Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Failure Beyond the Grand Prix

Bahraini police surround photojournalist Mazen Mahdi and threaten to break his camera as he covers clashes on Sunday

See also Bahrain Analysis: Some Guy Wins Grand Prix, Regime Loses Legitimacy
Bahrain Special: Regime PR Fails at Home But Succeeds in New York Times
Syria Wired: The Latest from Social Media and EA's Readers
Turkey Live Coverage (23 April): The Kurdish Issue, Iraq, and the Region
Sunday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: A Death, A Hunger Striker, Injuries, Detentions...and a Grand Prix

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2056 GMT: The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria reports that 80 people died today at the hands of regime forces, including 50 in Hama and 21 in Idlib Province.

2043 GMT: Footage of the funeral today of Bahraini activist Salah Abbas Habib, allegedly slain by police:

2038 GMT: Amnesty International have criticised the further delay in the appeal court hearing for 14 detained opposition activists, declaring that the regime is "toying with the life" of human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, now on Day 75 of a hunger strike.

In a hearing lasting just a few minutes, the Court of Cassation in Manama postponed the appeal until 30 April, apparently without giving any reason. It is the second postponement since the court started considering the case on 2 April.

During today’s hearing the court was fenced off and surrounded by security officials, and each defendant could only have their lawyers and one family member present. None of the 14 defendants were in the court room.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Explosions in Damascus

Images from Syrian State TV of this morning's explosions in Damascus

See also Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Anticipating Today's Protests

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1800 GMT: As confirmation comes through of the arrest of the former head of intelligence of Libya's Qaddafi regime, there is a scramble over who will try him on criminal charges.

Mauritanian authorities arrested Abdullah al-Senussi, as he arrived on an overnight flight from the Moroccan city of Casablanca (see 1125 GMT).

Al-Senussi has been sought by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity. However, Libya's National Transitional Council want to put him on trial, and France is also seeking his extradition, citing his alleged role in the 1989 bombing of an airliner over Niger in which 54 French nationals died.

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Syria, Egypt, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: From Mohamed Bouazizi to the Tear-Gassing of Protests

2124 GMT: Earlier we reported that cell phone communication was shut down in the Salahaddine district, near the center of Aleppo (Map). Now we may know why.

This video is impossible for us to verify, but activists claim that it was taken from a protest on the Salahaddine district:

2105 GMT: The LCCS has once again raised the death toll:

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The Latest from Iran (18 December): Ahmadinejad Throws Down Another Challenge

2050 GMT: Spy Watch. State television has displayed an American-Iranian, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, accused of being spies for the US.

Hekmati said that he had served with US military intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq, working with the Army's "Advanced Research and Information Center", which "took money from the CIA to certain movies and games designed to change public opinion in the Middle East".

Hekmati "confessed", "[The] plan [of US intelligence] was to initially burn some valuable information, to give it free so that (Iran's) Intelligence Ministry would see the good things and then would contact me."

Iranian State TV showed a card with writing in English identifying the bearer as an "army contractor" and several photos claimed to be of Hekmati. In some, he was in military uniform with US army officers.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: What Will This Friday Bring?

2030 GMT: The LCCS reports that 40 people have died today in Syria:

7 children 3 women, 4 defected soldiers. The deaths are distributed as follows: 18 in Homs,7 in Idlib,9 in Damascus Suburbs (3 in each of kafarbatna and Domaair 2 in Douma, , 1 in Saqba,) 4 in Hama, and 2 in Daraa (Sanamain and Inkhil

1940 GMT: According to Nick Kristof, his videographer's camera was hit by tear gas or rubber bullets, and the attack only stopped when his cameraman, Adam Ellick,started to yell that he was an American journalist.

For his part, Adam has been pretty quiet since the incident, though his last tweet is pretty telling:

"This photo of graffiti pretty much sums up my night in #Bahrain with @NickKristof"

1931 GMT: Turning back to Syria, the LCCS is now reporting that 37 people have been killed by security forces loyal to President Bashar al Assad:

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Egypt, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Which Story Leads in Cairo?

Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Tuesday night

See also The Real Net Effect: Egypt, Dissent, and the #FreeMona Perfect Storm
Egypt Analysis: Assessing the Elections
Tuesday's Egypt LiveBlog: A Big Turnout and Some Glitches in the Elections
Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Protest in the Heart of Damascus

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2125 GMT: Josh Shahryar has done a great job wrapping up our Egypt coverage in the previous update, and we'll close the blog looking forward. By tomorrow, we should see the fuller results, and we'll watch as the nation, and the political parties, react. Suffice it to say, the Islamists did quite well, though with no single party likely to hold a majority, we'll most likely be looking at a coalition government. Then Egypt will have to learn the first lesson of Democracy - how to govern when not everyone agrees.

In Syria, we started by looking to Turkey, as new sanctions were announced today, but the big stories were closer to home. With tanks storming Dael, a mass-shooting in Idlib, and large student demonstrations in Aleppo, today was just another sign that this conflict is hardly isolated to Homs and Hama. Assad's problems are everywhere.

Which brings up the next point. Idlib has not seen violence like this in many weeks, though protests have steadily been growing there. Dael had zero military presence at the start of the day, and the army had to deploy dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, buses, and perhaps as many as 1000 soldiers to the city in order to commence a new crackdown. Aleppo, once untouchable, has seen protests of some sort nearly every day for the last week. Assad has problems, but he does not have forces everywhere he has problems, and even where he thinks he does not have problems he has problems.

As evidence of this, the LCCS has posted this video, reportedly showing the military bombardment of Rankous, north of Damascus. Two weeks ago we did not know where this town was, but since then we've seen an increased presence of protests, and now several days of bombardment:

And we've seen yet another crack in Assad's armor, as a large army unit defected today in Idlib. So even within Assad's forces, his trusted solution, he still has problems.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Protest in the Heart of Damascus

2039 GMT: But for all the reports of violence, we've received 10 reports of protests. This video shows a cute little girl leading an evening protest in the Qarabis district of Homs:

This crowd chants anti-regime protests in Jiza, Daraa:

2024 GMT: It's after 10 pm in Syria, but reports continue to come in that the crackdown continues. The LCCS reports that is Kiswah, outside of Damascus, police have conducted house-to-house raids, arresting many, in response to a student protest earlier in the day. A large explosion rocked the Daraa alBalad neighborhood of Daraa, followed by heavy gunfire. And in Latminah, Hama, a 47-year-old father of 4 was reportedly tortured to death after being arrested.

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Kuwait Feature: Explaining This Week's Occupation of Parliament (Diwan)

The world awoke to a new front in the Arab Spring as thousands of protestors fought through guards to occupy Kuwait's Parliament on Wednesday night. Chanting "this is our house" and "the people want the removal of the Prime Minister" the youthful crowd, accompanied by opposition parliamentarians, certainly looked the part of Arab revolutionaries. Yet Kuwait has been working toward this climax since before Tunisians took to the streets of Sidi Bouzeid. And while drawing momentum from Arab brethren in Egypt and elsewhere, Kuwait activists are not seeking regime overthrow but rather something even more rare -- a genuine constitutional monarchy in the Gulf.

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Syria, Kuwait (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Another Meeting, Another Occupation, More Deaths

2206 GMT: An impressive evening demonstration in Harasta, Damascus, on the outskirts of the city (MAP). The logos of the Syrian State media, as well as other news logos (we saw NBN, Lebanon's National Broadcasting Network) are scratched out, but international news logos are raised high:

2159 GMT: More details on the sitaution near Ma'arrat an Nouman:

Idlib: Maarat Nouman: Rocket propelled grenades and tank shells shower the residents of Wadi Aldayf following the defection of soldiers and news of civilian casualities

According to the LCCS, house to house raids have also started in the city and surrounding towns.

2141 GMT: More military bombardment is reported in Ma'arrat Shamsheh, near Ma'arrat an Nouman, Idlib province (MAP). The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a death in the area (MAP):

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Middle East Special: Will the Monarchies Survive? (Al Qassemi)

Monarchs at the Gulf Co-operation CouncilThe transformation of Arab monarchies into constitutional systems is a matter ofwhen rather than if. The alternative may be less appealing to those in power today. On a recent visit to Boston in which I met a number of Arab Gulf states students, the debate veered, as it tends to do nowadays, towards Arab constitutional monarchies. To my surprise it was a Qatari, a citizen of by far the richest county on earth often accused of political apathy who remarked to a friend and I, “I don’t agree with constitutional monarchies,” he paused, “I want nothing less than a republic.”

Without urgent non-cosmetic reform the Arab monarchies will simply be kicking the reform ball forward.

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