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Syria, Egypt and Middle East unrest - live updates(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) 3.26pm GMT / 10.26am EST: The Syrian crisis has led to another TV studio punch up. Last month a debate about Syria led to a near brawl between Lebanese politicians live on TV. Last week a foul-mouthed debate on Jordanian TV sparked an even more violent encounter. The debate occurred last week but it provides another illustration of the passions and anger stirred in the region by what's occurring in Syria. The Blaze sets the scene: The debate, which focused on the crisis in Syria, featured Muhammad As'ad Bayoudh Al-Tamimi, a Palestinian-Jordanian politician of the Umma movement, and Mahmoud Al-Bastanjani, a member of the Jordanian Ba'ath Party, hurling insults and eventually leaping out of their chairs to physically attack one another. It then carries a transcript. This what they said to each other before coming to blows. Al-Tamimi: He was buried in Sahhab… You are a lowlife… Al-Bastanjani: He was born a lowlife, raised as a lowlife, lived as a lowlife, and will die as a lowlife. His birth was despicable, his upbringing was despicable, his life is despicable, and his death will be despicable. Interviewer: Just one minute… By God… Al-Tamimi: This is a spy… Interviewer: Never mind, never mind. Just one moment… Al-Tamimi: Man, you are a lowlife piece of scum… You are a worn-out shoe… Al-Bastanjani: A worn-out shoe?! I'll show you a worn-out shoe! 3.22pm GMT / 10.22am EST: Khaled Fahmy, a professor at the American University in Cairo, has warned that the Egyptian military is creating a "facist" regime by trying to handpick those responsible for overseeing the constitution, rather than leaving the process in the hands of the new parliament. He told al-Jazeera the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) that Major General Mokhtar el-Mulla's reasoning, that the upcoming parliament "is not representing all the Egyptian people", would not wash. I myself am not an Islamist. I did not vote for them but these are the rules of the game [that parliament is responsible for the constitution]. The junta has no right to change the rules in the middle of the game ... People did not go to vote on these principles ...This is very serious ... We liberals have tow fears. We fear the Islamists and the military but I for one, fear the military infinitely more than the Islamists. 2.56pm GMT / 9.56am EST: The Local Co-ordination Committees say that the death toll at the hands of the Syrian security forces has reached 13 so far today. Once more, Homs has borne the brunt of the violence with 11 people killed. The other two reported deaths were in Idlib. Restrictions on access to foreign journalists mean that we cannot independently verify the LCC's report. 2.24pm GMT / 9.24am EST: There may be a new government in Yemen but it has not stopped the protests. AFP says tens of thousands of Yemenis marched through the streets of Sana'a today (see video) chanting "no partnership with murderers", in reference to former regime loyalists that have been appointed to the newly formed unity government. They also chanted "Basindawa they cannot be trusted", a warning to Mohammed Basindawa, Yemen's prime minister designate. The Yemen post says protests have taken place in 17 provinces nationwide and light clashes have continued between government forces and tribal fighters loyal to the Ahmar clan. 2.05pm GMT / 9.05am EST:Assad's interview with ABC showed his weakness, according to Fares Chamseddine, the pen name for a Syrian living in Britain. Writing on Comment is Free he says: I have never seen Bashar the apologetic. Listening to the autocratic ruler of the Middle East's most repressive police state say that somebody else did all the bad things, and that he doesn't own the country but is merely the president, reminded me an awful lot of Muammar Gaddafi, when he famously declared that if he held an official government position he would have waved his resignation letter in the face of the people. Similarly, Gaddafi once threatened to set the Mediterranean on fire if Libya were attacked, while Assad also promised to unleash an earthquake that would "burn the Middle East" if Syria became a target for Nato. But in spite of the pompous military exercises the Syrian army has just carried out, the regime today has never been more isolated, or more worried. Assad's interview is being ridiculed online. This dubbed version of the interview features an Assad mimic sounding alternate answers to Walters's questions. At the end the mimic says: "I should not be president because I am [a] fool. But my family loves me especially my brother." 1.01pm GMT / 8.01am EST: Here's a summary of the main developments so far today: Syria • Activists and the government have blamed each other for a bomb attack on oil pipeline just outside Homs, amid fears that the army will use the incident as a pretext to raid the city. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said it did not know whether the regular army or the army of defectors was responsible. The Observatory said six people have been killed today in the city, which has suffered some of the worst violence in recent days. The attack on the pipeline is likely to add to the fuel crisis as the Homs installation is a key refining facility. • The head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Arabi, has travelled to Baghdad for talks with senior Iraqi officials on the Syria crisis. Iraq abstained on a League vote to impose sanctions against Syria. • Leading Republican US presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have called for covert US operations in Syria and Iran. Romney said: "This is the time for us to use not only sanctions, but covert actions within Syria, to get regime change there." • The activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, has called for a campaign of 'strikes for dignity' starting on Sunday. It said hoped the strikes and sit-ins will initially close roads, universities, and shops, but will ultimately help lead to the collapse of the government. Egypt • Senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party have said they will not take part in the consultative council that Egypt's military rulers want to oversee the new constitution. The announcement that FJP chairman Mohamed Morsi and assistant secretary general Ossama Yassin will sit on the council comes after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces raised the hackles of the Islamist groups by declaring that MPs in the new parliament would not have the final say over the drafting of a fresh constitution. The FJP was the biggest winner in the first round of elections and its absence from the council is likely to undermine its credibility. Libya • Libya has given the green light for British police to visit the country to conduct investigations into the Lockerbie bombing and the assassination of PC Yvonne Fletcher, the British foreign minister Alistair Burt has said. Libya's interior minister, Fawzy Abdel Aal, confirmed on Thursday morning he would agree to "the early return of the Dumfries and Galloway police in relation to Lockerbie", said Burt. Bahrain • Bahrain has said it is to stop prosecuting athletes involved in protests against the regime. Bahrain's rulers have faced international criticism for trying opposition supporters and imposing harsh sentences on them has said it is to stop trying athletes involved in demonstrations. The Bahrain News Agency did not name the individuals who would be affected by the new policy. Last week three well-known athletes, a bodybuilder, footballer, and basketball player, were each sentenced to a year in prison for taking part in protests. 12.44pm GMT / 7.44am EST: Libya has given the green light for British police to visit the country to conduct investigations into the Lockerbie bombing and the assassination of PC Yvonne Fletcher, the British foreign minister Alistair Burt has said. Chris Stephen, in Tripoli, writes for the Guardian: The governing National Transitional Council had stalled on earlier requests for officers to travel to Libya, but Burt said the new Libyan government, sworn in last weekend, would co-operate. Libya's interior minister, Fawzy Abdel Aal, confirmed on Thursday morning he would agree to "the early return of the Dumfries and Galloway police in relation to Lockerbie", said Burt. The minister, who is on a two-day visit to Tripoli, said Abdel Aal had made the same promise regarding the investigation into the killing of Fletcher, gunned down outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. "We are very keen that the Metropolitan police should return to continue their investigation," Burt said. "The Libyan government is aware of how important it is." He said Libyan officials had given no dates for the visits, but expected it to happen soon, adding: "This is a new government, I think they have a lot on their plate." 12.16pm GMT / 7.16am EST: The new Egyptian parliament may not have a single woman in it, Daily News Egypt reports. No female won a seat in parliament in the first round and there were no women contesting the run-offs, it says. In the 2010 election there was a 64-seat quota for women but the military council cancelled it and said only that each party in the 2011 polls had to have one woman on its party list (for the seats distributed under proportional representation). "It's shocking that even after the revolution, this stereotype of women never changed. The domination of radical religious beliefs is widespread," activist Dalia Ziada, who was eyeing a seat on Al-Adl Party's list, told Daily News Egypt. "Women now are being marginalized which raises a red flag. It's evident; which begs the question of why they canceled the women's quota?" Ziada said. The lead by the Freedom and Justice and Salafi Al-Nour parties is also creating anxiety and raising concerns with regards to women's rights. "If you listened to [presidential candidate] Hazem Abou Ismail's statements you would know, they already reject our rights, after so many years of suffering, women were able to get some rights but they reject it," said Ziada. 12.04pm GMT / 7.04am EST:Video from a petrol station near in Khirbet Ghazaleh a town near the Jordanian border underlines the fuel crisis in Syria. The clips shows long queues as residents fill up small cans of fuel. Reuters suggests that the attack on the pipeline in Homs could add to the fuel crisis. With exports of its oil effectively suspended owing to sanctions, Syria has plenty of raw petroleum in stock but limited refining capacity, of which the Homs installation now in a hub of the conflict is a key part. 11.58am GMT / 6.58am EST: Senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party have said they will not take part in the consultative council that Egypt's military rulers want to oversee the new constitution. The announcement that FJP chairman Mohamed Morsi and assistant secretary general Ossama Yassin will sit on the council comes after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces raised the hackles of the Islamist groups by declaring that MPs in the new parliament would not have the final say over the drafting of a fresh constitution. Major General Mokhtar el-Mulla – a leading member of Scaf – said the upcoming parliament would "is not representing all the Egyptian people", a thinly veiled reference to the dominance of the FJP and the Salifist al-Nour party in the first round of the elections. The council, to be appointed by the military rulers, is intended to choose who will be responsible for writing the new constitution but its credibility is likely to undermined if the biggest winner in the elections refuses to sit on it. 11.34am GMT / 6.34am EST: It is unclear who is responsible for today'sbomb attack on oil pipeline near the restive city of Homs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. But head of the group, Rami Abdulrahman, told the Guardian that local activists suspect the attack will be used as pretext for another army operation against the city. "We don't know who did it - whether it was the defected army or the Syria army," he said. The pipeline was attacked near the Bab Amro district of the city - scene of some Syria's worst violence since the start of the uprising. The pipeline leads to major oil refinery, Abdulrahman said. The Syrian government has blamed an "armed terrorist group" for the attack. Witnesses in the city told Abdulrahman that a bomb was heard earlier this morning. He said: "The people say maybe the Syrian regime did it, because they see many tanks coming through to Homs - maybe some big operation will happen in Homs in the next few hours." He said six people have been killed in the city today. Nomair Makhlouf, the general director of the Syrian Oil Company, told AP that the pipeline serves Syria's domestic requirements and carries 140,000 barrels a day. 11.20am GMT / 6.20am EST: Is Hamas pulling out of Damascus as the Wall Street Journal reports? (hat tip BrownMoses in the comments section below). Global Post's The Casbah blog reports BBC doubts and Hamas denials. 11.06am GMT / 6.06am EST: Novelist Alaa al-Aswany, author of the Yacoubian building, has written a scathing blogpost about Egypt's military rulers. It is not clear whether it was written before or after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) asserted that it will have final say over the drafting of a fresh constitution but it pulls no punches. Aswany compares Scaf to the emperor with no clothes and likens revolutionaries to the boy who pointed this out. Unfortunately the military council changed from being an agent of the revolution into a tyrannical power that imposed on Egypt decrees and policies that undermined the revolution and pushed it off course, that preserved the old regime and enabled it to go on the offensive against the revolution ... The military council has absolute power in Egypt because it holds both executive and legislative power, and so it is solely responsible for everything that has happened in Egypt since Mubarak stepped down. The revolution is in no way responsible for any of the crises now taking place, simply because the revolution has not taken power in order to assume responsibility. The breakdown in law and order, the spread of thuggery, the price rises, the deterioration in the economy and the decline in tourism all these are problems that stem from faulty decisions taken by the military council, which should now quickly form a coalition government of revolutionary forces to run the country until elections produce an elected civilian authority ... All political disputes must be postponed in order to unite ranks and put pressure on the military council to form a revolutionary coalition government that is worthy of respect and can govern until a civilian authority is elected to take power from the army. Meanwhile, blogger Zeinobia points out that the new cabinet, sworn in by prime minister Kamal al-Ganzouri, himself appointed by the military rulers, is far from new. She says that nine of the 27 members of the cabinet were part of the previous cabinet appointed by the previous prime minister Essam Sharaf in July , which resigned en masse last month in response to violent clashes at protests in Cairo and other cities. Two of the members of the new cabinet are from the Mubarak era. Of the new minister of the interior, retired police general Mohamed Yousssef Ibrahim, she writes: This man worked in Upper Egypt, in Sohag , Aswan, Bani Sawif, Qena and Asuit in the bloody golden years of terrorism and counter terrorism in Egypt ... The retired police general was promoted or rather left his place as the head of Giza security directorate in 2006 after the infamous massacre of Mustafa Mahmoud in December 2005. For those who do not know Mohamed Ibrahim used to head the Giza security directorate and he was among those responsible for the infamous massacre of Sudanese refugees at Mustafa Mahmoud square if you remember it on 30 December 2005. Around 200 protesters who reject the new cabinet and are opposed to Scaf are continuing a sit-in outside the cabinet building, which began almost three weeks ago, al-Masry al-Youm reports. 10.31am GMT / 5.31am EST: The Syrian government has blamed an "armed terrorist group" for that explosion on an pipeline near Homs. Activists blamed the army (see 9.51am). 10.22am GMT / 5.22am EST: Leading Republican US presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have called for covert US operations in Syria and Iran. AFP siad Gingrich told the Republican Jewish Coalition that the US should "do everything we can, indirectly and covertly but without American forces to help" the opposition topple the Assad regime. Romney told the same meeting: "This is the time for us to use not only sanctions, but covert actions within Syria, to get regime change there." 10.07am GMT / 5.07am EST: The activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, has called for a campaign of 'strikes for dignity' starting on Sunday. It said hoped the strikes and sit-ins will initially close roads, universities, and shops, but will ultimately help lead to the collapse of the government. We'll start with Sunday's sunrise 11\12\2011 announcing a series of strikes which will lead to the sudden death of this tyrant regime body. On the Friday of the "Strike for Dignity," our banners will declare to the whole world that the snowball started to roll, and will grow with each day of the revolution to reach every home and anyone who wants to live delighted and dignified in his/her country. 9.51am GMT / 4.51am EST:Activists are blaming the Syrian armyfor an explosion of a petrol pipeline just outside Homs. This unverified footage of the incident was posted to YouTube today. The blast will add to a fuel crisis in Homs. Abdulhamid, in his blogpost mentioned earlier, wrote: "People are fighting on two fronts now: attempting to secure the basics, including bread and kerosene, while keeping the momentum of their 9-months old protest movement." 9.00am GMT / 4am EST: Welcome to Middle East Live. Bashar al-Assad's defiant interview with ABC remains the main talking point. Here's a round up of the main developments: Syria • President Bashar al-Assad says he will not allow Arab League observers unfettered access to monitor the crackdown. In the full text of his interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Assad said: "They cannot just come and do whatever they want." He said monitoring visits could only take place "in cooperation with the Syrian government." He also denied that the unrest in Syria amounted to a civil war. We have trouble we have turbulence but not, not to the extent that you have a divided army. If you have divided army you are going to have real war. You don't have war, you have– instability is different from war. • The head of the Arab League, Nabil al-Arabi, is to travel to Baghdad for talks with senior Iraqi officials on the Syria crisis. Iraq abstained on a League vote to impose sanctions against Syria. • Syria's largest opposition group has accused Assad of being "delusional" after he insisted that documented cases of crimes against humanity were carried out by individuals outside his control. The Syrian National Council, said: "Assad has proved he is delusional and mixed up. By law, Assad is the commander in chief of the army and responsible for every bullet fired at a civilian in Syria. He will be tried and brought to justice, sooner or later." The White House dismissed the president's comments as "just not credible". • Syria watcher Joshua Landis, considered by some to be sympathetic to the regime, said Assad's defiance suggests the struggle to oust him will be lengthy. Discussing Assad's ABC interview on his blog, Landis wrote: Whether he remains convinced of his rectitude, whether his primary motivation is to hang on to power, or whether he is simply frightened of the consequences of yielding authority to his opponents, Assad gave no indication that he is having second thoughts about his position or is ready to yield. One must conclude that Syria's fight will be a long one. • The renegade Free Syrian Army is chaotically organised and faces defections within its own ranks, according to dissident and blogger Ammar Abdulhamid. In his latest post he pointed to video clips of defected soldiers declaring allegiance to rival militias. For the FSA is a not a centralised entity, and, in reality, Colonel Al-Ass'aad has nothing to do with most operations that take place in the name of the FSA, except for those carried out by defectors crossing borders from Turkey and Lebanon into Syria. In most other cases, decision-making is left to local commanders, who may or may not be affiliated with the FSA, and their units. Credits are given to the FSA only after the operations are carried out. Egypt • Egypt's ruling generals have put themselves on a collision course with the country's new parliament, which is set to be dominated by Islamists, after declaring that MPs will not have the final say over the drafting of a fresh constitution. Major General Mokhtar el-Mulla said the upcoming parliament would not be representative of all Egyptian people, and that those appointed to write a fresh constitution must also be approved by the interim cabinet and a newly-created "advisory council" of intellectuals, civilian politicians and media personalities, both of which fall under the control of the generals. Human rights activist Negad el-Borai told the New York Times that the generals were trying to stage a coup. • Two US companies have shipped crowd control munitions and teargas to Egypt – one firm repeatedly – in the midst of violent and often lethal crackdowns on protesters by security forces, according to an Amnesty International investigation. The human rights group has asked for Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to stop granting export licences for teargas and other munitions, pending an investigation into its misuse by Egyptian forces. • Friends of the blogger and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah secretly filmed his latest court appearance this week, the New York Times's Lede blog reports. The video shows Fattah with his wife, mother and friends in court on Monday. Yemen • Yemen's vice-president has issued a decree creating a national unity government to take over from that of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the BBC reports. Members of Saleh's Congress Party will head the ministries of defence, foreign affairs and oil, while opposition politicians will lead the ministries of interior, finance and information. Bahrain • Bahraini security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets clashed with hundreds of anti-government protesters near Pearl Square. There were no immediate reports of injuries. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Libya • Mexico said it has broken up an international plot to smuggle a son of Muammar Gaddafi and his family into the country under false names and with false Mexican documents. The elaborate plan to bring Saadi Gaddafi to Mexico allegedly involved two Mexicans, a Canadian and a Danish suspect, the interior secretary, Alejandro Poiré, said. (c) 2011 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |