Violence continues across Bahrain
March 18th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Also see this article by Marc Lynch on the Bahraini government use of sectarianism as a counterinsurgency tool.
Bahrain’s largest opposition group has urged Saudi Arabia to withdraw its forces and called for a UN inquiry into the the government’s on-going crackdown.
Clashes between security forces and anti goverment protesters continue, spilling into villages across the country.
Our special correspondent, whom we are not naming for security reasons, filed this report.
Deadly crackdown in Yemen
March 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Yemeni security forces have opened fire at a protest in the capital Sanaa, killing at least 30 people.
It is the highest death toll in a single day after weeks of demonstrations calling for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, to stand down.
Witnesses say armed men opened fire from nearby buildings as protesters gathered in Sanaa’s University Square after Friday prayers
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports.
4. Ghazal from Ghalib
March 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
translated by M. Shahid Alam
Only a few come back to us in roses and tulips.
Many more lie buried, dust on their sleeping eyelids.
By day, the daughters of Pleiades play out of sight.
At night, they lift their veils in ravishing display.
My eyes pour blood on this night of savage partings:
two lamps I have lighted to sanctify love’s sorrow.
I will make them pay for the years of torment, if
by chance, these darlings play houris in paradise.
He shall have sleep, perfumed air, silken nights,
if you untie your jasmine-scented hair in his arms.
I have no use for your coy approaches to the divine.
Past your schools and creeds, we worship God alone.
If Ghalib were to keep this up (he cries inconsolably),
every man, woman, child will soon be leaving town.
first published in Prairie Schooner, Spring 2011
For more ghazals from Ghalib, click here.
M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is the author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2009) and Challenging the New Orientalism (IPI, 2007). Visit his website at http://qreason.com. Write to him at alqalam02760@yahoo.com.
The death of fear II
March 16th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Rageh Omaar examines how the death of a street vendor led to a wave of uprisings across Arab world. (Also see Part I)
Bahrain’s One-Woman Democracy
March 16th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Bahraini ambassador to the U.S. (Photo: AP)
Tired of hearing about the deadly repression of pro-democracy demonstrators by the Bahraini regime? Treat yourself to the recent Haaretz profile of Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S.
Written by Natasha Mozgovaya, the profile begins:
The appointment of Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo (46), the first female Ambassador from Bahrain and the first Jewish Ambassador of an Arab country in Washington, was praised by U.S. diplomats when it was revealed recently in one of the Wikileaks cables.”
Sticklers for grammar might be surprised to learn that no one knew who Bahrain’s ambassador was until it was revealed by Wikileaks. Undeterred, Mozgovaya plows ahead:
One of Bahrain’s 36 Jews, Nonoo told the ‘Moment’ magazine, a national magazine dedicated to Jewish politics, religion and culture founded in 1975 by Elie Wiesel, that she never experienced religious prejudice in her home country. ‘I had a normal Jewish upbringing. I was born into Judaism. It’s no different from growing up like a Jew in America. It’s my religion.’”
On multiculturalism — Mehdi Hasan demolishes a neocon
March 15th, 2011 § 3 Comments
The BBC recently gave Douglas Murray of the neoconservative Center for Social Cohesion a platform to spew his xenophobic bile, but to its dismay, Murray’s lies were quickly demolished by News Statesmen editor Mehdi Hasan in the subsequent debate.
Rebel Airforce destroys Gaddafi’s ships
March 15th, 2011 § 1 Comment
The RAF–i.e., the rebel airforce–has destroyed two of Gaddafi’s ships. Reuters reports:
RABAT, March 15 (Reuters) – An opposition Libyan news website reported on Tuesday that rebels flying a MiG 23 warplane and a helicopter sank two pro-Gaddafi warships off the eastern coast near the town of Adjabiyah.
The Brnieq online newspaper quoted an unnamed airforce officer at the Benina airbase in Benghazi as saying the two aircraft also bombed an unspecified number of tanks near Brega and Ajdabiya, two towns that fell to pro-Gaddafi forces on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Souhail Karam, writing by Tom Heneghan; Editing by Matthew Jones)
The US-Saudi-Khalifa Alliance
March 14th, 2011 § 4 Comments
Following the surprise visit of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to Bahrain, home of the American Fifth Fleet, tanks and troops of the Saud family dictatorship have crossed the causeway and are now occupying Manama. The film below shows Bahraini police tactics against unarmed protestors before the Wahhabi goons were called in. Meanwhile, the Khalifa regime is urgently recruiting more mercenaries.
