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Early on a summer morning in the Jordanian desert, driving along an empty road toward the Syrian border. A skeletal hound limps by the roadside. An old man selling melons and coffee slumps on a crate and watches the dog. It's in the nineties already, and dust is everywhere. A gust picks up, and your lips are filmed with a gritty scum. After a few miles, signs start appearing for the crossings into Syria. In the villages here at night, you can sometimes hear the sounds of artillery fire thudding across the frontier; occasionally, a shell lands in Jordan. On the side of the road, in a shallow, sandy ravine, there's a small Bedouin encampment. You can see a tent bearing the blue, sun-faded letters U.N.H.C.R.—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A five-hundred-dollar tent goes for around a hundred dollars on the black market.
We arrive in Za'atari, a village six miles east of the city of Mafraq. Until a year ago, there was nothing much in the vicinity: some modest brick mosques and schools, a Royal Jordanian Air Force base. Za'atari, one aid worker told me, had been little more than "sand, snakes, and scorpions." The uprising in Syria, which began twenty-five miles away, in Dara'a, changed all that. The flow of refugees from Syria into Jordan reached such a point of emergency—thousands every night, evading sniper fire, crossing the frontier on foot—that Mafraq, to take just one city, doubled in size. Jordan, with a population of six million, many of them displaced Iraqis and Palestinians, could not go on absorbing limitless refugees. It became necessary to build a camp. During Ramadan last summer, the U.N.H.C.R., the Jordanians, and a laundry list of international aid organizations built and opened the Za'atari refugee camp in two weeks. One of the first things to be done was to overlay the sand with gravel, an expensive project intended to prevent sandstorms in summer and rivers of mud in the rainy winter. It didn't really work. There were sandstorms. There was mud. The snakes and the scorpions remained.
We pull up to the camp gate. There's a bustle of Royal Jordanian Army and police officers, honking cars, belching motorbikes, young boys pushing wheelbarrows and hawking cigarettes and vegetables, and even younger kids looking for something to do. An armored personnel carrier keeps watch at the gate. A soldier raps on our window. He leans in to check our documents and, after a hard, suspicious glance, waves us through.
When Za'atari opened, in July of 2012, its population numbered in the hundreds. By late August, it had fifteen thousand residents. Now that number is a hundred and twenty thousand—the population of Hartford, Connecticut, or Santa Clara, California. The main drag is on the western side of the camp, a boulevard of ramshackle shops, makeshift clinics, schools. The smells are city smells: sewage, sweat, cigarette smoke, eau de cologne, meat roasting on spits. The boulevard is known to the Syrians and the aid workers as the Champs-Élysées.
Since the revolt began in Syria, more than two years ago, the death count has passed a hundred thousand. In Za'atari, the dispossession is absolute. Everyone has lost his country, his home, his equilibrium. Most have lost a family member or a close friend to the war. What is left is a kind of theatrical pride, the necessary performance of will. "This place is a graveyard for camels," a refugee in his thirties named Ahmed Bakar told me one morning. "Camels can't even live here. But Syrians can."
In every tent and trailer, there are stories of personal horror. On the eastern edge of the camp, in District 8, I called on a family of women. Fatima, a solidly built farmer in her fifties, asked me not to publish her real name or the name of her village. If I did, she said, the moment she returned home the Syrian Army would hunt her down and kill her—"and everyone I know." She glared and pulled back her hijab just enough for me to see her gray hair. She told me how terrible it would be to "betray" a woman of her age. "So you promise, then?"
We sat on the floor of her broiling caravan, as the mobile-home trailers are called. She introduced her two daughters. Iman, who is twelve, sat by her side; she had lost most of her right leg. The elder daughter, Inas, is twenty-five; on her left leg, she wore a cast up to her knee. She had just had surgery for shrapnel wounds. For the first year of the war, the family had lived as before. Fatima and her husband and their children owned a small house in a village and tended their olive trees. They had food, electricity, running water. They were able to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. "We had a beautiful life," Fatima said. The family's relation to the politics of Damascus and the world beyond consisted precisely of what was expected of them: They had pledged allegiance to Hafez al-Assad, as they had been taught on television and in the schools, and, after the old man died, in 2000, they had high hopes for his son, Bashar. When Hezbollah engaged Israel in battle, in 2006, the family again followed the lead of Syrian television and pledged allegiance to Hezbollah. They had, she said, "no reason in the world" to expect that Bashar's Army would turn his artillery on their village, or that Hezbollah, fighting the rebels in support of Bashar's regime, would cross the border from Lebanon and threaten their lives.
One day this May, shells began falling on their fields, on the houses of the village. Fatima said, "My husband called me and told me to leave and go with my sons. They were in the eighth and fourth grade. They ran out fast, and I grabbed their shoes and ran after them. While I was running, a rocket came from behind and whistled over my head. Just like that!" She made a motion with her hand. "And then the rocket came in and hit! It exploded out ahead of me."
After the explosion, Fatima realized that the rocket had struck her two sons and one of her neighbors. Fatima got up and saw the pile of bodies. "My neighbor's body lay over my son. I lifted him off and there was my son with shrapnel sticking out of his back. And the other."
Fatima wandered through the fields. Finally, she found her husband.
"Where are the boys?" he said.
"Your sons are dead," she said.
The fierce, flat way that Fatima recounted her words to her husband left the sense that she was punishing him with the news and, now, punishing herself in the recollection.
Fatima's husband and a third daughter are in Syria now, living in a neighboring village. He watches over their farmland and sheep. Fatima took her wounded daughters to Jordan mainly for the medical help. Like most other refugees, she depended on rebel fighters to get her across the border. The girls were treated at the Moroccan-Italian medical clinic in the camp. Fatima talks to her husband daily. He tells her that the shelling has grown worse. The war is more desperate. Still, she has every intention of returning. "Living in a tent in Syria is better than a mansion in Jordan," she says.
One morning, I spent a couple of hours at a military surveillance outpost on the border which is run by Brigadier General Mohammed Al-Habashneh. Along the border, the Jordan Armed Forces, with assistance from the West, have set up a network of cameras with a fifty-kilometre range that survey refugee movements. Inside a snug, air-conditioned bungalow, we watched a series of screens: in real time, small groups of Syrians—women and children, mostly—hustle to the border fence. Sometimes the Syrian Army fires on them and the Jordanian soldiers watch Syrians die. The Jordanians cannot help them until they reach the border. Those who make it across are greeted with an I.D. check, juice, bread, blankets, and a medical exam. This is a bewildering experience. "When they see our military uniforms, they are afraid, some of them," the General said. "Their Army is killing them. Our Army is giving them medication, water, and food."
The refugees often deliver news from the war. One spoke about a group of refugees from Homs who had headed south for Jordan the previous week. They stopped for the night to sleep in an abandoned school. They used their cell phones to call relatives elsewhere in Syria and Jordan. The Syrian Army used the calls to locate them and then bombed the school.
Historically, Syrians are accustomed to receiving refugees: Circassians, Armenians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Somalis. Now the Syrians are the ones being forced into exile. Since the war began, more than four million Syrians have been internally displaced, and more than a million and a half have fled the country, mainly to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. Some have gone by boat to Egypt, hoping to blend in with a bigger population; a few have made it to the Gulf; some have gone as far as Cuba and Brazil. But Jordan has borne the greatest proportion of the burden. Given the size of its population, one high-ranking Jordanian official told me, the scale of the influx is equivalent to thirty-three million Canadians or Mexicans entering the United States. And many officials think that the number of Syrian refugees in Jordan could double by the end of the year. A new camp called Azraq is being built to the east of the industrial city of Zarqa; it is intended to hold as many as a hundred and thirty thousand refugees.
More than ninety per cent of the refugees in Za'atari are from Dara'a; that is, they are either from the towns and villages of Dara'a province, a region of just under a million people, or from the city of Dara'a, the provincial capital, which has a population of eighty thousand. These southern refugees are generally more rural, less educated, and less prosperous than those from northern cities like Aleppo, who tend to go to Lebanon and Turkey.
The rebels consider Dara'a a kind of hero city, because it is where the Syrian uprising began. In March, 2011, the security police arrested fifteen boys, ranging in age from ten to fifteen, for spray-painting anti-regime slogans around town. They'd got the idea from watching on television the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. After the fall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, in Tunisia, and Hosni Mubarak, in Egypt, they wrote, "It's your turn, doctor"—a taunt directed at Bashar al-Assad, who was trained as an ophthalmologist in London. On March 18th, after Friday prayers at al-Omari Mosque, in Dara'a, thousands of people marched, demanding the boys' release. The marchers were met with water cannons and tear gas, and then with live fire. Four people were killed. Soon after, the boys were let go. They were in terrible shape, their faces swollen, their bodies bruised. Bashar's televised attempt to address the grievances of the people of Dara'a elicited general disdain. As the demonstrations in the area intensified, so did the repressive tactics of the government's forces. In those early days, rallies typically began with men, women, and children carrying olive branches and chanting for freedom and the fall of the regime. The Army nevertheless opened fire, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians.
By late April, Bashar's forces were laying siege to Dara'a, forbidding people to leave their homes. The Army cut off electricity, water, supplies, and communications, staged executions, and dug mass graves on the outskirts of the city. Shops and pharmacies were set aflame. There were mass arrests, and widespread and well-verified reports of torture and abuse: Tasers, electric batons, the rack, food and sleep deprivation. Demonstrations, and subsequent crackdowns, spread north to larger towns and cities, including Homs and Hama, where, in 1982, Hafez al-Assad's Army had slaughtered tens of thousands of Syrians to crush an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood. The exodus began.
One afternoon, I went to a tiny transit camp along the Syrian border. There were several trailers, a small command post, and some Jordanian soldiers. The officer in charge walked with me around the border. I tossed a pebble into Dara'a province. The soldiers brought the new arrivals to the transit camp and let them rest—men and boys in one trailer; women and girls in another—before moving them on to Za'atari.
I climbed into the caravan for men and boys. There was no furniture inside, just a linoleum floor, on which about thirty refugees sat. They appeared dazed, heat-stricken, yet many of them wore what seemed like all the clothes they had—shirts, sweaters, jackets.
The oldest man among them was named Ahmed Al-Atma. He was heavyset and sun-baked, with deep creases in his face and neck; his eyes were rheumy, and they wandered. He said that he was forty-eight. He lived in Sanamayn, a town north of Dara'a on the road to Damascus. In the twelfth century, the Crusader king of Jerusalem and the Muslim governor of Damascus signed a peace accord there. Now Sanamayn was known as one of the focal points of the first modern Syrian revolution. This did not give Ahmed any sense of historical pride. "I worked as a taxi-driver, but the Army bombed my car," he said. "There was nothing else to do but flee."
According to Ahmed, and to the murmurs of agreement in the trailer, the Syrian Army came into town more than two years ago, with fifteen tanks and hundreds of troops. His older brother died in the fighting. "Like everyone, I carried olive branches two years ago in demonstrations," he said. "The first five times, we were allowed to protest—for freedom. There was nothing said about Bashar al-Assad. We wanted reforms and freedom." No one has brandished an olive branch, on either side, in a long time.
Then Ahmed told me a story that has become, at least for the people of Dara'a, part of the revolution's creation myth. When one of the mothers of the boys who had been arrested appealed to Atef Najib, the head of security services in Dara'a and a cousin of Bashar's, he replied, "If your kids are disloyal to Bashar, the Army will fuck your women, and we will raise children who are loyal to him." In the days to come, I heard this story a dozen times from the refugees of Dara'a.
A younger man named Misleh Awad interrupted. He said that he had worked in a market and had taken part in the street demonstrations in Dara'a. The security forces "grabbed me up off the street. They said, 'We want to talk to you for five minutes.' " Misleh said that he was hustled off to prison. "They beat me all the time. They hanged me from my feet and beat me with a truncheon. I was released a month after the last time they tortured me, so there were no marks. These guys know what they're doing when it comes to torture." Misleh rolled up his sleeves to show me pockmarks on his shoulders and chest like chicken-pox scars. "They poured all kinds of garbage on me," he said. "I don't know why they released me. I think they just got bored of beating me."
The walk from Dara'a to the border usually takes a couple of days; sometimes refugees come carrying other refugees—the elderly, the disabled—on their shoulders, in chairs. A wheelchair does not glide easily across sand and ravines. But Misleh lived near the border, and he was on his own. The trek took him only four hours. His wife and daughter had left while he was in jail. They were waiting for him now at the refugee camp in Za'atari.
"His Majesty is out of town," said a press aide in the Royal Hashemite Court of Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein, the fourth king of Jordan in his line. The King was in the United States, as he often is, meeting with the President, diplomats, members of Congress, spies, and businessmen, or just riding a motorcycle on vacation. He likes the United States, which is, in some sense, both his benefactor and his second home. His services to Washington have included tacit support for the second Gulf War and the basement interrogations of prisoners captured by U.S. forces and suspected of terrorism. Not long before I arrived in Jordan, the King was host to Eager Lion, a twelve-day joint military exercise with American forces, which was intended to send signals of strength and solidarity to Syria and Iran. When the exercise was over, the U.S. left behind F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missile batteries, and hundreds of troops.
Abdullah was raised by an English mother, and educated at St. Edmund's, in Surrey, and at Deerfield Academy, in Massachusetts. The King's English is distinctly superior to the King's Arabic. In 1999, Abdullah was tutored over and over in the correct pronunciation of his first speech as King to the parliament. A few years ago, on "The Daily Show," Abdullah cracked that Jordan is situated "between Iraq and a hard place." He is not nearly as nimble in Arabic.
Even if Abdullah hadn't been travelling, the Royal Hashemite Court wouldn't have been especially keen to offer him up for questioning. He'd had a disastrously frank encounter with Jeffrey Goldberg, of The Atlantic, in which he was dismissive of constituents as diverse and essential as the Muslim Brotherhood (a "Masonic cult"), the country's tribal leadership ("old dinosaurs"), his siblings and cousins, and his own security services. The only leader in the region who seemed to escape his derision was Benjamin Netanyahu.
Any reasonable analysis would conclude that Abdullah—a Hashemite king in a largely Palestinian country, a weak monarch in a period of popular uprising—is in a precarious position. Prices and unemployment rates are high. Corruption is rife. Jordan faces border problems not only from Syria but also from Anbar Province, on the Iraqi frontier, and hostilities from Iran and Al Qaeda, which has always regarded Abdullah as an enemy. On November 9, 2005, Iraqi suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, killing sixty people—an event that Jordanians refer to as "our 9/11." The mastermind of those attacks was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a native of Zarqa, in northern Jordan, and the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, until he was killed by American forces, in 2006.
The monarchs of the Gulf have been able to placate potential rebels in their kingdoms by buying them off. Abdullah does not have the cash. Jordan has no oil and barely any gas. Only three countries on earth have less water. The influx of Syrian refugees has further intensified Jordan's economic and political stresses. The refugees, who are willing to work for next to nothing, are snatching up all the menial jobs. A year ago, the majority of Jordanians were in favor of absorbing them. That is no longer the case.
Many also fear that the war in Syria has opened up a new playing field for radical jihad. Some of the King's highest-ranking aides and confidants talked to me about their fear of "sleeper cells" within the country and of terrorists entering Jordan through porous borders and through refugee camps like Za'atari. The King's ministers worry, too, about how the war in Syria will end: one scenario has Bashar remaining in power, emboldening his sponsor, Iran, and his client, Hezbollah; another has Syria shattering into a chaos of ongoing sectarian violence that spills across borders. Like the Obama Administration, the Jordanian leadership clings to the slender hope of a diplomatic resolution.
Meanwhile, the King's advisers have convinced themselves that local unrest will be contained by a measured policy of reform and by the discouraging examples of chaos elsewhere in the Middle East. While I was in Jordan, everyone was glued to the round-the-clock broadcasts from Cairo: the huge street demonstrations, the military coup, and the massacres that followed. Abdullah and his loyalists supported the military coup. Nasser Judeh, Jordan's foreign minister, told me that the Egyptian military was a "catalyst for stability and security" and that the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood was "free to receive whatever messages they want" from the spectacle in Cairo. When I asked Judeh if the kingdom had dodged a bullet and avoided the full repercussions of the Arab Spring, he was dismissive. "I would not put it that Jordan dodged a bullet," he said. "Jordan preëmpted the Arab Spring."
Abdullah and his ministers tend to skip over their dependence on an often brutal secret police, their control of the press, their infiltration of the Islamist political groups. Still, they anticipated the demands of the Arab Spring with greater finesse than their neighbors. In Arabic, the expression fahimtkum means "I've understood you" or "I get it"; it was uttered by the Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali just before the uprising engulfed him. Starting two summers ago, at the Concord Theatre, in Amman, a troupe has put on a satire of Jordanian politics called "Al'an fahimtkum"—"Now I Understand You." There are references to criminal land sales, to government thugs beating demonstrators at political rallies. The King attended a performance and made sure to laugh and make it known that he indeed got it. When anti-royalist demonstrations broke out in Amman, Irbid, and Salt, in the north, and Ma'an, in the south, Abdullah responded with a series of liberalizing gestures. He ordered the arrest of Omar Maani, a former mayor of Amman, on corruption charges; he ordered the arrest of his former head of intelligence, Mohammad Dahabi, who was later convicted of money laundering; he dissolved parliament and called for new elections. The King called this effort a "white revolution," a gradualist, technocrat-led transition to a more powerful parliament, and a constitutional monarchy, in which the King's powers steadily diminish. Abdullah does not speak often in public, but he has released a series of "discussion papers" on reform.
"We passed through the Arab Spring without almost any bloodshed," the high-ranking Jordanian official told me, but added, "You can't ignore the paradigm shift in the region. You can no longer be top down. You have to create consensus. Those who delay dealing with this, sooner or later something will catch up." Until then, the King's ministers and aides calculate that the war in Syria, like the turmoil in Egypt, will make most Jordanians wary of revolution.
Not every Syrian from Dara'a is a refugee. In Amman, I met with a slick and clever young man named Nabegh Srour, who had been an English-literature student at Damascus University. ("I was reading Shakespeare, Lawrence, Byron, 'The Waste Land'—like our land now, a wasteland.") Now he was running supplies across the border to the Free Syrian Army.
Srour was arrested in 2006. "I sent an S.M.S. to a friend, but he sent it on to another person, who turned around and reported me. The S.M.S. said, 'Bashar, you son of a bitch! Fuck you and fuck your country.' " During torture sessions, his interrogators kept telling him, "Bashar is your God." He was released after four months.
He had been working as a translator in Dubai until two years ago, when he decided to come back to the region and help the resistance. He supplies the rebels with medicine from Saudi Arabia, satellite phones, walkie-talkies, food. In June, he said, he was in the Dara'a region for two weeks while the city was being shelled. There were snipers everywhere. "You don't feel the fear of death," he said. "It's become something normal."
Srour's hatred of Bashar was matched only by his sense that the rebels were being unjustly ignored by the entire world. "The West is cheating us," he said. "If they wanted to knock out the regime, it wouldn't take them more than ten days. We don't have anything. They give us promises—but empty promises. They want the struggle to continue and ruin the country."
Srour said he had been raised to hate the Israelis, but now he was calling on anyone, even Israel, to invade his country. "I don't want to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem!" he said. "Our enemy is Bashar, not Israel. We want to live our lives in peace. I'm thirty, and I haven't seen a good day in my life."
I told Srour that the West, foremost the United States, was not likely to invade Syria, that the Obama Administration considered the opposition too fractured, too reliant on hard-line Islamist groups like Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate pledged to the establishment of an Islamic caliphate with Sharia law. Srour, like so many refugees, balked at this. It was true, he said, that the opposition is divided, but that was only because of the initial lack of support from abroad. He admitted, too, that it was "unhelpful" for foreigners to hear grisly reports of murder by the opposition and see videos of grotesque abuse, like the infamous video of a rebel commander standing over a dead Syrian Army soldier and eating a piece of his lung. "That was bad for the image of the Sunni people," he said.
We were sitting on the veranda of a hotel in downtown Amman, having dinner. Throughout the conversation, an associate of Srour's, a silent young man, sat next to me and eyed me suspiciously. When the talk turned to the nature of the opposition and Al Nusra, he shrugged and handed me his iPhone. On it was a picture of a child, no more than two or three, grievously wounded, probably dead. This was all he needed to know about Syria, and, he thought, all that anyone needed to know. At that point, Srour, the smuggler, the translator, the student of English literature, got up and said, "We appeal to the international community to invade Syria. I speak on behalf of one million people from Dara'a."
Refugee camps are born of emergency and evolve into cities of dependency, bureaucracy, and static suffering. They rescue human beings, and then they warehouse them. They relieve the host country of the financial burden and diffuse it among the member states of the United Nations. Dadaab, in Kenya, is the biggest refugee camp in the world—the only one bigger than Za'atari. It was built for around ninety thousand people, and now houses nearly half a million. Established two decades ago to care for Somalis fleeing civil war, famine, and drought, Dadaab has been around for so long that there are ten thousand "Dadaab grandchildren"—children of children born in the camp.
There are no Za'atari grandchildren, of course, but two thousand babies have been born in the camp, with as many as seventy more arriving each week. Za'atari is now the fourth-largest population center in Jordan. The expansion and restructuring never seems to end. After the first phase of construction came the clinics and food-distribution centers, sanitation, water storage, electricity, schools, communal prefab kitchens, communal prefab toilets and showers, public transport, police and security outposts. And soon, in the western part of the camp, along the Champs-Élysées, came shawarma and chicken and pizza joints; coffee and tea houses; appliance stores where you can get a fan, a flat-screen TV, an air-conditioner; a beauty salon where you can get your eyebrows threaded or your hair dyed and cut; Abu Mohammad's bridal shop, where, for a few hours, you can rent a wedding gown and a "limo" for the reception. Sometimes the profits stay with the refugees; sometimes they are used to fund the Free Syrian Army.
The medical burden in the camp is incalculable: amputations, tuberculosis, typhoid, hepatitis, malnutrition, and diarrhea. Often, the refugees need serious medical attention. Dominique Hyde, who works closely with the refugees in Za'atari for UNICEF, said, "I don't get emotional, usually." But last year she met a couple and their three children. They had come from Homs, where their house had been shelled. "The mother had just given birth, and two of the kids, their faces were completely deformed—and the father's arms, too, as he tried to save them from the fire. These children are disfigured and their lives are scarred forever. The mother refuses to let them go near any mirrors."
UNICEF and other organizations have provided makeshift schools for the tens of thousands of children in the camp, but barely a sixth attend. Sometimes the parents want the children to work; others think the school certificate won't be valid when they return to Syria. "One eight-year-old child, I asked why he left school," Hyde said. "He said his last memory of school was when gunmen came in the classroom and shot the teachers." There are children—older children—who wet their beds; children with nightmares; children who suddenly stop speaking. They are damaged, Hyde said, "and a lot of violence and anger is played out in the camp—throwing rocks, pushing, fighting. You look at their drawings: blood, weapons, corpses. I have an eleven-year-old and a three-year-old, and I never see them make drawings like that."
Hyde and other aid workers are particularly concerned about young women in the camp, many of whom are widows or are separated from husbands who have stayed behind in Syria to fight. Their vulnerability haunts them; often, they stay hidden away. I met a nineteen-year-old war widow named Heba Faouri. Her daughter is five. "I am in Za'atari because I need to feel safe," Faouri said. "No one is paying attention to someone like me. I live in a tent, and my daughter doesn't have clothes to wear." In the cruel desert heat, she wore a head scarf and a black trenchcoat that went to her ankles. There are reports of harassment, rape, and prostitution. Some parents of young girls in Za'atari, eager to get their daughters out of the camp, sell off girls of fourteen or fifteen to men looking for a wife. It matters little that in Jordan such early marriages are illegal. There are men from Jordan and the Gulf who show up at the camp with thousands of dollars looking for a young wife. "There is often a big age gap that is the concern," Hyde said. "In Syria, a sixteen-year-old will marry an eighteen-year-old boy. Here, you see cases of a sixty-nine-year-old man marrying a sixteen-year-old girl. You are marrying a girl who should be in school and is being deprived of her childhood."
The Syrian refugees had been full of hope in the early months of the war. The Free Syrian Army seemed to have the advantage. World leaders spoke of Bashar's fall as inevitable. Soon, the refugees could go home. But, by this spring, even as Islamist rebel forces, like Al Nusra, were being armed and funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and gaining the upper hand over the secular rebels, Bashar had attracted the deeper military commitment of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. In Damascus, Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard were helping to guide the counterinsurgency. Hezbollah led a crucial military defeat of the rebels in the town of Qusayr. Russia and China helped thwart any diplomatic action against Bashar by the West. Bashar rebounded.
The news from home and the wearing life in the camp have led to a deeper sense of frustration and despair, and that has translated into fury that's sometimes directed at the administration of Za'atari. When four young brothers died in a fire this spring—a toppled candle set their tent ablaze—two hundred Syrians marched on the camp's administrative center. It can sometimes seem that the only thing that stands between order and chaos is a man named Kilian Tobias Kleinschmidt, a solidly built, fifty-one-year-old German, who gave up a life as an itinerant hippie builder to work in refugee camps.
When I met Kleinschmidt, he was bounding out of his trailer with a smile. "The shit has literally hit the fan," he said, his hand extended in greeting. It was the daily crisis: There had been a dispute between contractors and only ten per cent of the sewage was getting out of the camp. The overflow was everywhere in evidence. "So now," Kleinschmidt said, "it's a situation." He is accustomed to situations. A few days before I arrived, a hundred people blocked the gate to his headquarters, camping out there and chanting, "We want caravans now!" It was understandable: trailers are more secure and comfortable than tents, especially in the winter, when temperatures can drop to near freezing at night. One of the demonstrators brought him a gift—a glass full of scorpions—to show him what their children were exposed to.
Kleinschmidt is employed by the U.N.H.C.R. and his official title is senior field coördinator. The refugees know him as "the mayor," or even "lord mayor." He wore khaki pants, a filmy scarf, and a khaki shirt, with sweat stains inside sweat stains. He has six children and has been married twice. His current wife is from Beslan, in southern Russia, a fact he does not advertise. The Syrian refugees hate Vladimir Putin, who is shipping weapons to the regime in Damascus, almost as much as they do Bashar al-Assad.
Kleinschmidt was born in Essen and schooled in Berlin. His politics were pacifist. As a young man, he bummed around the Pyrenees. He raised goats to make cheese. Wild dogs ate the goats. When his first marriage broke up, he rode a motorcycle across the Sahara to northern Mali. At a bar, he drunkenly accepted an offer from a French couple to help build a school. He liked the work. He felt that he was doing something with purpose. Then he built a vocational center in Uganda. He worked on an aid airlift at Entebbe Airport, loading boxes headed for southern Sudan. A life's work started to take shape. By the early nineties, he said, "I was dealing with twenty thousand Sudanese near the Kenyan border." He became an aid worker in Bosnia and Kosovo. In 1997, the U.N.H.C.R. called on him to help rescue a hundred thousand Hutu refugees being pursued by Tutsis in the jungle of Congo. To get to the refugees, he and his team repaired a railroad track abandoned by Belgian colonists. "My mission was to find the refugees, stabilize them, rescue them," he said. "We went into the rain forest, where we heard they were. We came and saw people hacked to death and dying. We had supplies and medical teams. So we started rescuing people. I saw a woman drowning in a pond, hanging from a tree, and I tried to rescue her. I realized if I spent three hours rescuing her, I wouldn't be doing my job. My job is not rescuing that woman; it's to make sure somebody else did."
At most refugee camps around the world, there is an enormous, all-at-once influx; a camp is built; a rough stability takes hold. At Za'atari, the influx and the outflow have been riotous, unpredictable. "Which is why it is so complicated," Kleinschmidt said. "There are a lot in and a lot out, so it makes it a very nervous place, with fresh stories, stories about torture and rape, villages destroyed. It keeps it alive and fresh. There is something happening every day. As many as ten thousand people go back to Syria every month. It's often people linked to the F.S.A. and families who return to collect the young men they left behind." (Jordan does not permit unaccompanied young men to cross the border.) The refugees are in constant contact with people at home. At night, they climb up on the caravans and text and call and Skype. The camp is on edge not only because of the vivid presence of tragedy and news and military talk; people also suspect that Bashar's men send spies into Za'atari.
Kleinschmidt, like so many men and women in his line of work, is exposed to endless death and suffering. He used to see a military psychologist from time to time, but mostly he tries to block out the emotion of his work with tasks, with fixing problems. "If I look into the trauma and the stories, I cry and I stop working," he said. "I block it off, I build a cage around myself. But I need to know at times why I am doing this. Otherwise, you treat refugees like commodities, as units packed into various places. . . . A refugee, to me, means that you not only lost your apartment and loved ones; you have lost the right to be a citizen within your country."
Kleinschmidt is a technician of dispossession; he is not a therapist. He builds and administers cities for the lost. He led me to a table in his trailer where a plastic map of the camp was laid out like a game board. Next to the map was a shoebox filled with toys: trucks, houses, ambulances, police cars, tents, a gas station, a police station. He uses the toys to map out the resources he's got and the ones he is trying to obtain as the camp takes in more and more refugees.
He starts by analyzing the condition of the Syrians, their particular state of collective anxiety and ingratitude. "You have a hundred and twenty-five thousand people, people who are suffering from fresh wounds—mental wounds, physical wounds. They are angry with the international community because we don't deliver militarily or politically. They insist that we owe them. They think that we humanitarians are the cheap version of what they should be getting. They know a cruise missile or a no-fly zone would cost so much more than a refugee camp, so they are profoundly frustrated."
For all his empathy, his attitude toward the Dara'a rebels is tough-minded. "The people from Dara'a threw the first stones. But families linked to the revolution are often linked to business—a kind of unholy link between the rebel and the bandit. . . . The mafia are linked to the F.S.A. and traffickers. That's where it becomes complicated. And they use the frustrations of the people to stir up trouble."
The refugees in Za'atari are "border people," Kleinschmidt said. Many of them are traders, smugglers, accustomed to shuttling around Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. He quickly discovered that the smugglers hardly stop work when they go to the camp: the Bedouins didn't get U.N.H.C.R. tents by accident. "There were structures in place in Dara'a, like brothels, that relocated to here," he said. "You see the prostitutes coming in over the border—and the waiting pimp. There are sex workers. There are stories about whether they are provided free to combatants. There are all kinds of black markets in the camp. Toilets, food, electronics, drugs, wedding dresses." Naturally, there are "dons" who take a cut from the various businesses that have established themselves.
"You have negative energies and vandalism directed toward communal facilities: showers, kitchens," Kleinschmidt said. "People don't like communal things. You don't want to go to the toilet with anyone else. So they steal all this. We have had entire buildings disappear: Kitchen 77 was built by my German brothers with concrete blocks. The idea was that you would go there, cook together, and bring the meals home. The kitchen was stolen, down to the ground. U.N.H.C.R. paid for that kitchen. We had to resort to satellite imagery to prove that Kitchen 77 ever existed at all. We've had kitchens turned into private homes. Fourteen prefab buildings that have been stolen down to the foundations."
An electricity mafia pays someone seventy dollars to climb up a ladder and hook into the camp's electric street-light system, and then sells power to shopkeepers. The trouble is, this can overload the transformers and bring the whole system down. Another mafia sells prime locations on the Champs-Élysées to prospective shop owners for as much as two thousand dollars. There are sixty-five thousand children under eighteen in the camp, and, because most don't show up at school, a huge pool of kids is available to work for the various rackets.
Kleinschmidt has made it his business to get to know the camp's unofficial chieftains—not to prosecute them but to work with them, to find an accommodation. Not long ago, Kleinschmidt called on Mohammed al-Hariri, a former commander in a Free Syrian Army unit called the Falcons of the Tribe of the Prophet Muhammad. According to a report in Der Spiegel, Hariri was a specialist in mines and claims to have killed more than seventy people in battle. Exhausted by the fighting, Hariri was among the first refugees in the camp, and in the past year he has become a kind of mafia boss, running illegal businesses, extracting favors, and returning them. He says that he controls twenty streets in the camp and is pleased to be called Aqid, or "colonel." He has somehow laid claim to three trailers for himself and taps into the electricity supply from the Italian clinic near his trailer compound.
Hariri began his meeting with Kleinschmidt with a half-hour-long harangue about conditions in the camp. Kleinschmidt decided to listen but show no weakness. "In this part of the world, you have to be very macho," he said, recalling the encounter. "In Asia, you would be humble. In Somalia, you scream first and then kiss. Here, you have to show you are a man and fight and not be a chicken. . . . So he went through this, and then, finally, he said, 'You, you are a good man! Because only a man who is not afraid will walk at night in this camp as you do.' And then someone said, 'We saw you, we were thinking whether we should kidnap you or not. And we decided not to.' " Along with a Jordanian police colonel, who runs security in the camp, Kleinschmidt is trying to persuade men like Hariri to work together with him. "We are trying to bring them from the dark side of the moon to the bright side. If you take on a gang head on, trouble happens." In a huge camp full of suffering and political resentments, of discontent and anxiety, nobody is looking for more trouble.
The aid organizations at Za'atari have done a competent job in providing shelter, food, and water (thirty-four litres a day to each refugee). And yet the refugees are miserable. "These people here—and there is a big change—are starting to see this as home," Kleinschmidt said. "Their arrogance is gone. Before, they were thinking, Bashar will soon be gone, so why do I have to talk to you? You are just a guy in an air-conditioned caravan making a lot of money. We are going home. That has changed, with the help of Hezbollah. They realize Bashar is not going to go away. So the plans they had once rejected, they accept. They accept me. They accept the reality of staying for a while."
One afternoon, an eight-year-old boy named Ahmed Bashir followed me as I was walking along the Champs-Élysées. He was from a village in Dara'a, and he was talking big about going home to "bash in Bashar's head." He was bragging, singing, a bundle of nervy energy. And then he stopped, yanked at my wrist, and, in an even voice, said, "You know, my mother is dead. They shot her in the head." He wanted to go home, but that now seemed a long way away. ♦


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Thought seeing as I am local I would add some links for the people attending HAS in Frankfort KY this weekend. These are my top picks for places to visit while here.
Salato Wildlife education Center. The conference is offering a tour, but I encourage anybody who is interested to visit on their own. It used to be the state game farm, but now has some fishing lakes, picnic areas and alot of live displayes on Ky wildlife. You will see reptiles, fish, a pair of balled eagles, bears, elk, buffalo, bobcats, white tailed deer, and some geese and ducks Admission is free and it is within a few minutes of Kentucky State University
Buffalo Trace Distillery. Offers some of the best bourbons produced and is the oldest operating distillery in the country. The tour is free, the gardens are great. And the samples rule. They are the best tour in the area, as far as I am concerned, and produce bourbon under 14 different labels. They are located on US 421 in downtown Frankfort. Ask for Freddy as a tour guide.
Shaker village of Pleasant hill. Nice historical site about 30 mins south of Frankfort. The shakers of pleasant hill had a huge impact on modern beekeeping and are mentioned in Horn's book "Bees in America". Unfortunately, their bee house no longer exists. Tours are 14.00 per adult. they also offer a paddle boat tour of Kentucky River Palisades that is reasonably priced.
Ky Horse Park. Horse park turned state park, offers trail rides, a museum on horse history, and Man-O-War's grave. There is a fee for admission, but I am unsure of the cost. they are located off of I 75 between Georgetown and Lexington, 30 minutes east of Frankfort
Gibby's in down town Frankfort is a good place to eat. Their sandwiches are good, prices are good, and they serve the traditional Kentucky Hotbrown.....a must try for anybody visiting Kentucky. Warning.....its a heart attack on a plate

subset: commoncrawl


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One of our last posts indicated that the IRS had issued a notice indicating they might not assess the late payment penalty for returns that are extended and paid after April 15, 2013 if the return included certain forms that were delayed by the new tax law.
However, when you read the fine print, it appears that you still need to accurately estimate your tax and pay in at least 90% of this extra tax to escape the penalty.
In addition, if you are farmer who delayed their filing until after March 1, 2013 to avoid paying your taxes until April 15, 2013, remember that the underpayment penalty will now kick in if you wait until after April 15 to pay. This now means that your interest rate will be the current 3% rate plus the underpayment rate of 3% plus if you are hit with the late payment penalty, that is another .5% per month or an annualized rate of 6%.
If you add all of these rates together, you now get a total annualized interest rate of 12% (again none of it is deductible). We would suggest paying your tax by April 15 unless you really are certain you can earn more than 12% after-tax on your funds.


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BACILLUS CALMETTE-GUERIN LIVE, BCG (ba SIL us KAL met gay RAYN) is a bacteria solution. This medicine stimulates the immune system to ward off cancer cells. It is used to treat bladder cancer.
This drug is given as a catheter infusion into the bladder. It is administered in a hospital or clinic by a specially trained health care professional. You will be given directions to follow before the treatment. Follow your doctor's directions carefully. Try to hold this medicine in your bladder for 2 hours after treatment.
Talk to your pediatrician regarding the use of this medicine in children. Special care may be needed.
Side effects that you should report to your doctor or health care professional as soon as possible:
allergic reactions like skin rash, itching or hives, swelling of the face, lips, or tongue
signs of infection - fever or chills, cough, sore throat, pain or difficulty passing urine
signs of decreased red blood cells - unusually weak or tired, fainting spells, lightheadedness
blood in urine
breathing problems
eye pain, redness
flu-like symptoms
joint pain
bladder-area pain for more than 2 days after treatment
trouble passing urine or change in the amount of urine
yellowing of the eyes or skin
Side effects that usually do not require medical attention (report to your doctor or health care professional if they continue or are bothersome):
bladder spasm
burning when passing urine within 2 days of treatment
feel need to pass urine often or wake up at night to pass urine
loss of appetite
medicines to suppress your immune system like chemotherapy agents or corticosteroids
medicine to treat tuberculosis
It is important not to miss your dose. Call your doctor or health care professional if you are unable to keep an appointment.
This drug is given in a hospital or clinic and will not be stored at home.
They need to know if you have any of these conditions:
blood in the urine
bladder biopsy within 2 weeks
fever or infection
immune system problems
myasthenia gravis
need organ transplant
prosthetic device like arterial graft, artificial joint, prosthetic heart valve
recent or ongoing radiation therapy
an unusual or allergic reaction to Bacillus Calmette-Guerin Live, BCG, latex, other medicines, foods, dyes, or preservatives
pregnant or trying to get pregnant
Visit your doctor for checks on your progress. This drug may make you feel generally unwell. Contact your doctor if your symptoms last more than 2 days or if they get worse. Call your doctor right away if you have a severe or unusual symptom.
Infection can be spread to others through contact with this medicine. To prevent the spread of infection follow your doctor's directions carefully after treatment. For the first 6 hours after each treatment, sit down on the toilet to urinate. After urinating, add 2 cups of bleach to the toilet bowl and let set for 15 minutes before flushing. Wash your hands before and after using the restroom.
Drink water or other fluids as directed after treatment with this medicine.
Do not become pregnant while taking this medicine. Women should inform their doctor if they wish to become pregnant or think they might be pregnant. There is a potential for serious side effects to an unborn child. Talk to your health care professional or pharmacist for more information. Do not breast-feed an infant while taking this medicine.


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While many of us are focused on the future of electric and hybrid vehicles, some are still trying to improve gas-powered combustion engines. And a new discovery could make those engines much more efficient. And it uses lasers.
Laser technology is now at the point where small enough lasers can be designed to fit into a combustion engine, replacing the spark plugs. And not only would the lasers not need to be replaced like spark plugs, but they would also improve the fuel efficiency of the vehicle by creating leaner air/fuel ratios and faster combustion timing. The lasers themselves are just 11 millimeters long.
The team behind the laser ignition system is currently working with both Toyota and an unnamed spark plug company on potential commercial applications.
Via Treehugger


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Pre-registration is now open. Click the button below to pre-register for the conference.
College Student Rate
Through Dec. 13th
NOTE: Anyone registered as a spouse or exhibitor will be ineligible to receive a professional development certificate/credit hours for the events attended during the conference.
Midwest Clinic is now taking requests for event space at the Hyatt McCormick Place and Hilton Chicago.
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Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau have buddied up again to land their relationship comedy "Couples Retreat" at the top of the weekend box office.
The movie pulled in $35.3 million to take over the No. 1 spot from "Zombieland," the horror comedy that slipped to second place with $15 million.
"Couples Retreat" features "Swingers" co-stars Vaughn and Favreau in the tale of four couples at an island therapy resort.
The micro-budgeted fright flick "Paranormal Activity" did big business in its first full weekend after two weeks of midnight-only screenings. "Paranormal Activity" came in at No. 4 with $7.1 million in just 160 cinemas, a fraction of the theater count for other top releases.
The movie was shot for just $15,000.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Latest Star Sightings
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Movies - Box Office - Jon Favreau - Vince Vaughn - Zombieland


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Welcome to Watch List, where we identify five things on TV to watch while you stay at home and prepare for President Obama's appearance on "The View" in two days. Word is the man has a killer guacamole recipe to share with the gals. Plus tips for getting out those pesky grass stains. I can't wait. LET'S GO!
MASTERCHEF – 9:00PM (FOX) Tonight, American viewers get a taste of the gentler Gordon Ramsay, the one who appears often on British TV but rarely turns up stateside. I think you'll be shocked to learn Ramsay isn't always a bastard, and is actually quite charming when he's in the mood. This new series features Ramsay as mentor to a group of aspiring home chefs competing for a quarter million bucks and their own published cookbook. Your judges for this show include Joe Bastianich, son of that bald lady I see cooking all the time on PBS. Bastianich was just sued for not paying employees and hoarding tips, so there'll still be plenty of that bastard element should that sort of thing appeal to you. ANTICIPATION: FOODY!
BREAKTHROUGH WITH TONY ROBBINS – 8:00PM (NBC) NBC's new summer reality show features Tony Robbins and his terrifyingly large mouth giving life coaching to people in need. Tonight's client is a man confined to a wheelchair, whose wife now serves as his primary caregiver. Something tells me listening to motivational tapes while he sleeps won't quite be enough. ANTICIPATION: LITTLE MISTER SUNSHINE!
CUPCAKE WARS – 9:00PM (Food Network) Contestants are asked to create cupcakes from movie theater concession stand products. Oooh, nacho cupcake! They could make that happen! With Velveeta for frosting and sour salsa in the center! So wrong, yet so right. ANTICIPATION: CAKEY!
LOUIE – 11:00PM (FX) I was watching last week's episode of "Louie," and I realized that it played like DVD outtakes of an episode of a show I hadn't seen. That's the risk you run with a show as freeform as this one. Still well worth your time though. ANTICIPATION: A KISS ON THE LIPS BETWEEN DUDES!
THE LITTLE COUPLE – 9:00PM (TLC) Bill goes to Waterloo, Iowa to give a keynote presentation. Oh, like it's a coincidence they sent a little person to WATERLOO. TV producers have a sick sense of humor, I tell you. ANTICIPATION: VERY SHORT PODIUMS!


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Advanced Search
Data & Analytics | News
University College London (UCL) will establish the UCL Big Data Institute in collaboration with Elsevier, a provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services.
According to information from UCL, the goal of the institute is "to explore innovative ways to better serve needs of researchers through the exploration of new technologies and analytics as applied to scholarly content and data."
The partnership will give the university access to Elsevier's research data and enterprise-level technology, and the company will fund research and PhD students through the new institute. UCL has a wide range of other research activities and joint initiatives related to big data and research analytics, but according to the university, this partnership will help it better serve researchers by linking analytics and scientific content, and provide opportunities to research the analysis, use and storage of big data.
"The UCL Big Data Institute will keep us at the forefront of addressing pressing issues around the storage of big data, the curation of scientific information, and the production, disclosure and consumption of research information," said Michael Arthur, president and provost of UCL, in a prepared statement. "UCL and Elsevier inevitably have complementary interests in many aspects of research dissemination and will both together and independently continue to develop these for the good of the global research effort."
Elsevier plans to establish a Center of Excellence within its Web analytics group. The center will be co-staffed by UCL researchers and will offer employment and commercialization activities in collaboration with UCL Business and UCL Consultants.
According to UCL, the Big Data Institute will be part of the university's new "Research Domain for e-Research," which is intended to help researchers in diverse fields, from particle physics to digital humanities, share insights into better use of large computational resources in research.
University College London is a public research university located in London, England. It serves 27,000 students and employs 9,000 faculty and staff. UCL is based in Bloomsbury in central London but also has international campuses in Australia and Qatar. The UCL Big Data Institute will be based in London.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at email@example.com.
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I usually switch off my bluetooth to conserve the charge while working.
But when I want to use bluetooth again and I switch on the bluetooth back on its not showing available devices like my phone and I am unable to connect my phone to the system by bluetooth.
This can be changed only by restarting the computer. Can any one suggest a corrective measure please? I use Ubuntu 12.04.


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.ad-300x250-first { display:none; } Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is officially off the market. Kristin Cavallari, the former star of "The Hills" and the mother of his young son Camden, announced on her Instagram account that the two are married by posting a sweet pic of the wedding band.
Im officially Kristin Elizabeth Cutler!!!!! instagram.com/p/aRHsY0tQ0P/ — Kristin Cavallari (@KristinCav) June 7, 2013
U.S. & World
The pair got their marriage license Friday from the Davidson County Clerk's office in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday — just a day before their proper wedding ceremony in the city, E! News reported.
Cutler and Cavallari first started dating after meeting at Chicago's Market restaurant in 2010.
They were engaged in April of 2011 but broke off the engagement months later. By November of 2011, they were back together, and Camden was born in August before the 2012 season.


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Popular in England more than 100 years ago, the first mutual funds began operating in the United States in the 1920s. A fund essentially represents a pool of investors who combine their money and collectively hire professional management to make investment decisions. Legally, it is a corporation, or trust, whose sole purpose is the investment of its shareholders' assets. Investments are spread over a variety of securities (equity, fixed-income, or a combination of the two) and are managed in pursuit of specific, predetermined investment objectives. Unlike a stock, which has a fixed number of shares, most mutual funds stand ready to issue and redeem shares continuously. This feature gives the fund "open end" status.
Mutual funds began to achieve great popularity in the United States after World War II, and are now the investment vehicle of choice for a majority of IRA/401(K) retirement accounts. An estimated 88.5 million individuals own mutual funds in 2009.
There are several basic types of mutual funds: stock funds, owning shares of common stocks; bond funds, owning corporate bonds, tax-free municipal bonds, government bonds; index funds, investing in a portfolio that mimics an index, such as the S&P 500; and mixed asset funds, owning both stocks and bonds.


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PHILADELPHIA - A federal judge temporarily nixed former Springton Lake Middle School Principal Troy Czukoski's plan to plead guilty to possession of child pornography Thursday, saying he believed the defendant needed more time to consider his options.
Czukoski, 42, a former administrator in the Phoenixville School District, was accompanied to court by his wife and defense attorney Joseph Green Jr. He stood before U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis and stated his intent to plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography.
Federal authorities charged the former educator in March, several months after investigators found more than 150 pornographic images of minors on computer storage at Czukoski's Exton home.
Investigators from the U.S. Postal Service executed a search warrant at Czukoski's home on Oct. 18 of last year and seized two flash drives, CDs and DVDs, according to the information charging Czukoski. An examination of that material allegedly revealed more than 150, but less than 300, visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, the information states.
'You intend to enter a guilty plea in this matter?' Davis asked.
'Yes, your honor,' replied Czukoski, who resigned his short-lived position as principal of the middle school shortly before the charge was filed.
Davis told Czukoski that he doesn't automatically accept every guilty plea, stressing that it must be the defendant's choice. The judge also said he needed to be convinced that any defendant pleading guilty understood fully the magnitude of the plea.
'It is my choice to plead guilty in this matter,' Czukoski said. 'The government believes I was in possession of some videos …'
The longtime educator told the judge he was pleading guilty 'to avoid stricter charges that might bring greater consequences.'
'I respect that what I had in my possession is considered to be child pornography,' he said.
Davis wasn't convinced. 'I hear a lot of hesitation on your part,' he told Czukoski, adding that the defendant should consider a jury trial.
Davis said he had read the documents filed in the court case and knows that Czukoski is a 'highly intelligent man … capable of understanding at a much deeper level as to what he's done.'
Czukoski has 20 years of education experience, including earning his Ph.D. in educational philosophy. He served in the U.S. Army and the Pennsylvania National Guard.
A graduate of West Chester Henderson High School, he resides in Chester County with his wife and three children.
Telling Czukoski that 'further conversations need to occur,' and denying Green's request to address the court, the judge continued the matter to a later date.
After the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella, who is prosecuting the case, said that while the judge's move is somewhat unusual, it has been done before.
No new hearing date has been set.
Information from the Delaware County Daily Times, www.delcotimes.com


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'Grand Tour' host Richard Hammond escapes fiery crash in Switzerland
Eleven years after a rocket-powered dragster accident that nearly killed him on BBC's Top Gear, automotive journalist Richard Hammond was involved in another serious crash while filming his new Amazon show The Grand Tour in Switzerland Saturday.
He crashed after completing a climb of Hemburg Hill in eastern Switzerland. The Rimac Concept One electric supercar he was driving Saturday was reduced to a twisted, blackened mess after it crashed and caught fire.
Luckily, Hammond fared a lot better this time around.
"Richard was conscious and talking, and climbed out of the car himself before the vehicle burst into flames, producers said in a statement to the Associated Press. "He was flown by air ambulance to (a) hospital in St. Gallen to be checked over, revealing a fracture to his knee."
That will no doubt frustrate the 47-year-old Hammond, who keeps in shape by running and cycling. Still, it's better than his 2006 on-camera accident, which happened during an attempt to break the British land-speed record. A tire blew at 280 miles per hour and his dragster began to roll. His last thought before losing consciousness was, "So this is how I die." He was wrong about that part but sustained a traumatic brain injury that required months of rehabilitation, which he wrote about in his 2008 book On the Edge.
In March of this year, he hit his head in a motorbike crash while filming in Africa. ("As for injuries," he wrote, "well, put it this way, I don't think I can get a book out of it.")
The show said no one else was involved in Saturday's accident, and the cause of the crash was under investigation.
Gian Andrea Rezzoli, a spokesman for St. Gallen cantonal (state) police, confirmed the Associated Press that a person had been injured on a cordoned-off racetrack and taken to a hospital. The person was conscious after the crash, he said, but declined to confirm the person's identity.
Co-host Jeremy Clarkson was reportedly there and witnessed the carnage, unlike when Hammond crashed in 2006.
He tweeted, "It was the biggest crash I've ever seen and the most frightening but incredibly, and thankfully, Richard seems to be mostly OK."
That's saying something coming from Clarkson, who has seen a lot of crashes, both on his shows and as a fan of Formula One racing.
Hammond's latest crash is the most serious incident to happen since he, Clarkson and James May began their Amazon series. The Grand Tour debuted last November, nearly two years after their decade-long run onTop Gear ended with Clarkson's firing for punching a producer.
The trio is currently filming the second season of The Grand Tour. Like Top Gear, the car segments are filmed around the world, along with the addition of audience segments, thanks to the show's mobile tented studio.
Contributing: The Associated Press


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Our menu is packed with classic dishes we create from scratch. A sunday brunch that includes anything as simple as huevos rancheros with orange juice, to bistequitos en chipotle with our well known margarita. During the week enjoy yourself with a feast of Mexican winners, from A mix and match fajitas plate, to a taco and enchilada combination, you will not be dissapointed!
We have the best Mexican food around and a family oriented atmosphere. Try us and you'll be convinced! Our recipes are authentic and time-tested. The ingredients are always fresh. The result? A menu that bursts with flavor.
Sometimes you just have to…
Feed a hungry mob. Our catering can save the day. Imagine our delicious food served at your next function.
Call us at 619 426 6131
Restaurant bar
Casa Don Diego has been serving Chula Vista residents since 1969.
Its family atmosphere keeps bringing Chula Vista families back time after time, today we see grand-parents bringing their grand-children and telling stories about Casa Don Diego.Quality food and service has been the mainstay of Casa Don Diego/Famous for its Margaritas, Chicken and Beef Fajitas and its Sunday Champagne Brunch Casa Don Diego will continue to serve Chula Vista residents with the same family values it has become famous for.
"The service is friendly. It's like you are stepping into someone's home rather than a restaurant ... Casa Don Diego may have the best beans on earth. "
-Paul. May 2013


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I think we can ascertain that yes, this leaked image of what's purported to be the HTC Puccini does indeed look like a tablet. According to leaksters, this 10-inch model will debut on AT&T's LTE network this June, though considering that's next month I wouldn't be surprised if we have to wait longer. Unless it's being announced today at Google's I/O conference...?
Supposedly it'll be running Honeycomb, and like HTC's first tablet, the Flyer, it will be compatible with the Scribe stylus for note-taking or sketching.
It's thought that the Puccini tablet might place music at its core, considering it's code-named after Giacomo Puccini, the Italian opera composer who wrote Tosca, La Boheme and Madame Butterfly amongst others. [Pocket-Now]


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Please visit our Facebook page!
Here you will find a variety of information about Jews in Britain.
You will find basic information which applies to all religions plus specific information pertaining to British Jews.
We also have unique databases some of which give information which is not available elsewhere on the internet.
Donations towards the maintenance of this website are always welcome by emailing us.
|This website is brought to you by donations from the members of the British-Jewry list and those using this website.
Thank you very much!
Jackye Sullins and Sherry Landa
Copyright © by Sherry Landa & British-Jewry. All rights reserved.
This document last modified Sunday, 27-Aug-2017 14:19:35 BST
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Nutrition Facts
Servings and Times
Tip: Portion leftovers into individual containers and save for tomorrow's lunch or freeze.
Ingredients and Preparation
- Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven or large heavy pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, and garlic, and sauté for 6-7 minutes.
- Add vegetable stock, water, lentils, tomatoes, and herbs, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.
- Add ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve and top with Parmesan cheese.