Good Saturday,
Top of the agenda again is Syria, where two government MP’s have resigned in reaction to President Bashar al-Assad’s handling of the situation. Nine more protesters were shot dead by his forces during a mass funeral (for victims of the same fate) yesterday. You really do start to wonder whether these leaders have any marbles left at all.
President al-Assad (pictured above) reportedly has a firm grip on his security forces, so it is unlikely that the military will turn on him and side with the protesters, as they did in Egypt. All in all, it is felt that his regime will be a tough nut to crack.
Commentators are also saying that because Syria has actually been so stable over the years (relatively speaking) – if everything were to go arse over tit for them now, the consequences for the rest of the Middle East would be severe. Syria is, politically speaking, the glue that holds plenty of shaky peace deals together. If you want to know about this in any more detail, you shall have to navigate away from this site because it really is too complicated and murky to go into for News Abridged purposes.
Over in Libya, Gaddafi looks like he might have given up on pelting the city of Misurta and left it in the hands of the rebels. But you never really know with him. It’s entirely possible that he’ll be back.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Pakistan has said it is fed up with US drones (bomb dropping aircrafts that are so clever and automatic, they don’t need pilots) striking their country. The US does a lot of this – and for clarity, they are targeting al-Qaeda, not Pakistan. Al-Qaeda – being a terrorist network rather than a settled camp – resides in little pockets all over the world, and America feels they need to be blasted out of anywhere they choose to hide, Pakistan being one example. America argues that if Pakistani’s were better at getting rid of al-Qaeda on their own, they wouldn’t need to intervene. Pakistan accuses America of being careless and killing civilians by accident in their attacks – which, of course, happens all the time when guns come out.
So is anything going on in the Western world?
Yes. One story which will leave you inspired, bemused and inadequate in equal measure…
As marathon runners from around the world are still nursing their sore feet post last weeks London race, one man from Cambridge is gearing up for more. Sam Robson – running addict extraordinaire – finished the London Marathon in a nippy 3 hours and 45 minutes… and didn’t stop running. He continued through the night for a further 99 miles, without stopping, until he reached his hometown of St. Ives. All to raise more money for his charity – ‘The Epilepsy Society.’ In effect, he ran the Marathon almost 5 times in one go. Crazy wonderful.
See you tomorrow.
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