Pay attention to the dates.

There was a temporary outage on Nov. 27, which was restored after two hours. We don't yet know what's happening today.

No, it says those were part of 'a sequence of recent events'. This latest outage 'continues' that.

Any idea what the cause is yet?

Appears to be fighting between the rebels and govt troops on the main road near the airport in Damascus

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/29/us-syria-crisis-id...

You might be right, sorry. Tiny mobile screen and a stupid client did not let me reply until now. My screen has a decent amount of cracks so it's a bit hard to read from. :)

No.

Tape drives. Lots and lots of tape drives.