Revolution scenes return to Cairo - and other Arab news

Yesterday, Tahrir Square (Cairo, Egypt) was like this:

Later by the night the Army intervened in force with clear sound of live ammunition for a long time:

No casualties are know at the moment.

The protest had been called by Egyptian youth leaders, according to Al Jazeera. More precisely members of the April 6th Youth Movement and the Social Democratic Party (which supports El Baradei), who fear that the reforms promoted by the Junta are too coy.

Many more videos of yesterday's and today's protests at Tahrir Square at Kikhote (YouTube user).

[Update (apr 10): At least one person was killed an 71 injured by the military repression (BBC). Protests continue for the third day. The Islamists have rejected the demonstrators, calling them "zealots" (how ironic!) The Junta conceded in removing some provincial governors, one of the demands, apparently - but a civilian council to replace the military one is also demanded (AJE)].

Protests and killings continue in Syria

The bloodbath heralded by El Assad in his attempt to retain power beyond this point of no return continues. At least 27 people were murdered yesterday by state forces. 

Protests continue throughout the state: in Daraa, Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Edlib... and even suburbs of Damascus (Harasta). Their demands: an end to the perpetual state of emergency, freedom of speech, free elections, the end of tyranny.

Update (Apr 14): public confessions by alleged murderers in Syrian TV blame massacres on the Muslim Brotherhood and a Lebanese MP (AJE).

Jewish Apartheid forces attack concentration camp in Palestine

The situation in nearby Palestine remains complex and heavily militarized. After a pro-democracy group attacked a bus with children of the privileged Jewish colonial ethnicity, the forces of Racist Palestine (aka Israel) attacked the concentration camp of Gaza where many of the natives have been deported in the last decades.

At the moment it seems that retaliation by the Racist Colonialist State has been limited to activist targets, to members of the Resistance, however that is not how a state is supposed to behave: they should have been arrested and gone through fair trial. Assassination is not a legitimate tool by any state, much less when they have all the power to act otherwise. 

Yemen murders citizens in Taiz and Hudaida

Sale o no sale? (Spanish for does he get out of does he not?), was I joking with some Arab neighbors at the kebab yesterday, playing with the surname of Yemeni dictator Saleh as we watched the images of the Yemeni demonstrations at Al Jazeera Arabic, which is always on these months, with images of the ongoing revolts and repression.

It seems he does not get out... yet. What means longer suffering for the Yemeni people. Last has been the murder of 21 citizens in Taiz, the second city of Yemen, and the port of Hudaida. Other 100 people were injured by live fire and maybe a thousand by tear gas ihalation.

Libyan rebels' love for grappa

Trying to understand the Libyan rebel camp, today Basque newspaper Gara includes a lively field report on them (in Spanish). The impression I get is that they have quite bourgeois shallow ideals of freedom and do not go beyond that. They are not tribal (not anymore), not islamist and they are definitively not socialist.

They joke a bit about this last: this one is a cousin of Osama but then they go serious and reckon: if most of us smoke hashish and drink grappa (Italian white liquor), how are we going to be Al Qaeda militants? 

They do not seem to have much of an organization or even a project (liberal democracy seems to be their goal, but there are not even political parties yet) but they seem determined to get rid of Gaddafi.