At around 0630 GMT, as we were setting up the Iran and North Africa/Middle East LiveBlogs, we noticed a series of disturbing updates from the Twitter account of Fox News Politics:
Just regained full access to our Twitter and email. Happy 4th
@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed. President Barack Obama is dead
Organisers had hoped three groups of protesters would gather in the north, the west and the east of the town, but the turnout was low.
Was it just fear of reprisals, or do the anti-government campaigners lack the support in affluent Aleppo they attract elsewhere?
I put that to several professionals in a nearby cafe. They believed they represented the silent majority: holding a deep respect for President Assad, but aware he must reform government and tackle the corruption which is endemic in Syria.
Ali Moaaen, Bashar al-Assad, SKY News, Syria 
Yemen’s young people, who began holding anti-government protests outside of Sanaa University five months ago, have lost control of the cause they started.
A consortium of political parties — which, although have for years stood in opposition to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, still represent for most Yemenis a corrupt government system — have effectively hijacked the protest movement.
In the tent city where it all began, now known as Change Square, it is entrenched politicians belonging to the so-called Joint Meetings Parties (JMP), a fragile coalition of opposition groups that includes Islamists, Nasserites, and Cold War-era socialists, who have taken control of the stage and the microphone.
This entry has been moved to the top of the website. Many apologies for the error in title.
Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 12:57 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2110 GMT: A demonstration today in Kafranbel in northwest Syria:
2105 GMT: Another clip of today's pro-reform protests in Morocco, this time from the capital Rabat:
1955 GMT: Corruption Watch. And the battle within escalates....
As President Ahmadinejad alleges that the Revolutionary Guards have been avoiding customs duty as they bring commericial goods into Iran (see 1145 and 1505 GMT), Jahan News claims the Ahmadinejad camp is trying to buy four Russian helicopters for their 2012 Parliamentary election campaign.
Video of Ahmadinejad making his allegations of illegal imports by different Iranian groups:
This time, Washington has to bring something more than Obama’s speech, with more flexibility for the European Union initiative, to the table. One possibility? Acknowledging Hamas behind closed doors, giving Abbas a guarantee that Ramallah will never need to recognise a “Jewish state”, and promising a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital in a year.
At the same time, a sign can be given to Prime Minister Netanyahu that he can be a peace-making hero ahead of Israeli elections. How? The release of Gilad Shalit, the detained Israel soldier, by Hamas.
And if this is not pursued? Well, get ready for the September display at the United Nations.
Photo: Shwan Mohammed (AFP/Getty Images)Tucked away in an often-overlooked arc of northern Iraq, Kurds launched their "Kurdish Spring" simply enough in mid-February, in solidarity with Tunisians and Egyptians who had toppled dictatorial rulers.
But the result here was very different, and hardly looked like an unfolding of freedom. Washington’s close Kurdish allies cracked down hard. After 62 days of street protests, 10 people were dead. The carefully crafted image of Kurdistan as a democratic island in an ocean of regional dictatorship was in tatters.
All that visibly remains of the uprising are a few faded posters of its first victim --- a 16-year-old --- and scorch marks where security forces burned the tents of protesters. But it has deepened the political crisis in this semiautonomous region of northern Iraq.
General Yahya Saleh“The problem is that the rest of the world believes that this is a youth revolution,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, one of the nephews, said in an interview in his office at the sprawling headquarters of Central Security Forces, the paramilitary division he commands.
“How many are there in the squares?” he asked. “Do they represent the majority? In a democracy, does the minority rule the majority? They should have some self-respect and go home. It’s been five months now, and it’s boring.”
Your Judge confirmed that Iranian women cannot be ignored under any pretext. I am not willing to exchange the ruling you rendered against me for anything in this world, for it was this verdict that allowed me to experience the endless grace and love of my compatriots and so many freedom-seeking citizens from across the globe.
