Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: An Uneasy Frontline
Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 15:22 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran A video from the Syrian frontline: a regime soldier defects in Armanaz in Idlib Province --- his surprised colleagues cannot attack him because of the presence of observers
See also Syria Snap Analysis: Who Is Behind Thursday's Damascus Bombs?
Bahrain Live Coverage: Marches and US Arms Sales
Syria Wired: The Latest from Social Media and EA's Readers
Friday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Uncertainties After the Damascus Bombs
1722 GMT: Syria. Human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni has said that a military court has released eight activists, including blogger Razan Ghazzawi, until their 29 May trial on charges of "possession of banned publications".
1720 GMT: Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah has dismissed a senior cleric, Sheikh Abdulmohsen al-Obeikan, who criticised a measure that allowed women to mix with unmarried men.
The firing of the royal advisor fits a pattern of recent years in which senior clerics who oppose limited reforms have been dismissed.
Earlier this year, the head of the religious police was replaced by a cleric who was seen to be more liberal, and in 2010 King Abdullah fired the judiciary head, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, for attacking a new university that was the centrepiece of government education reforms.