Egypt in flux: 100 day after Mubarak's Fall, sober realities and optimism (Guardian, 19 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 19 May 2011
Egypt in flux: sober realities and optimism 100 days after Mubarak's fall

Energised by the Tahrir Square revolt, Egyptians are now struggling to cast a new political mould for the country

By Ian Black, Middle East editor Overlooking the Nile in the heart of Cairo, a few hundred metres from Tahrir Square, stands the charred headquarters of the now defunct National Democratic party.
Its smashed windows and blackened facade symbolise the fall of Hosni Mubarak's regime on 11 February. It is eerily deserted, apart from a lone sentry slumped by the gate at night.
The square itself, centre of the political earthquake, has become a tourist attraction where revolutionary T-shirts, stickers and other memorabilia vie with the model sphinxes, pyramids and papyrus on sale in the souvenir shops. It's as if the extraordinary events of the recent past already belong to ancient history.
But Egypt's revolution is unfinished business, its immediate prospects clouded by insecurity, economic worries and sectarian violence. The generals who so dramatically ditched their commander-in-chief remain in charge of the interim civilian government.

Obama to pledge Billions of Dollars in aid to back 'Arab Spring' in Middle East (Guardian, 19 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 19 May 2011
Barack Obama to back Middle East democracy with billions in aid

President pledges cash to support Egypt and Tunisia after criticism US has been too slow to support uprisings

By Ewen MacAskill in Washington

Barack Obama is to announce that the United States and the west will pour billions of dollars into the Middle East in support of Egypt, Tunisia and other countries embracing democracy, a move the White House portrayed as being on the scale of aid to former communist countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Speaking in Washington, the president will attempt to reposition the US as a champion of the newly-emerging Arab democracies. His speech comes amid criticism that the US has been too slow to support the uprisings, and has adopted contradictory approaches in its dealings with different countries.
It is his most important speech on the Middle East since Cairo in 2009, when he called for a new beginning in relations between the US and the Muslim world. The support for Obama in the Arab world in 2009 has since dropped sharply.

IAEA inspectors' mobile phones and laptops may have been hacked into by Iranians (Guardian, 19 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 19 May 2011
UN nuclear watchdog investigates Iran hacking claims

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors say mobile phones and laptops may have been hacked into by Iranians

The UN nuclear agency is investigating reports from its experts that their mobile phones and laptops may have been hacked into by Iranian officials while the equipment was left unattended during inspection tours, diplomats have told the Associated Press.
One of the diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency was examining "a range of events, ranging from those where it is certain something has happened to suppositions", all in the first quarter of this year. He said the Vienna-based watchdog was alerted by inspectors reporting "unusual events", suggesting that outsiders had tampered with their electronic equipment.
Two other diplomats in senior positions confirmed the essence of the report but said they had no further information. All three envoys come from IAEA member nations and spoke on condition of anonymity because their information was privileged.

Yemen: Rivals fail to sign GCC-brokered deal as President Saleh backs out again (Aljazeera English, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 18 May 2011

Yemen rivals fail to sign GCC-brokered deal

Gulf mediator leaves Sanaa after President Saleh refuses to ink plan that would have seen him stepping down in a month.

Yemen's president has for a second time backed out of a Gulf-sponsored deal to transfer power.
The long awaited agreement brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) would have seen Ali Abdullah Saleh stepping down within a month.
Yemen's opposition had earlier said the deal would be signed on Wednesday.
But the head of the GCC left Sanaa without securing a signed agreement.
The departure of Abdullatif al-Zayani suggested that differences remained despite the government and opposition earlier agreeing on the deal in principle.
Zayani had been in Sanaa since Saturday to try to persuade the sides to sign the deal, with help from US and European diplomats.

US imposes sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad for Human Rights abuses (Associated Press, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 18 May 2011

US slaps sanctions on Syria's Assad for abuses

By MATTHEW LEE and BEN FELLER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States slapped sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad and six senior Syrian officials for human rights abuses over their brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, for the first time personally penalizing the Syrian leader for actions of his security forces.

The White House announced the sanctions Wednesday, a day before President Barack Obama delivers a major speech on the uprisings throughout the Arab world with prominent mentions of Syria.

The Obama administration had pinned hopes on Assad, seen until recent months as a pragmatist and potential reformer who could buck Iranian influence and help broker an eventual Arab peace deal with Israel.

Assad's increasingly brutal crackdown left U.S. officials little choice but to abandon the effort to woo Assad, and to stop exempting him from the same sort of sanctions already applied to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.

Has the Arab Spring Stalled? Autocrats Gain Ground in Middle East (Spiegel International, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Spiegel International, Germany", 18 May 2011
Has the Arab Spring Stalled?
Autocrats Gain Ground in Middle East

By Alexander Smoltczyk and Volkhard Windfuhr

Burning churches in Cairo, dead and wounded in Syria, Libya and Yemen, and a deathly silence in Bahrain. The Arab protest movement has come to a standstill, and the kings, emirs and sultans are rallying to launch a counterrevolution.

According to the "Fundamental Law of Revolution," regimes fall when those at the bottom are fed up with the status quo and those at the top are no longer capable of remaining in power.

That was the experience of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. But difficulties arise when there is one thing those at the top are still quite capable of doing, namely deploying tanks to deal with their opponents -- as is the case in Syria and Libya.

Role of Women in the Arab Spring "Not Something NEW" (Inter Press Service, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Inter Press Service (IOS)", 18 May 2011
Spring Not New to Arab Women
By Simba Russeau
CAIRO, May 18, 2011 (IPS) - Women have been taking leading roles in the Arab uprisings of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and Bahrain - shattering many decades old Western myths that Arab women are powerless and enslaved.
"It’s really unfair to ignore history and to try to misinterpret the reality," founding member of the Union for Women’s Action in Morocco, Fatima Outaleb told IPS. "Who can deny that woman who is shouting slogans and dragging men behind her, repeating her slogans? She’s a veiled woman. She’s also a leader."
According to Outaleb, women - whether as mothers, housewives, veiled or not, from Islamist parties or with no political upbringing - have always played a pivotal role in the Arab world.
"The Western media is shaped according to certain agendas, to certain priorities they have in mind, and policies regarding Arab women. They have ignored the reality that Arab women have always been at the heart of revolutions in the region - whether leading, strategising, raising awareness or mobilising as bloggers, or on Facebook," Outaleb said.

Syrian president Assad says Security forces made mistakes (Associated Press, 18 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 18 May 2011

Syrian president: Security forces made mistakes

By ZEINA KARAM

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's president said the country's security forces have made mistakes during the uprising against his regime, blaming poorly trained police officers at least in part for a crackdown that has killed more than 850 people over the past two months.

President Bashar Assad's comments, carried Wednesday in the private Al-Watan newspaper, came even as a human rights activist said Wednesday that Syrian troops have used heavy machine guns to attack a neighborhood in the central city of Homs.

Still, his remarks were a rare acknowledgment of shortcomings within Syria's powerful security agencies. Assad said thousands of police officers were receiving new training.

The brutal crackdown across Syria has sparked international condemnation, and the United States and European Union are planning new sanctions against the Syrian leadership. More than 850 people have been killed in the crackdown on protests that erupted in mid-March, according to Syria's top rights organization.

Barack Obama: Mideast peace bid needed more than ever (Reuters, 17 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Reuters", 17 May 2011
Obama: Mideast peace bid needed more than ever
By Matt Spetalnick 
WASHINGTON | Tue May 17, 2011 1:56pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday it was "more vital than ever" to work to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts even as political upheaval engulfs much of the broader Middle East.
Speaking after talks with Jordan's King Abdullah at the start of a week of intense diplomacy, Obama pledged to keep pressing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite his failure so far to break the impasse.
But Obama, who wants to reconnect with an Arab world showing signs of frustration with his approach to the restive region, offered no new concrete ideas for advancing the long-stalled peace process.
The president plans to deliver a major policy speech on the "Arab spring" on Thursday, meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday and address an influential pro-Israel lobbying group on Sunday.
With the Jordanian monarch sitting at his side in the Oval Office, Obama suggested that unrest sweeping the Middle East offered a chance for Israel and the Palestinians to seek progress toward resolving their own long-running dispute.

Arab Spring and North Africa's battle for economic revolution (Aljazeera English, 17 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 17 May 2011

North Africa's battle for economic revolution

The uprisings are not solely about ideology, but social and economic change, and acheiving that will require creativity. By Donald Kaberuka

Like a long dormant volcano that suddenly erupts, the revolutions that have swept across North Africa - against a backdrop of strong economic performance - took all by surprise.
Prior to the explosion, average annual GDP growth in the region had been humming along at 4.6 per cent for a decade, with strong improvement in human development indicators.
But this growth was in some ways deceptive, for it masked problems that had long simmered beneath the surface: burgeoning unemployment, especially among the region's youth, and political repression - the issues that eventually brought things to a boil.
In Tunisia, whose revolution ignited the wildfire of change that quickly spread across the region, young people account for 70 per cent of total unemployment. The statistics are similar in Egypt and Libya.
The common denominator across the region is that, while its economies were growing, they were unable to generate enough jobs. This has created a generation of disaffected, under- and unemployed young people, including large numbers of recent university graduates.

Syria: Mass grave found near Protest hub Deraa, residents say (Guardian, 17 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 17 May 2011
Syrian mass grave found near Deraa, residents say

Human rights groups report 13 bodies unearthed from field in southern city at centre of protest movement

Nidaa Hassan

Thirteen bodies have been retrieved from a mass grave in Deraa, the hub of Syria's protest movement, according to residents cited by rights organisations.
People from the southern city say hundreds are unaccounted for since a crackdown on protests began on 18 March and intensified when the army moved in on 25 April to try to quash unrest against Bashar al-Assad's 11-year rule.
Radwan Ziadeh, the US-based head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights, said so far seven bodies had been identified by residents.

Israel's disproportionate use of force: Nakba Anger Points to Third Palestinian Intifadah (Inter Press Service)

Courtesy: "Inter Press Service (IOS)", 16 May 2011
Nakba Anger Points to Third Intifadah
By Mel Frykberg
QALANDIA, Occupied West Bank , May 16, 2011 (IPS) - Israeli confidence that Nakba day, marked by The Great March on May 15 in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel and neighbouring Arab countries, would remain under control, has backfired badly.
Nakba, or catastrophe day on May 15 commemorates the establishment of the State of Israel, during which hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians either fled or were driven out of their homes by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to make way for the fledgling state.
Three days of mourning, marked by protests, demonstrations, marches and rioting culminated in a "The Great March Day" on Sunday. Thousands of unarmed Palestinian refugees marched on Israel’s borders from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

Profile: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Libyan Leader's Son (Aljazeera English)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English"

Profile: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Described last year by the New York Times as "the Western-friendly face of Libya and symbol of its hopes for reform and openness," Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 38, is a fluent English speaker with a PhD from the London School of Economics.

The second of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's seven sons, Saif al-Islam was given the task of defending his father's government in a televised address early on Monday after the worst unrest of the elder Gaddafi's four-decade rule.

In his address, he accused exiles of fomenting violence and promised a dialogue leading toward reforms.

Widely seen as belonging to a camp that aims to open Libya's economy, Saif al-Islam helped lead talks with Western governments that in the past 10 years saw Libya renounce nuclear weapons and end decades of isolation as a foe of the West, paving the way for large-scale investment in its oil sector.

Saudi diplomat killed in Pakistan (Aljazeera English, 16 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 16 May 2011

Saudi diplomat killed in Pakistan

Gunmen on motorcycle opened fire on official's vehicle in southern port city of Karachi, then fled.

Gunmen have shot and killed a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, as he was driving to his country's consulate, police and Saudi embassy staff say.
Hassan al-Khatani, a diplomat who worked at the Saudi consulate, was shot dead by two gunmen who were riding a motorcyle early on Monday morning, Pakistani police officials said.
"Two gunmen riding on a motorcycle showered the car with bullets," Zameer Husain Abbasi, a police official, said, adding that a 9mm pistol had been used in the attack.
Police say al-Khatani was alone in the vehicle - a silver Toyota Corona - at the time of the attack, which took place about one kilometre from the Saudi consulate. They said he was driving to work from his residence, located nearby.

Israel unblocks Palestinian Authority's Revenue Collection funds (Aljazeera English, 16 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 16 May 2011

Israel unblocks Palestinian funds

Palestinian Authority set to receive $86m in taxes, withheld by Israel following unity deal between Fatah and Hamas.

The Palestinian Authority is due to receive tax revenue funds withheld by Israel since Palestinian factions agreed a unity deal earlier this month, according to Israeli officials.
Approximately $86m in tax and customs revenues from ports and border was held after Fatah and Hamas agreed the deal. Israel justified the freeze on the grounds that some of the money would go to Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organisation.
The money adds up to about a third of the PA's budget, and the freeze meant Palestinian government workers had gone without salaries .
Monday's announcement came after a weekend of deadly clashes on the 63rd anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1948, dubbed the 'catastrophe' or 'Nakba' by Palestinians.

ICC War crimes prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo seeks Libya's Gadhafi warrant (Aljazeera English, 16 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 16 May 2011

War crimes prosecutor seeks Gaddafi warrant

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi targeted by ICC chief prosecutor, along with son, Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son, Saif al-Islam, and another Libyan official on war crimes charges.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo will hand a 74-page dossier of evidence to a three-judge panel at the court in the Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday.
They will decide whether the case is strong enough for them to confirm crimes against humanity charges, and issue international arrest warrants.
"We are almost ready for trial," Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement earlier. "The office collected good and solid evidence to identify [those] who bear the greatest responsibility."

Israeli army in deadly confrontations with pro-Palestinian protesters on 'Nukba Day' (Guardian, 15 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 15 May 2011
Israeli army in deadly confrontations with pro-Palestinian protesters

At least 13 people killed as troops clash with demonstrators in Gaza and on the borders with Syria and Lebanon

By Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

Thousands of Palestinians and their supporters were embroiled in deadly confrontations with the Israeli army as protests erupting across the Palestinian territories, Israel and its borders with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan were met with live fire, rubber bullets, stun grenades and teargas.
At least 13 people were reported killed in a day of bloody confrontations, including 10 at the Lebanese border, at least two at the Syrian border and one in Gaza. However some sources said 10 people had been killed on the Syrian border. Police also fired teargas to disperse hundreds of protesters on the Jordanian border.

Nabil Elaraby: Egypt Foreign Minister elected next Arab League chief amid regional turmoil (Aljazeera English, Reuters)

Article 1:
Courtesy: "Aljazeera English", 15 May 2011

Egypt FM elected next Arab League chief

Nabil Elaraby confirmed as organisation's leader after last minute diplomacy left him as the only candidate in the race.

Egypt's foreign minister has been confirmed as the Arab League's next chief, after last minute diplomacy left him as the only candidate in the race.
Egypt changed its candidate for head of the 22-member Arab organisation at the last minute on Sunday, backing Nabil Elaraby, who was quickly elected.
He replaces Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister, who after 10 years as the organisation's chief has resigned in order to run for the office of president in Egypt.
'Toughest assignment'

Israel-Palestinian violence erupts on three borders, 13 protestors killed (Reuters, 15 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Reuters", 15 May 2011
Israel-Palestinian violence erupts on three borders 
By Haim Shafir

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights

(Reuters) - Israeli troops shot Palestinian protesters who surged toward its frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, killing up to 13 people on the day Palestinians mourn the creation of the state of Israel.
Israeli forces opened fire in three separate border locations to prevent crowds of demonstrators from crossing Israeli frontier lines, in the deadliest such confrontation in years.
The Lebanese army on the Lebanese frontier said 10 Palestinians died when Israeli forces shot at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from entering the Jewish State.
Lebanese security sources said more than 100 people had been wounded in the shooting incident in the Israeli border village of Maroun al-Ras.

Libya War: Fears of Gadhafi's Anti-Aircraft missiles falling into "Wrong Hands" (Associated Press, 15 May 2011)

Courtesy: "Associated Press (AP)", 15 May 2011

Libyan combat stymies moves on antiaircraft threat

By STEPHEN BRAUN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fierce combat in Libya has unleashed a once-hidden arsenal of portable anti-aircraft missiles that the government fears could easily be siphoned off to terror groups, giving rise to a potential threat to commercial aviation that the U.S. is only beginning to confront, government officials and arms experts said.

The fears are compounded by suspicions that Libyan government and opposition forces are both deploying fighters with ties to terrorists and mercenaries. With more than 20,000 missile launchers estimated in Libya, there have been unconfirmed reports that some anti-aircraft weapons have already been funneled to North African militants, but amid the vast caches wielded by both sides, there is no solid evidence yet that terrorists have them.