Obama set for outreach to skeptical Arab world, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* "Arab spring" speech seeks to reset relations

* Arab disappointment likely on Israel-Palestinian issue

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will lay out a new U.S. strategy toward a skeptical Arab world on Thursday, offering fresh aid to promote democratic change as he seeks to shape the outcome of popular uprisings threatening both friends and foes.

In his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech, Obama will try to reset relations with the Middle East, but his outreach could falter amid Arab frustration over an uneven U.S. response to the region's revolts and his failure to advance Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

UAE art shows coloured by Mideast upheaval, Posted by Meosha Eaton

LIBYA'S AMBASSADOR TO U.S. TELLS ABC HE NO LONGER SERVES HIS COUNTRY'S "DICTATORSHIP REGIME", Posted by Meosha Eaton

This morning, US Ambassador to Libya indicated to the media that he no longer serves his country's dictatorship.  Out of all of the leaders of the Middle East, Gaddafi by far has to be the sickest, most evil and asinine individual anyone has had to deal with.  I admit Reagan said it best, he is a "Mad Dog of the Middle East".

Recent footage shows that Gaddafi has not fled and doesn't even seem to be phased by this unrest.  In fact, he's attacking back in one of the most gruesome, unthinkable ways. His recent block of Italian Government officials seems to be an act of vengeance and power flexing.  My heart goes out to the people of Libya, May God be with them through this trying and difficult time.

Meosha Eaton
MACTV NEWS

3 weeks since Egypt set off the chain of events that has rocked the Middle Eastern Nation, Meosha Eaton

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)

United States concerned about violence in Bahrain, Posted by Meosha Eaton

It looks like the threat of violence continues, what's next for Bahrain. At this point we askourselves what's next for the Middle East as a whole. According to recent reports, US officials commented Tuesday on the matter and are strongly urging that restraints are used as first and immediate form of response to recent protest turned threatening protest and unrest. Recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have sparked an electrifying revolution powered by social media and unconditional belief in freedom and equality. A tone quite familiar to our own homeland with domestic turmoils sparked by Civil Rights that was led by greats such as Martin Luthe King, Jr., Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglas and many more. We ask what is next for the Middle East, we should be asking what is next for the world? With recent reports of the new 2012 budget report, we can all understand the frustration of an unevenly tipped scale, after all, balance is equality and equalit is freedom and in our world freedom is protectd and represented by the perfect practice of Democracy.

Meosha Eaton


As reported byReuters:
WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was "very concerned" by recent violence in protests in Bahrain and urged all sides to exercise restraint.

"The United States is very concerned by recent violence surrounding protests in Bahrain," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in a statement. "We also call on all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from violence."

The spokesman said Washington had received confirmation that two protesters in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, had been killed and urged Bahrain to quickly follow up on its pledge to investigate.

"The United States welcomes the government of Bahrain's statements that it will investigate these deaths, and that it will take legal action against any unjustified use of force by Bahraini security forces," Crowley said.

Shi'ite protesters prepared to camp out in Bahrain's capital on Tuesday evening after a day of protests in which a man was shot dead in clashes with police at a funeral for a demonstrator shot the day before.

Protesters, inspired by popular revolts that toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, said their main demand was the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has governed the Gulf Arab state since its independence in 1971.
The demonstrators from Bahrain's Shi'ite majority say the ruling Sunni minority shuts them out of housing, healthcare and government jobs.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

Q&A, What's next for Yemen's road to political turmoil? Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reportd by Reuters:


* Protests gather momentum, spontaneity
* Revolts in Tunisia, Egypt galvanise opposition
* Al Qaeda could exploit chaos if Saleh overthrown


By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

Feb 15 (Reuters) - Hundreds of pro- and anti-government demonstrators clashed in Sanaa on Tuesday in the latest unrest to hit Yemen, where the fall of autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia has galvanised opposition to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Protesters who had first called for reform now carry posters with the message "Leave, leave" to Saleh, a crafty military man who has ruled the fragile southern Arabian state for 32 years.

Saleh, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, has offered concessions, promising to step down in 2013 and asking for talks with the opposition, which has agreed to negotiate.

Here are some questions and answers about the Yemeni crisis:


COULD SALEH BE TOPPLED?
Protests are still fairly small, but have become bigger, wilder and more spontaneous since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's overthrow. Change in Yemen, a deeply tribal society awash in guns, could be a bloodier process than in Egypt.

Mubarak's removal and an outbreak of popular unrest in Yemen uncoordinated with the formal opposition coalition are new factors in Yemen's troubles, said Yemen analyst Gregory Johnsen.

Saleh, who scrapped a trip to Washington this week, faced "very critical" weeks, the Princeton University scholar added.
There have been few indications so far that Saleh, 68, has lost the loyalty of the armed forces, police or security services which have helped keep him in power for three decades.

But the president, whose impoverished country is running out of oil and water, now has fewer resources to grease the network of patronage and favours used in the past to buy the loyalty of unruly tribes and members of his own military-security elite.
"Saleh will fall if he persists on using repressive tactics," said Philip McCrum of the Economist Intelligence Unit, saying his promise to step down in 2013 had bought him some time, but that Mubarak's ouster had changed the playing field.

"These new protesters are not Houthis (northern rebels), they are not southern secessionists, nor are they Al Qaeda militants. They are ordinary, disaffected Yemenis. If he doesn't treat them with respect, that disaffection will grow rapidly."
Fear of chaos in Yemen, however, is far more real and frightening than in Egypt -- a factor Saleh can play on.
"Saleh may be the architect
 of many of Yemen's problems today, but he is also the person who has kept the country together for these past 30-odd years," McCrum said.
"Also, Saleh still commands a broad swathe of public support and there is a significant section of society who don't want to see him go and may mobilise against his opponents."


WHO COULD TAKE OVER?
Ruling Yemen would be a daunting challenge for anyone. Saleh himself has likened the task to "dancing on snakes' heads".
He has no obvious successor, although many Yemenis believe he had hoped to lever his eldest son Ahmed, head of the Republican Guard and the special forces, into the post.

Saleh has disowned that idea. "No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock," he said on Feb. 2 alluding to proposals by his party on term limits that might have kept him in office.

Yemen is emerging from a civil war with northern rebels and is fighting a violent secessionist movement in the south. Much of the rugged countryside in both areas already defies central government control, which has always been fitful.
If Saleh fell, another military man might make a grab for power, but further conflict and fragmentation would be likely.

The loosely allied opposition parties are in poor shape to take over. They are now reacting to protests, not leading them.

"The opposition is very confused at the moment, there's no leader that's emerged. There's a variety of different leaders in the opposition that are trying to get a handle on this, but no one really knows what direction to turn," Johnsen said.


WHAT IS FUELLING UNREST?
Saleh has repressed his opponents on occasion, but he prefers to co-opt them and to manipulate powerful constituencies to support him, while maintaining a semblance of democracy.

What really drives popular rage is the widespread corruption fostered on his watch, enriching a privileged elite even as Yemen's 23 million people sink deeper into poverty and despair.

About 40 percent live on less than $2 a day and a third suffer chronic hunger. In Saada, a northern war zone, 45 percent of children are acutely malnourished, UNICEF says.

Unemployment is about 35 percent, said Yemeni political analyst Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani, citing government estimates.

The cash-strapped government is almost powerless to meet the needs of its fast-expanding population and might swiftly lose control if it cannot pay wages to public servants and soldiers.

A tumble in the Yemeni rial forced the central bank to inject some $850 million, around 15 percent of its reserves, into the market to support the currency in 2010.
Yemen also finds it hard to absorb foreign aid. Only a tenth of the $4.7 billion pledged by donors in 2006 has been disbursed due mainly to administrative hurdles, officials say.

Yemen's water crisis, among the world's worst, is aggravated by irrigation for qat, a mild narcotic leaf beloved by Yemenis.

Thus Saleh has scant room for economic concessions.
"People are upset. They want Saleh to leave. He's been in power for 33 years and has destroyed the country," said Abdullah al-Faiqh, a political science professor at Sanaa University.


WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF INSTABILITY?
Apart from the dire impact on a population already short of jobs, education, food and security, turmoil in Yemen alarms neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Their main worry is that Osama bin Laden's Yemen-based network, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), would acquire a safer haven for attacks beyond Yemen's borders.

"Popular-driven regime change in Yemen is the U.S. and Saudi nightmare scenario," said McCrum. "The idea of the country falling into political limbo, where AQAP is free to operate, will give U.S. and Saudi officials cold sweats."

Washington aims to spend $75 million to double the size of a special Yemeni counter-terrorism unit, a U.S. official said on Monday. The funding, yet to win Congress's approval, was part of a wider effort to pile pressure on AQAP, the official said.
Washington seems to be signalling support for Saleh, though it has sometimes questioned his commitment to fighting AQAP.

"But Yemen could possibly present Washington with a very tricky moral conundrum," McCrum said.

"It has clearly stated that it is on the side of those seeking liberty but if it chooses to continue supporting Saleh in the face of growing popular opposition, then the U.S. could risk losing what little political capital it has left in the Middle East."

Middle East rulers make concessions to unrest, Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:


Feb 2 (Reuters) - Protests that are spreading around the Arab world began in Tunisia after a young man set himself on fire in mid-December because police seized his grocery cart.

The death of Mohamed Bouazizi, who became a martyr to Tunisian crowds who drove authoritarian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali from power, set off other protests that have triggered a political earthquake in the Middle East.

Here are details of political changes in the region:


* TUNISIA -- Having made empty promises of reforms and elections, Tunisia's Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in charge of a police state. Days of clashes -- during which the United Nations said 147 people were killed -- led to his ouster on Jan. 14. Mohamed Ghannouchi, prime minister under Ben Ali since 1999, now heads an interim government.

-- Ghannouchi appointed opposition figures to a national unity coalition but after more violent protests, he purged the new cabinet of most of the remnants of Ben Ali's regime.

-- Major street protests have dried up in recent days, after the reshuffle appeased public opinion.

-- Tunisia's interior ministry also replaced 34 senior security officials, to overhaul the network of police, security forces and spies built up by Ben Ali over two decades.

* EGYPT -- Protesters demonstrating for and against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak clashed in Cairo on Wednesday in the central Tahrir Square, scene of mass protests that have shaken Mubarak's rule.

-- A million people throughout Egypt called on Tuesday for Mubarak to go. In a television broadcast, he announced he would not stand again when his term ends in September and would work to change clauses in the constitution that make it almost impossible to mount a realistic challenge to the presidential candidate nominated by his ruling party.

-- The parliament speaker also said on Wednesday he wanted the promised constitutional reforms completed in less than 10 weeks. But opposition leaders said Mubarak must go immediately.

-- Mubarak has alredy appointed a new government and a vice-president -- a post not occupied since he was catapulted to the presidency after the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat.


* YEMEN -- Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, said on Wednesday he would not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would end his three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.

-- Eyeing the protests sweeping the region, Saleh also vowed not to pass on the reins of government to his son. He appealed to the opposition to call off new protests.

-- Saleh promised direct election of provincial governors and also agreed to re-open voter registration for elections due in April after opposition complaints that around 1.5 million Yemenis were unable to sign up. -- Last week, anti-government protests drew around 16,000 people. Some called for Saleh to leave. A new opposition rally will go ahead on Thursday in the capital Sanaa.


* JORDAN -- King Abdullah of Jordan, a close U.S. ally, replaced his prime minister on Tuesday after protests, but the Islamist opposition dismissed the move as insufficient.

-- The King asked Marouf Bakhit, a conservative former prime minister to head a new government after accepting the resignation of Samir Rifai, whose dismissal was demanded in a series of protests across the country. He also asked the new government for practical, speedy and tangible steps to launch a path of political reform.

-- Islamists, leftists and trade unionists had demonstrated in Amman on Jan. 28 to demand wider freedoms. A crowd of at least 3,000 chanted: "We want change."

-- Banners showed a wider range of grievances than the high food prices that fuelled earlier protests two weeks ago, and included demands for free elections and the dismissal of Rifai's government and a representative parliament.

-- Jordan has already announced a $225 million package of cuts in the prices of some types of fuel and staples including sugar and rice. Rifai had also announced wage increases to civil servants and the military in an attempt to restore calm.

* ALGERIA -- Several Algerian towns including the capital experienced days of rioting in January, provoked by a jump in food prices. Two people died and hundreds were injured during the clashes, officials said. At least four men set themselves on fire in provincial towns.

-- To calm the situation, Algeria cut the cost of some basic foodstuffs and to increase by 18 percent the amount of soft wheat it supplies to the local market each month.