Down goes another Syrian blogger:
The State Security Court in Damascus has sentenced Tariq to three years after lessening it from six years to three years (originally, Tariq received three years for each of the following charges):
1- Dwindling the national feeling.
2-Weakening the national ethos.
The militarily security arrested Tariq on 7-7-2007 for leaving a comment on websites considered “suspicious” by the Syrian government.
Could it be the great popular uprising?
Err... um... no. Just relatives of Syrian prisoners held in Saudi Arabia (where authorities have sentenced to death at least 28 Syrians for drug possession and jailed hundreds more) protest to demand their release. The Bashar poster in the background is a quick signal that the protest is all cool.
...comes this press release:
It has a wall separating the indigenous population from the occupying citizens. But it is not Palestine.
It has significant natural resources that are being sold off to the highest bidder and the profits are not going to the people that need it most. But it is not Iraq.
It is Western Sahara, a country on the coast of North Africa bordering Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. When Spain pulled out of it’s colony in 1975 Morocco declared it an unoccupied country and moved in despite the Sahrawis who have been living a nomadic life in the territory for centuries.
30 years later and the Sahrawis are still separated from their homeland and the families who stayed behind during the occupation, forced to live in refugee camps divided by a wall that spans the length of the country.
On Thursday Western Sahara became news because of the announcement that a New Zealand company, Sealord, is involved in the exploitation of resources from this region by importing fish from Moroccan companies operating in this occupied country.
The UN has recognised that resources from a disputed territory may be legitimately taken if the value of the resource is declared, made known and the benefits of these resources goes back to the people of the disputed country.
The Directors of the Human Rights Film Festival would like to invite the shareholders, customers, and Board of Sealord and Ravensdown (phosphate is imported from Western Sahara too), to the film Western Sahara – Africa’s Last Colony, to see for themselves if the profits of phosphate and fish sales are benefiting the Western Sahrawis.
The regime is sort of shutting down Al Jazeera:
Reporters Without Borders calls on the Moroccan authorities to reverse their decision to stop the pan-Arab satellite TV news station Al-Jazeera from broadcasting a daily news programme covering the Maghreb countries from its studios in the Moroccan capital Rabat.
"The attitude of the Moroccan authorities is incomprehensible," the press freedom organisation said. "Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting its special programme on the Maghreb for the past year and a half without any difficulty. The suddenness of this measure and the lack of a valid reason suggest that it was a political decision."
On 6 May, Al-Jazeera's Rabat bureau received a fax from the National Agency for Telecom Regulation (ANRT) saying the frequency it used for broadcasting the Maghreb programme was being withdrawn because of "technical and legal problems."
Morocco's new Minister of Health - herself a woman - has approved the morning after pill.
"Yemeni Regime Depends on Continued Corruption, Report Says"
That's a concise way to put it!
Bet you thought you'd never see this:
Here's the story: "Public Classical Music Concert Breaks Taboos in Saudi Arabia"
It's worth noting that the pianist, Hiroko Atsumi, did not wear an abaya (nor, apparently, did many women in the audience). You go, girl!
Yeah, that's the headline.
