Iran Live Coverage: Tehran Continues to Push "Positive" Nuclear Talks

See also Tuesday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad Anoints His Right-Hand Man for President

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2021 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has strongly criticised those who have backed President Ahmadinejad and his Government.

Rafsanjani said the Government has destroyed three decades of achievements: "I am surprised that why some people, especially clerics, have supported them. Even more strange is they will not stop supporting this disaster now that they have realised the true identity of this current."

1945 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The US has renewed the waiver from financial penalties for Japan, "based on additional significant reductions in the volume of its crude oil purchases from Iran".

Waivers were also extended for 10 European Union countries. The EU implemented a ban on imports of Iranian oil from 1 July 2012.

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Tunisia (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Death of Vendor Who Set Himself on Fire

Tunisian President Ben Ali at bedside of Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire over his economic situation, in December 2010

See also Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond Audio: Bradley Manning Tells Court Why He Gave Documents to Wikileaks
Iraq Feature: Amid Rising Protests, CIA Expands Co-operation with "Anti-Terrorism" Units
Syria Live Coverage: Turkish Special Forces Enter the Country
Tuesday's Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Division over Powers for "Citizen's Arrests"

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1410 GMT: Egypt. The Government has launched an appeal against a court ruling suspending Parliamentary elections due to start on 22 April.

President Morsi's office had said that would not challenge the verdict.

A judicial official said the High Administrative Court will rule on the appeal on Sunday.

Last week the lower court ruled that the law governing the elections was illegal and that its passage by the upper house of Parliament was procedurally improper.

1400 GMT: Israel and Palestine. The Israeli High Court of Justice is due to rule on the State's right to declare ownership of 1000 acres of undeveloped land located in West Bank settlement of Efrat.

Palestinians claim the land belongs to them.

The case is seen by some as a bellwether of the Israeli Government's plans to support Jewish settlements in the controversial E1 area near Jerusalem. Palestinians claim this would effectively cut off access from one part of the West Bank to another.

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Syria Live Coverage: Turkish Special Forces Enter the Country

1520 GMT: Fighting In Southwest Damascus. Reuters reports that despite rebel gains (described below) some of Assad's forces are well dug in, and have unleashed an intense rocket attack on Khan Alsheh:

An opposition campaigner in the nearby town of Jedeidet said troops stationed in hills overlooking Khan Sheih were attacking the area with multiple rocket launchers to try to dislodge rebels surrounding the barracks.

"I counted up to 20 explosions a minute on Khan Sheih," the activist, who uses the pseudonym of Abdo, told Reuters by phone.

A rebel commander in contact with the fighters said a force of some 1,000 insurgents had moved into Khan Sheih, which is 25 km from the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967.

1508 GMT: Rebels Push Southwest of Damascus. A prominent microblogger finds a video of a recently captured base near the capital, the 1337th Regiment Air Defense Base (map):

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Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond Audio: Bradley Manning Tells Court Why He Gave Documents to Wikileaks

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In a pre-trial hearing on 28 February in military court, Private Bradley Manning --- detained since May 2010 --- explains why he passed videos and hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks.

At the hearing, Manning pled guilty to 10 reduced charges;h however, the Government said it will pursue all 22 original counts, including aiding the enemy --- which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison --- and espionage. The trial begina in June.

The unofficial transcript of the remarks has also been posted.

An extract from the testimony, in which Manning describes one of the leaked videos, showing US military fire killing civilians and journalists in Iraq in 2007:

Iraq Feature: Amid Rising Protests, CIA Expands Co-operation with "Anti-Terrorism" Units (Wall Street Journal)

The Central Intelligence Agency is ramping up support to elite Iraqi antiterrorism units to better fight al Qaeda affiliates, amid alarm in Washington about spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria, according to U.S. officials.

The stepped-up mission expands a covert U.S. presence on the edges of the two-year-old Syrian conflict, at a time of American concerns about the growing power of extremists in the Syrian rebellion.

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Malaysia Feature: Why a Mini-Crisis with the "Sultanate of Sulu" Matters for the Nation and the World (Foley)

"Sultan of Sulu" Jamalul Kiram IIIFor centuries, the Malaysian state of Sabah, located on the island of Borneo, has been known as “the land below the wind” --- a reference to its fortuitous position just south of the typhoon-prone region around the nearby Philippines.

But the geography that has shielded Sabah from Pacific storms for generations could not protect it on 11 February from more than 200 armed Muslim Filipinos --- the "Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu", a Muslim monarchy which once governed Sabah and other adjoining territories from a base in the Philippines. The army publicly asserted its right to settle in Sabah, with the Sultan of Sulu ruling the province.

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Venezuela Analysis: Hugo Chavez's Dubious Legacy for Iran and the Middle East (Postel)

In June 2009, as millions of Iranians took to the streets to ask Where Is My Vote? Chávez was among the first world leaders to congratulate his ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on his reelection.

“In Egypt, the situation is complicated,” Chávez pronounced during the Tahrir Square protests that brought down Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. He remained conspicuously silent on the Battle of Cairo, one of the great democratic uprisings of recent times, remarking merely that “national sovereignty” should be respected.

But silent he was not as the Arab revolts spread to Libya and Syria; he spoke out emphatically in support of Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad.

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EA Video Analysis: Obama Re-Brands the War on Terror to "Associates of Associates of Al Qa'eda"

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Five minutes --- prompted by a Washington Post article, fed by the Obama Administration, which received far too little attention --- on how the Obama Administration is expanding the authorisation for the use of deadly force to "associates of associates of Al Qa'eda":

So President Obama, his military, his CIA --- they don't have to go out anymore and say, "Will the real Al Qa'eda please stand up?" They just have to say, "Whether you're standing up of sitting down, you're a target."

Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Division over Powers for "Citizen's Arrests"

Egypt Prosecutor Talaat Abdullah1905 GMT:Egypt. Political activist Hassan Mustafa has been sentenced to two years in prison, accused of physically attacking a prosecutor.

Mustafa was arrested on 21 January after he slapped the prosecutor on the cheek.

1650 GMT:Bahrain. Five policemen were in court today, on charges relating to the deaths of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer and Zakariya Rashid Hassan Al-Asheri in April 2011. Both Saqer and Al-Asheri were found to have been tortured to death at the Dry Dock Detention Centre, whilst under the custody of the Ministry of Interior, according to the findings of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.

Two policemen were found guilty of the manslaughter of Ali Saqer and sentenced to ten years. The three other policemen were found innocent of "failing to report the crime" of Saqer's murder.

All five policemen were found innocent on charges relating to the death of Al-Asheri.

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Syria Live Coverage: The Bodies in Aleppo's "River of Martyrs"

2040 GMT: Large Rockets Fired Towards Central Damascus. In the last video we posted a video that shows the remains of a rocket that landed in Ein Tarma, a district in southern Damascus. Eliot Higgins and I have reviewed the image, and we are in agreement that what we are looking at matches the very unique tail end of a Frog-7 rocket. The picture on the left in the debris in Damascus, and the picture on the right is a Frog-7 on a truck launcher:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1064/868869014_d3b90b0505_o.jpg

The Frog-7 has a range of 70 kilometers, and has an average margin of error of 500-700 meters. Ein Tarma is only 1.2 kilometers by 800 meters, and is situated an alarming-close 2.7-3 kilometers from the very center of Damascus:

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