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Monthly Archives: June 2011
Yemeni president ‘injured in attack’
Al Jazeera reports:
Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, has reportedly been injured in an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa.
The country’s prime minister was also reportedly injured in the attack as street fighting between Saleh’s forces and a tribal federation widened on Friday in the capital, the Reuters news agency reported.
Four presidential guards and the speaker of parliament are reportedly in critical condition.
In an assurance to the Yemeni public, state television later said that the president was “well”.
The attack was blamed by the authoritites on dissident tribesmen loyal to Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, who have been locked in fierce clashes with government forces in Sanaa since Tuesday.
“The prime minister, head of the parliament and several other officials who attended the Friday prayers in the mosque at the presidential palace were wounded in the attack,” Tareq al-Shami, spokesman for the ruling General People’s Congress, told AFP.
“The Ahmar (tribe) have crossed all red lines,” he added.
The attack came soon after Yemeni troops, who have deployed heavy weaponry in their battle against the tribesmen, sent a shell crashing into the home of Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar, a leader of the biggest opposition party and brother of Sheikh Sadiq.
Rebels in western Libya seize mountain towns
The Associated Press reports:
A rebel leader says his forces have seized two western mountain towns from Moammar Gadhafi’s forces in a push toward the Libyan leader’s stronghold in the capital, Tripoli.
Col. Jumaa Ibrahim of the Nafusa mountain military council says Yefren and Shakshuk, the site of a strategic power station, were freed the day before. Ibrahim says the rebel forces are still battling with Gadhafi forces over a small town at the base of the mountain. He said Friday “our aim is the capital.”
The victories are a significant breakthrough for the rebels as they try to break Gadhafi’s hold on the western half of the coastal nation. The rebels so far have mainly been centered in the east, leaving the two sides locked in a stalemate.
IDF gearing for next wave of Palestinian protests
Ynet reports:
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz has ordered the increased deployment of security forces across all Israel’s borders starting Friday and pending the conclusion of all “Naksa Day” events.
The Palestinians are planning a series of events to mark “Naksa Day” – the 44th anniversary of the Six Day War – starting Sunday.
Most disconcerting, as far as Israel is concerned, are calls by pro-Palestinian supporters – issued mostly on social media website – for Palestinians to march on and possibly storm all of Israel’s borders.
Locked up for reading a poem
Patrick Cockburn reports:
Bahrain’s security forces are increasingly targeting women in their campaign against pro-democracy protesters despite yesterday lifting martial law in the island kingdom.
Ayat al-Gormezi, 20, a poet and student arrested two months ago after reading out a poem at a pro-democracy rally, is due to go on trial today before a military tribunal, her mother said. Ayat was forced to turn herself in when masked policemen threatened to kill her brothers unless she did so.
She has not been seen since her arrest, though her mother did talk to her once by phone and Ayat said that she had been forced to sign a false confession. Her mother has since been told that her daughter has been in a military hospital after being tortured.
“We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery,” a film captures Ayat telling a cheering crowd of protesters in Pearl Square in February. “We are the people who will destroy the foundation of injustice.” She addresses King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa directly and says to him: “Don’t you hear their cries, don’t you hear their screams?” As she finishes, the crowd shouts: “Down with Hamad.”
Ayat’s call for change was no more radical than that heard in the streets of Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi at about the same time. But her reference to the king might explain the fury shown by the Bahraini security forces who, going by photographs of the scene, smashed up her bedroom when they raided her house and could not find her.
There are signs that Bahraini police, riot police and special security are detaining and mistreating more and more women. Many are held incommunicado, forced to sign confessions or threatened with rape, according to Bahraini human rights groups.
Europe is becoming a safe haven for Israelis
Gideon Levy writes:
The numbers are climbing rapidly and the phenomenon is intriguing: Many Israelis are longing for a second passport. If Shimon Peres (now president ) once promised “a car for every worker,” a second passport is now becoming the object of desire. If our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport, there are those among us who are now dreaming of a foreign passport.
A Bar-Ilan University study published in the journal Eretz Acheret has found that roughly 100,000 Israelis already hold a German passport. Over the past decade, the trend has strengthened and some 7,000 more Israelis join them every year. To these should be added the thousands of Israelis who hold foreign passports, mostly European countries. The excuses are strange and diverse, but at the base of them all are unease and anxiety, both personal and national. The foreign passport has become an insurance policy against a rainy day. It turns out there are more and more Israelis who are thinking that day may eventually come.
In recent years the Israeli passport has become useful and effective. It opens the gates of most countries of the world, except for parts of the Arab and Muslim world. It is hard to believe that those applying for a second passport are doing so in order to vacation in Tehran, tour Benghazi or take in the sights of San’a. The alibi that a European passport makes entering the United States easier cannot fully explain the phenomenon, which has no equivalent in other developed countries.
It should not be condemned, though. It reflects a mood, a natural and understandable consequence of the real and imagined fears that have been sown here. When Avrum Burg boasted of his French passport several years ago, a public outcry arose, but in vain. Presumably some of those who cried out did so because they do not have the option, like he does, of obtaining an additional passport for themselves. The others may have since crowded onto the line at one embassy or another.
Nato’s strategy in Libya is working – talks with Gaddafi won’t
Ranj Alaaldin writes:
On Monday, the South African president, Jacob Zuma, once again went to Tripoli in an attempt to broker a peace deal between Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the opposition forces. As expected, he failed.
But mediation or ceasefire initiatives such as South Africa’s, and others encouraged elsewhere, have something wrong with them: they offer Gaddafi a lifeline at a point when he is facing an increase in defections and significant opposition progress on the battlefield, and when he is becoming increasingly isolated internationally – as shown last week when Russia shifted its position by calling on him to stand down.
It is clear that the west, in the form of the Nato-led coalition, has a strategy in Libya and it is working. It should be left alone.
Three key components have comprised this strategy, the explicit objective of which has been to end Gaddafi’s reign of terror and the heart of which has been to ensure the Libyan uprising remains a Libyan-dominated enterprise, and not a western one.
Thousands flee Yemeni capital as battles rage
Al Jazeera reports:
Thousands of residents are fleeing Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, as fighting between opposition tribesmen and loyalist troops of president Ali Abdullah Saleh rages on.
Much of the fighting, which began late on Wednesday night, occurred in the Hasaba district of northern Sanaa, where Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, the powerful leader of the Hashed tribal confederation, has his base.
Yemen’s defence ministry said the Special Forces, headed by Saleh’s son Ahmed, have been deployed to “liberate” buildings held by al-Ahmar’s fighters.
Medics in Sanaa told the AFP news agency that 15 people had been killed in the overnight clashes, including a seven-year-old girl hit by a stray bullet.
They have yet to receive word on casualties from Thursday’s fighting as ambulance crews were unable to access the neighbourhood.
Hakim Al Masmari, editor of the Yemen Post, told Al Jazeera that an estimated 2,000 additional fighters “armed and ready to fight” have entered Sanaa to reinforce the Hashed confederation.
Saudi Islamists and the potential for protest
Stéphane Lacroix writes:
Saudi Arabia has remained fairly quiet during the recent months of Arab uprisings. A few demonstrations did take place, mostly in the Eastern province, but never gathered more than a couple of thousands. As for the Facebook calls for a “Saudi revolution” on March 11th, they had no real impact on the ground. Some observers found this surprising, given the fact that many of the causes of revolutions elsewhere in the region exist in Saudi Arabia. There is corruption, repression and, despite the country’s wealth, socio-economic problems that particularly affect the youth — it is said that at least 25 percent of Saudis below the age of 30 are unemployed.
Some observers argued that nothing had happened, or even could happen, in Saudi Arabia because the Kingdom possesses two extraordinary resources in huge quantities. This first is a symbolic resource, religion, through the regime’s alliance with the official Wahhabi religious establishment, while the second resource is a material one, oil. These resources, however, have their limits. The real reason that Saudi Arabia has not seen major protests is that the Saudi regime has effectively co-opted the Sahwa, the powerful Islamist network which would have to play a major role in any sustained mobilization of protests.
Neither Islam nor oil wealth necessarily shield the Saudi state from criticism. Religion can be, and has been, contested by opponents of the state, particularly by Islamists. The Wahhabi religious establishment is currently led by relatively weak figures. The current mufti Abd al-Aziz Al al-Shaykh lacks the strong credentials of his predecessor, sheikh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz. Oil money, however abundant, inevitably creates frustrations because its distribution follows established networks of patronage that favor some over others. This is especially notable at the regional level, where Najd receives much more of the state’s largesse than does the Kingdom’s periphery. What is more, the announcement on March 18th, 2011 by King Abdallah of a $100 billion aid package wasn’t only met by cheers as some expected. It also provoked angry reactions in some intellectual circles, who saw this as an insult to the Saudis’ “dignity.”
Saudi Arabia has more of a history of political mobilization than many realize. A pro-democracy current has evolved over the last 10 years. Its core component has historically been the dozens of intellectuals, Sunnis and Shiites, of Islamist and liberal backgrounds, who have come together since 2003 to repeatedly demand, through increasingly provocative petitions, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the Kingdom. Among the latest, and boldest, moves made by members of this group have been the creation in October, 2009 of the Kingdom’s first fully independent human rights organization, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, and the establishment in February, 2011 of the Kingdom’s first political party, Hizb al-Umma. Although members of this group have been repressed, many have pledged to continue their activism.
Saudi Arabia and Western hypocrisy
Rightwing Jewish protesters in East Jerusalem chant, “Butcher the Arabs” and “Death to Leftists.”
Ynet reports:
Dozens of right-wing activists marching through Jerusalem Wednesday were filmed chanting inflammatory messages and singing provocative songs in the capital, including “Muhammad is dead,” “May your village burn,” “Death to leftists,” and “Butcher the Arabs.”
The disturbing utterances were made during the traditional “Flag Dance” on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, which drew tens of thousands of Israelis to the capital to celebrate its unification following the 1967 Six-Day War.
Americans are joining flotilla to protest Israeli blockade
The New York Times reports:
When an international flotilla sails for Gaza this month to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, among the boats will be an American ship with 34 passengers, including the writer Alice Walker and an 86-year-old whose parents died in the Holocaust.
A year ago, nine people in a flotilla of six boats were killed when Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish boat in international waters off the coast of Gaza. The Israelis said their commandos were attacked and struck back in self-defense, but the Turks blamed the Israelis for using live ammunition. The raid soured relations between Israel and Turkey and intensified pressure on Israel to end the naval blockade.
Organizers said the new flotilla, scheduled to leave in late June from a port they would not identify, had at least 1,000 passengers on about 10 boats. One boat will carry Spaniards, another Canadians, another Swiss and another Irish.
Mobius says fresh financial crisis around corner amid volatile derivatives
Bloomberg reports:
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved.
“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo today in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”
The total value of derivatives in the world exceeds total global gross domestic product by a factor of 10, said Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion. With that volume of bets in different directions, volatility and equity market crises will occur, he said.
Criminalizing free speech
Glenn Greenwald writes:
Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress rightly takes Sen. Rand Paul to task for going on Sean Hannity’s radio program — one week after commendably leading opposition to the Patriot Act on civil liberties grounds — and advocating the arrest of people who “attend radical political speeches.” After claiming to be against racial and religious profiling, Paul said: ”But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.” Seitz-Wald correctly notes the obvious: ”Paul’s suggestion that people be imprisoned or deported for merely attending a political speech would be a fairly egregious violation on the First Amendment, not to mention due process.”
Indeed, the First Amendment not only protects the mere “attending” of a speech “promoting the violent overthrow of our government,” but also the giving of such a speech. The government is absolutely barred by the Free Speech clause from punishing people even for advocating violence. That has been true since the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had threatened violence against political officials in a speech.
The KKK leader in Brandenburg was convicted under an Ohio statute that made it a crime to ”advocate . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and/or to “voluntarily assemble with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” The Court struck down the statute on the ground that it “purports to punish mere advocacy” and thus “sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control.” The Court ruled that “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” — meaning conduct such as standing outside someone’s house with an angry mob and urging them to burn the house down that moment — “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force“ (emphasis added).
Libyan ambassador to Italy: “Gaddafi’s regime is over”
Libya.tv reports:
The days are numbered for Muammar Gaddafi’s rule and a diplomatic solution for his exit is no longer an option, according to an internationally prominent Libyan diplomat who has defected. Hafed Gaddur, Tripoli’s longtime envoy to former colonial ruler Rome, was well-known in Italy as a powerful Gaddafi associate who had Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on speed dial and brokered multi-billion dollar deals between the two nations.
“Gaddafi’s regime is over,” Gaddur said in an interview under the frescoed ceilings of the Libyan embassy in Rome, which now flies the rebel tricolour. “There are no more diplomatic solutions for him. It’s just a question of time now.”
Horrified at Gaddafi’s violent crackdown on peaceful protests, he said he threw his weight behind the rebels on Feb. 25. He cut off all ties with Tripoli in April after deciding Gaddafi would never agree to a diplomatic solution for his exit.
Libya.tv also reports:
Libya’s top oil official became the latest leading figure to desert Muammar Gaddafi today, complaining of “unbearable” violence and adding political momentum to a revolt against the leader’s long rule.
The move by National Oil Corp head Shokri Ghanem, who is also a former prime minister, came two days after the defections of eight army officers including five generals and those in earlier weeks of senior diplomats and other former ministers.
“I left the country and decided also to leave my job and to join the choice of Libyan youth to create a modern constitutional state respecting human rights and building a better future for all Libyans,” he said.
Fighting in Yemen capital threatens airport
The New York Times reports:
Heavy shelling north of Yemen’s capital threatened to close the main international airport Thursday as government troops and opposition tribesmen appeared to escalate bloody street battles that have pushed the country to the edge of civil war.
The airport, which lies roughly six miles north of the city, was open on Thursday and flights operated normally, the airport director, Naji Quddam, said in a statement, denying earlier news reports that it had closed.
But the main road to the airport from Sana remained dangerous to navigate because of government checkpoints, sporadic shelling and heaving fighting in the north of the city.
There, large numbers of tribal fighters surging south toward the capital, Sana, squared off against Yemeni troops at an important checkpoint in fierce fighting overnight and on Thursday. The northern checkpoint is a major barrier between the capital and Amran Province, a stronghold of the tribesmen loyal to the Ahmar family who have been battling the government for 10 days. Government troops have attempted to seal off the city to prevent rural tribesmen from joining the fight there.
On Wednesday afternoon, tanks and armored vehicles could be seen rolling into Sana from the south. The streets of city were largely empty, as residents fled for the safety of surrounding villages. Exploding artillery shells and sporadic machine-gun fire could be heard across the city.
Despite his repeated public offers to step aside to ease the crisis in the country, Yemen’s authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, appeared to be gearing up for a major assault on the Ahmar family, his tribal rivals and political opponents.
The violence here has transformed a largely peaceful uprising into a tribal conflict with no clear end in sight. The United States and Yemen’s Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia, which have tried and failed to mediate a peaceful solution to the country’s political crisis, are reduced to sitting on the sidelines and pleading for restraint.
Women the latest target of Bahrain’s crackdown
Kelly McEvers reports:
The woman who spoke to NPR says she was taken by bus to a police station, blindfolded, and made to stand for five hours in a room. She was accused of working to bring down the Bahraini regime.
“They tried to force me to confess that I told people at my work to be against the regime,” she says.
Authorities showed the woman a picture of someone protesting at Pearl Roundabout. At the time, Bahrain’s crown prince said it was legal to protest. Now, authorities say it’s a crime.
“They tried to force me to confess that a picture in a protest — that it is my picture. And it was really not my picture,” the woman says.
She was taunted about one of her relatives, who has been jailed without charge for many weeks. “They said very bad things about him,” she says. “And they told me that, ‘Do you think he will come out of the jail? He will die in jail.'”
But perhaps the worst part of the ordeal was that the woman was detained at all. In an Arab culture, particularly in the Gulf, detaining a woman is the ultimate humiliation, going back to the days when the way one tribe defeated another was to capture and rape its women.
“They told me if I didn’t confess they will let men come and — continue with me,” the woman says. “They told me that.”
Egypt’s military censors critics as it faces more scrutiny
The New York Times reports:
Even the mildest criticism of the Egyptian military was too much for Mahmoud Saad, a television host on the newly founded, independent Tahrir television network.
“Any institution of the country that takes taxes from us should be open to question,” Hossam el-Hamalawy, a blogger, said in an interview with Mr. Saad.
“No, no, no,” Mr. Saad interrupted. “I will not allow you to say those things on this network.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hossam,” he declared, hanging up.
The next day Mr. Hamalawy and two other liberal television journalists, but not Mr. Saad, were summoned to a military headquarters for questioning about their remarks.
The Egyptian military — facing public criticism for torturing demonstrators and admitting that it forced some female detainees to undergo “virginity tests” — is pressing the Egyptian news media to censor harsh criticism of it and protect its image. The military’s intervention concerns some human rights advocates who say they are worried that such efforts could make it harder for politicians to scrutinize the military and could possibly undermine attempts to bring it under civilian control or investigate charges of corruption.
“Nobody believes corruption was limited to the civilian government,” said a prominent liberal politician, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal by the military.
In recent weeks military authorities have sent letters warning news organizations to review any discussion of the military before publication or broadcast. A military court has also sentenced a blogger to three years in prison for what it called persistent attacks, and it has charged an outspoken liberal presidential candidate with libeling a general and insulting the military. Military authorities have summoned many journalists and bloggers to headquarters for questioning about their reports and sources.