Taking a walk down the road of the chain of events across the Middle East that has taken the world on an unexpected shock wave! See details and recap as reported by Reuters:
* Clashes reported in Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya
* Obama says Mideast rulers must "get out ahead of change"
* Rulers mix economic, political concessions with repression
(updates throughout)
By Paul Taylor
PARIS, Feb 16 (Reuters) -
Anti-government protests inspired by popular revolts that
toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt are gaining pace around
the Middle East and North Africa despite political and economic
concessions by nervous governments.
Clashes were reported in tightly controlled oil producer
Libya, sandwiched between Egypt and Tunisia, while new protests
erupted in Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Iraq on Wednesday.
The latest demonstrations against long-serving rulers came
after U.S. President Barack Obama, commenting on the overthrow
of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, declared: "The world is
changing...if you are governing these countries, you've got to
get out ahead of change, you can't be behind the curve."
With young people able to watch pro-democracy uprisings in
other countries on satellite television or the Internet, and to
communicate with like-minded activists on social networks hard
for the secret police to control, authoritarian governments
across the region have grounds to fear contagion.
Protests spread across Yemen on Wednesday demanding an end
to the president's three decades in power, and a 21-year-old
demonstrator died in clashes with police in the south, witnesses
and medical sources said.
In Sanaa, capital of the Arabian Peninsula state, hundreds
of government loyalists wielding batons and daggers jumped out
of cars to chase around 800 protesters marching in the streets.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda
who has been in power in fractious Yemen for 32 years, was
quoted by the state news agency as saying the unrest was a
foreign plot to foment chaos in Arab countries.
Saleh has pledged to step down when his term expires in 2013
and offered dialogue with the opposition, but radical protesters
are demanding he go now.
In Bahrain, protesters poured into the centre of the capital
Manama on Wednesday for the third successive day to mourn a
demonstrator killed in clashes with security forces on Tuesday.
The emirate has a history of protest over economic hardship,
the lack of political freedom and sectarian discrimination by
the Sunni Muslim rulers against the Shi'ite majority.
Some 2,000 protesters demanding a change of government were
encamped at a major road junction in Manama, seeking to emulate
rallies on Cairo's Tahrir Square that toppled Mubarak.
Though itself only a minor oil exporter, Bahrain's stability
is important for neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where oilfields are
located in an area populated by an oppressed Shi'ite minority.
DISTURBANCES AT IRAN FUNERAL
In Iran, supporters and opponents of the hardline Islamic
system clashed in Tehran during a funeral procession for a
student shot at an anti-government rally two days ago, state
broadcaster IRIB reported. Both sides claimed Sanee Zhaleh was
a martyr to their cause and blamed the other for his death.
Monday's rallies in Tehran and several other Iranian cities
were the first staged by the Green pro-democracy movement since
security forces crushed huge protests in the months after
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 re-election.
Hundreds of opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in
power since 1969, clashed with police and government supporters
in the eastern city of Benghazi in Wednesday's early hours, a
witness and local media said.
Reports from the port city, 1,000 km (600 miles) east of the
capital Tripoli, said protesters armed with stones and petrol
bombs set fire to vehicles and fought with police in a rare
outbreak of unrest in the oil-exporting country.
Gaddafi's opponents used the Facebook social network to call
for protests across Libya on Thursday.
In Iraq, three people were killed and dozens wounded in the
southern city of Kut as protesters demanding better basic
services fought with police and set government buildings on
fire, hospital and police sources said.
Some shouted, "Down, down (Prime Minister Nuri al-) Maliki's
government, down, down with corruption," echoing rallies that
have buffeted other parts of the Arab world, although Maliki
unlike other Arab leaders was democratically elected.
Iraq is still struggling to get back on its feet almost
eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator
Saddam Hussein. Infrastructure is dilapidated, electricity is in
short supply and jobs are scarce.
POLITICAL, ECONOMIC CONCESSIONS
Rulers in several countries, drawing lessons from events in
Tunisia and Egypt, have announced political changes and moved to
cut prices of basic foodstuffs and raise spending on job
creation in efforts to pre-empt spreading unrest.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika promised to lift a
19-year-old state of emergency soon and has acted to reduce the
cost of staple foods in the North African oil and gas exporter.
Authorities deployed an estimated 30,000 police in Algiers
on Saturday to prevent a banned pro-democracy march. Several
hundred protesters defied the ban and dozens were detained.
A coalition of civil society and human rights groups and an
opposition party vowed afterwards to demonstrate every Saturday
until the military-backed government is removed.
Morocco, where the main banned Islamist opposition movement
warned last week that "autocracy" would be swept away unless
there were deep democratic reforms, announced on Tuesday it
would almost double state subsidies to counter an increase in
commodity prices and address social needs.
Syria, controlled by the Baath Party for the last 50 years,
released a veteran Islamist activist on Tuesday after he went on
hunger strike following his arrest 11 days ago for calling for
Egyptian-style mass protests, human rights activists said.
Jordan's King Abdullah has sacked his prime minister and
appointed a new government led by a former general who promised
to widen public freedom in response to anti-government protests.
Countries with oil and gas wealth such as Saudi Arabia and
Algeria appear better placed than poorer countries like Egypt
and Tunisia to buy social peace.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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