Syria Special: An Attack in Khan Shaykhoun --- Getting the Story Wrong for "Neutrality"

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News in Syria comes fast and furious. The regime makes claims, the opposition makes claims, Russia makes claims, Iran makes claims, the Saudis make claims, and the media tries to sort it out. It is a challenging, often uncomfortable task.

But "uncomfortable" or "challenging" are not synonymous with "impossible" and, frankly, sometimes the coverage falls far short of an adequate mark.

Today is a notable. example.

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Bahrain Interview: 4 Activists Analyse "The Story That Should Be Covered" (Rajab/Mohammed/Khalaf/Shehabi)

Ala'a Shehabi with FamilyAl Jazeera English interviews Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, before his detention on Saturday; "Mohammed", an activist; Abdulhadi Khalaf, professor of sociology at Lund University in Sweden; and Ala'a Shehabi, economist and activist:

What is the story that's not being covered?

Mohammed: The scale of the ongoing and continual violations of human rights are not being explained by the media. Even compared with Syria, the numbers of Bahrainis who have been tortured and otherwise abused and killed is quite high.

Nabeel Rajab: The problem is still that most commentators focus on the Sunni-Shia split as the most important issue, when the real story is about a nation fighting for democracy and a proper political and economic system, free from corruption.

Ala'a Shehabi: If we want to get away from general terms and move to more specific stories about people's daily lives during the uprising, the way people are living with being tear-gassed on a daily basis and the long term effects of tear gas on people's health is an important story.

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Afghanistan Follow-Up: Sunday's 18-Hour Battle in Kabul (Al Jazeera English)

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Gun battles between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters in the capital, Kabul, have ended after almost 18 hours of fierce fighting, according to government and police officials.

"The latest information we have about the Afghan parliament area is that the attack is over now and the only insurgent who was resisting has been killed," Hashmatullah Stanikzai, the Kabul police chief's spokesman, said on Monday.

There are conflicting reports regarding the number of casualties in the co-ordinated attacks that targeted mainly western installations in Kabul, which the Taliban described as the launch of a "spring offensive".

Defence ministry said 32 gunmen and three Afghan soldiers were killed in the operation against the multiple assaults, Reuters news agency reported.

However, AFP news agency said 36 fighters and eight members of security forces were killed and 44 others were wounded in the gun battle.

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Palestine Opinion: Britain's Deportation of Sheikh Raed Salah (Patel)

Sheikh Raed Salah (Photo: EPA)The circumstances surrounding Home Secretary Theresa May's decision to issue an exclusion order against Sheikh Raed Salah is a cause for great concern. It is unacceptable that the British government ministers can be influenced heavily by lobby groups on the basis of little more than conflated "evidence" and hearsay, and to such an extent that a senior minister can actually be "misled" and operate under "misapprehension". That was the damning conclusion of the Upper Immigration Tribunal's vice-president who considered Sheikh Salah's appeal against the deportation order.

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Turkey Video Feature: Will the "Coup Trial" Heal Political Wounds? (Al Jazeera English)

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Earlier this week in our Turkey Live Coverage, Ali Yenidunya covered the trial of plotters of a 1980 military coup, including 94-year-old former President Kenan Evren and 86-year-old former commander of the Air Force Tahsin Şahinkaya.

Al Jazeera English's Inside Story asks if the trial will heal political wounds or cause further tensions. Guests are Ergun Babahan, a columnist for Turkey's Star newspaper; Hassan Koni, a professor of International Law at the University of Culture; and Akin Unver; a lecturer in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

Syria 1st-Hand Video: Secretly Meeting the Activists (Al Jazeera English)

An Al Jazeera journalist, who cannot be identified because of the risk of identifying his contacts, moved within Syria for weeks to gather testimony and images about the uprising. This is his video, filmed with an iPhone:

Palestine Opinion: Have Hunger Strikers "Reinvigorated Resistance"? (Silver)

Woman with Poster of Hana al-ShalabiKhader Adnan and Hana al Shalabi have reinvigorated resistance and raised the long-flagging morale of people on the streets. This is a dramatic testament to the adage that change can only come from below --- so maybe it's time we stop looking to the top.

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Russia Feature: 100s Arrested in Protests over Putin Victory (Al Jazeera English)

See also Russia Feature: Putin Wins Election, But Will There Be Protests?

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Thousands of Russians have rallied in Moscow and other cities to challenge Vladimir Putin's victory in Russia's presidential election, prompting hundreds of arrests.

Police said they had arrested 250 people in Moscow and 300 in Saint Petersburg on Monday after moving in roughly to break up demonstrations against what opposition activists say was a rigged vote.

About 20,000 anti-Putin protesters turned out in Pushkin Square in central Moscow chanting "Russia Yes! Putin No!".

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Iran Special Analysis: The "Invented" Election

To modify Voltaire's famous statement about God, "if the 60% turnout did not exist, it would have to be invented".  Beyond the battles within the establishment that will soon re-emerge --- reduced to "Supreme Leader v. Ahmadinejad", but going far beyond this amongst the conservative and principlist factions and politicians --- the immediate demand on the regime was to establish its legitimacy.

The truth is that we will never know exactly how many Iranians --- amidst economic problems, worries over corruption and mismanagement, political in-fighting, restrictions on dissent and communications, imprisonments and harassments --- decided that voting might make a difference. 

What we do know is that Iranian authorities went to great lengths to set up and control the show.

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US Politics Snap Analysis: Romney Wins Michigan & Arizona, But the Battle Continues

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Note the significant difference in the stories below about Mitt Romney's narrow victory in the Republican primary in Michigan, his home state, and his more comfortable win in Arizona --- The Washington Post portrays the night as "an important boost" for the former Massachusetts governor, while Al Jazeera English assesses they "will do little to dispel the doubts" about Romney's campaign. Nate Silver of the website 538.com summarises, "Tonight in awkward middle ground between 'huge night for Romney!'narratives and "'boy that was close!' narratives."

The easy conclusion is that Romney did enough to prevent being stuck with a Loser label that cannot be removed but did not do enough to put away his main challenger, Rick Santorum, before the showpiece of "Super Tuesday" next week, in which voters in 10 states will make decisions.

Beyond that, the "safe" analysis might that by Chris Cilizza, published below: "Romney is — as he has been since the day he entered this race — the best funded and best organized candidate in the race. That means that Romney has the operation in place to capi­tal­ize on the boost of momentum that he should get — in terms of media coverage and donor dollars — in the wake of these two victories."

But then again, no analysis has proven "safe" in this Republican campaign....

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