Quizz: what do you actually know about the occupation?

HaMoked, Center for the Defense of the Individual, sees it as its main task to provide assistance to Palestinians in the occupied territories whose rights are violated (that's all of them as far as I can see). On its website HaMoked has a nice quizz for the more aldult members of the family: What do you actually know about the occupation? Highly recommended, particularly for those among us with a penchant for cynicism.. In order to play, click here.  

Iran complains that some countries refuse to refuel its passenger planes

Iran says that Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates are refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger planes.The move, which has not been confirmed, follows unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, the Isna news agency reported.
Iran is facing tougher sanctions designed to impede the development of its nuclear programme.
Tehran says its nuclear industry is for peaceful purposes but Western powers fear it is trying to develop a bomb.
"Since last week, our planes have been refused fuel at airports in Britain, Germany and UAE because of the sanctions imposed by America," Mehdi Aliyari, secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union, told the news agency.
He said the national carrier Iran Air and Mahan Airlines had both run into refuelling problems.

 However, a spokeswoman for the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) told Reuters that it was continuing to supply Iranian jets with fuel."We have contracts with Iranian passenger flights and continue to allow refuelling," she said.
A spokesman for the UK's Civil Aviation Authority told the BBC that such a move would be down to individual fuel companies.Germany's Transport Ministry said the refuelling of Iranian planes was not banned under EU or UN sanctions.However, he could not comment on whether any individual providers were refusing to fuel Iranian aircraft.
The US sanctions prohibit the sale or provision to Iran of refined petroleum products worth more than $5m  over a year. Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent for the BBC News website, said it might be that fuel companies are worried that their sales over a year might add up to $5m, in which case they could face a possible ban on doing business in the US.

Syria imprisons aging human rights defender; should clarify disappearance of 52 prisoners

A Syrian military court jailed on Sunday the 79-year-old lawyer Haytham Maleh (picture Reuters), who campaigned for decades for an end to the emergency law, to a sentence of three years. Haytham Maleh is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience detained solely for expressing his peaceful and legitimately held views.
Haytham al-Maleh was arrested on 14 October 2009, detained incommunicado for one week and then brought to trial before the Second Military Court in Damascus, although he is a civilian. He faced two charges, “conveying within Syria false news that could debilitate the morale of the nation” and “weakening national sentiment”. These “catch-all” charges are commonly used by the Syrian authorities to prosecute and imprison peaceful critics and human rights activists.
The charges arise from an interview Haytham al-Maleh gave in September 2009 to the European-based satellite broadcaster Barada TV, in which he criticized the lack of democracy, the excessive powers wielded by security officials and official corruption in Syria and his published writings exposing human rights abuses.
Haytham al-Maleh is a long-standing human rights defender. He is the former head of the Human Rights Association of Syria, an independent human rights organization founded in 2001 but which was forced to close down at least partly as a result of harassment by the authorities.
He has been summoned and questioned on numerous occasions in recent years and he was previously imprisoned between 1980 and 1986 for protesting against government restrictions on trade union rights.

Two others
Two other prominent human rights lawyers are currently imprisoned in Syria. On 24 April 2007 Anwar al-Bunni was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on a charge of “conveying within Syria false news that could debilitate the morale of the nation”. On 23 June this year Muhannad al-Hassani was convicted of the same charges now being brought against Haytham al-Maleh and sentenced to three years in jail.

'Lost' Prisoners 
Amnesty International has called on the President of Syria to reveal exactly what happened to 52 prisoners who went missing during and after disturbances at a military prison that also left at least 22 people dead. Families, lawyers and human rights organizations have campaigned for an independent investigation into the disturbances but the Syrian authorities have revealed few details about them or what happened afterwards.
The clashes between inmates and military police at Saydnaya Military Prison near Damascus began on 5 July 2008. Unconfirmed reports say the violence erupted after police officers shot dead nine Islamist prisoners. According to these reports, Military Police officers threw copies of the Qur’an on the floor during a routine search of the prison, and then shot dead nine Islamist prisoners who tried to pick them up. Unarmed Islamist prisoners are said then to have overpowered the police, taking several hostages together with the prison director, and to have seized their guns and mobile phones – which they used to call their families to alert them and local and international human rights organizations about what was happening.
They said they were protesting to demand that their lives be spared and that measures be taken to improve prison conditions. Communication between prisoners and the outside world then stopped. Later, families of prisoners held at Saydnaya reported seeing ambulances shuttling between the prison and Teshrin military hospital in Damascus, apparently carrying those killed and injured at the prison.
At least 17 prisoners and five Military Police officers are said to have died during the protests.
Amnesty International sent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the names of the 52 prisoners missing from Saydnaya requesting that their fate and whereabouts be clarified.

Fadlallah, highest Shia cleric of Lebanon, dies at 74

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadallah, Lebanon's most influential Shia cleric, has died in Beirut at the age of 74. He was  admitted in hospital last month suffering from internal bleeding.
Fadlallah was born to Lebanese parents  in 1935 in Najaf, the centre of Shia scholarship in Iraq. He studied Islam more than 20 years in his birthplace before moving to Lebanon in 1966. He attained the status of marja, or 'source of emulation', the highest level of authority amongst Shia clerics.
Fadlallah was often described as Hezbollah's 'spiritual guide', but he never held a role within the organisation. He did support some of its actions, however, endorsing suicide attacks against Israel. Also he issued a fatwa  in 2009 that forbade normalised relations with the Jewish state. At the same time, he condemned other suicide attacks that targeted civilians, like the Moscow subway bombings earlier this year. He also condemned the September 11 attacks on the United States, saying they were 'not compatible with sharia law'.
In 1985 there was an attempt on his life. A bomb consisting of 200 kg of dynamite exploded at some tens of metres from his home in Beirut. Fadlallah escaped unharmed, but the bomb destroyed a seven story building and a cinema and killed at least 80 people while wounding 256. Most of the killed were women and girls who had just left a mosque. It was widely suspected that the CIA and it's director William Casey were behind the attack, as a revenge for the attacks on the American embassy and the American marines in the beginning of the eighties.
Fadlallah was also a staunch critic of American foreign policy in the Middle East, accusing it of bias in favour of Israel. While the West criticised him for his politics, conservative Islamic scholars often condemned Fadlallah for his moderate views. Fadlallah was widely known for his views on women, describing men and women as equals, and issuing a fatwa in 2007 which encouraged women to defend themselves against violence. He condemned honour killings, and permitted female masturbation, but favoured the hejab as a means to preserve women's dignity. He also issued a ruling banning female circumcision.
His extensive charitable works added to his popularity. Fadlallah established a network of schools and orphanages in Shia suburbs of Beirut and in southern Lebanon.
Fadlallah was an early supporter of the Iranian revolution and of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's first supreme leader.But he eventually became a critic of the concept of vilayet-e-faqih, the Iranian system of government in which a Shia religious leader exercises absolute authority. He was quoted as having said that no Shia authority had a monopoly on the truth, not even Khomeiny. Instead he oriented himself more on the line of ayatollah Ali al-Sistany.With Sistani and the Iraqi Hawza (highest religious council) he fell out, however, on the issue of the role of the Iraqi Da'awa Party of  Nuri al-Maliki. Fadlallah, belonged to the Da'awa ands was it's spiritual guide, while Sistani was much more oriented towards a modern role for the state.

Update Thursday 8/7:
Iraq's prime minister is in Beirut to pay his respects for Lebanon's late top Shiite cleric.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party. He was also believed to be the party's religious guide until his death on Sunday following a long illness.A 100-member Iraqi delegation took part in his funeral south of Beirut on Tuesday that drew tens of thousands of mourners.

Salam Fayyad, and why he is in fact NOT building a state

F
Salam Fayyad inspects a factory for marble and stone.

Nathan Brown, professor of political science at George Washington University, wrote a sobering piece on the Middle East Channel of Foreign Policy for all those who had pinned their hopes on 'Fayyadism', the endeavours of Salam Fayyad, the PA's prime minister in what often is called the 'building of a Palestinian state'. As I said, it's sobering. Particularly recommended to Thomas Friedman, columnist of the New York Times who recently sprayed Fayyad with praise in a piece called  'The real Palestinian revolution'.   
I give some excerpts of Brown's piece. For the complete article - click here

His unassuming style, honest and capable administration, and sometimes soothing words have led to a host of international paeans to "Fayyadism." Salam Fayyad is held to be quietly building a Palestinian state rather than waiting for international actors to deliver one.
There is no doubt that Fayyad as an individual has some real virtues: a measure of personal integrity, an ability to convey an attitude that politics is about public service rather than personal aggrandizement, and a shift from revolutionary rhetoric to practical action. But is Fayyadism building a Palestinian state?
No.
And in a recent trip to the West Bank, I could not find a Palestinian who thinks he is. I report more fully on my findings in a commentary for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that was released today.

  There are those who admire and participate in Fayyad's efforts to be sure. And there is much to admire in Fayyad. But even those participating in his project would be the first to admit -- along with Fayyad himself -- that the effort cannot be sustained unless it is supported by a diplomatic process that also points to Palestinian statehood. And nobody believes there is such a viable process right now. The only question that most serious observers debate is whether hope for a two state solution is dead, dying, or merely in hibernation.


But there are three other problems with pinning our hopes on Fayyadism as the basis of a two-state solution.

First, it is simply not true that his cabinet is building institutions on the West Bank. Instead, it is improving the functioning of some existing institutions in some areas -- and failing in others. I have been trying to follow the institutional development of the Palestinian Authority since it was founded; on my trip to the West Bank to update my research, I found that for every one step forward taken under difficult circumstances, politics in the West Bank has taken two steps taken back
For all his admirable qualities, what Fayyad has managed to do is to maintain many of the institutions built earlier and make a few of them more efficient. (...)

The second problem is that these efforts take place in an authoritarian context that robs it of domestic legitimacy. Palestinian democracy has died, and Fayyad could not operate the way he does (and would probably not be prime minister at all) if it were still alive. The president's term has expired, the parliament's term is also expired, no new elections are in sight, elected local officials have been selectively dismissed, and local elections have been cancelled. Opposition supporters have been ousted from the civil service and municipal government and their organizations have been shuttered. Activists are detained without charges; court orders have been ignored; and the broader citizenry is increasingly administered according to laws that are drafted by bureaucrats out of public view. This is not the "rule of law" if the phrase is to have any meaning.


The third problem with relying on Fayyadism is that political paralysis and authoritarianism is infecting other Palestinian institutions, even those outside of the governmental structure. Structures that were launched or knit together over the past two decades (professional associations, NGOs, political parties) are hardly being built or improved; they are decaying. Some are being actively squeezed and even suppressed, such as Islamist NGOs in the West Bank or non-Islamist ones in Gaza. A recent report of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights found "stark violations" of the law by both halves of the PA and observed more dryly that "it is possible to conclude that despite the presence of a modern legal framework governing the registration and operation of associations, the current political and security considerations prevail over the system of rights and public freedoms."

But it is not only civil society that is feeling the pinch. Palestine's political parties are also in a state of crisis. Hamas is certainly in the healthiest state, but only in Gaza (in the West Bank the organization is still in hibernation, with only a few leading members active in public view). And even in Gaza, where its dominance is so well established, the movement is still sorting out the effects of being melded with a governing political structure it had long held in disdain. The smaller factions (such as the PFLP and the People's Party) remain small, and the newer initiatives (most notably the Palestinian National Initiative) are not gaining much traction.
But Fatah is undoubtedly in the greatest disarray. The much-celebrated (and long delayed) party congress held last summer did little to revive the organization or calm its bitter internal rivalries. It is not clear if Fatah really remains a political party in any meaningful sense; instead it consists of an aging old guard monopolizing top positions, a middle generation that stands in the wings (and is no more unified than the old guard), and a host of local branches whose links to the center are tenuous. The recent debacle of local elections -- in which Fatah leaders forced Fayyad's cabinet to cancel them just as candidate registration was closing because of the movement's inability to assemble electoral lists -- shows the extent of the disarray. Fatah could have waltzed to an overwhelming victory with Hamas boycotting and a host of smaller parties and independents either cooperating with Fatah or putting forward meager challenges. One of the most knowledgeable observers of Palestinian elections told me: "Now we know that Fatah is incapable running against itself, let alone against Hamas."
Fayyad is not building a state, he's holding down the fort until the next crisis. And when that crisis comes, Fayyad's cabinet has no democratic legitimacy or even an organized constituency to fall back on. What he does have -- contrary to those who laud him for not relying on outsiders -- is an irreplaceable reservoir of international respectability. The message of "Fayyadism" is clear, and it is personal: if Salam Fayyad is prime minister, wealthy international donors will keep the PA solvent, pay salaries to its employees, fund its infrastructural development, and even put gentle pressure on Israel to ease up its tight restrictions on movement and access. 
Nathan Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, a fellow at the Woodrow Willson International Center for Scholars, and a 2009 Carnegie Scholar for the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Yemeni intelligence officer shot, second in Abyan province in a month

Motorcycle gunmen shot dead a senior Yemeni intelligence officer on Thursday outside his home in the southern province Abyan, where armed secessionists and al Qaeda militants are active, police sources said. The officer had been relaxing outside his home in the provincial capital Zinjibar after lunch. He was the second security officer gunned down in Abyan in less than a month. "Two men on a motorcycle opened fire on Colonel Saleh Amtheib as he sat near his house in Zinjibar, " one of the sources said. The officer had worked on al Qaeda and secessionist issues. Police were combing the area for suspects but had no immediate word on a motive.
Yemen has been a growing security concern for the West since a Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an unsuccessful attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December. Yemen has stepped up security measures after accusing al Qaeda's wing in the Arabian Peninsula country of an attack on June 19 in which militants raided the police intelligence building in the southern city of Aden, killing 11 people.
Yemen also is struggling to curb a separatist movement in the south and cement a ceasefire with Shi'ite rebels in the north. It is under international pressure to quell domestic conflicts to focus on a growing al Qaeda presence in the impoverished country.

Five Turks, 12 Kurds dead in fights in E-Turkey

At least 12 Kurdish separatist fighters and five members of the Turkish security forces have been killed in clashes in the southeast of the country. Two separate attacks by suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Siirt province left two soldiers and three village guards dead, an army statement said. Twelve fighters were then killed in the ensuing operation late on Wednesday, backed by artillery fire and helicopter gunships, the statement added. The violence is a further sign of rising tension in the troubled region, where the PKK are fighting for an independent Kurdish state. More than 50 Turkish soldiers have been killed in recent months as the PKK has increased attacks on military installations in the primarily Kurdish southeast. The military says 42 PKK were killed in clashes in June. The outlawed PKK has stepped up attacks on the military after calling off its one-year truce on June 1, dissatisfied with prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's concessions to Kurdish demands for reform.

British Methodists ban products from Israeli settlements

The Methodist Church today voted to boycott all products from Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories becoming the first major Christian denomination in Britain to officially adopt such a policy.The decision was made at the church’s Conference in Portsmouth, an annual gathering which decides Methodist policy.

The official stance of the church, the fourth largest Christian denomination in Britain, will be to boycott any products made on Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Lay Methodists will also be encouraged to follow the church’s lead.

The move will inevitably put Methodists on a collision course with Britain’s Jewish community. The Board of Deputies of British Jews had already expressed concern over a 50-page report which had been compiled by a Methodist committee and sent to all its churches before the conference explaining why a boycott was justified.

Police arrest Abu Tir, one of four Hamas politicians facing expulsion from Jerusalem

Police arrested Hamas official Mohammed Abu Tir on Wednesday for failing to comply with orders to leave his East Jerusalem home. Abu Tir was arrested at the entrance to the city's southeastern Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, and taken for questioning at the Russian Compound police headquarters.
Police are expected to ask a court on Thursday to remand Abu Tir in custody. In early June, Jerusalem police confiscated Abu Tir's Israeli identity card, along with those of three other Hamas legislators - Mohammed Totach, Khaled Abu Arafa, and Ahmed Atoun - giving them until July to leave Jerusalem.Israel had warned the four men in the past to renounce membership of Hamas or risk losing residency rights in East Jerusalem.

All four men  were arrested a few months after taking part in the Palestinian national elections in January 2006, writes Jonathan Cook.  They remained in jail until recently as “bargaining chips” for the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who is being held captive by Hamas. The loss of residency will leave the politicians stateless.
Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's president has condemned the measure and said that he will take the matter up with the US. Hatem Abdel Kader, Fatah’s minister for Jerusalem affairs, was warned this month by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, that he would have his residency revoked if he continued his political activities in the city.
Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Adalah legal centre for the Arab minority in Israel, said a “very dangerous precedent” was being set. “It is the first time Palestinians in East Jerusalem have had their residency revoked for being ‘disloyal’ and this could be used to expel many other residents whose politics Israel does not like,” he said. Abu Tir, 60, was supposed to leave on June 19, but has so far evaded expulsion. “I will not willingly leave the place my family has lived for 500 years,” he said last week.
Israel has based its decision on the Entry into Israel Law of 1952, which governs the naturalisation process for non-Jews. It allows the interior minister to revoke citizenship and residency in some cases.“The purpose of this law is to oversee the entry into Israel of foreigners,” said Mr Jabareen. “The Palestinians of East Jerusalem did not enter Israel; Israel entered East Jerusalem by occupying it in 1967.”
 Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on the human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the expulsion may constitute a war crime.
 The revocations of the politicians’ residency comes in the wake of a rapid rise in the number of Palestinians who have been stripped of Jerusalem residency on other grounds, usually because a resident has studied or worked abroad. In 2008, more than 4,500 Palestinians lost their Jerusalem residency, interior ministry figures show. The number has been steadily rising since 1995, when 91 Palestinians were stripped of their rights. According to Israel, a total of 13,000 Palestinians have had their residency revoked since 1967.
The loss of residency is seen by the Palestinians as part of a wider Israeli strategy to weaken their hold on East Jerusalem and its holy sites.

Syria dismisses 1200 teachers wearing the niqab

Hundreds of Syrian teachers wearing the face veil were dismissed from their schools as the Ministry of Education said they undermine the secularism of the state. Syrian Minister of Education Ali Saad said in a meeting with heads of Teachers Syndicate offices that the dismissal of 1,200 teachers who wear the face veil (niqab) was necessary, the Lebanese daily As-Safir reported Tuesday. Saad justified his decision by arguing that the face veil is not in line with the secular policies followed by the state as far as education is concerned.

“Education in Syrian schools follows an objective, secular methodology and this is undermined by wearing the face veil.” He also pointed out that the face veil disrupts the teaching process as it hinders eye contact, which is extremely important for the relationship between teacher and student. 

The ministry’s decision affected teachers in various parts of Syria, especially the governorates Rif Dimashq in the south west and Aleppo in the north where teachers in nearly 300 schools in each were dismissed. The number dwindled remarkably in the capital Damascus, while some governorates were not affected at all like Quneitra in the south.
The dismissed teachers, half of which have contracts with the ministry, were transferred to the Ministry of Local Administration, especially in the municipalities. Several of the dismissed teachers submitted complaints which the minister promised will be thoroughly studies. “We will look into their complaints and all they won’t lose their rights,” he said.

The ministry’s decision was treated with enthusiasm by both the public and the intelligentsia. The feminist website Syrian Women Observatory said that the face veil is a sign of going back to the dark ages and constitutes a call for extremism and warned of its negative impact on students, especially children.
Syria is ruled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party, Syrian branch, since 1963. The Baath is thoroughly secular and as a conequence Syria's state institutions are secular as well.

Turkish autopsy report: Israelis on Mavi Marmara shot to kill

Journalist Cevdet Kiliçlar (38) moments before he got killed. His only weapon was a camera with which he was taken pictures till the very end. He may even have photographed his killer, but the camera was taken by Israel. (The picture is a still, taken from a tape by Iara Lee, Cultures of Resistance). 

All but two of the nine Turks killed in an Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship for Gaza were shot more than once, and five died from bullet wounds to the head, according to forensic reports. The documents, penned this month, were made available to AFP Tuesday by lawyers for the victims' families, who have petitioned Turkish prosecutors to investigate the May 31 bloodshed on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ferry. "The findings make it clear the Israeli forces shot to kill the activists and not to overpower them," one of the lawyers, Yasin Divrak, told AFP.
The youngest victim, 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, a dual Turkish-US national, was shot five times, including twice in the head, the report said. A bullet that pierced his face was fired from close range, it said, adding he was hit also in the back of the head.
The forensic experts failed to detect other close-distance shots on the remaining victims. All nine bodies had been washed before being brought to Turkey and their clothes were either blood-soaked or otherwise unfit for analysis, making it impossible to reach a conclusion on the ranges of most shots, according to the documents.
Journalist Cevdet Kiliclar, 38, the web editor of the Islamist charity IHH that led the ill-fated campaign, was killed by a single bullet that hit him between the eyebrows, the report said.
Divrak drew attention to the autopsy of 61-year-old Ibrahim Bilgen, which included the discovery of a tiny bag containing pellets, still intact in his brain, which the report said was was fired from a hunting rifle.
"It is not a type of weapon that we have ever heard of," he said.
Israel says its commandos used force after they were attacked with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the Mavi Marmara, which was sailing in international waters. But the activists insist the troops opened fire as soon as they landed.
The bloody ending to the aid mission, which had aimed to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, plunged ties between Turkey and Israel, once close allies, into deep crisis.
Turkey has dismissed a commission set up by Israel to investigate the raid, insisting for a UN-led international probe.

 A single bullet between the eyebrows. (Picture IHH)

AFP got the autopsy reports the same day that IHH, the humanitarian organisation that organized the flotilla, published a detailed report about the mission and the Israeli attack. In order to see it click here

Agreement between Yemeni government and Houthis is not working

Abdulmalik al-Houthi, leader of the Shia rebels in the northern governorate of Saada (see picture) , has accused the government of reneging on amnesty promises made by President Ali Abdullah Saleh on 22 May. Saleh had announced an amnesty for all imprisoned southern separatists and Houthi rebels in the north during a speech to commemorate unification in 1990. 
"Instead of releasing our fellow citizens in line with President Saleh's amnesty, security authorities in the government are launching new arrest campaigns against our men," al-Houthi said in a statement on 22 June.
According to local media reports, fewer than 800 of the more than 3,000 prisoners believed to be covered by the amnesty have been released.
Asked why the government had not released all of the prisoners under the amnesty, Interior Ministry official Lutfi Nisari said only: "This is a presidential affair." A security source told IRIN on condition of anonymity the government had only released minor offenders, such as those who had sympathized with al-Houthi, but continued to detain those accused of violent acts against the state. “Gunmen arrested on battlegrounds or masterminds of the rebellion will be referred to the competent courts for trial,” he said. 
Eyewitnesses hve given accounts of several fights that have killed dozends in the last few months since the ceasefire. Also roadblocks (on both sides' persist. Internally dipsced persons,m who had retruned to their homes have been force to floee again for the fightig, Irin reported. 

D

 Southerners demonstrate

The north is not the only region where the problem have not been solved. In the south police made 30 arrests in the aftermath of tha attack on 19 June on the headquarters of the security services in the provincial capital Aden. The authorities said the 30 belonged to Al-Qaeda. Local sources with ties to the southern separatist movement, however, said that the 30 had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda but were randomly arrested because they belonged to the secessionists. On Friday there were demonstrations in Aden after one of those arrested died. Police said the cause of his death was an attack of asthma. According to the protesters he died because of wounds that were inflicted when he was tortured.
Within the secessionist movement opposition was voiced against Salem al-Beidh, former president of the former republic of Southern Yemen. Al-Beidh, who resides in Germany, is head of the Supreme Southern Movement Council SSMC. The head of a different movement, the Supreme Southern Council (SSC), Hasaan Ba Awn, accused Al-Beidh to have been the reasons that four protesters in Lahj and Al-Dhale losttheir lives recently. Al-Beidh supported  violent means of protest which in turn caused violent reprisals by the army, was what Ba Awn said.
In  the Egyptian capital Cairo a meeting has taken place of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) the coalition of Yemeni oppostion parties. Organizer and financier was Hamid al-Ahmar, the leader of the biggest tribal association of Yemen, but he himself did not attend. One of the points discussed was the question whether the opposition is serious in trying to find an alternative for president Ali Abdallah Saleh. Al-Ahmar said in a statement that he himself can´t be a candidate, because Al-Saleh is from the same tribe, which would undermine the credibility of such a move. He suggested to pick someone from the south.