Merry Christmas! Sadly, the World Food Program has had their funding cut by 60 percent. Also, we are currently listed among the Top Five Syria-related podcasts on Feedspot.com (https://podcasts.feedspot.com/syria_podcasts/). Check us out there and help us get up to the #1 spot.  Sources / Quotes:   https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-forced-scale-down-operations-syria-donors-gather-brussels-ahead-major-conference   https://www.wfp.org/news/tight-funding-forces-wfp-reduce-food-assistance-syrian-refugees-jordan-including-camps   https://www.unhcr.org/us/emergencies/venezuela-situati ..read more

The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades. This prompts Bashar al-Assad to authorize a campaign of repression across Syria, among the earliest of his crimes against humanity. Also, we are currently listed among the Top Five Syria-related podcasts on Feedspot.com (https://podcasts.feedspot.com/syria_podcasts/). Check us out there and help us get up to the ..read more

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing. The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades. Also, we are currently listed among the Top Five Syria-related podcasts on Feedspot.com https://podcasts.feedspot.com/syria_podcasts/. Check us out there and help us get u ..read more

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing. The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades. Sources / Quotes: Civil War in Syria by Baczko, et. al The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled by Dr. Wendy Pearlman Assad or ..read more

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.   The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.   Sources / Quotes:   Civil War in Syria by Baczko, et. al   The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh   We Crossed a Bridge an ..read more

We're breaking up Episode 15 - Crimes Against Humanity (June 24 to July 31, 2011) into four smaller episodes before putting out the full thing.   The Assad regime starts to crack under the pressure of increasingly large, passionate, cross-sectarian protests. Millions of people are taking to the streets and voicing dissent for the first time in their lives, putting the regime's legitimacy in doubt for the first time in decades.   Sources / Quotes:   Civil War in Syria by Baczko, et. al   The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh   We Crossed a Bridge and It Tremb ..read more

Explaining the absence and examining the Syrian refugee crisis, as well as the situation for refugees across the world in 2022. Sources / Quotes: “Boat carrying Syrian refugees lands in Southern Italy,” Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-italy-boat-idUSBRE8780L720120809    “Syria Refugee Crisis Explained,” The UN Refugee Agency https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/#:~:text=More%20than%206.8%20million%20Syrians,in%20T%C3%BCrkiye%2C%20Lebanon%20and%20Jordan.    “Eleven years on, mounting challenges push many displaced Syrians to ..read more

Bernd Debusmann was a young Reuters bureau chief when Lebanon imploded into civil war and anarchy in the 1970s, during which Syria and Hafez al-Assad became intimately involved the conflict.   This talented and daring journalist took to war-torn Beirut like a duck to water, risking his life to interview combatants on all sides and civilians caught in the cross-fire, eventually running afoul of the Assad regime for reporting on their intervention in Lebanon and atrocities committed in Syria.   This prompted Syrian intelligence officers to threaten his life. Several Western journalists ..read more

We're starting a new holiday tradition, an episode focused on refugees and other humanitarian issues in Syria.   As early as 2011, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee the country. Today, more than six million displaced Syrians are demonized by hateful individuals and political movements all over the world.   Mesud (@MaybeMesud on Twitter) describes how he and his family were forced to leave Aleppo and the challenges they faced not only during the journey but also while establishing a new life in Turkey.   Sources “Nearly 10,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey,” Yahoo! News ..read more

How do you organize a leaderless movement?   The Syrian Revolution was a decentralized movement of localized cells, but enterprising activists still managed to coordinate with each other and reach out to the outside world.   We examine how the Local Coordination Committees attempted to create a post-Assad government before speaking to a civil society activist who still resides in Syria. We also speak with Ahmad, an engineer and civil society activist who has spent the last ten years enduring horror after horror and tragedy after tragedy in order to establish a Free Syria.   Ahma ..read more