Tunisian Revolution and the Middle East--And Now, The Withdrawal From Afghanistan (M.E.T.)

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http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-former-mp-sentenced-for-insulting-uae-1.1710578

Kuwait former MP sentenced for insulting UAE

 

Manama: Kuwait’s Court of Appeals has rejected a non-guilty verdict pronounced by a lower court in the case of a former lawmaker and sentenced him to two years in jail for insulting the UAE.

 

The court said that Mubarak Al Duwaila would have the sentence suspended pending the payment of a KD1,000 bail and his commitment to irreproachable behaviour for three years.

 

The charges levelled against Al Duwaila included insulting the UAE and putting Kuwait’s official relations with the UAE at risk of being severed. The insults were uttered by the former lawmaker during a televised interview in Kuwait City conducted in December 2014.

 

The former lawmaker denied the charges and told the court that he never insulted the UAE or its icons, claiming that he had referred to several matters during the interview.

 

He was acquitted by the criminal court in November last year, but the Court of Appeals turned the verdict down and on Tuesday issued its own ruling.

 

Al Duwaila, a leader in Kuwait’s Islamic Constitutional Movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, was last year sentenced in absentia by a court in the UAE to five years in prison for his derogatory remarks against the UAE and its leaders during the interview.

[visionary]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/21/middleeast/egypt-italy-giulio-regeni-mystery/index.html

Italian student's killing pulls Egyptian family into web of deaths, dead ends

 

It was still dark when Rasha Tarek saw her husband Salah for the last time.

 

Salah woke up at dawn on March 24 to go to an affluent neighborhood of the Egyptian capital for a painting job, his wife told CNN.
He was due to travel to Upper Egypt after that.

 

But Tarek suspected that her husband was being unfaithful to her, so she sent her brother, father and a family friend to tag along.

 

She spoke with her husband while he and the others were en route to their destination. But by 8 a.m. he stopped answering her calls. She tried the others but was unsuccessful in reaching them.

 

It took almost an hour before someone answered her husband's phone.

 

"I heard a noise that I couldn't understand. So I thought it was a network problem. I waited and heard my brother Saad saying, 'Yes, basha. Why are you upset, basha? Just tell me what you want. I swear to God, I'll do what you want, basha,'" she said.

 

"Basha" is customarily used to address people of higher status, especially the police.

 

Tarek never saw her husband, father or brother alive again. She thinks her brother answered the phone as they were being killed by Egyptian security forces.

 

"What I didn't realize then was that the noise I was hearing was the sound of my husband dying," Tarek said.

 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/3878/2016/en/

IRAN: FURTHER INFORMATION: IRAN CONFIRMS FORCED “VIRGINITY TEST” ON ARTIST: ATENA FARGHADANI

 

Iranian painter and prisoner of conscience Atena Farghadani remains in prison pending the outcome of her appeal against a 12 years and nine months prison sentence. The authorities have now confirmed that they subjected her to virginity and pregnancy tests.

Edited April 21, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.voanews.com/content/police-deployed-across-egypt-capital-ahead-of-protests/3301535.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Police Deployed Across Egypt's Capital Ahead of Protests

 

Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed Monday across the Egyptian capital ahead of planned demonstrations against the government's transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, a thorny issue which has already sparked the largest protests since President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi assumed power nearly two years ago.

 

Following the arrest of dozens of activists and journalists in recent days, riot police backed by armored vehicles on Monday took up positions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt's 2011 uprising, They also deployed on the ring road, downtown and at a square where hundreds of Islamist protesters were killed when security forces broke up their sit-in in August 2013.

 

Many of the protest organizers' gathering points were sealed off by police, including the doctors' and journalists' unions in central Cairo. Pedestrians near the Press Syndicate were stopped by police, who asked for IDs and about their destination before turning many of them away. Minivans loaded with plainclothes policemen were also deployed in the likely flashpoints.

 

In the poor district of Nahya, in Cairo's twin city of Giza, the sheer number of deployed policemen and fear of arrest prevented protesters from even gathering — forcing them to trickle out of the area in small groups in the hope of assembling elsewhere, according to protesters speaking to an Associated Press reporter in the area. The protesters spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

 

The military said in a video released late Sunday that troops were deployed to protect "vital and important installations" and deal with anyone who tries to "harm the people's interests or attempt to ruin their happiness" on Sinai Liberation Day, a national holiday marking the completion of Israel's withdrawal from the peninsula in 1982.

 

https://twitter.com/Conflicts

EGYPT: Police have reportedly begun tear gassing anti-government protesters today in Cairo.
10:06 AM

 

EGYPT: Report of BBC journalist being attacked by pro-Sisi groups
10:46 AM

 

EGYPT: Reports of multiple foreign journalists arrested in protest crackdown. Reports of French, Danish and Norwegian journalists arrested.
10:58 AM

 

UPDATE: Danish journalist has been released after being questioned by police Egypt
10:59 AM

Edited April 25, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/207889

Thousands of Iraqis Answer Sadr's Call to Protest

 

Thousands of supporters of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr answered his call to demonstrate in Baghdad on Tuesday to pressure the Iraqi government to carry out stalled reforms.

 

Iraq has been hit by weeks of political turmoil surrounding Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's efforts to replace the cabinet of party-affiliated ministers with a government of technocrats.

 

The proposed changes have been opposed by powerful political parties that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds, and parliament has repeatedly failed to vote on a new cabinet list.

 

The demonstrators, many of them carrying Iraqi flags, marched from Tahrir Square in central Baghdad to an entrance to the heavily-fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered, chanting that politicians "are all thieves."

 

"Our participation in the demonstration aims to reject this government for being sectarian," protester Abu Ali al-Zaidi said.

 

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/204363/Egypt/Politics-/-men-sentenced-to-up-to--years-in-homosexuality-ca.aspx

11 men sentenced to up to 12 years in homosexuality case in Egypt

 

A Giza misdemeanour court sentenced on Sunday 11 men to terms of up to 12 years in prison over charges of “inciting debauchery” after they were arrested for allegedly committing homosexual acts, Ahram Arabic news website reported.

 

Three people were sentenced to 12 years in prison while the rest were given between three to nine years.

The defendants, who were arrested at a rented apartment in Giza, denied the charges.

 

One of the defendants was convicted several years ago in another homosexuality-related case, according to investigators.

 

Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised by Egyptian law, though prosecutors have often tried gay men under laws against “debauchery”, “immorality” or “contempt of religion.”

Edited April 26, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/stop-viewing-the-region-through-a-narrow-lens

Stop viewing the region through a narrow lens

 

If, in 2011, the West’s view of the Arab world was grounded in optimism and exhilaration, it’s an entirely different story in 2016. Five years ago, there was still the sense that something was afoot, that the region could change into something better. There was the promise of a region based more on respect for fundamental rights, better governance and freedom – rather than one where these elements were constantly sacrificed to nepotism, autocracy and the cynical exploitation of concerns around security.

 

Five years on, the situation looks very different.

 

Now it is far more about security than ever before. It used to be that different Arab leaders would privately and publicly argue that they were better than the alternative of Islamism and that would be enough to get any concerns around fundamental rights of the table for discussion. Today, the equation is the same but different: many simply argue that the alternative to their rule is chaos. And, of course, no one wants chaos – and so the cycle continues.

 

But the region is not simply a place where one makes short-term exchanges between security concerns and everything else. It is a catastrophic mistake to look at the region in those terms alone.

The region is in a state of flux and the outside world needs to be more, not less, engaged with it, as it goes through an incredibly critical part of its modern history.

 

Certain aspects of the current era in the Arab world relate to simply going through the after shocks of traumatic events. The effects of colonialism and post-colonialist states ought not to be underestimated – and the trauma of that still defines much of what we see today.

 

There is good news in that it is being worked through. The bad news is that the damage that may yet come to pass is still likely to be rather significant. The world needs to be aware of that – but not simply build resilience at home, which is what many, particularly in the West, seem concerned with.

 

Rather, we need to be also keenly aware of the importance of helping resilience in the countries undergoing tumultuous periods in this region. Their success will be the success of many far beyond the region, particularly in Europe – but their failures will also have many dire repercussions as well, far beyond their borders.

 

But other things are happening and it is easy to lose sight of them as we focus almost exclusively on security.

Many countries have the problem of increasingly high birth rates, which can be harnessed, but only if sufficient opportunities are provided for young people coming into their own.

 

Yet, in other parts of the Arab world, particularly in the Gulf, questions around indigenous reliance are only beginning to be asked. The demographic question is very real within the region – and in very different ways.

 

There is also another, slowly shifting reality – and that is energy.

 

For so long the region, particularly the Gulf, has been the major source of fuel for many countries around the world, particularly in the West – but there are signs, if still in their infancy, of leaders in the Gulf recognising that will not always be the case.

 

At some point, the oil will run out and at some point probably long before that, the West and others may rely on other, cheaper sources of energy. On the one hand, there are many Arab countries that are in dire need of resources, and on the other, there are those that know they have to move past certain types of economies dependent on oil.

 

There is a temptation to view the region through a very narrow lens: one that makes the entire region about ISIL or security concerns.

 

But the region has never been like that – it has always had a complex, complicated reality. It is not that so many in the West were wrong to hope for a more sustainable, prosperous and free future for the people of the region – it’s that they escaped the need to come to a well thought out vision for assisting the region to get there.

Edited April 30, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protesters-storm-iraqi-parliament-in-baghdad/2016/04/30/0862fd3a-0ec1-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html

Protesters storm Iraqi parliament in Baghdad

 

Protesters stormed Iraq’s parliament on Saturday, bursting into the capital’s fortified Green Zone, where other key buildings, including the U.S. Embassy, are located.

 

Live footage on Iraqi television showed swarms of protesters, who have been demanding government reform, inside the parliament building, waving flags and chanting. Lawmakers were berated and beaten with flags as they fled the building, while demonstrators smashed the windows of politicians' cars.

“This is a new era in the history of Iraq,” screamed one demonstrator in the main lobby of the parliament, in footage on Iraqi television. "They have been robbing us for the past 13 years," said another.

 

Earlier in the day, not enough lawmakers had turned up in parliament to officially convene a session in which Abadi was due to present names for a cabinet reshuffle.

 

The session had been postponed until the afternoon, however before it was held, Sadr, a leader in the resistance to the American troop presence in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion, held a news conference from the southern city of Najaf.

 

"They are against reform, they hope to behead the will of the Iraqi people," he said of the country's politicians. "I'm with the people, no matter what they decide. I'm standing and waiting for a major uprising of the Iraqi people."

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-30/iraq-declares-bagdhad-emergency-as-protesters-storm-parliament

Iraq Declares Baghdad Emergency as Protesters Storm Parliament

 

Iraq declared a state of emergency in the capital, Baghdad, after supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stormed parliament, the Interior Ministry said.

 

Mobile-phone footage broadcast on Iraqi news channel al-Sharqiya showed hundreds of al-Sadr’s supporters inside the legislature on Saturday. Al-Sadr earlier denounced the government and ordered his bloc to withdraw from the parliament session where lawmakers were preparing to vote on a new cabinet.

Extra security measures are being enforced near the city’s central bank, the ministry said.

 

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is under fire for his handling of a financial crisis and charges of government corruption. Protesters have challenged a new group of cabinet members he proposed last month. Parliament canceled its session earlier this week after a failed vote on whether to retain its embattled speaker.

 

Uh oh, this seems big:

https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/726423974930960384

Breaking: All the Kurdish MPs instructed by the KRG to leave Baghdad
10:52 AM

 

 

 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rouhani-allies-win-iran-parliament-elections-second-round-040921463.html?ref=gs

Big win for Rouhani allies in Iran election second round

 

Reformist and moderate politicians allied with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani won twice as many seats as their conservative rivals in the second round of parliamentary elections, official results said Saturday.

 

The reformist 'List of Hope' that backs Rouhani gained 38 lawmakers in run-off polls that took place Friday, with conservatives winning 18 and independents 12, the interior ministry said.

 

The second ballot for 68 seats was needed as no candidate won the minimum 25 percent of votes in the first round of voting which took place on February 26, and its outcome will make the List of Hope the biggest single group in parliament when lawmakers are sworn in next month.

Edited April 30, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-iraqis-announce-disbanding-green-zone-protest-38799068

The Latest: Iraqis Announce Disbanding of Green Zone Protest

 

Anti-government protesters in Iraq have temporarily ended their mass demonstration and are withdrawing from Baghdad's Green Zone.

 

Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr tore down walls and poured into the heavily guarded area on Saturday, storming parliament in the culmination of months of sit-ins and demonstrations calling for political reform.

 

But on Sunday loudspeakers manned by al-Sadr's followers announced the disbanding of the protests, and the demonstrators began filing out of the Green Zone in an orderly manner.

 

Al-Sadr's movement has demanded an overhaul of Iraq's political system, which is widely seen as corrupt and ineffectual.

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/iraq-parliament-protest-160501113125486.html

Iraqi PM calls for arrest of parliament protesters

 

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has called for the arrests of protesters who stormed the parliament, clashed with police and broke the barricades of Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone.

 

Abadi's statement on Sunday came a day after hundreds of followers of the influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr tore down blast walls and poured into the parliament building, exacerbating a long-simmering political crisis.

 

The statement ordered "the interior minister to track down the perpetrators who assaulted the security forces, the citizens and members of the council of representatives and were involved in vandalising public property and to present them to court so they can have a fair trial and face justice".

 

Videos on social media showed a group of young men surrounding and slapping two Iraqi legislators as they attempted to flee the crowd, while other protesters mobbed motorcades.

 

Protesters were also seen jumping and dancing on the parliament's meeting hall tables and chairs and waving Iraqi flags.

Edited May 1, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

https://newmeast.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/the-arab-mukhabarat-state-and-its-stability-a-case-of-misplaced-nostalgia/

The Arab Mukhabarat State and its ‘Stability’: A Case of Misplaced Nostalgia

 

By Brynjar Lia, professor of Middle East Studies at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages.

 

Over the past few years, nostalgia for Arab dictatorships has become increasingly visible in both Arab and European political discourse. It is not difficult to see why. The optimism generated by the Arab Spring has been replaced by dark pessimism. The horrendous civil war in Syria and Iraq, the implosion of the Libyan state, the steadily worsening situation in war-ravaged Yemen, and a downward spiral of terroristic violence and extreme government repression in Egypt have created the image of a vicious conflagration consuming the entire region. In addition, the refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels have scared European political leaders into discussing anti-immigration and antiterrorism measures that would have been unheard of only a few years ago.

 

https://twitter.com/TheBigPharaoh/status/726856365361123328

Breaking: police in civilian clothes stormed the Journalist Syndicate and arrested two. Unprecedented. Egypt
3:30 PM

Edited May 1, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-prime-minister-ahmet-davutoglu-resign-reports-1570440592

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to resign: Reports

 

Turkish prime minister will not run in AKP elections to be held in the next 15 days, according to Turkish media

 

Turkey Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reportedly plans to resign from office, according to local media reports.

 

When the AKP holds its party congress in the next 15 - 20 days to select a new leader, Davutoglu will not run, CNN Turk has reported.

Edited May 4, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/egypt-sentences-death-espionage-case-160507101207579.html

Egypt sentences six to death in espionage case

 

The defendants, including two Al Jazeera journalists, handed death verdict for "leaking state secrets to Qatar".

 

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced six people to death, including two Al Jazeera journalists, who were accused of leaking state secrets to Qatar.

 

The case of jailed former President Mohamed Morsi, who is also charged for espionage for Qatar, was however, adjourned.

 

The judgement will either be approved or reduced in June after consultations with Egypt's mufti, the highest Sunni religious leader in the country. The court may or may not consider the mufti's feedback.

 

Egyptian law requires the mufti to sign off on death sentences. His opinion is not binding but is usually respected by courts.

Edited May 8, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/putin-obama-middle-east-leaders-213867

Why Middle Eastern Leaders Are Talking to Putin, Not Obama

By DENNIS ROSS

 

The United States has significantly more military capability in the Middle East today than Russia—America has 35,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft; the Russians roughly 2,000 troops and, perhaps, 50 aircraft—and yet Middle Eastern leaders are making pilgrimages to Moscow to see Vladimir Putin these days, not rushing to Washington. Two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to see the Russian president, his second trip to Russia since last fall, and King Salman of Saudi Arabia is planning a trip soon. Egypt’s president and other Middle Eastern leaders have also made the trek to see Putin.

 

Why is this happening, and why on my trips to the region am I hearing that Arabs and Israelis have pretty much given up on President Barack Obama? Because perceptions matter more than mere power: The Russians are seen as willing to use power to affect the balance of power in the region, and we are not.

 

Putin’s decision to intervene militarily in Syria has secured President Bashar Assad’s position and dramatically reduced the isolation imposed on Russia after the seizure of Crimea and its continuing manipulation of the fighting in Ukraine. And Putin’s worldview is completely at odds with Obama’s. Obama believes in the use of force only in circumstances where our security and homeland might be directly threatened. His mindset justifies pre-emptive action against terrorists and doing more to fight the Islamic State. But it frames U.S. interests and the use of force to support them in very narrow terms. It reflects the president’s reading of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, and helps to explain why he has been so reluctant to do more in Syria at a time when the war has produced a humanitarian catastrophe, a refugee crisis that threatens the underpinnings of the European Union, and helped to give rise to Islamic State. And, it also explains why he thinks that Putin cannot gain—and is losing—as a result of his military intervention in Syria.

 

But in the Middle East it is Putin’s views on the uses of coercion, including force to achieve political objectives, that appears to be the norm, not the exception—and that is true for our friends as well as adversaries. The Saudis acted in Yemen in no small part because they feared the United States would impose no limits on Iranian expansion in the area, and they felt the need to draw their own lines. In the aftermath of the nuclear deal, Iran’s behavior in the region has been more aggressive, not less so, with regular Iranian forces joining the Revolutionary Guard now deployed to Syria, wider use of Shiite militias, arms smuggling into Bahrain and the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, and ballistic missile tests.

 

Russia’s presence has not helped. The Russian military intervention turned the tide in Syria and, contrary to Obama’s view, has put the Russians in a stronger position without imposing any meaningful costs on them. Not only are they not being penalized for their Syrian intervention, but the president himself is now calling Vladimir Putin and seeking his help to pressure Assad—effectively recognizing who has leverage. Middle Eastern leaders recognize it as well and realize they need to be talking to the Russians if they are to safeguard their interests. No doubt, it would be better if the rest of the world defined the nature of power the way Obama does. It would be better if, internationally, Putin were seen to be losing. But he is not.

 

This does not mean that we are weak and Russia is strong. Objectively, Russia is declining economically and low oil prices spell increasing financial troubles—a fact that may explain, at least in part, Putin’s desire to play up Russia’s role on the world stage and his exercise of power in the Middle East. But Obama’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia did not alter the perception of American weakness and our reluctance to affect the balance of power in the region. The Arab Gulf states fear growing Iranian strength more than they fear the Islamic State—and they are convinced that the administration is ready to acquiesce in Iran’s pursuit of regional hegemony. Immediately after the president’s meeting at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a journalist very well connected to Saudi leaders, wrote: “Washington cannot open up doors to Iran allowing it to threaten regional countries … while asking the afflicted countries to settle silently.”

 

As I hear on my visits to the region, Arabs and Israelis alike are looking to the next administration. They know the Russians are not a force for stability; they count on the United States to play that role. Ironically, because Obama has conveyed a reluctance to exercise American power in the region, many of our traditional partners in the area realize they may have to do more themselves. That’s not necessarily a bad thing unless it drives them to act in ways that might be counterproductive. For example, had the Saudis been more confident about our readiness to counter the Iranian-backed threats in the region, would they have chosen to go to war in Yemen—a costly war that not surprisingly is very difficult to win and that has imposed a terrible price? Obama has been right to believe that the regional parties must play a larger role in fighting the Islamic State. He has, unfortunately, been wrong to believe they would do so if they thought we failed to see the bigger threat they saw and they doubted our credibility.

Edited May 8, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/middleeast/iran-parliament-minoo-khaleghi.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

Female Politician Is Barred From Parliament in Iran

 

In February, a female reformist politician, Minoo Khaleghi, easily won a seat in the Iranian Parliament, part of a wave of independents and reformists who now have the numbers to wrest authority from the hard-liners. On Wednesday, however, a powerful state committee demonstrated that the conservative forces would not relinquish power without a fight.

 

Citing “evidence” that had emerged against her, the Dispute Settlement Committee of Branches, a part of Iran’s generally conservative judiciary, ruled that Ms. Khaleghi could not be sworn in as a new member of Parliament, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. The evidence, it turned out, consisted of photographs of Ms. Khaleghi, “leaked” on social media last week, showing her in public in Europe and in China without the obligatory Islamic head scarf. Hard-liners immediately accused her of “betraying the nation.”

 

But opposition-aligned analysts and Ms. Khaleghi shot back that the case against her was politically motivated, more about curtailing and marginalizing prominent reformists than about her traveling abroad without a head scarf.

 

While acknowledging that all Iranian women are obliged to cover themselves in public, even when traveling abroad, they said there was a problem with the evidence. The photographs were, Ms. Khaleghi said in a statement to the official government newspaper Iran, malicious fakes.

 

“I am a Muslim woman, adhering to the principles of Islam,” she wrote, adding that she was suing the distributors of her images. Those who published them, she wrote, were driven by “political greed.”

 

Adding to the confusion, the committee acted a day after the Interior Ministry, headed by an ally of Iran’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, arrested a hard-line activist for having published the photographs. He was the administrator of the channel on the messaging app Telegram where the images appeared.

 

Mr. Rouhani himself had just sent out a post on Twitter indirectly supporting Ms. Khaleghi as one of 18 women to win election to the Parliament, or Majlis, this spring.

[visionary]

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/nazanin-zaghariratcliffes-husband-on-his-wifes-imprisonment-in-iran-a3248976.html

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband on his wife's imprisonment in Iran

 

When Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe finally saw her daughter Gabriella after 38 days apart, the pair simply clutched each other for 15 minutes without speaking. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British Iranian who’s lived here since 2007, is being held in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison. Last week she was taken from her cell to a hotel to see 23-month-old Gabriella and her own parents for the first time since her arrest.

 

“It was stage-managed,” her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, tells me. “But they had three hours together, lunch and a chance to play.” The authorities gave Gabriella a doll. They told the family: ‘We’re not doing this for Nazanin, we’re doing it for Gabriella because she’s not done anything wrong, so she can see her mother.”

 

Ratcliffe sighs. He is trying to latch onto the positives, but his voice trembles and he blinks back tears: “Nazanin’s mum got to see her. The first week she cried the whole time, knowing what it could mean.”

 

Ratcliffe, 41, last spoke to his wife on April 2. The following morning, she and Gabriella were due to fly from Tehran — where they had been on holiday, visiting family — back to London. But as Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37, went to check in, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were waiting. There was a problem with her passport, they said. Both Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s passports, as well as Gabriella’s British passport, were confiscated. Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken away for questioning, after handing her daughter to her parents. They were advised to go home “because it could take a few hours”.

Edited May 16, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-iran-orders-hezbollah-target-saudi-arabia-903428016#sthash.GbP30iM5.dpuf

EXCLUSIVE: Iran orders Hezbollah to target Saudi Arabia 

 

The military wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has been instructed by Iran to suspend operations against Israel and to target Saudi Arabia instead, Middle East Eye can reveal.

 

The instruction comes in the wake of widespread anger at the apparent assassination of Mustafa Badreddine, its military commander in Syria and head of the movement's military wing, which Hezbollah blamed on “takfiri” forces supported by Riyadh.

 

According to well informed sources in Lebanon, the order was conveyed in person by Qasim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) who came to Beirut to give his condolescences.

 

Soleimani also named Badreddine’s successor and his two deputies, which is believed to be an unprecedented move in the relationship between Iran and the Lebanese movement. Previous appointments have been an internal matter for Hezbollah in consultation with Iran, MEE understands.

 

Badreddine’s replacement is Fuad Shukr, whose nom de guerre is al-Hajj Mohsen, the sources told MEE.

 

Aged 55 and from the village al-Nabi Sheeth in the Bekaa Valley, Shukr comes from the core group which started Hezbollah along with Imad Mughniyeh, Badreddine, and Mustafa Sahadah.

Edited May 18, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

https://www.libyaherald.com/2016/05/18/hafter-throws-down-gauntlet-to-international-community/

Hafter throws down gauntlet to international community

 

Khalifa Hafter, appointed by the House of Representatives as commander-in-chief of the armed forces has thrown down a gauntlet to the international community just 48 hours after 21 states supported the Government of National Accord at the Libya summit in Vienna.

 

“The decisions of the Accord Government are just ink on paper. I don’t care about them”  he told Libya TV in an hour long interview conducted in his office at his Marj headquarters. This was so, he said, because the government had not yet been recognised by a vote from the House of Representatives.

 

Hafter also rejected the Presidency Council’s establishment of a Presidential Guard. In Vienna on Monday it was agreed that the UN Security Council should be asked for a partial lifting on the 2011 arms embargo to arm and equip this force.

 

Though relatively un-animated throughout the interview, Hafter was derisive of what he described as the UN-imposed Government of National Accord. He said he did not have time to waste with UNSMIL chief Martin Kobler.  Last week Hafter rejected a meeting proposed by Kobler. “  I rely on the army and the police and not on a UN official” he said.

 

Hafter, who has in the past denied that he had any political ambitions, rejected accusations that he was seeking power. “Dictatorship will not return to Libya”.  He argued that the army, which had been hit badly during the NATO intervention, was along with the police, the guarantor of Libyan stability. “  We want Libya to be a civilian state. Dictatorship will not return to Libya,” he said, “ We want the army to return to its former standing”.  He said that he believed that Libyans wanted democracy and so did he, adding that he had lived 25 years in the West.

 

But he continued that there could be no democracy if there were instability, chaos and militias.

 

He blamed terrorism throughout the world, not simply in Libya, on the Muslim Brotherhood. He said that his mission was to get rid of terrorism and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2016/May-20/353082-protesters-try-to-break-into-baghdad-green-zone-again.ashx?utm_content=buffer237ab&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Security forces fire on protesters in Baghdad's Green Zone

 

Security forces fired tear gas and live bullets on Friday at protesters who stormed into Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, according to a Reuters witness and live video.

 

Witnesses said dozens of people were injured. The protesters included supporters of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and people from other groups who are displeased with the government's failure to approve anti-corruption reforms and provide security.

 

The Reuters witness said the protesters had tried to reach the cabinet building but were stopped at the gate. They chanted: "Oh army, the country is hurt! Don't side with the corrupt!"

 

Sadr supporters protesting parliament's failure to approve a non-political cabinet also stormed the Green Zone on April 30 in an unprecedented breach of the central district, which houses parliament, government buildings and many foreign embassies.

 

They have added to their grievances the government's failure to provide security after a wave of bombings claimed by Islamic State in the Iraqi capital this month which killed more than 150 people. Sadr did not explicitly call for Friday's demonstration.

Edited May 20, 2016 by visionary

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http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/05/31/egypt-in-hot-soup-for-calling-african-countries-dogs-and-slaves-at_c1360476

Egypt in hot soup for calling African countries 'dogs and slaves' at UNEA Nairobi meeting

 

Egypt has been asked to apologise to other African countries for calling them "dogs and slaves" during the recent United Nations Environment Assembly meeting in Nairobi.

 

Yvonne Khamati, chairman Africa Diplomatic Corps Technical Committee, condemned the utterances made by the country's head of delegation at the summit which ended on May 27.

 

The committee said the verbal attacks by current President of African Ministerial Conference on the Environment impedes gains made in promoting the continent's unity.

 

"We feel that these uncivilized, racist, discriminatory and vindictive utterances do not advance the vision of the 2063 African Agenda and the Pan-Africanism that was advocated by the founding fathers of the African Union," said Khamati in a press statement.

 

She said the committee resolved that the Egyptian delegation be barred from negotiating or undertaking any leadership position on behalf of Africa further asking the said official to resign as President of AMCEN "with immediate effect."

Edited May 31, 2016 by visionary

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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/05/iran-marriage-convenience-taliban-isis.html

Iran's 'marriage of convenience' with Taliban

 

Iranian authorities deny that Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour had just returned from a trip to Iran when he was killed May 21 by a US drone strike not far from the Iran-Pakistan border.

 

But experts on Afghanistan tell Al-Monitor that Iran has played a complicated game with the Afghan militant group for over a decade and has stepped up contacts in recent years in part to keep an even more dangerous organization — the group that calls itself the Islamic State — from expanding its territory to Iran’s east.

 

Although IS has only 1,000-3,000 adherents in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon, far fewer than in Iraq or Syria, the Iranian government has a much more alarming assessment.

 

“My own personal observation from exchanges with Iranians in various settings is that their estimate of the threat of [iS] in Afghanistan is higher than that of the United States,” said Barnett Rubin, a former senior adviser to the Barack Obama administration on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He told Al-Monitor that the Russians also share this view.

 

Iran and the United States tacitly cooperated in overthrowing the Taliban regime in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. Iran had staunchly opposed the Taliban in the 1990s and had almost gone to war with it after Taliban forces massacred Iranian diplomats and local Shiite Muslims in the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif in 1998.

 

US and Iranian attitudes toward Afghanistan began to diverge after President George W. Bush announced a strategic partnership with the government of then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2005. According to Rubin, the Iranians, already worried about the heavy US military presence to their west in Iraq, considered this declaration “a step toward our having permanent bases in Afghanistan.”

 

A decade later, there are still 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan and thousands are likely to remain, given the fragility of the current government of President Ashraf Ghani and the continuing threat to Afghan and US forces primarily from the Taliban.

 

James Cunningham, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, told Al-Monitor in an email that while Iran doesn’t want the United States to remain, it “doesn’t want Afghanistan to collapse," explaining, "Iran wants to have contacts but doesn’t want the Taliban in power. And it is afraid of [iS].”

 

IS first appeared in Afghanistan in 2014. It proclaimed its presence on Jan. 26, 2015, naming a former Pakistani Taliban chief, Hafiz Saeed Khan, head of what IS called Khorasan province, the name for the region that centuries ago included Afghanistan, Pakistan and several Central Asian countries.

 

According to Afghan expert Fatemeh Aman, the group has attracted mostly non-Afghan fighters from Central Asia, including members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Party of Liberation) from Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan, Chechens from Russia and Uighurs from China. It also has adherents from the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, and other extremist Pakistani groups.

 

 

https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2016/05/gold-mine-workers-flogged-for-protest/

Iranian Gold Miners Lashed for Protesting Layoffs

 

Seventeen miners in northwestern Iran have been lashed on orders of the Judiciary after their employer sued them for protesting the firing of hundreds of their colleagues, the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported on May 25, 2016.

 

In December 2014, miners at the Agh Darreh gold mine in West Azerbaijan Province protested in front of the mine’s guard station after 350 miners were laid off. Pouya Zarkan, the company that operates the mine, filed a complaint and 17 of the miners were summoned to court.

 

The miners were sentenced to between 30 to 100 lashes each and fined up to five million rials ($164 USD) based on two separate court rulings made in the city of Takab, according to their lawyer Vahid Yari, who represented all 17 miners.

Edited May 31, 2016 by visionary

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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2016-05-30/keeping-iran-and-saudi-arabia-war

Keeping Iran and Saudi Arabia From War

 

Conflicts in the Middle East, whether in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, or Yemen, share a common factor: the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. For years, this rivalry has inflamed violence in areas already torn by war and created new battlefields where there had been relative peace before.

 

It is thus hard to imagine that the two countries could come together for the region’s greater good. But they’ll have to find a way to coexist if the region is ever to be peaceful. Even if they can’t fully resolve their rivalry, they can still contain their hostility. Making this happen will be a challenge, but both sides can take steps now that will help bring the Middle East back from the brink of destruction.

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-politics-idUSKCN0YP2BH?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29

Tunisia's powerful union rejects Essebsi call to join government

 

Tunisia's powerful UGTT union, a joint winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, on Friday rejected a call from the country's president to work in a new national unity government to help push through economic reforms.

 

President Beji Caid Essebsi called on Thursday for political parties, unions and independents to negotiate a new unity government to help advance a reform package and calm social tensions.

 

The UGTT's refusal will weaken the chances of success of Essebsi's proposal, which aims to include the UGTT and the other trade union, UTICA, as a way to avoid strikes over austerity measures and to push through reforms to revive the economy.

 

"Our policy in the UGTT is to not participate in any government. We will not join in the unity government but we support this proposal," Hussein Abassi, the head of UGTT, told reporters after a meeting with the parliament speaker.

 

Essebsi announced the proposed unity government on Thursday, but said such a government would make no sense without the UGTT and the UTICA.

 

Essebsi's call came as Tunisia's current ruling coalition is struggling to create more growth and jobs after a series of militant attacks battered the North African state's tourism industry and economy.

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http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-06-16/obama-administration-lays-out-56-million-plan-for-libya

Obama Administration Lays Out $56 Million Plan for Libya

 

The Obama administration is throwing its weight behind Libya's new UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), laying out a $56 million aid plan for the coming months.

 

The State Department plans to reallocate $35 million in current and prior year funding to help the political transition in Tripoli, special envoy for Libya Jonathan Winer told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a June 15 hearing. That includes $4 million for a United Nations-led Stabilization Facility, announced in April, to repair public infrastructure such as hospitals and water facilities.

 

The proposal would require moving around money that has already been approved by Congress. Some of the funding, however, would require a green light from lawmakers, a State Department official told Al-Monitor.

 

The funds would come on top of the State Department's $20.5 million bilateral aid request for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. That would bring the total US contribution for the coming year to $55.5 million.

 

"Our strategic interest in Libya is to support a unified, accountable government that meets the economic and security needs of the Libyan people," Winer told senators. "At the center of our policy has been support for the creation of the GNA as a unifying bridge to help Libyans move beyond the damaging period of political competition … and fragmentation until the country adopts a new constitution and a long-term government."

[visionary]

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/567119-tehran-saudi-backing-kurdish-militants-in-iran

Tehran: Saudi backing Kurdish militants in Iran

 

A highly-influential Iranian security official has implicitly accused Riyadh of backing Kurdish militants near the country’s border with Iraq, days after violent clashes erupted in the mountainous region.

Mohsen Rezaee, the secretary of the powerful Expediency Discernment Council, on Monday claimed that Saudi Arabia dispatched “two terror cells” to Iranian Kurdistan, but boasted that its members “were all killed.”

He added in a post on his Instagram account that the Kurdish militants were acting upon the orders of Riyadh’s consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government.

“Pay attention to your defeats in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and quit killing Muslims,” he added in the fiery post, which was translated into Arabic by Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Rezaee’s post comes in reference to the June 16 clashes outside the northwestern Iranian town of Oshnavieh (Shno in the Kurdish language) between Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).

The PDKI claimed that it sent a “group of political cadres” accompanied by Kurdish fighters to the villages of Sergiz and Qeresqe, where they were surrounded and attacked by Iranian troops before six of the Kurdish separatists were killed after running out of ammunition.

Iranian state media also covered the firefight, the latest clash between Kurdish militants and Iranian state authorities, but did not specifically name the PDKI as being involved in the fighting.

IRGC ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour said that “two groups” tried to infiltrate Iran via the Oshnavieh border area in order to “carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks.”

[visionary]

 

 

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http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/07/turkey-iran-kurds-resumed-clashes-against-tehran-regime.html

After 20-year break, these Iranian Kurds are taking up arms again

 

On June 15, news came out of the Iranian town of Shino, a Kurdish city in western Iran, that an armed group had clashed with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that both sides lost six fighters. The armed group was soon identified as peshmerga fighters who belong to the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). Reports claimed further clashes in many towns in the area, including Piranshahr.

 

Iran responded by shelling the KDPI camps along the border.

 

Why has the KDPI, which has not taken up arms against Iran for roughly 20 years, suddenly become active? The KDPI was engaged in an armed struggle with Tehran from the time it was established in 1945, but ceased the fighting in 1996 so as not to inflict any hardships on the Kurds of Iraq when Northern Iraq came under Kurdish rule. The KDPI that was invited to the region by Iraqi Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani moved its armed forces to Iraqi Kurdistan.

 

KDPI members who gave up militancy and who for years lived in the refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan with their families could not have imagined that one day they would re-enter into a military confrontation with Iran.

 

The clashes that erupted in Shino trace back to 2015, when the KDPI decided to return its armed force to Iran. Peshmerga fighters were to establish new camps and politically engage in the towns. The plan was put into motion and the peshmerga fighters began returning to Iran in groups. Clashes with Iranian forces were not long in coming.

 

What prompted the KDPI's sudden change in course? Most people believe that regional countries or global powers are behind the resurgence of the Kurdish activity. Iranian-Kurdish political activist Hadi Azizi believes the KDPI is engaged in legitimate self-defense against Iran. He told Al-Monitor that he does not believe that external elements were instigating these attacks, saying, “No doubt Iran doesn’t have a major say in Middle East politics. They don’t always have the support of international powers. Iranian Kurds are ready to rise."

 

How will this conflict affect the autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq, which just signed new economic deals with Iran? Azizi believes the clashes will not affect the Kurdish government in the region. He said, “South Kurdistan [the Kurdistan Regional Government] is not like it was before. They have relations now with world powers. The peshmerga fought [the Islamic State] and served humanity. They have good support. They can’t forever stand idle to just preserve their interests."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/06/iraq-war-saddam-monster-chaos-britain-chilcot-report?CMP=share_btn_tw

Iraq was destined for chaos – with or without Britain’s intervention

 

Hayder al-Khoei

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Lyobserver/status/750727448652898305

Slain Gaddafi's son Saif, who has been detained in Zintan for 5 years, was released, his lawyers have confirmed
12:25 PM

Edited July 6, 2016 by visionary

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Saudis seem to be backing MKO against Iran now.

Prince Faisel was in Paris at their rally and Al Arabiya has a bunch of tweets and articles out promoting them.

 

 

https://twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/751803615317221376

#FreeIran attendees chant ‘people want to topple [iran] regime’ in Arabic as ex-Saudi intel head gives his address

11:42 AM

Edited July 9, 2016 by visionary

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/world/middleeast/iranian-lawmakers-car-ambushed-by-gunmen-in-kurdish-region.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Iranian Lawmakers’ Car Ambushed by Gunmen in Kurdish Region

 

Gunmen ambushed a car carrying a lawmaker and a local governor on Sunday in Iran’s restive Kurdish region, state news media reported. Both men were wounded, and the driver and a veterinarian traveling with them were killed.

 

The lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of a key foreign council in Iran’s Parliament, escaped with minor injuries, according to the Mizan news agency.

 

Mr. Falahatpisheh and the others were traveling in a sport utility vehicle near Iran’s border with Iraq, apparently without security forces protecting them. As they were driving near the county of Dalahu, four men fired on their car. The governor, Faramarz Asghari, was hit several times and was reported to be in critical condition.

 

In recent weeks, Iran’s Kurdish regions have seen an upsurge in violence, with several clashes erupting between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Kurdish fighters belonging to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and Pejak, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, better known as P.K.K. According to official reports and statements by the groups, dozens of people have been killed on each side, although none of those claims could be verified.

 

Iranian security forces have also been involved in an increased number of skirmishes in Iran’s southeast with Sunni groups seeking independence.

 

The attack on Sunday occurred a day after a member of the Saudi royal family addressed a rally in Paris for an Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen Khalq.

 

Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was both a Saudi intelligence chief and the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States, lauded the militant organization, which is outlawed in Iran and has called for the overthrow of the Islamic republic.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-kurds-idUSKCN0ZQ06G

Kurdish militant bomb attacks kill seven in southeast Turkey

 

Two Kurdish militant bomb attacks ripped through a military outpost and an army vehicle on Sunday, killing seven members of the armed forces, the military said, as a conflict which flared a year ago continued to rage in southeast Turkey.

 

It was the third such attack in the last 24 hours in the mainly Kurdish region, where a two-year-old ceasefire between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and the state collapsed last July.

 

Since then, thousands of PKK fighters, security force members and civilians have died in fighting across the region.

 

In the latest violence, a roadside bomb planted by PKK guerrillas tore through a military vehicle and killed four soldiers on the road between Semdinli and Aktutun in Hakkari province, along the border with Iraq, an army statement said.

 

Another soldier wounded in the attack later died, security sources said, adding army border units were put on alert and an air-backed operation was launched to find those responsible.

 

Further west in the town of Kiziltepe, near the Syrian border, police clashed with PKK fighters, killing two militants and capturing two more alive, other security sources said. Six police officers were wounded in the fighting.

Edited July 11, 2016 by visionary

[visionary]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/iraq-thousands-defy-ban-protest-corruption-160715065405528.html

Iraq: Thousands defy ban to protest against corruption

 

Thousands of Iraqis have defied a protest ban and rallied in the heart of the capital, Baghdad, to demand an end to sectarianism and corruption.

 

The demonstrators massed in Tahrir Square on Friday, holding placards reading "Yes, yes to reform. No, no to sectarianism. No, no to corruption".

 

The protest went ahead despite the security forces warning late on Thursday that the rally called by the influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was "unauthorised" and would be treated as a "terrorist threat".

 

Sadr has led repeated protests in recent months, some of them breaching the central Green Zone government and diplomatic compound.

 

Sadr has been calling for political and economic reforms, including the formation of a government of technocrats, to put an end to what he says is a corrupt power-sharing system between the country's rival sectarian and political factions.

 

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi first called for a new cabinet including technocrats in February but has faced significant opposition from powerful political forces that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.

 

Some of Abadi's cabinet nominees were approved in April, but in a blow to the prime minister, a court later scrapped the parliamentary session.

 

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's former national security adviser, said that he did not blame protesters for being angry over the many problems the country was facing, but cautioned against confrontations.

 

"I dont blame them for becoming angry ... but I call upon the protesters to keep it peaceful," he told Al Jazeera.