Syria refugees to reach 700,000 by year's end - UNHCR. 27 September 2012Last updated at 13:14 ET This boy is one of thousands living in refugee camps near Jordan's border with Syria The UN's refugee agency has warned that as many as 700,000 people could have fled Syria by the end of the year, a huge increase on its previous estimate. Some 294,000 refugees have already left Syria, and the UNHCR is appealing for $490m (£300m) to deal with the crisis. Most of the refugees are housed in camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Meanwhile, rebels in Aleppo say they have launched a "decisive" offensive on the city, where they have been battling government forces for weeks. Hundreds of rebel fighters from different brigades were reportedly taking part in the offensive. A UK-based activist group said that Wednesday was the bloodiest day of the 18-month-old conflict so far, with more than 305 people being killed across Syria. Rami Abdel Rahman, from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the figure included only those whose names had been documented. Arab spring: an interactive timeline of Middle East protests | World news. Putin condemns bloody regime change in Middle East. MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a strong warning Wednesday against inciting violent regime change in the Middle East — an apparent rebuke to Western calls for an end to Syrian President Bashar Assad's rule.
Putin said the international community should operate as a united front to soothe the tensions in the Mideast and claimed that a bloody regime change would only fuel further unrest. "Violence only begets violence," Putin said in a speech to foreign diplomats in Moscow. The statement appeared to again pit Putin against President Barack Obama, who used his speech at the U.N. General Assembly this week to call for an end to the Assad regime over its violent crackdown on an uprising that began in March 2011. Speaking about the rising violence in Syria, Obama said Tuesday that "the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people.
" "Together, we must stand with those Syrians who believe in a different vision," Obama said. Syria News. Warily, Jordan Assists Rebels in Syrian War By BEN HUBBARD Jordan has been quietly providing a staging ground for the rebels and their foreign backers on Syria’s southern front, but many say the aid is not enough. April 11, 2014, Friday Syria: Deadly Car Bomb Blasts Hit Homs By ANNE BARNARD Two car bombs exploded minutes apart near a shop in the central Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people, state news media and an antigovernment monitoring group reported.
April 10, 2014, Thursday Long a Survivor in Syria, a Dutch Priest Is Slain The Rev. April 8, 2014, Tuesday Surge of Violence Across Syria Kills Over Two Dozen By ANNE BARNARD and MOHAMMED GHANNAM An explosion killed antigovernment fighters preparing a car bomb in the central city of Homs, and shells struck central areas of Damascus, the capital. April 7, 2014, Monday Relative Calm in Parts of Syria Is Deceptive April 6, 2014, Sunday U.N. By SOMINI SENGUPTA March 29, 2014, Saturday Obama Offers Assurance to Saudis on Syria Stance.
The only surprise is there aren't more violent protests in the Middle East | Seumas Milne. Eleven years after it began, Nato's occupation of Afghanistan is crumbling. The US decision to suspend joint Afghan-Nato operations in response to a wave of attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on Nato troops cuts the ground from beneath the centrepiece of western strategy. Nato is, after all, supposed to be training up Afghan troops to take control in time for the withdrawal of combat forces in 2014. Instead, those client regime troops are routinely turning their guns on a long-reviled foreign occupation force. No wonder support for a continued military presence is falling rapidly in the main British political parties – long after it has among the populations of all the occupying states.
The US-British invasion of Afghanistan was of course launched in response to the 9/11 attacks: the poison fruit of US-led support for the Afghan mujahideen war against the Soviet Union. This is the start of the blowback from US and western attempts to commandeer the Arab uprisings. West blasts Iran over Syria aid at UN Se... JPost - International. UNITED NATIONS - Western members of the UN Security Council blasted Iran on Thursday for providing Syrian President Bashar Assad with weapons to help him crush an 18-month-long uprising by rebels determined to topple his government. "Iran's arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern," US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told the 15-nation council during a meeting on the world body's Iran sanctions regime. She cited a May 2012 report by the UN panel of experts that monitors compliance with four rounds of Security Council sanctions against Tehran.
That report concluded Syria was now the "central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers. " Tehran is forbidden from selling weapons under a UN arms embargo, which is part of broader sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Tehran rejects allegations from Western powers and their allies that it is seeking atomic weapons and has defied council demands that it halt nuclear enrichment. Syria | Reuters.com. Filmmaker and Martyr Bassel Shahade | المترجمون السوريون الأحرار | Free Syrian Translators. Bassel Shahade was martyred on the 28th of May 2012. He was honoured twice, by having lived a full life and then by dying a martyr. Bassel Shahade, from Al-Qasa’a neighborhood in Damascus, a Fulbright scholar studying filmmaking at the University of Syracuse in the United States of America.
Basel left his university at the beginning of the Syrian revolution and returned home to report on what is happening on the ground and convey it to the world. He moved to Homs three months ago, and became one of the most important and courageous photographers/filmmakers in Homs. He taught video-editing to the photographers in Homs and trained more than fifteen people during his stay there. Ahmed had a delicate artistic sense and has filmed and directed many films and reports about the revolution, the most famous of which is his final report talking about the forced displacements taking place in Homs. Tribute Facebook page for Bassel Shahade: Like this: Syracuse University: Student filmmaker killed in Syria. Bassel Al Shahade, a film-making graduate student at Syracuse University, was killed in Syria on Monday.
A film-making graduate student at Syracuse University who had returned to his homeland of Syria to film that country's revolution was killed yesterday by government forces, SU officials said. Bassel Al Shahade, a native of the Syrian capital of Damascus, was a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Film degree in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, said an e-mail from SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor. "This is a terrible tragedy for Bassel’s family and friends in Syria and for all his fellow students, faculty and friends here in Syracuse who knew him," Cantor wrote. "His death is also a tragedy for the Syrian people, who have suffered many months of tragic violence as they seek greater freedom for their nation. " Shahade was a citizen journalist filming the attacks by Syrian government forces in the city of Homs, Cantor said. Syracuse University Filmmaker Killed in Syria. Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBassel Al Shahade, a Syrian filmmaker taking a leave from from a fine arts degree program at Syracuse University, was killed in Homs, Syria.
Last Updated, 10:32 a.m. A Syrian filmmaker, who took a leave of absence from a fine arts degree program at Syracuse University to cover the carnage in his native country, was killed while filming in the war-ravaged city of Homs, the university’s chancellor said in a statement on Tuesday. The chancellor said that the filmmaker, Bassel Al Shahade, died on Monday “while working as a citizen journalist and filming the attacks against the Syrian people by the government security forces there.”
Thousands have been killed in the 15-month-old uprising against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and government forces have shown no sign of backing off a punishing military campaign to bring rebel cities to heel. Last weekend, over 100 villagers, many of them children, were massacred in Houla, a rebel-controlled village. Mr.