Undercover Syria: In a Safehouse, playing Hide and Seek with Shabiha

The UK's 'Unreported World' team risk it all for bring us this undercover special from Syria, aired on Friday 14th by Channel 4 in the UK and now available to see online on CoD.com. Check out the documentary full film story , "Undercover Syria" of this blog entry:

"The frantic call from the lookout comes at 6am: a few hundred members of the security forces and the dreaded shabiha militia, dressed in black, wielding guns and clubs, are marching towards the safe house in which we are hiding. They are raiding homes, looking for defected soldiers, opposition activists and anyone who's been at a protest. That means nearly half the town of Madaya. And we happen to be with three of the most wanted men in Syria."

From underground, an undercover observer, privy to a Kuwait party brings us a reflective report from the underbelly of Kuwaiti decadence. We hear from a mind mulling over the wheres and wherefores of the 'party', particularly the 'parteeeee' in conservative Arabian Gulf society.

'“The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.” - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Recently, I found myself at a party. Within this modern ritual, I nestled myself in a corner (something I tend to do in these events) to drink in the scene that lay before me. Honey-colored liquid courage held softly in my right hand, whilst the other toyed with a cancer-stick. It was a decent-sized living room, on the ground floor of a house, transformed into a field of pleasure.'

"I have always took death for granted. Hated it, had a deep sadness for the fact that it is inevitable, and panicked over it for many many times. Not until last year, when I stumbled upon an article on GQ magazine where in a published interview with a scientist, Aubrey De Grey, he said that he believes that we are pretty close to defeat aging."

What of the more intrepid traditional live in the flesh reporters?

"Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi on why bloggers get invited to conferences:

The so-called “Arab Spring” is getting a lot of NGOs rich, and these NGOs must get “involved” in the revolutions that have swept the Arab-speaking region in 2011. Conferences love bloggers the most."

Downtown Amman- where kanafe (famous Arabic sweet) and Ka'ak (street sesame bread) can lead to Roman ruins: The treasures are delectable and part of the stone-scape heritage.

"It started with a friend craving ka’ak and ended with a fairly long stroll in downtown Amman. Actually, it was Thursday, the weather was nice, we brought the Ka’a, the fried and the cheese and we only needed a place sit and eat."

"Tumblr can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to Internet censorship. We already know that Tumblr has been incorrectly flagged for pornographic content by Canadian security software Netsweep, and as a consequence, was blocked for some time in Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Yemen."