With Scott Lucas on the road, and the hurricane dumping a lot of water into James Miller's garage, updates may be sporadic for the next 36 hours. James will be good to go by Monday, and Ali will fill in as needed. It's more of an inconvenience for James than a safety threat. Don't cry for me, Argentina... or Iran, Syria, Libya, or whatever. Thanks for the patience, and the comments.
Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 13:05 | James Miller in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Ali Ferzat, a Syrian cartoonist who was beaten by masked gunmen earlier this week.
See Also, Statement on Syria by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Social Media Revolution (Qualman)
Friday's Liveblog: Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The State of the Uprisings
1700 GMT: Disturbing video footage. A doctor is reportedly taking a bullet off a man's arm who was wounded during the clash in the Rifai mosque.
1655 GMT: Gaddafi's recruited African mercenaries have started leaving Libya.
1448 GMT: James Miller is back, and he provides a Cross-post from the Syria liveblog:
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Saleh warned the "outsiders" and called on Damascus to recognise the "legitimate demands" of its people. He said:
The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen or other countries.
The people of these nations have legitimate demands and the governments should reply to these demands as soon as possible.
Syria is an important link in the resistance chain [against Israel] and some want to cut off this link in the chain. A vacuum in the Syrian regime would have an unpredictable impact for the region and its neighbours.
1240 GMT: Limited Time Offer. Mansur Arzi, the regime "eulogist" who said last week that he would pay anyone who killed President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has said the offer is only open until the end of Ramadan.
1125 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Perhaps the most significant show on Friday was the visit of the Cabinet to the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini --- President Ahmadinejad declared that his Government would withstand political pressures.
Erik Qualman and the folks over at Socialnomics created this piece with a simple, yet bold, question: Is Social media a fad, or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?
The question is loaded, and I don't believe that it is designed to make a "Technology is responsible for all good change in the world" type of argument. What it firmly establishes, through a series of simple facts, is a rapidly changing world, a world in which youth + technology = a change in the power structure, for good and for bad, that has existed for generations, or in some cases millenia.
Plus, with a soundtrack by Fatboy Slim, how can one go wrong? So turn it up, and learn some facts.
Arab Spring, Social Media, Twitter, revolution, technology, youth 
A new UN fact-finding delegation is on the ground in Syria, accepting an invitation by the Assad regime to see for themselves what life is like. So far, the UN is not impressed. Some have debated whether the presence of the UN is causing Assad to step up attacks on civilians in order to discourage them from speaking to the UN mission.
Meanwhile, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, made a statement to the Human Rights Council during the 17th Special Session on the “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic” on August 22nd. Here is the full statement:
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 14:12 | Ali Yenidunya in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2118 GMT: The LCCS is reporting that live ammunition and tear gas has been fired at protests in Douma, Damascus, in front of the Al Watani hospital. Also, a reliable activist in Syria who uses the pseudonym "Alexander Page" has an unconfirmed report that security forces are using ambulances to drive into protests in Qatana, Damascus, and they are shooting at the protesters from the back of the vehicles. Many activists are reporting that protesters are being arrested and harassed in and around Damascus tonight.
2110 GMT: Protests after Taraweeh prayers tonight, Zabadani, Damascus, Syria:
2103 GMT: Activists are reporting the presence of 30,000 protesters on the streets of Homs. We can't verify that number, but what we do know is that the amount of video coming from the city, like this one, from different sources and from different areas, suggests that in Homs, and around Damascus, the crowds tonight are very large:
2050 GMT: A very large anti-government demonstration in an important suburb of Damascus, Harasta, earlier today:
Past Quds Day rally, undated
2032 GMT: During his Quds day speech, Sadroddin Shariati, head of Allameh Tabatabaei University, said that, "today we have to [follow] the [Supreme Leader] because the scale of our lives and our beliefs has to be matched with the scale which is determined by the leader."
As several readers have pointed out, we're still waiting for some pictures from Tehran that would really show the "scale" of this leadership.
1900 GMT: Khatoon Special - According to Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, current deputy speaker of the Majilis, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini stated that Bahonar has no power to confront the Khatoon contraversy. Hosseini fired back, denying those claims and cautioning that Bahonar should not talk in Hoseini's place.
1849 GMT: Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, the head of the Audit Office, has confirmed that the Tehran government is guilty of $11 million dollars in fraud, according to the now-blocked-in-Iran Ayande News. Pour-Mohammadi said that much of the misappropriation of funds was committed under previous governments, but insinuated that the fraud is ongoing.
1656 GMT: Ayande News is being filtered in Iran. They are also denying that this news is related to a story about Hossein Ansarian and Mousa Sadr. Preacher Hossein Ansarian had recently apologized to the people for the failed promises of the revolution.
1650 GMT: The Iranian state-run news agency, Press TV, provides this coverage of today's rallies, complete with chants of "death of Israel, death to America," and the claims (disputed by the Associated Press) that millions marched today:
EA's Saturday Night DestinationI will be travelling in the US, first to the South to see stock-car racing and my family (not, as a conspiracy theorist asserted last year, my CIA handlers) and then to California.
I will be setting up the Live Blogs each day on Iran and on Libya, Syria, and Beyond, but they will appear later than usual because of the time difference from Britain. Updates may also be limited for parts of the day.
James Miller and Ali Yenidunya will be taking you through the latest events while I am away. As usual, thanks to readers for bringing in news and ideas. Remember that, if you do not have a Disqus ID, your contribution may take some time to appear.
Armed security officers wearing balaclavas led Nasser Abul, blindfolded and shackled, into a courtroom in downtown Kuwait City on July 19. Accused of crimes against the state, he answered the judge's questions from a wood-and-metal cage in the courtroom. His mother, watching the proceedings, hoped her 26-year-old eldest son would finally be released after nearly two months in detention. The judiciary has refused to grant her wish.
Abul found himself in jail because of a few Tweets.
The Qaddafi regime carried out an extraordinary clandestine lobbying operation to try to stop NATO's bombardment of Libya, and believed the western allies were likely to launch a full-scale invasion in "either late September or October".
Secret documents in Tripoli seen by The Guardian reveal the desperate attempts made by the Libyan government in its final months to influence US and world opinion. It approached key international opinion formers from the US president Barack Obama downwards.
The regime tried to persuade the Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich --- a well-known rebel who voted against NATO military action in Libya, and opposed the Iraq war --- to visit Tripoli as part of a hastily arranged "peace mission". The Libyan government offered to pay all Kucinich's costs related to the trip, including "travel expenses and accommodation".
