Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin. (Photo via 20minutos.es.com)

The world today lost two incredible journalists. Seasoned American reporter Marie Colvin and award-winning French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in Homs by Syrian army fire today, as Bashar al-Assad’s troops continue shelling the city for the 18th day straight.

I know that some journalists choose to endanger themselves to tell the stories that need to be heard, and after readin various accounts from colleagues and observers, it seems Colvin and Ochlik were two of them. While their deaths are tragic, perhaps it is more tragic that in their deaths we come to face the ugly reality of what’s really happening in Syria.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 7,636 people have died since March 2011, most of them being Syrian civilians.

Colvin and Ochlik’s deaths highlight an unpleasant truth that many of us avoid: we have grown indifferent to the daily violence, we somehow view Syrian deaths as less meaningful, and we’re not doing enough to help those in need.

We have become estranged from reality. It could be a coping mechanism in which we distance ourselves to make sense of it all. Colvin and Ochlick were but two people from over 7,000 who died at the hands of the Syrian regime.

So the question remains: When will we realize that a human life is not less valuable merely because the victim is Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Algerian etc.?

You can read Colvin’s last report here. And check out Ochlik’s photo website here.

Below, a video posted on YouTube today features a Syrian activist claiming he's standing in front of the bodies of Colvin and Ochlik. This claim has not been independently verified.

(Photo via i.imgur.com)

Check out the big picture here.

Quite simply, an awe-inspiring view of Dubai’s Marina Area, which is about 20 km’s from Dubai downtown. On the lower end, we can see Jumeirah Beach Residence [JBR], a string of similar skyscrapers popular among young Lebanese professionals. And the beach is on the other side.

It's the definition of vertigo. Amazing.

Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas resigned yesterday over the transportation allowance for employees. (Image via saidaonline)

Well, the only concrete result of the transportation allowance fiasco is that our Labor Minister, Charbel Nahhas, has resigned.

Now I don’t know if you were even following this whole charade; I know they couldn’t have possibly made it more complicated or less interesting.

But here is what has been happening over the past few months in a nutshell:

Ministers have been squabbling about increasing the transportation allowance granted to employees since the whole wage readjustment issue started in December. Well, the wage readjustment was passed in January (bafflingly, might I add – who expected ministers to actually agree on something that would benefit the populace?). But the transportation stipend was still a sticking point. Labor Minister Nahhas was holding it up because, while he was not against the amount that should be paid by employers for transportation, he was against the legality of the transportation allowance itself, citing a 1995 decree in which the stipend was a temporary measure as part of a compromise.

Nahhas’ refusal to budge has caused quite a political crisis within the cabinet as a whole and within the Free Patriotic Movement, of which Nahhas is not a part but with which he is allied.

Nahhas has always made a big deal out of trying to turn Lebanon into the kind of place where laws are written for the good of the people and are enforced transparently. Unfortunately, he decided to launch his crusade over a technicality that has meant millions of people are not getting desperately needed money for transportation to and from work every month.

No word on whether the acting Labor Minister, Nicholas Fattouch, will sign the damn decree or continue the holdup.

I really don’t care—it would just be nice if my daily service ride to work was paid for.

*Thanks to Matt Nash for his research—only he could read up on the specifics of the transport decree without falling asleep.

Khader Adnan. (Photo via telegraph.co.uk)

Dignity before food...

It was the longest hunger strike ever carried out by a Palestinian prisoner, but Khader Adnan has ended his 66-days of refusing to eat food in an Israeli prison.

An Israeli court ruled on Tuesday to release Khader on April 17.

The 33-year-old was detained on December 17 and began refusing food a day later to protest his detention without charge and his alleged mistreatment by interrogators.

Adnan's wife, Randa Mussa hailed the deal as a "victory" for her husband, whom medics said had lost more than 40 percent of his body weight over the past nine weeks.

"He forced the occupation to give in to his demands and I hope he returns safe to us," she told AFP.

This man is a true hero. Long live Palestine. Long live Khader Adnan.

[This post includes reporting from AFP]

(Image via csmonitor.com)

Rick Santorum – or Jesus’ boyfriend if that sort of thing were allowed in Christianity (which, apparently, it’s not even though the man from Palestine never directly mentioned anything about it) –scrambled this weekend to clarify that he “believes” President Obama is a Christian. The Google-bomb victim and possible, soon-to-be Republican presidential candidate front-runner on Saturday said Obama’s agenda is based on "some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible," AP reported.

Santorum first “clarified” his remark immediately after he made it. Pressed by reporters after his speech, Dick initially “suggested that Obama practices one of the ‘different stripes of Christianity.’ ”

Capt. Brown Froth then moved quickly on Sunday to abandon ship, noting he did not dispute Obama’s oft-repeated claim to be Christian, but then said the president worships tree sprits and wood nymphs or something because he believes in “science” and other heresies. Rick seemed keen to pivot away from attacks against Go-bama from the Teabaggers suggesting he’s a secret Muslim (by which they kinda mean “terrorist” and certainly mean “n***er,” but realize they can’t say that in public anymore [tho, sadly, many in my home town love saying it in private] ).

*Hopes he wins the nomination and this sh*t show goes on.*

Disclaimer: Because I’ve been burned before, I want to make it perfectly clear that a censored racial epitaph in this post is meant not as a serious statement of MY opinion (or NOW’s, for that matter), but as a sarcastic mockery of what, to me, is clearly latent racism against President Obama disguised as questions about his devotion to Christianity.

(Image via Facebook.com)

I spotted this image making the rounds on Facebook over the weekend. It shows a newspaper advertisement for a runaway maid posted by her former employers, including a message warning others not to hire her. 

Maria Lea Sansano Oliveros, Filipina domestic worker
Ran away from the house of her employers.
Height: Around 170 cms
Thin, has a mole on her nose and a mole on top of her upper lip, and wide gums when she smiles.
We warn against hiring her

She’s not a lost puppy. This woman ran away, and surely with good reason. (*Shudder*) And I think it's clear she doesn't want to be found.

Re-civilize yourself. I’m going to go shake my head in shame now.

Check out these new “Messages from Lebanon” videos on YouTube.

They’re clips of Lebanese people addressing their friends and relatives abroad; important considering the ever-growing number of Lebanese who flee the grim economic prospects and political stalemate that rack this country.

They’re cute, well-made, funny and short (which is important for the Lebanese, proud owners of the slowest internet in the world). 

(Photo via thecomingcrisis.blogspot.com)

I’ve been trying to figure out why so few people talk about Syria’s military capabilities, its alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and their fate in the uprising background in the international community. There was some talk about a certain concern on the fate of Syria’s weapons in case the regime falls.

It is quite clear that, beyond any human rights violations , the idea is pretty much on everybody’s mind in the UN Security Council: is Assad sitting on a huge bomb or not? If he is, what is going to happen to the bomb in case he falls?

Although thought to be one of the strongest countries in terms of military capabilities in the Middle East, Damascus has always kept the topic blurry and has never shown its alleged strength in any kind of battle.

According to Washington based Nuclear Threat Initiative Syria was always constrained by limited financial resources, but that didn’t stop Hafez al Assad and his successor to show high interest in chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles with the purpose to contain neighboring Israel. 

Syria is a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and has a Comprehensive Nuclear Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, Damascus faces unresolved allegations that it may have illicitly built a plutonium production reactor at Al-Kibar, and is currently under IAEA investigation. In September 2007, the Israeli Air Force bombed and destroyed a building in northwestern Syria that U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials claim was a plutonium production reactor. The Syrian government has denied these allegations. However, in May 2011 following a more than three-year long investigation, during which Syria did not sufficiently cooperate with the IAEA, the Agency concluded "that it is very likely that the building destroyed at the Dair Alzour site was a nuclear reactor which should have been declared to the Agency “. In June last year the Syrian file was sent to the UN Security Council.

But it is not the nuclear capabilities that worry high ranking security experts around the world. The chemical weapons are as well as the tight ties to Tehran, which signed a treaty with Damascus in 2005 pledging to provide training and technical assistance to Syrian scientists. The treaty also provided that the Iranians built the construction of five chemical pilot plant facilities for developing and producing precursor chemicals.

Syria is suspected of having one of the most advanced chemical warfare capabilities in the Middle East and can produce chemical weapons – mustard gas, sarin and VX nerve -in facilities located near the Hama, Homs, and Al-Safira villages in the Aleppo region.

In terms of missiles, as many have already guessed, the main sources are China and North Korea. Syria tested the North Korean Scuds in 2007. The Russian Iskandar missiles were apparently too expensive for Damascus. 

And that’s just very superficial research made by a reporter in Beirut.

(Photo via almanar.com)

They’re calling him the “Bobby Sands of the West Bank.” Khader Adnan, a 33-year-old baker, was arrested by Israel on December 17 near the West Bank city of Jenin.
 
Held without charge, he began refusing food a day after his arrest. Now entering his 65th day on a hunger strike, he is said to be close to death.

Israel claims Adnan is a member of Islamic Jihad and put him on a four-month administrative detention. Under Israeli law, a military tribunal can order an individual held without charge for up to six months at a time. Such orders can be extended by further six-month periods indefinitely, if approved at a new court hearing.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said last week that Adnan was "in immediate danger of death," despite receiving liquid infusions, according to AFP.
There are currently more than 300 Palestinians being held in administrative detention by Israel.

We must support Khader Adnan. Check out this article to find out more about how you can help.

“Today, I joined Khader Adnan’s hunger strike - will you?”

We’re making more awesome sh*t.

Watch.