Syria News Wire

An arrest has already been made. Not sure how that fits in with the suicide bomb narrative. And from what I can see on Syrian state TV, it looks like one of the cars that exploded has already been towed away. Destroying crucial evidence. As Karl Sharro points out, this has echoes of the aftermath [...]

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Ahmad Hamsho has made it into the London 2012 Olympics at a qualifying session in the US. The 18 year old is the youngest rider ever to qualify. He’s already a record-breaker, after he became the youngest rider to complete the World Championship for Endurance in Germany. Hamsho qualified for the Olympics along with Egyptian rider [...]

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The First Islamic Sharia Judge of Damascus, Adel Bunduk has just announced that Ramadan will begin on Wednesday in Syria. That means Syria joins Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf states in starting the holy month tomorrow. Oman starts on Thursday.

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This is me attempting to explain the niqab ban in a two-way on Ireland’s Newstalk radio yesterday.

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No Way Through is an award-winning short film on the Israeli Occupation. Set in London, it asks, what would happen if the British capital was filled with Israeli-style checkpoints. The results brought me to tears. Really. Thanks to Anas for spreading the word, and letting me find this amazing piece of work. No Way Through [...]

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An interesting article in Syria Today. It was published during the Gaza War, but I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to mention it back then. It features the thoughts of wonderful bloggers like Anas Takriti, Yazan Badran, and Razan Ghazzawi, plus some ramblings by me. John Dagge wrote the thoughtful piece. Here’s a snippet: It is [...]

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I haven’t seen the case against Israel’s “Jewish state” claim put so eloquently for a long time: “Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to acknowledge that Israel is a “Jewish state.” I don’t understand this demand. Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a multi-cultural state, with about half a million non-Jewish Russians and Ukrainians and [...]

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The Quartet’s demands on Hamas: -Hamas must recognise all previous agreements -Hamas must recognise Israel -Hamas must renounce violence Meanwhile on the other side: -Likud has torn up all previous agreements -Likud doesn’t recognise a Palestinian state – now or in the future -Likud will not renounce violence

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The big sell off continues. Rubbish collection is the latest state service to be privatised. In the Old City men in orange outfits now clean the streets. They work for a new company called Swan. Not only do they have new clothes, but there are more of them, and they use new smaller bins. It [...]

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Most of the cafes littering Jebl Qasioun, high above Damascus, opened 6 years ago.   During the spring of 2003, lots of florescent multi-coloured cafes and restaurants appeared. Through the spring of 2009, many of them have vanished.   If you look up at the mountain from the city below, the mountain road used to be [...]

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