Syria: Government lifts ruling

AFTER nearly 50 years of living under a state of emergency, Syria is set to lift the ruling as the government seeks to meet a key demand of protestors.

However, the government has warned demonstrators to call off their challenges to president Bashar Assad’s hardline rule.

The mixed messages — just hours after security forces stormed an occupied square in Syria’s third-largest city — leave little doubt about whether authorities will ease their increasingly harsh blows against the month-old protests. Assad’s regime has labelled protests as an “armed insurrection” that could give them the cover to continue the crackdown.