Saturday 30 March 2013

Hafez al-Assad burns in liberated Raqqa. photo by AP.

A Subtle Shift


Robin Yassin-Kassab

"Syrians need weapons to finish Assad before the crater of this disaster is too deep to climb out of."

Friday 29 March 2013



Amman Protesters renew

calls to combat corruption

'Protesters also condemned the escalating violence in neighbouring Syria, and lauded the Free Syrian Army to continue in fighting the revolution of "the Syrian People" until the fall of Bashar Al Assad's regime.'


An Unlikely Jihadist,

Denouncing Assad in Mandarin

'The fighter briefly introduces himself and then lashes out at Mr. Assad. “People have no freedom, no democracy, no security and no respect here, not at all,” he said.
He goes on to speak of 1,400-year-old ties between the Chinese and the Arabs, stretching back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Road thrived. “However,” he says, “now the Chinese government has destroyed that traditional friendship between the Chinese and Arab people” because Chinese leaders, along with their Iranian and Russian counterparts, “sell weapons and provide financial assistance to the Assad government.” '

Thursday 28 March 2013

Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part 3)


Reasons to remain optimistic about Syria
-----------------------------------------------
"Syrians continue their struggle against tyranny. As long as they stand, there is ground for optimism."
[http://www.aljazeera.com/…/…/2013/03/201332863239514670.html]

Monday 25 March 2013

Ordinary Man


Jon Snow introed tonight's Channel 4 News on Syria by saying, "Despite the misery, they [the Islamists] are gaining influence." Surely because rather than despite? Report does show the barbarity of the régime, the Syrian jets dropping Russian bombs, the corpses with hands ties found floating down the river.
A young boy now a doctor, said something like, "at first I was shocked, now it's ordinary."

Sunday 24 March 2013

News


Syria's Descent

"She ventured back a few months ago, and found her papers scattered, her money stolen, her jewellery thieved."
This is the point where I began to doubt Alex Thomson's report on kidnappings in Damascus. Surely when you do a runner, you take the money and the jewellery?