…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

While Bahrain’s Anti-regime Opposition languishes in Prison the UKs ‘Good Friday’ John Powell is training the “Pro-reform Opposition” in another Regime Charade of self preservation. Those Western consultants love lining their pockets with al-Khalifa dollars from rent on NSA Bahrain. Phlipn Out.

Jonathan Powell’s NGO has organised meetings for Bahraini government and opposition, applying lessons of Northern Ireland

Ex-Blair aide advising Bahrain on conflict resolution
30 October, 2012 – guardian.co.uk

Bahraini government and opposition figures are being trained in negotiation and conflict resolution techniques by Tony Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell, the Guardian can reveal.

Powell, who played a key role in securing the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998, was asked to undertake the work when Bahrain approached the UK Foreign Office for help with implementing the recommendations of an independent report on the Gulf state’s unrest last year.

Since leaving government in 2007 Powell has run InterMediate, a small NGO working on conflicts across the world. According to sources in Manama, Powell’s team has organised a series of discreet meetings in London and Northern Ireland for Bahraini officials and opposition figures, applying the lessons of the province’s sectarian divide in a Middle Eastern context.

A spokesman for InterMediate said that for reasons of confidentiality it does not comment on any of its projects, and refused to confirm or deny that it was involved in Bahrain. He stressed that as a matter of principle the charity does not accept funding from the government of any country in which it works.

Bahrain is known for employing expensive western PR agencies to present its case. It also buys security expertise. Last year it secured the services of John Yates, the former Metropolitan police commisioner, who is an adviser to the interior ministry. Another adviser is John Timoney, a former Miami police chief.

Netanyahu says strike on Iran would be good for Arabs
30 October, 2012 – By NIcholas Vinocur – Reuters

PARIS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought on Tuesday to convince Arab states that an Israeli military strike on Iran would benefit them, removing a potential threat and easing tensions across the Middle East.

Netanyahu has made a number of veiled threats to attack Iran’s nuclear programme and has appealed to the United States and the United Nations to set a limit for Tehran on its further development.

In an interview published on Tuesday with French magazine Paris Match, Netanyahu said such a strike would not worsen regional tensions, as many critics have warned.

“Five minutes after, contrary to what the sceptics say, I think a feeling of relief would spread across the region,” he said.

“Iran is not popular in the Arab world, far from it, and some governments in the region, as well as their citizens, have understood that a nuclear armed Iran would be dangerous for them, not just for Israel,” he said.

Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, believes Tehran intends to build atomic weapons and has consistently urged the West to increase up sanctions. Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes only.

The United States and other Western countries have rejected Netanyahu’s demand to set a limit for Iran and have urged him to refrain from military action to give diplomacy and sanctions a chance to work.

Netanyahu, who is running for re-election in January at the head of the right-wing Likud party, told the United Nations last month that a strike could wait until spring or summer when he said Tehran might be on the brink of building an atomic bomb.

During his two-day visit to France, Netanyahu will travel to the southern city of Toulouse with President Francois Hollande for a ceremony of remembrance for the victims of an Islamist gunman who killed seven people there in March, including three Jewish children.
…source

The Last Presidential Debate
By As’ad AbuKhalil – 29 October, 2012 – Angry Corner – Al Akhbar

How do you watch presidential debates in the US, as an Arab or as an American who cares about Palestinians? Not an easy task for sure. It has become ritualistic and formulaic. Basically, candidates sit (or stand) and compete in the art of catering to the Israeli lobby. It knows no bounds and it recognizes no limits of logic or reason. It is an exercise in which informed men and women have to surrender their brains at the door. It is a ritual that we have to endure once every four years, if you don’t count the routine Senate races.

Obama came to the debate prepared to defend his record on Israel. He extended additional aid to Israel as soon as Romney landed there for the campaign stop that all presidential candidates have to undertake. He also ordered the largest ever joint military exercise between Israel and the US. Every US president has to prove that he is far more pro-Israel than his predecessor, and all are (probably with the exception of George H.W. Bush). Obama and Romney invoked the name of Israel and they barely mentioned the names of traditional US allies like France and UK. Israel is now the foreign policy of the US in an election year. A writer in Le Monde said what no US journalist could say: that the invocation of Israel and China in the presidential campaign is about domestic policy and not foreign policy, that Israel stands for Florida while China stands for Ohio.

Sadly, there are Arabs who have already begun their naïve analysis about the next four years. Some are rooting for Obama on the assumption that a president in his second term is capable of challenging the Israeli lobby. For some inexplicable reason, every American administration is capable of fooling Arabs with this notion. Of course, no American president ever stood up to the Israeli lobby in his second term. There are those in the Arab world who insist that Nixon was planning on confronting Israel in his second term and that the Israeli lobby instigated the Watergate scandal to avoid an impending disaster.

But the debate between Obama and Romney was illustrative: there is a political malady in American political life. There is a pretension that passes itself off as sincere concern. This obsession with Israel just can’t be real. How could anyone believe that the president of the US is really more concerned about Israel than about any other ally of the US around the world? To be sure, Israel has become a domestic American political factor and the US Congress acts pretty much as an extension of the Israeli embassy, but there is something to be said about this theater of the absurd: about two adult men pretending that all that they care about in world affairs is Israel. Israel wants the US to act like every threat to its aggression and occupation is a threat to the US, and American politician have to feign agreement with Israel. …more

Why didn’t CNN’s international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain’s Arab Spring repression?

The Bahraini minority regime spent $32 million dollars on bribes to stop CNN from airing the documentary on its international network where it can be viewed by people in Arab countries, including Bahrain. CNN’s total cost for the hour-long documentary titled “iRevolution” was $100,000. According to the deal, CNN chopped down the documentary into a 13 minutes segment and aired it only on its US networks, but not on the international network. CNN later “laid off” the award winning reporter Amber Lyon in order to please the Arab monarchy in Bahrain that paid CNN million of dollars. Don’t you love the “Freedom of the Press” in Western countries? Watch a short video: Dictators Sponsor CNN, Interview with Amber Lyon
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A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network

October 30, 2012 (The Guardian) — In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay in that small, US-backed kingdom.

By the time the CNN crew arrived, many of the sources who had agreed to speak to them were either in hiding or had disappeared. Regime opponents whom they interviewed suffered recriminations, as did ordinary citizens who worked with them as fixers. Leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. A doctor who gave the crew a tour of his village and arranged meetings with government opponents, Saeed Ayyad, had his house burned to the ground shortly after. Their local fixer was fired ten days after working with them.

The CNN crew itself was violently detained by regime agents in front of Rajab’s house. As they described it after returning to the US, “20 heavily-armed men”, whose faces were “covered with black ski masks”, “jumped from military vehicles”, and then “pointed machine guns at” the journalists, forcing them to the ground. The regime’s security forces seized their cameras and deleted their photos and video footage, and then detained and interrogated them for the next six hours.

Lyon’s experience both shocked and emboldened her. The morning after her detention, newspapers in Bahrain prominently featured articles about the incident containing what she said were “outright fabrications” from the government. “It made clear just how willing the regime is to lie,” she told me in a phone interview last week.

But she also resolved to expose just how abusive and thuggish the regime had become in attempting to snuff out the burgeoning democracy movement, along with any negative coverage of the government.

“I realized there was a correlation between the amount of media attention activists receive and the regime’s ability to harm them, so I felt an obligation to show the world what our sources, who risked their lives to talk to us, were facing.”

CNN’s total cost for the documentary, ultimately titled “iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring”, was in excess of $100,000, an unusually high amount for a one-hour program of this type. The portion Lyon and her team produced on Bahrain ended up as a 13-minute segment in the documentary. That segment, which as of now is available on YouTube, is a hard-hitting and unflinching piece of reporting that depicts the regime in a very negative light.

In the segment, Lyon interviewed activists as they explicitly described their torture at the hands of government forces, while family members recounted their relatives’ abrupt disappearances. She spoke with government officials justifying the imprisonment of activists. And the segment featured harrowing video footage of regime forces shooting unarmed demonstrators, along with the mass arrests of peaceful protesters. In sum, the early 2011 CNN segment on Bahrain presented one of the starkest reports to date of the brutal repression embraced by the US-backed regime.

On 19 June 2011 at 8pm, CNN’s domestic outlet in the US aired “iRevolution” for the first and only time. The program received prestigious journalism awards, including a 2012 Gold Medal from New York Festival’s Best TV and Films. Lyon, along with her segment producer Taryn Fixel, were named as finalists for the 2011 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. A Facebook page created by Bahraini activists, entitled “Thank you Amber Lyon, CNN reporter | From people of Bahrain”, received more than 8,000 “likes”.

Despite these accolades, and despite the dangers their own journalists and their sources endured to produce it, CNN International (CNNi) never broadcast the documentary. Even in the face of numerous inquiries and complaints from their own employees inside CNN, it continued to refuse to broadcast the program or even provide any explanation for the decision. To date, this documentary has never aired on CNNi.
CNNi’s refusal to broadcast ‘iRevolution’

It is CNN International that is, by far, the most-watched English-speaking news outlet in the Middle East. By refusing to broadcast “iRevolution”, the network’s executives ensured it was never seen on television by Bahrainis or anyone else in the region.

CNNi’s decision not to broadcast “iRevolution” was extremely unusual. Both CNN and CNNi have had severe budget constraints imposed on them over the last several years. One long-time CNN employee (to whom I have granted anonymity to avoid repercussions for negative statements about CNN’s management) described “iRevolution” as an “expensive, highly produced international story about the Arab Spring”. Because the documentary was already paid for by CNN, it would have been “free programming” for CNNi to broadcast, making it “highly unusual not to air it”. The documentary “was made with an international audience as our target”, said Lyon. None of it was produced on US soil. And its subject matter was squarely within the crux of CNN International’s brand.

CNNi’s refusal to broadcast “iRevolution” soon took on the status of a mini-scandal among its producers and reporters, who began pushing Lyon to speak up about this decision. In June 2011, one long-time CNN news executive emailed Lyon:

“Why would CNNi not run a documentary on the Arab Spring, arguably the the biggest story of the decade? Strange, no?”

Motivated by the concerns expressed by long-time CNN journalists, Lyon requested a meeting with CNNi’s president, Tony Maddox, to discuss the refusal to broadcast the documentary. On 24 June 2011, she met with Maddox, who vowed to find out and advise her of the reasons for its non-airing. He never did.

In a second meeting with Maddox, which she had requested in early December to follow up on her unanswered inquiry, Lyon was still given no answers. Instead, at that meeting, Maddox, according to Lyon, went on the offense, sternly warning her not to speak publicly about this matter. Several times, Maddox questioned her about this 18 November 2011 tweet by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, demanding to know what prompted it. …source

REFILE-Bahrain says bans rallies to prevent violence
30 October, 2012 – Reuters

Oct 30 (Reuters) – Bahrain has banned all rallies and gatherings to ensure public safety and prevent violence, the state news agency reported, following more than a year of protests by opposition demonstrators.

The Sunni-ruled island kingdom, where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, has seen repeated protests since an uprising led by its Shi’ite majority for political reforms that began in February 2011 was crushed with help from Saudi troops last year.

“It has been decided to stop all gatherings and marches and not to allow any activity before being reassured about security and achieving the required stability in order to preserve national unity,” state news agency BNA quoted Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa as saying late on Monday.

“Any marches or gatherings will be dealt with as unlicensed and legal procedures will be taken against those calling for or participating in them,” he added.

Sheikh Rashed said the violence that had accompanied marches and gatherings in the kingdom had disrupted traffic, affected trade and the economy and damaged private property.

He said march organisers, including the leading opposition party Wefaq, had failed to control protesters in the past.

The Gulf Arab state has banned a series of protests organised by Wefaq in past months. A senior official said in July that the government had no plans to ban rallies outright, but wanted to ensure they did not turn violent.

The opposition described the bans on Wefaq marches as an attempt to silence them. Amnesty International also criticised the bans as a violation of fundamental rights.

Since April the authorities have stepped up efforts to crack down on unrest. Activists cite an increased use of shotgun pellets, whose use authorities have declined to confirm or deny.

Activists have been sentenced to jail in past months for organising or taking part in unlicensed anti-government protests. …source

Iraqi Sects Join Battle in Syria on Both Sides
By YASIR GHAZI and TIM ARANGO – 27 October, 2012 – New York Times

BAGHDAD — Militant Sunnis from Iraq have been going to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad for months. Now Iraqi Shiites are joining the battle in increasing numbers, but on the government’s side, transplanting Iraq’s explosive sectarian conflict to a civil war that is increasingly fueled by religious rivalry.

Some Iraqi Shiites are traveling to Tehran first, where the Iranian government, Syria’s chief regional ally, is flying them to Damascus, Syria’s capital. Others take tour buses from the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, on the pretext of making a pilgrimage to an important Shiite shrine in Damascus that for months has been protected by armed Iraqis. While the buses do carry pilgrims, Iraqi Shiite leaders say, they are also ferrying weapons, supplies and fighters to aid the Syrian government.

“Dozens of Iraqis are joining us, and our brigade is growing day by day,” Ahmad al-Hassani, a 25-year-old Iraqi fighter, said by telephone from Damascus. He said that he arrived there two months ago, taking a flight from Tehran.

The Iraqi Shiites are joining forces with Shiite fighters from Lebanon and Iran, driving Syria ever closer to becoming a regional sectarian battlefield.

Lebanon, which has 100,000 Syrian refugees, was pushed to the brink this month when a Sunni intelligence chief was assassinated in a bombing. Many Lebanese blamed the Syrian government and its allies for the attack. Jordan, sheltering more than 180,000 refugees, has struggled to contain the violence on its border, which claimed the life of a Jordanian soldier in a firefight with extremists last week. Turkey, with more than 100,000 refugees, has traded artillery fire with Syria since Syrian shelling killed five civilians near the border early this month.

Now Iraq, still haunted by its own sectarian carnage, has become increasingly entangled in the Syrian war. And Iran, which, like Iraq, is majority-Shiite, appears to be playing a critical role in mobilizing Iraqis. …more

LATEST ‘WIRED EXCLUSIVE” ON SYRIAS NEWEST WMD THREAT,PUSHED BY A ZIONIST JEW TIED TO ISRAHELL ,BROOKINGS,AND US DEPT OF DEFENSE!
28 October, 2012 – NOVANEWS – SHOAH

Exclusive: US Rushes to Stop Syria from Expanding Chemical Weapon Stockpile
The regime of embattled Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is actively working to enlarge its arsenal of chemical weapons, U.S. officials tell Danger Room. Assad’s operatives have tried repeatedly in recent months to buy up the precursor chemicals for deadly nerve agents like sarin, even as his country plunges further and further into a civil war. The U.S. and its allies have been able to block many of these sales. [ed notes;what sales???where???from who???nowhere!!!

But that still leaves Assad’s scientists with hundreds of metric tons of dangerous chemicals that could be turned into some of the world’s most gruesome weapons.“Assad is weathering everything the rebels throw at him. Business is continuing as usual,” one U.S. official privy to intelligence on Syria says. “They’ve been busy little bees.” Talk of direct U.S. intervention in Syria has largely subsided.“There was a moment we thought they were going to use it —especially back in July,” says the U.S. official, referring to Syria’s chemical arsenal.“But we took a second look at the intelligence, and it was less urgent than we thought.”

That hardly means the danger surrounding Syria’s chemical weapons program has passed. More than 500 metric tons of nerve agent precursors, stored in binary form, are kept at upward of 25 locations scattered around the country. If any one of those sites falls into the wrong hands, it could become a massively lethal event. And in the meantime, Assad is looking to add to his already substantial stockpile.“ [ed notes:evidence?zero none,sowhat does he and wired do?they give following reference… Damascus has continued its pursuit of chemical weaponsdespite the damage to its international reputation and the rising costs of evading international export control on chemical weapons materials,” the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a leading think tank on weapons of mass destruction issues, noted in an August profile of Syria’s illicit arms activities.

[ed notes;he’s giving a reference to a think tank whos information on Syrias chemical weapons isn’t even ”updated”,there is nothing new on any new procurement of any chemical or biological weapons there!!!zero!!!what a weasel this author and wired is/are… Exactly why is unclear; Assad is perfectly capable of mass slaughter with more conventional means, like tanks and cluster bombs. Perhaps his chemical precursors are relatively unstable, and he needs fresh supplies; perhaps this is a late shopping spree before the international noose tightens completely; perhaps he wants to send a warning to potential adversaries in Jerusalem and Washington. [ed notes:Maybe he needs fresh supplies?late shopping spree?he has zero evidence for his claims,hes parroting what us govt and israhell wants public to swallow in order to convince american public on the idea we need to invade Syria,as israhell advocates…

Whatever the rationale, Assad is continuing his attempts to buy the building blocks of nerve agents like sarin. The CIA and the U.S. State Department, working with allies in the region, have recently prevented sales to Syria of industrial quantities of isopronol [ed notes;hes just regurgitating c.i.a. and us official lies without any proof!!!

Popularly known as rubbing alcohol, it’s also one of the two main chemical precursors to sarin gas, one of the deadliest nerve agents in existence. The other precursor is methylphosphonyl difluoride, or DF. The Syrians were also recently blocked from acquiring thephosphorous compounds known as halides, some of which can be used to help make DF.At a recent meeting of the Australia Group, an informal collection of international government officials dedicated the stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, participants “discussed the extensive tactics – including the use of front companies in third countries – [that] the Syrian government uses to obscure its efforts to obtain [regulated equipment], as well as other dual-use items, for proliferation purposes.” Bottom line: “Syria continues to be a country of proliferation concern, with active biological and chemical weapons programs.” …more

Saudi Arabia to broker Afghan peace talks with Taliban
By Sayed Jawad – 29 October, 2012 – KHAAMA Press

Afghan High Peace Council welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to support Afghan reconciliation process with the Taliban group.

International Relations Advisor for the Afghan High Peace Council said they are expecting the decision by Saudi Arabia will have positive impact over Afghan peace process.

Afghan peace efforts has been one of the major agendas of the Afghan government during the past two years however there has been no major achievements in peace talks so far but the positive response by Saudi Arabia this time has led to optimisms by Afghan peace officials.

Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar International Relations Advisor for the Afghan High Peace Council said he was expecting that the decision by Saudi Arabia will have a positive impact over Afghan peace talks.

He said, “We welcome the commitments by Saudi Arabia and hope that Saudi’s cooperation will led to a sucess and we are hoping to see practical steps by Saudi for their commitments towards Afghan peace talks.”

Afghan High Peace Council officials also said the decision by Saudi Arabia and the speech by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia who called suicide bombing illegal has direct links with the Afghan reconciliation.

Saudi Arabia has earlier supported Afghan peace talks with the Taliban group however no practical was taken in this regard and therefore Saudi’s commitment to broker Afghan peace talks until a positive result is obtained remains a question.

An Afghan political observer Nasrullah Stanekzai said, “Saudi Arabia is in a situation to support the Afghan peace talks not only because of the moral stance of Saudi in this regard but also they should consider the post 2014 situation in Afghanistan which will threaten the national security of Saudi Arabia if if necessary steps have not been taken to eliminate insurgency in South Asia.”

However a number of other Afghan political observers believe that Taliban consider Saudi Arabia as best option to broker Afghan peaec talks. …more

Women’s Brains. No Place in the UK Media?
By Claire Shaw – Safeworld – 29 October, 2012

According to a recent study conducted by Women in Journalism, women neither write big news or make it in the UK. They play a minor role in public life, and are not generally seen as the ‘go to’ for expert comment and opinions.

The study published earlier this month, found that after analysing nine national newspapers for four consecutive weeks, 78 percent of all front-page articles were written by men compared to only 22 percent by women, with the Independent having just 9 per cent of front-page stories written by women.
Men as ‘Experts’. Women as ‘Victims’, Pin-ups or Princesses

It showed that national newspapers tend to seek expert opinions from men (76 percent), but where a victim was quoted it was more likely to be from a woman (79 percent).

What’s more, where numerous male political figures were pictured regularly on front pages of national newspapers, including former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, current French president Francois Hollande and the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, the only females that made the top ten images were Kate and Pippa Middleton, and missing victim Madeleine McCann.

So what does this say about how women are represented in the media industry today?

According to Rosie Boycott, founder of feminist magazine Spare Rib, in order for women to appear on the front page, women have to be either “wrong, sexy or a celebrity”.

And this view is not just restricted to the newspaper industry, but appears to be prevalent across all media platforms including radio and television.
…more

Washington Lobbies Europe to Join Its War on Hezbollah
By Omar Nashabe – 29 October, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Washington’s attempts to cultivate what it called “moderate Shias” as a counterbalance to Hezbollah, as revealed in Wikileaks documents, has failed, and now the US is ratcheting up pressure on its European allies to go after the Resistance movement.

This appeal was made by John Brennan, the US President’s Deputy National Security Advisor, during a visit he made to Dublin on Friday.

Speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Brennan criticized what he called the “Failure” of many European countries, including Ireland, to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization, which, he said, “makes it harder to defend our countries and protect our citizens.”

Brennan also called on the European countries to hold Iran and Syria accountable for sponsoring Hezbollah
He went on to say that the UK’s move to designate Hezbollah’s armed wing a terrorist group was “simply not enough,” and declared that Hezbollah “will continue to operate with impunity” unless the international community joins the United States in taking a more “proactive posture” by working together to “uncover its infrastructure and disrupt its networks.”

The senior US official stressed that failure by the European countries to take action against Hezbollah has complicated law enforcement efforts against Hezbollah suspects arrested “for plotting in Europe.”

Brennan also called on the European countries to hold Iran and Syria accountable for sponsoring Hezbollah, a statement which comes at the same time as American accusations that Hezbollah is supporting the regime in Syria in its war against the armed opposition and its backers.

Brennan is one of President Barack Obama’s top advisers. The US media covered his remarks extensively in the final stretch of the campaign leading up to the the US presidential elections. The remarks follow a presidential debate focused on foreign policy in which both candidates pledged staunch support for Israel.

Nevertheless, the appeal made to the European countries to back the US attack on Hezbollah also suggests that there has been a shift in the approach declared by Brennan. …more

Bahrain prosecutor appeals against acquittals of 3 police
29 October, 2012 – Agence France Presse

DUBAI: Bahrain’s prosecutor Monday appealed against the acquittals of a policewoman accused of torturing a journalist and two policemen tried for murdering demonstrators in last year’s anti-regime protests.

“The prosecutor general has decided to file an appeal (after) a thorough review of the reasons” that led to the acquittals and after studying the evidences against the accused in both the cases, a statement issued by the prosecutor general Abderrahman al-Sayyed said.

On October 22, a Bahraini court had acquitted a policewoman who was charged with torturing female journalist Naziha Saeed, who is Manama’s correspondent for France 24 and Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya, during last year’s crackdown on anti-regime protests in the Gulf kingdom.

The court concluded that the testimony of the victim was “contradictory” and “does not conform to the pathologist’s report.”

The officer was prosecuted for hitting the journalist on May 22, 2011, after she was summoned by the police for questioning about her links with Al-Manar television of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.

In another case on September 27 the court acquitted two police officers accused of killing two Shiite protesters, Ali al-Moumin and Issa Abdel Hasan, during the crackdown on protests in 2011.

The court justified their acquittals on the basis of lack of evidence.

Home to the US Fifth Fleet and strategically situated across the Gulf from Iran, Bahrain has continued to witness sporadic Shiite-led demonstrations, mostly outside the capital since it crushed the pro-democracy uprising in March last year.
…source

Bahrain: al-Wefaq party calls for a protest rally to break al-Eker siege
29 October, 2012 – ABNA

Bahrain’s main opposition bloc al-Wefaq has called on Bahrainis to march towards the village of al-Eker, south of the capital, and hold a protest gathering there.

Bahrain: al-Wefaq party calls for a protest rally to break al-Eker siege(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – Bahrain’s main opposition bloc al-Wefaq has called on Bahrainis to march towards the village of al-Eker, south of the capital, and hold a protest gathering there.

The rally aims at breaking al-Eker siege and expressing solidarity with its residents, opposition activists said.

Al-Eker has been under Manama regime’s siege since October 18 after a policeman was killed in a roadside bombing in the village. Activists say the regime forces have imposed strict security measures on al-Eker and have denied the town medical aid and food supplies since then. Security forces have also prevented activists and doctors from entering the village.

Ten opposition groups and NGOs have reportedly sent a message to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to urge him to intervene and “lift the siege on al-Eker.”

Al Wefaq has been pushing for a week to hold a rally in al-Eker, but on Saturday, Bahrain’s security authorities denied the opposition group permission to hold a mass rally in Eker.

Bahrain, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been the scene of anti-regime protests since February 2011 and scores of people have been killed and hundreds more injured in the regime crackdown. Many others, including opposition leaders and human rights activists, were also given long jail terms as part of the crackdown.

Bahrainis hold King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa responsible for the death and arrest of the protesters. They have vowed to continue their protests rallies until their demands for an elected government and an end to rights violations are met. …source

US Trying to engage Iran on 1 to 1 Basis, As Iran threatens to Use Oil as a weapon , with out Iranian Oil World Economy may Crash
29 October, 2012 – JafriaNEws

JNN 29 Oct 2012 TEHRAN – The White House says it is prepared to talk one-on-one with Tehran to find a diplomatic settlement to the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program, but there’s no agreement now to meet, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

The report did not give more details.

The New York Times reported on October 22, citing Obama administration officials, that the United States and Iran had agreed in principle to one-on-one negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, but both the White House and Iran denied the report.

Iranian lawmaker and former oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi has warned the Western countries that Iran may use energy as a political tool against them if they seek to use it as such against the Islamic Republic.

“The Westerners should know that if they want to use this tool for political purposes, the possibility exists that one day this tool will be used against them, and then they will suffer,” the chairman of Iran’s Majlis Energy Committee said on Sunday.

He referred to the sanctions imposed against Iran’s energy sector and said that despite the bans, “Iran’s oil sales continue and if European countries do not buy our country’s oil, there are numerous other countries that are buyers.”

The Iranian lawmaker said if the sanctions could have affected Iran’s oil exports, they would have had the effect by now; but the country’s crude sales have never stopped.

On October 15, EU foreign ministers agreed on a new round of sanctions against Iran in spite of a UN warning against the humanitarian ramifications of the bans that had already been imposed.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded allegation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iran’s Oil Ministry Spokesman Alireza Nikzad-Rahbar says the Islamic Republic will reciprocate any further Western sanctions against the country, adding that the Iranian crude is indispensable to the world energy markets. …more

60 M US Coastal belt residents at risk as deadly ‘Frankenstorm’ Sandy triggers mass evacuations
Jafria News – 29 October, 2012

JNN 29 Oct 2012 New York : The ‘Frankenstorm’ Sandy is set to be unprecedented in size once it hits the US mainland Monday night. Tens of millions of people could be affected as the hybrid hurricane wreaks havoc from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Halloween week.

Increasingly dire warnings of powerful winds, power outages, widespread flooding, torrential downpours and even snow are being sounded in New York and other major population centers as Hurricane Sandy continues its trek up from the Caribbean.

President Obama signed an emergency declaration for the states of New York and Massachusetts and District of Columbia on Sunday evening.

Forecasters said Sandy is set to transform into “super storm,” as the tropical storm merges with a winter storm and a cold front, threatening up to 12 inches of rainfall in some areas and heavy snow inland.

“We’re looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people,” says Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Set to approach the coasts of the mid-Atlantic states by Monday, Sandy is likely to make landfall in the New York metropolitan area, home to about 22 million people, on Monday night.

The Category 1 storm’s sustained winds of 75 mile per hour are nothing extraordinary, but with hurricane force winds reaching out 105 miles from its center and weaker tropical storm-force winds extending 700 miles, forecasters are on edge about its potential impact.

The powerful gusts are expected to stretch as far inland as Pennsylvania.

“These winds are just amazing in terms of their high speed. I cannot recall ever seeing model forecasts of such an expansive areal wind field with values so high for so long a time. We are breaking new ground here,” a National Weather Service meteorologist in the agency’s Washington, DC/Baltimore office said on Saturday night.

“The size of this [Sandy] alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history making,” said Jeff Masters, a hurricane specialist who writes a blog for Weather Underground.

Those far away from costal areas still have cause for alarm, as forecasters predict that inland flooding from the storm surge could pose a much greater risk than the winds.

Utilities officials have also warned that rain-saturated grounds could send trees plummeting into power lines, leaving residents at home without electricity for days.

Officials have urged residents to stock up on food, water and batteries, with grocery stores being swamped in anticipation of the potential power outages.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation of Gotham’s low-lying areas, home to some 375,000 people in total.

“If you don’t evacuate, you are not only endangering your life, you are also endangering the lives of the first responders who are going in to rescue you,” Bloomberg said at a news conference Sunday.

The city’s school system will also be closed on Monday, the mayor continued.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had previously noted that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had directed “an orderly shutdown and suspension of all subway, bus and commuter railroad service” beginning at 7 pm Sunday.

Cuomo also said the decision to shut down the state’s bridges and tunnels would be made on a case-by-case basis.

The city closed the subways before Hurricane Irene last year, with a Columbia University study predicting that an Irene surge just one foot higher could have shut down lower Manhattan.

Bloomberg’s stark warning to residents regarding evacuation might have been spurred by fears that complacency had set in once Hurricane Irene turned out to be far weaker than initially predicted.

Irene, which struck the eastern US in August 2011, was responsible for 56 deaths and $15.6 billion dollars in damage, making it the fifth costliest storm in the country’s history.

“The National Weather service believes there is increasing potential for high winds, coastal flooding and heavy rains across a broad area for a lengthy period of time Sunday through Tuesday,” said Howard Glaser, director of New York State Operations.

Next door in New Jersey, hundreds of coastal residents started moving inland after Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency on Saturday. A dozen Atlantic City casinos were closed following the declaration, as the gambling hub is located on a barrier island. The town’s nearly 40,000 residents will be evacuated Sunday, city officials said. …more

Call for Bahrain to Implement UN Human Rights Council Recommendations
29 October, 2012 – by Jadaliyya Reports

PEN International calls on the Bahraini government to implement recommendations of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), released on 19 September 2012, alongside the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry BIC’s recommendations.

While Bahrain accepted 145 of the 176 recommendations made as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Bahrain, the situation of human rights is still deteriorating.

PEN International is extremely concerned about the ongoing threats of reprisals targeting Bahraini human rights defenders, including writers and journalists, who cooperate with the United Nations (UN) or those who attended the Geneva meeting. Several of these activists have been summoned for interrogation or arrested in the past few days, due to their legitimate peaceful activism for human rights.

On 16 October 2012, activist and president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights Mohamed Al-Masktai has been summoned for interrogation at Al-Naem police station. He was then arrested and kept in custody to be brought the following day before the public prosecution office for participating in a protest held on 12 October in Manama. He was released after interrogation. While taking part in the Geneva meetings, Al-Masktai reportedly received death threats through anonymous phone calls.

Also, on 23 September 2012, those who travelled to Geneva to participate in the 21st session of the Human Rights Council were accused of “defaming Bahrain” and labelled as “traitors to the country” by pro-governmental newspaper Al-Watan.

In violation of one of the recommendations which states that the Bahraini government must immediately release prisoners who have been convicted solely for exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and free expression during pro-democracy demonstrations in February and March 2011, the Bahraini Appeal Court upheld on 4 September 2012 the sentences against the 14 political leaders and human rights activists including writers and bloggers Abdul Hadi Al- Khawaja and Dr Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace. PEN is seriously concerned for the welfare of Abdul-Jaili Al-Singace, who is in poor health as a result of hunger strike.

The Bahrain Appeals Court has twice postponed the appeal hearing of Nabeel Rajab, the director of Bahrain Centre for Human rights (BCHR), who was sentenced to three years in prison on 16 August 2012 for illegal assembly and another case related to a Twitter post. PEN International protests the continued arbitrary detention of Nabeel Rajab.

Zainab Al-Khawaja, a human rights defender and blogger, was released on 3 October 2012 after serving her two-month sentence which was handed down on 1 October 2012 for her peaceful opposition activities. Zainab reported that she was exposed to physical violence by police whilst in detention. …more

Details emerge over Israel’s strike on Sudan
29 October, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Eight Israeli warplanes flew south along the Red Sea and crossed into Sudan from the east before striking the Yarmouk factory on the outskirts of Khartoum last week, according to an article published Sunday in the UK Sunday Times.

The article quoted several unnamed security sources who provided a play-by-play of last Wednesday’s attack in Sudan that killed two people and destroyed a factory allegedly used by Iran to store and transfer arms to Gaza.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed the attack, which was widely interpreted as a warning to Iran over its nuclear program.

“This was a show of force but it was only a fraction of our capability – and of what the Iranians can expect in the countdown to the spring,” the paper quoted an Israeli defense source as saying, referring to recent threats to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran reveals photographs taken over Israel

Details of the attack emerge as Iran on Monday revealed photographs of what it said were Israeli military bases and other restricted areas captured by a drone earlier this month.

The Ayoub drone was shot down by Israeli jets after originally bypassing the country’s radar and air defense system on October 7. Hezbollah said it launched the drone.

“These aircraft transmit their pictures online, and right now we possess pictures of restricted areas,” Esmail Kowsari, chair of the Iranian parliament’s defense committee, told Iran’s state news agency.

Tensions are building up between Iran and Israel with the latter threatening to use force to disable the Islamic state’s nuclear program. Iran blames Israel for sabotaging one of its facilities earlier this year, and for a string of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists.

Israel and the west accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iran, with the support of Russia, insist the program is being developed for peaceful purposes.

Last week’s attack on Sudan, which is roughly the same size and distance from Israel as Iran, demonstrates Israel’s far reaching capabilities to strike.

Play-by-play

According to the Sunday Times account, the eight Israeli jets – four carrying one-ton bombs, and four escorts – took off from an airbase in southern Israel Tuesday night around 10pm.

They flew along the Red Sea to bypass Egypt’s air defense system. After flying south for 90 minutes, the jets were refuelled by a Boeing 707 tanker outside Sudanese airspace.

With their tanks full, the jets then raced towards the Yarmouk factory in Khartoum.

“At this stage a Gulfstream G550 filled with electronic warfare equipment began to jam the Sudanese air defense system and the radar at Khartoum airport,” the report said.

Sudanese fighter jets remained grounded throughout the attack.

The newspaper’s sources said the attack began being planned over two years ago when Mossad agents discovered a copy of a 2008 defense agreement between Iran and Sudan.

The agreement, found in a briefcase of a Hamas arms purchaser after the agents smothered him to death in his Dubai hotel room, allegedly stipulated that Iran would build arms in Sudan. …source

Al-Khalifa Forces Impose Siege on Eker for 8th Day
26 October, 2012 – Uprooted Palestinians

Al-Khlaifa security forcesSaudi-backed Bahraini forces have attacked anti-regime protesters and activists attempting to enter a besieged village in the east of the country.

The security forces used toxic teargas canisters and rubber bullets to prevent the protesters from breaking the now-eight-day-long siege of the village of Eker.

Several protesters were arrested and dozens more injured in violent clashes with the regime forces.

Meanwhile, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a Cairo-based NGO devoted to promoting freedom of expression across the Middle East and North Africa, condemned the Manama regime’s use of systematic violence against peaceful demonstrators.

On Monday, clashes erupted between regime forces and protesters near the village, during which at least three human rights activists, including Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed opposition leader, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, were arrested.

Khawaja said earlier that the protesters were taking food and medical supplies to the village’s residents.

Bahrain’s revolution began in mid-February 2011 when oppression-weary public, inspired by popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations against the ruling regime.

Al-Khalifa crackdown against the Bahraini RevolutionThe Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring Persian Gulf states to help crack down on the demonstrations.

The Peninsula Shield-backed security forces faced citizens with bombs and toxic gas, which injures a number of participants, including a serious injury by a sound grenade the forces fired at one citizen’s face.

Despite more than a week passed on imposing the siege, the troops are still stationed in the vicinity of the region and its main and secondary entrances, accompanied with patrols of raids involving helicopters, horrifying incursions and illegal arrests, according to human rights organizations.

Al-Khalifa forces have also tightened the noose by banning food ammunitions and ambulances from entering Eker.

Legal sources confirmed that troops are surrounding the entire area from all sides turning it into a big prison, which reveals official organized targeting under the policy of collective punishment. …source

Int’l silence gives Al Khalifa free hand to suppress Bahrainis: Lawmaker
26 October, 2012 – PressTV

The deadly silence of the international community has given the Al Khalifa regime freedom to continue suppressing and killing people and … they keep [creating] human rights catastrophes by attacking defenseless people.”

An Iranian lawmaker has censured the international community’s silence on the killing and suppressing of Bahrainis by ruling Al Khalifa regime.

“The deadly silence of the international community has given the Al Khalifa regime freedom to continue suppressing and killing people and … they keep [creating] human rights catastrophes by attacking defenseless people,” Hossein Sobhani-Nia, member of Majlis (parliament) Presiding Board, said on Friday.

He pointed to the killing of Bahrainis and the siege of the village of al-Eker by the Bahraini regime forces and said the slaughter of children and women in Bahrain will be registered in the black record of the so-called advocates of human rights.

The Iranian lawmaker said that the Bahraini regime has violated the very basic civil rights of its citizens by killing the Shias, and added that Al Khalifa seeks to remove the community from the political scene.

Sobhani-Nia said the crackdown on Bahrainis may delay the realization of the people’s legitimate demands but will eventually lead to the final victory of the popular movement.

The village of al-Eker has been blockaded since late last Thursday when a policeman was killed in a bomb blast there.

Since then, clashes have been reported between Saudi-backed regime forces and protesters trying to enter the besieged village, which is located some 20 kilometers south of the capital Manama.

According to authorities, seven people are held over the blast. A government statement says that checkpoints have been set up in the search for other possible suspects.

Bahrain’s revolution began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.

The Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring Persian Gulf states to help crack down on the demonstrations. …more

EU condemns mounting violence in Bahrain
24 October, 2012 – al Khalifa Fantasy News

Brussels, Oct. 24 (BNA)— High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission Catherine Ashton denounced today violence in Bahrain which killed recently a security officer and left another seriously injured.

She said in a statement issued by her Spokesperson that “violence puts at risk the national reconciliation process in Bahrain, to which the European Union has expressed its support on several occasions.”

She stressed she is following up with deep concern the escalation of violence in Bahrain, adding that the EU “urges once again all sections of the Bahraini society to contribute to dialogue and national reconciliation in a peaceful and constructive manner, without any further delay.”

…source