Jordan (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Parliamentary Election --- But What Does It Mean?

Election queue in Jordan on Wednesday (Photo: Khalil Mazraawi/AFP)

See also Syria Live Coverage: A Growing Crisis Over Food?
Wednesday's Israel (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Netanyahu Claims Narrow Victory

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1530 GMT: Jordan. Opposition candidates have won a significant minority of the seats in Parliamentary elections, despite a boycott by some oppositon groups.

Initial results released by the Independent Electoral Commission had 18 opposition Islamists winning seats in the 150-seat Parliament. About a dozen leftists affiliated with pan-Arab nationalist groups, who are vocal critics of the Government. Fourteen victors from a centrist party are expected to lean toward the opposition rather than the Government in the legislature.

While supporters of King Abdullah claimed the majority of the seats, their vote total was far short of that in 2010.

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Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Gas Plant Siege Ends with 23 Hostages, 32 Attackers Killed

See also Bahrain Propaganda 101: Regime Looking for a Few Good Women on Twitter
Israel Feature: The Settlers and the Politician Trying to Re-Make the Jewish State
Syria Live Coverage: "Darayya is Being Pounded to Dust"
Saturday's Algeria (and Beyond) Coverage: Hostage Situation Continues at Gas Plant

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2241 GMT: Egypt. Protesters have set a courthouse in Alexandria on fire after the suspension of the trial of six senior police officers for deaths of protesters during the 2011 uprising.

Young men threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas. Two trucks that transport riot police was set ablaze.

Judge Mohammed Hammad Abdel-Hadi resigned from the case on Sunday, giving no reason. His resignation means a new trial for the officers accused of using excessive force.

Since President Hosni Mubarak was deposed in February, almost 100 police officers have been brought to trial on charges of killing and wounding protesters. All were acquitted or received suspended sentences.

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Egypt Feature: An Alternative Justice System in the Sinai (Revkin)

The predominately Bedouin residents of the Sinai have grown impatient with the government's inability to control violent crime and trafficking. Abandoned altogether by a state that had long treated them as second-class citizens, the Bedouin tribes of the Sinai have taken security matters into their own hands, administering justice through informal tribunals that rely increasingly on Islamic law. While ultraconservative Salafis complain that Egypt's new constitution ascribes too weak a role to Sharia, the battle over the religious character of the future legal framework has spilled over into the Sinai, where Islamists are taking advantage of the legal vacuum to organize informal tribunals that are implementing their own brand of Islamic justice. The emergence of a parallel Islamic justice system rivaling its government counterpart suggests that the Sinai is slowly taking on the dimensions of an Islamic sub-state. 

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Iran Live Coverage: How to "Engineer" an Election

"My husband is an engineer. He engineers elections." (Cartoon: Maya Neyestani)

See also Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

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1605 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update (Election Edition). More about the distinctive theme in today's Prayer sermon, delivered by the Guardian Council's Ayatollah Jannati, that while Iran has free elections, it is co-operation with the enemy to talk about free elections (see 1155 GMT)....

Jannati's threat to detained opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both of whom ran in the June 2009 Presidential election, was straightforward: “The public has identified your movement and knows your leaders and the leaders of sedition, and they know what your aim is; you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

And Jannati made clear that, while "those who meet the necessary criteria will never be refused a chance to run in the elections", those who "they lack them...clearly will not be allowed to run".

But here is where it gets really interesting:

Those who consider themselves men of politics and have had important roles in the Revolution should be ashamed of themselves for repeating the statement of the foreign enemies of the regime....

The political losers are now talking about free elections and one of them is quite powerful and since a while ago he has begun talking about this issue and the rest have followed his line.

Who is this "quite powerful...political loser"? Surely not President Ahmadinejad, given that the Supreme Leader handed him the 2009 victory? Former President Mohammad Khatami does not seem to qualify as "quite powerful"?

How about former President Hashemi Rafsanjani?

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Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad v. Parliament...and the Revolutionary Guards

See also Iran Live Coverage: Please Vote (P.S. --- We Did Not Rig the Last Election)

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1916 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). Forty-eight Iranian men, abducted in Syria last August and released yesterday in exchange for freedom for 2130 civilian detainees in Syrian prisons, arrive at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport:

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Iraq (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Protests Close Border with Jordan

See also Syria Live Coverage: A Mass Killing in Idlib Province?
Tuesday's Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Regime Shuts Away Its Political Prisoners

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Protest in Anbar Province Last Week1925 GMT: Libya. Four people have been killed, in clashes between Toubou tribesmen and a brigade linked to the Libyan army, in the southern town of Kufra.

A military spokesman claimed the Shield Libya brigade intervened "to prevent student casualties" after a skirmish between Toubou and Zwai tribesmen escalated inside Kufra University.

Local authorities ordered that the university, which is in a Toubou area, shut for two days until order is restored.

A tribal chief called on "the army to secure Kufra, and not a group of civilian revolutionaries who have no military principles".

Kufra, a town of about 40,000 people, is located in a triangle where the borders of Egypt, Chad. and Sudan meet. Fighting last February claimed more than 130 lives and displaced half the population. Last June, 47 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

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Bahrain (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Regime Shuts Away Its Political Prisoners

See also Syria Live Coverage: Has the Insurgent Advance Stalled?

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1900 GMT: Bahrain. The European Union has reacted to the regime's re-assertion of long prison sentences on 13 political prisoners with a call for their release. Spokesman Michael Mann said, "The EU has repeatedly asked the Bahraini authorities to consider an amnesty for all those arrested last year and tried on charges relating to the expression of their political opinion."

Mann said the European Union "fully respects the independence of the Bahraini judiciary" but "remains concerned about the lack of advancement of national reconciliation". He continued, "All sides should engage in a peaceful, inclusive and constructive dialogue, abstaining from all forms of violence and intimidation."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Assad Remains Defiant

2232 GMT: Syria. Brigadier General Salim Idris talks to Al Jazeera English, saying that his forces need more ammunition and weapons to fight Assad. Idris also says that special rebel units are working to protect and monitor chemical stockpiles.

2149 GMT: Bahrain British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt has criticised the Court of Cassation's decision to uphold the sentences against the 13 leading Bahrain activists and politicians. In a statement, Burt said:

At the time these individuals were sentenced, reports which were acknowledged by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry suggested that some had been abused in detention, denied access to legal counsel and were coerced into confessing.

I call on the government of Bahrain to meet all its human rights obligations and guarantee its citizens the fundamental liberties to which they are entitled.

I am deeply dismayed at the decision.

2006 GMT: Libya. In order to establish law and order and find a place for many former soldiers, over 6000 militiamen have been trained to be police, according to the new Interior Minister Ashour Shuail:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Assad Addresses the Nation

Iranian cartoonist Maya Neyestani on Syrian President Assad's New Year

See also Syria 1st-Hand: Fire and Ice in the Refugee Camp
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Back to the War of Attrition

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2055 GMT: Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out a general amnesty for Kurdish insurgents on Sunday but said Turkey official would continue to talk to the detained leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan.

Erdogan's chief adviser said last week that the officials had been discussing disarmament with Ocalan, after decades of armed struggle for Kurdish independence, and on Thursday two Kurdish lawmakers paid a rare visit to the PKK leader in his island prison.

Erdogan said Turkey was taking a two-pronged approach, with the State intelligence agency meeting Ocalan: "Talks with Ocalan is not a new process....I have said before that we will negotiate with (Kurdish) politicians and struggle against terrorism."

The Prime Minister said, "General amnesty for those who have been involved in terrorist activities is out of the question. House confinement for (Ocalan) is also out of the question."

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Back to the War of Attrition

See also Saudi Arabia Feature: A Precious Moment with the Religious Police
Bahrain Audio Feature: Why the Detention of Photojournalist Ahmed Humaidan Matters --- Scott Lucas with Monocle 24
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Deadly Car Bomb in Damascus

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1943 GMT: Syria. AFP opens its profile of elderly Christians sheltering near the front lines in Aleppo:

The aging Christians holed up inside a retirement home in the devastated northern Syrian city of Aleppo have no light, no telephone lines, and little idea of what is happening in the outside world.

But fellow Christians and rebel fighters still ensure they do not go hungry, bringing the dozen or so residents whatever food they can every day.

The St. Elie Rest Home, founded in 1863, is behind a black metal door on a street strewn with debris and rubbish a short way from the front line where rebels and regime forces face off against each other.

"We welcome everyone who has been abandoned or is in need," says Sister Marie, 75, the beaming Mother Superior.

"This is a place where life can be enjoyed," she adds, gesturing to the 20 rooms adjoining a cloister and courtyard with a fountain and greenery.

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