Internet giants Google and Twitter have reactivated their voice-to-tweet service to combat an ongoing communications blackout in Syria.
Internet and telephone lines in much of the are down for a second consecutive day, amid renewed fighting between rebels and government troops in southern Damascus.
Government officials say “terrorists” have attacked Internet lines, but opposition and human rights groups are blaming the Syrian government for the outage.
It has previously cut off access during major operations, but a nation-wide shutdown is unprecedented.
In response Google and Twitter announced they reactivated the voice-to-tweet program to allow Syrians affected by the shutdown to get messages out.
The service allows people with a telephone connection to send a tweet by speaking on their phones.
Google and Twitter say the system was used last year when the Internet was shut down by authorities in Egypt for several days.
And Anonymous, a global hacking group that opposes Internet censorship, has threatened to shut down Syrian government websites around the world in response to the blackout.
“As we discovered in Egypt, where the dictator (Hosni) Mubarak did something similar – this is not damage that can be easily or quickly repaired,” it said in a statemen, referring to an Internet outage during the early days of the 2011 uprising in Egypt.
French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said the communications cut was of a matter of “extreme concern”.
“It is another demonstration of what the Damascus regime is doing to hold its people hostage. We call on the Damascus regime to re-establish communications without delay,” he said.
CloudFlare, a firm that helps accelerate Internet traffic, said on its blog that saboteurs would have had to simultaneously cut three undersea cables into the Mediterranean city of Tartous and also an overland cable through Turkey in order to cut off the entire country’s Internet access.
“That is unlikely to have happened,” it said.
Flights cancelled
Many flights to and out of the Syrian capital have been cancelled for a second day after clashes spread to the road leading to the city’s airport. Several airlines, including EgyptAir and Emirates – say they are not able to use Damascus airport.
Activists said security forces clashed with rebels trying to topple president Bashar al-Assad around Aqraba and Babilla districts on the south-eastern outskirts of the Damascus that lead to the international airport.
A resident of central Damascus said he saw black smoke rising from the east and the south of the city on Friday morning and could hear the constant boom of shelling. State television said government forces were fighting rebels in those areas.
An aviation source in neighbouring Jordan said two Syrian Air flights crossed Jordanian air space heading for the Syrian capital on Friday evening and that Damascus airport was open, although international airlines were staying away.
The head of the national airline, Syria Air, said services were operating according to schedule, state television reported.
EgyptAir and Emirates have suspended flights to Damascus in response to the recent violence and there was no sign that Air Arabia and flydubai had flown scheduled trips on Friday.
“Airlines are not operating to Damascus today,” said a Dubai-based airline official.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition monitoring group, said jets were bombarding targets in rural areas around Aqraba and Babilla, where rebels clashed with president Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
The Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the airport road was open, but there was minimal traffic.
‘Decisive phase’
A rebel contacted by Reuters who said he was on the airport road said his fighters would not let the airport operate.
“We will never open the road. It’s still closed and it will remain closed. We will not allow planes to arrive,” he said.
Rebels said that at least one mortar round was fired at the airport during clashes on Thursday.
“We want to liberate the airport because of reports we see and our own information we have that shows civilian airplanes are being flown in here with weapons for the regime. It is our right to stop this,” rebel spokesman Musaab Abu Qitada said.
US and European officials said rebels were making gains in Syria, gradually eroding Mr Assad’s power, but said the fighting had not yet shifted completely in their favour.
A Damascus-based diplomat said he believed the escalation in fighting around the capital was part of a government offensive which aimed to seal off the state-controlled centre of the city from rebel-held rural areas to the south and east.
Activists say Mr Assad’s forces have also been shelling the Daraya district to the south-west of the city, trying to prevent rebels from cementing their hold of an area which could give them a presence in a continuous arc from the north-east to south-west of the capital’s outer districts.
“I don’t know whether the shelling has succeeded in pushing back the FSA (rebels) – experience shows that they return very quickly anyway,” the diplomat said.
“We seem to be entering a decisive phase of the Damascus offensive.”
ABC/Reuters
I have change my default google search in chrome to serbian google by accident, can any body help.
If you can give me step by step help please
Thank you.
I just got a motorola cliq and have seen articles all over advertising the new update to google maps allowing navigation but when i go to google mobile it says to access the android market through my phone and download the latest google maps but when i do that google maps does not appear in the market. Is this becuase i am not on the Droid or is there some other problem that is not allowing me to find this new update?
The Webpage title shows up bolded in google search results. I modified this title yesterday to say something else.. How long will this take to change in google?
Google insight doesnt seem to be giving the actual figures, it only gives a number relative to the total searches made.
I just want to use the same google page, but it keeps changing. How can I stop it?
Since the creation of google in 1997, how many searches have been done? Any guess?
How do you add google adsense text links to your youtube video page? I understand the google video units are just attached to the video itself, but how can you add the actual google text links to the page also?
If GBuy (apparently a Google service) is something different from Google checkout, where can I find that service? Is it better than Paypal?
I went to a website on the net to purchase a few products, and there was a google checkout option. I clicked and made the purchase. How does google know that it was from site A from site B?
Hello everybody
I have got 3 blogs and 2 websites.Can i have google adsense ads in my all of these blogs and websites ? Whether i have to apply for different google adsense accounts or a single account will work for all these websites and blogs.
Thank You.
Hi,
I have recently launched a new website. I just want to know how long does it take for Google to recognize backlinks to my site. I am currently generating backlinks by posting on different forums, blog commenting and directory submission. It has been a week now but still there are 0 backlinks to my site according to Google.
Yahoo is relatively quicker than Google in recognizing backlinks. Does anyone have any idea how long does it take for Google to recognize backlinks to my website?
If google buys htc and start making phone for every price segment like $20 to $500 and stop making wp7 phone. This will be not good for nokia and microsoft.
also, does google has servers in which we can pay to host our site? what about Google earth?
Alot of tablets have google android market with 4.1 Jelly bean android. Are they both the same, and if not can I upgrade. I want to buy a decent tablet for afordable price
Please help me how to solve this problem. I find that when using Google with many users in an office, google blocks us. I can’t use Google search anything now. Does anyone know how to fix this problem?
How can I cancel my google adsense account and start all over again. My account is still inactivate?
I want to play the google doodle that was on yesterday as in the google guitar, but I can’t find it anywhere so can someone post a link for me to play it? Or if there isn’t one can someone post a link for something similar? Thanks
Hello,
I want to know if somebody scrapped my website content. Then will google identify who copied from whom ? and do google consider my website has duplicate content ? will my site penalized ?
Recently i added my blog with google analytics, after that my revenue has reduced drastically very low. I do not know the reason. I would like to the differences between the two.
I could start up 100 Google Chromes but they will all close. Any help, I need to get something in my Boomarks.
Did the google phone come to Verizon Wireless? Is it the HTC DROID ERIS and/or the MOTOROLA DROID? Are there several versions for the google phone? Is the google phone different for each cellphone network? How much is it? I heard that is was coming to Verizon Wireless in the spring but I am not sure. If you know anything, please answer. I really want to know when the google phone is coming to Verizon Wireless and if it came out already.
I have an android phone with Google play, and a galaxy tab. I have 2 different Google accounts on them and I want to change the one on my phone so that it is the same one as my tablet. Any suggestions?
When you search google and the first result is a popular website, sometimes there are quick links underneath the main link. What does google look for the choose these links and how do you qualify for this advanced search result thing.
I heard google bought a new satellite or something so you can see anything “bigger than a shopping bag” with amazing clarity. When is this going to be implemented?
I use google most, my dad said that google is better; but I can’t seem to figure out what the difference is!
Google will be providing access to medical records but how do they get access to them in the first place? Does anyone have any links explaining this?
Can I sync with Google remotely on my pc by connecting my BlackBerry to my pc?
I know that google offers a program that you can upload your files and then access them on a different computer. Do you know the site?
How do you make Google account? Why is Youtube changing so you can not use your Youtube password? When I just signed into Youtube I got this message—– Please start signing in with your Google password from now on. Pretty soon we will be phasing out support for signing in with your old YouTube password.