...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
ban on oil exports.
"We are no longer being paid," a Total front man said, confirming media reports. He said the company had since late September "slightly" reduced its production in Syria but was continuing to produce oil and gas there.
The front man would not say when the payments had stopped, nor how much money was involved.
Total and the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell are the largest foreign international oil producers in Syria, where the regime of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
has violently cracked down on anti-government protests.
Last week, the Financial Times newspaper reported that both companies were no longer being paid the by the government in Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
In September, the European Union banned crude oil imports from Syria, a tough measure against Damascus as the 27-nation bloc buys 95 percent of its oil exports, providing a third of the regime's hard currency earnings.
More than 70 people died on Monday in one of the bloodiest days of Syria's eight-month uprising, activists said, as Assad's loyalists reacted angrily to growing isolation.