Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Historic Aleppo Burns

See also US War on Terror Feature: The Death of a Guantanamo Bay Detainee
Saudi Arabia Feature: The Trial of the Political Dissidents
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Political Drift in New York, Military Confrontation in Aleppo

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1925 GMT: Yemen. The World Food Programme has said that almost 50% of Yemenis go hungry amid the world's third-highest rate of child malnutrition.

"Five million people, or 22 percent of the population, can't feed themselves or buy enough to feed themselves....These are mostly landless laborers, so they don't grow their own food, and with high food prices they can't buy it either," WFP spokesman Barry Came said. "In addition, there is another five million who are being really hard hit by high food prices and on the edge of being food insecure. So 10 million people in this country go to bed hungry every night."

The number of Yemenis receiving daily WFP food rations has risen from 1.2 million in January to more than 3.8 million, but poor infrastructure and fear of kidnappings have complicated the logistics of providing food aid.

Thirteen percent of Yemeni children are now acutely malnourished.

1900 GMT: Egypt and Turkey. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has signed a deal to loan $1 billion from Turkey, half of the aid package Ankara promised Cairo earlier this month.

Morsi completed the agreement with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after giving a speech at the conference of the ruling party AKP.

1700 GMT: Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has indicated that Ankara will act if there is a repeat of a Friday mortar strike on its territory from inside Syria.

The mortar damaged homes and workplaces in the Akcakale border area.

Davutoglu told reporters in New York that Ankara had reported the incident to the United Nations and NATO: "I would like the public to know that if such breaches towards our borders continue we are reserving our rights and we are exercising our rights."

1630 GMT: Bahrain. An appeals court has reduced the sentences imposed on three detained athletes from 15 years to 1 year.

Mohammed Mirza, his brother Ali Mirza, and Mohammed Jawad, all handball players who had played for the national team, were tried before a military court last year. They were charged with being part of a group that allegedly burned down a farm last February. Many have argued for their innocence and allege that they were caught up in a wider crackdown targeting Shi'a athletes. They are expected to be released from prison soon, based on the length of time they have already served.

At the time of the sentencing last September, Mohammed and Ali's father Mirza Salman Abdulla said in an interview:

My sons didn't do anything. This is all nonsense and not true. Until the crisis happened, they were outside Bahrain and they are not involved in politics. My two sons always loved their country and sports. That is what they did all their lives.

1438 GMT: Egypt. Ahmed Shafiq, who was Prime Minister in th3 Mubarak regime and who lost June's Presidential election, has been referred to criminal court with 10 officials of the Ministry of Aviation on charges of "profiteering and facilitating the [illegal] acquisition of state funds".

1428 GMT: Bahrain. Trying to counter criticism of the killing of teenager Ali Hussein Neama on Neama, police have produced an 8-minute video on the "violence" and "terrorism" of demonstrators that evening.

Halfway through the video, there is a brief reference to one protester who was "discovered to be injured" and then "pronounced. There is no mention that he was hit by police birdshot.

1358 GMT: Syria. State media and activists report a bomb outside the building of Syrian intelligence in the Kurdish city of Qamishlo today, Video has been posted of the explosion.

The Local Coordination Committees report that 70 people have been killed today by security forces, including 25 in Damascnjus and its suburbs and 23 in Deir Ez Zor Province.

1258 GMT: Bahrain. The pro-government Gulf News Daily is in full-outrage mode today, blaming the opposition for the police's shooting and killing of 17-year-old Ali Hassan Namaa on Friday. However, at least one of its two stories is entirely false, according to the Government's Information Affairs Agency (IAA).

A front page headline declares "Stop this Madness" and features an "anguished plea" from an unnamed "grieving Bahraini mother" whom the paper claims is from Sadad, the same village as Ali. The "mother" attacks the "primitive carelessness [of] the opposition and terrorists", claiming that opposition leaders are pushing children into violence.

The front page also carries a story claiming that Ali's death was "unavoidable" because he was not taken to a medical facility. Unnamed "sources" told Gulf Daily News that "instead of being taken to hospital...he was taken to a home in the village where he was 'treated' by amateur medics and he reportedly bled to death".

A few hours later, the IAA had to correct the paper's glaring factual error, confirming that Ali died at the scene:

Once the crowd had dispersed, police discovered one of the participants in the attack lying on the ground. An ambulance was called, arriving on the scene by 11:40 to treat 17 year-old Ali Hussein Neama. Medics tried to resuscitate him but were unable to and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Earlier reports that he had been taken to a home for treatment are inaccurate.

1141 GMT: Syria. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has declared that Baghdad will conduct random inspections of Syria-bound Iranian planes passing through its airspace.

Zebari's statement, in an interview to the Al-Hayat newspaper follows criticism from the US that Iraq was allowing the Iranians to move arms and personnel to Syria.

Zebari said the Americans had again raised their concerns last week on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York: "We have informed [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton and US officials that the government plans to bring planes down and conduct random inspections."

(Cross-posted from Iran Live Coverage)

1040 GMT: Syria. Insurgents, including the Tawheed Brigade, have claimed a partial takeover of the Jandoul roundabout in Aleppo, killing 15 regime troops and destroying three tanks.

1035 GMT: Syria. AFP reports, "Syrians Make Brisk Business in Black Market Petrol":

Like most commodities in sanctions-hit and war-stricken Syria, the price of petrol has risen dramatically since the start of the uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad 18 months ago.

Before the uprising erupted, a liter of petrol cost 45 Syrian pounds (less than a dollar). Now it can fetch more than twice as much if one is lucky enough to find it.

0955 GMT: Iraq. The death toll from this morning's car bombings and attacks has been updated to at least 23 people, with attacks in Taji, the killing of a police colonel in south Baghdad followed by a car bomb targeting security forces, an assault on an army checkpoint in the north of the capital, car bombings aimed at police in Balad Ruz, Baquba, and Kut, and an explosion near a Shia shrine in Madaen.

0915 GMT: Egypt. Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports on Ahmed Abdallah, a Muslim television preacher who has been charged with blasphemy for allegedly desecrating a copy of the Bible.

Abdallah was videotaped burning the Bible in a protest in Cairo earlier this month.

0905 GMT: Iraq. At least nine people have been killed in a series of car bombings this morning.

In Taji, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Baghdad, eight people were killed and at least 22 wounded in three attacks. Some reports said the parked cars exploded near Shia Muslim homes in the mainly Sunni town. Others said the blasts targeted police checkpoints.

One person was killed by a bomb in a Shia neighbourhood in northwestern Baghdad.

0735 GMT: Bahrain. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel Prize Winner who endured 15 years of house arrest before release in 2010, has signed a book for Bahraini activist Zainab Alkhawaja, "Never give up".

Alkhawaja, detained on several occasions since the start of mass protests in February 2011 and shot in the leg by police, has been in prison since 2 August.

0725 GMT: Libya. Hundreds of Libyans turned over weapons at collection points in Tripoli's Martyrs Square and Benghazi's Freedom Square on Saturday, as well as in Zintan and Yefrin.

The initiative was spurred by anti-militia rallies amid calls for a united army and this month's violence near the US Consulate in Benghazi.

0615 GMT: Bahrain. As thousands mourned 17-year-old Ali Hussain Neama, shot and killed by police on Friday, youths blocked streets, clashed with security forces, and protested late into the night:

0555 GMT: Syria. Saturday brought a new symbol for the devastation of the conflict, as the fighting in Aleppo not only reached the Souk al-Madina, the ancient covered market which is a World Heritage Site, but left hundreds of shops burned and destroyed.

The dramatic images were only a small part of the Syrian story, however. In Aleppo, fighting was also reported at Bab Antakya, the stone gateway to the Old City, on the third day of the insurgents' renewed offensive. Beyond Syria's largest city, airstrikes and shelling were reported in Daraa, Deir Ez Zor, Homs, Idlib, and Latakia, while the Free Syrian Army claimed control over an army barracks in eastern Daraa.

The Local Coordination Committees claimed the deaths of 126 people at the hands of security forces, including 64 in Damascus and its suburbs, 27 in Aleppo Province, and 18 in Deir Ez Zor Province.