Palestinian Pundit

As the Arab spring demonstrates, news organisations must embrace new forms of people-centred media

Wadah Khanfar
(Wadah Khanfar was the director general of the al-Jazeera network)

guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 October 2011

"....The world is going through a period of major transformation particularly in the aftermath of the revolutions that swept across the Arab world and the successive economic crises. Despite the major challenges facing our media institutions, there are bright spots that need to be developed further.

Such a task requires full determination to rectify the media compass so as to be centred around the people. Collaboration among the various media institutions, including the sharing of resources and the exchange of expertise, will undoubtedly help us regain the initiative and revive respect for the media in the eyes of the public. The idea is to remain always loyal to the esteemed mission for which the late James Cameron and his colleagues of various languages, races and nations worked."

Britain's insulting new rules on arrest warrants will only encourage Israel's view of itself as above international law

Michael Mansfield
guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 October 2011

"Israel has violated innumerable UN resolutions and international laws over the past 50 years without any sanction being incurred – whether legal, economic, political or military. Most blatant is its disregard for the overwhelming opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague, which in 2004 declared the erection of a wall through the occupied territories to be unlawful. If you add the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, continued extension of illegal settlements, forced evictions and house demolitions, requisition of water resources, Gaza blockade and illicit use of cloned passports to facilitate an assassination outside Israel, anyone might be think that this is a state that regards itself as above the law....

It is therefore highly unlikely that any prosecutions of consequence will ensue either at the instigation of the government itself or of an individual – as Livni's meeting with William Hague in London this week demonstrated. Given the British government's lacklustre performance in this field when it comes to nations or individuals who are seen to be unacceptable (eg Pinochet, where it took a Spanish magistrate to act), those in positions of command and responsibility at times when war crimes are committed can now rest easily in their beds."

The human rights activist, joint winner of the Nobel peace prize, has emerged as a figurehead of the opposition in Yemen

Tom Finn
guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 October 2011

"Known to some of Yemen's opposition movement as the "mother of the revolution", Tawakkul Karman has emerged as a crucial figure among the youth activists who began camping out at Change Square in central Sana'a in early February, demanding the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade rule.

In Yemen, a 32-year-old mother of three may seem an unlikely leader of the fight to overthrow the president, but Karman – a journalist and human rights activist – has long been a thorn in Saleh's side and has been jailed many times.

She was catapulted into the international spotlight this January after being seized from her car and slung into prison. Thousands of people poured on to the streets of Sana'a calling for her release. It was a key moment in Yemen's uprising when the tide began to turn against Saleh....

Many see Karman's award as recognition of the growing involvement of Yemen's women in the uprising. In a country where most women are neither seen nor heard, thousands have taken to the streets in recent months, defying authority and the weight of tradition to call for the fall of the regime, and the sight of 10,000 of them marching down a six-lane motorway in mid-April after Saleh accused them of "mingling with men" was too much for some to bear."

Thousands had joined procession for 16-year-old Shia boy killed by bird shot during a Thursday-night demonstration.

Al-Jazeera

"Hundreds of mourners angry over the shooting death of a 16-year-old Shia Muslim protester clashed with security forces outside the capital Manama on Friday evening.

Security forces opened fire with tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets, injuring at least 11 protesters, activists said. More injuries were expected, though the chaotic scene around a makeshift clinic near the clashes made it impossible to verify the number, Al Jazeera's reporter in Bahrain said.

Our correspondent witnessed three men bearing bleeding wounds thought to have been caused by rubber bullets, while another man had suffered a severe facial injury after being hit by a sound grenade.

The clashes came after an afternoon funeral march on Friday to honor Ahmed Jaber al-Qattan, a Shia teenager who died after being hit by bird shot fired by security forces during a demonstration on Thursday, according to opposition activists. The demonstration took place in the village of Abu Saiba, west of Manama...."

AN IMPORTANT PIECE

ANTAKYA, Turkey Fri Oct 7, 2011 12:57pm EDT

"(Reuters) - The most senior officer to defect from Syria's armed forces has said there is no option but to topple President Bashar al-Assad by force and he was directing a military uprising against the Syrian leader from within Turkey.

Colonel Riad al-As'aad, who is now living under Turkish government protection in Hatay province on the Syrian border, said some 15,000 soldiers, including officers, had already deserted, and he was waiting to move his command inside Syria.

As'aad, A slim, softly-spoken man dressed in civilian clothes and open-collared shirt, said rebel soldiers were forming brigades around the country who were setting up ambushes against government forces to prevent them entering villages.

Morale in the Syrian army, he said, was low.

"Without a war, he will not fall. Whoever leads with force, cannot be removed except by force," As'aad told Reuters in a Syrian refugee camp in Hatay.

"The regime used a lot of oppressive and murderous tactics so I left, so that I will be the face outside for the command inside, because we have to be in a secure area and right now there is no safety in all of Syria," he said.....

The 50-year-old colonel, who served as an engineer in Syria's air force for 31 years, said the Syrian government had started to harass him and other officers when pro-democracy protests first started in Tunisia.

"During the revolution in Tunisia, the regime started getting ready. It felt there will be a revolution in Syria. So it (stepped up security), hired spies to harass us. We were always under surveillance," he said.....

As'aad says he commands the Syrian Free Army, which he helped form after his defection and that they had joined forces with another rebel force, the Free Officers movement, which activists have said is led by Lieutenant Abdelrahman Sheikh inside Syria.

"We're all one group, we're all one army. We're all waiting, the defecting brothers are working inside," he said.

As'aad said 10-15,000 soldiers, out of the roughly 200,000-strong military, had defected all over the country and that desertions were continuing every day.....

"The regime is weakening and the biggest proof, is that they're using air support in addition to tanks and artillery, that proves their weakness."....

"The regime depends on a sect ... and it is a sectarian and discriminatory regime. But our people are wiser than that. All Syrians are one people, whether Alawite, Druze or Christian or even the Kurds. We respect them we consider them our family," he said.

There had so far been no defections from Syria's political elite as happened in Libya, As'aad said, because they were tied too closely through economic interests or positions.

As'aad said he did not want to see any foreign soldiers in Syria but that the international community should provide the rebels with weapons and enforce a no-fly zone...."

Asa Winstanley
The Electronic Intifada
6 October 2011

"As Palestinian leader Sheikh Raed Salah’s appeal against deportation concluded in a Birmingham court this week, new details of the UK government’s deep links to the Israel lobby have emerged.

This follows a separate High Court ruling in London on 30 September, when a judicial review into the government’s June imprisonment of Salah ruled he was entitled to damages for “wrongful detention.”

While a panel of two immigration judges is expected to deliver a verdict within 10 days of the hearing, internal government emails obtained by The Electronic Intifada show Home Secretary Theresa May moved quickly to ban Salah not long after the pro-Israel group Community Security Trust (CST) sent a secret report on him....

Conservative Party funder on board of group that pushed for Salah to be banned

The Electronic Intifada can reveal that Poju Zabludowicz, a billionaire real estate magnate who bankrolls the ruling Conservative Party (to which May belongs), is named as a CST board member in a report by an expert witnesses called by Salah’s lawyers. The emails obtained by The Electronic Intifada appear to show that CST played a key role in the banning of Salah.

As well as personally funding UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s campaign for the Conservative Party leadership, Zabludowicz’s family used to own Israeli arms company Soltam (now part of Elbit). And he has owned a minority holding in British Israel, a company with several malls — including one in the illegal West Bank settlement Maaleh Adumim.....

Pro-Israel group CST pushed privately for Salah to be banned

In a 17 June email to the deputy director of the Special Cases Directorate (SCD) of the UK Border Agency (UKBA), Michael Whine, a CST director, said he was writing following the request of an official from another government department. Whine attached a CST report on Salah “who plans a speaking tour of the UK from the end of next week.”....

Goverment’s only source was anti-Palestinian group

Salah’s barrister Raza Husain had asked why Salah’s hosts in the country had not been consulted by the government or their advice sought on Salah. He also asked why they had not consulted a group like Jews For Justice For Palestinians, who issued a statement in favor of Salah’s right to speak in the country.

Pressed by Husain on this point over the whole three days of hearings, the government was unable to point to a single outside group whose advice it had drawn on, apart from the CST and the Board of Deputies (taken in the context of the emails, it seems both were via Whine)...."

32-year-old mother of three has faced death threats and prison, but devotion to cause has earned international acclaim

Tom Finn in Sana'a
The Guardian, Friday 25 March 2011

"Tawakul Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three, may seem an unlikely leader of the fight to overthrow the president of Yemen.

But the outspoken journalist and human rights activist has long been a thorn in Ali Abdullah Saleh's side, agitating for press freedoms and staging weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail – a place she has been several times herself.

Now inspired by the uprising in Tunisia and the resignation of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, she finds herself at the head of a popular protest movement which is shaking the Yemeni regime to its core....."

by Alexander Cockburn
CommonDreams

"Pose a threat to the stability of Saudi Arabia, as the Shiite upsurges are now doing in Qatif and al-Awamiyah in the country's oil-rich Eastern Province, and you're brandishing a scalpel over the very heart of the long-term U.S. policy in the Middle East. The fall of America's ally, the Shah of Iran, in 1979 only magnified the strategic importance of Saudi Arabia.
In 1945, the chief of the State Department's Division of Near Eastern Affairs wrote in a memo that the oil resources of Saudi Arabia are a "stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history." The man who steered the Saudi princes towards America and away from Britain, was St. John Philby, Kim Philby's father, and with that one great stroke he wrought far more devastation on the Empire than his son ever did.....

Could the uprisings in Saudi Arabia spiral out of control? We're talking here about two different challenges. The first are the long-oppressed Shiite, making up just under a quarter of the population. The second is from the younger generation in the Sunni majority — youth under 30 accounts for two-thirds of the Saudi population—living in one of the most thoroughgoing tyrannies in the world.....

A few days ago, Abdullah offered Saudi women a privilege — to participate in certain entirely meaningless municipal elections (if approved by their husbands.) What municipal elections can be meaningful amid resolute repression under an absolutist monarchy?

The American Empire has effectively lost Iran and Iraq. What of Saudi Arabia? Suppose, fissures continue to open up in the Kingdom itself? I doubt, at such a juncture, that we would hear too much talk from Washington about "democracy" or orderly transitions. The Empire would send in the 101st Airborne."

Reuters

"...ARAB SPRING HONORED

Recognizing Karman, a 32-year-old journalist and mother who was detained for a time during the unrest, was seen as a gesture of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's wider approval for the Arab Spring protest movements, which had been heavily tipped to win the prize for their young street campaigners.

"In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the Arab Spring, Tawakul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen," the Nobel citation read.

Egyptian activist Asmaa Mahfouz, who had been nominated, said: "Giving it to Yemen means giving it to the Arab Spring, and this is an honor to all of us and to all Arab states."....."

A Muslim family from Jaffa said Thursday it plans to file a lawsuit against the police, after officers allegedly used excessive force to evict it two days earlier from a south Tel Aviv house in which it was squatting.

In a video, a group of Yassam riot police can be seen wrestling with Sameer Kassem, 34, as he holds his four-year-old daughter.
Kassem was still nursing his wounds in Jaffa’s Hashtayim Park tent city on Thursday, where he is staying with his family. He sported two black eyes, and what he said was a broken nose and a bruised rib following the incident, which was filmed by an activist and uploaded to the Internet on Thursday.

Kassem said his family has been homeless since May, when his mother, who used to help him with his expenses, died and he could no longer pay rent. He said that he, his wife, and their five children moved to the vacant house on Salameh Street about two weeks ago after someone set their tent on fire at Hashtayim Park.

He said his children were having trouble sleeping at the tent city, especially after it rained recently. Kassem’s sister had been living at the vacant house for a few weeks and invited him to stay there with his children he added.

According to Kassem, on Tuesday they were informed by police that they would arrive in the afternoon to evict them and he decided to begin packing their belongings in the meantime.

When police finally arrived, he said he decided to take his infant and hole up in the house, hoping that maybe police would relent and allow them to stay.

Sami al-Saadi claims MI6 connived in his capture – and is also targeting MI5, Foreign Office and Home Office

Ian Cobain
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 October 2011

"A Libyan dissident is launching legal action against the British government after a cache of secret documents discovered in Tripoli exposed the pivotal role played by MI6 in his rendition to one of Muammar Gaddafi's jails.

In a case that threatens to cause acute discomfort to some former ministers in the last Labour government as well as senior intelligence officers, Sami al-Saadi is claiming damages from the UK for the years of torture he subsequently suffered.

Saadi has hired the same teams of lawyers who represented Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantánamo inmate. They have lodged a claim which names as defendants not only MI6 but also MI5, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the attorney general's office. They have also called on Scotland Yard to launch a criminal investigation...."

Military denies plan to shoehorn one of its own into presidency after unveiling 18-month timetable for transition to civilian rule

Jack Shenker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 October 2011

"Egypt's ruling military generals have unveiled plans that could see them retain power for another 18 months, increasing fears that the country's democratic transition process is under threat.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) took control of Egypt after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak in February, and initially promised to return to their barracks within six months. But since then the "roadmap" to an elected, civilian government has been beset by delays and controversies, fuelling speculation that the army could be buying time in an attempt to shoehorn one of their own senior commanders into the presidency....."

Do you see the dispute between the Transitional Council and the revolutionaries in Libya as real?

With about 200 responding so far, 50% said yes.

By Ali Abunimah

"A complaint by a professor at Columbia University who co-founded the anti-Palestinian Zionist group “Scholars for Peace in the Middle East” has resulted in the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opening an investigation into the university.

The civil rights complaint is part of a growing pattern of such actions by Zionist groups across the country to use civil rights laws to suppress campus criticism or even discussion of Israel’s human rights crimes, and to intimidate faculty and students and slander those who dare to teach or undertake activities about Palestinian rights as “anti-Semites.”

Recently, The Electronic Intifada discovered that Israeli officials had even played a direct role in a planned civil rights complaint against another US institution, Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where students had passed a resolution supporting divestment from Israel.

Columbia rejects attempt to smear Joseph Massad

The complaint also appears to be another attempt to smear Columbia University professor Joseph Massad even though it in fact has nothing to do with him. For years, Massad was the target of an organized campaign of slander and intimidation by Zionist groups who interfered in the university’s processes in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to deny him tenure....."

The Assange case demonstrates one thing – western claims to support democracy and the mainstream media’s defence of freedom of speech are entirely hypocritical.

By John Pilger
The New Statesman

"....However, it is not the Swedish judicial system that presents a "grave danger" to Assange, say his lawyers, but a legal device known as a temporary surrender, under which he can be sent on from Sweden to the United States secretly and quickly. The founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, who published the greatest leak of official documents in history, providing a unique insight into rapacious wars and the lies told by governments, is likely to find himself in a hell hole not dissimilar to the "torturous" dungeon that held Private Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower. Manning has not been tried, let alone convicted, yet on 21 April President Barack Obama declared him guilty with a dismissive "He broke the law".....

The Guardian's Hackgate exposures were a tour de force; the Murdoch empire may disintegrate as a result. But, with or without Murdoch, a media consensus endures that echoes, from the BBC to the Sun, a corrupt, warmongering political establishment. Assange's crime has been to threaten this consensus: those who fix the "parameters" of news and political ideas, and whose authority as media commissars is challenged by the revolution of the internet. The prize-winning former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook has experience of both worlds.

“The media, at least the supposedly left-wing component," he writes, "should be cheering on this revolution . . . And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it [even] to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age . . . Some of [the campaign against Assange] clearly reflects a clash of personalities and egos, but it also looks suspiciously like the feud derives from a more profound ideological struggle [about] how information should be controlled a generation hence [and] the gatekeepers maintaining their control.""

UN failure to pass sanctions resolution against Assad's regime has convinced some that diplomacy cannot protect them

Martin Chulov in Beirut and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 October 2011

"An armed insurrection inside Syria looks set to gather momentum after the failure to pass a UN resolution against president Bashar al-Assad's regime, according to dissidents in two key Syrian cities.

Activists from Homs and Hama, where mostly peaceful protests over the past six months have lately become more aggressive and armed, say the failure of the US effort to threaten sanctions against Syria has convinced some that diplomacy cannot protect them.

"There's no way out of this except to fight," said an activist from Homs. "For the people of Homs the international community are not with us and we know that for sure. Russia and China will continue to protect Assad and as long as that happens, he will hunt us down."....

In Homs, where government forces are routinely clashing with armed members of the opposition – many of them former soldiers who defected with their weapons – outgunned protesters are now openly seeking weapons from outside the country.

"We know that we will not see Nato jets above the skies of Damascus," said one Homs resident. "It is us against them. No one else will help us."

In Beirut, where aid supplies to Homs and Hama are co-ordinated, aid workers said they had been receiving more requests for weapons than for food or medicine. "Of course we can't help with this. But it shows how much their priorities have changed.""

Zainab al-Hosni went missing in July and her body was returned to her family and buried. Now Damascus says she is alive

Ian Black and Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 October 2011

"Syria's government has sought to score a propaganda coup with the mysterious TV appearance of a young woman who had been reported to have been beheaded and mutilated by state security agents.

The macabre story was revived on Tuesday when the main state TV channel screened a brief interview with a woman claiming to be Zainab al-Hosni.

International human rights groups and Syrian opposition activists said Hosni had been killed after being detained in July.

The station described the interview as intended to discredit foreign "media fabrications".

Hosni's family confirmed that it was her in the film, but they could not say whether she was alive or had in fact been killed after the interview. The episode thus ended up posing troubling new questions...."

Prosecutor orders civilian retrials for 20 medical personnel after global condemnation of sentences

Martin Chulov
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 October 2011

"A Bahrain prosecutor has ordered retrials in civilian courts for 20 medics sentenced under martial law for crimes they were accused of committing while treating victims from anti-government protests earlier this year.

The announcement followed condemnation from the US and European states as well as global medical bodies and rights groups at the sentences of 5-15 years handed down by a security court last week.

The plight of the medics – two paramedics and 18 doctors from Bahrain's biggest hospital, the Salmaniya Medical Centre (SMC) – had proven to be hugely damaging for Bahrain's rulers, who had launched a relentless crackdown on leaders of a civic rights push it insisted was a sectarian plot backed by Iran....."

By Amy Goodman

"The Occupy Wall Street protest grows daily, spreading to cities across the United States. “We are the 99 percent,” the protesters say, “that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”

The response by the New York City Police Department has been brutal. Last Saturday, the police swept up more than 700 protesters in one of the largest mass arrests in U.S. history. The week before, innocent protesters were pepper-sprayed in the face without warning or reason.

That is why, after receiving a landmark settlement this week from the police departments of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as the U.S. Secret Service, my colleagues and I went to Liberty Square, the heart of the Wall Street occupation, to announce the legal victory.

On Labor Day 2008, the “Democracy Now!” news team and I were covering the first day of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Thousands protested outside. I was on the convention floor, interviewing delegates from what that week was the hottest state, Alaska. Blocks away, my colleagues Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were covering a police assault on the dispersing crowd of marchers.....

Jump forward to today. The bailed-out Wall Street megabank JPMorgan Chase gave a tax-deductible $4.6 million donation to the New York City Police Foundation, which has protesters asking: Who is the NYPD paid to protect, the public or the corporations? The 99 percent or the 1 percent?

Marina Sitrin, part of Occupy Wall Street’s legal working group, told me that the protest was going to be based at Chase Plaza, but the NYPD pre-emptively closed it. The protesters moved to Zuccotti Park, which they renamed Liberty Square.

According to an undated press release on JPMorgan Chase’s website, in response to the $4.6 million donation: “New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing ‘profound gratitude’ for the company’s donation.” Given the size of the donation, and the police harassment and violence against the protesters, we must question how Kelly shows his gratitude."

It was formed to assist in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in reality, envoy Tony Blair uses it for personal profit.

Ali Abunimah
Al-Jazeera

"Quartet envoy Tony Blair has been the target of stinging criticism of late from officials close to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. There have even been murmurs that Abbas' officials may formally request Blair's removal.

While Blair's Quartet role, which he took up the day he left office as UK prime minister in 2007, has undoubtedly been harmful to the Palestinian people and to any semblance of international law, it would not be enough to call for Blair to go.

It is the Quartet itself - an ad hoc committee of US, EU and Russian officials, and the UN Secretary General, that monopolises the so-called "peace process" - that has destroyed what little credibility the United Nations has left on the question of Palestine.

It functions as a front that launders Israeli and American demands as UN and "international" positions, sidelining international law and countless resolutions declaring myriad Israeli actions to be grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

To begin to restore UN credibility, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should end UN membership, funding and support for the Quartet. If he doesn't, UN member states should demand that he do so....

The Arab League states, at least, should demand that the UN Secetary General withdraw from the Quartet and halt funding Tony Blair's office from money that is supposed to assist Palestinians whose lives have been devastated by the very Israeli policies Blair facilitates.

If the UN is to begin to play any useful role in restoring the Palestinians' usurped rights, it must begin by abolishing the obstructionist and irredeemably corrupted Quartet."

Al-Masry Al-Youm

"Egypt’s military rulers are responsible for the life of a jailed blogger on the 43rd day of a hunger strike, Amnesty International warned today after a Cairo military court adjourned his appeal hearing until 11 October.

Maikel Nabil Sanad, 26, was arrested in March and given a three-year jail sentence for publishing articles on his blog documenting human rights violations perpetrated by the Egyptian military, including the use of violence against pro-democracy activists.

Sanad has been on hunger strike since 23 August, protesting against his imprisonment. His health is deteriorating steadily and he is reported to have lost 15 kilograms since he stopped eating. He is also suffering from anemia, scabies and kidney problems, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Negad al-Borey, Sanad’s lawyer, told Al-Masry Al-Youm earlier on Tuesday that the appeal hearing was adjourned because the judge said the official court documents were not in proper order.

Borey added that this is the court’s responsibility, not that of any lawyer.

“Maikel Nabil Sanad’s dire predicament highlights the ongoing abuses faced by prisoners of conscience in Egypt,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

It was the first trial of a blogger by a military court after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed control following the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak on 11 February.

“Civilians should never face trial before military courts, which are fundamentally unfair, as they deny defendants basic fair trial guarantees, including the right to proper appeal,” added Sahraoui.

“It seems that little has changed since the 'January 25 Revolution’. The Egyptian authorities must urgently act to rectify the injustice done to this blogger, whose life is in danger after his wrongful imprisonment.”"

By Ali Abunimah

"Just a couple of years ago, virtually no one in mainstream media wanted to talk about a single democratic state – a one-state solution – in Palestine. That was true even though it was already widely a topic of discussion, debate and indeed acceptance among many Palestinians, within the solidarity movement and beyond.

Now things do seem to be changing. This morning the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) carried a 30 minute interview with me and Daniel Gavron, an Israeli supporter of a single democratic state, on its flagship radio news program The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti.

• Listen to the interview via the CBC website .
....."

Insecure Saudis crack down on freedom protest

By Patrick Cockburn

"Pro-democracy protests which swept the Arab world earlier in the year have erupted in eastern Saudi Arabia over the past three days, with police opening fire with live rounds and many people injured, opposition activists say.

Saudi Arabia last night confirmed there had been fighting in the region and that 11 security personnel and three civilians had been injured in al-Qatif, a large Shia city on the coast of Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province. The opposition say that 24 men and three women were wounded on Monday night and taken to al-Qatif hospital.

The Independent has been given exclusive details of how the protests developed by local activists. They say unrest began on Sunday in al-Awamiyah, a Shia town of about 25,000 people, when Saudi security forces arrested a 60-year-old man to force his son – an activist – to give himself up.....

The Saudi statement alleges that the recent protests were stirred up by an unnamed foreign power, by which it invariably means Iran. The interior ministry was quoted on Saudi television as saying that "a foreign country is trying to undermine national security by inciting strife in al-Qatif". Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies of the western Gulf have traditionally blamed Iran for any unrest by local Shia, but have never produced any evidence other than to point at sympathetic treatment of the demonstrations on Iranian television.

The 20 doctors in Bahrain sentenced to up to 15 years in prison last week say their interrogators tortured them repeatedly to force them to make false confessions that Iran was behind the protests. The counter-revolution in Bahrain was heralded by the arrival of a 1,500-strong Saudi-led military force, which is still there.

Mr Rayah, who flew from Saudi Arabia to Beirut to be free to talk about the protests, said: "People want a change and a new way of living." He said that, in particular, they were demanding a constitution and a free assembly for the Eastern Province. He also wanted the Society for Development and Change legally registered.

Mr Hassan blamed the protests on the fact "that there has been no political breakthrough"....."

Western diplomats say Arab state is bypassing international agreements, to pursue its own agenda

Peter Beaumont in Tripoli
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 October 2011

"The tiny Arab emirate of Qatar, a leading supporter of the revolution in Libya, has been accused by western diplomats of interfering in the country's sovereignty.

The claims come amid growing concern among Libyans in the National Transitional Council (NTC) [The Libyan Karzai is concerned! He wants a role for the Zionist Bernard-Henri Levy, but not for Qatar.] and western officials that Qatar, which supplied arms to Libyan revolutionaries, is pursuing its own postwar agenda at the cost of wider efforts to bring political stability [Euphemism for NATO occupation.] to the country.

Concern has been mounting over the last month that Qatar is bypassing an internationally agreed assistance strategy to Libya to throw its support behind individuals and factions contributing to the continuing political instability.....

At the centre of concerns are allegations that, rather than supporting the NTC, Qatar has chosen to back favoured key figures with financial and other resources. Most prominent among these would be the Islamist head of Tripoli's military council, Abdul-Aziz Belhaj....

Of particular concern over the last month has been how Qatar has chosen to throw its weight behind a group of Libyan individuals including Sheikh Ali Salabi, a Libyan cleric who resides in Doha and has close relations with Belhaj.

There has been the growing friction between Salabi and the NTC's interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril. Salabi has appeared on television to suggest Jibril is a "tyrant in waiting"....."

Demonstrators express anger over reports that President Bashar al-Assad is torturing relatives of those protesting abroad

The Guardian

"Dozens of anti-government demonstrators gathered outside the Syrian embassy in London on Tuesday to show that they would not be silenced despite reports that President Bashar al-Assad's regime is trying to stifle international condemnation by torturing the relatives of those protesting abroad.

Many clutched placards on which they had written their names and home towns in Arabic and English as they chanted: "Down, down Assad!" and "One solution: revolution!"

The "I am not afraid" protest, which was co-ordinated by Amnesty International, attracted around 40 Syrians from around the UK.

In contrast to previous demonstrations, when protesters have reported being photographed by embassy employees, there was no sign of diplomatic staff or attempted interference with the hour-long event....."

by Ray McGovern, October 04, 2011

A GOOD, LONG ARTICLE

"There are mounting signs that the right-wing Israeli government may think the timing is right for an attack on Iran, with growing alarms inside Israel about alleged Iranian progress on building a nuclear bomb — and with President Barack Obama fearing loss of key Jewish political support in 2012 if he doesn’t go along.

On Sept. 26, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Iran’s alleged progress, telling interviewer Charlie Rose that “time is short” before Iran obtains nuclear weapons and poses a direct threat to Israel and the rest of the world.

Yet the key factor in any Israeli decision to send its aircraft and missiles to Iran is the degree to which Netanyahu and other hard-line Likud leaders believe that President Obama is locked into giving blanket support to Israel — particularly as election 2012 draws near....

Mousetrapping the President

I promised, so many paragraphs ago, to address how Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu might see an attack on Iran as “mousetrapping” Washington into an even closer military relationship with Israel.

My own sense is that, despite his recent bravura performance in Washington — which included a speech to a joint session of Congress in which Republicans and Democrats competed to see who could jump to their feet fastest and applaud the loudest at every phrase uttered by the Israeli prime minister — Netanyahu is running scared.

I believe he thinks he needs the U.S. now more than ever. And on that I would have to agree....

So put yourself in the position of Netanyahu and his colleagues. Try to see Obama as they do and reflect on the various political equities and strategic considerations mentioned above. If you were Netanyahu, would you worry very much that Obama might get in the way if Israel decided to take a whack at Iran?"

Doctors have been tortured and given long prison sentences for giving medical care to anti-government protesters.

Reporter in Bahrain
Al-Jazeera

"Far away from the crowded village streets covered in debris from the protests and clashes with police still happening on an almost nightly basis, are the streets lined with the Bentleys, Mercedes, Range Rovers, and Lexuses that belong to many of the Bahraini doctors who are soon going to prison.

The two areas couldn't be more different from each other, yet in both are signs that Bahrain's uprising, which began on February 14 of this year, is far from over.

Before their sentencing on Thursday, the doctors had agreed to remain mostly silent and not speak out with the hope that the case would be swept under the rug and their charges dropped.

No one could believe it when, on September 29, 13 of the medics received 15-year sentences, two 10-year sentences, and five received five years. Their charges ranged from possessing weapons, to occupying a hospital, to inciting hatred of the regime. All had already been imprisoned from a few weeks to five months, when they claimed they were tortured and forced to confess to crimes they say they didn't commit. Doctors have said they were only doing their job and treating people in need of medical care.

This is the first time that a group of doctors have been put on trial and punished for being on the frontline during any of the Arab uprisings to sweep North Africa and the Middle East.

Dr Nada Dhaif, an oral surgeon sentenced to 15 years, said that this amount of doctors being jailed is a truly "unique case" in the "history of any revolution or unrest, and in the history of medicine."

When the sentences were announced, the doctors' silence ended. Global media immediately picked up their case, and international human rights groups condemned the charges as "ludicrous"...."

3 October 2011

"Syrian protesters in Europe and the Americas have been systematically monitored and harassed by embassy officials and others believed to be acting on behalf of the Syrian regime, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing paper.

The Long Reach of the Mukhabaraat includes cases of more than 30 activists in eight countries - Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA – who say that they have faced intimidation from embassy officials and others and that their relatives in Syria have as a result, in some cases, apparently been exposed to harassment, detention and even torture.

"Expatriate Syrians have been trying, through peaceful protest, to highlight abuses that we consider amount to crimes against humanity - and that presents a threat to the Syrian regime," said Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International's Syria researcher.

"In response the regime appears to have waged a systematic - sometimes violent - campaign to intimidate Syrians overseas into silence.

"This is yet more evidence that the Syrian government will not tolerate legitimate dissent and is prepared to go to great lengths to muzzle those who challenge it publicly."

In many cases, the organization found that protesters outside Syrian embassies were initially filmed or photographed by officials then subjected to harassment of various kinds, including phone calls, emails and Facebook messages warning them to stop....."

Do you support the formation of the Syrian National Council, similar to the Libyan Transitional Council?

With about 2,000 responding, 88% said yes.

By James Petras

"Introduction: Images of the Past The image of Latin America portrayed by the mass media and held by the educated public is a region of frequent coups, periodical revolutions, perpetual military dictatorships, alternating boom and bust economies and an ever-present International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictating economic policy.

In contrast the same opinion makers plus their academic counterparts project images of the United States and the European Union as stable societies, with steady economic growth, incremental expansion of social welfare programs, resolving issues via consensual compromises and practicing sound fiscal policies.

In recent times, the better part of the current decade, these images have taken on the character of ideological dogmas – they no longer correspond to reality. In fact a good argument can be made that the roles have been reversed: the US and EU are in perpetual crises and Latin America, at least most of the major countries, have experienced stability and growth which is the envy (or should be) of Washington pundits and financial commentators.....

Lessons Latin America: Listen Yankees and Eurocrats

Can the positive lessons of the dynamic Latin American experience provide a ‘model’ for the US and Europe? Is the “model”, in whole or part, transferable to the North or are the two regions so different that the lessons are not applicable?

Granted there are vast historical, cultural, economic and political differences between the regions yet some lessons from the Latin America’s decade of dynamic growth, provides new ideas to counter the negative, self-defeating economic formulas put forth and practiced by US and EU experts, economists and policymakers.

Let us start from the beginning. The rise of Latin America was precipitated by a deep economic crises, the breakdown of the economy, large scale unemployment and the impoverishment of the middle class. The crises led to the total discrediting of what has been called alternately the “free market”, “neo-liberal” and “de-regulated” capitalist model. So far so good: the US and EU likewise are experiencing a prolonged and deepening economic crises which has bankrupted Southern Europe, plunged the US into a double dip recession and led to a 20% un and underemployment rate. The entire “political class” in the US and Europe is largely discredited. From there forward the regions diverge.

In Latin America, the crises led to mass protests, popular uprisings and regime changes. Post neo-liberal center-left regimes, under mass pressure, subsequently launched employment generating investments and aid poverty reducing public works programs. Argentina facing a financial crises similar to Greece, Portugal and Spain today, defaulted on its foreign debt – channeling public revenues into reviving the economy. Because financial speculation linked to Wall Street and the City of London precipitated the crises, the Latin regimes instituted financial controls and regulations which limited financial volatility. The new regimes, influenced by the commodity boom, diversified their trading partners, entering dynamic Asian markets, reaping high returns and stimulating local consumption and public investments. What lessons can the crises ridden US and EU learn from the Latin America’s successful recovery and expansion?

First, the beginning of a successful response depends on a political transformation. Regime change a complete break with the ‘neo-liberal’ free market, and the political leaders and parties who are totally embedded in failed institutions and policies. Regime change presupposes the eruption of dynamic mass organizations, new, old, improvised and organized, capably of moving from protest and resistance to political power.
The object is to rebalance the US and EU economies from ‘financialization’ and “militarism” to large scale, long term investments in manufacturing, applied technology, civilian infrastructure and social services. Direct public investments and loans applied to concrete employment generating projects; total rejection of trickle down, monetary policies which never move from private banks to public works.

The entire militarist- Zionist-permanent war mentality is entirely vulnerable to change: doing so, will create jobs, the top priority for over two-thirds of the US public. The “war on terrorism”, the banner of the warlords in office, is considered a priority by only 3% of Americans. Once again the shift from ‘militarism’ to the civilian economy in Latin America was a result of popular civilian upheavals, via the street and the ballot box...... "