oldest and severe conflicts in the world, the Middle East conflict," Lewis told reporters after a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem in Damascus.

Lewis said that this "opportunity" came after US President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo last June.

Damascus - US National Security Council member Daniel Shapiro arrived in Damascus on Saturday ahead of talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad scheduled for Sunday.

Shapiro was expected to be joined later Saturday by US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, and Frederick Hof, Mitchell's advisor on Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has described Mitchell's planned visit as "the first step of dialogue".

Damascus  - Archaeologists in Syria have found what they believe was the largest Roman garrison in the Middle East, the country's official news agency reported Saturday.

German archaeologists discovered the site, which spreads over 3 hectares (30,000 square metres), at al-Rifniah, in the northern Syrian province of Hama, Syria's SANA news agency said.

Damascus - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held private talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Wednesday, Syria's official SANA news agency reported.

A statement from al-Assad's office provided no details about the meeting, save that Syria's Assistant Vice President Lieutenant General Hassan Torkmani, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also attended the talks.

Before Erdogan left for Aleppo, the prime minister restated Turkey's willingness to act as an intermediary in Syrian-Israeli peace talks.

Damascus  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree changing the penalty for "honour killing" to at least two years in prison, Minister of Justice Minister Ahmad Hamoud Younes said in a statement Thursday.

"The number of wife-killings has increased recently on the pretext of adultery, and the article that was abolished by the President pardoned these crimes," the official SANA news agency quoted Younes as saying.

Damascus (Syria), July 2 : Syria''s First Lady has told Sky News that she would welcome the Obamas' should they decide to visit the country's capital, Damascus. Asma al Assad''s comments are the latest in a series of signs that US-Syrian relations are improving after years of tension.

"The fact is President Obama is young, and President Assad is also very young as well. So maybe it is time for these young leaders to make a difference in the world," she said.

Damascus - Khalid Meshaal, chief of the executive of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, on Thursday said his group was prepared to have a "direct dialogue without conditions" with the United States.

Speaking to supporters in the Syrian capital Damascus, Meshaal said the recent speech by US President Barack Obama to the Muslim world in which the president stated that Hamas had to be involved in a solution to the Mideast conflict was "a step in the right direction."

Damascus  - More than 35 per cent of Syrians live in "informal," often ramshackle houses, a new Syrian study has found.

This arrangement poses a threat to the ecology of Syria and is an impediment to the development of the country, the government's Commission for Family Affairs concluded in its study, the results of which were published in Syria's state daily Tishreen on Sunday.

Damascus  - Palestinian factions in exile in Damascus on Saturday warned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas against giving up on the "rights of the Palestinian people" in exchange for a "US illusion."

In a joint statement sent to reporters after a Saturday meeting of political leaders from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Damascus-based factions, the groups said they would reject any international agreement Abbas might strike "on behalf of our people that would target our people's rights under the guise of peace."

Damascus  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday said he saw little hope of striking a peace deal with Israel's new government, which he described as the "most extreme in its history."

Speaking to foreign ministers from the 57 states that make up the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) at a meeting in Damascus, al-Assad accused Israel of being the "main obstacle" in Arab-Israeli peace talks.