Dorothy Parvaz — friend and fellow journalist, now deported to Iran
Maybe you’ve heard about it already, but former Seattle PI reporter and columnist Dorothy Parvaz went missing in Syria weeks ago. UPDATE: Syrian authorities, who finally admitted arresting her have now...
View ArticleArab Spring flares up
The popular uprising across the Middle East has intensified this week with the eruption of violence in Egypt and the resignation of Yemen’s president President Ali Abdullah Saleh. As the Washington...
View ArticleOne view on the Arab Spring: From Syrian jail cell to Muslim feminists
I’ve known journalist D Parvaz for a decade and may never quite see the world the way she does. But it’s worth trying. Parvaz is a reporter for Al Jazeera and was formerly a colleague of mine for many...
View ArticleSyria’s Children: A Lost Generation?
The crisis in Syria today compares to massive historic tragedies, Iraq in 1991 and Rwanda, 1994, in terms of the number of people displaced. An additional 2 million Syrians are internally displaced....
View ArticleMap: Syrian War Affects Emergency Response Reach
Like Tom 1, I too enjoy maps. This one provides an interactive snapshot of where the World Food Programme is responding to the crisis in Syria. What stands out is the fact that WFP has been able to...
View ArticleSyria: Refugee Crisis Worsens and Money Dries Up
Children of Za’atari camp Oxfam At its current pace, there will be 3.65 million Syrian refugees by the end of the year. That means an estimated 2 million people will flee from the violence in Syria to...
View ArticleTaking On Food Aid Reform, Metrics, the Refugee Crisis, and TOMS Shoes
Start your week off right with the latest Humanosphere podcast! We appreciated having Tom Murphy, Humanosphere’s East Coast correspondent, on the program so much in the previous edition that we invited...
View ArticleSatellite images show totality of destruction in Syria
A series of before-and-after satellite photographs lay bare the destruction caused by the Syrian civil war. The images, released as a part of a new Amnesty International report, show how a ballistic...
View ArticleWhy is the red line at chemical weapons?
allvoices US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke passionately about the abhorrent act of Syrian forces deploying chemical weapons to kill hundreds of people last week. “What we saw in Syria last week...
View ArticleNGOs call for peaceful Syria intervention
Protesters in Austin, Tx. Elizabeth Brossa US Senator John McCain is an unlikely ally for President Obama’s sales pitch to launch a military intervention in Syria. Congress has some time to decide what...
View ArticleAlyssa Milano’s Syria sex tape
How do you get people to give a shit about the crisis in Syria? Actress Alyssa Milano thinks that making a fake sex tape for the humor website Funny or Die could help. The former Who’s the Boss? star...
View ArticleSyria’s President Assad talks to Charlie Rose
In case you missed it, Charlie Rose sat down with embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss the Syrian civil war, pressure from the international community and the use of chemical weapons....
View ArticleSyria 911
Analysis President Obama gave a very compelling, powerfully argued speech yesterday in which he made the case for a military strike against Syria and also the case for delaying military intervention...
View ArticleUN certain chemical weapons used in Syria, US agrees, Russia dissents
UN SG Ban shares remarks on the chemical weapons report. The much anticipated report from United Nations chemical weapons inspectors in Syria was finally released on Monday. The group’s findings...
View ArticleWhy global health? Polio in Syria, Texas dengue, West Nile’s killer cousin
Taken in isolation, the news reports that polio appears to have returned to Syria for the first time since the late 1990s, that dengue and yellow fever is showing up across the southern United States...
View ArticleHunger Games: The Refugee Shelter
The latest Hunger Games movie is ‘catching fire’ (had to use the pun) across the US. It is also providing shelter for refugees. Oxfam GB’s Ben Phillips snapped a photo of a Syrian refugee shelter in...
View ArticleHard winter arrives for underprepared Syrian refugees
Preparing for winter in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley DfID The upcoming winter in Lebanon brought the first snowfall to parts of the country on Wednesday. It is an unwelcome sign for the 2.2 million Syrian...
View ArticleWhy I am not donating to the most effective charity
GiveDirectly has the strongest case of any organization for a donation. It works and has the evidence to back up the claim. Knowing this, I did not give to them this year. I, like many other Americans,...
View Article$2.4 billion raised for Syria crisis does not allay concerns
A Syrian teacher, left, teaches on the first day of classes at a private school built for Syrian refugees in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon. AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari International donors and...
View ArticlePhoto of the Day: People line up for aid in destroyed Syrian city
UNRWA The UN agency tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, published the above image earlier this week. It was taken during a distribution drive in the Syrian Yarmouk refugee camp in the...
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