Syrian authorities break up rare protest. U.S. diplomat, journalists briefly detained (tags)
DAMASCUS, Syria -- In a capital awash with Syrian flags, banners of support for President Bashar Assad and pamphlets declaring his party's achievements on its 41st anniversary, the paper banner raised by about 20 human rights activists urging freedom for political prisoners did not fit in.
Pining for Freedom: Syrian occupation suffocates Lebanon (tags)
Syria's government, with its jackboot system, foul prisons, ruthless repression of dissent and support (in joint venture with Iran) of Hezbollah terrorists based in Lebanon, is utterly unfit to run Syria itself, let alone Lebanon. "All our intelligence agencies are under Syrian control," former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel tells me. Lebanon's Maronite Christian patriarch says that the entire Lebanese government has become "a creature of Syria." Lebanon is being transformed into a police
'Israelization' of U.S. Middle East policy proceeds apace (tags)
'Israelization' of U.S. Middle East policy proceeds apace