Iran Feature: The EA Story That Made It Big in Iranian Media

Picturing EA's Story on Gerdab: Bahrain's King Hamad & Britain's David CameronWe have been informed in the past that EA WorldView is not necessarily the favourite site of those in the Iranian establishment. Although many officials read our coverage, they deny this to others in Iran, blocking the website.

So imagine our surprise when we learned this morning that one of EA's stories --- Josh Shahryar's "Bahrain Opinion: 'Loonies' and The Sins of Bell Pottinger" --- is racing across the Iranian media. Apparently, for all the dislike of EA's coverage of Iran, the regime can reconcile with us on a story which is about the Bahraini monarchy, not particularly liked by Tehran, and about a company based in Britain, also not liked very much.

The tribute begins with BarackObama.ir --- "In the Country Where the US Has No Embassy" --- set up two years ago to take aim at the US President. Its summary headlines, "Bahrain Regime Pays Money to Have Wikipedia's Articles", or in the Persian version,  "Removal of Al Khalifa Crimes from Wikipedia by the British".

There are other differences between the English and Persian entries. The former is pretty much a straight summary of Josh Shahryar's opinion. The latter --- whether from issues in translations or from mischief --- has notable changes. Shahryar, who is from Afghanistan, is now a "Western researcher". His Twitter message becomes the prompt for bloggers and The Independent of London --- those who actually broke the Bell Pottinger story --- to look into the matter. Perhaps most significantly, the PR firm is portrayed as having acted after getting a green light from the British Government and doing so in co-operation with Wikipedia.

It is that Persian re-writing about "the English company that has a higher power to whitewash clear cases of crimes in the State of Bahrain"  that is on the hard-line Raja News, the conservative Jahan News, 2009 Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei's Tabnak, Khadem News, Shia Online, and other websites. EA even makes it to Gerdab, linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: An Armed Insurgency Builds

Footage of security forces suddenly firing --- those posting the clip claim it was a rocket-propelled grenade --- at a rally in Homs Province in Syria last night

See also Syria 1st-Hand: Observations from Damascus "The Subtle Signs of Turmoil"
Egypt Feature: The Political Battle Beyond Cairo
Tuesday's Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Declaring Reform

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2100 GMT: Bikyamasr has more details on the food poisoning suffered by protesters at #OccupyCabinet --- the group that is gathered outside the cabinet building to protest against the Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. According to their reporters, two of whom were victims as well, the perpetrator is being singled out a woman who showed up before the cases broke out and offered protesters hawawshi, a popular Egyptian meat dish. 

Hundreds started vomitting and dozens have been hospitalized. However, Bakyamasr denies that anyone has died so far. Full report here. 

1930 GMT: Reuters has raised the number of people killed in today's violence across Syria to 30. Their report on Syria also covers the army's assault on the city of Hama to break a 3-day long strike called "The Strike of Dignity". Soldiers fired machineguns and burnts shops that had been closed down in solidarity with the strike. At least 10 people were killed as a result of the assault. 

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Syria 1st-Hand: Observations from Damascus "The Subtle Signs of Turmoil"

Observers often comment that the Syrian uprising has not reached Damascus. It is true that businesses and restaurants are open in central Damascus, that the traffic is as messy and congested as ever, that fashionable shopping malls bustle in the early evening with well-coiffed teenagers who descend from chauffeured luxury cars.

Unlike Homs, or Deir Ezzor, or Deraa, there are no tanks in the streets of Damascus, not even the ones painted patchy blue in a flimsy attempt to disguise the army as police. But the myth of Damascus’ sustained invincibility is just that – a myth. The signs of turmoil in the Syrian capital may be subtle, but they are nonetheless alarming.

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Egypt Feature: The Political Battle Beyond Cairo (Bohn)

Election Day in Assiut, November 2011Assiut feels far away from the famed epicenter of Tahrir Square. The oft-neglected peripheral region of Upper Egypt (the cultivated valley of the Nile from Cairo in the north to Aswan, 535 miles south) has been plagued by institutional apathy for years, long dismissed as a dead-end, from where one travels to the capital for work and never returns. When Egypt's contentious de-facto leaders, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), speak of a silent but loyal majority, or "liberals," fret about the backward religious and violence-prone rural areas, they have cities like Assiut in mind. But the reality is far more complicated. Assiut and Tahrir are bound together by personal connections and shared concerns -- inextricable ties that suggest a far more nuanced emerging Egypt than is generally felt from the central nerve of Cairo.

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Afghanistan: "This is Our Fate" --- An Encounter with My Friend Massoud Hossaini about Photography, Life, and a Suicide Bombing

Photo: Farzana Wahidy (AFP)I did not ask him more about what had happened. He did not talk about it himself. He expected me to understand what had happened and I did.

Can I convey this so anyone else who is not Afghan and does not have a fate tied to Afghanistan understand? I hope not. The burden of that understanding means that Massoud Hosseini is now a subject about whom I write, not a friend whom I once knew and with whom I laughed.

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The Latest from Iran (13 December): Shoes Are Thrown at the President

2140 GMT: Parliament Watch. Speaking at Tehran University today, MP Ali Motahari, a vocal critic of the Ahmadinejad administration, has criticised the crackdown on students after the 2009 Presidential election. Considering why the repression occurred and why it continues, he said that there is an atmosphere of "fear and terror" in the Iranian Parliament because of the actions of some legislators.

2135 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The executive board of Nokia Siemens Networks has said that it will not take on any new business in Iran and will gradually reduce its existing commitments from 1 January 2012.

The Finnish company said in a letter to its staff in Iran that the decision was taken because US-led sanctions "make it almost impossible for Nokia Siemens Networks to do business with Iranian customers".

Nokia Siemens has been criticised for providing telecommunications equipment allowing the Iranian regime to maintain surveillance of protesters after the 2009 Presidential election.

2100 GMT: Economy Watch. Former Minister of Labor Hossein Kamali has claimed that more than 50% of Iran's workers now live below the poverty line.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Declaring Reform

See also Syria 1st-Hand: The Opposition's Quest for Arms and Ammunition
Bahrain 1st-Hand: "The World Looks Up to You" --- Attending the Mass Rally on Human Rights
Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: "Bring Your Tanks Here"

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Bahrain's King Hamad & British PM David Cameron2105 GMT: A tale of two contrasting interviews and Bahrain....

Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of the opposition group Al Wefaq, tells The Financial Times:

The US and UK should call for an elected, representative government, and a timetable and a road map to achieve that. If this does not happen then they should say that this regime has lost legitimacy. This is what is suitable if they want to talk about democracy and not show double standards in the Arab spring.

Salman welcomed some of the regime's steps after the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry report, notably allowing the Red Cross into prisons, but he was sceptical about others:

We don’t see an intention really to implement the report, they are just trying to provide a decorative picture. No one who reads the human rights report would think that the same government accused of the abuses could be allowed to implement the recommendations.

Salman set the condition of the end of the Prime Ministerial reign of more than 40 years of Sheikh Khalifa al-Khalifa --- if he did not resign, "the king should remove him, that is a normal, logical demand". He continued, “They don’t look at people as citizens who have rights – so long as this mentality is there, any changes will be limited."

Meanwhile, Con Coughlin of The Daily Telegraph uses an encounter with King Hamad to offer the effusive praise of "a fascinating insight into how the monarchies are managing to survive these challenging times....King Hamad has proved himself to be extremely adroit in dealing with the protesters' demands."

In the interview, the King declared:

What [has] happened was the result of individual acts, not government policy. It is not the policy of the Ministry of Interior to go and kill people on the roads. The policemen and soldiers involved in the killings did not take notice of the discipline side of matters.

If people have done something wrong then they should be held accountable. We have removed people from positions of authority so that this does not happen again.

The King continued, "I care about Bahrain. Bahrain is very dear to me. I will not allow people to play around with our laws."

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Syria 1st-Hand: The Opposition's Quest for Arms and Ammunition (Abdul-Ahad)

The route across the Syrian border was marked by a single shining piece of string. It stretched from the road on the Turkish side for a few hundred metres to the steel and razor-wire fence that ran along the boundary.

The smugglers followed it silently and quickly, jumping from one stone to another in the moonlight. Each man carried a thick, plastic-wrapped load on his back. The plastic bundles rattled and clinked as they ran along.

Beyond the fence the shadows of men and animals moved. "Do you have money?" asked a Turkish voice.

"Next shipment," the Syrian replied.

A man with a scarf wrapped around his face held the coils of barbed wire flat while the cargo was passed across and loaded on to the backs of the waiting mules. Then the men hurried the animals away from the border and up into the mountains of northern Syria.

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Public Relations Special: Bell Pottinger's "Reform" Image for Uzbekistan

See also Bahrain Opinion: "Loonies" and The Sins of Bell Pottinger
Bahrain Special: 4 More Revelations about Qorvis, the Regime's PR Firm

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We have been reporting on the work of public relations firm Bell Pottinger for regimes in Yemen and Bahrain, as well as carrying investigative journalism uncovering the company's claims of access to the highest figures in the British Government and its service for clients by planting and changing Wikipedia entries.

The Bureau for Investigative Journalism, which set up the fictional "Azimov Group" approached by the PR firm, has released Bell Pottinger's pitch for business, "Changing Perceptions of the Republic of Uzbekistan". Uzbekistan is the Central Asian country led by Islam Karimov, whose regime has been accused of widespread torture --- including the boiling alive of two detainees --- kidnapping, murder, rape by security forces, financial corruption, religious persecution, and censorship.

Or, as Bell Pottinger presents the challenge in the Introduction to the report, "Uzbekistan has serious reputational problems. On democracy, human rights, and child labour in the cotton fields, perceptions are strongly negative. Overcoming deep-rooted attitudes will not be easy."

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Bahrain 1st-Hand: "The World Looks Up to You" --- Attending the Mass Rally on Human Rights

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A child outlines his father's arrest: "They broke our door, tear my photos from the wall...."

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"I do not have any doubt that with this determination and steadfastness, which I see in all of you, we will be victorious and will achieve our goals....However, we must continue being peaceful. There are many who are following the Bahrain situation, and the regime is trying to shift our movement from the pathon which it started with. All around the world the Bahrain uprising is known to be the most peaceful revolution among the movements of the Arab Spring. Let's continue keeping it this way."

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