King Abdullah of JordanLast week, the Jordanian regime presented a series of Constitutional changes purportedly addressing questions of power between the monarchy, the Cabinet, and the legislature.
But are the amendments significant? Sean Yom, writing for Foreign Policy, and Naseem Tarawneh, writing on the blog The Black Iris, present two views.
What a month for Western threats to Iran --- first, it was Facebook-organised gatherings, then it was water fights in Tehran, then it was eating watermelon....
And now it's the cartoon series The Pink Panther.
The famous pink cat, born in the 1960s, came out of retirement in 2010 with a new series, Pink Panther and Pals, on The Cartoon Network. The most serious allegation against the revived animations would seem to be that they aren't very funny, but the Iranian newspaper Alef is far more perceptive than I.
Pink Panther and His Pals would appear to be the advance force in the army of Western subversion.
Alef, The Pink Panther Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 8:43 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran Footage comes through this morning of an anchorwoman on Libyan State TV holding a gun and threatening anyone thinking of taking control of the station:
(Al Jazeera English's report offers a translation over part of the clip.)
Striking, yes. Unique, no. EA readers may remember this footage from March, where the newsreader pulls out an AK-47 and declares, "In the name of Almighty God, I pledge to you, my Dear Leader, that I will sacrifice my last breath, my last bullet, my last drop of blood, last baby and child for you"
Libya Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 17:51 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
See also Morocco Feature: Has the Arab Spring Come and Gone?
Syria Video: The "Tell Bashar to Go" Protests --- Set 1
Syria Video: The "Tell Bashar to Go" Protests --- Set 2
Syria Feature: Anderson Cooper Smacks Down Assad's Ambassador
Syria Special: Torture, Intimidation Used to Deter Protests
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Pressure Outside, More Pressure Within
01:48 GMT: We're closing the live blog for a bit, but will be up and running in (gulp) a few short hours.
James was about to sign off with a report that it is quiet in Tripoli now. However, Matthew Price, a correspondent in Tripoli, sent this tweet about 10 minutes ago:
It did go quiet for a bit but appears it was a lull. Sounds of heavy fire now and explosions
It's going to be a long night in Tripoli, and a long couple of days for the EA crew. But it's going to be a much longer few days for the Gaddafi regime, so stay tuned...
01:03 GMT: The Head of Political affairs for the National Transitional Council, Fathi Baja, gave a statement to Reuters:
"There is certain information tells that forces loyal to Gaddafi withdrew and left their weapons behind in areas outside Tripoli. And I think everything is in order in Tripoli, rebels are approaching al-Sareem Street nearby Babal-Azizia complex. Gaddafi may be coerced to flee if he managed to co-ordinate it with some countries, but I hopeto arrest him to be tried with his sons and his assistants in Libya"
00:56 GMT: This video, shared by Human Rights Watch's Nabeel Rajab, shows Bahraini soldiers firing tear gas, and possible rubber or live bullets, at protesters. We are unsure when this was taken, but it was posted to Youtube tonight. Also shared by Rajab, and posted by the same youtube account as the first, is a video that shows Bahraini security forces breaking into cars.
US citizens Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, shown with fellow hiker Sarah Shourd, who were convicted today of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison (see 1350 GMT)
1422 GMT: Some People are So Ungrateful Watch. The head of State broadcaster IRIB, Ezzatollah Zarghami, has declared that he said to the "losing" candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi after the 2009 Presidential elections, "You got these 13 million votes only with the help of IRIB."
The official returns, challenged by millions of Iranians in the days after the ballot, showed President Ahmadinejad with 24 million votes v. Mousavi's 13 million.
Zarghami said IRIB, with the permission of the Supreme Leader, had shown campaign ads for Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, even though Karroubi's ads "crossed red lines" by showing "prohibited persons".
We post this article by Afrooz Mahdavi, writing in the US journal The Nation, in part because it offers an overview of the complexity of the conflict within Iran --- involving the Supreme Leader, President Ahmadinejad, conservative/principlist factions, the Revolutionary Guards, and the reformists and being waged on economic as well as political fronts.
We also post it, however, because of a side story on media coverage of Iran.
Wounded Gazan Woman Carried into HospitalUPDATE 1850 GMT: A Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva on Saturday night, killing one person and seriously wounding three.
A second rocket was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defence system.
Israel's Channel 2 is reporting that Hamas has taken responsibility for the two rockets. Earlier today, the armed wing of the Gazan organisation said that it had fired four Grad rockets at the Israeli town of Ofakim, where officials reported two children had been lightly wounded. A statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said, "This is our response to the crimes of the Zionist occupation after the deaths of 15 of our martyrs and dozens of injured [in Gaza]."
Less than a day after coordinated terror attacks killed eight Israelis, Palestinian attacks on Israel continue as 30 Grad and Qassam rockets were fired throughout southern Israel on Friday.
Casablanca, Morocco, 31 July 2011Several months after revolts toppled authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the Arab Middle East continues to undergo seismic changes. Between Syria’s crackdown and Libya’s quagmire, the Arab Spring seems stalled and the momentum for further regime change diffused. However, not all the region’s Arab regimes have used abject violence to stem the growing demands for socio-economic and political reforms. Relying on the popular appeal of its monarchy, Morocco has dealt with its protest movement through a calibrated political strategy of sheepish reforms, while also benefitting from the fledgling opposition movement’s lack of coherence and organization.
The courts are handing down prison sentences to convicted rioters that are on average 25% longer than normal, according to an exclusive Guardian analysis of 1,000 riot-related cases dealt with so far by magistrates.
The data proves for the first time that the handful of high-profile individual cases – including a four-year sentence for inciting disorder on Facebook – are indicative of a more punitive general trend.
This unprecedented access to national court results reveals that 70% of defendants have been remanded in custody to await crown court trial, fuelling a surge in the prison population, which reached a record high of 86,608 in England and Wales.
Since the disputed June 2009 Presidential Election, EA has periodically featured the names of journalists on Arshama3's Blog --- a list which is up to 70 entries.
Now another record of those reporters who have been imprisoned --- or who are free on heavy bail but always threatened with a summons back to detention --- has been compiled by Masih Alinejad and translated into English by Azita Irani. There is also the note of at least one journalist who was slain during the initial demonstrations after the election.
We will be presenting the more than 100 entries on a rolling basis over the following weeks. And we will endeavour, with the help of Arshama3 and Alinejad, to keep the list up to date.
See The List of the 100+ Journalists Detained Since the 2009 Elections --- Part 1
33. Hasan Zohouri
Hasan Zohouri, staff reporter at the Cultural Heritage Center, was arrested and sent to Evin Prison on 8 February 2010.
In 2009 Zohouri was named “Reporter of the Year” by Pasargad Heritage Foundation for his documentary reports on the volatile situation of Iran’s cultural heritage. He was not politically involved, but he was arrested in the middle of the night at his home and his computer and books were confiscated. He was temporarily released on 21 February 2010 but returned to prison on 17 April 2011 to continue his six-month jail term.
