Russia's too busy screwing Belarus over to be useful.
Rock the Casbah: Arab-World Revolutions
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Russia: Stop covertly pushing a country into regime change!!! With weapons! I mean with weapons. Doing it by exploiting and starving their economy is totally alright.
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-Idlib: More than 10 thousend protesters gathered at AlJarra square in Alqousour neighbourhood. The protesters are calling the president to resign by chanting "Go away!"
-Idlib: Khan Sheikhoon: 10 thousands demonstrators chanting:" Leave us, don't you understand "
-Idlib: Moarat Alnoman: more than 20 thousands demonstrators in Moarat and in the villages around it.
-Daraa: Da'el: About 7000 protesters now chant for toppling the regime and for Bashar to leave.
-Homs: Protest of thousands from Umar Mosque near Mal'ab Al Baladi and is heading to join with another massive protest in Ghouta
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-Syrian security forces have shot dead at least three demonstrators in Homs, 9 in all.
-A local activist in Hama estimates that as many as 300,000 people have gathered around the central Assi Square, calling for the downfall of the regime.
-Seif al-Islam says neither he nor his father ordered the killing of civilian protesters. He said that protesters died when they tried to storm military sites and guards fired on them under standing orders to protect themselves.
And about the arrest warrant: "This court is a Mickey Mouse court ... For me to be responsible for killing people, it was a big joke,".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13988701
Hundreds of thousands of people attended demonstrations across Syria after Friday prayers. Some activists put the number of protesters at three million.
Fuck yeah, Syria is firing up. There's really no magical way back machine for Assad now, nothing he does can stop the tide. Hey Assad, I suppose three million people in your country are all armed thugs?
Mr Assad has promised a national dialogue on political reforms
What a shock. A national dialogue! Just like every deposed tyrant before you Assad, where "national dialogue" meant "I make a speech praising the youth while I shut down the youth" or "Reforms coming! Meanwhile have some more bullets in your children."
, but many protesters are demanding that he stand down immediately.
Syrain protestors ain't nothin' ta fuck with.
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I feel like every three days there's some report of Assad suggesting a dialouge.
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Finally, the rebels are getting close to Tripoli but should've they capture more territory before doing that?
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On Friday, Morocco voted for constitutional changes to limit the power of King Mohammed VI by a 97% margin.
The new prime minister would have new powers in decision-making and in day-to-day management – relieving the king of a number of duties and aligning the style of management along the lines followed by some European Union countries.
In an example of power sharing, the draft constitution empowers the prime minister to dissolve the House of Representatives, and stresses that the king shall consult him before announcing the dissolution of Parliament.
"It specifies the conditions to be observed in each case in order to ensure the separation of powers as well as balance and cooperation between the branches," the king said.
"The idea is to establish democratic institutions where all active parties participate and bring in prosperity."
Under the reforms, Morocco will also have an independent judiciary and provide equal rights for women.
Critics say that it wasn't enough.
Under the new constitution, the king remains head of the army, religious authorities and judiciary and chairs a council of ministers that reviews key bills before they go to parliament. The February 20 movement boycotted Friday’s referendum.
There were several rallies and protests in the country just about an hour ago by pro-democracy organizers that are encouraged by the overwhelming majority that favored the constitutional changes. Around 5,000 people in Casablanca and 1,000 people in Rabat came out to declare that the changes weren't enough.
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2011/arab.unrest/index.html
Interactive map of the region.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/30/mideast.africa.unrest/index.html
Country by country breakdown.
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@joekido:
Finally, the rebels are getting close to Tripoli but should've they capture more territory before doing that?
What seems to be going on there is that in that mini-mountain range there's a concentration of ethnic Berbers (the aboriginal North African culture before the Arabs came through), who haven't exactly been treated kindly by Gaddafi's regime.
So they're super driven and probably not as encumbered by that sense of "i don't want to fight my brother" that the rest of the rebels are.
Plus the almost 100% guarentee of support from every civilian there due to ethnicity.
Plus the terrain is great for guerilla and slapdash fighting.The problem is that they have the mountains but are going to very hard pressed to do much out in the open.
There's another area with heavy Berber population to my knowledge, the city of Zuwarah near Tunisia in the far Northwest, that would be a realistic goal for these particular rebels.As for Tripoli…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/06/19/libya.voices/index.htmlIt's a ticking time bomb, and the liberation of it is more likely going to come from within.
It's a tough matter, a very tough matter, basically it's reaching that point where the people there finally shatter the fear. That fear is what's kept it quiet. Gaddafi is probably very well embedded, and ready to burn the place to the ground if need be, and the people there know this.
They're living right at the heart of a cornered enraged well armed meglomaniac's lifework.I don't know what has to be done to break that fear, as it's very well founded.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
More on Belarus.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14006365
The thing with Belarus right now is actually also a time-bomb.
Right now the protestors are the young and intellectual (and as is very worth noting, Belarus doesn't have the huge surplus of youths that the Arab world does right now).
The time bomb concerns the masses of workers, some of whom have already done very low level strike actions against their direct employers.The economic situation there is dire and isn't going to improve for awhile if it is to at all.
So the chance of an economic ignition to the masses of Belarus is not so far off…Also jesus christ look at that fucking outfit on Lukashenko.
How will he act if that happens I wonder? He could only dream to be in a region of likeminds like Gaddafi and Assad. He's in Europe as the last straight up dictator there, surrounded by at best Russia.
How can he hope to roll out the army against masses of people? -
Alex looks like Charlie Chaplin in that thing goddamn.
Zephos, I'm curious. How much of an autocracy is Russia?
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Russia's hard to call lol. I genuinely think Putin and Medvedev have most Russian support.
But there's incredibly sleazy practices going on in regards to the opposition, media, and so forth.And Yeltsin was a complete shit.
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The way I see Russia is like their russian mountains (rollercoaster), they went from a tight government-controlling-everything society straight into an almost anarchistic liberal society. Yeltsin destroyed everything and the people wanted some control back, hence Putin, a strong charismatic leader who brings back balance and control of the situation. That's why the majority of the Russians don't ask questions. But it's not democratical at all if you look at how the media is controlled and how the opposition is treated.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
On Friday, Morocco voted for constitutional changes to limit the power of King Mohammed VI by a 97% margin.
My grandfather voted here in Belgium in the Moroccan consulate, lol he wanted me to go with him.
As for the Moroccon path to democracy I see it slowly advancing into the right direction. Even though an enormous work has to be done in regards to corruption for it to be effective.
You know, I just watched a report on the Greek crisis. And some judges of the supreme court were talking about corruption and favoritism in greek society (admistration, hospitals, etc…) and how that was the real cause of the Greek crisis and that they didn't see a change of behaviour occuring any time soon. So I was thinking if a high European democracy like Greece could exist, in spite of the corruption, then Morocco could also become a viable democracy, optimistically speaking.
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Guess who else got caught giving arms to the rebels?
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/2011755223504921.html -
@Monkey:
Guess who else got caught giving arms to the rebels?
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/2011755223504921.htmlNot one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but security vests aren't gonna win against tanks.
Stil, no surprise about Qatar, even if the authorities acted like lying, cheating, thieving asses to Obeidi.
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Syria: 15-year-old kid tortured to death for not kissing Assad.
Inside a filthy detention center in Damascus, eight or nine interrogators repeatedly bludgeoned a skinny teenager whose hands were bound and who bore a bullet wound on the left side of his chest. They struck his head, back, feet and genitals until he was left on the floor of a cell, bleeding from his ears and crying out for his mother and father to help him.
Ibrahim Jamal al-Jahamani, a fellow prisoner who said he witnessed the brutal scene in Syria in May, heard the interrogators demand that the 15-year-old proclaim strongman Bashar Assad as his “beloved” president.Because as Assad knows, respect as a leader is earned by torturing children.
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These fucks are so thin skinned it's not even funny.
It makes me wonder if they didn't have a regime to back them up, they'd crumble without attention.
It's astounding that a light breeze doesn't end up flaying them. -
Syria: 15-year-old kid tortured to death for not kissing Assad.
Because as Assad knows, respect as a leader is earned by torturing children.
Fucking disgusting pieces of shit.
Someone needs to find these assholes fast and put them down or bring them to trial.
Can they really get away with that?
Shit!
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That was a very brave youth. Even when given the option to cooperate he chose to speak his mind and show his passion for freedom.
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Syria: 15-year-old kid tortured to death for not kissing Assad.
Because as Assad knows, respect as a leader is earned by torturing children.
Fuck.
All I can say to this.
Just…..just fuck.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/07/07/syria.secret.doctors/?r
Syria's 60 "secret doctors," an illegal undergrounds network of medics called the Damascus Doctors, risk their lives to provide medical service to injured protesters and to house demonstrations in constantly shifting clinics.
"People refuse to go to government hospitals because they will be arrested and if they die we cannot take their body." He explains. Families, he claims can only collect the body of their loved ones after signing a document saying they were killed by armed gangs.
The Syrian government has consistently maintained that it does not target peaceful demonstrations, blaming the violence on armed gangs who infiltrated the demonstrators, with the intent to set up an Al Qaeda style Islamic caliphate in Syria.We initially met the doctor at an anti-government demonstration after we broke away from our official escorts. He took us to the "field clinic" they set up that day, nothing more than a tiny room. Their supplies, rudimentary at best – a single oxygen tank, bandages, scalpels, needles and other basic equipment.
Many people have bled before his eyes he claims, including children. He was helpless to save them.
"We spend all of our life to help people, and it's so hurtful to see people dying and we cannot do anything.""Even when I am making sutures to their (the anti government demonstrators) muscle tendon or their skin, they keep shouting for freedom, they say we want our freedom, we will keep fighting" He tells me. "I want the international community to know that we sill have hope to change this country's future."
Later he writes to me: "In the name of humanity, let people know that we are suffering for our freedom". -
Mikhail Margelov, the President of Russia's special envoy on the Libyan uprising, claims that Muammar Gaddafi has a 'suicidal plan' to destroy Tripoli if the rebels seem likely to capture it.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/africa/2011/07/14/gaddafis-suicidal-plan-tripoli
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The US has officially recognized the Rebels, which means frozen Libyan government assets in our banks can go to them.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
@No:
Mikhail Margelov, the President of Russia's special envoy on the Libyan uprising, claims that Muammar Gaddafi has a 'suicidal plan' to destroy Tripoli if the rebels seem likely to capture it.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/africa/2011/07/14/gaddafis-suicidal-plan-tripoli
I knew it. Not that it's surprising.
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In other news, Sacha Baren Cohen is making a new movie called "The Dictator" that's based on one of those goofy romance novels that Saddam Hussein "wrote".
lolllll at the costume
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/sacha-baron-cohen-the-dictator-photo_n_873788.html
He looks like a pastiche of Saddam, Gaddafi and Kim Jong Il. -
Huh, when I read the title I thought for a second that he was making a remake of The Great Dictator.
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@Monkey:
In other news, Sacha Baren Cohen is making a new movie called "The Dictator" that's based on one of those goofy romance novels that Saddam Hussein "wrote".
lolllll at the costume
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/sacha-baron-cohen-the-dictator-photo_n_873788.html
He looks like a pastiche of Saddam, Gaddafi and Kim Jong Il.Haha I need to see that when it's released.
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Conflicting reports on Mubarak's real condition.
But seeing lots of news he's gone into a coma.
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Rubert Murdocks personal assistant was arrested today.
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IIRC Rebekah Brooks wasn't personal assistant, more chief editor during all the hacking. So she either accepted all this hacked information without questioning where it came from at all (lol) … or she knew and approved of the whole thing.
Arrested by appointment apparently haha.
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IIRC Rebekah Brooks wasn't personal assistant, more chief editor during all the hacking. So she either accepted all this hacked information without questioning where it came from at all (lol) … or she knew and approved of the whole thing.
Arrested by appointment apparently haha.
Thanks for the clarification flux, also thought I was posting in the random news section, I guess this is okay too.
So the weird thing about this, is that she is to appear before a selected committee on Tuesday, and now she might just use the arrest to not answer any questions.
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I have a feeling the final act is soon to come.
If the first third was the opening protests devolving into the warfare and massacres, ending with the NATO intervention.
The second has been this long painful stalemate with it's war of attrition.Now we enter the last third soon.
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Let's just hope he doesn't get his Tripoli suicide plan into action.
Also, I do wonder if we'll ever know when the Arab Spring ends and the Arab…er...dynasty or Renaissance will begin.
Not that I'm in a rush, I'm just curious if ages and eras are easier to organize in retrospect. -
Of course they're easier in retrospect. That's History.
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So in Syria the government is killing the injured in hospitals. This caused on soldier to defect and speak out:
The channel this video is on has a lot of stuff, some of it can be rather graphic, but it shows just what is going on in Syria.
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So in Syria the government is killing the injured in hospitals. This caused on soldier to defect and speak out:
The channel this video is on has a lot of stuff, some of it can be rather graphic, but it shows just what is going on in Syria.
Subscribed.
Quite sad that they're even shooting the injured. God help them.Just wondering, are there any revolutions going on in Saudia? Or Iran? Or Jordan?
I heard that there were revolutions in those countries, but that was a few months ago, I'm wonder if they died out? -
Last we heard from Iran Ahmedinejad and the Ayatollah were in the midst of a power struggle.
King Trekkie in Jordan is instituting some reforms. Ditto Morocco and Oman.
Saudi Arabia's just chilling.
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The rebels managed to fire an RPG attack on a government meeting in Tripoli apparently??
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Need confirmation! Wonder who was at that meeting.
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Lots of important people including the lead son. There's no confirmation of any results though, aside from one guy definitely being alive.
Either way, that the rebels can do something like that is amazing in of itself.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/20117238472925170.html
If Gaddafi wants to hold the city hostage in case the rebels try to enter, guess they can just fire into the city from far away anyhow.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/07/2011726185515845889.html
Interesting, and rare good thing the Saudis are doing…. of course I have to wonder at their motives?
My guess is a Marshall Plan style thing where they hope that helping Jordan's economy will keep it stable and thus friendly? -
Head of the Libyan rebel forces confirmed dead
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/07/2011728202129941725.htmlFuck, this is bad news. I don't know how that shithead Gaddhafi did it, he still has some special forces under his grasp.
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its all the Fucking guns that are around, i have said it everyday. You cant just let people run around with guns all the time. Hell i have a gun.
There are criminals and gangsters and traitors in the streets and everyone has a AK-47 i am surprised this never happened sooner. -
Apparently he was arrested first under collaboration suspicion? Maybe he was killed precisely because of that by the loyalists, like they thought he was about to spill the beans or something.
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Well shit. How's the situation now with the Rebel's chain of command?
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Many Syrian soldiers belonging to the 7th Armored Regiment have reportedly defected in Deir ez-Zor and took over a local military airport, according to a prominent Syrian opposition leader.
Defected troops clashed with security forces to protect civilians after at least six civilians were killed in a military crackdown on mounting protests in the city, Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian pro-democracy leader said.
40 armored vehicles belonging to Syrian security forces have laid siege to the Homs Military Academy where a defected Brigadier General and his officers and troops
have barricaded themselves -
Oh damn, it was bound to happen on this level the more this kept up.
And the protests are supposed to get even bigger when Ramadan starts. -
More about that..
A Syrian army colonel said that he has defected with "hundreds" of soldiers and warned the regime against launching a crackdown on the eastern oil hub of Deir ez-Zor.
The man, identifying himself as Colonel Riad al-Asaad, said in a telephone call to AFP news agency in Nicosia that he was speaking from inside Syria "near the Turkish border""I am the commander of the Syrian Free Army," he said. "We are hundreds," he added of the number of troops under his command. The claim could not be independently verified. But the caller warned the Syrian regime against carrying out any security operations in Deir ez-Zor, where activists said a massive military convoy, including tanks, deployed on Saturday.
"I warn the Syrian authorities that I will send my troops to fight with the (regular) army if they do not stop the operations in Deir ez-Zor," Al-Asaad said.
According to a rebel commander who has spoken to Reuters, rebel forces have now encircled the last pro-Gaddafi stronghold in the western mountains and hope to seize it soon.
Rebel tanks have been firing on Tiji, where they estimate about 500 government troops aer holding out. The blasts could be heard from nearby Hawamid, which is located some 200km southwest of Tripoli.
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I really hope Libya wraps up soon so that Syria can be focused on more, because things are only going to get more chaotic there. Expect wide scape military purges soon from Assad.
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It seems the later a country came to the Spring, the more they dig their heels in.
What's left after Syria?