Syria Feature: The Surge in Foreign Weapons for the Insurgents (Higgins and Chivers/Schmitt)

Colonel Abdul-Jabber Mohammed Aqidi, a prominent insurgent commander in Aleppo, holds up an anti-tank M79 rocket launcher

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While Persian Gulf Arab nations have been sending military equipment and other assistance to the rebels for more than a year, the difference in the recent shipments has been partly of scale. Officials said multiple planeloads of weapons have left Croatia since December, when many Yugoslav weapons, previously unseen in the Syrian civil war, began to appear in videos posted by rebels on YouTube....

Officials familiar with the transfers said the arms were part of an undeclared surplus in Croatia remaining from the 1990s Balkan wars. One Western official said the shipments included “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns” and an unknown quantity of ammunition.

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Syria Live Coverage: Insurgent Attacks in Damascus

2106 GMT: Hezbollah Convoy - continued. As many readers have pointed out, there is no strong evidence that the mine attack in the last video worked at all. We'll have to see if we get more videos or other news sources, but it's worth watching.

2049 GMT: Hezbollah Convoy Destroyed? Since this morning there have been rumors that a convoy of Hezbollah fighters was destroyed on a highway near Damascus. French media, citing Voice of Lebanon radio and an official in the Free Syrian Army, said that "senior Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah and Syrian officers" were targeted. An opposition Facebook page suggested that the officials were on a way to a security meeting and were destroyed by landmines placed on the road.

Now, Al Jazeera's Arabic channel has picked up the report, and has played video that they say shows the attack:

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Iran Live Coverage: Today's Nuclear Talks in Kazakhstan

Catherine Ashton, lead nuclear negotiator for the 5+1 Powers, and Iranian counterpart Saeed Jalili today

See also Monday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad's Advisor Mortazavi Faces Trial

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2138 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Officials, showing corroborating documents, claim Iran is using old tankers --- saved from the scrapyard by foreign middlemen --- to ship oil to China and avoid Western sanctions.

Eight very large crude carriers (VLCCs), each of which can carry close to a day's worth of Tehran's exports, have loaded Iranian oil at sea.

The eight tankers, built up to 20 years ago, can carry about 16 million barrels of oil among them, shipping databases show.

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Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad's Advisor Mortazavi Faces Trial

Iran Feature: Top Iran Newspaper Protects the Oscars from Michelle Obama's Shoulders
Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad Tries to Take Control on the Economy

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Saeed Mortazavi2111 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Journalist Edition). More releases of journalists detained in the regime's crackdown over the last month --- Akbar Montajebi and Reyhaneh Tabatabaei have been freed, with reports that Milan Fadai Asl will soon be out of prison.

2102 GMT: All the President's Men. It looks like Presidential advisor Saeed Mortazavi will not face "accessory to murder" charges when he goes to court tomorrow.

The Iranian Labor News Agency reports that the former Tehran Prosecutor General, being tried for his involvement in the abuse and killing of three post-election protesters in the Kahrizak detention center in summer 2009, has been indicted for “participating in unlawful detentions” and “assistance in setting up false reports or encouraging such actions in relevant officials”.

Two other judiciary officials face charges pf “assistance in setting up false reports".

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Syria Live Coverage: Insurgents Capture Symbolic "Nuclear" Site

2319 GMT: More Fighting in Damascus. It's late, past 1 AM in in Syria, but there are still fresh reports of explosions and gunfire there tonight. This video was reportedly taken in Baramkeh, in west-central Damascus, not far from Tishreen and the heart of the Assad regime (map):

The explosions and gunshots being heard from Baramkeh in the heart of #Damascus tonight.youtube.com/watch?v=2xhqtE…

— NMSyria (@NMSyria) February 25, 2013

2303 GMT: Surface-to-Surface Missiles. Tonight there are reports that more "Scuds" have launched from the regime's 155th Brigade base in Quteifeh, northeast of Damascus (map). Last week, when there were similar reports, dozens died in Aleppo province when several missiles hit residential areas, crumbling buildings and trapping residents. Those rockets fell on areas just north of Aleppo's airport, an airport that was reportedly being overrun by rebels. Today the airport was once again under attack. No word yet what was targeted by these latest strikes, however.

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Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Israel Looks for Calm after Death of Palestinian Detainee

See also Turkey Analysis: Erdogan's "One Leader, One Nation, One Market" --- Will It Succeed?
Syria Live Coverage: Insurgents Capture Symbolic "Nuclear" Site
Sunday's Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Conflicting Claims Over Palestinian Who Died in Israeli Custody

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2126 GMT: UAE. Two days after denying entry to a British academic scheduled to present a conference paper on Bahrain, two Bahrain-based journalists --- Associated Press reporter Reem Khalifa and her husband, Mansoor al-Jamri, chief editor for the independent Al Wasat newspaper, have been turned away.

Khalifa and al-Jamri were on a private trip to Dubai. No explanations were given for the refusal of entry.

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Iran Feature: Top Iran Newspaper Protects the Oscars from Michelle Obama's Shoulders

Fars, the Iranian newspaper linked to the Revolutionary Guards, is not just interested in military matters. It also likes to keep an eye on fashion and the movies. And when the First Lady of the United States has a new dress as she awards Best Picture at the Academy Awards, that is an opportunity not to be missed.

Only one problem: Michelle Obama's shoulders.

Time for the Fars Photoshop Department to spring into action:

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Syria Feature: The Life and Death of a Citizen Journalist (Hanano)

On April 25, 2011, a man held up a video camera in Deraa. He was not an experienced videographer and he did not have a tripod.

He stood in front of a group of Syrian army soldiers with tanks and filmed them shooting their machine guns towards civilian targets. Each time he watched the clip on his laptop, he noticed the footage was shaky due to his trembling hand, so he would go back to his exposed vantage point to film once more.

He did this 24 times before he made this passably stable clip:

His name was Mohamed “Abu al-Nimer” Masalmeh.

On January 18, 2013 --- after 22 months of reporting as a citizen journalist from Deraa --– he was killed by army snipers in the village of Busra al-Harir

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Turkey Analysis: Erdogan's "One Leader, One Nation, One Market" --- Will It Succeed?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoganIt is a busy and tricky time for the Erdogan Government : relations stuck with the European Union, a possible peace process to solve the Kurdish question, the long-awaited new Constitution, prospects of switching to a Presidential system, and next year's elections.

>The combination requires finely-adjusted diplomatic steps with opposition parties. For instance, the support of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) takes on importance in the Constitution-making process, while the main opposition faction, the Republican People's Party (CHP), has a role in the consensus over counter-terrorism.

So how to hold all this together? Despite some inconsistencies by the Government in its approach, there are three notions that are immutable: "One Leader, One Nation, One Market".

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Iran Feature: Newsflash --- Tehran Does (Not) Shoot Down An Enemy Drone

One of the US drones that Iran did not shoot down on Saturday

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A tale of how Iranian propaganda went a bit too far --- and how the Western media, always on the look-out for a story of Tehran's threat, went along for the ride....

Press TV, the regime's English-language outlet, put up the Breaking headline on Saturday night, Iran Cyber-Warriors Take Control of Drone". As in December 2011 and January of this year, Tehran was going to parade another Western surveillance aircraft before the Iranian press, demonstrating how the Islamic Republic could not only defy the enemy but --- by reverse-engineering the drone --- turn the foe's weapons against it.

CNN quickly picked up the newsflash, and the Associated Press put out a fuller story.

The only problem was that none of this was true.

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