Demonstrators marked Jordan’s 1949 independence from British rule by demanding reform and rejecting government plans to hike commodity prices and taxes to offset a $3 billion budget deficit.
A court in Bahrain sentenced Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed pro-democracy activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja to one month in prison for trying to organize an anti-government protest.
As the Friends of Yemen meeting in Riyadh concentrates on security issues, the economic chaos of the past year of unrest and revolution, coupled with diminishing oil stocks, has created a humanitarian crisis, with 44% of the population undernourished.
An Egyptian court convicted five police officers for the death of protesters last year and sentenced each to 10 years. Nearly 200 officers have been charged in the deaths of at least 846 protesters, but acquittals have been common.
An AQAP suicide bomber killed more than 90 Yemeni troops as they practiced for a parade in the capital Sana’a, two days after a US drone strike killed two presumed AQAP operatives. Fighting in southern Yemen has killed hundreds over the past week.
After a week of clashes in Tripoli between pro- and anti-Assad Sunni factions, fighting spread to Beirut when a Sunni cleric and anti-Assad opposition leader was killed by government troops at a checkpoint.
The US is to resume military sales to Bahrain, suspended due to human rights concerns during last year’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the State Department announced. Rights groups says arbitrary arrests and torture continue.
US military advisors to Yemen, pulled out last year due to human rights abuses by the crumbling regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, are set to return—as drone strikes continue on territory controlled by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The Pentagon is this week leading “Eager Lion 2012″—the largest multinational military exercises in the history of Jordan, with maneuvers planned along the Syrian border as well as in the Gulf of Aqaba, across from Israel.
Bahraini authorities arrested Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, for messages he posted on Twitter criticizing the Interior Ministry and demanding the release of other arrested rights advocates.
As Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing the Syrian regime of war crimes, Ankara invoked the threat of NATO intervention if fighting again spills over the border into Turkish territory.
A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the latest suicide bombing in Damascus—which killed 11 at a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers. Iran blamed “foreign powers” that want to inflame the conflict for the blast.
