Ruined Old City of Homs, Syria 05/07/2014

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Journalist: Roozbeh Kaboly

Location: Homs, Syria

Twitter: @rzbh
Broadcast journalist at the foreign desk of the current affairs program Nieuwsuur (NewsHour), Dutch National Television
Still photo of the ruined old city of Homs, Syria May 7, 2014. You can view more images of the devastation by following the twitter feed of Roozbeh Kaboly

Ruined. Old city of #Homs #حمص #Syria #سوريا pic.twitter.com/z0yAvQJelX

BBC Reported today: Hundreds of rebels have been evacuated from their last stronghold in the central Syrian city of Homs.
Two convoys of buses have so far left the Old City under a deal brokered by Iran and facilitated by the UN.
The withdrawal is part of a deal that will also see rebels release dozens of captives and ease two sieges.
It marks the end of three years of resistance in the central city, once dubbed the “capital of the revolution” against President Bashar al-Assad.
Much of Homs fell to the opposition in 2011, but over the past two years government forces have gradually regained control by subjecting areas once home to tens of thousands to continuous siege and bombardment.
In February, the government allowed about 1,400 people to be evacuated from the Old City.

‘World failed us’
The BBC’s Paul Wood in Beirut says the rebel fighters and their families were sad and bitter as they said goodbye to a place they swore they would never leave.
They buckled finally, our correspondent adds, after the government’s forces employed the tactic of what some Syrian army officers called “surrender or starve”.
“The rest of the world failed us,” one activist told the BBC as he prepared to leave.
A video posted online by activists on Wednesday morning showed the first group of fighters, some with their faces covered, walking in a line towards green buses.
They were watched by around a dozen men in uniform and flak jackets marked “police”. In front of the buses was a white vehicle with the markings of the UN.
Each fighter was allowed to take one bag and a rifle, and one rocket-propelled-grenade launcher was permitted per bus.

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In 1995 At Maui High Performance Computing Center The Maui Scientific Analysis & Visualization of the Environment Program was first incubated. I was the principal investigator of this independant research project which was a joint development between MHPCC, Silicon Graphics Computers (SGI) & NKO.ORG. Using SGI Cosmo Worlds software, we pioneered the development of Internet based 3D virtual reality GIS based interactive worlds. In 1996 with a network of seven high performance SGI workstations we pioneered development of live streaming MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Real Video and QuickTime Streaming Server utilizing Kassenna MediaBase software. In Maui 2002 we pioneered and tested the first wireless live streaming video using laptop computers and Maui Sky Fiber's portable 3G wireless device. In Maui we pioneered live streaming video using usb modems from AT&T , Verizon as well as live streaming from iPhone 3 over 3G wireless networks. Today The Maui S.A.V.E. Program has diversified into storm tracking including visualization and analysis of large, memory-intensive gridded data sets such as the National Hurricane Center's wind speed probabilities. I volunteer my services to numerous Disaster Services Organizations. In June 2013 I returned from Hurricane Sandy deployment as a computer operations service associate with the Disaster Services Technology Group assisting as The American Red Cross migrated from a Disaster Response Operation to Long Term Recovery Operations. Pioneering the production/editing and Internet distribution of HD video to sites like Youtube.com and Vimeo.com we are shining the light towards environmental and peace efforts of humans across the globe. Since 1992 I have held the vision of establishing Maui, Hawaii as the environmental sciences center of the world. After His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet came to Maui This vision has expanded to establishing Maui as the environmental & peace center of the world.

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