Damascus

Dazzling days on the road to Damascus

Daily Express (Free subscription) | yesterday

THE souk in Aleppo is about as far removed from the British shopping experience as the breathtaking ruins of Palmyra are from the average housing estate.

A small terrorist get-together

Elder of Ziyon (Free subscription) | 5 hours ago

This picture was taken at an Islamic Jihad festival that took place in Damascus over the weekend. It was yet another gathering to honor the anniversary of the death of its founder, Fathi Shakaki. I'm not great at recognizing faces, but we certainly have Khaled Meshal of Hamas there, as well as Ziad Nakhala of Islamic Jihad. It seems that there are also some PFLP leaders there as well. That's what...

Canna 'Bengal Tiger'

Canna News (Free subscription) | 10 hours ago

A medium sized Italian Group cultivar; variegated green and yellow foliage, oval shaped, maroon margin, spreading habit; oval stems, coloured green; panicles of flowers are open, orange and red-orange, staminodes are large, edges ruffled, petals purple with farina, fully self-cleaning, average bloomer; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are long and thin, coloured white; tillering is...

Hamas Calls For Reconciliation With Fatah, Meets With Council on the National Interest

New English Review/The Iconoclast (Free subscription) | yesterday

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to stop seeking compromise with Israel but offered him an olive branch, saying Palestinians must en...

Dictatorships and double standards revisited

Power Line (Free subscription) | yesterday

Stephen Hayes invokes Jeane Kirkpatrick's classic 1979 essay in his his Weekly Standard article of the same title on the Obama administration's foreign policy. Hayes updates the the continuing saga of the Obama administration's appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran. By contrast with its valentines for the mullahs, as Hayes reports, the administration last week had harsh words...for Fiji. Hayes...

• ATTRIBUTED TO IDF OFFICIALS5 November 2009The various... - Britannia Radio

Assad should worry more about his own people

Antony Loewenstein (Free subscription) | yesterday

My friend Reuben Brand, an Australian journalist currently based in Damascus, has written an interesting piece about homelessness in Syria: We asked Hussein if he went to school, he said that he didn’t want to because if he completed his school diploma he would be sent into military service. I couldn’t believe that at such a [...]

CBS & NBC Fail to ID Hasan as Muslim - It Figures

Government Mess (Free subscription) | yesterday

Neither the CBS Evening News nor NBC Nightly News, in their East coast feeds Thursday night, noted the Muslim religious beliefs of the mass killer at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, but ABC anchor Charles Gibson wasn't cowed by political correctness as he teased World News, “Fort Hood tragedy: An Army officer, a Muslim convert, is the suspect in a shooting spree...” Introducing his first...

• CBS & NBC Fail to ID Hasan as Muslim; ABC's Raddatz Relays: 'I Wish His Name was Smith' - NewsBusters

Stop seeking compromise with Israel: Hamas leader - Reuters

Google News - Top Stories (Free subscription) | yesterday

Telegraph.co.uk Stop seeking compromise with Israel: Hamas leader Reuters DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to stop seeking compromise with Israel but offered him an olive branch, saying Palestinians must end their divisions. ... Abbas' move reflects deep Palestinian despair The Associated Press Israeli concern over Abbas move BBC...

Stop seeking compromise with Israel: Hamas leader

Reuters (Free subscription) | 07/11/2009

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to stop seeking compromise with Israel but offered him an olive branch, saying Palestinians must end their divisions.

Turkey ready to further Syria-Israel dialogue

France 24 (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009

Turkey is ready to oversee a new stage of secret peace talks between Israel and Syria, resuming a role it had played until last year, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said here Friday. Historically Israel's only friend in the Middle East, Ankara has in recent years served as a conduit for diplomatic exchanges between the Jewish state and its arch foe Damascus about improving relations.

The trail of human suffering goes on - how many more illegal acts will it take?

Labourlist (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009

By Jeremy Corbyn MP At one of the border points between Syria and Iraq, reached after a four hour drive across the stony desert from Damascus, the road is barred to all vehicles and travellers by a checkpoint. Those allowed through drive on. This is the road to Baghdad, where armies have marched, peace-makers have travelled and refugees have fled. Beside it, where the huge lorries lumber up to speed,...

Christians without a church survey

The Church Mouse (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009

The Open University is conducting a survey into what people believe when they describe themselves as Christians, but don't actually belong to a church. Here's the website blurb: Would you call yourself a Christian? You're not alone. In the 2001 Census, 71.6% of people in the UK described themselves as Christians, but only about 15% of these said they belonged to, or were active members of, a church....

Shooter Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan, MD Apparently A Syrian Immigrant

VDARE.com: Blog Articles (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009

A doctor rating site says that Dr. Hasan, a Major in the US Army, got his basic medical training at Faculty of Medicine, Damascus University or Faculty of Human Medicine, Damascus University Completed: 1990 One of the assessments says: Reviewer: Pvt J. Hammond Although he was hard to understand (strong accent) this doctor helped me come to terms with [...]

• According to this website, Dr. Malik Nid… - Talk Islam

Syria gains new confidence on world stage

France24 (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009

Emerging from international isolation with a flurry of high-level Western visitors and ties boosted with Turkey, Syria has gained in confidence to the point of holding out on an EU partnership. The European Union hoped to sign a partnership accord on October 26, after a freeze of several years by the EU side, but the Syrian side now insists it must review the terms to protect its interests. Damascus...

SYRIA: WFP pilots SMS food distribution – A world first project (IRIN)

Desertification (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009

Read as : IRINNews SYRIA: WFP pilots SMS food distribution DAMASCUS, 4 November 2009 (IRIN) – A new pilot project by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria has come up with a novel way of getting food aid to Iraqi refugees. WFP claims the project is a world first. Under the pilot scheme, 1,000 Iraqi families [...]