I've recently migrated to https://kevjnlim.wordpress.com/ for anything directly related to Middle East affairs and analysis. However, all my other personal entries will still continue here on livejournal.com.

Kevjn.

The inhabitants seemed to him a very successfull blend of Chinese and Tibetan; they were cleaner and handsomer than the average of either race, and seemed to have suffered little from the inevitable inbreeding of such a small society. They smiled and laughed as they passed the chaired strangers, and had a friendly word for Chang; they were good- ( Read more... )

My daughter Dani was born into the lengthening shadow of a decreasingly implausible showdown between Tehran and Tel Aviv. In the event, chances are that the Israelis will carry out the first non-nuclear strike and not Iran, simply because Israel thinks its comparatively unfavorable geographical circumstances make it infinitely more vulnerable to a ( Read more... )

At around 0200hrs last night, Andreea and I awoke with a start at the sound of a loud, sharp and uncomfortably proximate ‘Boom!!!’. She thought it was a roadside bomb, I thought it was the gas piping of the apartment beneath us. My blood froze in my veins. In the end, it turned out to be the police robot-detonating a suspicious object like they are ( Read more... )

I've been stuporously languid in recent weeks, attempting to sort out that more permanent family posting here by way of occupation and tending to Dani while mommy's out of home. From amid the half-productive languor, I've at least this strident determination to make, that Dani's Chinese name be 'Qing4 Ling2' (庆龄). Yes, her namesake being that ( Read more... )

In three weeks I've traversed a huge swath of western Libya - the part still proudly denominated the Great People's Jamahiriyya and rarely attempted by outsiders - from Tripoli southwards a thousand km to the Fezzan, Sabha, Murzuq, Qatrun, and from Tripoli eastwards to al-Khoms and Zlitan, cutting around desperately enclaved Misrata to the Gulf of ( Read more... )

Got back to the Libyan capital yesterday evening after nearly 12 hours on the road coming back up from the Fezzan and the Sahara. At night, on the occasion of Gaddhafi's birthday, NATO resumed its bombing runs, way past midnight even. I'm not able to get much sleep even by 2am. Bombs are landing relatively near our residence, shaking it up like a ( Read more... )

I arrived at Tripoli yesterday to find an airport totally deserted with running flights, planes oddly frozen in mid-taxiing, in mid-takeoff even, and the ground staff present only to process our sole ICRC flight in.

I learned from Rima yesterday with great shock that another colleague and friend, Angela Hoyt had been found strangled at her Hatfield ( Read more... )

Heading to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, for a short, three weeks RDU mission, just as NATO's upping the bomb beat. Will be the hottest 'conflict zone' I've ever been in in real time. But you know how it is: the tougher the conditions... Hope all will be well ( Read more... )

"Everyone's doing everything to condemn violence, but no one is doing anything to support non-violence"

- cited in connection to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and to the UN's non-action, in the documentary Cry of the Snow Lion (2002)