The aftermath of Tuesday's shelling of a bakery in Aleppo
See also Syria Feature: Activists in New Roles as Relief Volunteers
Tuesday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The UN Talks Cease-Fire --- Is Anyone Listening?
2015 GMT: Egypt. Ten liberal and leftist political forces boycotted a meeting with President Mohamed Morsi today, objecting to the proposed Constitution and the Constituent Assembly that drafted it.
The boycotting factions included the Constitution Party, the Popular Current, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Nasserist Party, the Karama Party, the Free Egyptians, the Socialist Popular Alliance, Free Egypt, and the Adl Party.
The meeting was attended by Ayman Nour, spokesman for the Conference Party and member of the Constituent Assembly; Mohamed El-Beltagi, prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party; and Essam Sultan, deputy head of the Wasat Party and Constituent Assembly member. Presidential advisors Emad Abdel-Ghafour --- who is also head of the Salafist Nour Party --- Ayman El-Sayad, Omaima Kamel, Pakinam El-Sharqawi, and Farouk Gowida.
Some of those who attended expressed concern about the Constituent Assembly. Nour told Morsi, "The threat of dissolving the assembly has vanished. We're now left with the possibility that one wing will control the assembly, and therefore we need your intervention."
Nasserist Sameh Ashour said that finalising the constitution before the High Constitutional Court (HCC) rules on the Constituent Assembly was "wrong", insisting that the assembly should freeze its work until the HCC issues its verdict.
1955 GMT: Turkey. Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin has appealed to at least 680 Kurdish prisoners to end their hunger strike.
Ergin spoke on television Wednesday during a visit to Sincan Prison in Ankara: "I am telling the prisoners and detainees who are on this action --- on the eve of this holiday (Kurban Bayrami), for the sake of your own body, your own health, the people who love you and whom you love, stop this action."
Some of the protesters have been without food for 43 days.
1815 GMT: Bahrain. The office of the European Union's representative for foreign policy, Catherine Ashton, has put out a statement of her "deep concern [over] the escalation of violence in Bahrain" and strong condemnation of the violence that led to last week's death of one policeman and injury of another.
Ashton repeated her call for "all sections of Bahraini society to contribute to dialogue and national reconciliation in a peaceful and constructive manner, without any further delay".
1745 GMT: Lebanon. The Local Coordination Committees have raised today's death toll to 124, including 70 in Damascus and its suburbs and 28 in Idlib Province.
1711 GMT: Lebanon. A high-ranking official in President Michel Sleiman's office has said that Sleiman "has begun consultations with the leading figures of the country, in the context of the national dialogue, to discuss the possibility of forming a new government".
The official continued, "If that dialogue were to result in agreement on the form of a new government that can pull Lebanon out of its impasse, then [Prime Minister [Najib] Mikati could present his resignation and the process of forming the government could begin," added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Opposition groups have called for Mikati's resignation since last Thursday's car bomb that killed at least three people, including high-ranking security official Wissam al-Hassan. Mikati said this weekend that he had considered resignation but had been persuaded by Sleiman to stay to prevent a political vacuum.
1605 GMT: Jordan. Tamer al-Samadi of Al Monitor highlights activists and demonstrators detained by the regime, beginning with the message of Fadi Musamarah, “My detention, which has now surpassed 30 days, has made me more convinced that our demands for freedom and equality within a safe community are just.”
1555 GMT: Syria. State TV has reported that a car bomb in Daf al-Shok in southern Damascus killed six people and wounded 20 today.
1435 GMT: Saudi Arabia. The New York Times offers information on a major cyber-attack on the Saudi oil giant Aramco:
[On 15 August], at 11:08, a person with privileged access to the Saudi state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashed a computer virus to initiate what is regarded as among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date. The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs — documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files — replacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag....
Immediately after the attack, Aramco was forced to shut down the company’s internal corporate network, disabling employees’ e-mail and Internet access, to stop the virus from spreading.
It could have been much worse. An examination of the sabotage revealed why government officials and computer experts found the attack disturbing. Aramco’s oil production operations are segregated from the company’s internal communications network. Once executives were assured that only the internal communications network had been hit and that not a drop of oil had been spilled, they set to work replacing the hard drives of tens of thousands of its PCs and tracking down the parties responsible, according to two people close to the investigation but who were not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Aramco flew in roughly a dozen American computer security experts. By the time those specialists arrived, they already had a good handle on the virus.
1426 GMT: Libya. Abd al-Nasser Alim, a resident of Bani Walid, has spoken to The Guardian about the fighting in Bani Walid, reportedly taken by pro-government militias today:
What is happening in Bani Walid is beyond the imagination. It is a tragedy. The so-called Libyan army, which are in reality a bunch of thugs, are behaving like locusts. They are attacking everything in their way.
This Misrata army are stationed at the entrances of Beni Walid and using all sorts of weapons, tanks, rockets and gases against the people....
Before, we had Qaddafi's army. Now we have armed militias killing women and children. They have been surrounding the city for 20 days but within the last five days they got crazy and have made our live here a real hell....
This is an act of revenge and racism. People have decided to defend their homes and honour with the arms they have and I can assure you if the situation continues like that, Libya will slip to a civil war eventually.
1420 GMT: Sudan. Sudanese Minister of Information Ahmed Belal Osman has said that four military planes attacked an arms factory in Khartoum, causing a large fire overnight.
Osman blamed Israel for the airstrike.
1417 GMT: Syria. The Local Coordination Committees in Syria report 80 people killed by security forces today, including 35 in Damascus and its suburbs and 26 in Idlib Province.
1243 GMT: Libya. An AFP correspndent reports that pro-government militias have seized control of Bani Walid (see 1143 GMT).
Hundreds of fighters, most from the city of Misrata, converged on the center of Bani Walid, firing in the air to celebrate and hoisting the Libyan flag on abandoned public buildings. Some blasted walls and windows with anti-tank rockets and Kalashnikov rifles, as others patrolled in vehicles mounted with heavy weapons.
The town was deserted, with residents and foreign workers having fled since Sunday.
1143 GMT: Libya. Residents leaving the besieged town of Bani Walid say that pro-Government militias now control the surrounding areas.
The militias have been challenging loyalists of deposed leader Muammar Qaddafi in the town, one of the last to fall to the insrugents in last year's uprising. Residents say there are regular raids into the town.
Relief workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross estimate that as many as 5,000 families, or about 25,000 residents, have fled Bani Walid. It is estimated that the area is home to around 80,000 people.
1135 GMT: Syria. Amnesty International has expressed alarm at the British Government's attempt to send a Syrian national to Damascus.
In a letter to Home Secretary Theresa May, Amnesty called on London to desist from the forcible return of Syrian nationals.
The planned removal was due to take place on 21 October, but was prevented in the High Court.
1105 GMT: Palestine. The Palestine Liberation Organization will distribute a position paper to European governments on Wednesday, asking for an elevation of Palestine's United Nations status to Observer State.
The document will emphasise that the request is a follow-up to the application for UN membership, submitted in September 2001, and is "consistent with the formal Palestinian recognition of Israel in 1993, and consistent with the internationally endorsed goal of the peace process --- two states living side by side in peace and security on the basis of the pre-1967 borders --- which necessarily requires an independent state of Palestine".
1056 GMT: Syria. Insurgents with destroyed regime military vehicles in Idlib Province:
0936 GMT: Syria. United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has told reporters in Cairo that the Assad regime has agreed to a ceasefire for the Eid al-Adha holiday. He said Damascus would announce its acceptance "today or tomorrow".
However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said the ceasefire is still "being studied" by the General Command of the Army and the Syrian armed forces, with "the final position on this matter...issued on Thursday".
0931 GMT: Syria. Hassan Hassan writes for The Guardian of another problem for the everyday life of Syrians:
Forty-six per cent of Syria's buildings are illegally constructed, according to a government study in 2007 – and this includes the homes in which more than half the population live. The problem was mostly seen around the large cities but, amid a widening gap between rich and poor, the authorities generally turned a blind eye to it.
Particularly since this summer, though, they have been bulldozing illegal buildings – but only in restive areas. In other areas, the authorities have been selective in their demolition orders. The campaign against illegal construction is thus being used to send a message: if you rebel against the regime, you will no longer enjoy the favours bestowed by it.
A further complication is that officials also accept hefty bribes from internally displaced people to allow them to use abandoned or partly demolished buildings. Additionally, the regime's militias and rank-and-file officers are raiding houses, ransacking and then fraudulently selling or leasing them.
0853 GMT: Syria. Al Jazeera English profiles Zubaida al-Meeki, the first female Alawite officer, to defect to the insurgency:
"The revolution gave dignity to the Syrian people and gave minorities a sense of belonging to one country. All of the sects in Syria have suffered so much under this regime," she says.
"When the regime shells towns, the shells do not discriminate between a sect and the other."
0828 GMT: Syria. Russian General Nikolai Makarov, a general staff chief, has said that Syrian insurgents have acquired portable surface-to-air missiles.
Makarov said, according to Interfax, "Militants fighting Syrian government forces have portable missile launchers of various states, including American-made Stingers. Who supplied them must still be determined."
0758 GMT: Israel-Palestine. Israeli forces have killed one member of Hamas, in their second round of air strikes in two days, after killed three others in raids on the ground on Tuesday.
Witnesses in Gaza said at least 10 rockets had been fired at Israel on Wednesday. Israeli police put the figure at 40, while paramedics said three people sustained shrapnel injuries. On Tuesday, a bomb wounded an Israeli officer on patrol on the border. Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attack.
The deadly exchange followed Tuesday's visit to Gaza by the Emir of Qatar, the first arrival of a head of state since 1999.
0738 GMT: Syria. Yousuf Basil and Holly Yan of CNN provide an account of a bomb which killed dozens at the funeral of a detainee in a Damascus suburb:
Mourners came to honor one of 14 men who died after his arrest by Air Force Intelligence --- a much feared security apparatus that dissidents accuse of hunting down anti-government activists.
Word spread quickly Tuesday that a Damascus hospital had a collection of unidentified bodies.
The families of the 14 men rushed to the scene -- only to discover the bodies of their loved ones bore signs of torture.
The outrage boiled over in the Damascus suburb of Muadamiyet al-Sham, where a funeral procession for one of the men morphed into a protest against President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Then came the explosion near the Al-Zaitoona mosque, which is a popular gathering site for anti-government protests.
"It was a car bomb parked next to the mosque where the people were gathered. The explosion killed at least 13 people and wounded over a hundred," [witness Ahmed] Al-Muadami said.
"One child was extremely disfigured ... we couldn't identify him."
0732 GMT: Syria. The commander of the insurgency's Tawheed Brigade has used YouTube video to deny reports of his assassination on a visit to the front lines in Aleppo.
The footage showed Abdel Qader Saleh recuperating in bed with a bandaged left arm and torso.
Pro-regime social media sites claimed that a military sniper had killed Saleh.
"I'm in good health and God willing, I will be among them [rebel fighters] in few days," Saleh said in the video. He told Bashar al-Assad, "We are coming to your Presidential palace."
0725 GMT: Tunisia. Yasmine Ryan of Al Jazeera English summarises the criticism of the Government and challenges that it faces, a year after the first election following the fall of the Ben Ali regime:
With the next election set for June 23, 2013, the constituent assembly has another six months to complete its task. If the first year is anything to go by, Tunisian activists remain as vigilant as ever to take to the streets if they believe the authorities have not gone far enough to dismantle the vestiges of the previous regime.
0525 GMT: Syria. Three months after insurgents entered Aleppo, the ongoing stalemate in the country's largest city has taken it out of the headlines. Regime shelling has never stopped, however, and on Tuesday it claimed more than 20 lives at a bakery in the Hanano neighbourhood.
The incident is not the first: dozens died at another bakery last month, and human rights organisations have condemned the indiscriminate shelling endangering civilians.
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria report that 202 people were killed by security forces on Tuesday, including 100 in Damascus and its suburbs.