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Sunday, 12 February 2012
Disgusting police brutality in Ma’ameer, Bahrain. Video was uploaded today, showing a protester being handled like an animal, then beaten by 3 riot police.
#bahrain #ma'ameer #trigger warning #news #protests #conflict
Al Akhbar | Arab monitors watched Homs killings: Syrian activist
Arab League monitors stood by and watched on as Syrian troops killed more civilians in Homs, contradicting the mission head’s comments that he saw “nothing frightening” in the city, a Syrian opposition group said.
Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, head of the Arab League observers, remarked on Wednesday that the situation in Homs “seemed reassuring so far.”
“Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening,” Dabi said.
An activist in Homs, Saleem Kabbani, refuted Dabi’s comments, stating that monitors “saw with their own eyes” clashes taking place in Homs.
“Yesterday when the head of the committee (Dabi) came to Baba Amro district, we heard live ammunition being fired. We told him there was live ammunition being fired, but he answered that it was not clear what was the source,” Kabbani said by phone from the flashpoint city.
Kabbani, a member of the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), said the monitors initially requested to visit Baba Amro – the scene of an alleged crackdown by Syrian forces on Monday – in the accompany of Syrian troops.
The locals refused the monitors’ request, Kabbani said, and the Arab observers eventually agreed to enter the area without Syrian troops after negotiations.
#Syria #News #conflicts #Homs
Not many artists can write songs/produce them. dance. do vocals/drums/harmonica/guitar. You have heard of her, or at least seen her move. She is known all over the world. Commercial success with both English and Spanish music. Has experimented with almost every genre out there and used various culture references in her music and music videos. She has also not had much controversy around her public image, as she is known for always being low key.
And Today, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll was awarded a Star on the Hall of Fame in Hollywood!
She will also be given the high honor of being “Person of the Year” at the 2011 Latin Grammys, and recently Barack Obama appointed her as member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
Add to that all her previous achievements, she has constantly stayed atop the music charts across the world and atop the Social 50 on the Billboards. More than 10 million Twitter followers and 40 million on Facebook. She has one of the most seen YouTube video of all time, passing 1 billion views.
She is the only artist from South America to reach the number-one spot on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100, the Australian ARIA chart, and the UK Single charts.
More than 60 million albums sold & The best selling single for the past 11 years.
With her philanthropic work and many foundations for children and education and of course, hit songs like: •Estoy Aquí, •Ciega, Sordomuda, •Ojos Así, •Whenever, Wherever/ Suerte, •Underneath Your Clothes, •La Tortura, •Hips Don’t Lie, •She Wolf/ Loba, •Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)/ (Esto Es África) And most recently •Loca and •Rabiosa
SHAKIRA is not just a Colombian/Latina singer anymore, she’s an international artist, she is from the world.
She is a great inspiration & UN ORGULLO HISPANO!
And I am amazingly happy for her!
THANK YOU SHAKIRA, FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE. Personally, my life was completely changed by your music.
She’s Lebanese, too! :)
#From my town! #Zahle #Lebanon #Shakira #news
Pray for Turkey!
#turkey #earthquake #news #natural disaster
More Middle Eastern news here.
#palestine #israel #conflict #news #middle east #libya #syria
Syrian forces have crossed into Lebanese territory and shot dead a Syrian man living in a border area, reports say.
The man killed was reportedly a farmer living in a remote area of Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa region. It was not clear why he was targeted.
It follows an incursion by Syrian tanks earlier this week, raising fears that Syria’s unrest is spreading.
Some 5,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon in recent months.
They include deserting soldiers and opposition members fleeing a crackdown on protesters by the Syrian government.
At least 2,900 people have died in Syria since the uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad began in March.
Porous border
According to reports, Syrian army vehicles crossed the border near Saaba, in the Bekaa region, and attacked farmers and their homes.
Witnesses said several buildings were damaged.
A Lebanese official told AFP news agency as saying the body of the Syrian man who died was left lying at the site, and that an investigation was under way.
It is unclear why the man, named as Ali al-Khatib - who was married to a Lebanese woman and living in the area - was killed.
The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says the border near the Bekaa region is porous and not even clearly defined.
Earlier this week, Syrian tanks entered the same region in a brief incursion.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati told AFP that a joint Syrian-Lebanese committee was looking into the issue.
“I am not being silent about this, we are dealing with the issue normally,” he said.
“I don’t want to blow these incidents out of proportion and I don’t want to belittle them either,” he added.
Lebanon has taken in several thousand Syrians fleeing the trouble in their own country.
Mr Miqati says they are being looked after on humanitarian grounds, but our correspondent says there have been reports of activists being hunted down and sent back to Syria.
#syria #lebanon #wow r u srs #news #middle east
Having officially determined that God is totally cool with women voting, Saudia Arabia’s King Abdullah announced that starting in 2012, women will be allowed to vote and run in municipal elections. Which are the only kind of election anyway!
And not only can Saudi women now participate in the low-level and politically-limited elections allowed by their country’s autocratic king, they can also serve on the (appointed) advisory Shura Council. Women and human-rights activists have been pushing for the vote (and a host of other changes) for a long time, so they’ll be psyched to hear that the king is totally on their side: “[W]e refuse to marginalize women in society in all roles that comply with sharia,” Abdullah said in a broadcast.
Still not cool with God, according to Saudi Arabian clerics: Women driving.
#Saudi Arabia #news #Middle East #women
Western powers have expressed dismay at Israeli plans to build 1,100 more homes on a settlement on Jerusalem’s edge.
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the move “counter-productive” to peace talks while the EU said the plan should be “reversed”.
The announcement comes days after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called for full UN membership for a Palestinian state.
The new houses are to be constructed Israel at Gilo, in East Jerusalem.
Almost 500,000 Jews live in settlements on occupied territory. The settlements are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
‘Provocative’
US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Mrs Clinton said Israel’s move would damage attempts to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
“We have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side,” she said.
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton told the EU parliament that she heard “with deep regret” that Israeli settlement plans were continuing.
“This plan should be reversed. Settlement activity threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution and runs contrary to the Israeli-stated commitment to resume negotiations.”
She said she would raise the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when she next met him.
“He should stop announcing them and, more importantly, stop building them,” she said, adding that it was wrong to get people to live in a place from which they may have to move from after any negotiated settlement is achieved.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague too urged Israel to revoke its decision.
“Settlement expansion is illegal under international law, corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace,” he said in a statement.
‘Nice gift’
The plan for construction in Gilo includes the construction of small housing units, public buildings, a school and an industrial zone, according to the Ynet news website.
“It’s a nice gift for Rosh Hashanah [Jewish New Year],” Yair Gabay, a member of the Jerusalem planning committee, told Ynet.
The authorities have now approved the building of almost 3,000 homes in Gilo over the past two years.
The chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the decision represented a rejection of a proposal by the Quartet of Mid East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - for new talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, expected to be made officially on Friday.
“With this, Israel is responding to the Quartet’s statement with 1,100 ‘NOs’,” he said.
On Monday, a divided UN Security Council met behind closed doors for its first discussion of last week’s Palestinian application for full state membership of the UN.
The request needs the support of nine of the 15 members of the council, but the US has said it will veto the bid.
‘Discriminatory demolitions’
Israel built the settlement at Gilo on land it captured in 1967. It later annexed the area to the Jerusalem municipality in a move not recognised by the international community.
Israel says it does not consider areas within the Jerusalem municipality to be settlements.
Gilo lies across a narrow valley from the Palestinian village of Beit Jala. It became a target for militants during the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 2000.
Meanwhile, the UN rapporteurs on housing, water, sanitation and food rights said there had been a “dramatic increase” in the demolitions this year.
“The impact and discriminatory nature of these demolitions and evictions is completely unacceptable,” they said in a statement.
“These actions by the Israeli authorities violate human rights and humanitarian law and must end immediately.”
#conflict #israel #palestine #news
Libya’s fugitive ex-leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has said he is ready to fight a long guerrilla war, in an audio message carried by a loyalist TV channel.
It was the second message in one day purporting to be from Col Gaddafi, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Anti-Gaddafi forces encircling the city of Sirte have given loyalists an extra week to negotiate their surrender.
Meanwhile, Western leaders have urged the interim authorities to engage in reconciliation with their enemies.
Delegates from 63 countries met to discuss Libya in Paris, on the 42nd anniversary of Col Gaddafi’s emergence as the leader of the coup that overthrew King Idris.
The colonel has not been seen in public for months, and it is not known where he is hiding.
“People are fighting colonialism,” he said in the first audio message which was broadcast on the Syria-based al-Rai television and lasted about 10 minutes.
“There must be huge sacrifices for the sake of freedom, the traitors will come to an end and Nato now will collapse, and the traitors’ loyalty to Nato will collapse.”
The message ended abruptly and patriotic music faded in.
Hours later, a second message was broadcast in which Col Gaddafi said he was prepared to fight “a long, long drawn out war” against what he called the occuption of Libya.
“The people will not allow you to take the oil and rob Libya’s wealth that God has endowed Libya with,” he said, claiming 2,000 tribes stood ready to defend Libya.
“Prepare yourselves for a gang and guerrilla war, for urban warfare and popular resistance in every town to defeat the enemy everywhere.”
He also said his hometown of Sirte - which remains in loyalist hands - was now the capital city of Libya.
Algeria refuge
Al-Rai, based in Damascus, has repeatedly broadcast propaganda messages from the Gaddafis.
On Wednesday, it broadcast an audio message from the colonel’s son Saif al-Islam, who also pledged to fight on.
But another son, Saadi, said in a message played on a different channel that he was negotiating with the rebels to avoid bloodshed.
Correspondents say the Gaddafi inner circle appears to be divided, as forces loyal to the transitional government (NTC) close in on the last remaining towns and cities loyal to him.
Earlier in the week Col Gaddafi’s wife, two of his sons and his daughter fled to neighbouring Algeria.
And Algerian media reported that Col Gaddafi had also tried to seek refuge there.
According to a report in El Watan newspaper, the colonel tried to speak to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from the desert town of Ghadamis, just on the Libyan side of the border, but the Algerian leader refused to take the telephone call.
Anti-Gaddafi forces have encircled the city of Sirte - the colonel’s birthplace and the home of his tribe.
They had threatened to launch a full military assault if Gaddafi loyalists had not surrendered by Saturday, but officials say they will allow another week to negotiate a peaceful settlement.
The NTC controls most of the country, after a dramatic assault on Tripoli last week in which the capital fell after an operation co-ordinated with Nato air strikes.
Assets unfrozen
Meanwhile, members of the NTC met senior international diplomats at the Paris summit, hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Mr Sarkozy said everyone had agreed to unfreeze assets blocked when Col Gaddafi was still in power.
“After going around the table, it’s about $15bn of Libyan assets in our countries that are immediately unfrozen,” he said.
The EU announced on Thursday that it had lifted sanctions on 28 entities - including oil firms and port authorities - to help the NTC get the economy moving again. The decision will take effect on Friday.
The UK, US and France have unfrozen more than $5bn (£3bn) in Libyan assets this week, and other countries are making similar moves.
On the diplomatic front, Russia is the latest nation to agree to recognise the NTC as Libya’s legitimate government.
About 60 countries attended the “Friends of Libya” forum in Paris on Thursday afternoon, along with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
#conflicts #libya #news #click to watch video
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