The morning from east #Aleppo: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Street Execution of Civilians in Aleppo. Human rights activists and informed sources have reported that Bashar Assad’s forces and their allies (Iranian regime’s affiliated militants) have executed at least 200 people in four districts of East Aleppo. According to Al-Hadath TV Network, based on these reports, medical staff of Al-Hayat Hospital in Classeh neighborhood in Aleppo are among those executed. These people were executed by firing bullets. In addition, the Assad regime’s allied militants have brutally burned 9 children and 4 women alive in Al-Ferdows neighborhood in Aleppo. This is despite the fact that the manager of Aleppo’s emergency (department) says there is no hospital left in the East of the city to help the wounded.The activists say that most executions were carried out by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants in street and summary-like executions. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Hezbollah of Lebanon as well as Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan Shiite militants form allied forces of Syrian regime. These allies enjoy Russia’s air support. These events coincide with the advance of Syrian regime forces and their allies in regions of East Aleppo on Monday, December 12.: photo via National Council of Resistance of Iran, 13 December 2016
One of the #Assad militants Holding #Palestine Flag and Victory sign in #Umayyad_Mosque, I would like to remember you it's Not #Jerusalem: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
#Aleppo while ago..: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Those who's been bombed by #Assad and #Russian since years, the #Syrian displacement by Assad sponsored by @UN @UNICEF @hrw: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Those who's been bombed by #Assad and #Russian since years, the #Syrian displacement by Assad sponsored by @UN @UNICEF @hrw: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Those who's been bombed by #Assad and #Russian since years, the #Syrian displacement by Assad sponsored by @UN @UNICEF @hrw: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Those who's been bombed by #Assad and #Russian since years, the #Syrian displacement by Assad sponsored by @UN @UNICEF @hrw: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Preparing the Injury cases in East #Aleppo to be the first group of civilians will be evacuated from #Aleppo toward East countryside: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
The Rebels start burning their vehicles instead of leave it for the #Assad militants in East #Aleppo: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Members of Revolutionary Council of Salahidden start burning their place in #Aleppo to don't let #Assad members and supporters take any memory: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Members of Revolutionary Council of Salahidden start burning their place in #Aleppo to don't let #Assad members and supporters take any memory: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Members of Revolutionary Council of Salahidden start burning their place in #Aleppo to don't let #Assad members and supporters take any memory: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
Members of Revolutionary Council of Salahidden start burning their place in #Aleppo to don't let #Assad members and supporters take any memory: image via Ahmad Alkhatib @AhmadAlkhtiib, 13 December 2016
A member of Syria’s government forces in Aleppo: photo by George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
A member of Syria’s government forces in Aleppo: photo by George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
Residents who had fled the violence in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood reached Aleppo’s Fardos area on Tuesday: photo by Agence France-Presse, 12 December 2016
Residents who had fled the violence in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood reached Aleppo’s Fardos area on Tuesday: photo by Agence France-Presse, 12 December 2016
The journey from eastern Aleppo has been perilous for civilians, some of them older people in wheelchairs: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
The journey from eastern Aleppo has been perilous for civilians, some of them older people in wheelchairs: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
About 37,000 people have fled eastern Aleppo for western areas of the city or the countryside, according to the United Nations: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
About 37,000 people have fled eastern Aleppo for western areas of the city or the countryside, according to the United Nations: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
Government troops have seized areas of the old city around Aleppo’s citadel, used as an army base: photo byOmar Sanadiki/Reuters, 13 December 2016
Government troops have seized areas of the old city around Aleppo’s citadel, used as an army base: photo byOmar Sanadiki/Reuters, 13 December 2016
Government fighters celebrate as they seize eastern Aleppo. The United Nations has accused pro-government forces of killing women and children as they took the city.: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
Government fighters celebrate as they seize eastern Aleppo. The United Nations has accused pro-government forces of killing women and children as they took the city.: photo by Agence France-Presse, 13 December 2016
I rarely see so much suffering like here in Mahalej where thousands of people from East #Aleppo live now. Their situation breaks my heart: image via Pawel Krzysiek @PKrzsiekiCRC, 12 December 2016
The morning from East Aleppo: Don't let them take any memory
#Syria Smoke billows from the former rebel-held district of Bustan al-Qasr in #Aleppo #AFP Photo by @KaramAlmasri25: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 13 December 2016
Battle of Aleppo ends after years of bloodshed with rebel withdrawal: by Laila Bassam, Angus McDowell and Stephanie Nebehay | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT/GENEVA, Reuters, 13 December 2016 | 6:39pm EST
Rebel resistance in the Syrian city of Aleppo ended on Tuesday after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody retreat, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire.
The battle of Aleppo, one of the worst of a civil war that has drawn in global and regional powers, has ended with victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military coalition of Russia, Iran and regional Shi'ite militias.
For rebels, their expected departure with light weapons starting on Wednesday morning for opposition-held regions west of the city is a crushing blow to their hopes of ousting Assad after revolting against him during the 2011 Arab uprisings.
However, the war will still be far from over, with insurgents retaining major strongholds elsewhere in Syria, and the jihadist Islamic State group holding swathes of the east and recapturing the ancient city of Palmyra this week.
"Over the last hour we have received information that the military activities in east Aleppo have stopped, it has stopped," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told a heated U.N. Security Council meeting. "The Syrian government has established control over east Aleppo."
Rebel officials said fighting would end on Tuesday night and a source in the pro-Assad military alliance said the evacuation of fighters would begin at around dawn on Wednesday. A Reuters reporter in Aleppo said late on Tuesday that the booms of the bombardment could no longer be heard.
Fighters and their families, along with civilians who have thrown in their lot with the rebels, will have until Wednesday evening to quit the city, a Turkish government source said. The ceasefire was negotiated by Turkey and Russia, without U.S. involvement.
A commander with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group said that Aleppo was a moral victory for the insurgents. "We were steadfast ... but unfortunately nobody stood with us at all", the commander, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. "UNCOMPROMISING VICTORY"
The plight of civilians has caused global outrage in the wake of a sudden series of advances by the Syrian army and its allies across the rebel enclave over the past two weeks.
"We appear to be witnessing nothing less than ... a total uncompromising military victory," U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a "complete meltdown of humanity". There were food and water shortages in rebel areas with all hospitals closed.
The United Nations earlier on Tuesday voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of "slaughter".
People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria: photo byAbdalrhman Ismail/Reuters, 13 December 2016
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes," said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. "There could be many more."
"They have gone from siege to slaughter," British U.N. ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. "Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later - Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica and now Aleppo," said U.S. ambassador Samantha Power.
The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had "kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields".
An official with an Aleppo rebel group said the bulk of about 50,000 people was expected to be evacuated.
Fear stalked the city's streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army's arrival.
For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of bombardment. "People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die," said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts. WASTELAND OF RUBBLE
A Syrian military source said the evacuation of fighters would start at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Wednesday. The source said fighters' families would also leave, but did not mention other civilian evacuations.
"We're going to watch this closely," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said. "Obviously if it is true and there has been a ceasefire arrangement reached that not only stops the bombing and the violence but allows people to safely leave Aleppo, we would welcome it."
Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.
The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.
The U.N.'s Colville said the rebel-held area had become "a hellish corner" of less than a square kilometer. Its capture was imminent, he added.
The Syrian army and its allies could declare victory at any moment, a Syrian military source had said earlier, predicting the final fall of the rebel enclave on Tuesday or Wednesday, after insurgent defenses collapsed on Monday. Terrible conditions were described by city residents.
Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. "There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.
"Last night people slept in the streets and in buildings where every flat has several families crowded in," he added. TIDE OF REFUGEES
State television broadcast footage of a tide of hundreds of refugees walking along a ravaged street, wearing thick clothes against the rain and cold, many with hoods or hats pulled tight around their faces, and hauling sacks or bags of belongings.
One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.
At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.
In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or "Ali's mother", said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.
They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.
In another building near al-Shaar district, which was taken by the army last week, a man was fixing the balcony of his house with his children. "No matter the circumstances, our home is better than displacement," he said.
"The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement.
Syrian military sources say a truce has been reached allowing rebels out of their enclave in Aleppo: image via Reuters TV @ReutersTV, 13 December 2016
'Get us out of here': Aleppo residents desperate as the four-month siege nears its end.: image via Reuters TV @ReutersTV, 13 December 2016
The ‘Kongl. Teknologkoren’ choir performs in Seglora church at the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden on Saint Lucy’s Day: photo by Outhenrik Montgomery/AFP, 13 December 2016
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The ‘Kongl. Teknologkoren’ choir performs in Seglora church at the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden on Saint Lucy’s Day: photo by Outhenrik Montgomery/AFP, 13 December 2016
John Donne: A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, Being the shortest day
Sun's daily path, from summer to winter #solstice... captured with a beer-can pinhole camera!: image via Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell, 21 December 2014
Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes, Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
..The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks ..Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes; ....The worlds whole sap is sunke: The generall balme th’ hydroptique earth hath drunk, Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke, Dead and enterr’d; yet all these seem to laugh, Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers bee At the next world, that is, at the next Spring: ..For I am every dead thing, ..In whom love wrought new Alchimie. ....For his art did expresse A quintessence even from nothingnesse, From dull privations, and leane emptinesse He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that’s good, Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have; ..I, by loves limbecke, am the grave ..Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood ....Have wee two wept, and so Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow To be two Chaosses, when we did show Care to ought else; and often absences Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death (which word wrongs her) Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown; ..Were I a man, that I were one, ..I needs must know; I should preferre, ....If I were any beast, Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest, And love; all, all some properties invest; If I an ordinary nothing were, As shadow, a light, and body must be here.
But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew. You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne ..At this time to the Goat is runne ..To fetch new lust, and give it you, ....Enjoy your summer all; Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall, Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.
John Donne (1572-1631): A nocturnall upon S.Lucies day, Being the shortest day: from Poems (1633)
Low #solstice sun casts a 1000-mile long cloud shadow to north of UK: image via BBC Weather @bbcweather, 21 December 2014
U.S. Energy Department balks at Trump request for names on climate change: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 13 December 2016 As daylight advances the crowds get bigger, the drizzle gets heavier and the clouds thicker #solstice at #newgrange: image via Richard Dowling @richardowling, 21 December 2014
The crowd beginning to gather outside the 5,000 year old passage tomb at #newgrange for the #solstice: image via Richard Dowling @richardowling, 20 December 2016
#newgrange today. Utterly astonishing place. #solstice: image via Neil Morrow @mrneilmorow, 21 December 2014
The Druid ‘king of Britain’, Arthur Uther Pendragon, conducts a service: photo by Ben Birchall/PA, 22 December 2014
Last week English Heritage, which manages the stones, reported a record 1.3 million people had visited the site since December 2013: photo by Velar Grant/ZUMA Press, 22 December 2014
A woman meditates between standing stones at Stonehenge. If you share the beliefs of ancients pagans, this is the holiest time of the year, with the sunlight creating startling effects on Britain’s late neolithic and early bronze age monuments: photo by Ben Birchall/PA, 22 December 2014
Hundreds of people gather at Stonehenge in Wiltshire each year to watch the sun rise in perfect alignment with the stones: photo by Ben Birchall/PA, 22 December 2014
The Druidan name for the winter solstice festival is Alban Arthan, which means ‘the light of Arthur': photo by Ben Birchall/PA, 22 December 2014
Musicians walk around the site, pounding drums, chanting and dancing: photo by Velar Grant/ZUMA Press, 22 December 2014
A caped reveller celebrates the dawn. The popularity of the winter solstice, a quieter and gentler affair than its summer counterpart, has grown in recent years: photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters, 22 December 2014
#Winter solstice=shortest day of year in northern hemisphere and excuse 2 RT this from my power #walk at #Stonehenge: image via Curtis S. Chin @CurtisSChin, 21 December 2014
An Iraqi girl looks out the window of her family house at Namrod village in Iraq: photo Mohammed Salem/Reuters, 13 December 2016
An Iraqi girl looks out the window of her family house at Namrod village in Iraq: photo Mohammed Salem/Reuters, 13 December 2016
Indian fisherman from Koli community collects fish and prawns caught from the Arabian Sea at the Gorai beach in Mumbai, India: photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA, 13 December 2016
Indian fisherman from Koli community collects fish and prawns caught from the Arabian Sea at the Gorai beach in Mumbai, India: photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA, 13 December 2016
This photo shows a Japanese cargo ship before it arrives with Christmas gifts to the International Space Station. The capsule contains nearly 5 tons of food, water, batteries and other supplies. NASA said there also are Christmas presents for the two Americans, three Russians and one Frenchman on board.: photo by NASA/AP, 13 December 2016
This photo shows a Japanese cargo ship before it arrives with Christmas gifts to the International Space Station. The capsule contains nearly 5 tons of food, water, batteries and other supplies. NASA said there also are Christmas presents for the two Americans, three Russians and one Frenchman on board.: photo by NASA/AP, 13 December 2016
