Egyptian Police Continue Beatings, Get Raises

By: Sharif Abdel Kouddous

"Nearly two years after Egypt’s revolution, the security officials responsible for widespread brutality have not been held accountable. Instead, they’ve been promoted. As Egyptians seek to reform their law enforcement agencies, they must reckon with both the violence of the present and the past......."

Al-Jazeera Video: ما وراء الخبر- تصريحات عباس للتلفزيون الإسرائيلي

Al-Jazeera Video: 'Heavy fighting' at Syria's Taftanaz airbase

"Rebels began a co-ordinated assault on the Taftanaz helicopter base in Idlib province. They've been firing on the site using homemade rockets and tanks. 

Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reports from Antakiya."

Israeli soldiers arrest son of detained Palestinian activist at West Bank protest

Amnesty International

2 November 2012

"The 16-year-old son of Bassem Tamimi, a detained Palestinian rights activist in the occupied West Bank, was himself arrested by Israeli soldiers today during the regular weekly protest against the encroachment of Israeli settlers onto Palestinian land.

Wa’ed Tamimi was arrested along with four activists during the demonstration on Friday afternoon in the West Bank village of al-Nabi Saleh, 21km northwest of Ramallah.

"Today's arrest of Wa'ed Tamimi while he was walking peacefully in his village points to the continuing harassment of activist Bassem Tamimi, his family, and the community of al-Nabi Saleh by Israeli military forces," said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director. “This harassment must stop”.

"Wa'ed Tamimi and the four others arrested in al-Nabi Saleh today must be allowed access to lawyers and should be released immediately unless they are to be charged with a recognizably criminal offence. His father Bassem is a prisoner of conscience, held solely for peacefully protesting Israel's illegal settlement expansion, and must be released immediately and unconditionally."

Nariman Tamimi told Amnesty International how she witnessed her son's arrest: "I saw him being dragged violently by a soldier who immediately put him in a jeep," she said. "Right now I am very tired and worried, and I am not sure what to do."....."

See video in the post below: It shows the sister of Wa'ed Tamimi confronting heavily armed IOF goons.

Video: The "Brave" IDF Facing Palestinian Children!

طفلة فلسطينية تواجه جنود الاحتلال - النبي صالح

Courtesy of Arabs48.com

Link

"طفلة فلسطينية تلاحق جنود الاحتلال بعد ان اعتقلوا شقيقها الطفل وعد التميمي وهم ابناء الاسير باسم التميمي و الاسيرة المحررة ناريمان التميمي اليوم في قرية النبي صالح حيث اعتقلت قوات الاحتلال صحافيين5 أجانب بالاضافة الى الطفل وعد
"

Al-Jazeera Video: مقتل العشرات في غارة جوية على مسجد ببلدة حارم

Any unknown future would be better than Syria's agony

by Amal Hanano

As the violence increases on both sides - most lately the repeated breaking of the so-called "Eid truce" - the vast majority of war crimes (measured by scale, intensity, and sheer numbers) are being committed by regime forces and by their loyal shabiha gangs.

Even the Syria expert Joshua Landis, who has long criticised the opposition and often toed the Assad line, now says the regime no longer has anything but "senseless destruction" to offer.

Another popular question is "What is going on in Syria? Does anyone really know?"

Some journalists and politicians use this misleading question to complicate the narrative. If we don't know what's going on in Syria, how can we possibly stop or prevent certain events?

Landis and others argue about which weapons should be supplied to which group, which sections of society to support, and so on.

Mr Obama boasted in the debate that he had been able to prevent massacres in Libya. But in contrast, the latest US efforts in Syria entail finding out which non-violent activists deserve strictly non-lethal aid. Does anyone imagine that sending satellite phones and cameras at this stage will help the US find out what is "really going on" in Syria?

It is obvious what is going on. There has always been a clear, historically-proven precedent: Bashar Al Assad and his cronies, like his father and the same cronies, are willing to kill thousands and destroy Syria to stay in power.

The Syrian people have been telling the world for months, with their words, chants, songs, blood and lives, that they no longer fear their known enemy. But still the world obsesses about the unknowns, demanding alternatives in the midst of a political vacuum of the regime's making, complaining about a fractured, weak opposition, fearing that violent extremism is on the rise while "stable" secularism is in danger, as Assad's planes keep dropping bombs.

The documentary filmmaker and activist, Matthew Van Dyke, currently in Aleppo, points out the obvious: it is a moral problem to base one's analysis on hypotheticals but ignore facts. As the Syrian activist Amer Al Shami recently tweeted, "Would you choose a hopeful unknown or a dangerous known?"

After 19 months, with 30,000 dead, tens of thousands vanished, hundreds of thousands made refugees, and Assad's violence spilling into Turkey and Lebanon, what unknowns about this regime are left to be uncovered? The "red line" on chemical weapons that must never be crossed? Is it "leadership" to remain paralysed by that?

Washington sources predict a drawn-out civil war. While they analyse and watch, Syrians live a nightmarish waiting game, paying the price of what is known.

In Syria and in the US, we are a long way from hope and change, and a long way from yet another spring. Another cold winter is coming, and this year there will be less fuel, less electricity, less shelter, less food and fewer Syrians in Syria. Thousands of refugees will be huddling in their tents, shivering on the morning of November 7, wondering if the smiling, victorious face on TV will possess some kind of magical "leadership". But for Syrians, hope has become a burden. Even in their hopes, Syrians continue to doubt.

Al-Jazeera Video: الجيش الحر يسيطر على منطقة إستراتيجية بإدلب

Real News Video (with Transcript): US War Against IED's in Afghanistan a Strategic Failure

Garth Porter: US has been unable to limit the high casualties suffered as a result of a key Taliban strategy 

Palestine's Abu Mazen rescinds his right of return on Israeli TV

Al-Akhbar

"Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas rescinded his internationally sanctioned right to return to his hometown of Safad, annexed by Israel in 1948, on Israeli TV Thursday night.

Pressed by Israeli Channel 2 TV about whether the Palestinian Authority considered towns in the Galilee to be part of Palestine, Abbas struck a deeply personal note in the Authority's latest efforts to placate Israeli concerns about Palestinian refugees.
"I want to see Safad. It's my right to see it. But not to live there," said an impassioned Abbas.....


Abu Mazen also touted himself as the protector of Israeli security in the Channel 2 interview, announcing that Israel would not see a third Palestinian armed uprising against its occupation.
"As far as I am here in this office, there will be no third armed intifada. Never. We don't want to use terror. We don't want to use forces. We don't want to use weapons. We want to use diplomacy. We want to use politics. We want to use negotiations. We want to use peaceful resistance. That's it.""

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

Who is to blame for the collapse of the Eid truce in Syria: The regime; the Free Syrian Army or both?

With over 500 responding, 76% said the regime; 10% said the FSA and 14% said both.

Assad forces flee Saraqeb

The Guardian

"....

Assad's forces have withdrawn the Saraqeb, the Idlib town where rebels were filmed executing government troops on Thursday, Reuters reports citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Right. 

Saraqeb straddles the junction of two main highways leading to Aleppo and the pullout will make it harder for government forces to reinforce or resupply Aleppo.

         The opposition Observatory said troops had retreated from Alwees, northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the            town and surrounding areas "completely outside the control of regime forces".

With areas of rural Aleppo and northern border crossings to Turkey now under rebel control after 19 months of conflict, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further isolated from Assad's southern strongholds......"

Kuwait's protests remind us of the Arab spring's true spirit

The ferment in Kuwait isn't about poverty or sectarianism – but democracy. Blaiming it on Egyptian Islamists is a risky strategy

David Hearst
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 November 2012 

"It cannot be called an uprising. Nor do demonstrators demand regime change. The dispute is narrowly about preventing a change in the electoral law that would disenfranchise voters. Nevertheless, the demonstrations taking place in Kuwait are real enough. Tens of thousands, a number unheard of in Kuwait, took part in a "march of dignity" and a further mass protest is planned for Sunday despite an announced ban on public gatherings of more than 20 people. The wave of demands for democratic change, which Saudi Arabia fervently hoped had come to a crashing halt with the civil war in Syria, is now lapping around the feet of the Gulf states.....

The emir is, however, going full-steam ahead with an election on 1 December on this basis, which the opposition has now said it will boycott. The ferment in the Gulf undermines the thesis that the movement known as the Arab spring is primarily about poverty. It defies too the prediction that it has run into the sands of sectarian divides between Sunni and Shia. The Gulf rulers thought they could buy immunity from this change but they have found that dignity is not something that even their unlimited quantity of petrodollars can buy. All eyes are now looking nervously on Kuwait."

A Gift with Lots of Baggage

by Sarah Leah Whitson 

"Earlier this month Mayor Rahm Emanuel celebrated the opening of the United Arab Emirates-Manchester City Field at Haas Park, praising the facilities paid for and named after the UAE and Manchester City FC, the English soccer club owned by its ruling family.  Chicagoans should not let theUAE’s very public association with a child and family-friendly project blind them to the realities of the UAE.

This a country where people who attempt to exercise their right to free speech and peaceful dissent are likely to find themselves in arbitrary detention, where lawyers are harassed and even deported for  their efforts to defend peaceful dissidents, and where migrant workers, who make up about 95 percent of the work force, face extraordinary exploitation.  In the last year the situation has deteriorated so significantly that on October 26 the European Parliament issued an urgent resolution calling on its strategic partner to call a halt to an ongoing campaign of repression and intimidation against its citizenry.

On October 13, two days after Mayor Emanuel praised the UAE’s contribution to Chicago, UAE State Security forces arrested Mansoor al-Ahmadi, vice-president of the UAE Student Union, bringing to 64 the total of peaceful activists locked up so far this year in this country with a population a lot smaller than metropolitan Chicago.  Worse, the whereabouts of 62 of them is unknown, an invitation to further abuse of their rights......."

Israeli authorities must release Palestinian prisoner of conscience in West Bank

"The Israeli military authorities must end their campaign of harassment, intimidation and arbitrary detention against a Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank, Amnesty International said.

Bassem Tamimi, who has been detained since his arrest at non-violent protest against the encroachment of Israeli settlers onto Palestinian land last week, faces a further prison sentence after appearing before the Ofer Military Court on Wednesday.

"Once again, Bassem Tamimi is being held solely for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and assembly. We believe he is a prisoner of conscience and should be released immediately and unconditionally," said Ann Harrison, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

Tamimi was arrested on 24 October following a non-violent demonstration in a supermarket in Sha’ar Benjamin settlement north of Ramallah. More than 100 protesters had gathered to call for an end to the occupation and a boycott of all Israeli products.

He faces charges of assaulting a police officer, participation in an unlicensed demonstration, and activity against the public order.

If convicted of either of the latter two “offences”, he will also have to serve one or more suspended sentences from a previous trial: two months for participation in an unlicensed demonstration, and 17 months for “activity against the public order”...... "

عباس: لا انتفاضة ثالثة ما دمت رئيسا

"تعهد الرئيس الفلسطيني محمود عباس بألا تكون هناك انتفاضة ثالثة ضد إسرائيل ما دام رئيسا للسلطة، كما نفى عن نفسه أي حق دائم في المطالبة بالعودة إلى بلدته في إسرائيل، في حين انتقدت حركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس) تصريحات عباس، واعتبرت أنه لا يعبر إلا عن نفسه فقط.

وقال عباس -في حديث للقناة الثانية الإسرائيلية أمس الخميس- إنه ما دام في السلطة "فلن تكون هناك أبدا انتفاضة مسلحة ثالثة" ضد إسرائيل، في تأكيد لسيطرته على الأمن في المناطق التي يديرها الفلسطينيون بالضفة الغربية.

وقال "لا نريد أن نستخدم الإرهاب، لا نريد أن نستخدم القوة، لا نريد أن نستخدم الأسلحة، نريد أن نستخدم الدبلوماسية، نريد أن نستخدم السياسة، نريد أن نستخدم المفاوضات، نريد أن نستخدم المقاومة السلمية".

وفي نفس المقابلة، قدم عباس تنازلا نادرا -وإن كان رمزيا- لإسرائيل عندما قال للقناة الثانية بالتلفزيون الإسرائيلي إنه ليس له حق دائم في المطالبة بالعودة إلى البلدة التي طرد منها وهو طفل أثناء حرب 1948 التي قامت في أعقاب إعلان تأسيس إسرائيل.

وعندما سئل عباس -الذي كان يتحدث بالإنجليزية من مدينة رام الله بالضفة الغربية إلى نشرة الأخبار بالتلفزيون الإسرائيلي التي تتمتع بأكبر نسبة مشاهدة- هل يريد أن يعيش في بلدة صفد التي عاش فيها طفولته في منطقة الجليل، قال "لقد زرت صفد مرة من قبل لكنني أريد أن أرى صفد، من حقي أن أراها لا أن أعيش فيها".

......

"

Al-Jazeera Video: Syrian troops killed in rebel attacks on checkpoints

"Syrian rebels have killed at least 28 government soldiers in attacks on three army checkpoints on the main road from Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo, according to an activist group. Five rebels were also killed in the fighting near the northwest city of Saraqeb on Thursday, which became a key battleground after opposition forces seized the adjacent strategic town of Maaret al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports."

Al-Jazeera Video: ما وراء الخبر- المقاتلات الحربية تقصف دمشق

Well Worth Watching!

Egypt’s Women Rebel Against Harassment

By Mel Frykberg

"Egyptian bullies who sexually harass women in the streets, often taking advantage of mob situations and the anonymity these provide, are getting a taste of their own medicine - and they don’t like it......."

The Bombs-Away Election

By Philip Giraldi

".....So there is a choice, of sorts. To my way of thinking, a Romney victory is a virtual guarantee that there will be war with Iran accompanied by the usual bellicose muscular interventionism that we have become accustomed to since 9/11. That sort of bluster will continue until the cash runs out, but Romney is also clearly willing to continue to borrow money so it can be given to the Pentagon, perhaps prolonging the process. Romney would also undoubtedly continue the odious policies relating to drones, kill lists, and assassination teams that he would inherit from his predecessor. Obama, on the other hand, will, if reelected, continue his Pilgrim’s Progress to become America’s most distinguished war criminal of the 21st century, even eclipsing the redoubtable George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in that regard. The choice for the voter comes down to how one prefers to see worldwide chaos and the death of the Constitution develop. It would be in heavy doses wrapped in the flag with Romney, while Obama would take pains to hide what he is doing as he marches down what is pretty much the same road. Some choice."