Ski slope, started construction of its mixed-use Khams Shamat Touristic Development project in Syria even as the security situation there worsened. The Dubai-based developer began work on the US $1 billion development, which is located 17 kilometers west of the Syrian capital Damascus, the company said in an e-mailed statement on August 7. The mall builder on July 27 started laying the foundations for the first phase of the project, which will involve building hotels, shops, homes and offices within a 1.5 million square- meter area in the Yaafour district, according to the statement. "All necessary preparations required to proceed with the execution of the project have already been made," Waddah As reported by Bloomberg, Majid Al Futtaim Group, the shopping-mall developer that built Dubai's indoor El Solh, the company's regional head for Syria and Lebanon, said in the statement. That includes the allocation of project management and construction teams, he said. About 2,200 protesters have been killed in Syria since March in an uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the National Organization for Human Rights. More than 500 members of the security forces have also been killed, Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad told India's News X channel.

On July 25 Iran, Iraq and Syria agreed to build a major gas pipeline to transfer the country's natural gas from Iran's South Pars gas field to Eastern Mediterranean countries and Europe, reported ITAR-TASS. It should be noted, that this project would set a serious rival to EU gas pipeline Nabucco - from Central Asia and Caspian region to the EU. The construction of a new 5000km pipeline, which is also called the "Islamic Gas Pipeline", will cost about US$ 10 billion. It is expected that the new pipeline would ultimately have the capacity to pump 110 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. A 1500 km section from southern Iran to Damascus will be commissioned in the period between 2014 and 2016. New gas pipeline will ship gas from South Pars to Iraq then to Lebanon, eastern Mediterranean countries and Europe. International consortium is created for the pipeline construction. At the signing-ceremony of a gas pipeline agreement, Iran's caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi said that Europe is in dire need of Iran's gas, according to the official IRNA news agency. Aliabadi said this agreement would strengthen trilateral relations among the three Islamic countries and it will also lead to ensuring economic security in the region, said the report. According to research by BP, Iran has roughly 28 trillion cubic meters of natural gas - the second largest reserves in the world after Russia with reserves about 45 trillion cubic meters.