Oooh, hello to the Americans dropping by from 'that' US newspaper article.
First, have a look at the status of women in Syria.
Feel free to look around. And when you're done here, if your craving for the real feelings of Syrians isn't satisfied, you must visit:
Syria Planet, it re-posts what every known Syrian blog is saying.
And have a look at Syria Comment for some of the most informed words on this beautiful country.
Don't forget - Syria wants PEACE. Syria has repeatedly asked for peace talks WITHOUT CONDITIONS with Israel and America. Why haven't we got an answer? Letters on a postcard please (or in the comments section if you can't afford a postcard).
More from ABC News's Diane Sawyer, this time on Bashar's wife Asma. A quote: "The couple famously lives in a modest home with three children that they drive to school themselves. They still protect family dinners and even bike through villages. She has already begun programs to excite Syria's children about business and challenge them to compete in a global world."
Before we get started, this is a must see - oh my god, her accent is SO English. (The video content is different to the article below).
Feb. 6, 2007 — Her husband, the president of Syria, is crazy about her. Asma Akhras Al-Assad is the first lady of Syria.
Her Syrian title is "al akilatu al rais" — simply translated to "the president's wife." But make no mistake, this beautiful, athletic woman is a force for her country's future.
"Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer first saw her at one of her charity projects called Basma, which means "smile" in Arabic. The charity supports a cancer center.
She sent word she was not ready to give on-camera interviews, but greeted the crew warmly and in her perfect British English ventured a statement about the cause.
"A real example of the way that Syrians from all walks of life have come together and taken responsibility and making a real difference in their communities," Assad said.
Later, Sawyer met her at one of her private offices overlooking Damascus at sunset, where the pair sat for two hours, talking about Assad's country in the new century and her life.
She grew up very much part of two worlds. Born in Britain, she is the daughter of a Syrian cardiologist and speaks perfect Arabic, French and Spanish.
After college she says she loved working on Wall Street in New York and in Paris and London as a banker with J.P. Morgan. She was contemplating an MBA at Harvard.
In 2000, she decided to marry a family acquaintance — a tall quiet man who happened to be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
After the private wedding, she spent three months out of view, traveling quietly, sometimes anonymously in jeans and a T-shirt, to meet the people of her country, take note of hopes and needs, sit among the farmers to ask about their crops and devise plans for microloans she passionately tries to promote today.
Her official introduction to the world came when she and her husband returned to England to meet the queen.
The couple famously lives in a modest home with three children that they drive to school themselves. They still protect family dinners and even bike through villages. She has already begun programs to excite Syria's children about business and challenge them to compete in a global world.
"She's an amazing woman. Ever since she got here she got deep into things in every single sector," said Thala Khair, founder of a Syrian private school. "As much as she's working for women's rights, she's working on children's rights and culture."
The cancer center where we first met her is breaking ground in Syria — the private and public sector working together. The children show her pictures they drew in therapy — drawings with names like "magic."
So while the world debates the intentions of her husband on the world's stage, the two of them remain symbols of a new generation in the Middle East. The former doctor and the former banker were schooled in England, are steeped in Syria and, she might say, are asking the West for a new conversation about a new day.
Bashar talks to America - full interview on ABC News
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's given a long sit down interview with ABC's Good Morning America about Iraq. It is a rare event. Full video here.
Some quotes: "We are the main player."
"What's the benefit of democracy if you're dead."
On the insurgents: "They have to stop looking for scapegoats and whipping boys...you can't stoke the fire because it will burn you." But Syria needs American and Iraqi help.
On intelliegence sharing: "We have to and we are willing to co-operate with the rest of the world on terrorism." (That answer followed this question: "Do you know where Osama bin Laden is?").
Who do you admire the most: "President Bush, the elder, and Clinton, because they had the will to achieve peace."
Diane Sawyer also has some interesting feature pieces:
Ad Blitz Satirizes Lebanon's Divides Provocative Signs Target Pervasive Sectarianism By Anthony Shadid Washington Post Tuesday, November 28, 2006
BEIRUT, Nov. 27 -- The evening was tense, as most are these days in Beirut, its Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Druze perched imprecisely between war and peace. Malak Beydoun, a young woman, pulled her car into a parking lot in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh. She peered at a billboard overhead, alarmed and then indignant.
"Parking for Maronites only," it read.
Beydoun recoiled. "How did they know that I was a Shiite?" she remembered asking herself.
Part provocation, part appeal -- with a dose of farce that doesn't feel all that farcical -- advertisements went up this month on 300 billboards across the Lebanese capital and appeared in virtually every newspaper in the country. Thousands of e-mails carried the ads across the Internet to expatriates. Each offered its take on what one of the campaign's creative directors called a country on the verge of "absurdistan" -- cooking lessons by Greek Orthodox, building for sale to Druze, hairstyling by an Armenian Catholic, a fashion agency looking for "a beautiful Shiite face." At the bottom, the ads read in English, "Stop sectarianism before it stops us," or, more bluntly in Arabic, "Citizenship is not sectarianism."
The campaign, designed for free by an ad agency and promoted by a civil society group, has forced Lebanon to look at itself at a time when the country is spiraling into one of its worst political crises in years. The timing was coincidental, the message universal, in a landscape with ever dwindling common ground: The forces that dragged Lebanon into one civil war are threatening another.
Many have praised the ads for asking uncomfortable, even taboo questions about a system in which sectarian affiliation determines everything from the identity of the president to loyalty to sports teams. Some have mistaken the campaign for reality. Across the capital, one in six billboards was torn down, prevented from being put up or splashed with paint, usually the tactic of choice for conservative Muslims irked by lingerie ads.
From Damascus to London via Beirut. Based in and out of the central Damascene hamlet of Saroujah.
News and feelings from the streets every day. I'm talking rubbish? Leave a comment. Welcome to the information democracy.
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