The Latest from Iran (21 December): Is the Regime Celebrating Its Longest Night?

See also Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook
Iran Propaganda 101: Mass Killing of Children in Connecticut --- The Jews Did It
The Latest from Iran (20 December): Revolutionary Guards Decide Which Reformists Can Stand in Presidential Election

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A Table for Yalda Celebrations1720 GMT: Irony Watch. Well, here is one advocate for free speech who is not in detention in Iran....

Political analyst Mohsen Saleh seizes the moment after Spain’s satellite provider Hispasat took Iranian State outlets Press TV and Spanish-language Hispan TV off the air. He tells Press TV: "[This] contradicts the basic law of...freedom of speech of any party or any people from all over the world. That is why…the Iranian channels could sue the Americans and the Europeans even according to their law."

Saleh continued with the claim that it is the West who are scared of a free press, “When Press TV covers the 99-percent protests in New York and in other places…the Americans and the capitalists, the materialists, do not like to see such cover and they do not like to see others’ opinions in terms of these issues."

Saleh concluded, “I guess the Europeans and the Americans will finally find themselves really isolated from the whole world."

And who is responsible for the sudden ban of the Iranian channels? "Analyst" Stephen Landman knows: "The usual Israeli suspects."

See also Iran Propaganda 101: Mass Killing of Children in Connecticut --- The Jews Did It

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Syria Analysis: Why Assad's Use of SCUD Missiles is Really Important

Cluster bomb and bomblets in Deir al-Asafir on November 27th. This air raid reportedly killed 11 children and wounded others.

See also Friday's Syria Live Coverage: Russia Gives Up on Assad

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Assad is using SCUD missiles. The evidence is overwhelming. However, the use of SCUDs, a Cold-War era ballistic missile, is both more important, and less important, than the media and the world leaders are making it out to be.

It is the cumulative use of ballistic missiles, Grad rockets, naval mines, and other strange munitions are important. They signal that Assad has used every weapon left in his arsenal (almost), and is running out of resources almost as fast as he is running out of ideas. The use of these weapons proves that the regime is ready to use inefficient weapons against both insurgents and civilians instead of negotiating an escape and ending this bloody war.

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook (Arseh Sevom)

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Some people in Iran are feeling the effects of shortages of medicine and high prices, while an artist challenges passersby at the United Nations to confront the growing problem.

Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi receive the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia, sending messages for justice and freedom, as imprisoned human rights activists call for others to spread the call for dignity. Mohammad Maleki, the former Chancellor Tehran University, is summoned to serve a six-year prison term. Journalists call for an end to the intimidation of political prisoners' family members by interrogators.

The Supreme Leader gets a Facebook page, as Parliament debates election reform and reduced powers for the President and Human Rights Watch issues a report on the more than 40,000 Iranians seeking asylum abroad while a photographer shows us that life in Iran goes on.<

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Syria Live Coverage: Russia Gives Up on Assad

The message from protesters in Kafranbel today

See also Syria Analysis: Why Assad's Use of SCUD Missiles is Really Important
Iraq (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Security Forces Raid Minister of Finance's Home and Offices
Thursday's Syria Live Coverage: The Humanitarian Crisis

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1531 GMT: 71 people have been killed so far today across Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees:

24 people in Hama, 20 people in Damascus and its countryside, 10 martyrs in Idlib, 8 martyrs in Aleppo (including 5 martyrs in Marja) 6 martyrs in Homs... and a martyr in the Deir ez-Zor.

The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) is an activist network operating both inside and outside of Syria. They claim to use stringent verification processes to ensure that a member of the LCC can vouch for any information posted either on their Facebook page or their website. The LCC also populates a database of those killed in the Syrian conflict, which can be seen at the website for the Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria.

The LCC's casualty figures are a mix of insurgents and civilians, and never include regime casualties. Syrian State Media has stopped reporting regime casualty figures.

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Iraq (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Security Forces Raid Minister of Finance's Home and Offices

See also Sudan Feature: Explaining Last Month's Coup Attempt...And What's Next
Libya Feature: Optimism Gives Way to Jitters in Benghazi
Syria Live Coverage: Russia Gives Up on Assad
Thursday's Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: UN Criticises West Jerusalem's Settlement Expansion

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1439 GMT: Yemen. Thousands of marchers rally on Thursday to support the Government's restructuring of armed forces, which included the abolition of the Republican Guards, commanded by the son of former President Saleh:

1307 GMT: Egypt. Clashes erupted shortly after thousands of demonstrators gathered at Alexandria's Qaed Ibrahim Mosque to "defend [Islamic] scholars and mosques," and to call for Sharia law.

The rally after Friday noon prayers was initially peaceful, but reports indicate opposition protesters picked a fight with Islamist demonstrators.

Central Security Forces fired tear gas into the crowd, forcing people onto the Corniche near the mosque.

Injuries are reported.

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Sudan Feature: Explaining Last Month's Coup Attempt...And What's Next (Elmahdi)

President Omar al-BashirYesterday reports circulated that at least seven army officers had been arrested for plotting a coup against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The head of the plot was named as Colonel Al-Tayeb Al-Sayed.

Al-Sayed reportedly warned that unless there are changes in the "leadership" to fix Sudan's problems, then "everyday they will find a coup as there are tens behind us who will try that".

Sudanese activist Yousif Elmahdi writes for Muftah about last month's coup attempt....

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Libya Feature: Optimism Gives Way to Jitters in Benghazi (Fitzgerald/Khan)

Protest in Benghazi against militias, 21 September 2012 (Photo: Abdullah Doma/AFP)

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More than three months after the storming of the U.S. mission, and with the Libyan investigation into the attack that killed Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans all but ground to a halt, Benghazi remains jittery and tense. Even in affluent neighborhoods, gunfire and explosions form an almost nightly soundtrack. Many residents are wary about where they venture after dark. The American drones that circle overhead prompt bitter complaints -- as well as the occasional attempt at black humor. "That's my brother-in-law up there keeping an eye on me," one man said with a laugh as he pointed skywards.

But there is little levity when it comes to confronting Benghazi's dense knot of security challenges --- which include rogue militias, frequent assassinations, and a fraught political environment made even more flammable by the ready availability of weapons. "I think the security situation is going from bad to worse after the consulate attack," says Wanis al-Sharif, the top Interior Ministry official in eastern Libya. Why that is depends on whom you ask.

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Iran Propaganda 101: Mass Killing of Children in Connecticut --- The Jews Did It

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If there is a conspiracy of significance here, it is not in the Jews massacring American schoolchildren. It is in how Iranian State media, to put out its English-language version of the world, managed to forge an alliance with a group of anti-Semitic US fantasists.

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The Latest from Iran (20 December): Revolutionary Guards Decide Which Reformists Can Stand in Presidential Election

See also Iran Feature: Breakthrough in Nuclear Talks? No Way.
The Latest from Iran (19 December): "The Worst Economic Conditions"

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2110 GMT: Human Rights Watch. The United Nations General Assembly has criticised Iran for human rights abuses by an 86-32 vote with 65 abstentions.

The resolution on Iran voiced "deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran relating to, inter alia, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including flogging and amputations".

1840 GMT: Nuclear Watch. Iranian State media continues to play up renewed discussions, headlining, "Russia Hopes Iran-P5+1 Talks to Be Held Next Month".

The website seizes on a matter-of-fact statement by a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, "Currently negotiations are under way with Tehran on the place and date. We hope that this work will be completed in the near future and such a meeting will take place in January of next year."

Press TV repeats the mantra:

Iran claims that as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is free to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but the United States, Israel and others have accused Iran of developing nuclear equipment for military purposes.

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Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: UN Criticises West Jerusalem's Settlement Expansion

See also Syria Live Coverage: The Humanitarian Crisis
Wednesday's Israel, Palestine (and Beyond) Live Coverage: US Criticises Israeli "Pattern of Provocation" Over Settlements

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2123 GMT: Mali. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously authorised an African-led military force to try and oust Islamist insurgents from northern Mali.

The Council gave the force an initial one-year mandate to use "all necessary measures" to help Mali recover the north of the country from "terrorist, extremist. and armed groups". The resolution authorises the European Union and other UN member states to help rebuild Malian security forces.

Insurgents took control of northern Mali after a military coup in March and established Islamic law.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) says it has 3,300 troops ready to deploy, although an operation is not expected to begin before September 2013.

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