The situation in Syria continues to descend into a civil war-like situation, according to people on the ground. This interesting report, by BBC journalist Paul Wood, offers a disturbing insight into the Assad regime’s desperation and confusion since the beginning of the revolution: Qutaiba, a 22-year-old engineering student, had never been arrested before Syrian security…
Showing all posts tagged Syria
Name and shame Western firms helping autocrats monitor own citizens
When I wrote The Blogging Revolution in 2007 and 2008, I couldn’t imagine the ever-increasing focus on Western “security” firms working alongside repressive states to censor and spy on their people. I investigated this in the book (and the latest 2011 edition, just published in India, examines the reality during the Arab revolutions). Bloomberg has…
Inside the Syrian uprisings and why regime change should be challenged
Events in Syria are notoriously murky and these days reliable information is scarce. I’m often asked about my views on the uprisings against President Assad and what kind of Syria I would like to see. My book The Blogging Revolution – just released in an updated format in India – examines the role of the…
The Blogging Revolution updated and released in India
My 2008 book The Blogging Revolution detailed the role of internet censorship in non-democratic nations and Western firms assisting repressive regimes monitor the web. It was released in an updated e-book edition in August and focused primarily on the Arab revolutions. I’m proud to announce it’s now being released in an updated print edition in…
Wikileaks releases The Spy Files
Once again, Julian Assange and his team reveal how essential they are to modern news gathering: Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries It sounds like something out of Hollywood, but as of today, mass interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, including…
What’s a senior Murdoch editor to do apart from slam Muslims?
Another week and another column by a Melbourne Herald Sun editor Alan Howe on just how dysfunctional is the Middle East, Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, Islamists etc. The man has form. Yes, this is what countless Zionist lobby trips to Israel do to a Murdoch man. Hatred Inc: In Arab lands, like-minded, militant Islamists abound. Some…
What’s a dictator’s wife to do?
As Syria continues to groan under intense violence between government troops, opposition elements and unknown outside forces, this story in the UK Independent is eerie: Vogue magazine famously called her a “rose in the desert”, while Paris Match proclaimed she was the “element of light in a country full of shadow zones”. But when Syria’s…