Showing posts with label unrest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unrest. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2015
Trash Crisis in Beirut, Clashes with Police, Calls for Government to Go
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
THE INDEPENDENT: The international economy is on the brink of a deep new economic crisis that could cost millions of jobs around the globe and trigger mass social unrest, the world's most powerful nations were warned yesterday.
As the leaders of the G20 countries prepare for emergency talks on averting a return to worldwide recession, the United Nations' International Labour Organisation (ILO) issued a grim forecast of the social effects of the continuing economic crisis.
The UN agency warned that it could take until 2016 for global employment to return to the levels of three years ago – and that anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents as a result.
The economic gloom was exacerbated yesterday by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's surprise announcement that his country would hold a referendum on the European debt deal that was struck last week. The vote could put the tortuously conceived package in jeopardy.
The Greek Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, said the announcement was prompted by popular discontent at the terms of the deal. » | NIGEL MORRIS, BEN CHU | Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
REUTERS: May 3 - The world's No. 1 oil exporter faces the twin challenges of creating jobs for a young population at a time of unrest in the Arab world, and pursuing economic reforms with a royal succession looming.
The stability of Saudi Arabia is of global importance since the kingdom sits on more than a fifth of oil reserves, is home to the biggest Arab stock market, is a major owner of dollar assets and acts as a regional linchpin of U.S. security policy.
King Abdullah, who is around 87, unveiled $93 billion in social handouts in March, on top of another $37 billion announced less than a month earlier.
But this apparent effort to insulate the kingdom from Arab popular protests sweeping the region has not stopped activists, including liberals, Shi'ites and Islamists, calling in petitions for more political freedom. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no elected parliament.
Riyadh has not seen the kind of mass uprisings that have shaken the Arab world this year, but Shi'ites in the kingdom's oil-producing east have staged a number of protests.
Almost no Saudis in Riyadh answered a Facebook call for protests on March 11 in the face of a massive security presence.
Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the Al Saud family for 79 years, with influence from clerics following the austere Wahhabi school of Islam, and many oppose the very reforms the king has started.
However, slowing down reforms to modernise education might affect government plans to create jobs -- unemployment last year reached 10 percent.
And with around 70 percent of Saudi Arabia's almost 19 million people under the age of 30, the pressure to find them gainful employment is huge. » | RIYADH | Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: The gap between the Saudi regime's conservative ideology and modern urban reality has fed discontent across societyThe Saudi regime is under siege. To the west, its heaviest regional ally, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, has been ousted. To its north, Syria and Jordan are gripped by a wave of protests which shows no sign of receding. On its southern border, unrest in Yemen and Oman rages on. And troops have been dispatched to Bahrain to salvage its influence over the tiny kingdom exerted through the Khalifa clan, and prevent the contagion from spreading to Saudi Arabia's turbulent eastern provinces, the repository of both its biggest oil reserves and largest Shia population.
Such fears of contagion no longer seem far-fetched. Shortly after the toppling of the Tunisian dictator, an unidentified 65-year-old man died after setting himself on fire in Jizan province, just north of the border with Yemen. Frequent protests urge political reform, and internet campaigns demand the election of a consultative assembly, the release of political prisoners, and women's rights – one that called for a day of rage on 11 March attracted 26,000 supporters.
The government's response was in keeping with a country named the region's least democratic state by the Economist Intelligence Unit last year. Tear gas and live bullets were fired at peaceful demonstrators as helicopters crisscrossed the skies. One of the 11 March organisers, Faisal abdul-Ahad, was killed, while hundreds have been arrested, joining 8,000 prisoners of conscience – among them the co-founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi. Many Saudis have even been detained when seeking news of relatives at the interior ministry, like Mubarak bin Zu'air, a lawyer whose father and brother have long been held without charge, and 17-yearold Jihad Khadr whose brother Thamir, a rights activist is also missing. A short video tackling the taboo of political prisoners attracted over 72,000 views since its release 4 days ago.
Although demands for change date back to 1992's Advice Memorandum – a petition for reform submitted by scholars to the king – the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions have accelerated them. In an unprecedented move, a group of activists and intellectuals defied the official ban on political organisation to announce the formation of the kingdom's first political party (all 10 founding members have since been arrested). And calls for reform have even come from the royal family, with Prince Turki Al Faisal appealing for elections to the Shura, the appointed parliament, at the Jeddah Economic Forum two weeks ago. Continue reading and comment » | Soumaya Ghannoushi | Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
VOICE OF AMERICA: Officials say talks with Saudi ruler to focus on political change across the region, progress on $60 billion arms deal, missile defense[.]
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah for talks on the recent spate of political unrest sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. » | VOA News | Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Sunday, April 03, 2011
KUWAIT TIMES: MUSCAT: Omani police shot dead a protester yesterday in the port of Sohar, north of Muscat when they opened fire to disperse demonstrators demanding the release of prisoners, witnesses told AFP. It was the second death in the port during the current wave of unrest sweeping across the region, after police killed a protester at the end of February in Sohar, an industrial area some 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the capital Muscat, particularly badly hit by unemployment.
Police tried to disperse a crowd of protestors who were hurling stones at them and fired on the crowd when the victim was hit, a witness said. "Dozens of Omanis emerged from mosques in Sohar after Friday prayers to protest and demand the release of jailed relatives" detained during protests earlier this week, one witness said. "One protester, Khalifa Al-Alawi, was hit in the head by a bullet during confrontations with the police and died immediately," the witness said. » | Saturday, April 02, 2011
KUWAIT TIMES: MUSCAT: Security forces detained between 50 and 60 protesters in clashes in the Omani industrial town of Sohar, witnesses said. The violence on Friday during a fifth week of protests involved the use of knives, stones, teargas and rubber bullets, Oman's general prosecutor said. It came three days after a crackdown against protesters to clear a Sohar roundabout where about 100 people had camped out. A 25-year-old man injured by a rubber bullet in Friday's clashes died in hospital. Activists told Reuters security forces used teargas and beat some protesters with batons. » | Sunday, April 03, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
BBC: Unidentified gunmen firing on an anti-government rally in the Yemeni capital Sanaa have killed at least 39 people and injured 200, doctors told the BBC.The gunmen fired from rooftops overlooking the central square in what the opposition called a massacre.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh declared a national state of emergency but denied his forces were behind the shooting.
US President Barack Obama condemned the violence, urging Mr Saleh to allow peaceful protests.
In a statement, he said those responsible for Friday's violence "must be held accountable".
Separately, France demanded an end to attacks "by security forces and armed pro-government groups... against people exercising their rights to free speech and demonstration", Reuters reports. (+ video) » | Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
REUTERS: Oman's ruler has decided to cede some legislative powers to a partially elected council, the state news agency reported on Sunday, in an apparent effort to quell protests in the Gulf Arab sultanate.
The ONA agency also said Sultan Qaboos bin Said would double monthly welfare payments and increase pension benefits, becoming the latest Gulf ruler to offer handsome incentives to citizens in the wake of unrest that has rocked much of the Arab world.
The normally tranquil Oman, an oil-producing nation at the mouth of the Gulf, was stunned by protests in at least two cities last month that left one person dead.
The sultan, who has ruled Oman for 40 years, sacked a string of ministers in a recent cabinet reshuffle and on Sunday appeared to make his biggest concession yet by announcing that he would offer lawmaking powers to the Oman Council.
At present, only the sultan and his cabinet can legislate. >>> Saleh Al-Shaibany | MUSCAT | Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
REUTERS: Omani police fired rubber bullets at stone-throwing protesters demanding political reform on Sunday, killing two people, and demonstrators set government buildings and cars ablaze, witnesses said.The trouble in the town of Sohar, Oman's main industrial center, was a rare sign of discontent in the normally sleepy Gulf Arab sultanate and followed a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.
Witnesses said more than 2,000 protesters had gathered for a second day in a square in Sohar demanding political reforms, more jobs and better pay before police tried to disperse them, first with tear gas and batons and then rubber bullets.
"Two people have died after police fired rubber bullets into the crowd," one witness, who declined to be named, told Reuters from Sohar. A third person was reported in critical condition after being shot.
Another witness said the police had used live ammunition, but that could not immediately be confirmed. Troops deployed in the area, but did not intervene, witnesses said.
Sultan Qaboos bin Said, trying to ease tensions in U.S. ally Oman, reshuffled his cabinet on Saturday, a week after a small protest in the capital Muscat. He has ruled for four decades, exercising absolute power. Political parties are banned.
Oman's state news agency said riots in Sohar had destroyed public and private property but did not mention any deaths. >>> Saleh Al-Shaibany, Muscat | Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: BAGNOLET, France -- Youths rampaged overnight through a suburban Paris housing project, torching eight cars and a bus in a second night of violence prompted by a teenager's death, officials said Tuesday.
Overall, however, tensions appeared to be subsiding in the town of Bagnolet, with less damage than the night before.
Nine people were detained in the unrest early Tuesday, said regional administration spokeswoman Samira Amrouche.
She said the situation was "relatively calm" compared to the previous night, when 29 cars were burned and young people hurled Molotov cocktails at police.
The anger erupted when an 18-year-old pizza deliverer died in a motorcycle crash after fleeing a police check Sunday night. The unrest that night prompted police to send about 40 vans of riot officers to the housing project Monday night.
A helicopter beamed a spotlight into the area early Tuesday as bands of youth taunted police in a cat-and-mouse game typical of suburban unrest in France. Group of youths set street fires and hurled stones and other objects at police.
After daybreak, residents took stock of the destruction. A Moroccan tourist bus, its Arabic lettering mostly charred off, stood beneath an overpass, little more than a tangle of metal seat frames. Pigeons picked through scraps from burned garbage cans. >>> Associated Press | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sunday, October 21, 2007
BBC: Police in the Dutch city of Amsterdam say several cars have been set on fire in the sixth night of unrest after officers shot a Moroccan man dead.
The 22-year old was killed after entering a police station where he stabbed two police officers.
Eleven cars have been set on fire this week in the Slotervaart district of Amsterdam, which is mainly populated by immigrants. Cars burnt after Amsterdam death (more)
Mark Alexander
Friday, July 06, 2007
THE TELEGRAPH: It has been a long time coming, but unmistakable cracks are beginning to appear in the edifice of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's autocratic regime.
Ever since the ayatollahs overthrew the Shah and seized control of the country in the bloody revolution of 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic has owed its survival to a combination of brutal repression and a highly effective security infrastructure controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.
Most of the country's professional and middle classes were wiped out after Khomeini's takeover, and subsequent attempts by more moderate elements to tone down the revolutionary rhetoric have been repressed. A campaign by the Iranian Reform Movement in 2000 to make the country more democratic and the government more accountable collapsed when its leader was shot in the face by a young religious fanatic.
More recently, Mr Ahmadinejad, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards, has quashed any hint of dissent, closing newspapers and censoring access to the internet.
Which all makes the recent riots over the introduction of petrol rationing most heartening. Here we have a country that is awash with oil - Iran produces 4.3 million barrels a day and possesses the world's second largest known oil reserves - and yet it cannot provide sufficient quantities of refined material to meet the needs of its 65 million people. Iranian banks feel the heat (more) By Con Coughlin
Mark Alexander
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