Women’s Day: Taking a stand with women in the Middle East

Amnesty International
March 6, 2012

"People around the world should show their solidarity with the courageous women who were pivotal in uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty International said.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, the organization is calling on its supporters to mark the day by sending messages of support to women in the region.

Thousands of individual actions are expected to be taken, with a focus on four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen – where women remain at the heart of calls for reform, but a broad spectrum of women’s rights are still threatened.

In North Africa, which saw momentous events in 2011, political change has yet to translate into real gains for women’s rights.

“Across the Middle East and North Africa, women have been an inspiring force for change, standing up against repressive regimes to defend basic human rights and promote reform and equality,” said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

“This International Women’s Day, we stand in solidarity with these courageous women, to support them in their struggle for human rights and freedom, and to let them know the world is behind them at this historic moment.”......"

BREAKING NEWS: Egypt gas pipeline blown for 13th time since Mubarak ouster

Bikya Masr

"CAIRO: Gunmen set off an explosion at a gas pipeline in Egypt in the 13th such attack on the pipeline that transports gas to Israel and Jordan since former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in popular street protests about one-year ago.

The pipelines carry cheap gas to Israel and Jordan. The 20-year gas deal struck with Israel in 2005 under Mubarak’s reign entails very favorable conditions for Israel. It is highly-contested among Egyptians who see the deal as a selling-off of its natural resources, besides the objection of exporting to Israel as a matter of principle.

On the other hand, Israel is highly dependent on the gas imports from Egypt, which accounts for 43 percent of its gas supplies.

Under popular pressure to toughen its stance towards Israel, the interim government has sought to renegotiate the terms of the gas deal with Israel, but so far with no success. However, they were able to double the price of gas exported to Jordan [But not Israel! Way to go SCAF!] last month......"

Al-Jazeera Video: ICRC's Saleh Dabbakeh on Homs aid convoy

"Saleh Dabbakeh, the spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross speaks to Al Jazeera about its aid convoy in Homs."

Debate: Attacking Iran, AIPAC, Israel-Palestine and Obama with Rashid Khalidi and Jonathan Tobin

Democracy Now!

"President Obama addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Sunday, assuring the pro-Israel lobbying group he will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and reiterated his unwavering support for Israel. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Obama at the White House today, we host a debate between Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University and Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin. “It is true [Iran does not] have the weapon now, the question is are we going to wait until ... they are one screwdriver away from doing it or not,” says Tobin. “[Iran’s] policy has been to forthrightly proclaim it wishes to destroy Israel — to wipe it off the map. Letting it have nuclear weapons is a threat to the entire region." But Khalidi argues that war with Iran “would guarantee that no responsible Iranian leadership in the future would allow Iran to be without a nuclear weapon after it had been attacked in an unprovoked fashion either by the U.S. or Israel.” Khalidi adds, “it will be a disaster that would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like tea parties.” Tobin and Khalidi also debate the relationship between Iran and Syria...."

Guardian Video: Syrian refugees flee to neighbouring Lebanon

The UN refugee agency says up to 2,000 Syrians have crossed the border into Lebanon to escape the violence. One woman who wanted to remain anonymous said she fled on foot during the night when government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad started shelling the Syrian border town of al-Qusayr

guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 March 2012

Real News Video : Obama at AIPAC

Jim Lobe: There are serious strategic differences between US and Israel, but they share the aim of weakening Iran as a regional power

Real News Video : Occupy AIPAC Opposes War and Sanctions Against Iran

130 organizations call for diplomacy with Iran and a US Middle East policy not based on unequivocal support for Israel

Iran War, Ready or Not. By Khalil Bendib

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

AIPAC Works for the 1 Percent

By Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges gave this talk Saturday night in Washington, D.C., at the Occupy AIPAC protest, organized by CODEPINK Women for Peace and other peace, faith and solidarity groups.

"The battle for justice in the Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is about living rather than dying. It is about communicating rather than killing. It is about love rather than hate. It is part of the great battle against the corporate forces of death that reign over us—the fossil fuel industry, the weapons manufacturers, the security and surveillance state, the speculators on Wall Street, the oligarchic elites who assault our poor, our working men and women, our children, one in four of whom depend on food stamps to eat, the elites who are destroying our ecosystem with its trees, its air and its water and throwing into doubt our survival as a species....

These neoconservatives were too blind and too enamored of their own power to see what invading Afghanistan and Iraq would trigger; so too are they unable to comprehend the regional conflagration that would be unleashed by attacking Iran, what it would mean for us, for Israel, for our allies and for tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocents.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” the Bible warns.

And since our elites have no vision it is up to us. The uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Occupy Wall Street to our gathering outside AIPAC’s doors in Washington are the same primal struggle for sanity, peace and justice, for a world wrenched free from the grip of those who would destroy it. And the abject fawning of our political elite, including Barack Obama, before AIPAC and its bank account is yet another window into the moral bankruptcy of our political class, another sign that the formal mechanisms of power are useless and broken. Civil disobedience is all we have left. It is our patriotic duty. We are called to make the cries of mothers, fathers and children in the squalid refugee camps in Gaza, in the suburbs of Tehran and in the bleak industrial wastelands in Ohio heard. We are called to stand up before these forces of death, the purveyors of violence, those whose hearts have grown cold with hatred. We are called to embrace and defend life with intensity and passion if we are to survive as a species, if we are to save our planet from the ravages of corporate greed and the specter of endless and futile war......"

Obama’s Red Line

War with Iran has just gotten more likely

by Justin Raimondo, March 05, 2012

"“We’ve got Israel’s back” – that is the message President Obama sent out ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US for a crucial summit at the White House, and he did it in an interview granted to one of the leading pro-Israel voices in the media, Jeffrey Goldberg, former Israeli prison guard and IDF soldier, now a columnist for The Atlantic. In that interview, Obama basically telegraphed his capitulation to the Israelis, who are demanding the establishment of “red lines” Iran may not cross without provoking an attack:

“[O]ur assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt.”

Here is the “red line” the Israelis have been demanding: not the act of building a nuclear weapon but evidence “they are making that attempt.” That is, evidence of their intent to do so, without any corroborating evidence they’ve actually succeeded. The catch is that such an “assessment” based on fresh intelligence would be just as impossible to check as it was in the run-up to the Iraq war, when US officials assured us Saddam was making the Bomb – and citing all sorts of completely invented “intelligence” to back it up. In short, we won’t find out if we were lied into war until well after the war has started – devastating the region, the world economy, and all hopes for peace......"

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria's worsening humanitarian crisis

"The outside world's attention has recently been focused on Homs and the attempts to get Red Cross aid into Baba Amr. But a far worse - and much wider - humanitarian crisis is taking place across Syria. Laurence Lee reports."

Smuggled images reveal horror of Syrian hospital patients

A hospital worker has provided horrific video evidence that medical staff in the besieged  Syrian city of Homs are doing the unthinkable: torturing patients in their care. 

Chilling images covertly filmed by the man, who risked his life to bring the plight of what he claims are  civilian patients to world attention, are to be broadcast on Channel 4 News tonight.  

The grainy footage from the Homs military hospital depicts wards full of wounded men, blindfolded and shackled to their beds. Some bear marks of extreme beating. The apparent instruments of torture – a rubber whip and electrical cable – lie openly on a table in one of the wards. 

Suffering: An injured man lies in the Homs military hospital. Wounds are clearly visible on his chest

On the orders of the Syrian government, all of those shot or injured during protests in Homs must be brought to the military hospital where staff are in league with the secret police.  

The whistleblower, ‘Abu Hamzeh’, claims many are whipped and beaten in their beds – and worse. 

The grim evidence of serious abuse raises the question of where the hundreds of injured civilians from the district of Baba Amr in Homs will be taken once the Red Cross finally negotiates their evacuation.  

 

More...

• Thousands of Syrians flee for Lebanon as UN tells of 'grisly reports' that civilians are being executed by Assad's troops
• Slaughter at the supermarket: Syrian forces 'execute people outside food shop' as Red Cross is blocked from entering rebel city for second day

Abu Hamzeh, not his real name, says he attempted several times to stop what he called ‘the shameful things’ which were happening in the hospital but that after being condemned as a ‘traitor’, he walked out in disgust and never went back. 

‘I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs,’ he told ‘Mani’, a French photojournalist who risked his own life smuggling the footage out of Syria. 

‘They twist the feet until the leg breaks. They perform operations without anaesthetics. I saw them slamming detainees’ heads against walls. They shackle the patients to beds. They deny them water.’

Shackled: A patient¿s arm is chained to his bed exposing the torture the Assad regime is inflicting

Abu Hamzeh says he witnessed abuse by civilian and military surgeons at the hospital and by other medical staff, including male nurses. He has provided the names of all those he claims worked hand-in-glove with Syrian soldiers and the feared mukhabarat secret police.

Sometimes, he says, he heard patients screaming while being kicked or beaten. The abuse took place, he claims, in the hospital’s ambulance section, its prison wards, the X-ray department and even in the intensive care unit. 

‘Sometimes they have to amputate limbs and they go gangrenous because they don’t prescribe antibiotics,’ he said. 

The footage, filmed within the last three months, confirms what victims of such treatment have long claimed, but the Syrian regime has forcefully denied.  

Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) in Egypt SAYS That it Will Not Kneel in Front of the US!! By Emad Hajjaj

Syrians flee Homs for Lebanon

Up to 2,000 refugees reach border, but fate of thousands unknown as Red Cross still denied access to Baba Amr

Martin Chulov in Beirut
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 March 2012

"Lebanon is bracing itself for a new influx of Syrian refugees after up to 2,000 people fleeing the military onslaught in Homs were reported to be trying to reach the country's northern border.....

The exodus from Syria's third city has intensified since loyalist forces ousted the opposition Free Syria Army from the Baba Amr neighbourhood on Friday. There is little information about the fate of up to 20,000 residents thought to be there when the siege began four weeks ago.

For the third day running, the International Committee for the Red Cross was denied access to Baba Amr despite earlier assurances that it could deliver aid to residents trapped in the fighting...."

Afghans turn on occupiers

By Eric S. Margolis
4 March 2012

"Shock, incomprehension, fury. Americans are feeling these raw emotions as news keeps coming in of more attacks by Afghan government soldiers and officials on US and NATO troops. Six US troops were killed last week as a result of protests across Afghanistan following the burning of the Holy Quran by incredibly dim-witted American soldiers.

“Aren’t they supposed to be our allies? We are over there to save them! What outrageous ingratitude,” ask angry, confused Americans.

Angry Britons asked the same questions in 1857 when “sepoys,” individual mercenary soldiers of Britain’s Imperial Indian Army, then entire units rebelled and began attacking British military garrisons and their families. British history calls it the “Indian Mutiny.” Indians call it the “Great Rebellion” marking India’s first striving for freedom from the British Raj and the Indian vassal princes who so dutifully served it.....

Afghans are a proud, prickly people who, as I often saw, take offense all too easily. Pashtuns are infamous for never forgetting an offense, real or imagines, and biding their time to strike back. This is precisely what has been happening in Afghanistan, where arrogant, culturally ignorant US and NATO ‘advisors’ – who are really modern versions of the British Raj’s “white officers leading native troops”- offend and outrage the combustible Afghans. Those who believe 20-year old American soldiers from the Hillbilly Ozarks can win the hearts and minds of Pashtun tribesmen are fools.

Proud Pashtun Afghans can take just so much from unloved, often detested foreign “infidels” advisors before exploding and exacting revenge. This also happened during the Soviet era. But some Soviet officers at least had more refined cultural sensibilities in dealing with Afghan. US-Afghan relations are not going to flowers when American troops call the Afghans “sand niggers” and “towel heads.” Many US GI’s hail from the deep south.

Many Afghans have just had enough of their foreign occupiers. The Americans have lost their Afghan War. As the Imperial British used to say: you can only rent Afghans for so long. One day they will turn and cut your throat."

Al-Jazeera Video: حديث الثورة - اتجاهات الأوضاع في سوريا

"اتجاهات الأوضاع في سوريا، بعد تشكيل "المكتب الاستشاري العسكري"، وفي ضوء التحركات الإقليمية والدولية الأخيرة لمقاربة الوضع السوري المتأزم.
تقديم ليلى الشايب
تاريخ البث 2012/03/01
الضيوف :
أسامة المنجد
محمد زكريا السقال
صفوت الزيات
علي التواتي "

How I escaped from Homs as Syrian forces closed in

I joined a motley procession of injured fighters and journalists fleeing the city – on the day 64 people died trying the same thing

Javier Espinosa
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 March 2012

"The motley procession seemed like something out of the 17th-century Spain described by the writer Francisco de Quevedo. One injured man was in his underwear, with his legs, head and arms bandaged up, using his working hand to grasp his drip. He could barely walk. Then came a limping man, wounded in his foot, who hopped or was carried on a friend's back. Another young man, his leg shattered by shrapnel, was transported on a blanket held by others.

Ahmed, his arm and leg lacerated by shrapnel from a rocket, leaned on Mohamed, who struggled onwards with a sniper's bullet in his back. Journalists Paul Conroy and Edith Bouvier, both wounded, were part of the same strange troop, along with two other correspondents, including me.

Even the vehicles we travelled in seemed more ready for the scrapyard than this insane venture. The lorries were peppered with bullet holes and shrapnel. One jolted along on a flat tyre.

Fifty or more of us – many disabled by their wounds – were trying to break out of the besieged neighbourhood of Baba Amr, in Homs, fleeing the final attack unleashed by the Syrian regime. It was to be a risky night-time dash through Syrian army lines, which would prove just how desperate these people, abandoned to their luck, had become......

There is no method to war. Nothing you have learned helps you predict who will live and who will join the statistics. On the day I escaped Homs, the rebels said some 64 other people had died trying the same thing. They claim they were women and children.

For Assem, a 36-year-old labourer who has joined the rebels, the defeat of Baba Amr – still not certain when we spoke – would not end the uprising.

"Bashar has not got the message. I, for example, loved him when he took over. I thought he would be different to his father," he said. He pointed to a part of his little finger. "If he had just given us this little bit of freedom, we would have remained quiet. But whenever he slaughters someone from our families he simply increases our desire to kill him.""

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Syria - Can Syria's opposition unite?

"We discuss why Syria's opposition has been unable to incorporate itself into a strong coalition with a united message and what the divide means for Assad. Guests: Joshua Landis, Syria expert; Randa Slim, scholar, ME Institute; Najib Ghadbian, SNC."

Al-Jazeera Video: Possible crimes against humanity in Syria

"As the Syrian government's crackdown continues, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he's received reports of quote "summary executions, arbitrary detentions and torture.""

Turkey steps up rhetoric on Syrian 'massacre'

Rescued journalist tells of being abandoned in tunnel as China urges government and rebel to end all acts of violence

Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 March 2012

"Turkey has called the violence in Syria "a crime against humanity" on the scale of the 1990s bloodshed in the Balkans, as a Red Cross convoy was once again barred from entering the Homs suburb of Baba Amr.

The comment by Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu follows similar remarks from the EU on Friday, which called for the documentation of war crimes in Syria.

"No government, no authority, under no circumstances, can endorse such a total massacre of its own people," Davutoglu said. "The international community must speak louder. The lack of international consensus is giving Syria the courage to continue."

The criticism came at the end of a week in which the UK and France closed their embassies in Syria, and China and Russia appeared to shift position in calling for President Bashar al-Assad's regime to admit UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos.

"The situation in the field seems to resemble Sarajevo or Srebrenica. This seems to be the way we are heading," Davutoglu said at a joint news conference with Giulio Terzi, Italy's foreign minister. "We believe that diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime must be increased. We say this not only from the point of view of the EU. We believe all international institutions must do this."...."

Edith Bouvier's escape from Homs

Journalist was left taped to a stretcher inside the tunnel rebels had dug to smuggle her out when Syrian forces bombed it

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 March 2012

"French journalist Edith Bouvier feared her escape from of Homs had come to an end after the tunnel through which she was smuggled out of the besieged Syrian city came under bmobardment from Assad's forces.

Her leg broken by a shell, which killed Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik days earlier, Bouvier was abandoned, taped to a makeshift stretcher, as rebels and dozens of wounded fled the explosions and headed back to Baba Amr district.

"One of them placed his Kalashnikov on me. He put his hand on my head and said a prayer. It wasn't very reassuring. Then he left," Bouvier told Le Figaro newspaper, for which she was working in Syria.

"I didn't know what was going to happen. Was the exit blocked? Were Syrian soldiers going to enter? I wanted to run away before remembering that I was taped to a stretcher."

Bouvier and French photographer William Daniels, who stayed with her throughout, were finally rescued by a rebel who drove down the 1.6-metre high tunnel on a motorbike and carried them back to Baba Amr.

With the tunnel blocked and Baba Amr close to falling to the army, the two journalists, the objects of a manhunt after their faces were broadcast on Syrian television, decided to risk everything by slipping out of the city in a vehicle under cover of darkness.

"We were exhausted, physically and mentally. We had to get out of there," Bouvier said. Details of their escape route were not published by the newspaper to protect those who aided them.

Moving from safe house to safe house, changing vehicles frequently and taking rocky mountain roads amid a snowstorm, it took the journalists and their rebel escort four days to travel the 25 miles to the Lebanese border. Everywhere strangers greeted them by name, welcoming them warmly.

"They really put themselves in danger for us. They did everything for us," said Bouvier....."

A Movement With a Thousand Voices: Will The Real Hamas Define its Position vis-à-vis the Criminal Syrian Regime??

الزهار ينفي قطع حماس لعلاقاتها مع دمشق

Arabs48.com

"أكد عضو المكتب السياسي لحركة حماس محمود الزهار السبت 3 مارس/آذار أن الحركة لم تقطع علاقاتها مع سورية، متمنيا أن يستعيد الوضع في سورية عافيته.

وفي رده على سؤال صحفي وجه له ، على هامش لقاء تأسيسي لمنتدى طبي في قطاع غزة، حول ما إذا قطعت حماس علاقتها كليا مع سورية بعد خروج رئيس المكتب السياسي خالد مشعل منها مؤخرا، تساءل الزهار: "من الذي قال إننا قطعنا العلاقات؟ لماذا يحاول هؤلاء أن يخرجونا عن دائرة الحياد التي اتسمنا بها في كل القضايا، هذه محاولات للإيقاع بيننا وبين سورية".

واضاف: "نحن نتمنى لسورية أن تتعافى وأن يأخذ شعبها حقه وأن يقوى النظام الذي يمثل الشارع السوري الذي يستطيع أن يحرر أرضه ويساعد في تحرير فلسطين، بالتالي نحن لسنا طرفا للدخول في أي من المحاور لا القطرية ولا المنطقة كلها".

وتابع قائلا: "موقفنا من الثورة في مصر وتونس وليبيا وفي غيرها ثابت، هو نفس الموقف في سورية: لا نتدخل بالشأن الداخلي، لكن ننصح ونقدم النصيحة الخالصة. لكن اذا اصبحت الامور تأخذنا في اتجاهات مختلفة فنحن نتوقف لان برنامجنا ليس الدخول في الصراع العربي الداخلي ولا الاقليمي، صراعنا الاساسي موجه ضد الاحتلال الاسرائيلي في فلسطين".

ويتناقض تصريح الزهار هذا مع اعلان اسماعيل هنية رئيس الحكومة المقالة في قطاع غزة منذ فترة قريبة الذي اعلن فيه صراحة عن وقوف حركة حماس الى جانب الشعب السوري في مطالبته بالحرية والديمقراطية.

من جانبه انتقد فوزي برهوم المتحدث باسم حماس في وقت سابق بعض التفسيرات والتعليقات على تصريحات هنية في القاهرة بقوله: "يبدو أن الإعلام ضخم من هذه التصريحات بشكل كبير جدا، ولعبوا على وتر غير مقبول"، مضيفا: "لا أجد أي غرابة في تصريحات السيد إسماعيل هنية، ما يتمناه السيد هنية للشعب السوري نتمناه لكل شعوب العالم وحتى للشعب الفلسطيني".

واوضح: "منذ البداية كنا نكن كل التقدير والاحترام لسورية التي احتضنت المقاومة وكل فصائل الشعب الفلسطيني، حيث أن الفلسطيني يمتع في سورية بكافة الحقوق وهذا طبعا ربما يكون الوضع الأفضل على مستوى الدول العربية للفلسطينيين اللاجئين هناك في سورية".

وفيما يخص الموقف السوري من تصريحات هنية، فقد أكد المتحدث باسم الخارجية السورية جهاد مقدسي "أنه وبغض النظر عن حماس.. سورية مستمرة بدعمها للقضية الفلسطينية كونها قضية وطنية"، مؤكدا على "أن سورية ورقة بيد القضية الفلسطينية وليس العكس"."

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story - The impact of Egypt's NGO trial

The heroic myth and the uncomfortable truth of war reporting

Like other correspondents, Robert Fisk has risked his life to 'witness history'. But after almost four decades, he feels ambivalent towards his profession

By Robert Fisk

"It took a lot of courage to get into Homs; Sky News, then the BBC, then a few brave men and women who went to tell the world of the city's anguish and, in at least two cases, suffered themselves. I could only reflect this week, however, how well we got to know the name of the indomitable and wounded British photographer Paul Conroy, and yet how little we know about the 13 Syrian volunteers who were apparently killed by snipers and shellfire while rescuing him. No fault of Conroy, of course. But I wonder if we know the names of these martyrs – or whether we intend to discover their names?

There's something faintly colonialist about all this. We have grown so used to the devil-may-care heroics of the movie version of "war" correspondents that they somehow become more important than the people about whom they report.....

Yes, all honour to those who reported from Homs. But here's a thought: when the Israelis unleashed their cruel bombardment of Gaza in 2008, they banned all reporters from the war, just as the Syrians tried to do in Homs. And the Israelis were much more successful in preventing us Westerners from seeing the subsequent bloodbath. Hamas forces and the "Free Syria Army" in Homs actually have a lot in common – both were increasingly Islamist, both faced infinitely superior firepower, both lost the battle – but it was left to Palestinian reporters to cover their own people's suffering. They did a fine job. Funny, though, that the newsrooms of London and Washington didn't have quite the same enthusiasm to get their folk into Gaza as they did to get them into Homs. Just a thought. A very unhappy one."

Homs shelled again as Syrian troops keep Red Cross out

Regime refuses entry for medical convoy, while bodies of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik have been retrieved

Peter Beaumont, Mona Mahmood and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 March 2012

"Syrian activists say troops are shelling several districts in the rebellious central city of Homs where the government is stopping a Red Cross convoy from reaching thousands stranded in the area.

Abu Hassan al-Homsi, a doctor at a makeshift clinic in Khaldiyeh district of Homs, said he had treated a dozen wounded from the latest onslaught.

The Local Co-ordination Committees activist network said mortars began slaimming into Khaldiyeh, Bab Sbaa and Khader districts of the city early on Saturday.

The shelling comes amid a standoff between the government and the Red Cross, which says authorities have prevented its convoy from delivering badly needed food, medical supplies and blankets to thousands of people still stranded in Baba Amr, the rebel-held district of Homs that was overrun by troops on Thursday.

Despite receiving permission from the government to send a convoy with seven truckloads of aid into Baba Amr, the Red Cross was prevented from entering the neighbourhood, an action it described as "unacceptable".....

Reports from other opposition-held neighbourhoods in the city of one million suggested that fighters may also have pulled back from their positions there.

Anti-Assad activists have accused Syrian troops of burning houses, arresting all males over the age of 12 and of extrajudicial killings, including the alleged beheadings of 17 men captured after the suburb's fall.......

"There's no resistance here," one activist in the northern neighbourhood of Khalidiyeh told the Guardian yesterday. "There is only shelling and bombing."

The situation in Baba Amr itself was described by an onlooker. "Today the Syrian army are in control. There are a lot of wounded who could not flee. The Syrian army is firing against anything they can find in front of them. They are arresting any young men they find."

In other parts of the city, such as Khalidiyeh, residents said the fighters who remained were low on ammunition: "We have members of the FSA here, but they have a small amount of ammunition and they are trying to use every bullet against the right target." He accused the army of murdering a family in Baba Amr, and added: "The Syrian army are arresting any man they find from 14 years upwards."....."

Syria: New Satellite Images Show Homs Shelling

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Russia and China Fail to Act While Residents Suffer Death, Destruction

Human Rights Watch
March 2, 2012

"(New York) – New satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts reveal that the bombardment of the Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs has inflicted widespread destruction and a large number of deaths and severe injuries of civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. The bombardment has severely restricted movement and relief efforts and deprived thousands of civilians of the ability to access the most basic commodities, Human Rights Watch said.

Local sources have reported that approximately 700 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in Homs since the Syrian military began its current assault on the city on February 3, 2012. Indiscriminate shelling and sniper fire has caused most of the casualties in Baba Amr, which is a residential area where elements of the armed opposition have sought refuge. Human Rights Watch interviewed 15 Homs residents who escaped the city in the last two weeks, as well as two foreign correspondents who spent time in Baba Amr during the military assault.

“These new satellite photos and witness accounts show the extent of the brutality unleashed on Baba Amr," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite the killing, Russia and China continue to block any international action.”

Human Rights Watch acquired and analyzed this commercial satellite image of the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs on February 25. A wide view of the image clearly shows the extensive damage caused by the use of surface-delivered explosive weapons in a populated area. The image reflects the damage that has occurred since previous images were taken between four and six weeks ago.

Analysts have overlaid the large-scale image of Baba Amr with symbols to highlight certain features:

- Red circles represent destroyed or damaged buildings

- Yellow circles are impact craters in open areas like fields, or roads.

At least 950 craters are visible on open lands, such as roads and farmland, from the impact of indirect fire weapons. The number of craters indicates the frequency of the attacks and how many artillery and mortar shells have fallen. There are 640 buildings in the neighborhood with visible damage. However, the damage to buildings is likely to be significantly underestimated from viewing the satellite image because views from satellite images do not show hits to the sides of buildings made by explosive weapons......"

UAE: Stop Expelling Syrian Protesters

Authorities Cancel Residency Permits After Peaceful Protest at Consulate

March 2, 2012

"(Beirut) – Emirati authorities should retract their decision to cancel the residency permits of dozens of Syrians who took part in a peaceful protest against the Syrian government in Dubai, Human Rights Watch said today.

In the weeks following the demonstration, on February 10, 2012, United Arab Emirates (UAE) security officials called in for questioning hundreds of Syrian nationals suspected of attending the unlicensed demonstration. The UAE government later revoked the residency permits of about 50 of them, some of the protesters and Syrian community leaders in the UAE told Human Rights Watch.

“The UAE calls on Syrian President Assad to respect the right of peaceful protesters, yet it is expelling Syrians from its country for exercising this basic right,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “These expulsions show that Emirati authorities are intolerant of any protest or expression of dissent on UAE soil even if it is not geared toward them.”....."

Hamas says Egypt to blame for Gaza energy crisis

By Joseph Mayton
Bikya Masr

"CAIRO: Hamas leader in Gaza put the blame for the power crisis in the Gaza Strip on Egypt, arguing that continued power outages are the result of Cairo not implementing promises to boost their electricity output.

Ismail Haniyeh told reporters on Friday that Egypt was in complete control of the flow of fuel into Gaza and alluded to Cairo officials not doing enough to assist the Palestinians since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak.

It comes as many households in the small Mediterranean enclave are receiving only around 6 hours of electricity daily, which has begun to cause anger and resentment towards the Islamic group in Gaza.

The statements from Haniyeh are likely to cause a rift with Cairo, who said in recent weeks it would help boost energy outputs to Gaza.

“Is it reasonable that Gaza remains without electricity a year after the revolution in Egypt?” Haniyeh said in a weekly address, accusing Cairo of trying to force Gazans to accept their energy supplies via arch foe Israel.

“Is it reasonable that Gaza remains blockaded a year after the dismissal of the tyrant (Mubarak) regime?” he said.

Egypt is seen as the last hope for Gaza as Israel continues a complete economic blockade on the 1.5 million inhabitants in Gaza, who struggle for basic daily supplies.

Although Cairo has promised to open the border at Rafah, it remains sporadically open and Palestinians are still unable to move freely into Egypt. Supplies are in short order and despite hopes that a post-revolution Egypt would bring change to the political dynamic in the region, Palestinians in Gaza continue to struggle daily for the basic necessities of life."

Paul Conroy warns of Syria massacre

Homs could compare to the onslaughts of Bosnia and Rwanda, warns photographer who was smuggled out of stricken city

guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012

"Paul Conroy, the British photographer wounded in the rocket attack that killed war reporter Marie Colvin in Homs, has warned that the Syrian city faces a "massacre beyond measure".

In his first interview since he was smuggled out of Syria and across the border to safety in Lebanon, the Sunday Times photographer compared the onslaught by the forces of the Syrian regime to the mass killings of the 1990s in Bosnia and Rwanda and made a plea for the international community to act.

"Once the cameras are gone, as they are now, God knows what is happening," he told Sky News from his hospital bed in London. "Any talking now is too late. The time for talking is actually over. Now the massacre and the killing are at full tilt."......"

Syria army stops Red Cross entering Baba Amr to deliver aid

Red Cross evacuates bodies of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, but warns refusal of aid risks humanitarian crisis in Homs

Peter Beaumont and Mona Mahmood
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012

"Syrian authorities have blocked the Red Cross from entering the Baba Amr district of the city of Homs, where civilians have endured days of fierce fighting, amid reports that soldiers and armed gangs have been carrying out atrocities in the suburb since it fell to the government on Thursday.

Despite receiving permission from the government to send a convoy with seven truckloads of aid into Baba Amr, the Red Cross was prevented from entering the neighbourhood, an action it described as "unacceptable".

The refusal to allow the convoy in to treat and evacuate the wounded came as the organisation announced that the Syrian authorities had handed over the bodies of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, who were killed in an attack on a press centre in Baba Amr over a week ago....

Anti-Assad activists have accused Syrian troops of burning houses, arresting all males over the age of 12 and of extrajudicial killings, including the alleged beheadings of 17 men captured after the suburb's fall.

Bassel Fouad, a Syrian activist who fled to Lebanon from Baba Amr two days ago, said a colleague there told him that troops and pro-government gunmen known as shabiha were conducting house-to-house raids. "The situation is worse than terrible inside Baba Amr," he said. "Shabiha are entering homes and setting them on fire."....

Activist groups said protesters who took to the streets in towns across Syria on Friday were met with teargas, gunfire and mass arrests. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were killed in the town of Rastan near Homs when a mortar landed near marchers. The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria said 16 were killed in the same event, among 52 reported dead nationwide.
Protesters dubbed Friday the day of "Arming the Free Syrian Army", reflecting a widening perception that only military action can stop the crackdown on dissent and hasten Assad's downfall."

Syria: no road back

Were the schoolchildren in Deraa tortured for scrawling graffiti really agents of a foreign regime?
Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012

"The appalling scenes as the Syrian army on Friday"cleansed" Baba Amr, the suburb of Homs which has become the symbol of the year-old uprising, plays to what Bashar al-Assad regards as his strengths. By painting ordinary Syrians as saboteurs, Islamists and agents of a foreign conspiracy, Assad has successfully militarised a conflict that sprang a year ago from a local demonstration. Were the schoolchildren in Deraa tortured for scrawling graffiti really agents of a foreign regime?

The conflict may be militarised, but it is no longer one that Assad can win militarily. It is too widespread for that. Too much innocent blood has flowed. Too many Syrians have friends or relatives gunned down by government snipers. The suffering and sacrifice has been so extreme that Assad has run out of further sanctions. If he is heading anywhere, it is for a brutal and bloody stalemate.

Syria, however, is no Libya. Assad's regime has stayed intact. Its diplomatic corps has not defected, nor have the senior ranks of the army. Soldiers defect but, in general, whole units do not. There are no reports of defections from the security services. But as this core support had hardened, their control over the country has loosened. Homs in 2012 will not be a repeat of the Hama massacre in 1982, when Hafez, Bashar's father, conducted a scorched-earth policy against an Islamist revolt. Assad can not crush and isolate a revolt in Homs. He can at best temporarily displace it.

The prospect of the long, hard slog ahead has caused Assad's main foreign backers, Russia and China, to have second thoughts. Vladimir Putin accused the west of fuelling the conflict and, as he faces re-election tomorrow, that fits a nationalist agenda. But he has backed, with China, a new security council resolution expressing disappointment at Syria's failure to admit the UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos, and Russia has started to distance itself from the Syrian regime. This is not out of fear for Russia's military investment in Syria, which is lost already. It is more likely to stem from a cold calculation of the future awaiting Syria. Putin's purpose was to thwart a repeat of Nato's bombing of Libya. But as a civil war gathers pace, Russia's aim of negotiating an end to the conflict with Assad in place will be harder to maintain. Inexorably, Putin's strategic interests and Assad's personal ones will diverge. A general ceasefire will suit Russia, but not Assad, for whom there is no way back.
The Gulf states, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia and the US all have a stake in Syria. It will be just as difficult for Syrians to stay in control of their own uprising as it will be to see the slow, grinding end of the Assad dynasty."

Red Crescent blocked from Homs district

ICRC president calls obstruction of emergency mission to Bab Amr "unacceptable" as reports of violence continue.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that it was unable to enter the Homs district of Bab Amro on Friday, where it had hoped to bring in aid and evacuate the sick and wounded.

"The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society [SARC] were not allowed to enter the Bab Amr district of Homs today," Jakob Kellenberger, ICRC president, said in a statement issued in Geneva on Friday.

"It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help. We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Bab Amr in the very near future. In addition, many families have fled Bab Amr, and we will help them as soon as we possibly can."...."

Al-Jazeera Video: Spanish journalist says Bab Amr in "deep humanitarian crisis"

Al-Jazeera Video: Homs activist describes Bab Amr conditions as rebels withdraw

Al-Jazeera Video: Torture "probably" occurring in Syrian hospitals, French doctor says

"Jacques Beres, one of the founders of the French aid society Doctors Without Borders, says he believes the accounts of torture in Syrian hospitals are "possibly, nearly certainly" true.

Beres smuggled himself into the besieged district of Bab Amr in Homs to assist with makeshift medical clinics there. In an interview with Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland about his recent trip, he says Bab Amr's crisis resembles the devastation he witnessed in Grozny, a city torn apart after Russian invasion in the 1990s."

Al-Jazeera Video: UN demands humanitarian access to Homs

"The United Nations Security Council has made a rare show of unity on Syria, voting to demand immediate access to Homs for UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos and her team.

The press statement does not cover political issues such as how President Bashar al-Assad's regime should be dealt with or whether former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan should be appointed as a special envoy to Syria.

Russia and China, which on the same day voted against a UN Human Rights Council resolution accusing Assad's regime of possible crimes against humanity, backed the statement on humanitarian access.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from the United Nations."

Real News Video : Syrian rebels withdraw from Homs stronghold

EuroNews: Most Syrian rebels fighting government forces pulled out of the Baba Amro district of Homs on Thursday

More Empty Resolutions to Mop Up the Bloodbath in Syria, by Emad Hajjaj

Interview: Palestinian rights defender banned from traveling tastes freedom in Geneva

Adri Nieuwhof
The Electronic Intifada
Geneva 1 March 2012

"For most of the past six years, Israel has forbidden Shawan Jabarin, a prominent human rights advocate and former administrative detainee, from leaving the occupied West Bank. On exception, he was allowed travel to Geneva this week to meet Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

Israel imposed its travel ban on Jabarin — based on “secret evidence” — after he was appointed director of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq in 2006. Neither Jabarin or his lawyers have been allowed to see the evidence.

Adri Nieuwhof interviewed Jabarin when he arrived to Geneva’s airport....."

Egypt’s Coptic Christians’ uphill battle

By Joseph Mayton
Bikya Masr

".....As the new parliament is tasked with inking a new constitution, a declaration of inalienable rights is perhaps the most positive step for assisting the full integration of the Coptic community into Egypt’s political and social future. But for change to happen, it must begin on the grassroots level—with the Coptic community itself. Copts cannot afford to insulate themselves into the “separate Egypt,” especially with the turn toward conservatism in parliament, which will be a major impediment to creating a civilly egalitarian society. Rather, they must first push their own leaders to support representatives of the community and a unified civil identity, instead of the old confessionalism that has been the basis for so many of the sectarian issues of the past. Perhaps only then will there be no more Masperos."

Netanyahu’s War

He wants us to fight it

by Justin Raimondo, March 02, 2012

"......What’s taking the special-ness out of the "special relationship" is the showdown between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, which will be reaching its climax when the latter comes to the US next week. With the Israeli propaganda campaign reaching significantly higher decibel levels of late, Bibi is upping the ante with fresh demands, declaring through intermediaries that the new joint US-Israeli policy has to define several "red lines" Iran must not cross.

The Israelis define that fateful boundary as Tehran developing a nuclear "capability" rather than actually building a nuclear arsenal. It’s a crucial distinction that underscores the logical disconnect at the heart of the Israeli case for war. After all, any one of a number of human beings has, for example, the capability to commit murder: however, this does not make a convincing case for preemptive execution......

Brushing aside the rhetorical veil of the "existential threat," the Israelis’ real objective – the culmination of the old Zionist dream of a "Greater Israel" – is clear as day. With the Americans taking on the Iranians, the IDF will take on Tehran’s local proxies, including but not limited to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Under such circumstances, it is not hard to imagine the IDF taking the opportunity to extend Israel’s borders, if not "from the Nile to the Euphrates," as Yasser Arafat claimed, then well beyond the occupied territories.
Is this a war aim Americans need to die for?....."

Red Cross says aid convoy heading to Syria's Homs

Bassem Mroue Friday 02 March 2012
The Independent

"The Red Cross dispatched an aid convoy to an embattled neighbourhood in the Syrian city of Homs today, as the UN said it was alarmed by reports of execution-style killings after the Syrian army seized the area from rebel forces.

The seizure of Baba Amr by the Syrian army was a blow to the rebels seeking to overthrow the regime of authoritarian President Bashar Assad. The central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, has emerged as a key battleground in the 11-month-old anti-Assad uprisings.

Before government forces stormed the area yesterday, it had been under a tight siege and daily shelling for nearly four weeks. Activists said hundreds were killed and many lived for days with little food and no electricity or running water.

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday the agency had received unconfirmed reports of "a particularly grisly set of summary executions" involving 17 people in the area after government forces entered....."

French journalists evacuated from Homs, Sarkozy confirms

Injured reporter Edith Bouvier and photographer William Daniels being looked after by French embassy in Beirut after escaping Syrian city

guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012


"Two French journalists who were trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs have been evacuated to safety.

Injured reporter Edith Bouvier, who posted a video calling for urgent medical attention after she was injured in the bomb attack that killed the Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, has arrived in Lebanon and is on her way to a hospital in Beirut, her family confirmed.

Photographer William Daniels, who was trapped in the Baba Amr area of Homs for over a week, has also been safely evacuated.


The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, confirmed that the pair were safe. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, where he was attending a European summit, Sarkozy said Bouvier could be flown back to France with doctors' consent.

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said the journalists were being looked after by the French embassy. "Everything is being done to provide them with medical attention and to return them home as quickly as possible," he added.

The smuggling of the journalists into Lebanon followed eight days of negotiations and a failed attempt to get Bouvier and Daniels out of Homs.

The pair had left the city with the British photographer Paul Conroy on Sunday, but were forced to return after they were targeted on the outskirts, the campaign group Avaaz, which helped co-ordinate the escape, said.

A second evacuation effort on Tuesday moved the pair to a safer neighbourhood of Homs and from there to Lebanon.

"Against incredible odds, Syrian activists have rescued all four international journalists from the hell of Baba Amr," Avaaz said in a statement......"

Israel: Revoke Rights Defender’s Travel Ban

Shawan Jabarin Given One-Time Permit to Travel

Human Rights Watch
March 2, 2012

"(Jerusalem) – Having decided to permit Palestinian human rights defender Shawan Jabarin to travel abroad from the West Bank for the first time in six years, Israel should now revoke his travel ban, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 22, Israel’s State Prosecutor agreed to a “temporary exception” to the ban, allowing Jabarin to travel to Geneva at the invitation of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

The two organizations said that the Israeli authorities had never produced any evidence to justify banning Jabarin from travelling, and should follow this belated “exception” by lifting the arbitrary ban entirely.

According to international human rights standards, any restrictions on travel should be issued in only exceptional circumstances, for reasons stated clearly and publicly, and be open to legal challenge. The refusal of the Israeli authorities to make public any evidence to substantiate the reasons for the travel ban means that Jabarin has been denied a meaningful opportunity to challenge the ban in court......"

Egypt must end attacks on civil society

1 March 2012

"The decision to lift a travel ban on seven US nationals facing trial as part of an NGO crackdown in Egypt is a welcome step but it does not go far enough, Amnesty International said.

The organization has called for the charges based on the repressive NGO law against those on trial to be dropped, and for the authorities to end their attacks on civil society.

The seven are part of a group of 43 people – all but 14 of whom are foreign nationals – currently on trial for allegedly breaching Egypt’s Law on Associations.

Travel bans reportedly remain in effect for others connected to the investigation and there are fears that this case is being used as a prelude to a wider assault on Egyptian human rights organizations. Other foreign nationals are also reportedly under a travel ban in relation to a different case.

“The Egyptian authorities must not use this heavily publicized case to distract international attention from the situation faced by human rights organizations in the Egypt,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“When the international attention is gone, human rights activists in Egypt will bear the brunt of this offensive, both in court, and under the threat of an even more repressive Law on Associations.”......"

The bully, the beauty and the beast

Marwan Bishara asks who will be shmoozing with whom at the AIPAC conference, and why Kathy Ireland was invited.

By Marwan Bishara
Al-Jazeera

"....The bully

The ultra-right-wing premier seems to feel more at home at AIPAC or in Washington than at the Knesset, where his supporters pale in comparison.

Last year, the US Republican leadership invited Netanyahu to speak to both houses of Congress around the time of the AIPAC conference, reportedly to pre-empt a president’s initiative to break the deadlock in the "peace process" with the Palestinians.

This clear cut case of helping a foreign leader to undermine the US president is permissible only when it come to Israel, thanks to its lobby, AIPAC and company....

Republican candidates and various media outlets attack the president’s Middle East policy, and accuse him of no less than "throwing Israel under the bus".

The main point of contention is centered on the policy towards Iran and the adequate response to its nuclear enrichment.

(In a major victory for Netanyahu and the radical Israeli right, one must observe, the Palestine issue has for all practical purpose been buried.)....

Although Israel maintains it won’t give the US advance notice, the Obama administration will be forced into war in order to respond to potential response against its bases or its allies/clients or the blocking of the sea lanes for oil.

The US could see itself dragged into a regional conflict, especially in the Gulf region, leading to skyrocketing oil prices and perhaps global economic recession.

It is for that reason the Obama administration has been trying to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran by contending that all options remain on the table, but that sanctions, diplomatic pressure and other measures, are working.

Obama’s assurances that the "US will stand between Tehran and the bomb" don’t seem to convince Israeli leaders who seem increasingly wary of Iran’s acquiring the capacity to produce nuclear weapons coupled with Tehran’s enhanced regional role following the US withdrawal from Iraq....

Obama might have an excellent chance against a Mitt Romney or a Rick Santorum candidacy. Many in the Democratic party are worried of another setback in Congress, stemming from a shift among the Jewish to the right and aggressive support to the Republicans among the evangelicals.

All of which signals the need for Obama to make major concessions in return for Israeli restraint vis -a-vis Iran. He has not hesitated in the past.

This could include among others, the release of Jonathan Pollard...."