In the last few decades ,the United Nations has been obsessed with one country. Is it North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, China or some other nation with a reprehensible human rights record? Those would all be fair guesses and they would all be wrong. Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Human Rights Institute, answers this riddle and explains the upside-down moral universe in which the United Nations resides. H/T Prager University
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Things get a little heated as two journalists debate the Syrian War on Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-affiliated TV network in Lebanon. They begin by trading insults as one describes his counterpart as an Israeli agent. Soon, the contretemps turns physical. It doesn’t really illuminate the issue at hand, but it certainly makes for lively television. H/T MEMRITV
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As Syria collapses, its society destroyed by the nation’s prolonged civil war, what will emerge from the rubble and the ashes? Will the country become stable again, but under a different government, or will chaos ensue for many years to come? An Israeli military commander outlines the heightened dangers if Syria becomes a lawless refuge for jihadis. H/T Blazing Cat Fur
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In this D.C. Bureau excerpt, the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon explains the deepening security and humanitarian threats emanating from Syria, including fears the Assad regime may be preparing chemical weapons as a defense against the country’s rebels.
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More than six thousand Christian Armenians from Syria have poured into Armenia in recent months, escaping the civil war back home. The Wall Street Journal‘s Joe Parkinson reports from Yerevan.
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Here’s a report from the frontlines in Syria from Yaara Bou Melhem, the first Western journalist given access to the labyrinth of secret caves used as a staging base by the Free Syrian Army in its revolution to topple
strongman Bashar al-Assad. The 3,000-year-old caves serve as a huge strategic asset. “The army besieged us many times and we always slipped through,” an FSA leader declares.
But local knowledge will only go so far and the rebels are hard-pressed to counter the might of the Syrian army with limited resources. As one failed test run of a home-made mortar shows, they don’t have much to work with. They are disheartened by months of fighting without help. Says the FSA spokesman, “America and Europe hide behind the Russian veto. They lie to us.”
Even the head of the Free Syrian Army, Col. Riad al-Assad, is unable to help. As rebel groups come to him for guidance, he can only encourage coordination. When asked about the suicide bomb that killed the minister of defense, he says, “This is an integral part of the revolutionary action. It could break the regime’s back.”
In 2011, Yaara Bou Melhem was named Young Australian Journalist of the Year by the Walkley Foundation for her reporting from Syria. She spent 2010 in Beirut and now reports for Australian and International networks around the world. Visit her website at http://yaara.tv/. H/T Journeyman Pictures
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Things got hairy in a live Jordanian TV debate when the discussion turned to the civil war in Syria. After deputy Mohammed Shawabka fingered ex-deputy Mansour Seif-Eddine Murad as a “spy” for Syrian leader Bashar Assaf, Murad returned the fire, calling Shawabka “a Mafia thief.” Unhinged, Shawabka tossed a shoe at Murad and then drew a pistol on his opponent. No shots were fired, but authorities are now pondering whether to slap Shawabka with a charge of attempted murder.
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