Eric Vloeimans is a Dutch musician, songwriter, and record producer.
Qamishli is a city in northeastern Syria on the Syria–Turkey border, adjoining the city of Nusaybin in Turkey. The Jaghjagh River flows through the city. With a 2004 census population of 184,231, it is the ninth most-populous city in Syria and the second-largest in Al-Hasakah Governorate after Al-Hasakah. Qamishli is now predominantly populated by Kurds with large numbers of Arabs and Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians. It is 680 kilometres (420 mi) northeast of Damascus.
Michel Naim Aoun is a Lebanese politician and former military general who served as the President of Lebanon from 31 October 2016 until 30 October 2022.
The Syria national football team represents Syria in international football and is controlled by the Syrian Arab Federation for Football, the governing body for football in Syria. Syria has never qualified for the World Cup finals but did reach the fourth qualification round in 2018. The team is currently banned by FIFA from playing at home, as they have not hosted a game since December 2010. Internationally, Syria won the 2012 WAFF Championship, 1957 Pan Arab Games and the 1987 Mediterranean Games.
Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who has led the Party for Freedom since he founded it in 2006. He is also the party's leader in the House of Representatives, having held a parliamentary seat since 1998. In the 2010 formation of the First Rutte cabinet, a minority government of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)—which he left in 2004—and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Wilders actively participated in the negotiations, resulting in a "tolerance agreement" (gedoogakkoord) between the PVV and these parties. He withdrew his party's parliamentary support in 2012, citing disagreements with the cabinet over proposed budget cuts. Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam and the European Union (EU); his views have made him a controversial figure in the Netherlands and abroad. Since 2004, he has been protected at all times by armed police.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a tribunal of international character applying Lebanese criminal law to carry out the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for 14 February 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, and the deaths of 21 others, as well as those responsible for connected attacks.
The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian Roy Armes, is the only other cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema. Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced more than 500 films.
Nawaf Salam is a Lebanese diplomat, jurist, and academic. He was elected on 9 November 2017 as judge on the International Court of Justice for the 2018–2027 term, having received a concurrent majority of votes in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. He served as Lebanon's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2007 to 2017, during which period he held the positions of President of the Security Council and Vice President of the General Assembly.
Dorian Marin is a Romanian football coach who last managed Nigerian side Calabar Rovers.
Between 2011 and 2017, fighting from the Syrian Civil War spilled over into Lebanon as opponents and supporters of the Syrian Arab Republic traveled to Lebanon to fight and attack each other on Lebanese soil. The Syrian conflict stoked a resurgence of sectarian violence in Lebanon, with many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims supporting the rebels in Syria, while many of Lebanon's Shi'a Muslims supporting the Syrian government which is led by Bashar Al-Assad, whose Alawite minority is usually described as an offshoot of Shi'a Islam. Killings, unrest and sectarian kidnappings across Lebanon resulted.
Bassel Khartabil, also known as Bassel Safadi, was a Palestinian Syrian open-source software developer. He was detained without trial by the Syrian government in 2012 and was secretly executed in 2015. Human rights organizations claim that he was detained for his activities in support of freedom of expression, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention considered his detention to have been arbitrary.
The Battle of Aleppo was a major military confrontation in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, between the Syrian opposition against the Syrian government, supported by Hezbollah, Shia militias and Russia, and against the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG). The battle began on 19 July 2012 and was part of the ongoing Syrian Civil War. A stalemate that had been in place for four years finally ended in July 2016, when Syrian government troops closed the rebels' last supply line into Aleppo with the support of Russian airstrikes. In response, rebel forces launched unsuccessful counteroffensives in September and October that failed to break the siege; in November, government forces embarked on a decisive campaign that resulted in the recapture of all of Aleppo by December 2016. The Syrian government victory was widely seen as a turning point in Syria's civil war.
Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian Civil War, by opposition activist groups, vary between 503,064 and about 613,407 as of March 2023. In late September 2021, the United Nations stated it had documented the deaths of at least 350,209 people in the conflict between March 2011 and March 2021, but cautioned the figure was "certainly an under-count".
Dramatical Murder is a Japanese BL visual novel developed and published by Nitro+chiral. It was originally released on March 23, 2012 for Windows PCs as a first press edition, with a regular edition released on April 27, 2012. A sequel titled Dramatical Murder re:connect, also for Windows PCs, was released on April 26, 2013, adding additional scenes, images and songs to the existing routes, as well as four new character routes to play through. On October 30, 2014, a version of the visual novel aimed at ages 15 and above titled Dramatical Murder re:code was released for the PlayStation Vita which removed the sex scenes, toned down the violence, and included an additional route for the character Mizuki.
Michel Samaha is a former minister of information and minister of tourism in Lebanon, and a longtime politician and intelligence operative. Samaha is known for his long and close relationship with the Syrian government, and was one of several Lebanese officials sanctioned by the United States in 2007 for allegedly "contributing to political and economic instability in Lebanon." In December 2012 Samaha was listed by the United States as a global terrorist under section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224. Arrested and imprisoned in August, 2012, Samaha was convicted in May 2015 of transporting explosives into Lebanon with the help of Jamil El-Sayyed, a member of the Lebanese parliament, and sentenced to four and a half years in jail. He was released on bail in January 2016. Samaha was sentenced again to 13 years with hard labour in April 2016 for attempting to carry out terrorist acts. In August 2022, he was finally released from jail after 10 years of prison.
The Kh-38/Kh-38M is a family of air-to-surface missiles meant to succeed the Kh-25 and Kh-29 missile families.
Rewire Festival is an annual international festival for adventurous music, held since 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands. The festival presents a broad program with a focus on contemporary electronic music, neo-classical, new jazz, experimental pop, sound art and multidisciplinary collaborations. It has featured artists such as Laurie Anderson, James Holden, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Ricardo Villalobos, Arca & Jesse Kanda, Nils Frahm, Animal Collective, Nina Kraviz, and The Field. The 2019 edition took place on March 29, 30 and 31. Venues differ from churches, old factories and abandoned spaces to the more institutional theatres and pop venues. According to Resident Advisor "[The festival] prides itself on musical diversity first and foremost."
Yellow Vest Australia (YVA), until 9 April 2019 known as the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA), was a minor right-wing to far-right political party in Australia. The party was founded by members of the Q Society and has been described as the political wing of Q Society. The leader was Debbie Robinson (President), who was also national president of the Q Society. On 4 September 2020, the Australian Electoral Commission removed the Yellow Vest Australia from the registered political party list.
VoizNoiz 3 is a 2002 album by Michel Banabila and Eric Vloeimans. The album's tracks contains a variety of sounds such as voices, street sounds, digital noise, and other samplings, which were centered on trumpet improvisations by Vloeimans.
In Real Life, released in the Netherlands as Het echte leven, is a 2008 Dutch drama film that was written and directed by Robert Jan Westdijk. The film had its premiere at the Netherlands Film Festival on 25 September 2008 and was released on DVD the following year. The film stars Ramsey Nasr as a film director who decides to test his girlfriend's love for him. The movie's soundtrack was composed by Michel Banabila and Eric Vloeimans, and features songs from their album VoizNoiz 3 – Urban Jazz Scapes.
