Syria Live Coverage: The Fighting from Damascus to Idlib

Protest in Kafranbel on Friday: "Peoples always win over their tyrants. The Syrians are not an exception. Watch your steps."

See also Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Overnight Clashes In and Beyond Cairo
Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Watching the Attack in Damascus

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2120 GMT: Casualties. The Local Coordination Committees have updated today's death toll to 145, including ten children and eight women.

Of the casualties, 54 were in Damascus and its suburbs and 45 were in Aleppo Province.

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Iran Live Coverage: Banging the Drum Against the US

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- From Ahmadinejad in Egypt to "Tribal Voices" in Tehran
Friday's Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader to His Officials "Stop Your Temper Tantrums"

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2055 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Activists claim that dozens of Arab youths have been detained in Ahvaz.

One activist said more than 50 men were seized. Family members said they were in an unknown location.

1335 GMT: US-Iran Watch. The first half of this Al Jazeera English discussion on US-Iran relations and the nuclear issue is wasted, with a failure to get to grips with the context, motives, and significance of the Supreme Leader's speech on Thursday. However, there is some value in the second, with former Administration official John Limbert and analyst Ali Reza Eshraghi --- overcoming the pro-regime platitudes of Flynt Leverett --- offering some insight into the complexities hindering negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- From Ahmadinejad in Egypt to "Tribal Voices" in Tehran (Arseh Sevom)

This week's "Tribal Voices" festival in Tehran

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This week we saw the arrest of Presidential advisor Saeed Mortazavi, following a power struggle on the floor of Parliament between Speaker Ali Larijani and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The President joined the ranks of those on the receiving end of flying shoes during a trip to Egypt. And amidst worries about the economy and more crippling sanctions, Tehran celebrates the Tribal Voices festival.

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Egypt (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Overnight Clashes In and Beyond Cairo

See also Syria Live Coverage: The Fighting from Damascus to Idlib
Friday's Tunisia (and Beyond) Live Coverage: General Strike and Marches as Slain Opposition Leader is Buried

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1745 GMT: Saudi Arabia. Riyadh Bureau reports that dozens of women and children have been arrested in Riyadh and Buraidah amid protests to demand the release of imprisoned family members.

The demonstrators gathered outside the Human Rights Commission office in Riyadh and the Court of Grievances in Buraidah in the central region of Qassim.

A lawyer confirmed that those arrested include the wife, daughter, and granddaughter of Suleiman al-Rashudi, a political activist who was arrested in December after giving a lecture about the permissibility of protests.

Women in the security bus in Qassim, chanting for the freedom of detainees:

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China Feature: Week in Review --- Beijing Denies Cyber-Attacks on US Newspapers (Lin)

Al Jazeera English's Listening Post discusses media security, including the alleged Chinese cyber-attacks on US newspapers

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China Denies Hacking US Media

Chinese officials have denied claims by leading US newspapers that Beijing pursued cyber-attacks against them.

The New York Times said Chinese hackers have carried out “sustained attacks” on its computer systems, breaking in and stealing the passwords of high-profile reporters and other staff members.

According to The Times, the cyber-assaults began last October, after the paper published the investigative reporting of its Shanghai bureau chief David Barboza about the property holdings of family members of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Barboza’s microblog account was gagged for some time last year. Both the English- and Chinese-language sites of the Times are currently banned in mainland China.

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Iran Special: What the Supreme Leader's "No Direct Talks with US" Really Means

The Supreme Leader did not kill off negotiations yesterday. Even as he laid down some tough lines --- to his officials as well as the US --- he signalled that they are alive, if only to hold far more dangerous alternatives.

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Syria Live Coverage: Watching the Attack in Damascus

2058 GMT: Idlib. Rania Abouzeid reports new rebel offenses against several key bases in Idlib province, including Wadi Deif which is the main base near Ma'arrat al Nouman (map) and the Abu Dhuhur military airport (map, also see update 1341). This time, she writes, the offensives are different, as the rebels organize to take some of the last key Assad bases in the north:

On Wednesday, the push to take it was forcefully renewed, but unlike previous offensives here and elsewhere that tend to be disorganized, poorly coordinated actions by a few brigades, this phase of the battle has been carefully planned over many weeks. It is not an isolated fight but part of a wider strategy, codenamed Marakit il Bina il Marsoos, or the Battle of Reinforced Structures, to open all the remaining fronts in Idlib province at around the same time — Wadi Deif, the Karmid Checkpoint, the Mastoomeh Checkpoint, the Abu Duhoor military airport and the smaller checkpoints associated with these outposts — before rebels turn their full attention to the regime forces concentrated in Idlib city, the provincial capital, and the city of Jisr al-Shughour, the two key urban areas still in the regime’s firm grip. If the rebels succeed, they will have created the first liberated province in Syria, an area completely free of regime forces and a de facto safe zone — without direct international help.

Read the entire article here.

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Tunisia (and Beyond) Live Coverage: General Strike and Marches as Slain Opposition Leader is Buried

See also Syria Live Coverage: Watching the Attack in Damascus
Thursday's Tunisia (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Government is Dissolved After Murder of Opposition Leader

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1642 GMT: Saudi Arabia. Thousands marched in Qatif on Thursday night in memory of leading cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, shot and detained by security forces last year.

Al-Nimr was a leading figure in the protests in the mainly-Shia Eastern Province, protesting detentions and calling for political reforms.

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Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader to His Officials "Stop Your Temper Tantrums"

The Supreme Leader addresses Air Force officers on Thursday

See also Iran Special: What the Supreme Leader's "No Direct Talks with US" Really Means
Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: The Battle Within --- Ahmadinejad v. the Larijanis

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2045 GMT:Health Watch. Exports of American pharmaceuticals to Iran were halved last year, even as overall US exports to the Islamic republic rose about 9% because of grain sales.

Exports of pharmaceuticals fell to $14.8 million from $31.1 million in 2011, while sales of vitamins, medicinal and botanical drugs decreased to $4.9 million from $10.8 million.

US officials have said they tried to sanction Iran without unduly harming ordinary Iranians, granting licenses to American companies who wish to export pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food, and other humanitarian goods to Iran.

However, sanctions lawyers have said the blacklisting of the Islamic Republic's major financial institutions has made it difficult to find smaller Iranian banks able to conduct such licensed transactions as well as international banks willing to deal with them.

Overall US exports to Iran rose to $250.2 million from $229.3 million in 2011. However, most of the increase is attributable to $89.2 million in the sale of wheat and other grains.

In 2011, the United States exported no wheat or grains to Iran.

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Syria Special: The Insurgent Offensive Against Damascus and the Foreign Weapons

A convoy of insurgents, armed with new weapons, moves into Al Qaddam in Damascus

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The obvious question remains ---- who is sending these weapons to the opposition? We are still working on the answer.

However, beyond the source is the outcome: someone significant is arming the insurgency, and those arms are propelling them in an offensive attacking the heart of President Assad's regime.

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