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 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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Iran Live Coverage: The Smog Shuts Down Tehran

Tehran skyline on Saturday

See also Iran Feature: The Economy in 2013
Saturday's Iran Live Coverage: Nuclear Talks to Resume?

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1644 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Turkish Front). The State news agency Anatolia reports that a cargo plane carrying 1.5 tons of gold, currently being held at an İstanbul airport, is en route to Iran.

Turkey has been paying for Iranian natural gas with an increase in gold exports of 11,000% in 2012.

The Airbus A-300, owned by a Turkish private company, landed at Atatürk Airport for refuelling and personnel reshuffle on 1 January. It reportedly flew from an African country, possibly Ghana, with a listed destination of Dubai.

The plane is currently locked, with its front door and cargo gate sealed and a special security team on guard. Anatolia said the plane will depart after the necessary documents are presented.

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Iran Live Coverage: The Supreme Leader Tries to Bolster His Popularity

See also Iran Analysis: Preparing for Elections, Ahmadinejad Tries to Replace His Vice President
Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: A Collapsing Economy?

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1954 GMT: Oil Watch. Turkey's imports of Iranian oil held steady at around 100,000 barrels per day from September to December, data from a shipping source and Reuters indicate.

The volume is 45% down from Ankara's 2011 purchases of about 180,000 bpd and more than 60% lower from peak imports of 250,000-280,000 bpd in early 2012.

Iran State media highlights the unchanged imports but somehow fails to mention the sharp fall compared to the start of last year.

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Syria (and Beyond) Coverage: UN --- Death Toll Passes 60,000

People run from a regime airstrike on the Damascus suburb of Douma --- activists report that there were 20 deaths

See also Libya Satire: A Beginner's Guide to Democacy...and Slapstick
Wednesday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Aleppo Airport Is Briefly Closed

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2044 GMT: Syria. An airstrike on the Jobar section of Homs today:

1726 GMT: Syria. Insurgents drive a captured regime in the Jabal al-Zawiya area:

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: On Verge of "Hell" or "Sacred Birth"?

See also Sunday's Syria Live Coverage: "220 Executed" as Regime Advances in Homs

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1935 GMT: Syria. Brown Moses considers a video, circulating since Saturday, claiming to be of a regime soldier executed by an Islamist brigade in Harem in Idlib Province.

Harem, just over a mile from the Turkish border, was captured by insurgents last week.

1930 GMT: Syria. Claimed footage of insurgents blowing up a regime tank today:

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2012 in Review: How Did EA's Predictions Turn Out?

The Question We Asked Last Year: A Reliable Prediction? --- Right to Left: Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Qaddafi, Yemen's Saleh, Syria's Assad, Iran's Khamenei

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On 1 January, I offered some predictions about the year ahead. How did they turn out?...

4. Speaking of Syria, things will get worse before they get better. The Arab League observers will produce a middling report, one that speaks of a crisis that needs fixing but will be slow to blame the highest levels of the Assad regime. International outcry will be loud. Eventually, someone will crack, and there will be intervention.

However, I would be shocked if this happened before April, and absolutely bewildered if it happened before March. The opposition is still, in the eyes of the world, not organised enough to serve as a skeleton upon which the international community can build a mission.

In the meantime, the protests will not go away, and more and more people will defect. Those defections, however, will not reach a tipping point for a long time for the regime, unless that international intervention happens.

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Turkey Opinion: Democracy v. "Erdogan's Personal Lust for Power" (Akyol)

All such accomplishments of the ruling AKP have recently been overshadowed — not by the “hidden Islamist agenda” that the secularists feared, but a more mundane problem: lust for power, especially Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s personal lust for power.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Brahimi's Futile Mission to Moscow?

2124 GMT: Syria. A message from Kafranbel:

Pac-man makes a debut in Kafranbel, and the message is gold. || #Syriayfrog.com/h7erzhvj

— NMSyria (@NMSyria) December 28, 2012

It may be hard to make out, but the "Pac Man" is really the opposition flag, gobbling up AK-47s on its way to eating Assad. The "ghosts" chasing Pac Man are the flags of Russia, China, Iran, and (perhaps) the US (it's hard to see, but it's red and blue).

2110 GMT: Iraq. Across much of Iraq, large protests have been held today against government policies and behaviors that some Sunni Muslims view as sectarian in nature. In Fallujah alone there may have been tens of thousands in the streets. AP reports:

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Sunnis angry over perceived second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government massed along a major western highway and elsewhere in the country Friday for the largest protests yet in a week of demonstrations...

The biggest of Friday's demonstrations took place on a main road to Jordan and Syria that runs through the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in the Sunni-dominated desert province of Anbar, west of Baghdad.

Several thousand protesters took to the streets in Fallujah, holding aloft placards declaring the day a "Friday of honor." Some carried old Iraqi flags used during the era of former dictator Saddam Hussein, whose Sunni-dominated government was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion nearly a decade ago.

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Iran Live Coverage: Tehran Picks A Fight Too Far with Turkey

See also Iran Analysis: Rafsanjani Strikes Back (and Why the Supreme Leader is Allowing It)
Wednesday's Iran Live Coverage: "Supreme Leader Ordered House Arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi"

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2255 GMT: Nuclear Watch --- Retraction Edition. Earlier today, Iranian media circulated this quote from Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi indicating a possible deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency, "If external threats were defused, then they --- the IAEA could be enabled to inspect [the military facility at Parchin" (see 0925 GMT).

Somebody in the regime was none too happy with this apparent shift in the Iranian position because Qashqavi has issued a convoluted "clarification" tonight:

In my speech which I delivered in Tehran University, there are two subjects in this speech. In one of them I delivered my speech regarding national security of Iran and the other was about the nuclear issue.

One of the correspondents who was in this speech mixed two subjects from two separate issues and in his personal perception of this speech, he delivered his perception regarding this matter but in the text of my speech there was not any kind of this sentence because [there were] two separate issues which were delivered by me and there is no connection between the two matters."

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