Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Watching for Reactions

Prayer at Protest in Homs, Syria (Photo: Reuters)2110 GMT: The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Yemeni authorities to explain why they have held journalist Ali Salah Ahmed since Tuesday without revealing his location or charging him with a crime.

Ahmed, an anchor for the privately-owned news channel Suhail, with ties to the opposition party Al-Islah, was seized upon his arrival from Germany.

Ahmed worked for several years as the program director of the official state-run television station Yamania but resigned in 2009 denouncing government attempts to manipulate news coverage of civil unrest in southern Yemen.

Ahmad al-Mohamadi, a reporter for Suhail, is also missing after he was called in for questioning Saturday by the Republican Guards.

The CPJ also highlighted the testimony of several journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan, who said anti-riot police attacked them on Monday as they were covering protests in Erbil.

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The Latest from Iran (20 April): Ahmadinejad's Powers of Intelligence?

2140 GMT: Ahwaz Watch. Most Iranian media may be avoiding any reference to clashes in Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran, which activists claim have killed up to 15 people, but the conservative site Tabnak has made an indirect but blunt approach....

Tabnak, linked to Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, has written that militant Wahhabi groups are being supported by Gulf states to foment separatist unrest in the region and that the British are encouraging this.

Tabnak claims that the "British Ahwazi Friendship Society", a group claiming to promote Ahwazi Arab culture, is co-ordinator of the Wahhabi separatists of the "Arab People's Front".

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Syria WikiLeaks Special: How the US Government "Supported Opposition Groups" (and for How Long?)

Craig Whitlock, writing in The Washington Post, declares, "US Secretly Backed Syrian Opposition Groups, Cables Released by WikiLeaks Show".

It is a provocative article, but it only goes so far. When you read it alongside the WikiLeaks cables that it mentions, vital questions emerge, both about the specific case of Syria and about the many cases beyond. What does this story say about the relationship --- past and present --- between the US Government and private groups? What it say about the distinction between support of "civil society" and support of movements to challenge and even topple regimes?

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Syria WikiLeaks Document: The US Government Support of Opposition Groups, Civil Society, and Human Rights (April 2009)

As the Syria policy review moves apace, and with the apparent collapse of the primary Syrian external opposition organization, one thing appears increasingly clear: U.S. policy may aim less at fostering "regime change" and more toward encouraging "behavior reform." If this assumption holds, then a reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-SARG [Syrian regime] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive as well.

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Egypt Snapshot: A Leadership Vacuum in Suez (Allam)

More than two months have passed since the upheaval that forced Egypt's president to resign, yet this bustling seaport — home of the Suez Canal — still has no working police force and a military presence so overstretched that commanders rely on community elders to disarm gunmen and on neighborhood patrols to combat the soaring crime rate.

Suez's seething population of 550,000 so hated Hosni Mubarak that the deposed president never once visited in his three-decade rule, locals assert with pride. In return, they say, the regime steered revenues from the canal, oil refineries and industrial zones to other provinces.

Suez residents, among the first to take to the streets, hoped that the overthrow of the regime would bring about a political and economic renaissance for their long-suffering city. Instead, a persistent lawlessness has settled in here that exposes the limitations of Egypt's interim military rulers and is a reminder that revolutions that so quickly sweep away authority can leave vacuums that are difficult to fill.

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Iran and the Green Movement: Life, Death, Rebirth (Ansari)

These circumstances create space for an emerging opposition committed to the objective of regime change conducted by Iranians in their own interests. This objective is even more evidently on the right side of history in 2011 as it was in 2009. This new Iranian force is intent on broadening its appeal, finessing its organisational structure, and developing a strategic plan. Those who risked their lives by taking to the streets in Iran in 2009 can take pride in the fact that their democratic spirit and bravery helped inspire the wind of change across the Arab middle east. They still aspire to reclaim their country and their destiny.

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Iran Cartoon of the Day: A New Game of Intelligence (Kowsar)

Nikahang Kowsar portrays the latest power games within the regime, thanks to Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi, President Ahmadinejad, and the finger of the Supreme Leader:

Iran Breaking: Ahmadinejad Takes Over Ministry of Intelligence?

The website DolateYar, supposedly close to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is reporting tonight that the President has replaced Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi and is personally running the Ministry. The site is citing an unnamed "source within the government".

DolateYar is currently unavailable --- "Bandwidth exceeded" --- but other sites, including the opposition outlet Tahavol-e Sabz, are circulating the claim.

It should soon be possible to judge if the story is legitimate: DolateYar says that Moslehi wil not be at the regular Cabinet meeting tomorrow.

On Sunday, Moslehi was reported to have quit --- apparently after he fell afoul of Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai when he tried to replace a deputy that Moslehi felt was too close to Ahmadinejad's office --- but some Iranian media then said that the Supreme Leader had "nullified" the resignation.

US WikiLeaks Video: The Persecution of Bradley Manning --- State Department Spokesman Flounders

Matthew Lee of the Associated Press and Arshad Mohammed of Reuters test State Department spokesman Mark Toner --- how can the Department's report on human rights be reconciled with the complaint of the UN Special Rapporter on Human Rights and the International Red Cross that they cannot get access to Private Bradley Manning, detained over his alleged passing of documents to WikiLeaks?

Toner fails.

The Latest from Iran (19 April): A Regime Confession About the Greens?

2010 GMT: On the Sports Pages (Parliament v. President Edition). Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, has filed an official complaint with the judiciary against the Ahmadinejad Government for failing to establish a Ministry of Sports and Youth.

Last December, Parliament passed a law for the formation of the ministry of youth and sports by 9 April 2011. Last week, Larijani sent a letter to Ahmadinejad reminding him of the deadline.

However, the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, said on Sunday: “The government and the president believe that this issue is not in the interest of the country’s sports and athletics.”

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