Syria's industrialists join exodus from country

AP

With the Syrian civil war edging closer to Damascus, the capital's business elite long cultivated by President Bashar Assad as a support for his regime is starting to join the exodus from the country.

Popular restaurants and high-end stores in Damascus have shut down as their owners move to Beirut and reopen there. They have become the latest part of the flight of the Syrian upper class, thousands of whom are believed to have moved abroad over the past year, mainly to Lebanon, Turkey, and the Gulf.

Source: AP FULL STORY