EA Special: 10 Predictions for 2013 --- Assad Gone, an Angry Middle East, and Little Change on "Human Rights"

See also 2012 in Review: How Did EA's Predictions Turn Out?

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1. Syria --- The Assad Regime Will Fall It remains unclear what happens once President Assad is gone, but his regime will crumble in 2013. It may find some corner of Lattakia or Tartous to claim as a new capital for some time, but this will not last.

Assad's presence in the east has been reduced to a single airbase near Deir Ez Zor. Insurgents, led by Islamists, are also moving into Raqqa Province, and Hassakah will soon be cut off. The regime's supply lines to Aleppo are completely cut, with insurgents picking off military bases outside the city.

Eventually, Aleppo will fall. Insurgents will march south from Idlib Province, first taking Hama, then Homs, and then on to Damascus. If the Assad regime survives and is not overtaken by a surge in the capital before this, then the regime will have its back against the wall. The majority of Syria will already be in someone else's hands.

But whose hands?

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Greece Feature: The Threats to the Immigrants...and the Volunteers Working with Them (Kubareli)

Greek police and immigrants during an identity check, August 2012 (Photo: Pantelis Saitas/EPA)

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In Greece, a country of 11 million people, there are 2.5 million immigrants. Considering gray area in the statistics, there may be at least 3 million.

During the last three years, immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Africa have often paid between $3,000 to $5,000 per person to be transferred on Turkish ships via the Mediterranean. Usually the Turkish traffickers abandon them mid-sea close to some Greek island and tell them to swim. Needless to say, many drown. If they are fortunate, a Greek ship might help them and they will get temporary assistance from locals while the police and the State turn a blind eye. On rare occassions, they are detained in a so-called refugee camp, either a derelict school or an open space with tents without food, medication, clothes, and other care.

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Terrorism and Marriage: Don't Like the Wife Now? Put Her on a No-Fly List

Ms EA points --- presumably because of her interest in terrorism and not for any other reason --- to this article from Justin Penrose, writing for the Sunday Mirror in Britain:

An immigration officer put his own wife on a terrorist watch list – ­so she could not get home from a trip to Pakistan.

The officer was so sick of his partner that when she was visiting family overseas he added her name to the register of people banned from flights into the UK.

When she went to the airport to get her return flight back, officials told her she could not board the plane and did not ­explain why.

She called her husband, who ­promised to look into it – but left her stuck in Pakistan for THREE YEARS. He was sacked after bosses found out about his antics.

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