I’m late to this but many are asking me for streaming links to watch the game. The score as of now stands at 1-1.
To watch the game, here’s a link for you (here).
If you tweet about the game, make sure you include the hashtag #GoLebanon.
And, well, for lack of better words: Go Lebanon!
It seems that Houla’s effect wasn’t “grand” enough for whatever force killing people in Syria to stop doing so. We all know who that force is but for the sake of keeping this about the people, I won’t throw names.
In the town of Qubair, near Hama in Northern Syria, 78 people have been killed including 35 from the same family. Half of those killed so far are women and children. The death toll is still rising. Did I mention the town counts only a 100 or so resident? They literally killed everyone there.
In the nearby town of Kfarzeita, 6 bodies were found burned till they became charcoal. There’s even a video for that.
In total, the death toll is at 130, more than Houla, and rising.
Hama has been one of the areas affected the most by the recent Syrian uprising, with it seeing some of the highest death tolls and destruction. Hama has also been the city affected the most by the current Syrian regime with another massacre taking place in it some 30 years ago.
In an interview with someone in the town of Qubair, this is what the man had to say:
Some of the highlights of what he says: “More than 18 families were murdered. Some of the bodies were burned. The massacre started at 2 pm and was executed by the army of Assad’s regime. Families were killed with knives and gunshots. Families were abolished in their entirety, from the 80 year old elder to a 4 months old newborn.”
Here are some pictures from the recent Qubair Massacre:
A mother holding her two children
The two children
Ahmad and his sister Chayma
3 brothers
2 other brothers in the same family
Their mother
Their grandmother
I will update this with more pictures when I get them.
Following my post about some of the best pictures ever taken, a reader started sending me her collection of pictures that she’s amassed over the years.
Some of them were part of the previous post in question while others were totally new. All of them are still striking, amazing and haunting.
So without further ado, I commence.
1957 – The first day of Dorothy Counts at the Harry Harding High School in the United States. Counts was one of the first black students admitted in the school, and she was no longer able to stand the harassments after only 4 days.
1963 – Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam, burns himself to death protesting the government’s torture policy against priests. Thich Quang Duc never made a sound or moved while he was burning.
1965 – A mom and her children try to cross the river in South Vietnam in an attempt to run away from the American bombs.
1966 – U.S. troops in South Vietnam are dragging a dead Vietcong soldier.
1975 – A woman and a girl falling down after the fire escape collapses.
February 1, 1968 – South Vietnam police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a young man, whom he suspects to be a Viet Cong soldier.
1980 – A kid in Uganda about to die of hunger, and a missionary.
1987 – A mother in South Korea apologizes and asks for forgiveness for her son who was arrested after attending a protest against the alleged manipulations in the general elections.
1992 – A mother in Somalia holds the body of her child who died of hunger.
1994 – A Rwandan man who was tortured by the soldiers after being suspected to have spoken with the Tutsi rebels.
1996 – Kids who have been affected by the civil war in Angola.
2001 – An Afghani refugee kid’s body is being prepared for the funeral in Pakistan.
2003 – An Iraqi prisoner of war tries to calm down his child.
Congo: A father stares at the hands of his five year-old daughter, which were severed as a punishment for having harvested too little caoutchouc/rubber.
1902 – location in the United States not specified.
July 7, 1865 – Washington, Lincoln assassination conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David Herold and George Atzerodt shortly after their execution at Fort McNair.
July 1913 – Gettysburg reunion, Veterans of the G.A.R. and of the Confederacy, at the Encampment.
March 1941 – Planting corn on a plantation near Moncks Corner, South Carolina.
Well, I wish it were that Armin Van Buuren song I told you about a few days ago because this one plain sucks. Even Shakira would have been better.
The song is by Oceana, a German singer, and it’s called “Endless Summer.”
And I absolutely hate it. I really hope it won’t go the “Waka Waka” route and get overplayed until my ears start bleeding.
Other than that, the Euro 2012 tournament starts in three days! 😀
I am not here to provide sports commentary. Sadly enough (or perhaps luckily enough for my nerves), I didn’t watch the game. Blame medical school exams scheduling and my very non-existent studying-time managing skills.
Over 50,000 Lebanese gathered at the Camille Chamoun stadium in Beirut to cheer for our team. These are a few pictures of the people gathered there, with all the enthusiasm they mustered, which is actually a whole lot:
We’re used to seeing faces painted with the flags of Italy, Germany, Brazil. But never Lebanon.
Because it wouldn’t be a Lebanese game without some serious trolling
(Picture by Bachir Itani.)
For the technical rundown of the game, here’s a source you can check.
What’s sad about the whole affair is that both teams were nowhere near an equal field when it comes to, well, everything. First, the Lebanese team was full of Lebanese who are underpaid, underfunded and do this more so for “leisure” than for credible prospects in a country where football had taken a backseat to basketball for a long, long time.
In fact, many Lebanese were upset how none of our local TV stations was broadcasting the game. I have to ask those: where was this enthusiasm when Lebanon went through the World Cup qualifiers year after year and didn’t get anywhere? Don’t blame our “poor” TV station. Blame the monopolizing giant Al-Jazeera which doesn’t let anyone else get the rights for a football game. God forbid that happens!
But I digress.
On the other hand, here’s how the Qatari teams breaks down:
“Hi. My name is Sebastian. And I am Qatari.”
Doesn’t make sense to you? It’s not meant to. But here’s another one.
“Hi. My name is Lawrence. And I am Qatari too.”
When more than half of the team on the field is nationalized, what can one expect? It looks like Qatar have so much money on their hands that they simply decided to purchase a national team. Many people on Twitter, most of whom weren’t Lebanese, had this to say: “Qatar team, why you no have Qataris?”
So very true.
Towards the later half of the second half, based on the bits and pieces I watched, the Lebanese team looked totally run out of stamina, which has been the case in their previous games as well. Based on this, what worries me the most is not losing to Qatar, it’s Lebanon having a second game on June 8th against Uzbekistan and then another one on July 12th against South Korea, all the way in Seoul. Will our players be able to handle the severe effort those games will require, let alone the time zone difference and the traveling?
I really hope so. But sometimes realism needs to tone down the sense of nationalism. And I’ll leave it at that for now.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 