Exiled Bahrain opposition leader to return home

MANAMA — Plans by an exiled Shi’ite leader to return home raised the stakes in a power struggle in Sunni-ruled Bahrain on Monday, as mainly Shi’ite protesters in Manama’s Pearl Square pressed demands for a new government.

Haq movement leader Hassan Mushaimaa, tried in absentia in Bahrain for attempting to topple the government, said he would fly back from London on Tuesday, posing a fresh challenge to the ruling al-Khalifa family, whose legitimacy he has contested.

Mushaimaa’s Facebook page said he wanted to “see if this leadership is serious about dialogue and if it will arrest him or not.” An arrest warrant for Mushaimaa is outstanding.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has asked his son, the crown prince, to conduct a dialogue with all parties, but after the bloodshed on the streets, in which seven people have been killed and hundreds wounded, opposition parties are wary.

Haq is more radical than the Shi’ite Wefaq party, from which it split in 2006 when Wefaq contested a parliamentary election. Wefaq’s 17 MPs resigned last week in protest at the violence.

“They (Haq) are less likely to take a conciliatory position toward the regime,” said Shadi Hamid of the Doha Brookings Center. “They are not yet explicitly calling for its downfall, but they are not interested in being part of the system.”

Haq’s leaders have often been arrested in recent years, only to receive royal pardons. Some were rearrested in a crackdown in August, when 25 Shi’ite activists, including 23 now on trial, were charged with trying to overthrow the government violently.

PROTESTERS PACK PEARL SQUARE

Up to 10,000 people again packed Pearl Square, at the heart of week-long protests led by majority Shi’ites demanding more say in the Gulf Arab country, a close U.S. and Saudi ally.
Over 1,500 striking teachers joined them to back demands for change. “No teaching until the government falls,” they chanted.

The opposition is demanding a true constitutional monarchy that gives citizens a greater role in a directly elected government. It also wants the release of political prisoners.

“In the eyes of the people the government has already fallen,” said Amir Ahmed, 38, a government oil sector employee.

The demonstrators in Pearl Square were impatient for change after seeing the fall of entrenched rulers in Egypt and Tunisia.

Lamia, a 26-year-old primary school teacher, said Bahrain would also topple its leaders. “We are much stronger than them and we hope it will happen as soon as possible,” she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned any attempt by Bahraini security forces to crush peaceful protests in the island, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

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Uprising in Libya spreads to Tripoli

TRIPOLI — Protests against the 40-plus-year reign of dictator Moammar Gadhafi have broken out inTripoli, the capital, for the first time, according to news reports, as protesters in other cities count the dead from clashes with troops over days of protest.

A doctor told Al Jazeera that forces had fired on protesters in Tripoli, killing four, and Al Jazeera reported a resident saying she could hear gunfire in the city from her upscale suburb. Other sources told Al Jazeera that clashes between pro- and anti-Gadhafi sources in central Tripoli involved thousands of people.
Gadhafi’s son, Seif el islam Gadhafi, will make a televised address Sunday night, Libya TV said, according to Al jazeera.

A doctor in the eastern city of Benghazi told Reuters that at least 50 people were killed and 100 others seriously wounded in Benghazi Sunday afternoon and evening. There were unconfirmed claims that the opposition had taken control of the city, with Gadhafi’s forces holed up in a walled compound.

“Today has been a real tragedy. … Since 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) and up to 9:15 p.m., we received 50 dead, mostly from bullet wounds,” Habib al-Obaidi, who heads the intensive care unit at the main Al-Jalae hospital, said by telephone. “There are 200 wounded; 100 of them are in very seriousconditions.”

A doctor earlier said 200 dead had arrived at the hospital in the unrest through Saturday.
Libyan forces fired machine guns at mourners marching in a funeral for anti-government protesters in Benghazi, a day after commandos and foreign mercenaries loyal to longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi pummeled demonstrators with assault rifles and other heavy weaponry.

The crackdown in oil-rich Libya is shaping up to be the most brutal repression of anti-government protests that began with uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. The protests spread quickly around the region to Bahrain in the Gulf, impoverished Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula, the North African neighbors of Tunisia — Libya, Algeria, Morocco — and outside the Middle East to places including the East African nation of Djibouti and even China.

Libya’s rebellion by those frustrated with Gadhafi’s more than 40 years of authoritarian rule has spread to more than a half-dozen cities. Benghazi has been at the center of unrest.

But getting reliable information about the chaotic situation is difficult. Journalists cannot work freely. Information about the uprising has come through telephone interviews, along with videos and messages posted online, and through opposition activists in exile.

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Gadhafi to fight to ‘the last bullet’

TRIPOLI — After anti-government unrest spread to the Libyan capital and protesters seized military bases and weapons Sunday, Moammar Gadhafi’s son went on state television to proclaim that his father remained in charge with the army’s backing and would “fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.”

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, in the regime’s first comments on the six days of demonstrations, warned the protesters that they risked igniting a civil war in which Libya’s oil wealth “will be burned.”

The speech followed a fierce crackdown by security forces who fired on thousands of demonstrators and funeral marchers in the eastern city of Benghazi in a bloody cycle of violence that killed 60 people on Sunday alone, according to a doctor in one city hospital. Since the six days of unrest began, more than 200 people have been killed, according to medical officials, human rights groups and exiled dissidents.

Libya’s response has been the harshest of any Arab country that has been wracked by the protests that toppled long-serving leaders in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt. But Gadhafi’s son said his father would prevail.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, gave a televised address shortly after midnight, Monday, Feb. 21.

“We are not Tunisia and Egypt,” he said. “Moammar Gadhafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him.

“The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet,” he said in a rambling and sometimes confused speech of nearly 40 minutes.

Although the elder Gadhafi did not appear, his son has often been put forward as the regime’s face of reform.

Western countries have expressed concern at the rising violence against demonstrators in Libya. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he spoke to Seif al-Islam by phone and told him that the country must embark on “dialogue and implement reforms,” the Foreign Office said.

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Libya Central Government Building on Fire

TRIPOLI — A central government building in the Libyan capital Tripoli was on fire Monday, a Reutersreporter said, in the latest sign that the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi is gathering strength.

“I can see the People’s Hall is on fire, there are firefighters there trying to put it out,” the reporter said. The building is where the General People’s Congress, or parliament, meets when it is in session in Tripoli.
Early Monday, protesters also took over the office of two of the multiple state-run satellite news channels, witnesses said.

Human Rights Watch said Monday that the estimated death toll from four days of protests had risen to at least 233, citing hospital sources.

In Benghazi, staff at Al Jalaa hospital said they recorded 50 dead Sunday, while the 7 October hospital reported another 10 dead the same day, giving a total of 60 killed in Benghazi Sunday. Human Rights Watch said it had been unable to contact two other hospitals in Benghazi.

The anti-government protests broke out in Tripoli for the first time Sunday, following days of unrest in the city of Benghazi.

Thousands of protesters clashed with Gadhafi supporters in and around the central Green Square. Gunfire rang out in the night and police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, some of whom threwstones at Gadhafi billboards.

Witnesses reported snipers opening fire on crowds trying to seize the square, and Gadhafi supporters speeding through in vehicles, shooting and running over protesters.

In response, Gadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gadhafi appeared on national television in an attempt both to threaten and calm people.

“Our spirits are high and the leader Moammar Gadhafi is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are behind him as is the Libyan army,” he said. “We will keep fighting until the last man standing, even to the last woman standing … We will not leave Libya to the Italians or the Turks.”

Finger-wagging

Wagging a finger at the camera, he blamed Libyan exiles for fomenting the violence. But he also promised dialogue on reforms and wage rises.

Saif Gadhafi warned protesters that they risked igniting a civil war in which Libya’s oil wealth “will be burned.” Libya exports about 1.6 million barrels of crude a day.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, gave a televised address shortly after midnight, Monday, Feb. 21.

Monday saw the price of crude oil jump by $1.67 to near $88 a barrel amid investor concern about disruption of crude supplies.

And the growing unrest prompted BP to suspend preparations for exploratory drilling for oil and gas in western Libya and also said it would “very likely” evacuate some staff, a spokesman for the British energy giant said Monday.

The company does not produce any oil or gas in Libya but has been readying an onshore rig to startdrilling for fuel in the west of the country.

France also urged its citizens in Libya to return home and said it was closing French-run schools in Libya.

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Yemen president rejects demands he step down now

SANAA, Yemen — Yemen’s embattled leader on Monday rejected demands that he step down, saying widespread demonstrations against his regime are unacceptable acts of provocation.

However, U.S.-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power for three decades, offered to begin a dialogue with the protesters. The proposal was quickly rebuffed as insincere by an opposition spokesman.

In another attempt to defuse anger, Saleh told a news conference that he has ordered troops not to fire at anti-government protesters, except in self defense. At least 11 people have been killed since protests erupted earlier this month, including a youth shot dead Monday, medical officials said.

The demonstrations in Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, are part of a wave of unrest that have swept across the Arab world in recent weeks and toppled autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.

Saleh’s government was already weak before the protests, facing a southern separatist movement and disaffected tribesmen around the country. Saleh is quietly cooperating with the U.S. in efforts to battle an al-Qaida franchise that has taken root in Yemen, but his government exercises limited control in the tribal areas beyond the capital. The U.S. gives Yemen military aid and training.

Despite Saleh’s gestures, protesters are digging in. Several hundred camped overnight in a square in the capital of Sanaa, near the city’s university. Similar to the scenes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the epicenter of the Egyptian uprising, protesters in Sanaa pitched small tents and set up a platformequipped with loudspeakers. Protesters guarded access roads and searched those entering the square.

In the city of Taiz, tens of thousands of protesters rallied in the central square. “We will not leave this place
until the downfall of the regime,” activist Ahmed Ghilan said.

On Monday, a 28-year-old protester died of wounds he sustained when a hand grenade was thrown on protesters in Taiz on Friday, a hospital official said.

In the town of al-Maafer, in Taiz province, witnesses said armed men opened fired Sunday evening and injured three protesters.

In the port city of Aden, a group of youths threw stones at a security vehicle Monday, said a medicalofficial at a local hospital. Shots were fired at the stone-throwers from the vehicle, killing one and injuring four, the official said.

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Windows Phone 7 in depth: A fresh start

by Matt Buchanan

updated 7/19/2010 11:15:01 AM ET

PREVIEW

"What's this?" a girl at a party asked, as I handed her my phone. She touched a square, and everything flipped away. "It's Microsoft's brand new phone. Kind of like a fresh start," I explained. "Oh. It's... neat." 

That's the most apt way to describe Windows Phone 7, really. It's a fresh start, and it's neat. It's a clean slate that Microsoft can use as a foundation to build something entirely new, and it's not like any other phone you've used. It manages to do something that's sadly rare for Microsoft, which is to leverage all of these different Microsoft products and services — Bing, Xbox Live, Zune to name a few—and seamlessly bring them together in a single, polished product. Which is exactly what Windows Phone 7 needs to be. (Msnbc.com is an NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.)

                                                                                                               All images courtesy of Gizmodo
      Phone 7 manages to do something that's rare for Microsoft, which is to leverage different Microsoft products and services


Windows Phone 7 is coming out this year, in the next few months — October, possibly — and the basic rundown of "What is Windows Phone 7?" can be found here and here. The version that I've been using for the last few days on prototype hardware (a Samsung phone which will never be sold) has been variously described to me by Microsoft as "beta 2," a "close-to-release-candidate build" and a "technical preview." Developers will be getting phones loaded with it shortly in order to have apps ready for launch. It's representative of what the final Windows Phone 7 interface and experience will be like, though two critical parts were missing, because they're still under heavy construction: Xbox Live and the Apps Marketplace.

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U.S.-Born Radical Cleric Added to Terror Blacklist

Published July 16, 2010 | Associated Press

Radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has singled out a Seattle-based cartoonist as a "prime target" for assassination for her role in an online campaign that solicited depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

A Toronto woman fears she will now be targeted as well.

The Obama administration added a U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support.

The Treasury Department placed Anwar al-Awlaki -- accused by officials of helping plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing -- on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. That means any bank accounts found in the United States belonging to him are frozen. Americans are forbidden from doing business with him. And, it bans him from traveling to the U.S.

The move comes about six months after the U.S. government put al-Awlaki on a secret list of targets to be captured or killed, according to U.S. officials.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki, 39, is not perceived by American officials as a major tactical terror leader on par with al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. But his role as an inspirational exhorter for al-Qaida's cause and his growing involvement in plots aimed at the U.S. has made him a prime target in the effort to counter the militant movement.

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China reduces US Treasury debt holdings in May

WASHINGTON

China reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt in May as total foreign holdings of government debt posted a slight increase.

China's holdings fell by $32.5 billion to $867.7 billion, the Treasury reported Friday.

The report said that total holdings of Treasury securities edged up $5.8 billion to $3.96 trillion in May, a slight increase of 0.1 percent compared to April.

The Treasury said that net purchases of long-term securities, a category that covers not only U.S. government debt but also debt of U.S. companies, increased by $35.4 billion in May. That followed bigger gains of $81.5 billion in April and $141.4 billion in March.

While the May figure was down from the previous two months, analysts said it still reflected significant interest on the part of foreigners in holding U.S. government and corporate debt.

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U.S. Sends Help to Mexico After Series of Deadly Attacks

Published July 19, 2010 | FoxNews.com

The remains of a vehicle are seen on a street in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, July 16. (AP Photo)

The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Monday said immigration officials are working closely with Mexican authorities to investigate a series of stunning attacks in Mexico including a car bomb in the border city of Juarez that has drawn comparisons to Middle Eastern terrorism. 

While the Obama administration rolls out its plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard and other assets to the southwestern border, the violence in northern Mexico has only escalated in recent weeks. 

Eighteen people were massacred at a party in the city of Torreon on Sunday -- more than a month after 19 people were killed at a drug-rehab center in Chihuahua. In the border city of Juarez, where more than 1,500 have been killed this year, a car bomb apparently designed to lure police to the scene killed three people on Thursday.

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