Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 10:14 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2055 GMT: Another clip of protest in Morocco today --- at the end of the footage, the marchers flee from security forces:
The young man was dangling upside down, white, foaming saliva dripping from his mouth. His groans sounded more bestial than human.
It was one of many fleeting images of human degradation I witnessed during four days as an unwilling guest of Syrian intelligence, when I was detained in Damascus after reporting on protests in the southern Syrian city of Deraa.
Reuters, Suleiman al-Khalidi, Syria 
Saudi Arabian Units in BahrainBritain is training Saudi Arabia's national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is "a major concern".
In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.
Never let it be said that the investigative reporters of Press TV, the Iranian regime's English-language outlet, are failing to do their job:
The US military may have played a role in the 1997 death of Princess Diana as she was campaigning for a worldwide ban on landmines.
Press TV broke this story --- presumably after months of dedicated research --- by discovering that a man named Noel Botham, has written a book, The Murder of Princess Diana. Botham has also penned "[Princess] Margaret, the Untold Story" --- presumably she was murdered --- and The Bumper Book of Useless Information. And he was the long-time European Editor of the National Enquirer, the US tabloid famous for stories like "Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot".
Supporters of the Supreme Leader protest against the President's right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai "Death to Deviant Mashai"
1600 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The Mothers of Mourning have written an open letter calling for an investigation of the "terrible conditions" inside Iran's prisons.
The letter follows a series of revelations about overcrowding and the poor state of the facilities.
1555 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar has told Khabar Online that President Ahmadinejad tried to defy the Supreme Leader in a meeting with the Parliamentary and judicial branches over the merger of ministries. Ahmadinejad rejected the Guardian Council's decision, but in the end, the Council and the Supreme Leader had the final word.
And then the big message: Bahonar asserts that the Supreme Leader wants the Government to finish its term, which runs to 2013, but it must distance itself from the "deviant current".
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 13:38 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2110 GMT: Protest in Homs in Syria in memory of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb (see 1625 GMT):
2105 GMT: Refuting earlier reports, Yemeni opposition tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar has said that no truce has been reached between his tribe and President Saleh's forces.
On Wednesday, we posted an article on the escalating violence on the border between the Republic of Sudan and Southern Sudan, due to become independent in July. Yesterday a Southern Sudan minister said more than 150,000 people have fled because of the fighting.
Maggie Fick picks up the story for Foreign Policy magazine:
In the past week, things have fallen apart in Sudan. With the clock ticking down toward the date when Africa's largest country officially breaks in two, the borderlands between the two would-be states have caught on fire.
Poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron has died at the age of 62 in New York.
"The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
Will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live."
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised- Gil Scott... by larsen42
It’s one thing for a football fan to call a player a donkey. But it’s another altogether to dress an ass in the footballer’s replica shirt. Especially when the player heads the national football federation and is the son of the country’s dictator, who in fury sentences three of the fans to death and razes the team’s stadium and clubhouse.
“Nowhere in the world could this happen,” said Khalid Agory, who writes for the website of Al-Ahly Benghazi, one of Libya‘s top football teams. “Except in Libya.”
Yemen is currently witnessing two parallel power shifts: a popular revolution inspired by the 'Arab spring', and an elite power struggle.
Competition between rival elite factions has been brewing for several years and has intensified as Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has concentrated power around his family.
Each faction cultivates clients and proxies across the political spectrum, within government ministries and the military, as well as among traditional community leaders.
