Tuesday 18 June 2013
They found a part of a hand in rue Ibrahim el-Mounzer today, along with some intestines – no one doubted ownership of the thumb that was discovered, still pressing the button of a mobile phone.
It is as rare as a Roman inscription, as poor quality as a cheap reproduction, but it is the real thing – "L'Unita', 17 August, 1924" – and the headline is heavy with menace: "The body of Giacomo Matteotti recovered at Riano Flaminio."
How the government howled. With the help of a neighbouring state, 'terrorists' were trying to destroy the government and its army, blowing up and murdering its supporters.
How the government howled. With the help of a neighbouring state, "terrorists" were trying to destroy the government and its army, blowing up and murdering its supporters.
Lawrence Durrell and the Middle East? Yes, we've all read The Alexandria Quartet. But Shakespeare could produce Macbeth and the grotesque Titus Andronicus. Eliot could write Gerontion, yet turn patriot in The Defence of the Islands.
Israeli President "Bibi" Netanyahu on Guy Fawkes. The super-terrorist plans to blow up parliament and the King; the very nation will be liquidated.
On sale outside the Louvre's spanking new exhibition of Islamic art this weekend was a magazine headline to engage any reader.
A Damascus friend of mine called this weekend and was pretty chipper. "You know, we're all sorry about Christopher Stevens. This kind of thing is terrible and he was a good friend to Syria – he understood the Arabs.
The Syrian general opened an envelope and upended its contents on his desk.
They came into the room one by one, heads bowed, wrists crossed in front of them as if they were used to wearing handcuffs.
Sunday is a good day to drive to Maaloula. There are fig and olive trees and grapes by the road and, for a time, you can forget that Syria is enduring an epic tragedy.
When Syrian gunmen stormed Damascus last month, an angry, middle-aged and bespectacled man appeared on state television with a harsh message for Syria's “enemies”.
When Syrian gunmen stormed Damascus last month, an angry, middle-aged and bespectacled man appeared on state television with a harsh message for Syria's "enemies".
The massacre town of Daraya is a place of ghosts and questions. It echoed with the roar of mortar explosions and the crackle of gunfire yesterday, its few returning citizens talking of death, assault, foreign "terrorists", and its cemetery of slaughter haunted by snipers.
The battle for Damascus could be heard inside the Foreign Minister's office yesterday, a vibration of mortars and tank fire from the suburbs of the capital that penetrated Walid Muallem's inner sanctum, a dangerous heartbeat to match the man's words.
Every day, a new massacre is reported in Syria. Yesterday, it was Daraya. Slaughter by Syrian troops, according to those opposed to Bashar al-Assad. Slaughter by Bashar's "terrorist" opponents, the Syrian army said, producing the wife of a soldier whom they said had been shot and left for dead in a Daraya graveyard.
In Aleppo, the rich have already left, the middle classes stay at home and the poor suffer.
A victorious army? There were cartridge cases all over the ancient stone laneways, pocked windows, and bullet holes up the side of the Sharaf mosque, where a gunman had been firing from the minaret. A sniper still fired just 150 yards away – all that was left of more than a hundred rebels who had almost, but not quite, encircled the 4,000-year-old citadel of Aleppo.
You know it's all true when the taxi driver turns off the motorway towards Aleppo. In front lies a mile of empty road, disappearing into the heat haze on its way to one of the oldest cities in the world.
Mortars crashed into the middle-class streets around us and a T-72 tank baked in the heat under a road viaduct, but Bashar al-Assad's most senior operational commander in Aleppo – a 53-year-old Major-General with 33 years in the military and two bullet wounds from last month's battles in Damascus – claims he can "clean" the whole province of Aleppo from "terrorists" in 20 days.
Barack touches down in Belfast
Thousands turn out in the rain
Pubs, clubs and parties
Internet and technology giants including Google and Microsoft are to be summoned to a meeting in Westminster where they will come under "unrelenting" pressure to do more to tackle online child porn.
Leading scientists and meteorologists are meeting at the Met Office to discuss the UK's unusual weather patterns in recent years.
A driver suspected of killing a man trying to dribble a football 10,000 miles from Seattle to Brazil for the World Cup has been arrested, police said.
Adam Ashley-Cooper insists Brian O'Driscoll remains as dangerous as ever as the rivals prepare to meet for the first time in Saturday's opening Test between Australia and the British and Irish Lions.
Brian O'Driscoll feels being on this year's British and Irish Lions tour is helping to keep him young.
Joe Kinnear risked alienating the Newcastle fans further by claiming to have "more intelligence than them".
Thousands of fans brought Times Square to a standstill as they waited to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt at his premiere for World War Z.
Katy Perry "goes there" with Vogue about two of her high-profile relationships, as the magazine's July cover story.
Barry Cryer has criticised today's sitcoms for lacking believable characters.
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