Bahrain Opinion: "How The Police Recruit Radicals" (The Economist)

Claimed footage of police beating protester after funeral of a political prisoner, 3 October 2012

---

Bahrain’s Western-backed government has been trumpeting its reforms. British barristers have helped advise on new legal codes, while former police chiefs from London and Miami have been advising Bahrain’s growing police force, whose bosses prefer to bring Sunnis from overseas (including Pakistan) into its ranks rather than recruit from among local Shias.

The punishment of peaceful activists is making Bahrain’s opposition more radical.

Click to read more ...

Bahrain Opinion: "This Campaign of Oppression is Not Going to Stop on Its Own"

Doctors Nader Diwani, Ali Alekri, and Mahmoud Asghar receive the verdict of an appeals court, 14 June 2012

---

The time for the West to exert pressure on Bahrain is now. Not tomorrow. Not in a week. Not in a month and certainly not in a year. King Hamad's regime has consistently failed to uphold its lawful duties towards its citizens, trampling upon their rights repeatedly and without shame. It has promised reform only to quash those calling for reform. It has filled prisons with human rights activists whom it claims are agents of Iran, without presenting a shred of evidence that they are responsible for anything but the defense of people's internationally-recognised human rights.

Click to read more ...

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Historic Aleppo Burns

See also US War on Terror Feature: The Death of a Guantanamo Bay Detainee
Saudi Arabia Feature: The Trial of the Political Dissidents
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Political Drift in New York, Military Confrontation in Aleppo

---

1925 GMT: Yemen. The World Food Programme has said that almost 50% of Yemenis go hungry amid the world's third-highest rate of child malnutrition.

"Five million people, or 22 percent of the population, can't feed themselves or buy enough to feed themselves....These are mostly landless laborers, so they don't grow their own food, and with high food prices they can't buy it either," WFP spokesman Barry Came said. "In addition, there is another five million who are being really hard hit by high food prices and on the edge of being food insecure. So 10 million people in this country go to bed hungry every night."

The number of Yemenis receiving daily WFP food rations has risen from 1.2 million in January to more than 3.8 million, but poor infrastructure and fear of kidnappings have complicated the logistics of providing food aid.

Thirteen percent of Yemeni children are now acutely malnourished.

Click to read more ...

Bahrain Feature: 17-Year-Old Ali Hussain Neama is Killed by Police Birdshot

UPDATE 1450 GMT: An indication of the size of the crowd mourning Ali Hussein Neama:

UPDATE 1430 GMT: Images from the mourning for the slain teenager Ali Hussain Neama, whose father said, "Ali was actively participating in peaceful prodemocracy protests":

Click to read more ...