As the Revolution embraces her second winter and refugees continue
to proliferate, rebels advance in the face of all odds, and opposition groups try
to take advantage of their second chance at recognition and relevance. Still,
there is no end in sight for our crisis, because the thing that can help bring this
end about while ensuring that the Revolution has met its goal of toppling the
regime while preserving the integrity of the state is still missing: a credible
political process.
Friday November
23, 2012
Today’s
Death Toll: 76: 30 in Damascus and suburbs, 17 in
Aleppo, 6 in Daraa, 5 in Idli, 4 in Deir Ezzor, 4 in Lattakia, 4 in Hama, 2 in
Homs, 2 in Raqqah, 1 in Banyas, and 1 in Quneitra (LCC).
News
Syria
rebels seize army base but 'hotel warriors' struggle Syrian
rebels captured an army base in the eastern oil province of Deir al-Zor on
Thursday, striking another blow against President Bashar Assad. But Syria's
newly-united opposition is struggling to consolidate, and even allies such as
Tunisia and Libya have yet to lend their official support.
Maintaining
normalcy in war-torn Syria With no solution and no peace
agreement in sight, people are increasingly anxiously clinging to the routines
of their normal lives.
Just
Another Day In Damascus The Syrian government has been using a
variety of ammunition, each with a distinctive soundtrack. Many Syrians,
including children, knew nothing about the weapons of war before the Syrian
uprising began in the spring of 2011. Now they differentiate them by sound
alone.
Special
Reports
Bashar al-Assad is not the only Arab
leader facing marginalisation
Caught at a stage in their lives when
they should be concentrating on their studies and having fun with their
friends, many Syrian teenagers are now in a position where they have to take on
serious responsibilities, yet lack the autonomy of adulthood. And some Syrian
teenagers have witnessed truly horrifying scenes, the likes of which most of us
will never see in our lifetimes.
From the edges of southern Turkey, you
can see the smoke of a single cigarette inside Syria. The Turkish town of
Ceylanpinar is around 50m away from the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain. The two
countries are separated by a barbed wire fence.
Twenty-one months of conflict between
forces loyal to Syria's president, Bashar Assad, and a loose alliance of rebel
fighters seeking his ouster, have ravaged the country. Around 40,000 people
have been killed, and thousands of homes reduced to heaps of rubble. Some 2.5m
Syrians are reckoned to have been forced from their homes. More than 400,000
have registered in neighbouring countries as refugees; tens of thousands more
have left of their own accord. For them, the arrival of winter is a curse
rather than a blessing. Save the Children, a UK-based charity, reckons 200,000
refugee children are at risk from the cold conditions, confined as they are to
ramshackle shelters in hastily-built refugee camps.
The Kurds of Syria may have suffered
under the Assads’ boots for nearly 50 years, but they are increasingly worried
about the role Salafist groups are playing inside the Free Syrian Army. No
matter what the outcome of the war, Salih insists Syrian Kurds are only looking
for democratic self-determination within Syria’s borders, without drawing any
new ones. For the time being, what has been dubbed the Arab Spring seems to be
exactly that: a movement by and for Arabs. Syria’s Kurds are acutely aware of
this and only time will tell if they’ll be able to keep Assad,the FSA and
Turkey at a distance.
China had large economic interests in
Libya, with, according to Chinese media, $18 billion invested in construction
projects. Libya was also home to 35,000
Chinese migrant workers, whom China had to evacuate when war broke out. China’s
interests in Syria, however, are very different. “I think the thing ultimately
is that in Syria Beijing is facing a lose lose situation," says Sarah
Raine, a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
"because on the one hand Beijing has no love for Assad, no major assets,
resource-wise in the country, and not even a particularly sizable Chinese
presence to worry about.”
Syrian artists' works reflecting the
horror of civil war will be shown in exhibition to support those suffering in
the uprising
“You are a black mark on all
Alawites,” the officer spat out at one point. He eventually unleashed two
muscular goons who dragged Ms. Yazbek through a series of basement torture
cells as a dire warning.
“the Coalition was designed in order to sidestep the extremists and
save the revolution from their ongoing attempts to hijack it. The reluctance of
the international community to intervene in the situation earlier had
unfortunately strengthened the hand of extremist elements. The sooner the
international community supports the Coalition the sooner we can get the
revolution back on the right track.” (More)
Video Highlights
Tal Shihab, Daraa: local rebels destroy an armored vehicle and
kill few pro-Assad militias in the process http://youtu.be/5S6TiXEFql4
The pounding of Damascene neighborhoods and suburbs continues: Jobar
http://youtu.be/3A2qDH0Mnek Zabadani
http://youtu.be/7paB3K6QyIk Daraya http://youtu.be/_dQx5MBTbtY
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