Syria wants in on nuclear power, too. Why not, after all?
Latest Updates: Syria RSS
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aziz
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thabet
Sh. Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi was dismissed from his job as the leader of Friday prayers at a Damascus mosque for using his sermon to criticise the Grand Mufti. He was responding to these remarks made by the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sh Ahmed Hassoun:
(via DeenPort.)
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johnpi
Syria’s first lady calls for civil activism.
Syria’s first lady has called for the country’s citizens to play a more active role in the country’s social and economic life.
Syrian First Lady Asma Al-Assad encouraged her fellow Syrians to become more involved in non governmental organizations (NGOs) during a recent conference in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to local media outlets.
Civil society organizations are relatively rare in Syria due to the lengthy and difficult process involved in securing permission from the government to establish an NGO.
“There is a maturation of the whole trend in Syria towards the empowering of what we call civil society,” Dr Samir Al-Taqi, Director of the Orient Center for International Studies in Damascus, told The Media Line.
“Previously the use of civil society in Syria has been used not as a link to empower [social or environmental] aims but rather used on a political basis,” he said. “Syrian society is now elaborating on a new trend towards the formation and multiplication of civil society bodies.”
I’m tagging this ‘nonprofits’ because in the US that’s the term used instead of ‘NGO.’
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johnpi
Angelina Jolie set to adopt an Arab child.
After making it on America’s infamous “axis of evil,” Syria will now become synonymous with Angelina Jolie’s brood as the U.S. actress looks set to adopt a child from the Arab nation despite her partner Brad Pitt’s objections.
….Pitt, who already has three adopted children, as well as three biological ones, with Jolie, is said to have rejected the idea because he is uneasy about fathering a seventh child, but it seems Jolie is insisting.
Al Arabiya says Jolie is “insisting because she seemed to have fallen in love with the Syrian people on her trip to the historical country.”
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thabet
When climate change affects real people, and is something other than part of the ‘culture wars’ for a few Westerners:
“We had the best land in the whole of Syria, anything could grow here. Look at it now – it’s dust…”
Desertification and loss of water is a severe problem in Syria, with one estimate suggesting 65% of the country faces becoming a dust bowl.
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johnpi
Land grabs in eastern Lebanon: Heavily armed Syrian farmers have been encroaching on and stealing Lebanese land, according to Lebanese villagers.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that Lebanon and Syria have not begun demarcating the border on the ground. The two countries agreed in August 2008 to take formal steps to demarcate their shared borders as part of a series of decisions to normalize relations between them.
But so far nothing has been done in that direction. The border itself is a product of the 1920 French Mandate, which established Greater Lebanon; it follows the peaks of the Ante-Lebanon range and separates fertile Lebanese land from the more desert-like Syrian territory.
In 1976, after Syria’s military invaded Lebanon, Syrian farmers followed suit, taking fertile Lebanese land with the protection of the troops sent by Damascus. Although the Syrians left Lebanon in 2005, their farmers kept the land and are continuously expanding into Lebanon, the Arsal treasurer says.
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thabet
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johnpi
In Syria, the blogging community has self-organized a competition to determine the best Syrian blogs, which are primarily written in either Arabic or English. However, one blogger protested one of the conditions for being considered in the contest:
This is a commendable effort on their part if it’s indeed intended to honor outstanding Syrian blogs, encourage and support a blogging culture and expose the role of blogs in the making and shaping of a civil society in Syria. However, if you read the 5th and last condition for blogs to be accepted in the competition, this is what you’ll find (translated word by word): the contents of which [the submitted blog] must not dissent from the accepted mores and morals (i.e. sex through videos or photos, hostility to religions, cussing, swearing and bad taste). Do I take it that it is acceptable for a blog to attack trans-dressers but not Sheikhs and priests? Or, for the sake of argument, is a photo of a random cloud in the sky in the shape of an eye and a comment underneath that this is the eye of God acceptable but not another photo of a woman’s perfect behind with the apt remark that this butt is an elegant example of the splendor of creation (if we’re so inclined to believe)?
Eventually, the offending condition was removed.
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johnpi
I recently posted a link to a positive Huffington Post style section article about Asma Al-Assad, Syria’s first lady. The Media Line, a non-profit organziation ‘dedicated to bringing credible non-partisan news coverage to the Middle East’ has a much different take on Mrs. Al-Assad, dubbing her in the headline the Middle East’s “Marie Antoinette.”
Who called her ‘Marie Antoinette?’ The words are in quotes but unattributed. The article cites “opposition groups” complaining about her lavish lifestyle. The first and most extensively quoted group is the Reform Party of Syria and its head, Farid Ghadry. Here’s the short Wikipedia writeup on the Reform Party of Syria:
The Reform Party of Syria, or RPS, is a pro-Israeli political party founded and based in the United States. The party’s leader, Farid Ghadry, is a member of AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobby group in the U.S., and is described by Alan Weisman as “the next Ahmad Chalabi” Notable supporters include Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Elizabeth Cheney.
Hmmm. Here’s a bit from Wiki’s writeup on Farid Ghadry.
Farid al-Ghadry (born on June 18, 1954) is the Syrian-born co-founder and current president of the United States-based Reform Party of Syria, which claims to be a party of “pro-democracy” Syrians who wish to see regime change in Syria. Ghadry has functioned as an American defense contractor and businessman, “Frank Ghadry,” who represents himself as being born in Lebanon. Ghadry is a member of AIPAC, Israel’s main lobbying group in the U.S., and has strongly supported all of Israel’s recent wars in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Ghadry says, “Islamic terrorism and extremism will continue unabated because the West supports our oppressors.” Regime change in Iraq enabled religious violence and brought it to large populations of victims that had never experienced it before, and Ghadry wants us to do it again in Syria. Definition of insanity, etc…
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johnpi
A couple weeks ago headlines were made when Syrian First Lady, Asma Al Assad invited the Obamas to Damascus. HuffPost readers ended up commenting more on Asma’s beauty and less on what an Obama/Assad meeting would mean for the Middle East. And we couldn’t help but notice the Syrian beauty either. In a region where the women love to cake on their make-up, it is very refreshing to see the wife of President Bashar al-Assad with very little on.
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aziz
Negotiations with Syria: a fantastic update and short historical summary by Helena Cobban. Syria’s main concern isn’t Israel, btw…
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thabet
This is ’silencing’:
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johnpi
There is a powerful societal expectation for a man to marry and have a family in Syria, and most gay men will eventually marry a woman to ease this pressure and to fulfill their own desire for a family. Even Fadi, who believes that gay men who claim to be “bisexual” are under an illusion, hopes to somehow find a way to be both gay and married to a woman.
“The gay men here say the life of the family is on one side, and gay life on the other side,” he says. “I want to have a family, I want children; maybe I can still get married even if she knows that I’m actually gay.”
Once married, many gay men continue to live a secret second life with other men.
Throughout the world there are different perceptions of what it means to be gay, and it is apparent that the traditional gay-straight binary is not sufficient in describing sexual identity in Syria.
Some men who consider themselves straight may turn to homosexual acts out of strong sexual frustration, as relationships with women before marriage are forbidden and can be extremely challenging to manage under the family’s watchful eye.
As male friendship is expressed in the Middle East differently than in the West, with physical intimacy such as holding hands and cheek-kissing a common occurrence between friends, gay couples can go largely undetected.
Fadi says, “If a woman and I were having sex, and people saw us together, we’d have a problem. If we were guys, we could walk together, hold hands, sleep in the same bed together and no one would think anything of it!”
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lfeeney
The Committee to Protect Journalists names the 10 Worst Countries to be a blogger — Middle Eastern and Asian countries top the list.
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thabet
Asim Qureshi is right to highlight the slow response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the disappearance of Maryam Kallis, but I have the following points:
1. He does the whole case disservice by turning it into a ‘Muslim causes’ thing. I don’t think it is.
2. I don’t think it makes sense to compare Britain’s relationship with Syria to its relationship with Saudi. The latter is a fairly close ally who is more willing to share information.
3. He incorrectly refers to Binyam Mohamed as a British citizen. He isn’t; Mohamed is a British resident.
4. He doesn’t mention a single word about Syria’s atrocious human rights record.
5. He should question the limited media coverage or interest (which his article goes some way to addressing). Goes without saying that white British citizen (especially a white female) held in an Arab country would be a major news story. Consider the coverage given to Marnie Pearce (who at least was given a trial and hearing in court).
Also see these comments in response to Qureshi’s article from someone who claims to have met a Syrian official and has been granted access to Maryam Kallis.
Of course, it is a little difficult for our government to lecture the Syrians about holding people without charge.
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johnpi
More fallout from Israel’s Gaza assault:
Turkey and Syria have begun their first-ever joint land forces exercise as part of a three-day drill that Ankara said will “boost friendship, cooperation and confidence” between the two countries. Turkey has showed signs in the past year that it has begun to distance itself from Israel.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that the joint exercise is “a worrisome development” but that he “believes strategic relations between Israel and Turkey will overcome the need for Syria to participate in this exercise.”
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johnpi
The “racy lingerie in the Muslim world” story is becoming a cliche – or it’s the same story being sold over and over to different outlets in the West. I don’t care to look it up and find out.
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Lawrence of Arabia
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Fatemeh
Eh, I’m a little late this week. But last week’s MMW was chock full of fun: we looked at Syrian lingerie from another angle, pondered the interlocking oppression of Mona Awad, critique the LA Time’s profile of Aliyah Bacchus, review Slumdog Millionaire, discussed the construction of gold diggers in Muslim circles, and give mixed reviews to the coverage of Egyptian women in mosques. And, as always, a gaggle of links.
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abunoor
Robert Wright talks with Joshua Hammer about Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria over at Bloggingheads.tv
The discussion on Afghanistan is opened with an interesting question, will Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?
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aziz
Did we just invade Syria?
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baraka
An article on the Qubeisiat, a fascinating network of women preachers in Syria. [HT: Dervish]
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thabet
Muammar Gaddafi’s revival is complete.
Next up for an overhaul: Bashar al-Assad.
In this context, read the debate at National Interest between ‘neoconservatives’ and ‘realists’.
Related: Even renewable sources will probably need ‘energy security’.
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aziz
The Israeli airstrikes against Syria last September remain shrouded in mystery. None dare call it conspiracy, yet…
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muse
