• Everybody picked up on a UN report accusing the Syrian army of using kids as human shields. This Daily Telegraph snippet sums it all up:
The report said children were being tortured in detention, forced to fight, made victims of sexual violence and executed.
The UN’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict named Syria as one of the worst offenders on its annual “list of shame” of conflict countries.
• A new pan-Arab satellite channel was launched to “balance out” Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring. According to AP, the people behind the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen (The Squares) feel Arab coverage of the uprisings is biased against the Iranian and Syrian regimes.
Bin Jiddo has pledged a balanced and professional approach at Al-Mayadeen, but his background has skeptics wondering whether the station will simply be a mouthpiece for Iran and Syria. Bin Jiddo used to lead Al-Jazeera’s Beirut operations and was the only journalist who was granted an interview by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
AP adds that George Galloway is already on board to host a weekly show.
• Worth reading from Sky News:
Syria: Destruction And Propaganda On The Front Line
• McClatchy News: Syrian rebels use explosive “drone trucks.”
Unlike the car bombs that U.S. troops came to fear during the Iraq war, this vehicle wasn’t driven by a young fanatic set on martyrdom. In fact, it wasn’t really driven at all. Rather, it was piloted – by remote control. Its pilot remained safely concealed in a nearby house as he steered the truck around a corner, then accelerated it into the stronghold wall.
• For several hours yesterday, there was live streaming video coming out of Homs. As The Lede put it, “The images opened a brief and intensely immediate window into heavy fighting in the restive city.”
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Vanity Fair profiles Benjamin Netanyahu.
• A new US law allows Israelis to receive E2 investor visas. The Jerusalem Post writes:
Among those eligible for the investors’ visa are businesspeople and representatives of companies who have made significant investments in the United States or opened businesses there.
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
Clicking “Unsubscribe instantly” on your mailing will remove you from the Israel Daily News Stream list, but not from your regular HonestReporting emails.
