UPDATE 0830 GMT: Mona Eltahawy, one of the most prominent activists on Twitter, has filmed a report for Time magazine on Tunisia, Youth, and Social Media:
Now that President Ben Ali has been toppled in Tunisia, international media are putting reporters into Tunis and interpreting what has and what will happen.
As Belarussian diplomats scrambled on Wednesday to assuage European concerns about the sweeping crackdown on dissent in their country, the authorities in Belarus were stepping up their campaign against the family of a former presidential candidate whose three-year-old son they have threatened to seize.
The security services conducted a search of the home of the former candidate, Andrei Sannikov, as well as the apartment of his wife’s mother, who has been caring for the child, Danil.
Unfortunately, No Labels does not seem to have stirred the imagination or won the backing of Americans. It is still early days, and recent events may catapult them to prominence among citizens tired with the controversy over "violent rhetoric" and/or the motives of the alleged Arizona gunman, Jared Lee Loughner; however, their prospects for the 2012 elections do not look good. Currently, only 13,000 visitors to their site have signed the declaration to “join your neighbours who are asking their leaders to put the labels aside and do what's best for America", and there is no sign of acceleration.
2255 GMT: Police have dispersed protesters in Ettadamen, 15 kilometres (9 miles) from the centre of Tunis.
Youths, chanting "We are not afraid, we are not afraid, we are afraid only of God," threw stones at police and vandalised shops, cars, and a government office. Security forces responded by firing tear gas canisters and shots into the air.
2120 GMT: Minister of Information Samir Abidi has said this evening that 19 demonstrators were killed (other reports say 21) on Saturday and Sunday in Thala and Kasserine. Abidi claimed more than 30 police were injured.
The Tunisian uprising is beginning to get more coverage in the English-language media, so this may be a suitable moment to look at the sort of coverage it is getting.
Considering the horrific violence meted out by the police over the weekend, the Ben Ali regime is being given an extraordinarily easy ride.
“It is very clear that the government totally lost control --- of everything. The only control they have is on the security of the president, the group around him, and few other party figures. That’s it.”
UPDATE 2105 GMT: Given my crankiness this morning at the lack of scrutiny by most in the media sensationally recycling this story, it is only fair to give a big tip of the hat to Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor, who gets to the heart of the matter, "US Woman Arrested in Iran as Spy: Why the Story May Not Have Teeth".
Peterson updates on the changing stories in the Iranian media --- Fars says, “The detained spy asked the Iranian authorities not to return her to Armenia in fear of her life,” but the TV outlet Al-Alam says Hall Talayan never entered Iran, as she did not have the proper visa --- and notes the lack of support from Iranian government officials and outlets like Press TV.
Peterson notes our original entry, "The uncertainties prompted the EAWorldView website, which closely follows daily events in Iran, to urge caution."
Shahram Amiri and Family, Tehran, July 2009What then is the situation with Shahram Amiri? The murky truth is that we do not know. The best we can do is stay observant and return back to the prediction --- not the confirmation, but the prediction --- made by a well-placed EA correspondent when Amiri returned to Iran.
The scientist, our correspondent judged, would initially be greeted as a hero. Then he would be "disappeared" in Iran's system, like others who have revealed unpleasant episodes such as the Chain Murders of the late 1990s.
That, for the moment, sits along a single interesting but far-from-established source.
The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some may have been tortured or killed.
The issue came up in a State Department report to Congress last month that urged Pakistan to address this and other human rights abuses. It threatens to become the latest source of friction in the often tense relationship between the wartime allies.
A suicide bomber, believed to be a woman, attacked a checkpoint in the northwestern tribal area on Saturday where people displaced by fighting were lining up for food.
At least 43 people were killed and about 100 wounded, officials in the Bajaur tribal region said.
One official said that a woman wearing a burqa was stopped at a security post in Khar, the main town in Bajaur. “She threw a hand grenade, and before the security force could respond, she detonated herself,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Friday, January 21, 2011 at 7:00