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The US Congress on Wednesday permanently ended sanctions imposed on Syria under ousted leader Bashar al-Assad, paving the way for the return of investment to the war-ravaged nation.President Donald Trump had already twice suspended the implementation of sanctions in response to pleas from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, allies of the new government headed by former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa.But Sharaa had sought a permanent end to the sanctions, fearing that so long as the measures remained on the books they would deter businesses wary of legal risks in the world’s largest economy.The Senate passed the repeal of the 2019 Caesar Act as part of a sweeping annual defense package. The Senate voted 77 to 20 in favor of the legislation, which was already approved by the House of Representatives and is expected to be signed by Trump.The repeal, broadly backed by lawmakers of both parties, “is a decisive step toward giving the Syrian people a real chance to rebuild after decades of unimaginable suffering,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Damascus hailed the decision as a turning point. “We express our gratitude and appreciation to the US Senate for its support of the Syrian people and its vote to repeal the Caesar Act,” Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said. He described the move as “a positive development that opens new horizons for cooperation and partnership between our country and the world”.The Caesar Act, named after an anonymous photographer who documented atrocities in Assad’s prisons, severely restricted investment and cut off Syria from the international banking system.The law was intended to prevent the influx of foreign businesses to rebuild Syria at a time when it had seemed that Assad had triumphed following more than a decade of brutal civil war that triggered a massive flow of refugees toward Europe and helped spawn the birth of the Islamic State extremist movement.Sharaa’s fighters seized Damascus a year ago in a lightning offensive.Sharaa — now dressed in a business suit and seeking better relations with the West — has impressed Trump, including when they first met during the US leader’s May trip to Riyadh.

An Iranian boxer sentenced to death on charges of membership of an outlawed group is at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected, rights groups and the exiled opposition said on Wednesday.The World Boxing Council and sporting luminaries including former tennis star Martina Navratilova have called on Iran to spare the life of Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani, 30, a silver medallist in the national boxing championship.Vafaei-Sani was arrested in 2020 over involvement in 2019 protests, charged with membership of the People’s Mujahedin (PMOI, also known by the Persian acronym MEK) organisation, which is banned in Iran, and sentenced to death after being convicted of the capital crime of “corruption on earth”.This week he was informed that his request for a retrial has been rejected by Iran’s Supreme Court, while his case has now been sent to the office for implementation of sentences, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.Meanwhile, his mother was “unexpectedly” granted a visit to her son held in the Vakilabad prison in the eastern city of Mashhad, it added. It is common in Iran for relatives to meet convicts for a final visit on the eve of execution.There was no mention of the case in official media on Wednesday.”His life is now in grave danger,” the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the MEK’s political arm said in a statement, adding that the meeting with his mother “could signal his imminent execution”.MEK spokesman Shahin Ghobadi told AFP that Vafaei-Sani was “affiliated” with the group and that over the last half decade the authorities “had, using extensive torture, tried hard to force him to renounce” his support of the MEK.Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, said the boxer was at “imminent risk of execution” and had been “tortured to extract forced confessions”.A joint statement published in November signed by over 20 athletes including Navratilova and British swimmer Sharron Davies urged governments worldwide to act to save his life saying his execution would be a “warning to every athlete who dares to speak out”.The World Boxing Council also condemned the death sentence, with its president Mauricio Sulaiman Saldivar saying it would be an attack on the “fundamental values of sport and human dignity”.Activists say that Iran’s clerical authorities are imposing a major crackdown in the wake of the June war with Israel marked by a surge in the use of capital punishment with at least 1,426 people hanged this year up to the end of November according to IHR.