March 16, 2014

Syria claims its military has seized a key town on the Lebanese border that was the target of a months-long offensive. Activists said fighting was continuing but the government was in control of much of Yabroud. Yabroud was an key supply line for rebels into neighbouring Lebanon and overlooked an important cross-country highway. Its fall, coming as the Syrian conflict enters fourth year, would be a significant blow to rebels since the initiative passed to the government in the spring of 2013. It is the last major rebel-held town in the mountainous Qalamoun region, where President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been waging an offensive for months to try to cut rebel supply lines across the porous border into eastern Lebanon.

Its fall would come a week after the Syrian army seized the village of Zara, which also served as a conduit for rebels from northern Lebanon into central Syria. Syria’s state news agency Sana reported that military forces seized Yabroud early on Sunday and were combing the city to remove booby-traps and bombs and hunt down rebel holdouts. Kasem Alzein, a Syrian pro-rebel doctor who lives in the nearby border town of Arsal, said military forces entered the eastern part of Yabroud and that rebels fled to the nearby town of Flita. He said a small hardcore group of fighters said they would fight to the death in the city. “They don’t want to surrender,” he said, adding that supplies were cut off and weapons promised to rebels never arrived. “Qusair will repeat itself,” Alzein said, referring to the strategic rebel-held town on the Syrian border that fell to pro-Assad forces last summer. As in the Qalamoun offensive, Lebanese Hezbollah militants played a key role backing government troops.

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March 15, 2014

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March 14, 2014

The Islamic Jihad announced that a cease-fire with Israel was reached mediated by Egypt. “It will continue until Israel will break it,” the terrorist organization clarified. Almost simultaneous to the announcement, the IDF attacked seven smuggling tunnels in the Rafah area. A day after the beginning of another round of fighting, the Islamic Jihad announced that a lull agreement was reached that was mediated by Egypt. “The cease-fire will continue until Israel will break it,” the terrorist organization announced.

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March 14, 2014

Opposition fighters in Syria claim to have kidnapped at least 94 women and children belonging to President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect, according to a video obtained by Al Jazeera. In the video, broadcast by Al Jazeera on Thurday, the rebels said they were holding the hostages to secure the release of opposition supporters from government detention. The civilians were abducted in August from villages in rural Latakia, Assad’s coastal stronghold. Thousands of people are thought to be imprisoned by both sides in the increasingly sectarian civil war, which enters its fourth year this month. The video said the rebels were ready to swap the civilians for 2,000 prisoners who have been detained for more than a year. It stipulated that most of the freed prisoners be from coastal areas of the country and that half of them be women and children. In one scene, three women wearing headscarves and simple clothing address the camera.

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March 13, 2014

Pro-Russian protesters are now killing their opposition in Ukraine. (Photo Reuters)

Violence has erupted in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk between Ukrainians and pro-Russian groups as Moscow moves thousands of troops to the border. Fighting broke out at rallies staged by opposing demonstrators. One person was killed and at least 10 were hurt, it has been reported. Pro-Russian demonstrators shouted ‘Russia, Putin!’ and hurled eggs, bottles and other projectiles at rival demonstrators. It comes as Russia confirmed today it has massed thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine as John Kerry warned of ‘serious consequences’ if Moscow tried to annex Crimea.

A referendum is set to be held in Crimea on the peninsula’s status this weekend, and the US Secretary of State today said that there is no justification for it to take place. He had earlier said that things could ‘get ugly fast’ after Russia’s defense ministry said massive artillery drills have been launched in its Southern Military District – which covers the border area – involving 8,500 troops and a large amount of hardware. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are dut to meet in London tomorrow. It coincides with war games conducted by the country’s Airborne Troops.In a statement, the ministry said: ‘The main purpose of these actions is to completely check teamwork of the units and make them implement combat missions on an unknown territory.

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March 9, 2014

If hacking someone’s voicemail is a gross invasion of privacy, what words are left to describe agents of the state with fake identities having sex with women they’re spying on? One activist who had a child with the undercover police officer Bob Lambert has offered four words: “raped by the state”. She is among a group of women activists currently fighting attempts by the Met to sabotage their quest for truth and justice. If phone hacking provoked anger, the use of police spies should chill. But police spies stealing the identities of dead children and duplicitously sharing the homes, beds and lives of women is only the latest in a string of damning scandals about the Metropolitan police: Stephen Lawrence, and the Macpherson report’s subsequent conclusion that the Met is institutionally racist; a stop-and-search policy that discriminates against black people; deaths in police custody; the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes; the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson; the treatment of protesters as social problems to be contained; the stitching up of a Tory heavyweight. Each scandal is examined in isolation, treated as the action of rogue officers. But together they suggest an institutionally rotten system. Londoners need a force devoted to protecting their security, which treats all sections of the community equally, and which enjoys the consent and trust of everyone.

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March 12, 2014

“The photo is an exact replica of reality,” Mr. Gunness said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem, where he is based. “I can understand why that reality would beggar belief. But in the 21st century, such a scene exists. People are incredulous because it’s hard to believe.”

A United Nations photograph showing a sea of hungry Palestinians awaiting emergency food amid the detritus of their bomb-ravaged neighborhood near Damascus has been retweeted more than eight million times in the past few weeks, becoming such an arresting image of the Syrian civil war that some blogosphere skeptics have suggested that it was digitally faked. The suggestion provoked a passionate denial on Tuesday by the official responsible for distributing the photo. The official, Chris Gunness, the spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which administers aid to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, said he was stupefied by the expressions of doubt about the photo. At the same time, Mr. Gunness said, the skepticism may partly reflect a blindness by many people to what is happening in Syria, which entered its fourth year of war this month.

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March 11, 2014

Kyiv photojournalist/videographer Zoya Shu made a seven-minute film on Independence Square that features Russians talking about Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution and how Kremlin propaganda has distorted the public’s perception of events that led to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych as president on Feb. 21. “I think it is important to show that there is no hostility against the Russian people here, even at Maidan,” Shu said. She first uploaded the video on YouTube without English-language subtitles because her primary target audience was Russians. She added English-language subtitles on March 11, only after it had gained 35,000 views. She said the delay was her attempt to prove to “brainwashed Russians” that the work was her own and “not the plot of the CIA or something.” About the project, in Shu’s words: “I made it a week ago. It was the day when Russian flags started being put on top of administrations in the east, Kharkiv and Donetsk, if I am not mistaken. It was rather distressing news.

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Rights Group Concerned Over Ukraine Kidnappings

March 10, 2014

Reporters Without Borders has expressed concern over the fate of two Ukrainian journalists who it says were kidnapped Sunday on the isthmus that connects Crimea to mainland Ukraine. The media rights group has identified them as Olena Maksymenko of Ukrainian weekly Ukrainsky Tizhden and freelance photographer Oles Kromplyas. It says Maksymenko disappeared with two activists in the Auto-Maidan movement, which supports the new government in Kiev, after they were stopped at a checkpoint in Perekop. Reporters says Kromplyas was taken into custody by pro-Russian forces shortly afterward at the same checkpoint. Christophe Deloire, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, expressed concern Monday over a “steady escalation in violations of journalists’ rights in Crimea, which is turning into a lawless region controlled by armed bands whose anonymity reinforces the impunity.”

Copyright © 2014 Associated Press

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Syrian rebels release nuns held since December

March 10, 2014

Rebels in Syria have freed more than a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns, ending their four-month captivity in exchange for Syrian authorities releasing dozens of female prisoners. The release of the nuns and their helpers, 16 women in all, is a rare successful prisoner exchange deal between Syrian government authorities and the rebels seeking to overthrow the rule of President Bashar Assad. But it is unlikely to soothe the fears of many Syrian Christians that their ancient minority is in danger should rebels come to power. A convoy of 30 cars delivered the nuns to the Syrian town of Jdeidet Yabous, which lies close to the Lebanese border. A photograph published on Lebanon’s official news site showed soldiers assisting a middle-aged nun out a vehicle. “We arrived late, and we arrived tired,” said Mother Superior Pelagia Sayaf, the head of the Maaloula convent.

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