Syria Bans iPhone, Protest App

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that with 4,000 people killed in Syria since March, the government has banned the iPhone and threatened confiscation and prosecution for anyone found with an iPhone as the government tries to control information getting out of the country. Most international media have been banned from Syria since the uprising began, so footage of the violent crackdown has primarily come from activists filming material themselves and posting it on the internet. A mobile app for the iPhone called Souria Wa Bas (which roughly translates as 'Syria and That's All') covers the actions of opposition groups, including the Local Coordination Committees which claim to have members across the country and includes links for news, videos, and a map of opposition hot spots. The app's creators say they produced Souria Wa Bas to counter regime accounts of the opposition's activities. 'Under the fast-moving events in Syria and the deliberate attempts to distort the facts by some. We have compiled the most important Syrian news sources available,' say creators of the app at the Apple store."

Jobs vs Assad

[wombatmobile]

Steve Jobs' biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandali, is a native of Syria. He recently expressed his support [dailymail.co.uk] for the pro-democracy protesters

Let me make this easier for all of us

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Syria_Oil_Map.gif

There.

And now lets go and help those poor people there.

Re:So...

[Hadlock]

When we discover a valuable mineral deposit we can't get from a less war-torn nation. Why don't we send some freedom to the FARC occupied territories of northern Columbia, ending the cocaine trade forever? Because it would cost $100 billion and 100,000 US Soldier lives.
 
Freedom is really damn expensive, as it turns out. Ask the British, WWII nearly bankrupted their country, and we still had to write off most of the debt we loaned them.
 
Freedom used to be a lot cheaper. You can grow a full replacement army of humans every 15-20 years, but Tanks, Jets, Bombers, Aircraft Carriers etc have to be purchased with Gold and Gold Equivalents. When they break you can't just send them to the hospital for a few weeks before going back to the front lines. Machines need a whole additional set of parts, logistics and mechanics that you have to pay for.

Re:Steve Jobs

[JWW]

WTF?! I wish I had mod points so I could mod you -1 Tasteless

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Syria does have large oil deposits, and is an exporter of oil to Europe. [wikipedia.org] Granted, it doesn't seem that way when compared to giants like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Iran, et al, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Thanks to Syria's low population of 22 million, there's not much demand for that oil, so they can export it, just like other Arab countries.

Also, the reason there is no Western intervention in Syria like there was in Libya was that Russia & China have openly opposed it, and made it clear that they're not going to stand for it. Neither of them were happy about the way the Libyan civil war ended - with an enhanced influence for NATO, so they sent the signals early that they won't tolerate Western intervention here. As it is, Syria is currently a proxy battleground between Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Qatar on the rebel side, and Iran, Iraq & Hizbullah on the Assad regime's side.

In any case, sending freedom their way is a bad idea, as it has been in Egypt, Libya & Tunisia. It's not going to result in democratic pluralism, but just a way for Islamic parties to take over in an election, just like they have won in Egypt, Tunisia & Morocco, and become Islamic theocracies, almost like Iran, except that they'd be Sunnite instead of Shiite as in Iran or Lebanon.