BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria faced a Friday deadline to sign an Arab deal allowing monitors into the country or incur sanctions over its crackdown on protests including halting flights, curbing trade and stopping deals with the central bank.

Arab foreign ministers said in Cairo that unless Syria agreed to let the monitors in to assess progress of an Arab League plan to end eight months of bloodshed, officials would consider imposing sanctions on Saturday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria faces a Friday deadline to sign an Arab deal allowing monitors into the country or incur sanctions over its crackdown on protests including halting flights, curbing trade and stopping deals with the central bank.

Arab foreign ministers warned in Cairo that unless Syria agreed to let the monitors in to assess progress of an Arab League plan to end eight months of bloodshed, officials would consider imposing sanctions on Saturday.

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – Businessmen in Syria talk of canceled contracts, disrupted trade and employees being laid off as commercial operations suffer from the violence and uncertainty that have gripped their country for the past eight months.

Mothers complain of a lack of baby milk and shortages are forcing shops in the main Damascus market to put up their shutters early.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, self-styled champion of Arab unity, faces deepening isolation after fellow Arab states announced sanctions on Syria for his eight-month crackdown on protests calling for his overthrow.

For the leader of a country which, under 40 years of Assad family rule, has portrayed itself as the principal defender of Arab rights, the Arab League’s move on Saturday was a wounding blow.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, self-styled champion of Arab unity, faces deepening isolation after fellow Arab states announced sanctions on Syria for his eight-month crackdown on protests calling for his overthrow.

For the leader of a country which, under 40 years of Assad family rule, has portrayed itself as the principal defender of Arab rights, the Arab League’s move on Saturday was a wounding blow.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Arab League decision to suspend Syria and impose sanctions after nearly eight months of unrest will encourage tougher international measures against Damascus but is unlikely to lead to Western military intervention.

Unlike the Arab group’s call in March for a no-fly zone over Libya, which set the stage for the NATO action that helped topple Muammar Gaddafi, Saturday’s surprisingly tough measures did not include a request for the use of force.

BEIRUT, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Syria’s main private banks saw
customer withdrawals grow by hundreds of millions of dollars in
the third quarter of the year as the uprising against President
Assad continued to take its toll on the economy.

Figures published by the Damascus stock exchange showed that
the decline in assets and deposits, which hit lenders in the
first six months of the year, was sustained from July to
September.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian tanks pounded an old district in the city of Homs Saturday and three people were killed, activists said, after one of the bloodiest days of the seven-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Activists and residents said Syrian forces shot dead 40 civilians Friday when they fired on demonstrators calling for international protection from Assad’s crackdown.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian tanks pounded an old district in the city of Homs on Saturday and three people were killed, activists said, after one of the bloodiest days of the seven-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Activists and residents said Syrian forces shot dead 40 civilians on Friday when they fired on demonstrators calling for international protection from Assad’s crackdown.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The first fled to exile, the second is on trial and the third Arab ruler to be toppled in an Arab revolt died at the hands of rebels he once dismissed as rats.

The killing of Muammar Gaddafi sends a bleak message to Syrian and Yemeni presidents still resisting demands for change that the longer they hold out, the higher the price of failure.