March 23rd, 2012 by Oman Views

Sexy photo in hacked Assad emails causes comment

LONDON (Reuters) – A provocative photograph of a near-naked young woman appears among e-mails apparently sent to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and hacked by opposition activists who shared them with Western media.

On Saturday, London’s Daily Telegraph published an edited version of the photograph, which has been seen by Reuters among the original e-mails. It speculated on the state of his 11-year marriage to British-born Asma al-Assad, who has stood by her husband during a year of protests that come close to civil war.

The cache of some 3,000 e-mails dated for about nine months until early February has not been repudiated by the Assads or the small circle of aides and contacts who sent them since details were first published by Britain’s Guardian on Thursday.

There is no way to be certain, however, that all the content is genuine, nor to be sure that Assad’s enemies, at home and abroad, are not seeking to use material to their advantage.

E-mails seen by Reuters indicate a generally affectionate and light-hearted tone between Syria’s first couple and among the mostly English-speaking advisers sending messages to these private e-mail accounts. Some comments sent by female aides to the president gush with admiration: “miss uuu” writes one.

“So cute,” says another young woman when sending the 46-year-old Assad a photograph showing him in his younger days.

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By Alastair Macdonald | Reuters

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March 23rd, 2012 by Oman Views

Bahrain to retry 20 medics in uprising case

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) – Twenty Bahraini medical professionals convicted on uprising-linked charges and sentenced to prison terms face retrial in civilian courts, a lawyer said Thursday.

Lawyer Jalila al-Sayed said a judge revoked last week’s decision to proceed with only five cases and refer the other 15 doctors and nurses to a medical disciplinary board. All were convicted of anti-state crimes during last year’s unrest.

Even so, Bahraini authorities insisted the prosecutors will pursue charges only against five of the 20 health professionals. The discrepancy could not immediately be clarified.

The 20 doctors and nurses treated wounded protesters during the Gulf kingdom’s uprising. Last year a special security court, set up during eight weeks of emergency rule in the Gulf kingdom, sentenced them to five to 15 years in prison.

That court has been disbanded. Al-Sayed said the judge did not mention dropping charges against 15 medics during Thursday’s proceedings in a civilian court.

The next hearing has been set for March 20. The case has drawn stiff criticism from human rights groups.

Also Thursday, clashes between security forces and opposition supporters flared across the tiny but strategically important Gulf island that is the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Riot police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets at protesters, who were marking the first anniversary of the deployment of a Saudi-led military force in Bahrain.

Some protesters threw firebombs at the riot police. There were no reports of injuries.

The troops from the Sunni-ruled neighboring states were sent to Bahrain to help the Sunni monarchy quell dissent among the island nation’s majority Shiites.

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February 22nd, 2012 by Oman Views

After Gaddafi, Libya Struggles to Control Armed Militias

As Libya marks the first anniversary of its revolution on Friday, the dozens of well-armed militia groups operating across the vast country have slipped well out of the control of the nascent government in Tripoli, making the country ever more fractured as well as dangerous to ordinary Libyans attempting to adjust to the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year dictatorship.

That assessment came on Thursday from Amnesty International, whose latest research on the country documents at least 12 Libyans who have died in militia custody since September, allegedly after being beaten, suspended upside down and given electric shocks.

In a chilling 38-page report published on the eve of the anniversary, Amnesty describes a wave of terror and widespread abuse by militia groups, whose members in recent months have dragged hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Libyans from their homes or from roadside checkpoints into makeshift jails on suspicion of being Gaddafi sympathizers or having fought alongside the regime’s forces during the civil war.

Libya should be preparing for wild celebrations on the anniversary of the revolution, which saw scrappy fighters crush one of the world’s longest-serving regimes in just eight months, after drawing NATO allies into the sole Western military intervention of the Arab Spring.

The revolution erupted Feb. 17, 2011, when hundreds of protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi stormed into the streets demanding the end of Gaddafi’s rule – an extraordinarily brave act at the time. The demonstrations spread rapidly, engulfing eastern Libya within weeks, then catapulting the country into all-out civil war once NATO began its bombing campaign in mid-March. The revolution ended in the stunning collapse of the dictatorship in August.

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By VIVIENNE WALT | Time.com

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