On the morning of the 17th July, "Capatain Dupont, casting his eye towards the horizon, perceived a ship, and announced it to us by a cry of joy; we perceived it to be a brig, but it was at a very great distance; we could only distinguish the top of its masts. The sight of this vessel spread amongst us a joy which it would be difficult to describe. Fears, however, soon mixed with our hopes; we began to perceive that our raft, having very little elevation above the water, it was impossible to distinguish it at such a distance. We did all we could to make ourselves observed; we piled up our casks, at the top of which we fixed handkerchiefs of different colours. unfortunately, in spite of all these signals, the brig disappeared. From the delirium of joy we passed to that of dejection and grief."
The brig which the men on the raft had sighted was the Argus, part of the Medusa's original convoy. When the Argus disappeared again, the shipwrecked men lost all hope; they lay down together in the tent which they had rigged beneath the mast and awaited death.
Two hours later, they were surprised by the Argus's sudden return. of the fifteen survivors who were taken from the raft, half-starved, bearded, sunburnt, and covered in wounds, five died shortly after reaching land.
The Guardian
Rebels fear Assad victory in Syria as noose tightens around Aleppo
Opposition groups brace for onslaught as US and Russia agree to cooperate, and Ankara sends peace feelers to Moscow and Damascus
Martin Chulov
Sunday 17 July 2016 11.24 BST
Just over a month into Syria’s uprising in 2011, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze sect, Walid Jumblatt, travelled to Damascus to visit Syria’s then security tsar, Mohammed Nasif. As well as being the Assad family’s most trusted senior official, he was also the linchpin of Syria’s close ties with Iran and Hezbollah, a man bound more than most to the fate of the regime.
“He said to me at the time, it’s either us, meaning the Alawites, or them, meaning the Sunnis,” Jumblatt recalled. “I knew which way this was going then. He added, ‘even if it cost us a million dead’.”
More than five years later, the toll in the now raging war is well past a quarter of that estimate – international monitors stopped counting last August. The sectarian dimension to the fighting foreshadowed by Nasif is a reality. So is the destruction of much of the country, including the ancient city of Aleppo, which after years of being viewed as the key to Syria’s fate last week slipped from the grasp of the opposition and into the hands of the Syrian regime’s allies, led by Hezbollah.
The encirclement of Aleppo is a significant moment in a war that has led to more unrestrained savagery, international repercussions and unlikely alliances than most others in modern times. Another emerged last week, as Hezbollah and Syrian troops were beating back the al-Qaida-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra from farmlands to the north of the city. As that battle raged, the US was drafting a deal with Russia that would create a joint operations centre to coordinate attacks on al-Nusra and Islamic State.
The move has created despair among the ranks of the Syrian opposition, which insists that a pact between Moscow and Washington will entrench the Syrian leader, whom Russia and Iran have saved from defeat over the past 12 months. Adding to the alarm of the now diminished rebel ranks is a detente, also signed during the week, between Moscow and Ankara, after a seven-month standoff, as well as the Turkish prime minister’s remarks that Ankara was interested in peace with Damascus.
“This all means that Assad is no longer at risk,” said a senior official in the western-backed Syrian opposition. “This means that he has won.”
In the eyes of the exiled political opposition and rebel fighting groups still in Syria, the political realignments mark a decisive phase in a war that they believe they can no longer win. In recent years, as Bashar al-Assad’s allies have weakened the rebels’ position, a belief endured among opposition military leaders that if they could not win the war, Assad could not either. That view has changed.
“I’m sitting here in a ruined house in eastern Aleppo,” said Abu Sobhi Jumail, a Syrian opposition fighter who has fought across northern Syria for the past five years. “I have the Russians in the skies, the Syrian air force too, when its planes can fly. I have Isis to my east, Hezbollah to my north and al-Qaida [Jabhat al-Nusra] in between. They abandon us, and tell us to rely on God, and then condemn us when we are forced to seek help [from al-Nusra]. Without them we would all have been killed a year ago. That is not politics. That is life and death.”
Since Russia launched its large-scale intervention last October, opposition units that had been backed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US have been the prime targets of Moscow’s bombers. Isis has largely been spared, with notable exceptions such as in Palmyra.
Turkey, too, has mostly left the jihadis alone, concentrating its fight on Syria’s Kurds, whom it views as a subversive extension of Turkish Kurdish groups, which Ankara continues to fight.
Though remaining a supporter of the Syrian opposition, including Islamic elements such as Ahrar al-Sham, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has focused much of his energies on ensuring that Syria’s Kurds do not seize control of more of the shared border and that their use by the US as proxies in the fight to seize land from Isis in eastern Syria does not amplify the Kurds’ ambitions.
“We are doomed in Aleppo,” said Suleiman Aboud, who fled with his family from the rebel east of the city in February. “The next phase of this will be revenge. No one has paid a price for all these abuses. That is what hugging Assad does. This revolution was noble. It may not have been fully democratic, but people are allowed to fight oppression. We have the same rights to safety and freedom as you.”
Acknowledging the immense suffering across rebel-held parts of the country, Gareth Bayley, the UK’s special envoy for Syria, said: “The situation on the ground in Syria is dire. The UK is deeply concerned by the regime and its allies taking ground and harming civilians in Aleppo and rural Damascus. This is in direct violation of the cessation of hostilities and there is appalling suffering amongst the population.”
There is no way out of eastern Aleppo and north to the Turkish border, with the last remaining supply line severed. A blockade that has all but taken hold over the past year is now likely to be enforced, say the few remaining residents of the eastern half of the city.
“For a long time people have been out of ideas,” said Abu Subhi. “There is no enthusiasm to assist us. They want it all to go away. But you will all be judged for what has happened in Syria. I won’t be alive to witness it, though.”
The Guardian
'At least 35,000' Venezuelans cross border to Colombia to buy food and medicine
Similar border opening last week led to dramatic scenes of the elderly and mothers storming Colombian supermarkets
Associated Press
Sunday 17 July 2016 05.41 BST
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans poured into neighbouring Colombia to buy food and medicine on Saturday after authorities briefly opened the border that has been closed for almost a year.
A similar measure last week led to dramatic scenes of the elderly and mothers storming Colombian supermarkets and highlighted how daily life has deteriorated for millions in Venezuela, where the economy has been in a freefall since the 2014 crash in oil prices.
Colombia’s foreign ministry said that at least 35,000 Venezuelans entered Colombia on Saturday, and their entry took place “in an orderly manner and under conditions of security.” The border was opened for roughly eight hours and will be opened again on Sunday, it said. Roughly 35,000 people also crossed during last week’s 12-hour border opening.
Saturday’s opening took businesses in the Colombian border city of Cucuta by surprise since it had been announced that the border would opened on Sunday.
The Colombian defense minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, said “we have made a great effort to have sufficient supplies” for the Venezuelans expected to stream across the border on Saturday and Sunday.
Governor Jose Vielma of the Venezuelan border state of Tachira said that President Nicolas Maduro supported the opening, ordering that people “not be disturbed” when they crossed into Colombia.
Maduro blames the shortages of food, medicine and basic staples in Venezuela on his opponents, whom he accuses of trying to sow economic chaos to oust him from office. His critics accuse his socialist government of economic mismanagement.
Maduro ordered the 1,378-mile (2,219 kilometre) border shut in August 2015 to clamp down on criminal gangs smuggling over the border goods and gasoline sold at subsidised prices in Venezuela.
Before it was closed, more than 100,000 people daily used the two main crossings, according to the Venezuelan government. That has shrunk to just 3,000 a day, many of them students and sick people given special day passes, nonprofit groups working in the region say.
On this day in 1203 the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.
The Fourth Crusade (1202–04) was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Christian-controlled Byzantine Empire.
In January 1203, en route to Jerusalem, the majority of the crusader leadership entered into an agreement with the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos to divert to Constantinople and restore his deposed father as emperor. The intention of the crusaders was then to continue to the Holy Land with promised Byzantine financial and military assistance. On 23 June 1203 the main crusader fleet reached Constantinople. Smaller contingents continued to Acre.
In August 1203, following clashes outside Constantinople, Alexios Angelos was crowned co-Emperor (as Alexios IV Angelos) with crusader support. However, in January 1204, he was deposed by a popular uprising in Constantinople. The Western crusaders were no longer able to receive their promised payments, and when Alexios was murdered on 8 February 1204, the crusaders and Venetians decided on the outright conquest of Constantinople. In April 1204, they captured and brutally sacked the city, and set up a new Latin Empire as well as partitioning other Byzantine territories among themselves.
Byzantine resistance based in unconquered sections of the empire such as Nicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately recovered Constantinople in 1261.
The Fourth Crusade is considered to be one of the final acts in the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, and a key turning point in the decline of the Byzantine Empire and Christianity in the Near East.
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