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So. The book says in the '70s an annual journal was launched under the name of Middle East Review:
This volume re-publishes the Middle East Review’s annual appraisals of Syria, its politics and economy. In terms of news coverage and analysis for much of the period covered here, Syria was an exceptional case. Coverage of the country in international media was at best negligible, often non-existent. The al-Assad regimes did not welcome journalistic probing. Not many journalists were given visas to visit Damascus, even less to make their way to those cities well-known to be hostile to the al-Assad administrations.