Tunisia Snapshot: How Its Youth Moved from Fear to Whispering to the "Jasmine Revolution" (Sam)

And then, WikiLeaks reveals what everyone was whispering. And then, a young man immolates himself. And then, 20 Tunisians are killed in one day.

And for the first time, we see the opportunity to rebel, to take revenge on the "royal" family who has taken everything, to overturn the established order that has accompanied our youth. An educated youth, which is tired and ready to sacrifice all the symbols of the former autocratic Tunisia with a new revolution: the Jasmine Revolution – the true one.

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Tunisia Analysis: Is This The Fall of the Government? (Whitaker)

The Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali may try to cling on, but his regime now has a fin de siècle air about it. He came to power in 1987 by declaring President Bourguiba unfit for office. It's probably just a matter of time before someone else delivers that same message to Ben Ali.

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Egypt Analysis: The Tragedy of The Opposition (Roccu)

By its glaring inability to take these grievances seriously, the institutional opposition has condemned itself to continuing irrelevance in parliamentary life and has prevented a credible political articulation of the economic and social demands of both industrial and agricultural workers, ignoring that these movements could indeed constitute the much-needed popular support for a political opposition to the Mubarak regime.

Thus, it is not the split between secular and religious opposition, but rather the one between institutional and popular oppositions that constitutes the foundation for the survival --- that's what it is: mere survival – of Egyptian authoritarianism.

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Wikileaks Special: Dissecting the Claim "Saudi Arabia A Cash Machine for Terrorists"

A fine example this weekend of keeping a careful eye on press coverage of the WikiLeaks documents and using the original cables to reach a more considered judgement....

The Guardian of London headlines, "WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists". This is supported by the sub-headline: "Hillary Clinton memo highlights Gulf states' failure to block funding for groups like al-Qaida, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba".

Not exactly.

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Afghanistan: Almost 1 in 10 Winning Parliamentary Candidates Disqualified (Boone)

Almost one in 10 of Afghanistan's victorious parliamentary candidates were disqualified for cheating today after an investigation into widespread fraud during September's election.

Twenty-one candidates were stripped of their win by the electoral complaints commission (ECC) for "irregularities, usage of fake votes and the influence of provincial officials". The disqualifications will heighten tensions in the country with the publication of the final election results only days away.

It is more than two months since Afghans went to the polls for only the second time to elect MPs. The results are likely to dramatically reduce the influence of Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group, who have traditionally dominated Afghanistan.

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Torture: Britain Pays Out --- So When Does the US Accept Responsibility? (Gude)

The British government's settlement agreement to pay compensation to former Guantánamo detainees  over claims that they were unlawfully captured and abused while in custody is a meaningful, though not complete, government statement on its complicity in extraordinary rendition and torture. Coming so soon after George W Bush's boast that he enthusiastically authorised torture, the British move highlights the absurdity of the American political and legal processes that so easily prevents any accountability for such blatant misconduct and lawlessness.

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Burma/Myanmar Update: Low Turnout, Criticism for Election

Reports from Burma indicate that many voters heeded opposition calls to boycott Sunday's election, with two military-back parties certain to win most of the Parliamentary contests.

The vote took place amid tight security, with barbed wire and officers in body armour carrying assault rifles at major polling locations, and a ban on foreign reporters and election monitors. The Guardian of London, despite the ban, was able to tour 20 stations in Rangoon. The newspaper claimed that many were empty throughout the day. An official from the Asian Network for Free Elections said the overall voter turnout was less than 50%, with less than 30% in several regions.

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Head of British Intelligence: We Don't Torture (But You Won't Find Out If We Do)

I am not sure the main story is in the first paragraph of this article by Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian of London: the real stunner would have been if the head of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, had announced that his officers were regularly waterboarding and breaking kneecaps.

In lieu of that, I think the real take-away here --- in the first public speech by an MI6 head in the agency's century of existence --- is the levels of barricades that Joh Sawer set up to prevent any exposure of MI6 activities.

In short, the unprecedented appearance was to push back against the pressure, as in the legal case of Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused on three continents, for British intelligence to comply with demands for information. That includes placing MI6 above the legal process: no court can be allowed, in Sawers' view, to have access to documents or testimony.

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Humiliate, Strip, Threaten: "Enhanced Interrogation", British Style (Cobain)

The British military has been training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions, the Guardian has discovered.

Training materials drawn up secretly in recent years tell interrogators they should aim to provoke humiliation, insecurity, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning, and suggest ways in which this can be achieved.

One PowerPoint training aid created in September 2005 tells trainee military interrogators that prisoners should be stripped before they are questioned. "Get them naked," it says. "Keep them naked if they do not follow commands." Another manual prepared around the same time advises the use of blindfolds to put prisoners under pressure.

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Iran and Lebanon: Ahmadinejad Plays Second Fiddle to Hezbollah's Nasrullah (Younis)

Many Lebanese would have a lot to say about claims that Iran is a "unifying force in the region", but the speech did make clear that Nasrallah's crowd appeal is unmatched and that his power among many Shias does not need to be enforced by Iran. If anything, Hezbollah deftly staged a welcome for Ahmadinejad designed to encourage the Iranians to dig deeper and give more generously to Hezbollah's cause.

While Ahmadinejad was still speaking, I whispered to the teenage girl sitting in front of me: "Who do you prefer; Ahmadinejad or Nasrallah?" "Nasrallah!" she replied rolling her eyes. "Nasrallah is one of us. And anyway, Ahmadinejad is boring."

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