In a time of peace and normality, the border between Syria and Lebanon is like any other border: queues are busy, rules are neglected, bored military officials are stamping passports in between smoking and drinking endless cups of tea. Now everything is different. And as the road to the airport is not safe, crossing the Lebanese border by land is the only safe alternative for leaving the country, making an otherwise sheltered humanitarian aid worker like me left to mingle with the Syrians that are trying to get out.

The border on the road between Damascus and Beirut is still controlled, heavily controlled, with new checkpoints every few minutes before reaching the border office. Outside the office cars are parked everywhere and masses of people are moving with their plastic bags and children, the chaos mirroring the domestic collapse. Many internal refugees are now dirt-poor, without money for bus or…

Simply, we are selling our car and buying a new one. It was past midnight when my husband finished emptying the clutter in the old car and brought all his cartoons home. I insisted I go down to give the old car one last look as if embracing it, or maybe thanking it. I had just finished watching a talk show about harassment (or rather raping) female revolutionists in Tahrir. I switched off the TV, put on my scarf and went down. The cold air hit my face. The distance wasn’t far, it was just there. One look and I would be back. It was too dark and quite. None was in the street. And I heard a scribble! My heart thumped faster while my mind was reassuring me there is nothing. I looked at the car but couldn’t utter my last words to her. The air blew harder, the…

Update:  I still refuse to believe that this is some developing situation, regarding the army – and that they were moved by protests.  Sami Anan’s resignation, the mid-protest statement, and the newspaper headlines seem very well-timed and in calculatingly perfect succession.

But it is no fait accompli, and there I really do not think they intend to oust him.  I suspect this is indeed blow back for what must have been a genuine ‘forced retiring’ of Former Defence Minister and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff and Lieutenant General Sami Anan.  Morsi must have felt he had a reliable partner in al-Sisi, but it would appear that this was a miscalculation.  Or at least that has been made brutally clear to him at the worst possible time.  And the newspaper headlines are inked proof that Morsi cannot rule a newspaper if they do not let him.  This may…