Moving from South African to the Middle Easter Nation of Syria, international journalists like our own Nic Robertson have been allowed into Syria for the 1st time in a month. Protesters there have been fighting with Syrian government forces and these journalists are giving us a rare first-hand look at the tension and the conflict. 

The level of anger and passion here is absolutely palpable, we are just a few miles from the central Damascus and there is a crowd here perhaps several thousand people. Area / prevent police coming in here. 

It is a rare opportunity to meet the people who went over through Syria President Bashar al-Assad. Situation is very bad; we only want to be like you, like the western people. We want the freedom; we want to be free people. I’m afraid when I’m talking to you. You know why? Because I’m gonna leave this scarf and going to my home, and I’m not so 100% sure that I’m gonna be safe because if not today if not tomorrow, if there are arrestee. The defiance’s possible, because two arranged jacketed Arab league monitors are here. If you are here, without saying, you don’t, you will never gonna see any protester. 

Even so, protesters told us they did not trust the Arab league missions. They absolutely desperate to show us the level of suffering, and they say they can’t go to the hospitals, because if they do, the government hospitals they fear being arrested. When the monitors leave, so do we. Within minutes, they are stopped. We are a half miles from that anti-government rally on here. There are pro-government supporters now walking in the road, a small group try to show the monitors that they support Bashar al-Assad. It appears to an impromptu demonstration, very surprising because clearly they knew this was the way the monitors who are going to crawl. And it’s not the only pro-government rally in town, at least two others. Here a huge PA system lost the president message. Government troops are dancing with the crowds, the most striking difference between this pro-government rally and the opposition rally over the scene. Here is the celebration scalable atmosphere. At the opposition rallies, there is absolutely real fear in people’s eyes that terrified their situation. Here they say they trust the president. Mr. Bashar is a good man, but if you don’t want to see, you can’t see. That’s real here. For now, al-Assad remains in control for the most part. But it’s hard to imagine the supporters and opponents could be kept apart much longer. Nic Robertson CNN, Damascus, Syria.

 

A tragic anniversary today for the Caribbean Island Nation of Heidi, it was exactly two years ago when a powerful earthquake struck their nation. Heidi is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. Many people there were struggling before the devastating quake hit, the impact enormous. More than 300,000 people died, another 300,000 were injured, 1.5 million Haitians were left homeless. Many of them set up tent cities like you see in this file video. Experts estimate that one third of Heidi’s total population, a third of an entire country’s population was affected by this quake. Country organizations and individuals jumped in an action, recovery started out with relief efforts like the emergency workers in this video from 20: 10. Two years after the quake, the recovery has transitioned into rebuilding. Relief organizations are working to help the Haitian people; you can be part of this. Go to the spotlight section on our homepage at cnnstudentnews. com, click the Impact Your Word in and find out how you can make a difference.