Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: An Activist Tries to Re-Enter the Kingdom

See also Syria Live Coverage: The End of the Brahimi Mission?
Thursday's Turkey (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Three Kurdish Officials Killed in Paris Attack

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1748 GMT:Tunisia. Hundreds of protesters demanding jobs and the reopening of a border crossing with Libya set fire to a police station and cars, as security forces used tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse them.

Demonstrators in Ben Guerdane want the Ras Jedir crossing reopened so that trade with Libya, on which most of the population depend, can resume.

Tunisian and Libyan authorities opened the crossing briefly on Thursday but shut it when four days of protests in Ben Guerdane turned violent.

1818 GMT: Bahrain. Zainab AlKhawaja's reaction:

MY SISTER IS HOOOME!!!! #bahrain

— angry arabiya (@angryarabiya) January 11, 2013

Maryam and Zainab Alkhawaja:

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Political Prisoners, Freedom of Expression, and Killer Smog (Arseh Sevom)

Hila Sedighi, threatened with imprisonment, recites her poetry

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We have letters for you this week. The most heartbreaking comes from 21-year-old Zanyar Moradi, who begs the world to take notice as he and his cousin face imminent execution. Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi calls on UNICEF to visit children living in prison with incarcerated mothers. The children of former Presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have called for an end to their house arrest. The Supreme Leader has been deluged with letters demanding free and fair elections.

Meanwhile, Tehran's polluted skies literally take your breath away, claiming more than 4000 lives over one year. Three Iranian writers are honoured with Hellman-Hammett grants for their commitment to free expression, and a group of Iranians in London form an organisation to encourage reading. Iran is said to be working on controls for social networking sites as it steps up its harassment of the families of journalists.

Finally, after her release from prison, Hengameh Shahidi, a former advisor to Mehdi Karroubi, has turned her attention to art.

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Syria Live Coverage: The End of the Brahimi Mission?

2024 GMT: State Department Weighs In. The US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, said that the capture of the Taftanaz airbase is a significant development:

"They are taking credit now for having taken the air base," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Friday. "And, as you know, we consider this significant on two fronts.

"First of all, to ground some of the air assets of the Assad regime that they've been using against civilians. And, secondly, to break their ability to resupply in the north."

There is a problem with statements like these - Taftanaz was captured primarily by Jabhat al Nusra and the Ahrar al Sham brigades, two Jihadi groups, and the State Department has already place Al Nusra on the terror list.

For a 2nd day, State Dept praises rebels for air base capture without acknowledging that it was led by Nusra, the group it deems terrorists

— Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) January 11, 2013

Meanwhile, as if to answer criticisms that the US is not doing enough to help the Syrian refugees affected by the worst weather in decades to hit the region, the State Department was pushing a summary of the humanitarian aid donated by the US government.

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Iran Live Coverage: How to "Engineer" an Election

"My husband is an engineer. He engineers elections." (Cartoon: Maya Neyestani)

See also Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

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1605 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update (Election Edition). More about the distinctive theme in today's Prayer sermon, delivered by the Guardian Council's Ayatollah Jannati, that while Iran has free elections, it is co-operation with the enemy to talk about free elections (see 1155 GMT)....

Jannati's threat to detained opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom ran in the June 2009 Presidential election, was straightforward: “The public has identified your movement and knows your leaders and the leaders of sedition, and they know what your aim is; you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

And Jannati made clear that, while "those who meet the necessary criteria will never be refused a chance to run in the elections", those who "they lack them...clearly will not be allowed to run".

But here is where it gets really interesting:

Those who consider themselves men of politics and have had important roles in the Revolution should be ashamed of themselves for repeating the statement of the foreign enemies of the regime....

The political losers are now talking about free elections and one of them is quite powerful and since a while ago he has begun talking about this issue and the rest have followed his line.

Who is this "quite powerful...political loser"? Surely not President Ahmadinejad, given that the Supreme Leader handed him the 2009 victory? Former President Mohammad Khatami does not seem to qualify as "quite powerful"?

How about former President Hashemi Rafsanjani?

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Pakistan Feature: A Tribute to Activist Irfan Ali, Killed by Thursday's Bombs (Mackey)

Irfan Ali, in glasses, taking part in a demonstration in Islamabad in September

See also Pakistan News: 114 Killed in Thursday Bombings

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On Thursday bomb attacks by insurgent and separatist Baluch groups in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Mingora killed at least 115 people. Among the dead in Quetta was Irfan Ali, a prominent human rights activist.

Shortly after the first bomb struck a local snooker hall, Ali tweeted that he had narrowly escaped harm. When the second bomb exploded, timed to hit rescue workers who had arrived on the scene, Ali was killed as he helped those injured by the first blast.

Ali’s death sparked an outpouring of grief and anger, as well as tributes to a life supporting human rights causes, across Twitter and the Internet.

"I am born to fight for human rights & peace. My religion is respect and love all the religions." -@khudiali, RIP twitter.com/ShirazHassan/s…

— Shiraz Hassan (@ShirazHassan) January 10, 2013

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EA Audio Analysis: Britain, Europe, & the US Warning --- Scott Lucas with the BBC

Listen to the Audio (from 23:20)

On Wednesday, the Obama Administration created front-page news in Britain when Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said, "We want to see a strong British voice in that European Union," and warned against any referendum on the issue.

The ensuing flutter was predictable, with radio phone-ins filled with Britons denouncing the US intervention and sometimes often taking shots at "Europe".

I spoke yesterday with BBC WM about the episode, with the discussion beginning at 23:20.

Two take-away points, the second of which surprised presenter Adrian Goldberg:

1. Why did the US issue the warning? "It's the Economy, Stupid."

2. The Obama Administration probably spoke with Her Majesty's Government before Gordon made his remarks.

GOLDBERG: "So Britain colluded with the White House over this statement?"

LUCAS: "Colluded is such a harsh word. I prefer consulted."

Pakistan News: 114 Killed in Thursday Bombings (Houreld)

(Photo: Dawn)

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The death toll from a series of bombings in two Pakistani cities on Thursday, one of the bloodiest days in the country's history, has reached 114, police said Friday.

The majority of deaths were caused by a sectarian double bombing in the western provincial capital of Quetta.

Police officer Mir Zubair Mehmood said 82 people were killed and 121 injured in Quetta when a suicide bomber targeted a snooker club and a car bomb blew up nearby 10 minutes later. Nine police and 20 rescue workers were among those killed in the second blast.

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Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

See also Iran Live Coverage: Please Vote (P.S. --- We Did Not Rig the Last Election)

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1916 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Forty-eight Iranian men, abducted in Syria last August and released yesterday in exchange for freedom for 2130 civilian detainees in Syrian prisons, arrive at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport:

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Syria Live Coverage: The Insurgents Capture a Major Airbase

An insurgent-controlled tank forces its way into the Taftanaz airbase

See also Syria Audio Analysis: Swapping 2130 Civilian Prisoners for 48 Iranian "Pilgrims" --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Turkey (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Three Kurdish Officials Killed in Paris Attack
Wednesday's Syria Live Coverage: A Mass Killing in Idlib Province?

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1930 GMT: Taftanaz. Claimed footage of the insurgent attack on the last building held by regime forces on the Taftanaz airbase:

1910 GMT: Taftanaz. State news agency SANA dismisses reports of the insurgent takeover of Taftanaz airbase in a two-sentence report:

The guards of Taftanaz airport in Idleb countryside repelled a terrorist group that tried to storm into the airport on Thursday. The guards inflicted heavy losses upon the terrorists, killing and injuring a number of them, while the rest fled.

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Turkey (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Three Kurdish Officials Killed in Paris Attack

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1623 GMT: Turkey. The Chairman of the Federation of Kurdish Associations of France, Mehmet Ulker, claiming to quote French policemen, has said that the Paris killings were carried out by more than one professional.

1613 GMT: Turkey. The Vice-Chairman of the pro-Kurdish BDP party, Gulten Kisanak, puts out a warning:

Even if those murderers get lost like a mole, they will be held accountable. This massacre is not an ordinary one. Clearly, it is a political murder. It is a trap set for the solution of the Kurdish question. Whoever attempts to cover, justify or distort this, he/she will be the murderer. Whoever, while there is no proof, calls the murder of three revolutionist women who were on duty to carry out their people's struggle as an internal execution and distorts it, he/she is either murderer, or knows the murderers or wants to protect the murderers.

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