Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 1:05 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Live, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 0845 GMT: Live Coverage has been re-titled, "Double Car Bomb in Aleppo 'Kills Dozens'", and moved to the top of the homepage.
Bahrain, Libya, Mohammad Mushaima, Syria Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 12:21 | Josh Shahryar in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Doctors Nader Diwani, Ali Alekri, and Mahmoud Asghar receive the verdict of an appeals court, 14 June 2012
The time for the West to exert pressure on Bahrain is now. Not tomorrow. Not in a week. Not in a month and certainly not in a year. King Hamad's regime has consistently failed to uphold its lawful duties towards its citizens, trampling upon their rights repeatedly and without shame. It has promised reform only to quash those calling for reform. It has filled prisons with human rights activists whom it claims are agents of Iran, without presenting a shred of evidence that they are responsible for anything but the defense of people's internationally-recognised human rights.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 6:19 | James Miller in EA Live, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2038 GMT: Syria. At the end of the day (it's nearly midnight in Syria) at least 150 people have been killed by Assad forces, according to the Local Coordination Committees:
50 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs (most of them in Eastern Ghota and 17 in the shelling of Harasta); 30 in Aleppo (most were field-executed in Jami'yat Al-Zahra neighborhood); 29 in Daraa; 21 in Deir Ezzor; 12 in Homs; 5 in Idlib; and 3 in Hama (one of them was martyred in Aleppo).
See our note on the casualty figures put forth by the LCC.
The LCC's death toll often rises overnight as they confirm more deaths.
The number is shockingly high to many, but sadly it is about average now. However, the intensity of the violence in and around Damascus was nothing like average. While violence sometimes spikes for a day, or maybe a few days, it also may be a sign that the battle for the eastern suburbs is intensifying.
There is another story to carefully watch over the next few days...
Monday, October 1, 2012 at 10:01 | James Miller in EA Live, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2100 GMT: Syria. Meanwhile, the daily death toll is Syria has reached at least 164, according to the Local Coordination Committees:
52 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs (including 13 in Douma and 10 in Harasta), 42 in Idlib (30 of them were martyred in a massacre in Seqlein), 41 in Aleppo (including 11 martyrs in Masaken Hanano, and 12 in Karm Al-Jabal), 20 in Daraa, 4 in Homs, 2 in Deir Ezzor, 2 in Hama and 1 in Lattakia.
See our note on the casualty figures put forth by the LCC.
2025 GMT: Syria. The newest information:
Now we know a little more about this video. It was originally posted on September 26th, but it was posted under a different description. The old description was "the American Journalist الصحفي الاميركي" but the new one is "Austin Tice still alive":
;)
It was discovered on the 26th by an opposition Facebook page, but was shared without comment as to who is responsible for the kidnapping:
Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 11:46 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Live, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
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
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.
Saturday, September 29, 2012 at 15:29 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran UPDATE 1450 GMT: An indication of the size of the crowd mourning Ali Hussein Neama:
UPDATE 1430 GMT: Images from the mourning for the slain teenager Ali Hussain Neama, whose father said, "Ali was actively participating in peaceful prodemocracy protests":
Ali Hussein Neama, Bahrain Tuesday, September 25, 2012 at 18:57 | James Miller in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Insurgents watch regime aircraft shell Sheikh Ali in Syria's Aleppo Province on Monday
2004 GMT: Syria. There are still more late-breaking reports of artillery shelling in many towns across Daraa province, Aleppo, Idlib province, and around Damascus. However, none of the reports is as interesting as the claim that several additional large explosions have rocked Jubata al Khashab, in Quneira province, near the Golan Heights (see update 1420).
Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 9:00 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Protest march along Budaiya Highway, 14 September 2012
"We need supplies," said the doctor, "Who can go get them?" One activist, a computer engineer in his 20s, quickly volunteered and invited me to go with him. It was nearly midnight and the injuries were piling into the makeshift medical clinic in a home in the Sanabis village, a suburb of Manama, the Bahraini capital. Injured protesters couldn't be brought to hospitals or medical centres where they'd likely be arrested, so they were treated inside the villages. Volunteer medics were out of burn ointment and IV syringes, and needed someone to bring them from another makeshift clinic on the other side of the village.
There was a rare silence outside on the street. The protesters, mostly shabab (youth), had been dispersed only minutes earlier when dozens of police stormed through firing tear gas, rubber bullets and bird shot. The stench of gas still lingered; it never really disappeared fully from Sanabis during the two days of protests there.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 at 10:28 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
The most dramatic moment of the hearing occurred when Dr Nada Dhaif --- sentenced to a long prison sentence in 2011 by a military court, with the term revoked this summer on appeal --- challenged the Bahraini Foreign Minister: "We hold you responsible in front of the [Human Rights Council today."
The Foreign Minister, "shaken from the speech", insisted no one was being detained "for free expression": "We had a human rights situation and we are dealing with it." He then made his headline announcement --- whether it was planned in advance or in response to the pressure in the hearing, we do not know --- that the regime will now accept the visit of a UN Special Rapporteur.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 at 6:31 | James Miller in Africa, EA Global, EA Live, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2148 GMT: Syria. The daily death toll has reached at least 150, according to the Local Coordination Committees:
72 of them were in Damascus and suburbs including 30 in Hajar Aswad, 20 were slaughtered in Jobar and 3 were field executed in Qadam. 32 martyrs in Aleppo most of them are in Manbej, 25 in Hama most of them are in Hwaija village and Masha' Arba'een neighborhood, 10 martyrs in Deir Ezzor most of them in Almohasan, 5 in Daraa, 3 in Idlib, 2 in Latakia and a martyr in Homs.
See our note on the casualty figures put forward by the Local Coordination Committees).
September is on track to be one of the bloodiest months in the recent history of the Middle East. August in Syria was the bloodiest of the last 10 years, even bloodier than any single month of conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan, even when using conservative numbers.
