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Empresas y finanzas

Homs, northwest Syria strike to protest crackdown


    AMMAN (Reuters) - People in the central Syrian city of Homs, a hotbed of unrest against President Bashar al-Assad, staged a general strike Wednesday to protest at an intensifying military crackdown on protesters, activists and residents said.

    They said most employees stayed home and most shops closed in the city of one million, and the strike was observed in wide swathes of the countryside around Homs and cities and towns in the northwestern province of Idlib near Turkey.

    Two protesters were reported killed in the Idlib town of Maarat al-Numaan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, where businesses shut down, anti-Assad activists said.

    Last week, businesses closed in southern Syria in signs of expanding civil disobedience against Assad's autocratic rule.

    (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom)