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79 killed as Syrian forces pound protest hubs

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The Syrian regime’s rocket and shell bombardment of protest hubs has left another 79 civilians dead, activists said, as Washington closed its Damascus embassy and Britain recalled its ambassador.The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said the regime was surrounding Homs with tanks on Monday ahead of “a major offensive” and warned of a “genocide” in the central Syrian city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 civilians were killed in Homs alone in another day of blood-letting, and warned the death toll was likely to rise with many of the dozens of wounded in critical condition.State media reported the deaths of three soldiers and said a “terrorist group” blew up an oil pipeline in Homs.The army also launched an assault on the Zabadani area near Damascus with heavy tank shelling, killing at least ten people, according to the Britain-based Observatory.It also reported civilian deaths in Rastan, Hula and Qusair, all towns in Homs province, as well at Sarghaya, near Damascus, in the northern city of Aleppo and in Idlib, northwest Syria.A resident of Homs told AFP the latest assault began with unprecedented barrages of rockets, mortar rounds and artillery shells.“What is happening is horrible, it’s beyond belief,” said activist Omar Shaker, reached by telephone as loud detonations were heard in the background.“There is nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to hide,” he said. “We are running short of medical supplies and we are only able to provide basic treatment to the injured.”One video posted on YouTube apparently showed a field hospital hit by shelling in the Baba Amro district and wounded patients lying on stretchers on the floor amid pools of blood and shattered glass.Footage shot by a BBC undercover team in Homs showed buildings ablaze in rebel neighborhoods as they were pounded with heavy weapons.Damascus blamed the bloodshed in Homs on “terrorist gangs” using mortars.The violence comes as Western powers seek new ways to punish Damascus amid growing outrage over Saturday’s veto by Russia and China of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its near 11-month crackdown on dissent.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto a “travesty.”White House spokesman Jay Carney warned Syria’s allies that backing President Bashar al-Assad was a “losing bet.”The State Department said it had closed the American embassy in Syria and withdrawn remaining staff after Damascus refused to address security concerns.Senior State Department officials told CNN that two embassy employees left by air last week and 15 others, including Ambassador Robert Ford, left overland through Jordan on Monday morning.The Polish government is to provide emergency consular services to any American citizens remaining in Syria.U.S. President Barack Obama shied away from talk of military intervention and vowed to pursue diplomatic means.“It is important to resolve this without recourse to outside military intervention and I think that’s possible,” he said in an NBC television interview.Britain recalled its ambassador to Syria “for consultations,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament.“We will use our remaining channels to the Syrian regime to make clear our abhorrence at the violence that is utterly unacceptable to the civilized world,” Hague said.Belgium also recalled its ambassador from Damascus.French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that he would call Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss the international response to the crisis.Neither France nor Germany, he said, would accept the “blocking” of action on Syria.Russia and China both defended their vetoes, with Moscow condemning as “hysterical” the West’s angry reaction.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov are due in Damascus on Tuesday, as news reports said the mission could try to persuade Assad to quit.China called on both sides of the conflict to halt the violence that has claimed the lives of at least 6,000 people since March, according to opposition activists.The Syrian National Council said the “genocide” in Homs showed the regime was “increasing the pace of its crimes and repression.”Saudi Arabia called for “critical measures” on Syria and warned of an impending “humanitarian disaster” after the failure of the UN resolution.The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, of which Riyadh is the leading member, is to meet on Saturday on Syria, on the eve of an Arab League ministerial meeting at the organization’s Cairo headquarters.EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Brazilian foreign minister Antonio Patriota on Monday underscored their support for the Arab League effort to end violence in Syria.Referring to Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, Ashton at a meeting in Brasilia said she and Patriota discussed “how much we support him on the Arab League’s initiative and the importance of seeing that leadership (being) able to support the people of Syria into a future free of bloodshed.”Meanwhile the British-born wife of Syria’s president has spoken in support of her husband for the first time since the uprising began, a British newspaper reported Tuesday.“The president is the president of Syria, not a faction of Syrians, and the first lady supports him in that role,” The Times quoted Asma al-Assad as saying in an email sent via an intermediary from her office.

Maldives president quits amid protest

 

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Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed announced his resignation Tuesday following weeks of public protests over his controversial order to arrest a senior judge.Nasheed presented his resignation in a nationally televised address Tuesday afternoon after police joined the protesters and then clashed with soldiers in the streets."I don't want to hurt any Maldivian. I feel my staying on in power will only increase the problems, and it will hurt our citizens," Nasheed said. "So the best option available to me is to step down."Nasheed was expected to hand over power to Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan.The resignation came after weeks of protests in this Indian Ocean island nation known more for its lavish beach resorts than political turmoil.It marked a stunning crash for Nasheed, a former human rights campaigner who defeated the nation's longtime ruler in the country's first multiparty election. Nasheed was also an environmental celebrity, traveling the world to persuade government's to combat the climate change that could send sea levels rising and inundate his archipelago nation.Nasheed fell out of public favor after he ordered the military to arrest Abdulla Mohamed, the chief judge of the Criminal Court.The arrest came after the judge ordered the release of a government critic, calling his arrest illegal.The vice president, Supreme Court, Human Rights Commission, Judicial Services Commission and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have all called for Mohamed to be released.The government accused the judge of political bias and corruption. It said that the country's judicial system had failed and called on the U.N to help solve the crisis.After weeks of protests, the crisis came to a head Tuesday when hundreds of police started demonstrating in the capital, Male, after officials ordered them to withdraw protection for government and opposition supporters protesting close to each other. The withdrawal resulted in a clash that injured at least three people.Later, troops fired rubber bullets and clashed with the police. When Nasheed visited the police and urged them to end the protest, they refused and instead chanted for his resignation.The Maldives, an archipelago nation of 300,000 people, is a fresh democracy, with 30 years of autocratic rule ending when Nasheed was elected in 2008. Nasheed is a former pro-democracy political prisoner.Hassan, the vice president, has previously worked for the United Nations, including as the head of its children's fund in Afghanistan.

 

Maldives protest today

Maldives protests boil over, police join against government

 

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Opposition-led protests in the Maldives boiled over on Tuesday with some police officers defying orders to break them up and instead joining in an assault on the military headquarters in the capital Male.

A Reuters witness on Tuesday saw soldiers launch tear gas grenades at a crowd of about 500 people, including several dozen police officers in uniform, who were trying to smash their way into the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) headquarters.The violence on the archipelago best-known as a luxury beach getaway destination is the worst out of more than three weeks of protests.They started after President Mohamed Nasheed ordered the military to arrest the top criminal court judge, whom he accuses of being in the pocket of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.That set off a constitutional crisis that has Nasheed, widely credited with ushering in full democracy to the Indian Ocean archipelago with his election victory in 2008, in the unaccustomed position of defending himself of acting like a dictator. Gayoom's 30-year rule was widely seen as autocratic.Gayoom's opposition Progressive Party of the Maldives accused the military of firing rubber bullets at protesters and spokesman Mohamed Hussain "Mundhu" Shareef said "loads of people" were injured. He gave no specifics.Presidential spokesman Paul Roberts denied the government had used rubber bullets, but confirmed that around three dozen police officers defied orders overnight and smashed up the main rallying point of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party."This follows Gayoom's party calling for the overthrow of the Maldives' first democratically elected government and for citizens to launch jihad against the president," Roberts said.The protests, and the scramble for position ahead of next year's presidential election, have seen parties adopting hardline Islamist rhetoric and accusing Nasheed of being anti-Islamic.It has also shown the longstanding rivalry between Gayoom and Nasheed, who was jailed for a combined six years after being arrested 27 times by Gayoom's government while agitating for democracy.(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal in Male Writing by Bryson Hull; Editing by Ed Lane)

Anti-Putin protest

Anti-Putin protesters show staying power in Russia

 

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Vladimir Putin's opponents vowed on Sunday to press on with demonstrations against his 12-year domination of Russia after tens of thousands attended a march which kept up the momentum of their protest movement."We'll be back," the organizers said on a social network site, one day after demonstrators defied the cold to stage the third mass rally since anger mounted over alleged fraud in a parliamentary election won by Putin's party on December 4.Waving flags and banners, protesters marched within sight of the red-brick Kremlin walls and towers on Saturday, chanting "Russia without Putin!" and "Give us back the elections!"Although Putin's supporters also held a big rally in Moscow on Saturday, warning against the threat of instability, the size of the opposition march suggested Putin faces a protracted challenge as he prepares to return to the presidency in March 4.Such protests were unthinkable six months ago and were sparked by demands for fair elections, but they have grown into one of the biggest political threats to the former KGB spy since he was first elected president in 2000.Putin is all but certain to win a six-year term as head of state in March, but his authority has been damaged and a pause in protests over the long New Year holiday has not deterred people who protested in large numbers on December 10 and 24.The longer the protests continue, the bigger the threat they pose to Putin's legitimacy, even though the opposition is only loosely united and contains groups as diverse as nationalists, leftists, liberals and non-affiliated environmentalists."When I saw the thermometer was at minus 22 C (-7.6 F) in the morning, I thought no more than 10,000-15,000 people would turn up. Thank God, I was very wrong. Muscovites turned out to be more determined, stronger and persistent than I thought," opposition politician Boris Nemtsov wrote in a blog."We face a protracted hard struggle against cynical, ruthless rogues and thieves. It's a marathon which we have to win," wrote Nemtsov, a cabinet minister in the 1990s, before Putin rose to power.The next big protest is expected to be on February 26, the week before the presidential election, or soon after it, the organizers say.

Bahrain protest 06 02 2012

Bahrain opposition launches week-long rally

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Bahraini opposition parties, launching a week-long ‘sit-in’ for political reforms at a mass rally, swore Sunday to take their campaign to the center of last year’s democracy protest in the capital Manama.“This is a dress rehearsal for the return. We will return! We will return! Soon our sit-in will not be here but at the Pearl Roundabout,” said poet Ayat al-Qormozi, who became a face of the Arab Spring movement after she was jailed for reading out a poem criticizing the king at Pearl Roundabout. She was addressing a crowd of over 10,000 at a rally in Manama, where anti-government protests last year were crushed by Bahraini forces and troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia.Pearl Roundabout, a large traffic junction in Manama where the protesters camped out and rallied for a month, has since been closed off by security forces who monitor the area closely.Bahrain, a key U.S. and Saudi ally in their stand-off with Iran across the Gulf, has been in turmoil since the uprising broke out last year, inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt.The opposition are trying to sustain pressure on the government, dominated by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa family, ahead of the Feb. 14 anniversary of the uprising. The reforms they want include an elected government - the first in the Gulf – and reduced powers for the Al-Khalifa family.Sheikh Ali Salman, leader of the largest opposition party Al-Wefaq, called on activists to keep the protests peaceful, but warned that intelligence agencies and pro-government militias would act as agent provocateurs in coming weeks.He called on activists to use only Bahraini flags during the sit-in and to avoid using party or sectarian symbols.Opposition groups draw wide support from Bahrain’s majority Shiite population, which accuses the ruling elite of political and economic marginalization. The government says Shiites have a sectarian agenda coordinated with Iran – which they deny.Salman said the protest movement would continue after Feb. 14 and the country would not return to normal until the ruling elite ended its monopoly on power and the 14 prominent figures convicted for leading the protests – who are on hunger strike this week – were released.“This people will not calm down and there will be no calm or stability while they are behind bars,” he said.“These symbolic figures did not call for violence or use violence. They expressed views that you can agree with or not, but that’s part of freedom of expression. The verdicts were based on confessions under torture. The verdicts are void.”Opposition parties have tried to set themselves apart from youth activists who clash regularly with police by arranging marches and rallies in advance with the authorities. Many youths, angered by what they say is continued harsh policing, say this approach is not bringing results.Activists say the ongoing violence has taken the total dead over the past year to more than 60, some from tear gas inhalation or from being hit by cars in pursuit of youths. The government disputes the causes of death.

 

wall street protest pic

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