Syriana

This morning, I read this report in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/world/middleeast/grisly-killings-in-syrian-towns-dim-hopes-for-peace-talks.html?smid=pl-share

An Atrocity in Syria, With No Victim Too Small

A massacre that revealed new depths of depravity and routine video footage showing lurid violence have made the prospect of stitching the country back together appear increasingly difficult.

I could hardly bear it. Excellent reporting, by the way, but hard to read, let alone to view the pictures. How can people be so cruel, so inhuman, so abject? I kept thinking of all those kind people I met in Syria, some three years ago. Only three years. I keep wondering how they are, don't dare to contact them, for fear of putting them into (more) danger - especially as some of them are Christians. We didn't visit the province of Tartus, but we were relatively close - and of course, we did spend some time in Aleppo.

Reports like this make me despair of mankind - make me despair altogether: will there ever be a way out for Syria? For the Middle-East? Will this country - once the cradle of our civilisation - ever arise from  its ashes?

Remembrance Day in The Netherlands

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will remember them.

From Laurence Binyon's poem 'For the Fallen'.

Is was sung - music by Douglas Guest, 1971 - by the choir Fluent, under the direction of Maarten Smit, at the remembrance ceremony on May 4 at Rozenoord, where resistants were executed during WWII.

These same lines are also engraved on the tomb of our friend Clarence Haggitt, who died as an RAF pilot in September 1941. His plane was shot down above the North Sea; he was later buried at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats in Amsterdam. His widow Margaret remained a good friend of my mother's all their lives, I became a good friend of their daughter Anne and her husband Terry. And now Jane, third generation, is continuing the relationship with my niece Andrea.

So bad things - a war, someone's death - may eventually lead to good things - like lifelong friendship.

Press Freedom Day

Let's at least think of our colleagues who were killed, imprisoned, tortured, intimidated or otherwise hampered in  doing their work. And let's support them where possible.
To the memory of Marie Colvin, killed in Homs - and all the others.

Ancient Creatures Brought to Life

The Royal Ontario Museum and Parks Canada Bring Ancient Creatures to Life

A spectacular website!

One Woman...

... And a very frail one, at that, managed to unmask and, eventually remove, Reuters' main correspondent in Yemen who also became a close collaborator of Saleh's.

Hind (that is her name) posted a tweet about that, then a blog, then it was retweeted and otherwise repeated by a growing number of followers... Eventually, a Facebook page called #ShameOnReuters did the trick: the mainstream media got hold of the information and brought it into the wider world.... That made Reuters decide to remove their man in Sanaa to another post in the Middle-East...

Here is Hind's interview on France24 in Arabic:

Here you will find Hind's blog (in Arabic, but with the help of Google Translation you get more or less the meaning).

Hind is an extraordinary woman - she seems much younger than she is, you'd think she is just a girl. But she is one of the most courageous women I ever met. She works and lives in Beirut, as a single mom with a young daughter. She cannot go back to Yemen, for fear her ex-husband will take her daughter away. She blogs about Yemeni politics, has taken an active part, by her tweets and blogs, in the Arab Spring, taking the risk to be cut off from some of her relatives in Yemen, who resent her for being so outspoken and (not irrealistically) fear for themselves. I was much impressed when I met her - and now I am even more impressed. 

Happy Diwali!

Cats on a Cold Tin Roof

This was yesterday. What took place today was much more violent, even more noisy, it happened too fast to take any photos, and much closer: on my balcony, invaded by neighbour Fax - who didn't stay long, though. Cat hair everywhere, reddish, white - and black. Fax chose the wisest option. In one big bond, he was downstairs and safe again. And he only wanted to make friends... :-(