With no progress in the negotiations, Syria’s will miss next week’s deadline to rid itself of chemical weapons, but the slaughter continues with conventional weapons …
- Brahimi Says No Substantive Progress on Syria but Hopeful (Reuters)
- Exclusive: Syria Has Shipped Out Less than 5 Percent of Chemical Weapons (Reuters)
- Syria Wiping Neighbourhoods off the Map to Punish Residents – Rights Group (Guardian)
… and the intelligence officials warn a rebel faction intends to make itgs foothold in the country as a base for attacks on the US:
Shakespeare meets Torquemada; A Palestinian prisoner discovers his fellow prisoners demanding he to prove his anti-Israeli creds are actually informants:
“The journalists include the Australian ex-BBC correspondent Peter Greste and Canadian-Egyptian bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy, who has worked for the New York Times.” One of the detainees “recently said their incarceration was ‘an attack not just on me and my … colleagues but on freedom of speech across Egypt” …
… a consequence of “the country … whipping itself into a hyper-nationalist and xenophobic frenzy for months, with popular television talk shows going on at length about the Zionist-American-Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to destroy Egypt and frequently baying for the blood of both locals and foreigners”:
- Egypt Al Jazeera Charges Herald a Cruder, Less Discriminate Approach to Censorship (Christian Science Monitor)
… while the return of “men like Ahmed Saif who helped run [Mubarak’s] vast patronage network …Â casts fresh doubts about the stumbling political transition in the biggest Arab state”:
“The head of Turkey’s Association of Judges and Prosecutors (YARSAV) said the Special Authority Courts should have been abolished long ago due to their ‘anti-democratic nature.’” He said they were an AKP “tool to redesign politics,” and their abolition may help AKP “form new alliances and the people that have been harmed by the Cemaat (Gulen’s movement)”:
Iran denies sanctions prompted nuclear talks as it gives the IAEA unprecedented access and hosts a reconciliatory visit from Erdogan:
- Iran dismisses Barack Obama’s claim that sanctions prompted nuclear talks (Guardian)
- IAEA Visits Iranian Mine as Part of Nuclear Transparency Pact (Reuters)
- Turkey’s Erdogan Vsits Iran to Improve Ties After Split over Syria (Reuters)
Angry that “no death sentence has been passed since sharia was introduced in 2000”, Vigilantes hurl stones in a “violent turn in the trial of seven men accused of being homosexual in the ultraconservative Nigerian state of Bauchi. Judge El-Yakubu Aliyu’s white scarf, a symbol of wisdom, was trampled in the dusty ground as he was bundled into a back office for his safety”:
“Sometimes it feels like … as a Muslim woman, you won’t be believed because there is always a narrative that ‘you’re a Muslim woman, you’re brainwashed’. If you are sticking up for [gender separation], you are brainwashed. If you are not sticking up for it then we love you, and we are going to put you on TV and applaud you because you are like us” — Fatima Barkatulla, student:
- Muslim Gender Segregation Stirs UK Debate (AlJazeera)
“Part of what we wanted to do with this series was show that there is a huge diversity of belief and practice within the American Muslim community, that it’s not a monolith. And so you have Kamala, who’s sort of on the more relaxed end of the spectrum, although she is observant”:
“[F]oreign leaders, including the US, have also urged Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki to address the Sunni community’s grievances. A lack of political representation for Sunnis has left them feeling marginalized and created sympathy for Sunni insurgents, including Al Qaeda-linked fighters who took over the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar earlier this month”:
- Gunmen Storm Iraqi Government Building as Maliki Shops for US Helicopters (Christian Science Monitor)
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