Syria

9/16 Syria pulled its forces out of Lebanon in 2005, having come under intense international pressure to do so after the assassination of Lebanese former prime minister Rafik Hariri. A UN report implicated Syrian and pro-Syria Lebanese officials in the killing, although Damascus still denies any involvement.The government deals harshly with domestic opposition. Tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed in the suppression of the 1982 uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama.Following the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000 Syria underwent a brief period of relaxation. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, but real political freedoms and a shake-up of the state-dominated economy never materialised. 9/17 US shutdown Numerous research agencies have been affected by the US government’s shutdown on 1 October, as lawmakers failed to agree a 2014 spending plan. Government scientists stayed at home, grant-making ceased at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and government research ships were called back to port. 9/18 Space delivery The second commercial cargo vehicle ever to fly to the International Space Station has arrived. On 29 September, astronauts aboard the space station used a robotic arm to dock the crewless Cygnus craft, made by Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Virginia. The company is competing with SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, to provide NASA with for-profit space-transportation services. Cygnus, which launched on 18 September, carried about 700 kilograms of supplies for the astronauts. It is meant to stay at the space station for a month, being loaded with cargo for disposal, before returning to Earth, where it will burn up on re-entry. 9/19 island An island appeared in the Arabian Sea on 24 September, the apparent result of a magnitude-7.7 earthquake that shook south-central Pakistan 9/20 E-cigarette control Pressure intensified last week for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take tough action on electronic cigarettes, when 40 state attorneys general called for “immediate regulatory oversight” of the products. ‘E-cigarettes’ have proved controversial among tobacco-control advocates