2pm, DOWNING STREET, LONDON, TODAY, MONDAY 31 MAY 2010.
At least 16 unarmed aid workers have been killed in international waters, some of whom were sleeping, after the Israeli navy stormed the ship. The least you can do is join this protest, in memory of the 16 aid workers who gave their lives to help the people of Gaza.
For the latest updates, you can search for #flotilla and #israil on Twitter.
Spain and Sweden have called in the Israeli ambassadors for verbal rebukes. Reports that Greece and Turkey have kicked out the Israeli ambassadors.
Demonstrations around the world: Istanbul, where the Israeli consulate was stormed, Amman, Cairo and many more cities expected.
A couple of recent articles you may have missed on Syria and Lebanon.
In ‘Russia shows US how to deal with Syria‘, James Denselow looks at some interesting details of the Russian-Syrian relationship over the past fifty years. It’s a relationship that’s rarely been written about since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Deen Sharp writes about the fight to save Beirut’s heritage in ‘The battle for Beirut’s buildings‘. You thought the Downtown/Solidere row was over. Think again.
News translation service Mideastwire is starting its first Damascus Exchange allowing students from the west to gain first hand experience inside Syria.
Along with 20 hours of language tuition, the $2000 program provides meetings with political, religious and social figures. It runs from 1-15 August, with applications accepted until 20 June.
Mideastwire has been running a similar program in Lebanon for 3 years, and has also recently launched the Istanbul-Ankara Exchange.
Mornings start with Arabic language classes, followed by academic classes in the afternoon. The meetings with Syria’s leaders take place in the evenings and at weekends.
In Syria, the academic classes will be on the following subjects: Economic reform challenges; The evolving relationship between Syria and Turkey; Syria’s role in the Middle East peace process; Arab nationalism; Hydro-politics in the Levant; and, Doing business in Syria: Barriers, opportunities and practices.
Syria has finally got its own national flag, on Shukri Al-Quwatli Street, between the Dedeman Hotel (the former Meridien) and Jisr Al-Rais.
The problem is that you can’t really see it from anywhere except Jisr, and Sahat Al-Nejmeh.
Unlike many flags flying around town, this one is pristine, and flutters elegantly in the wind. Here’s a video for your viewing pleasure.
In fact, it looks like the inspiration has come from Jordan. Their flag, erected a few years ago, is one of the symbols of Amman. Flying from the peak of Jebl Al-Qalaa, the highest hill in the city, it can be seen from every point in the capital.
Which makes me think, why didn’t they just put the beautiful two-starred Syrian flag at the top of Jebl Qasioun.
Another Israeli land-grab advert has been banned by authorities in the UK.
The poster claims East Jerusalem is part of Israel – something which the UN, the UK and even the US rejects. East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority said that “The status of the occupied territory of the West Bank [is] the subject of much international dispute, and because we considered that the ad implied that the part of East Jerusalem featured in the image was part of the state of Israel, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”
The Israeli tourist board was ordered not to imply that Palestinian land was in Israel again. But Israel has a track record at this type of thing. A year ago it tried to pass off the Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel in posters on the London Underground.
This article is so bad that I’ve had to create a whole new category on the blog called the Writers’ Hall of Shame.
Fly in fly out. Journalists who come into Damascus for 24 hours, think they have some enlightened view of the country’s politics and economics, file a piece of trash and then fly out.
Management Today’s Nick Hood is the perpetrator this time. His article (called A Traveller’s Tale: Syria’s uncertain future) is so full of inaccuracies that I’m just going to list them.
“Arriving in Damascus in the chaos of rush hour, it is hard not to wonder how a city which relatively recently had a population of only 300,000 will ever cope with the 4m refugees mainly from Iraq and Palestine that now threaten to throttle it.”
If “recently” was the early 20th century, then maybe. And even by the most extreme estimates, the figure is 2 million refugees.
“Further north, the second city of Aleppo is somewhat more functional, but it too is swamped with refugees, this time 500,000 Kurds expelled from Turkey.”
Aleppo is “somewhat more functional”. What? Examples? What does that even mean? The buses run to timetables?
Kurds expelled from Turkey? No. Most of them are Syrian Kurds from the northeast of Syria. Maybe he means Armenians expelled by the Turks 100 years ago?
“Unsurprisingly, unemployment is estimated to be as high as 40%.”
“Business visitors may balk at a country where the lack of a GPRS system makes their Blackberries useless.”
No, there is a fully functioning GPRS system. I have used my own iPhone on it! There is, however, no GPS (satellite navigation, which has no impact on Blackberry usage).
“Even cash can be hard to get, as most ATMs are empty outside banking hours.”
No they’re not!
But it’s these two comments that REALLY got me: “whilst nobody should come for a gourmet experience” and “visitors also throng the rather disappointing souks”.
In short, an article full of clumsy confusions. Please, please, don’t. What Nick Hood should’ve done is extrapolate politics from the Sushi-eating habits of Damascenes.
Muallem suggested that Syria was prepared to contemplate a step-by-step approach to the return of the Golan Heights, territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war. “There could be stages of withdrawal, the timing of which could involve a form of normalisation,” he said. “Half of the Golan could lead to an end of enmity; three-quarters of the Golan, to a special interest section in the US embassy in Damascus: a full withdrawal would allow a Syrian embassy in Israel.” Key issues, such as Syria’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah and its policy to Iran, would, he said, “only be answered after withdrawal”.
A recent seizure of counterfeit drugs and the shutdown of the ring that provided them shows how Syria is stepping up its response to a problem that remains widespread in the Middle East.
Piled up in huge plastic bags, the haul netted millions of dollars worth of breast cancer, leukemia and other medicines, along with tens of thousands of anticoagulant pills that purported to treat heart attacks and other diseases. At least 65 people were detained; it couldn’t be learned if they were charged. A trial date hasn’t yet been set.
All were fakes with no medicinal value, copies of legitimate medicines.
Governor of the Central Bank of Syria Adib Mayaleh announced that the bank will mint new coin of fifty pound value soon .
Mayaleh said, in a statement to Tishreen newspaper, that the mintage of the new currencies aims at coping with the large increase in population and needs of circulation.
The bank is adopting all necessary measures to set up the technical designs in preparation for issuing the new currencies and putting them into circulation in the next few months.
It’s the weekend, so it must be time for the travel features to be wheeled out. And as usual, when one Syria piece comes out, the rest follow.
This time Britain’s Daily Mail and the New Zealand Herald are the hosts. Surprisingly, the DM does the better job. I say surprisingly because it’s one of the UK’s most right-wing newspapers. But it does the job – a creative title, and an inspired (if somewhat stuck-in-the-past) piece by Petronella Wyatt. The NZ Herald, on the other hand, has entitled its article: On the Road to Damascus. Oh good god.
So let’s start with the good: Bedouins and Breakfast (brilliant! although I’m not sure how many Bedouins there are in ‘ancient Damascus’). It offers something a bit different to the usual travel trash (friendly people, good food, old streets, blah blah, snooooooze).
“The Hon Jane Digby, a Regency belle, left her husband Lord Ellenborough to marry a Bedouin sheik, becoming reputedly the first European woman to wed a Muslim. (They honeymooned at Palmyra.)”
She visits Jane Digby’s house (I didn’t know that you could). But unfortunately tends to conflate the desert with the city, reinforcing the Orientalist camel cliches (come on, it is the Daily Mail). She also utters the sentence “‘Will you kidnap me?” to a Syrian.
Unlike Wyatt, the NZ Herald’s Trevor Richards isn’t on a package tour. The independent traveller starts his piece with a trip in a Syrian taxi, but then seems to offer little more than the Lonely Planet guide book:
“Walking is easy in Damascus. You should allow at least one full day – more is much more sensible – for exploring the Old City (it is 5km in circumference). Here the pace is relaxed, people appear unhurried, and there is always much to look at.”
2 people have died when a bus overturned near Damascus. 35 others were injured.
Both of the victims were Iranian pilgrims – Hossein Mirzaei and Sorour Abbasi. The bus was carrying the Iranians back home, after a religious visit to Syria. It’s thought slippery road conditions were to blame.
