“On Saturday, May 11, Christians of all denominations will gather in prayer to petition God to grant his mercy on Syria and to bring an end to violence,” reads a message issued by the Syrian Christian community.

The prayer is focused on four main intentions: the return of peace, the liberation of all hostages, assistance for all children traumatized by the war, and humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and displaced people.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Israel’s reported airstrikes in Syria — and the threat of a retaliatory strike by the Syrian government — are likely to accelerate the decision-making of the Obama administration, which was already moving toward a sharp escalation of U.S. involvement in the two-year-old crisis.

Senior officials said the deployment of U.S. troops to Syria remains unlikely, but they have indicated that a decision will come within weeks on options ranging from the supply of weapons to the Syrian rebels to the use of U.S. aircraft and missiles to ground President Bashar al-Assad’s air power by destroying planes, runways and missile sites inside Syria.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Israel • Syria

Recent Israeli strikes inside Syria may have exposed weaknesses in the regime’s air defenses and could embolden the U.S. and its allies to take more steps to aid rebels fighting the regime there, said lawmakers on Sunday.

“The Russian-supplied air defense systems are not as good as said,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." Leahy, who heads the appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said the Israeli defense forces were using American-made F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to launch the missiles against Syrian targets.

“Keep in mind the Israelis are using weapons supplied by us,” Leahy said. “They have enormous prowess with those weapons.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Israel • Syria

Andrew Bennett, Canada’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom, today issued the following statement:

“Canada condemns the ongoing violence in Syria in light of the rise in attacks on religious groups over the last few weeks....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Canada • Middle East • Syria

The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, American officials said Saturday.

It was the second time in four months that Israel had carried out an attack in foreign territory aimed at disrupting the pipeline of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. The missiles, known as Fateh-110s, had been sent to Syria by Iran and were being stored at an airport in Damascus when they were struck in the attack, according to an American official.

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The nephew of bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, one of the two archbishops kidnapped in Syria a week ago, said he hopes Syrian Christians will not use the incident as an incentive to flee the country.

Bishop Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo, was kidnapped last Monday, alongside his counterpart from the Greek Orthodox Church, Bishop Boulos Yaziji, close to the Turkish border.The driver of the vehicle, Fathallah Kaboud, was killed.

Kaboud had been the personal chauffeur of bishop Ibrahim for a number of years. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church

In the latest reported attack on a high-ranking Syrian official, Prime Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi survived what appeared to be an assassination attempt Monday in an upscale neighborhood of the capital, Damascus, when a car bomb exploded near his convoy, according to state-run media and opposition reports saying that a bodyguard was killed.

The reports said the attack had taken place in Mezze, a central district where many senior officials live. The prime minister was reportedly unhurt, thought state media said others had been injured. Video on state television showed a car reduced to a charred skeleton and, nearby, a bus with its windows shattered.

The assault fit a pattern of attempts to attack high officials.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, in conjunction with other Governments, to document the scale and nature of the alleged use of sexual violence as an instrument of war by the Government of Syria and other parties involved in the conflict in Syria....

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the extent of the use of sexual violence as an instrument of war in Syria....

To ask Her Majesty's Government what resources they are providing, either unilaterally or as part of international action, to ensure that victims of sexual violence in Syria are provided with the necessary medical and trauma support.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • Violence • Women • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • Middle East • Syria • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Set amid the rolling plains outside Aleppo, the town of al-Safira looks just like another vicious battleground in Syria's civil war. On one side are lightly-armed rebels, on the other are government troops, and in between is a hotly-contested no-man's land of bombed-out homes and burned-out military vehicles.

The fight for al-Safira is no ordinary turf war, however, and the prize can be found behind the perimeter walls of the heavily-guarded military base on the edge of town. Inside what looks like a drab industrial estate is one of Syria's main facilities for producing chemical weapons - and among its products is sarin, the lethal nerve gas that the regime is now feared to be deploying in its bid to cling to power.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • Terrorism • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • England / UK • Middle East • Syria

Security experts at Twitter were fighting a seemingly losing battle yesterday against the Syrian Electronic Army, a shadowy group that sparked panic on financial markets this week by faking a news report about an bomb attack on the White House.

The group, which purports to support the regime in Damascus, hacked the Associated Press news agency’s Twitter account and reported that explosions in the White House had injured President Obama, sending markets into a tailspin, and wiping $136 billion (£89 billion) off the [value of the top 500 U.S. stocks in seconds]....

Read it all (requires subscription) and there is a lot more there from the WSJ.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Media • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Stock Market • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Hundreds of Europeans are fighting with rebel forces in Syria and intelligence agencies are concerned some could return home to launch terrorist attacks. One Belgian family says their son has joined rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime.

A camera shakily films a group of rebel fighters preparing to pray, lined up in rows, their weapons at their feet. A young man walks into shot and takes off his rifle before briefly turning towards the camera.

"That's Brian," says Ingrid de Mulder, pointing at her nephew in the online video on her computer. "I'm 100% sure. That's him. No doubt."

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Since the very first days of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, we have prayed as we watched in horror and sorrow the escalating violence that has rent this country apart. We have grieved with all Syrians - with the families of each and every human life lost and with all communities whose neighbourhoods and livelihoods have suffered from escalating and pervasive violence.

And today, our prayers also go with the ancient communities of our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria. The kidnapping this week of two Metropolitan bishops of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver while they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, is another telling sign of the terrible circumstances that continue to engulf all Syrians.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Justin Welby • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

The White House said on Thursday that American intelligence agencies now believed, with “varying degrees of confidence,” that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, but it said it needed conclusive proof before President Obama would take action.

The disclosure, in letters to Congressional leaders, takes the administration a step closer to acknowledging that President Bashar al-Assad has crossed a red line established by Mr. Obama last summer, when he said the United States would take unspecified action against Syria if there was evidence that chemical weapons had been used in the civil war.

The White House emphasized that, “given the stakes involved,” the United States still needed “credible and corroborated facts” before deciding on a course of action. The letter, signed by the president’s director of legislative affairs, Miguel E. Rodriguez, said the United States was pressing for a “comprehensive United Nations investigation that can credibly evaluate the evidence and establish what happened.”

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Militants in a rebel-held area of northern Syria have abducted two bishops travelling from the Turkish border back to the city of Aleppo.

The kidnapping was reported by Syrian state media and confirmed by a member of the official opposition leadership.

Yohanna Ibrahim is head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo and Boulos Yaziji leads the Greek Orthodox Church in the city.

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Humanitarian agencies are running low on funds to help millions of people affected by the war in Syria, prompting one United Nations official to warn: “Our capacity to do more is diminishing.”

Syria's two-year-old war has fueled a humanitarian catastrophe in the region, U.N. officials say. The U.N.’s Security Council has demanded an end to the escalating violence and condemned human rights abuses by all sides.

“Our agencies and humanitarian partners have been doing all we can. The needs are growing, while our capacity to do more is diminishing,” U.N. Under-Secretary General Valerie Amos said in a video appealing for worldwide support of aid efforts.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Poverty • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said Tuesday that the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons in the last month, and criticized the international community for failing to respond, intensifying pressure on the Obama administration to intervene.

“The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons,” said Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, research commander in the intelligence directorate of the Israeli Defense Forces, echoing a recent finding by Britain and France. “The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction,” he added, “is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate.”

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Leaders at an Islamic summit on Thursday urged a dialogue between the Syrian opposition and regime just as a new initiative for talks proposed by an anti-government leader appeared to be unraveling.

Like previous diplomatic initiatives on Syria, opposition chief Mouaz al-Khatib’s call for talks made less than a week ago appeared doomed to failure. And with troops and rebels clashing for a second day around Damascus, frustrated Syrians dismissed the calls for dialogue as empty talk.

“All of this does not concern us,” said Iyad, a Syrian fighter on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, which has witnessed heavy fighting in the last two days.

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Growing up as the youngest of seven children in the historic city of Hama in Syria, George Shalhoub led an idyllic life in which he says Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully.

“We lived in a neighborhood that is called the Christian quarter, surrounded by Muslim neighborhoods,” recalled Shalhoub, 63, founder and pastor of St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church in Livonia. “We played in their mosques, and they played in the courtyard of our church. We were safe. We visited each other, and were part of each other’s lives. I never once felt discriminated against by the Muslims.

“It was the happiest time of my life.”

But over the last two years, the civil war has unraveled the threads that bind society in Hama and other places in Syria, leading to sectarian strife and bloodshed. Last month, Shalhoub learned that the daughter, son-in-law and grandson of his 95-year-old hometown priest, Rev. Rafael Basha, were killed.

The discovery added another layer of sorrow for Shalhoub, who often prays for reconciliation in his native land....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Syria

A proposal to arm Syrian rebels was backed by the Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, but the White House decided not to act on the plan, reflecting the extent of divisions over the U.S. role in the bloody conflict.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Marine Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Mr. Obama's top military adviser, revealed publicly for the first time at a Senate hearing on Thursday that they supported a proposal last year by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA director Gen. David Petraeus.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Syria

Imagine you were forced to leave your home? Given no option but to pack everything into one bag and to leave Northern Ireland.
That is exactly the situation that more than 500,000 Syrians have been forced into.

Into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan they continue to pour, in search of safety and shelter from the bombs and bullets that have killed 60,000 people. Three-and-a-half thousand crossed into Jordan last Wednesday alone.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Poverty • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

According to the Assad regime, Israeli warplanes have violated Syrian airspace and bombed a scientific research facility. According to Western security sources, the attack was against a convoy of sophisticated heavy weapons destined for Lebanon and Hezbollah. Israel itself is saying nothing; nor, officially, is the US. For all the obfuscation and confusion, however, what is chillingly clear is the danger of Syria’s vicious civil war spilling over into a regional conflict.

The situation inside the country is dismaying enough. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the near two years since the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad began. Although the regime’s grip is weakening, the fight only gets bloodier; and as many as four million civilians have been displaced – many of whom are now starving, freezing and dying from disease.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Russia has expressed concern at an alleged Israeli attack on Syria, saying such a strike would be an unacceptable violation of the UN Charter.

Syria's army said Israeli jets had targeted a military research centre north-west of Damascus on Wednesday.

It denied reports that lorries carrying weapons bound for Lebanon were hit.

Russia has steadfastly refused to denounce Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the 22-month conflict that has killed more than 60,000 people.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Russia • Middle East • Israel • Syria

U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi warned the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be able to cling to power for now but the country is "breaking up before everyone's eyes," diplomats told Reuters.

Brahimi appealed to the 15-nation council to overcome its deadlock and take action to help put an end to the Syrian civil war. However, it was not clear whether his latest report, which diplomats said was his bleakest since his appointment last year, would persuade Russia to agree to support concrete U.N. steps to try to halt the bloodshed.

Read it all and please join me in praying for the situation in Syria.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Pope Benedict XVI has made an urgent appeal to civil and political authorities to work for peace. The Pope’s heartfelt cry came on Monday during his annual address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See.

Speaking to representatives of the 179 States that currently have full diplomatic relations with the Vatican, as well as members of numerous international organizations such as the EU, the Order of Malta and the PLO, Pope Benedict emphasized that world leaders have a grave responsibility to work for peace. They are the first – he said – called to resolve the numerous conflicts causing bloodshed in our human family.

And the Pope went on to list urgent areas of concern starting with Syria which he described as being “torn apart by endless slaughter and the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population”.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The people must be alert, analytically and democratically. Populist movements are gaining strength, forcing emotional, hasty, binary and often blind reactions. Political and religious leaders, intellectuals and students, women (in the heart of their legitimate struggles) as well as ordinary citizens bear a heavy responsibility. They must become the masters of their fate. If democratisation is to mean anything at all, it must be in terms of freedom and responsibility. Time has come to stop blaming the West, the neighbouring countries and the "powers" for the crises they continue to suffer.

The Great Powers undoubtedly played a role in the uprisings - they continue to wield great influence and have not stopped promoting their interests, dictatorships or not, democracy or not. Engaged as they are in a painful transition, the MENA countries must now face their destiny. However, beyond the strategic planning of the Great Powers - both the western countries and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) - these countries have a historic opportunity to take their destinies in their hands; to create a new regional balance of power, new ways of handling the religious reference. They can profit from the emerging multi-polar economic order to celebrate cultural and artistic creativity, and take seriously the welfare and the superior interests of their peoples.

Where to begin? With a true process of liberation, an intellectual and psychological revolution that must first overcome the obsession with western approval, as if, once liberated, these countries must still seek legitimacy and tolerance.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Egypt • Iran • Iraq • Israel • Jordan • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

The United States bluntly warned Syrian President Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons as his forces lose ground to rebel fighters, and the United Nations said it was pulling nonessential foreign staff from Syria because of deteriorating security.

Warnings from President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials Monday reflected U.S. concerns over new intelligence indicating that Syria might be preparing to unleash some of its chemical agent stockpiles.

"The world is watching," Obama said, addressing Assad in remarks at the National War College in Washington. "The use of chemical weapons is, and would be, totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences, and you will be held accountable."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Syria

I was recently struck by some photos and reports I saw on the al-Arabiya network, the most respected news outlet in the Middle East. There was a starving child in Yemen, a burnt-out ancient souk in Aleppo, Syria, car bombs in Iraq and destroyed buildings in Libya.

What links all these images is that the destruction and the atrocities were not perpetrated by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries were carried out by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard their people. Who, therefore, is the real enemy of the Arab world?

Many Arabs would say it is Israel — their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they have never recognised. From 1948 to today there have been three full-scale wars and many confrontations. But what was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people? The harder question that no Arab wants to ask is: what was the real cost of not recognising Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, healthcare and infrastructure instead of wars? But the very hardest question of all is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Poverty • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Libya • Middle East • Egypt • Israel • Jordan • Lebanon • Qatar • Saudi Arabia • Syria • The Palestinian/Israeli Struggle • UAE (United Arab Emirates)

Please pray:
For peace in Syria and an end to bloodshed. For God's rich mercies on the suffering people.
For safety and protection for the churches and wisdom and vision for church leaders.
To empower the Church to reach out to the suffering, to share the divine cure of the gospel, and to speak the word of the Lord in all boldness.
That the Lord would send wise, God-fearing counsellors to the decision-makers in all parties in the country.

Powerful and heart-rending--read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Turkey sharply escalated its confrontation with Syria on Wednesday, forcing a Syrian passenger plane to land in Ankara on suspicion of carrying military cargo, ordering Turkish civilian airplanes to stay out of Syrian airspace and warning of increasingly forceful responses if Syrian artillery gunners keep lobbing shells across the border.

Turkey’s NTV television said two Turkish F-16 warplanes were dispatched to intercept a Syrian Air A-320 Airbus jetliner with 35 passengers en route from Moscow to Damascus, and forced it to land at Esenboga Airport in Ankara, because it may have been carrying a weapons shipment to the Syrian government. Inspectors confiscated what NTV described as parts of missile and allowed the plane to resume its trip after several hours. The Turkish authorities declined to specify what precisely had been found.

“There are items that are beyond the ones that are legitimate and required to be reported in civilian flights,” Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu of Turkey said in remarks reported by the country’s semiofficial Anatolia News Agency. “There are items that we would rate as troublesome.”

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Turkey • Middle East • Syria

Israeli military experts Sunday worked around the clock to examine the remains of a mysterious drone that was shot down after penetrating Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.

The Israeli military announced Saturday that the unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down over the northern Negev Desert. They say the drone did not take off from Gaza, leading them to consider the possibility that it originated in Lebanon.

Israeli security experts point the finger at Israel's longstanding rival Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in southern Lebanon.

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Events in recent days have illustrated just how quickly the violence in Syria could spiral into a regional war. After Syrian mortar bombs once again fell on Turkish soil, this time killing five civilians, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt compelled to act. The Turkish military's retaliation on Wednesday and Thursday startled the international community.

With its actions, Turkey obviously proceeded with caution: It answered the repeated attacks from Syria with a few artillery shots -- not missiles. And the permission for further military action granted to Erdogan by his parliament is intended primarily as an intimidation measure. There is no apparent intent to declare all-out war -- at least for the time being. The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, has strongly condemned the Syrian attack on Turkish soil and called on both sides to show restraint.
The fact of the matter is that the longer Syrian civil war continues, the more often incidents like that seen earlier this week will occur -- particularly in Turkey and Lebanon. A large part of the border region around Syria has already become a war zone. Previously, the international community had worried that a military intervention could fuel a regional wildfire, but now it is being forced to look on as this increasingly appears to be the reality -- without it ever even having gotten involved.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Egypt • Iran • Iraq • Israel • Jordan • Lebanon • Syria

When a senior Iraqi intelligence official traveled to Tehran in the summer of 2007 to meet with the Iranian leadership, he quickly figured out who was in charge of Iran’s policy toward its neighbor to the west.

It was not the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was Qassim Suleimani, the shadowy commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, who calmly explained that he was the “sole authority for Iranian actions in Iraq,” according to an account the Iraqi official later provided to American officials in Baghdad.

A soft-spoken, gray-haired operative who carries himself with the confidence that comes from having the backing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, General Suleimani is the antithesis of the bombastic Iranian president. Now a major general — the highest rank in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — after a promotion last year, he has been the mastermind behind two central Iranian foreign policy initiatives, exerting and expanding Tehran’s influence in the internal politics of Iraq and providing military support for the rule of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Iran • Iraq • Syria

Less than a week after this grim conversational bidding war, the district of the capital where these women and their children had been taken in was shelled, then raided by government forces.

Not surprisingly, the regime’s iron-fisted approach has made real what had merely been a nightmarish fantasy. From the start it portrayed the revolutionaries as bands of heavily armed Sunni Muslim fanatics, funded and directed by Syria’s enemies. The charge was laughable a year ago, when by all accounts there were simply no guns in opposition hands at all. Even by February, after eleven months of unrest, a trophy table of captured “terrorist” weapons displayed for journalists at an army club in Deraa, the battered city near the Jordanian border where protests first began, proved embarrassingly puny. Amid rusted pistols and primitive pipe bombs, the only serious weapon was a Stalingrad-vintage Bulgarian-made sniper rifle.

Only recently has the Free Syrian Army, the loose coalition of local fighting groups that emerged last fall, begun to wield much firepower. Despite talk of large-scale aid from sympathetic Sunni Muslims in the Persian Gulf, and in particular the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the flow of money did not pick up until this spring, while the flow of weapons from outside Syria even now remains a trickle.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • History • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The idea of a safe zone for refugees in Syria was first proposed several months ago, but the flood of people entering Turkey – as many as 5,000 a day for the past 10 days – has ratcheted up the pressure for such a zone’s creation.
The UN refugee agency announced on Aug. 28 that as many as 200,000 Syrians may seek refuge in Turkey alone. Turkey says its threshold is 100,000, and it is leading the call for a safe zone so that Syrians can safely remain inside Syria.

But it’s complicated and carries risks that make the international community hesitant to implement it. Here are some complications....

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan, where an estimated 150,000 Syrians -- 39,600 of which are registered with the United Nations as refugees -- have fled. As the conflict in Syria continues to worsen, some Syrians have also fled to Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.

The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of The Lutheran World Federation, has been in conversation with Jordanian officials about how Lutherans can best be involved in addressing the needs of Syrian refugees. He is helping to identify ways in which his church, the ELCA and The Lutheran World Federation can deepen their participation in relief efforts.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Lebanon • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran

The West often sees Islam as a monolith but in reality it is a patchwork of sects, schools and ways, not to mention some fully fledged religions wearing Islamic masks to avoid persecution. And as always in Islam, religious differences are a cover for political rivalries.

Involved in the schism are three camps. One consists of traditional Sunni Muslims who have just won a share of power in several countries, notably Egypt. The second camp is that of Salafis, Sunni Muslims who dream of reconquering “lost Islamic lands” such as Spain and parts of Russia and to revive the caliphate. In the third camp are Shia militants who hope to overthrow Sunni regimes and extend their influence in southern Asia, Africa and Latin America....

Iran, the leading Shia power, and Saudi Arabia, its Sunni rival, have been fighting sectarian proxy wars for years, notably in Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Last year more than 5,000 people died in sectarian clashes in Pakistan. Under its neo-Ottoman leadership Turkey has abandoned the ringside to join the fray, notably in Libya and Syria. Now Egypt is also testing the waters....

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Near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite commemorates the 5th-century ascetic who became an ancient sensation by living atop a tall pedestal for decades to demonstrate his faith. Krak des Chevaliers, an awe-inspiring castle near Homs, was a fortress for the order of the Knights Hospitaller in their quest to defend a crusader kingdom. Seydnaya, a towering monastery in a town of the same name, was probably built in the time of Justinian.

A nun there spoke about Syria's current crisis from within a candlelit alcove this week, surrounded by thousand-year-old votive icons donated by Russian Orthodox churchgoers and silver pendants in the shape of body parts that supplicants have sought to heal—feet, heads, legs, arms, even a pair of lungs and a kidney.

"It's not a small thing we are facing," she said, speaking as much about the country as her faith. "We just want the killing to stop."

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Despite heroic stories of the protection given by members of Syria’s Sunni majority to Christian shopkeepers, Christian refugees are fleeing into northern Lebanon as fast as Iraq’s three million refugees are pouring from Syria back into Iraq. Indeed, one of the reasons that Russia has refused to abandon President Assad is its feeling of responsibility for Syria’s Orthodox Christian community.

Meanwhile some 90 per cent of the Christians of Homs are said to have fled to Jordan recently, persecuted by a group claiming to belong to Al Qaeda. And among the four members of President Assad’s inner circle killed by the Free Syrian Army on 17 July was General Daoud Rajiha, Syria’s Eastern Orthodox defence minister. The papal nuncio, Archbishop Mario Zenari, described the conflict as “dragging the country towards, destruction, towards unspeakable suffering and death”.
Some of the rebels today angrily accuse Syria’s Christians of collaborating with the regime but a fair number of Christians have supported the rebellion which began as a mere protest movement against a still popular President Assad in March 2011.

It is a far cry from his taking of power 12 years ago...

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The collapse of the U.N. initiative on Syria, rebel gains that opened a corridor from Turkey to Aleppo, and a rash of high-level defections mark a turning point in the Syrian crisis and in the Obama administration’s plans for influencing the outcome.

While some U.S. officials, particularly inside the State Department, are pushing for more direct assistance to the Syrian opposition, for now, administration policy remains focused on nonlethal aid and planning for the day after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a hastily arranged trip to Turkey this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to meet with Syrian opposition figures beyond the exile leaders who have been the public political face of the insurgency, a senior administration official said.

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“Before the war there was no separation between Christian and Muslim,” I was told on a recent visit by Shamun Daawd, a liquor-store owner who fled Baghdad after he received Islamist death threats. I met him at the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus, where he had come to collect the rent money the Patriarchate provided for the refugees. “Under Saddam no one asked you your religion and we used to attend each other’s religious services,” he said. “Now at least 75 per cent of my Christian friends have fled.”

Those Iraqi refugees now face a second displacement while their Syrian hosts are themselves living in daily fear of having to flee for their lives. The first Syrian refugee camps are being erected in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon; others are queuing to find shelter in camps in Jordan, north of Amman. Most of the bloodiest killings and counter-killings that have been reported in Syria have so far been along Sunni-Alawite faultlines, but there have been some reports of thefts, rape and murder directed at the Christian minority, and in one place — Qusayr — wholesale ethnic cleansing of the Christians accused by local jihadis of acting as pro-regime spies. The community, which makes up around 10 per cent of the total population, is now frankly terrified.

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The growing intensity of the conflict in Syria, and the increasing signs of the rebels' success, are leaving the country's Christian minority in a doubly dangerous position. Like all civilians, they are caught in the crossfire; and they are also at risk from the way in which the rebels are being boosted by Islamic extremist fighters.

It is impossible to say how many Christians are among the 17,000 people who have been killed, or the 120,000 who have been forced to flee their homes, but there are indications that many thousands are being affected by the conflict.

The Barnabas Fund, which supports Christians where they are in a minority and suffer discrimination, says that "tens of thousands of Christians have been driven from their cities by threats and violence. Almost the entire Christian populations of Homs and Qusayr have fled to surrounding villages or further afield. . . They are in urgent need of food and other essentials."

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UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged world leaders to act to halt the "slaughter" in Syria, as thousands of troops reportedly move on the city of Aleppo.

"I make a plea to the world - do not delay... Act now to stop the slaughter...," Mr Ban said.

His comments came as activists said troops with tanks and armoured vehicles were redeploying to re-take areas of Syria's second city held by rebels.

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Three men at the heart of President Assad's defence team have died in a suicide bombing, Syrian state TV says.

The president's defence minister, brother-in-law and head of his crisis team were at a meeting at national security headquarters in Damascus.

No footage has yet emerged of the attack in which the national security chief and interior minister were also said to have been wounded.

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Throughout the years, Christians, like many other minorities in the region, have lent their support to those regimes that have guaranteed their security and religious freedom. In Iraq, Christians rose to the highest levels of society under Saddam Hussein’s regime, while in Egypt, Coptic Christians were protected from ultraconservative Salafists under Hosni Mubarak. As secular leaders from the secretive Alawite sect, the Assad dynasty largely preserved Christian life, protecting Syria’s minorities from what was perceived as a collective threat from the country’s Sunni majority.

Watching their once-shielding dictators fall like dominos across the region, Christians have suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of history. Faced by a rising tide of radical Sunni Islam, Christians in Iraq and Egypt have fled by the thousands. In Syria, concern over Christian repression has fallen on deaf ears, drowned out by popular support for the country’s opposition in the face of the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown.

This March, months before the Qusayr ultimatum, Islamist militants from the opposition’s Faruq Brigade had gone door to door in Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan neighborhoods of Homs, expelling local Christians.

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France said Wednesday that Syria has descended into civil war and that all means, including force, should be used under international supervision to help restore peace.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he would propose that the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution giving U.N. members a mandate to intervene in Syria, possibly as part of a military operation.

"The situation is now even more serious and abominable," Mr. Fabius told reporters. He accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of having used children as human shields, echoing allegations in a report issued Tuesday by the U.N. He also said massacres have multiplied over the past few days in the Middle East country.

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Regime forces pummeled Syrian cities from both the ground and sky Wednesday, opposition activists said, a day after the United States accused Russia of sending attack helicopters to Syria.

The Homs province city of Rastan came under fresh attack from planes and rocket-propelled grenades, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. At least two people were killed in Homs province Wednesday, the group said.

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The Syria conflict fell deeper into crisis Tuesday as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly accused Russia of supplying attack helicopters to the Syrian government.

Her accusation came as international cease-fire monitors in Syria aborted a fact-finding trip after they came under assault by an angry mob and gunfire, and the top United Nations peacekeeping official said Syria was already in a state of civil war.

Those developments — coupled with a newly released United Nations report that accused the Syrian military of using Syrians as young as 8 as human shields for troops — overshadowed fresh diplomatic efforts by Kofi Annan, the special envoy to Syria, to advance a peace plan that has basically been ignored since it was put into effect two months ago.

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The diplomatic stalemate in Syria has been highlighted by three recent developments. First was last weekend’s defiant speech by President Bashar al-Assad. Then there came the decision by armed Syrian opposition groups to dis­regard the nominal ceasefire brokered by Kofi Annan. Third was the formation of yet another group opposing the Syrian regime, thus frac­tur­ing the already split opposition still more.

This stalemate and the attendant confusion are nudging Syria into civil war. Syrian Christians, for their part, are left as helpless observers, un­certain whether to commit themselves to a besieged regime or to opposition groups, often indistinguishable from radical Islamists, which present differing and sometimes worrying visions of the future.

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Last week warnings that Syria's conflict could spread rang out in the halls of the UN and world capitals. US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said she's worried about a scenario where "the violence escalates, the conflict spreads and intensifies... in involves countries in the region it takes on increasingly sectarian forms and we have a major crisis not only in Syria, but in the region."

That concern was echoed Sunday by Akmaluddin Ihsan Oglu, the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, who warned that Lebanon could slip into civil war once again if the clases continue. "We want all sides in Lebanon to seek their country's higher interest, which is peaceful coexistence between its people," he said.

Tripoli's hilltop district of Jabal Mohsen is where the first embers of a spreading fire could land.

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Unarmed U.N. monitors — a pathetically inadequate force of 300 in a nation of 23 million — have been unable to stop the violence, and a cease-fire that began in early April appears to be crumbling. Following the standard rogue-state script, Assad buys time and parries pressure by promising to restrain his forces, but never does.

Given Assad's barbarity, and the growing regional instability caused by Syria's violence, many in and out of Congress have demanded air strikes, militarily protected safe zones for Syrian refugees or, at the very least, arming the Syrian rebels.

But just as many, including President Obama, have been cautious, and for good reason. Just because a situation is awful doesn't mean there's a good way to fix it.

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Russia is "categorically against" foreign intervention in Syria and believes any new steps by the UN Security Council would be "premature", its deputy foreign minister has said.

Gennady Gatilov's remarks to Interfax news agency come amid international outrage over a massacre on Friday.

Women and children made up the majority of the 108 victims in Houla.

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Syria on Sunday strongly denied U.N. allegations that its forces killed more than 90 people in one of the deadliest events of the country's uprising, and diplomats said the Security Council met in an emergency session to discuss the massacre.

The killings in the west-central area of Houla on Friday brought widespread international criticism of the regime of President Bashar Assad, although differences emerged from world powers over whether his forces were exclusively to blame.

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Western nations are pressing for a response to the massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, with the US calling for an end to what it called President Bashar al-Assad's "rule by murder".

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this week.

The UN has confirmed the deaths of at least 90 people in Houla, including 32 children under the age of 10.

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The U.K. is calling for a “strong international response” following reports of a massacre of civilians by Syrian forces in a town in Homs province.

More than 90 adults and children were killed during shelling and shootings by government forces in Houla in the past 24 hours, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mailed statement. Explosions were also heard in the city of Homs, it said. British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the killings “an appalling crime” and said the U.K. would be calling for an “urgent” meeting of the UN Security Council.

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The IDF has issued emergency call up orders to six reserve battalions in light of new dangers on the Egyptian and Syrian borders. And the Knesset has given the IDF permission to summon a further 16 reserve battalions if necessary, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

An IDF spokesperson said intelligence assessments called for the deployment of more soldiers.

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Hopes that Arab Christians can enjoy full recognition in their countries' post-revolution politics appear to have suffered a setback. The political parties that have swept to power in Egypt and Tunisia are attempting to define their nations in narrow ethno-religious terms – as Islamic with sharia as the principal source of law. In Tunisia, for example, the constitution explicitly prohibits Christians from fielding candidates in the presidential election.

Attacks against Coptic churches and Christians in Egypt have increased during and since the revolution, and Arab Christians have allegedly been attacked in Syria. This has led to much soul-searching in the Arab Christian community, whose numbers and political influence have dwindled significantly over the past two decades owing to significant bouts of emigration.

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John McCain and Joseph Lieberman have already called for arming Syria’s rebels, in statements last month from the US Senate where they serve. But they repeated their demand in more dramatic fashion Tuesday – from a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey and with violence unabated, as the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad disregarded the UN plan that was to have silenced the Syrian Army’s guns Tuesday morning.

The two senators joined a growing international chorus of voices finding that the unimplemented plan, brokered by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is simply allowing the Assad regime to continue its oppression.

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The U.N. Security Council demanded Thursday that Syria “urgently and visibly” halt its attacks on opposition targets as special emissary Kofi Annan told the U.N. General Assembly that Syrian “military operations in civilian population centers have not stopped.”

The 15-nation council’s demand was aimed at bolstering Annan’s efforts to secure a cease-fire that would end the government’s year-long crackdown on dissent and prevent a descent into all-out civil war. It also appeared intended to press Syria to honor a four-day-old commitment to stop shelling residential areas and withdraw its heavy weapons and troops from urban areas by an April 10 deadline.

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The Barnabas Fund reports that the “city of Homs, the third largest in Syria, has now seen almost its entire Christian population of 50,000 to 60,000 flee.”

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America's ambassador to the UN has warned Syria not to intensify violence in the days leading up to a ceasefire proposed by the UN and Arab League.

Susan Rice said the Security Council must respond urgently if Syria failed to keep its pledge to end military operations by 10 April.

Syria says it will honour the deadline, but Ms Rice said she doubted this.

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The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants gathered here.

The moves reflected a growing consensus, at least among the officials who met here this weekend under the rubric “Friends of Syria,” that mediation efforts by the United Nations peace envoy, Kofi Annan, were failing to halt the violence in Syria and that more forceful action was needed. With Russia and China blocking measures that could open the way for military action by the United Nations, the countries lined up against the government of President Bashar al-Assad have sought to bolster Syria’s beleaguered opposition through means that seemed to stretch the definition of humanitarian assistance.

The offer to provide salaries and communications equipment to rebel fighters known as the Free Syrian Army — with the hopes that the money might encourage government soldiers to defect, officials said — is bringing the loose Friends of Syria coalition to the edge of a proxy war against Mr. Assad’s government and its international supporters, principally Iran and Russia.

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned that arming either side in Syria will lead to a "proxy war".

He was speaking at the opening of an Arab League summit which is discussing a joint plan with the UN to end a year of violence in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to the plan and will spare no effort to make it succeed, Syrian state news agency Sana reported.

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Syria is locked in an ominous and violent stalemate: With overwhelming firepower and a willingness to kill, President Bashar al-Assad could hold on to power for months or even years, keeping the opposition from controlling any territory and denying it breathing space to develop a coherent, effective leadership, according to analysts, diplomats and Syrians involved in the uprising.

Syrians and regional analysts say sheer force alone is unlikely to eradicate what has become a diffuse and unpredictable insurgency, one able to strike out even after the government has used crushing force against centers of resistance like Homs, Idlib and Dara’a. Broad areas of the country are hostile territory for government troops, and attackers have managed to hit centers of power, even in the capital, Damascus.

But with so much blood spilled, diplomacy stalled and both sides refusing to negotiate, there is no obvious path out....

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For 40 years, Um Michael has found comfort and serenity amid the soaring pillars and ancient icons of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox cathedral.

But as a priest offered up a prayer for peace one recent Sunday, the 70-year-old widow dabbed tears from her eyes.

"I was wishing that life would go back to the way it used to be," she said.

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U.S. officials say they see Iran’s hand in the increasingly brutal crackdown on opposition strongholds in Syria, including evidence of Iranian military and intelligence support for government troops accused of mass executions and other atrocities in the past week.

Three U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports from the region described a spike in Iran­ian-supplied arms and other aid for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad at a time when the regime is mounting an unprecedented offensive to crush resistance in the key city of Homs.

“The aid from Iran is increasing, and is increasingly focused on lethal assistance,” said one of the officials, insisting on anonymity to discuss intelligence reports from the region.

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The ground assault by Syrian forces in central city of Homs has evoked memories of a massacre 30 years ago in nearby Hama.

At least 10,000 people were killed in February 1982 during the three-week pounding of the city by government artillery and tanks that was ordered by Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current president.

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Twenty-eight thousand men, women and children are trapped in Baba Amr. Last week, before American journalist Marie Colvin was killed alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik, Colvin reported that the Syrian army had dug a trench around the neighbourhood, making it almost impossible for residents to escape. On Monday, activists reported that 64 people were killed at a checkpoint in Homs. They were trying to flee Baba Amr.

Medical supplies aren't just running low in the besieged suburb - they're practically nonexistent. "People come to you with a huge injury, and you can't do anything more than wrap their injury with a bandage," he says. "After you go to the field hospital, and take what you can from the two or three doctors, you can't do anything else. You have to go back home, or to the shelters we have, waiting for some miracle to happen."

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Catholics in Syria are so fearful of losing their lives at any moment that they say farewell to each other at the end of every Mass, the Archbishop of Damascus has said.

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It has become common in the West to express remorse or pessimism about the course of events in the Arab world since the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions a year ago. Tunisia, in fact, does not present a cause for general pessimism. Egypt’s xenophobic Islamism is alarming, but it is too early to judge that revolution’s outcome. In any event, the Arab revolutions never were conceived to conform to the West’s expectations, goals, or principles. In settings long influenced by nationalism and political Islam, the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, and Syrian revolutions seek justice, the dispatch of autocrats, a reduction of corruption, the restoration of dignity and equality to ordinary citizens, and the development of new constitutional experiments involving rights and accountability.

These experiments must unfold in divided societies with weak economies and unresolved—perhaps never to be resolved—tensions between mosque and state. Arab democrats who struggle in these settings are not seeking to imitate Western liberalism; they are reinterpreting it, as Turkey has done successfully, and as India’s British-educated independence leaders once did. In sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, democratic change in low and middle-income countries has evolved as a synthesis of local and global ideas, lurching through disruptions, failures, and recoveries. The Arab awakening is no longer an adventure park for bored emirs or a televised spectacle that inspires Western viewers. But its transformational power has not yet ebbed, and the liberalism within it is far from expired.

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The International Committee of the Red Cross says it is in talks with "all those concerned" in Syria's conflict to negotiate a ceasefire.

The group says it wants to negotiate a brief truce in the most affected areas to allow it to deliver aid packages.

Correspondents say the fact that the ICRC has spoken publicly about the negotiations shows just how concerned it is by the situation in Syria.

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Leaders of the Arab League called for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping force for Syria yesterday after a meeting in Cairo, hours after the controversial head of the organisation's Syrian observer mission resigned.

Mohammed al-Dabi, the Sudanese general who faced a torrent of criticism from rights groups and activists for his apparent failure to acknowledge violence by the regime, stepped down as Arab ministers attempted to revive the mission under a new mandate.

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We make our way to the front of the convent, where women in their Sunday best, girls in skimpy mini-skirts and sequin-spangled scarves, boys in tight jeans and leather jackets, and men in suits and ties are zig-zagging their way down flights of stone steps with black iron railings decorated with crosses. We pause until the flow subsides before climbing to a landing, where the priest awaits us.

Fr George Nijmeh is a portly, balding man wearing a black pullover with sparkly threads over his cassock.

He echoes the words of Mansour: “The Virgin Mary protected us. Today’s service had many more people than previous prayers. Prayer is among the weapons protecting us and driving away the black cloud hanging over Syria.”

He adds: “We should not have fighting in Syria but there are lots of interests who seek to sabotage our country...."

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Between blasts of rockets and mortar fire, Syrians used loudspeakers to call for blood donations and medical supplies Thursday in the stricken city of Homs, where a weeklong government offensive has created a deepening humanitarian crisis.

Government forces are trying to crush pockets of violent resistance in Homs, the epicenter of an 11-month-old uprising that has brought the country ever closer to civil war. The intense shelling in restive neighborhoods such as Baba Amr has made it difficult to get medicine and care to the wounded, and some areas have been without electricity for days, activists say.

"Snipers are on all the roofs in Baba Amr, shooting at people," Abu Muhammad Ibrahim, an activist in Homs, told The Associated Press by phone.

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Heavy artillery fire has been rocking Homs, as Syrian troops step up an assault on the restive city.

A BBC correspondent there describes almost constant blasts, in the fiercest attack in the 11-month uprising.

US President Barack Obama said it was important to resolve the conflict without outside military intervention.

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Heavy artillery fire has been rocking Homs, as Syrian troops step up an assault on the restive city.

A BBC correspondent there says attacks resumed early on Monday with almost constant explosions.

Rebels say a clinic is being targeted in one of the fiercest assaults on the city in the 11-month uprising.

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Western commentators typically attribute such behavior to Putin's personal paranoia or to attempts to rekindle the nation's wounded pride and assert Russia's superpower status. Look a little closer, however, and Russia's actions seem motivated more by calculated -- albeit sometimes miscalculated -- realpolitik than by psychological impulses.

First, strategic interests are at stake. In Tartus, Syria hosts the sole remaining Russian naval base on the Mediterranean, currently being refurbished by 600 Russian technicians after long disuse. To have to give up this Middle Eastern beachhead would be a shame, as far as the Russians are concerned.

Second, although limited, Russia has real commercial interests in Syria.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described as a "travesty" Russia and China's veto of a UN resolution condemning Syria's crackdown against anti-government protesters.

Speaking in Bulgaria, Mrs Clinton said efforts outside the world body to help Syria's people should be redoubled.

The US, she said, would work with "friends of a democratic Syria" to support opponents of Syria's president.

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A defiant Russia resisted intense pressure from the West and several Arab countries yesterday for a strong United Nations resolution demanding President Bashar al-Assad steps aside to end the political violence in Syria and speed a transition to democracy.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Alain Juppé, the French Foreign Minister and several Arab ministers were in New York for a Security Council meeting as fighting between government troops and regime opponents worsened.

However, as negotiations on the final text continued, there was no sign that Moscow, Syria's most important ally, would consent to any wording that called on Mr Assad to go or that authorised military action.

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After a violent weekend in Syria, European diplomats have had enough. Both British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe confirmed on Monday that they are heading for New York on Tuesday to urge the United Nations to pass a resolution aimed at the violent Syrian crackdown against anti-regime demonstrations.

Juppe and Hague hope to be able to persuade China and Russia to support such a resolution, one that has the backing of the Arab League. Both countries vetoed a draft resolution last October that threatened Damascus with sanctions and Moscow remains wary of any resolution that could authorize foreign military intervention. Both countries hold a veto in the UN Security Council.

The diplomatic offensive comes following widespread fighting in Syria over the weekend, which saw tanks and troops deployed to enable the Syrian army to regain its grip on a number of Damascus suburbs....

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An investigation into commercial online filtering technology reveals the prevalence of devices from Blue Coat, an American firm, being used to censor the Web in Syria and Burma. Ron Deibert of Toronto's Citizen Lab discusses the report's importance.

If you live in Burma or Syria, good luck trying to access pro-democracy websites, overseas news networks, even dating websites. Thanks to devices made by Blue Coat Systems, portions of the Net are inaccessible to residents in these countries, and a recent report reveals how a number of these filtering devices have been found in the regions, despite the manufacturer claiming they never sell their products to embargoed countries.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Myanmar/Burma • Middle East • Syria

In recent years, with countries such as China, India, and Brazil taking their rightful place on the international scene, the G-7 has given way to the G-20. Likewise, an ambitious reform of the International Monetary Fund was adopted in 2010 to reflect changes in the global distribution of power.

But this change in global governance must not be limited to economic policymaking. After all, globalization has brought many overall benefits, but also less friendly aspects, such as the ones dealing with global security. Despite our growing interconnectedness, the UN Security Council has not yet been unable to achieve sufficient consensus to resolve pressing matters such as Syria.

Nobody ever said that the road to stronger global governance would be straight or simple to navigate. But there are no detours: without effective structures of power and a genuine commitment from all players, the future does not look promising for global stability and prosperity.

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China and Russia have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria over its crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The European-drafted resolution had been watered down to try to avoid the vetoes, dropping a direct reference to sanctions against Damascus.

But Moscow and Beijing said the draft contained no provision against outside military intervention in Syria.

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The US secretary of state has condemned an attack on US ambassador Robert Ford after he was pelted with eggs by Syrian president supporters in Damascus.

Hillary Clinton said it was "wholly unjustified" and urged Syria to protect diplomatic staff.

Eggs and tomatoes were hurled at Mr Ford as he met an opposition figure.

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Abu Elias sat beneath the towering stairs leading from the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, a church high up in the mountains outside Damascus, where Christians have worshiped for 1,400 years. “We are all scared of what will come next,” he said, turning to a man seated beside him, Robert, an Iraqi refugee who escaped the sectarian strife in his homeland.

“He fled Iraq and came here,” said Abu Elias, looking at his friend, who arrived just a year earlier. “Soon, we might find ourselves doing the same.”

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“Back in the 1990s, if Syria wanted credit and trade and loans that they couldn’t get from the United States, they went to the Europeans,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Obama administration official. Now, Mr. Takeyh said, Europe has joined the United States in imposing sanctions on Syrian exports, including its critical oil sector.

Aside from Iran, he said, Syria has few allies to turn to. “The Chinese recognize their economic development is more contingent on their relationship with us and Europe than on whether Assad or Qaddafi survives,” he said, referring to the deposed Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • Office of the President • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

The attorney general in the central Syrian city of Hama says he has resigned because of the government's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

In a video posted on YouTube, Adnan Bakkour says he is stepping down because security forces killed 72 prisoners in Hama at the end of July and more than 400 others during a siege of the city in August.

Syria's state-run SANA news agency says the resignation message is false, and that Bakkour was forced to make the comments by "armed terrorist groups" that kidnapped him earlier this week.

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Syrian security forces carried out military operations in several areas across the country on Thursday against pro-democracy protesters seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and activists and residents said nine people were killed.

Masked gunmen also severely beat the country’s best-known political cartoonist, Ali Farzat, leaving him to bleed along the side of a road, days after he published a cartoon showing Mr. Assad hitching a ride out of town with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Since the start of the Syrian uprising in March, Mr. Farzat, renowned through the Arab world, has published cartoons critical of Mr. Assad and his brutal crackdown on protesters.

Activists and residents in Shuhail, a town southeast of the provincial capital of Deir ez-Zour, a tribal area in eastern Syria, said tanks and armored vehicles had entered. Shuhail, they said, has had daily protests against the government since the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

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The Bishop of Bristol has questioned the government’s hands off policy towards human rights abuses in Syria, and has urged the Foreign Secretary to take a tougher line on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Writing on his blog on the diocesan website on Aug 1, the Rt. Rev. Mike Hill stated “I can’t be the only person wondering why the West, having rapidly decided that intervention in Libya was a righteous and necessary cause, seem less interested in the wholesale slaughter taking place in Syria.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • Middle East • Syria

Among the bravest people in the world right now must rank the protesters in Syria, who are coming out every week, in city after city, in their hundreds of thousands, despite the Assad regime’s continued brutality.

--Bill Emmott in today's (London) Times, somehow oh so appropriate on this day

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Mouna gets annoyed at the next question. “We’ve grown up to believe there’s nothing to do about this society, and you already ask me who we want as a new leader. No candidate has materialized between March and April. What I want is to participate in society,” she says firmly.

She disconnects her cell phone from its charger when it starts chiming. It’s a dying phone and needs charging three times a day. Mouna’s slight body begins to shake. She holds her phone in one hand and clasps her hair with the other.

“When? Where?”

She stares into the air. “I have to go,” she says. “My friend has been arrested. The secret police came to his home.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Law & Legal Issues • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria

Syria's military has moved into a village near the border with Turkey and a town near the boundary with Lebanon, activists say.

Hundreds of Syrians, some with gunshot wounds, have fled into Lebanon, according to reports.

At least four civilians were reportedly killed by security forces during house-to-house raids and at funerals held for those killed in Friday's rallies.

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President Assad's televised address was only his third public speech since the country's uprising began in March.

"What is happening today has nothing to do with reform, it has to do with vandalism," Assad told a crowd of supporters at Damascus University. "There can be no development without stability, and no reform through vandalism. We have to isolate the saboteurs."

He warned that the country's economy was in trouble.

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The UN nuclear watchdog is to report Syria to the Security Council over its alleged covert nuclear programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to rebuke Syria on claims of an undeclared nuclear reactor.

The structure, which Syria has maintained was a non-nuclear military site, was destroyed by Israel in 2007.

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A fightback by repressive governments is putting at risk a historic struggle for freedom and justice in the Arab world, Amnesty International says.

Publishing its annual report, the rights group highlights the fight for control over communications technology.

It criticises Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen for targeting peaceful protesters to stay in power.

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A military crackdown on Syria’s seven-week uprising broadened Sunday, with reinforcements sent to two cities under siege and more forces deployed in a town in a restive region in the south of the country, activists and human rights groups said. Fourteen were killed in Homs, the groups said, and hundreds reported arrested.

The crackdown — from the Mediterranean coast to the poor steppe of southern Syria — seemed to mark a decisive turn in an uprising that has posed the gravest challenge to the 11-year rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Even though government officials have continued to hint at reforms, and even gingerly reached out to some dissidents last week, the crackdown seemed to signal the government’s intent to end the uprising by force.

At least 30 tanks were said to be inside Baniyas, one of Syria’s most restive locales, where the military entered Saturday. Activists and human rights groups said they had almost no information about the coastal town of 50,000, but one activist said at least six people were killed and 250 arrested since the operation began.

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Syrian security forces besieging the flashpoint city of Dara have been ordered to use "any means necessary" to crush the rebellion that sparked the weeks-long uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad, a Syrian military source said Saturday.

The claim by the military official, who has provided accurate information in the past, could explain the violent response of Syrian security forces in Dara over the last two days, which resembles the take-no-prisoners strategy used by Assad's father, Hafez Assad, to put down a 1982 rebellion in the central city of Hama.

"There have been commands to attend to the situation in Dara as soon as possible and with any means necessary," the military source told The Times in a brief conversation conducted over the Internet. "Even if this means that the city is to be burned down."

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The White House said on Monday that it was exploring new sanctions against Syria — mostly involving the assets of top officials around President Bashar al-Assad — but officials acknowledged that the country was already under so many sanctions that the United States held little leverage.

“We’re talking about a country whose economy is about the size of Pittsburgh’s,” said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the continuing debate within the administration about the next steps. “There are things you can do to amp up the volume” of sanctions, the official said, “but the financial impact is slim.”

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Islam is bound to play a larger role in government in the Arab world than elsewhere. Most Muslims do not believe in the separation of religion and state, as America and France do, and have not lost their enthusiasm for religion, as many “Christian Democrats” in Europe have. Muslim democracies such as Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia all have big Islamic parties.

But Islamic does not mean Islamist. Al-Qaeda in the past few years has lost ground in Arab hearts and minds. The jihadists are a small minority, widely hated by their milder co-religionists, not least for giving Islam a bad name across the world. Ideological battles between moderates and extremists within Islam are just as fierce as the animosity pitting Muslim, Christian and Jewish fundamentalists against each other. Younger Arabs, largely responsible for the upheavals, are better connected and attuned to the rest of the modern world than their conservative predecessors were.

Moreover, some Muslim countries are on the road to democracy, or already there.

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Democracy is part of America's very identity, and thus we benefit in a world of more democracies. But this is no reason to delude ourselves about grand historical schemes or to forget our wider interests. Precisely because so much of the Middle East is in upheaval, we must avoid entanglements and stay out of the domestic affairs of the region. We must keep our powder dry for crises ahead that might matter much more than those of today.

Our most important national-security resource is the time that our top policy makers can devote to a problem, so it is crucial to avoid distractions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fragility of Pakistan, Iran's rush to nuclear power, a possible Israeli military response—these are all major challenges that have not gone away. This is to say nothing of rising Chinese naval power and Beijing's ongoing attempt to Finlandize much of East Asia.

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power. We intervened twice in the Balkans in the 1990s only because Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic had no nuclear weapons and could not retaliate against us, unlike the Russians, whose destruction of Chechnya prompted no thought of intervention on our part (nor did ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the Caucasus, because it was in Russia's sphere of influence). At present, helping the embattled Libyan rebels does not affect our interests, so we stand up for human rights there. But helping Bahrain's embattled Shia, or Yemen's antiregime protesters, would undermine key allies, so we do nothing as demonstrators are killed in the streets.

Of course, just because we can't help everywhere does not mean we can't help somewhere.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Libya • America/U.S.A. • Middle East • Egypt • Iran • Iraq • Israel • Jordan • Saudi Arabia • Syria

The other night I found myself dreaming, drifting simultaneously through two parallel worlds, 800 years apart.

In the first vision, I was on the ramparts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in July 1187. News came in from Galilee that the Crusader Armies had been decimated by the overwhelming Muslim forces of the great Sultan Saladin at the Battle of Hattin. Jerusalem, already an island in an angry, surging Muslim sea, was about to be totally engulfed.

My second dream was in the same place, but I was witnessing a 21st-century Islamic encirclement of modern-day Israel. This second trance was apparently shared by some Israeli columnists who openly fear Egypt’s chaotic regime could be followed by an extremist Islamic government, reinforcing that nightmare Crusader scenario of encirclement.

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