JavaScript is not available.

The green shoots of normal life return to northern Syria

Jun 20, 2022

Protected by a ceasefire agreement northwestern Syria has come back to life. Population is increasing. There is a building boom. Universities are full. Still, massive problems remain. By me, with photos by

@ysfsymn

and video produced by

@sophiepeachey1

independent.co.uk

Having visited parts of northern Syria since 2018, Borzou Daragahi has witnessed a growth in activity, population, and serenity for a people who have suffered one of the most brutal wars in recent...

159

Italy's

signs landmark $8 billion gas deal with Libya, the single largest energy investment in the fractured country since the 2011 uprising

argusmedia.com

Eni signs major gas project deal in Libya | Argus Media

Italy's Eni and Libya's state-owned NOC have signed a long-delayed deal on the development of a major offshore gas project which will supply the domestic market and boost exports to Italy.

Ukraine presidential adviser says Kyiv "did warn" Iran that it would face consequences for supplying Kremlin with weapons

Quote Tweet

Михайло Подоляк

@Podolyak_M

16h

War logic is inexorable & murderous. It bills the authors & accomplices strictly. Panic in RF - endless mobilization, missile defense in Moscow, trenches 1000 km away, bomb shelters preparation. Explosive night in Iran - drone & missile production, oil refineries.

did warn you

Roflmao at “brosint.” There were literally claims of a possible coup in progress.

Quote Tweet

Deeba Shadnia

@deebashadnia

Jan 29

In light of the developments in Iran, this is your reminder to not blindly share info from unverified random brosint Twitter accounts (looking at you, conflict news aggregators who lean heavily on “unconfirmed but”)

Show this thread

10h

Hostile foreign powers somehow managed to get drones across the border and use them to launch an attack against a super sensitive site…“damage was done” to the IRGC’s already terrible reputation of incompetence. Good at murdering unarmed teenagers. Bad at protecting country.

Quote Tweet

Holly Dagres

@hdagres

10h

IRGC Telegram channel put this video out to show the before and after of the attack on the munitons factory in Esfahan. The account says no damage was done. #Iran

0:02

3K views

Opinion: Why police reform utterly failed to protect Tyre Nichols | CNN

10h

‘The beating of Nichols is actually much worse than Rodney King because it shows that after nearly 32 years, the needle of police reform has barely moved, and seemingly minor traffic violations continue to lead to deaths of Black and other minority men.’

cnn.com

The conduct of the Memphis police officers who were charged with fatally beating Tyre Nichols is revolting in its brutality and disheartening in revealing just how little the needle of police reform...

Czechs electing a former NATO general over a pro-Russian populist is more important than you think.

290

3,562

41.3K

How Western scholars overlooked Russian imperialism

17h

“Discussions of Russian imperialism have long been overlooked while American, British and French imperialisms have been studied thoroughly. This has to do with how Western academia and certain political elites have chosen to approach Soviet Union.”

aljazeera.com

For far too long, Western academia has ignored the legacies of the Russian Empire and colonisation.

18h

They have supposed access to these files and there’s as of yet not one item about how authoritarian regimes tried to influence social media. Just score-settling between different brownstone Brooklyn factions.

Quote Tweet

Robin Wigglesworth

@RobinWigg

19h

Every supposedly shocking “Twitter files” thread I read generally makes me more favourably disposed to Twitter 1.0. It just shows them earnestly discussing difficult stuff in a pretty sensible, honest way? The spin put on it by Taibbi, Sacks etc is just preposterous.

19h

The decision by the Tehran regime to supply drones to Russia for use against Ukraine is one for which it will pay dearly. The regime escalated. So too will its enemies. twitter.com/markito0171/st

This Tweet is unavailable.

Jan 28

Whenever a taxi driver asks me what I do and I am not in the mood for banter, I mutter, "textiles". That quiets them pretty quick. twitter.com/emrwilkins/sta

This Tweet is unavailable.

Jan 28

At one point peanut butter might have been in this section but then it was globally rebranded as a high-nutrition superfood and placed in healthy foods sections

Quote Tweet

Melissa Chan

@melissakchan

Jan 28

This is the North America shelf section at the German supermarket in my neighborhood and I find it even more hilarious than the Asian shelf section at US markets at Ralph’s / Albertson’s growing up.

Show this thread

OPCW Releases Third Report by Investigation and Identification Team

'On evening of 7 April 2018, at least one helicopter of the Syrian “Tiger Forces” Elite Unit dropped two yellow cylinders containing toxic chlorine gas on two apartment buildings in civilian-inhabited area in Douma, killing 43 named individual'

opcw.org

Reasonable grounds to identify Syrian Arab Air Forces as perpetrators of 2018 Douma chemical attack

“What other month could host a holiday that is designed to remind us that we’re all gonna die?”

Quote Tweet

Alexis Benveniste

@apbenven

the worst month of the year starts next week and this is still the best video on the internet

Show this thread

2:19

3.9M views

The bravery of that security guard who tries to overpower the gunman…

Quote Tweet

Fuad Shahbaz

@fuadshahbazov

The video footage of a terrorist attack on the #AZE Embassy in #Tehran is available now. Despite #IRN claims that the perpetrator entered the building with 2 kids, the video shows a man armed with an AK rifle without any kids around. Deliberate attack.

Show this thread

0:29

4.3K views

Iranian researchers fear for science after hardline cleric takes important post

Few stories illustrate the wrongheaded direction of the Khamenei regime and the gross mismatch between Iran's sophisticated population and its medieval overlords than this one.

Apparently eager to speed mass migration of scientific elite out of Iran, Khamenei regime appoints moronic, misogynistic mullah as head of board overseeing academia. Cleric blames women's makeup for divorce rate and claims Islamic potion cures Covid

science.org

Abdolhossein Khosropanah promoted pseudoscience and defended death penalty for protesters

“It’s a volatile mix of a Turkish president facing an election and needing a fight, and Swedish groups on the far right and left who may use free speech to provoke Erdogan in order to sabotage the Nato process.”

independent.co.uk

Why Turkey is blocking Sweden and Finland attempts to join Nato

The burning of a Quran at a weekend protest in Sweden has hardened Turkey’s resolve against an expansion of the defence alliance, writes Borzou Daragahi. It also offers President Erdogan a chance to...

Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין

Retweeted

@MairavZ

I doubt many Israelis feel safer after the IDF op in Jenin today that killed 9 Palestinians. Israelis are told to expect “revenge” while the govt plans to build more settlements in occupied territory. This isn’t a security plan, it’s a plan to expand control at all costs.

336

1,025

Opinion | A stranger planned to bomb my mosque. He became a member instead.

'I looked him in the eye. “Is it true, Richard?” I asked. “Were you planning to kill us?” He looked down. He was ashamed but answered honestly. He confessed that when he had first arrived at the mosque, he had planned to murder us.'

washingtonpost.com

When a troubled man appeared at our door, we saw potential danger — and reacted with kindness.

With the media in decline, will a memorial to fallen journalists help restore trust?

‘The memorial will honor the men and women, domestic and foreign, who have given their lives so you can know what is going on in the world. It comes amid massive media layoffs.’

thehill.com

The fifth estate is getting real estate not far from the National Mall, a place of monuments honoring presidents and defenders of American freedom.

Kremlin propagandist played key role in burning of Quran in front of Turkish embassy in Stockholm

Quote Tweet

Bad Baltic Takes

@BadBalticTakes

Chang Frick is a Putin supporter who worked for RT, has made multiple trips to Moscow, and set up his own “alternative” Swedish news site, Nyheter Idag.

Show this thread

How Biden Reluctantly Agreed to Send Tanks to Ukraine

'By promising Abrams tanks — which would take “many months” to be built — Biden gave Scholz political cover to send Leopard tanks by early spring. Germany’s decision opened the way for Spain, Poland and Finland to do the same, with Norway likely next'

nytimes.com

The decision unlocked a flow of heavy arms from Europe and inched the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia.

Opinion | Nobody wants to be a journalist

Jan 25

‘This is the real reason why nobody wants to be a journalist. No matter what, people hate journalists for doing their jobs.’

dailyillini.com

While looking at the most regretted college majors poll conducted by CNBC, I immediately noticed that my major is ranked number one — 87% of journalism graduates say they would pick another major if...

Day 336 of my 3 day war. I've made Berlin send their tanks to Ukraine to kill Russian soldiers for 1st time in 80 years & all people are saying is "finally" I remain a master strategist

1,034

10.2K

Foreign Media Association TR

Retweeted

@fma_tr

FMA welcomes the acquittal today of journalist

@nazlaner

, one of our members, who had criminal charges brought against her based on a retweet. The court also removed the international travel ban that had been imposed on her.

Quote Tweet

Nazlan Ertan

@NazlanEr

Acquittal! Thank you dear friends for your support - @mlsaturkey @globalfreemedia @fma_tr and of course @AlMonitor who stood by me all along!

Show this thread

Breakthrough

Quote Tweet

Teri Schultz

@terischultz

JUST IN: German Defense Minister Pistorius says Germany has not decided whether to send its own Leopard tanks to Ukraine but that "partner countries that already have Leopard tanks that can be deployed, the training of tank teams from Ukraine, can already start."

Show this thread

Exclusive: Treasury helped Putin ally sue UK journalist

How on earth did I ever not know about “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” until recently? It is seriously one of the smartest, funniest comedies ever and just feels the gaping hole left by “30 Rock” and in “Parks and Recreation”

🚨 EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION - A vast cache of hacked material from Russia has shed new light on how the UK govt helped warlord Prigozhin mount a targeted legal attack on a journalist in London. This is #londongrad writ large.

opendemocracy.net

UK Treasury, then under Rishi Sunak’s control, let Yevgeny Prigozhin circumvent sanctions to target Eliot Higgins

316

8,621

14.3K

‘The performance did not contain any material from Beyoncé’s highly acclaimed 2022 album Renaissance, which “purports to be a love letter to Black and queer dance-music pioneers.” “It looks like she did this to appease Dubai’s homophobic regime.”’

theweek.co.uk

Beyoncé’s controversial Dubai payday | The Week UK

Singer criticised by human rights campaigners for lucrative appearance

Interactive online exhibit shows hundreds of art works, many submitted anonymously from Iran, that commemorate women-led uprising against Islamic regime in Tehran mozaikphilanthropy.org/woman-life-fre

Taking Money from Mujahedin-e-Khalq should be a presidential disqualifier

Devastating piece about the opacity and general shadiness of the MEK and its dozens of front groups, by

@mrubin1971

. Raises questions about its funding, democratic credentials and the luxury lifestyle of cult leader Maryam Rajavi

washingtonexaminer.com

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) is a cult. Indeed, its top foreign affairs representative has been unable or unwilling to name a single subject of internal dissent over the past three decades, a strange...

JUST IN - Pakistan plunges into darkness after a country-wide power outage: more than 220 million people without electricity.

678

4,268

13.4K

Can’t wait for animated Barrington Moore.

Quote Tweet

Katelyn Burns

@transscribe

These guys are talking about movies and video games

Ian Black, former Guardian Middle East editor, dies aged 69

Jan 22

Terrible loss of a kind, generous and super-talented fellow journalist. RIP

theguardian.com

Black, who was also a former diplomatic and European editor, had a rare neurological disease and wrote moving account of his illness

NEW: Erdogan says he will call for elections on March 10, so the elections will be held on May 14 after 60 days preparations

288

My great grandfather, Manuel Hurtado Blanco, was allegedly killed while defending the Spanish Republic. This is one of his last letters to his wife, a peasant from Jaén. His last whereabouts came from Teruel. By the end of 1937 we lost him. We had no more news since then.

Quote Tweet

Lluís Miquel Hurtado

@llmhurtado

Queridos amigos involucrados en la lucha por preservar la memoria histórica y @CentroMemoriaH. ¿Podríais ayudarme a encontrar a Manuel (menor) Hurtado Blanco, mi bisabuelo? Lo último que sabemos es que nos lo mataron en Teruel, entre 1937 y 1938. Os agradezco la ayuda.

Show this thread

Louis Fishman لوي فيشمان לואי פישמן

The far right in western Europe is supported and bankrolled by the Kremlin. If this provocateur, who is an ideological kindred spirit of Putin, manages to destroy relations between Ankara and Stockholm, it would be a big success for Russia

Quote Tweet

@Istanbultelaviv

Just watched an ugly video of a far-right racist burning the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Sweden. He also had police protection. I get the idea of freedom of expression, but this is an outright hate crime. Disgusting, and how does this have anything to do with Nato?

Show this thread

Streetwise, it’s more connected to the south Asian world than the Arab world

Quote Tweet

Karim Wafa Al-Hussaini

@DrKarimWafa

Unpopular Opinion: Dubai isn’t all that it’s made to be and it’s mostly catering for non-Arabs who have an Aladdin and Arabian Nights fantasy of the Middle East while in reality being void of any authentic Arab culture.

Show this thread