Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader's Top Advisor Draws A "Red Line" on Syria

See also Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: Regime Explains --- Talk of "Free Elections" Is "Sedition"

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Supreme Leader Aide Ali Akbar Velayati2147 GMT: Bank Watch. The Supreme Audit Court has given Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani 20 days to appeal the order for his dismissal because of illegal financial transactions.

2037 GMT: Bank Watch. Najmeh Bozorgmehr of the Financial Times summarises a day's turmoil over the Central Bank and the Iranian currency, with reports of the resignation or dismissal of Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani.

Bozorgmehr puts the fall of the Rial today at 8%, from 32800:1 to 35300:1.

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Mali Feature: Making Sense of an Escalating Conflict (Wing)

The war, which already involves local, regional, and international troops, is not likely to end soon. As Bamako struggles to regain control of the northern part of the country and maintain stability in the south, observers have explained the conflict and the intervention with crude simplifications that do not reflect the reality on the ground and which point to incorrect solutions to the country's problems.

For starters, the conflict in the North is often reduced to two actors: Tuareg separatists and radical Islamists.

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Jordan Feature: The Kingdom's "Syria Problem" (Pelham)

Zaatari Refugee CampAs the uprising in Syria takes on an increasingly sectarian cast, Jordan has become a crucial center for the Islamist opposition — fighters, regime defectors, and their supporters, who speak of replacing the secular-Alawite regime with a new government that brings a Sunni majority to power. More extremist groups, like Jabhat al-Nasra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate based in and around Aleppo that wants to establish a caliphate, have strengthened their numbers with Jordanian recruits in the south, and are fighting to take the capital first. And while Jordan’s own secular monarchy contends with hundreds of thousands of newly arrived Syrian refugees, it is fearful that the conflict is also creating a powerful cause for its own restless Islamists.

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Syria Live Coverage: "Darayya is Being Pounded to Dust"

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton on Syrians decimating forests to survive the winter

See also Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Gas Plant Siege Ends with 23 Hostages, 32 Attackers Killed
Saturday's Syria Live Coverage: UN Human Rights Chief Calls for War Crimes Investigation

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2029 GMT: A Town After the Bombardment. Al Jazeera English's Basma Atassi reports:

The centre of Salqin in northern Syria looked deceptively normal, just a day after the town came under lethal government air strikes.

Shops were open for business. Residents strolled through the main square. Children could be seen playing in the narrow streets.

Yet a closer look at the streets of Salqin revealed the brutal scars of war. Away from the square, sidewalks were stained with blood and littered with broken glass.

Residents said six people were killed when government forces attacked the rebel-held town bordering Turkey on Friday. Dozens of people were injured, locals said, including many children.

Three siblings --- Basel, 12, Doriyeh, 10, and Raghad, 8 --- were injured by shrapnel as a rocket detonated near their home while they played.

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Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Gas Plant Siege Ends with 23 Hostages, 32 Attackers Killed

See also Bahrain Propaganda 101: Regime Looking for a Few Good Women on Twitter
Israel Feature: The Settlers and the Politician Trying to Re-Make the Jewish State
Syria Live Coverage: "Darayya is Being Pounded to Dust"
Saturday's Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Hostage Situation Continues at Gas Plant

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2241 GMT: Egypt. Protesters have set a courthouse in Alexandria on fire after the suspension of the trial of six senior police officers for deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising.

Young men threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas. Two trucks that transport riot police was set ablaze.

Judge Mohammed Hammad Abdel-Hadi resigned from the case on Sunday, giving no reason. His resignation means a new trial for the officers accused of using excessive force.

Since President Hosni Mubarak was deposed in February, almost 100 police officers have been brought to trial on charges of killing and wounding protesters. All were acquitted or received suspended sentences.

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Iran Live Coverage: Regime Explains --- Talk of "Free Elections" Is "Sedition"

See also Saturday's Iran Live Coverage: Let's Make a Nuclear Deal?

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1945 GMT: Obama Billboard in Tehran Watch.

Roland Elliott Brown explains this image of President Obama and a friend, several stories high on a Tehran building by a major highway:

The image is of Barack Obama standing next to Shemr, a villain in Shia Islam, with a BBC-style caption at the bottom attributing to both men, in the years 2013 and 680 respectively, the loaded phrase: "Be with us, be safe."...

The villain Shemr belongs to the narrative of Hussein's martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in 680, the trauma that split Muslims into Sunni and Shia denominations. The Shia, or "Party of Ali" (Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law) sought hereditary leadership of Islam. After the murder of the Caliph Ali, and the death of Ali's son and successor Hassan, Ali's younger son Hussein clashed for succession with the Umayyad Caliph Yazid, who sent Shemr's army to destroy Hussein and his followers. Shemr offered some of Hussein's supporters a "letter of protection" in exchange for betraying him, but they refused.

In the mural, Shemr extends a similar letter to the viewer, as he and Obama utter the words Ba ma bash – "be with us" – playing on the president's name, and insinuating that anyone who still likes Obama in the wake of tightening sanctions – or who advocates meeting American, EU, or International Atomic Energy Agency demands over Iran's nuclear programme to avoid conflict – is a traitor to the faith. Obama, the state insists, is a "Hussein" unworthy of loyalty.

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US Politics Audio: Any Hope and Change in Obama's 2nd Term? --- Scott Lucas with the BBC

On the eve of the Inauguration, I joined Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to the US, on BBC Radio 5 Live's Double Take to discuss the achievements of President Obama's first term and the prospects for his second.

Listen to programme from  14:38

I found this a useful summary, with emphasis on Obama's "cautious" and "pragamatic" approach. In addition Sir Christopher's upbeat assessment of Obama on domestic issues and my less-enthusiastic comments over gun control and foreign policy, the former diplomat pointed to advances on the social front such as immigration.

If the discussion had continued, I would have heartily endorsed this shift in tone on some social issues. adding positive signs --- often at State level --- such as acceptance of same-sex relationships and sensible policies towards marijuana use.

The BBC summary starts at the 14:38 mark, with the discussion following from 17:17.

Bahrain Propaganda 101: Regime Looking for a Few Good Women on Twitter

Bahraini Ministry of Interior message, February 2012

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Young women will get training on how to use Twitter to help combat false information being circulated about Bahrain.

"We are holding a series of training sessions for young Bahraini women who have shown an interest in making their thoughts about the situation in Bahrain heard on social media," said society cultural committee head Ebtisam Al Jamea.

"The social committee is honouring these young women for their efforts to spread the good word about Bahrain, and provide them with the means necessary to make a difference."

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Israel Feature: The Settlers and the Politician Trying to Re-Make the Jewish State (Remnick)

Naftali BennettAt a makeshift theatre in the port of Tel Aviv, hundreds of young immigrants from Melbourne, the Five Towns, and other points in the Anglophone diaspora gathered recently to hear from the newest phenomenon in Israeli politics, Naftali Bennett. A forty-year-old settlement leader, software entrepreneur, and ex-Army commando, Bennett promises to build a sturdy electoral bridge between the religious and the secular, the hilltop outposts of the West Bank and the start-up suburbs of the coastal plain.

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Syria Live Coverage: UN Human Rights Chief Calls for War Crimes Investigation

Claimed footage of a regime tank firing in the Damascus suburb of Darayya

See also Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Hostage Situation Continues at Gas Plant
Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Another Mass Killing, Another Dispute of Responsibility

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2146 GMT: Regime Calls on Insurgents to Stop Fighting. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has called on insurgents to lay down their weapons and take part in a national dialogue, saying everyone who participates will be included in a new Cabinet with wide executive powers.

"I tell the young men who carried arms to change and reform, take part in the dialogue for a new Syria and you will be a partner in building it. Why carry arms," al-Moallem said in an hour-long interview. "Those who want foreign intervention will not be among us."

The Foreign Minister accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey of arming and financing insurgents. He asserted that the Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra, which the US has declared a terrorist organisation, has brought fighters from 27 countries.

Meanwhile, Turkey's State news agency Anadolu said the Assad air force killed and wounded dozens on people when it targeted a mosque and a school building that was sheltering displaced Syrians in the town of Salqin, about four miles (six kilometres) from the border with Turkey in Idlib Province.

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