2142 GMT:Cyber-Attacks. The website of State news agency SANA has apparently been hacked tonight, with the entire service replaced by a generic "Site Under Construction" page.
1616 GMT:Massacre in Homs. In the last week of March we posted evidence of a massacre in Abil, outside of Homs (map). Between 13 and 18 burnt bodies were found in the town, and eyewitnesses said that "shabiha," pro-regime militia, were the culprits.
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US National Public Radio reports that, despite global headlines about a possible nuclear conflict with North Korea, visitors to the Pyongyang are not seeing much out of the ordinary:
1441 GMT:Egypt. Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was arrested in Cairo on Monday night on allegations of espionage.
Netjes was working on a story when she was apprehended by the owner of a coffee shop, using Egypt's new powers of "citizen's arrest", who had asked to see her press card and passport before taking it to the police.
After spending several hours waiting in the police station, Netjes said the report against her contained erroneous allegations. The report said she was a danger to Egypt and was attempting to spread Western culture.
1555 GMT:Earthquake. A tremor measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale has struck the town of Kaki, 90 kilometres (56 miles) southeast of the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 600.
The quake was followed by at least four aftershocks which jolted Kaki and the nearby city of Khour-Mowj.
The Russian company that has constructed the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Bushehr, said the earthquake has not affected the operations in the facility.
1545 GMT:Cyber-Watch. A claim is circulating that Minister of Information Hassan Nami has announced an Islamic version of Google Earth called "Basir".
1705 GMT:Political Prisoner Watch. Writers Association members and friends of detained blogger and physician Mehdi Khazali have launched a fast, coinciding with the 100th day of Dr. Khazali’s hunger strike.
Khazali, the son of a famous Ayatollah, has been arrested on several occasions, most recently in October 2012.
Pakistani insurgent Nek Muhammad, the first victim of a CIA drone strike in 2004 (Photo: Kamran Wazir/Reuters)
Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the C.I.A., the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state. In a secret deal, the C.I.A. had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.
2150 GMT:Video of Al-Bouti's Assassination. Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti, often considered Syria's top Sunni cleric, was a staunch supporter of the regime and was killed on the 21st of March by a bomb in a mosque in Damascus. Now, a video, we believe originally posted to a Facebook page, reportedly shows his assassination. The video may be disturbing to some viewers.
Here's what we know. That is Mohamed al-Bouti, and that looks like the Eman Mosque. From this video, this event shows none of the marks of a car bomb, which matches our initial suggestion that the bomb looked like it went off inside the mosque. More interestingly, this may put to rest the question of whether Bouti was assassinated or whether he was collateral damage - he appears to be the target of this attack.
There are many questions about this bizarre video, however. For starters, we appear to be watching video of another screen, perhaps a cell phone or camera, that is playing the video. In other words, we're watching a video of a video. The camera inside the mosque may be hidden. When the explosion goes off, a hole can be seen, perhaps the hole through which the camera is taking the video. In fact, the camera appears to be pushed back and knocked slightly off angle by the explosion. But who filmed this and why was it kept secret? Where is this camera and why does the "hole" visible in the middle of the vido then disappear. We have theories, but we're still analyzing the video.
Defendants in the trial of the "Ergenekon" group, an alleged underground network of secular arch-nationalists, were expected to begin their final defences on Monday. Prosecutors last month demanded life sentences for 64 of them.
Retired armed forces commander Ilker Basbug is among the defendants, accused of attempting to stage a coup against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's administration.
Demonstrators outside the court at the high-security Silivri jail near Istanbul waved Turkish flags and banners of left-wing and nationalist groups as they fought to break through police barriers.
0805 GMT:Egypt. President Morsi has condemned clashes at the Cairo headquarters of the Coptic Christian pope as "an attack against myself", ordering an enquiry.
On Friday, four Christians and one Muslim were killed in El Khusus, near Cairo, after anger rose over graffiti daubed on the wall of a mosque.
Clashes erupt yesterday after hundreds of Copts who had attended a funeral service at St Mark's Cathedral spilled out into the streets of Cairo, chanting, "With our blood and soul, we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross."
A withness said protesters hurled rocks at police officers and smashed six private cars, setting two on fire, prompting an angry reaction from Muslims living in the neighbourhood.
The Coptic Church issued a statement on Sunday night calling for calm and expressing sorrow for the clashes.
Far from getting a clearer picture on how the regime is going to organise the Presidential election, the weekend's developments have confirmedat least seven factions:
1. The Supreme Leader's Committee, which has yet to name a candidate;
2. The "Followers of Imam's Line and Leadership Front", with its four Presidential candidates;
3. The Rafsanjani camp;
4. President Ahmadinejad's camp, who would like to put forth Ahmadinejad's right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, but may have to settle for Minister of Roads Ali Nikzad;
5. The "hard-line" Endurance Front, including leading cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, which has been relatively quiet and has not announced a preference;
6. Other conservative and principlist candidates, the most vocal of whom has been Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of the Expediency Council and former commander of the Revolutionary Guards;
7. The reformists, some of whom will participate in the election but who are unlikely to have a high-profile candidate unless former President Mohammad Khatami stands and who have been crippled by the regime's restrictions.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 14:10 | 
