A functioning, democratic Syria at peace with its neighbors is possible in the post- Bashar Assad era, a Washington- based Syrian Kurdish opposition leader told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
“We have a new vision for Syria – a federal Syria, a just Syria – not an Arab republic – that is inclusive, whether you’re Kurd or Arab, Christian or Muslim,” said Sherkoh Abbas, president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KNAS).
He said a country as homogeneous as Syria is best suited to a federal model, in which areas with high minority populations enjoy certain powers not wielded by the national government.
The new Syria that Abbas envisions would be at peace with all of its neighbors, including Israel.
In this powerful talk from TEDGlobal, Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control? She believes the internet is headed for a “Magna Carta” moment when citizens around the world demand that their governments protect free speech and their right to connection.
In 2008, a secret State Department cable warned of a growing chemical weapons threat from a Middle Eastern country whose autocratic leader had a long history of stirring up trouble in the region. The leader, noted for his “support for terrorist organizations,” was attempting to buy technology from other countries to upgrade an already fearsome stockpile of deadly poisons, the department warned.
The Middle Eastern state with the dangerous chemicals was not Libya, whose modest stockpile was thrust into the spotlight last week because of fighting there. It was Syria, another violence-torn Arab state whose advanced weapons are drawing new concern as the country drifts toward an uncertain future.
A sudden collapse of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could mean a breakdown in controls over the country’s weapons, U.S. officials and weapons experts said in interviews. But while Libya’s chemical arsenal consists of unwieldy canisters filled mostly with mustard gas, the World War I-era blistering agent, Syria possesses some of the deadliest chemicals ever to be weaponized, dispersed in thousands of artillery shells and warheads that are easy to transport.
Police said the terrorist, a 20-year-old Nablus resident, entered a taxi near the beginning of Salameh Street, and carjacked the driver, stabbing him in the hand. He then drove for approximately a kilometer down Salameh Street towards the Haoman 17 nightclub, which was filled with high school children at an end-of-summer party.
I didn’t see it, but do I really need to? Look for it to air again and remember to keep the Pepto handy. Again, OMNI didn’t just broadcast this, they produced it.Here’s a description with the trailer below:
“Some of the interview subjects include Mahmoud Jaballah, British foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, filmmaker Alexandre “Sasha” Trudeau, Monia Mazigh — wife of Maher Arar, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, Lebanese diplomat and academic Clovis Maksoud, Toronto Star editorial writer Haroon Siddiqui, and human rights activist Matthew Behrens.
How does the mass media cover issues important to Canadian Arabs and Muslims? Is it fair or are issues ignored?
“Guilty Until Proven Innocent” is a controversial documentary airing on OMNI television, Canada’s multicultural network, that explores whether the mainstream media gives balanced coverage towards matters of concern to Arabs and Muslims. It examines how perceptions of Arabs and Muslims are shaped by coverage of conflicts in the Middle East and Arab world.
“In light of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we felt there was a tremendous need to do a documentary that offered a different perspective on Arabs and Muslims that breaks with the terrorist stereotype,” explains Gaby Androas, the Lebanese-born director of the documentary whose company, Andraos Media, produced the film. “The power of the media is so strong in shaping perceptions towards minorities we thought this deserved some investigation.”
“Guilty Until Proven Innocent” examines the issue of security certificates, an arcane legal tool used by Canada’s intelligence services in recent years to arrest and detain suspected Arab terrorists without actually having to show the detainees or their lawyers the evidence against them. A focal point of the documentary is the case of Mahmoud Jaballah, an Egyptian religious teacher, who spent seven years behind bars in Canadian prisons for being an alleged terrorist.
“Guilty Until Proven Innocent” also examines how media coverage of conflicts in the Middle East can shape popular perceptions towards Arabs and Muslims. In particular, the documentary uses as a case example the on-going Israeli-Palestinian dispute, exploring the roots of this conflict and how the Arab historical narrative is rarely touched upon in the media, as well as the unbalanced coverage of Palestinian fatalities compared with Israeli fatalities.
The documentary also examines the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in respect to death tolls caused by these conflicts. Finally, we touch upon media coverage of the Maher Arar case”.
Five Feet of Fury
