U.S. Vows to Assist Lybian Opposition

Libya's opposition movement has seized control of territory close to the capital, Tripoli, as anti-government protesters gear up for what could be a final battle for leader Muammar Gaddafi's stronghold.

Three areas in the east were reported to be under the control of protesters on Monday, a day after pro-democracy demonstrators took control of the city of Az-Zawiyah, just 50km west of Tripoli.

Men opposed to Gaddafi patrolled the streets of Az-Zawiyah, saying they had seized weapons and even tanks which they would use to defend themselves.

But they were also bracing themselves for a potential showdown with forces loyal to Gaddafi, who have reportedly surrounded the city.

Ezeldina, a Zawiyah resident, told Al Jazeera that people in the city had raided military camps to prepare for a potential raid by government forces.

"We are expecting an attack at any moment," he said. "We are forming rotating watch groups, guarding the neighbourhood."

Pro-Gaddafi rallies

Government forces manned several checkpoints between Az-Zawiyah and the capital, and supporters of the Libyan leader demonstrated in the Harsha district, 5km from the centre of Zawiyah.

Government loyalists also took to the streets just outside the capital, waving posters and chanting slogans.

The rallies appeared to be evidence that Gaddafi had not lost complete control of the capital.

Ibrahim Sharquieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Centre, said the battle between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces for Tripoli is not likely to be won immediately.

"We know that [Gaddafi] is in the Bab al-Aziziya area [of Tripoli] and Bab al-Aziziya seems to be very secure. He has his militia around him and they are doing a good job protecting him," Sharquieh told Al Jazeera.

"He has even made some attacks outside the Bab al-Aziziya area.

"We can comfortably say that he is still in control in Tripoli. Although there is some resistance in some areas I don't think we can talk about the city falling today or tomorrow."

'US assistance'

Meanwhile, the calls for Gaddafi to step down multiplied, with the Canadian and British prime ministers urging the Libyan leader to leave.

Gaddafi said the UN council could not see that the capital, Tripoli, was secure.

Earlier, Gaddafi's son denied in a US television interview that turmoil was sweeping the country and said the military did not use force against the people, despite reports to the contrary.

Their calls come as the US secretary of state prepares for crisis talks in Switzerland. Hillary Clinton is due to meet other foreign ministers on the sidelines of a UN human rights meeting in Geneva on Monday.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Clinton called for an end to the bloodshed in Libya.

"First we have to see the end of his regime and with no further bloodshed," she said, adding that Washington is eager for his ouster "as soon as possible".

"We want him to leave."

Clinton also said that Washington was "reaching out" to opposition groups, prepared to offer "any kind of assistance" to Libyans seeking to overthrow the regime.

However, opponents of Gaddafi forming a National Libyan Council in the east said they did not want any foreign intervention in the country.
Blaming al-Qaeda

Despite the international calls for him to step down, Gaddafi has remained defiant.

In an interview with Serbian television, Gaddafi repeated his message that he will stay in Libya and blamed foreigners and al-Qaeda for the unrest that is threatening his more than 41-year rule.

The interview with TV Pink in Belgrade was carried out over the phone while Gaddafi was in his office in Tripoli.

The Libyan leader also condemned the United Nations Security Council for imposing sanctions on him and launching a war crimes inquiry.

There was a "big, big gap between reality and the media reports," Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, told ABC News' "This Week" television programme. "The whole south is calm. The west is calm. The middle is calm. Even part of the east."

His assessment came as much of the oil-producing regions, including the second city of Benghazi, was in protesters' hands.

Saif Gaddafi also denied allegations that the military was targeting Libyan citizens.

"Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb," he said in the interview. "The Libyan air force destroyed just the
ammunition sites. That's it."

However, the death toll from the violent crackdown on protesters is estimated by some diplomats to be about 2,000.

U.S. Mideast Policy: The Case for Sitting on Our Hands

Dear world, sorry about the last 10 years. Peter Beinart on how the new wave of Mideast revolts may finally be ending America’s wasteful war on terror—and why it would have been smarter not to intervene in the first place.

They’re exhilarating, of course. But from an American perspective, the revolutions transforming the Middle East are also deeply sad. They’re sad because they underscore what a terrible waste the last decade of American foreign policy has been. Since September 11, the United States has spent more than $1 trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars have cost thousands of young Americans their lives and maimed many more. And for what? We were told (and I, for one, believed) that in jihadist terrorism we faced a threat of epic military and ideological power. We were told that unless we toppled anti-American regimes and imposed American ideals, the military and ideological balance would tip decisively in our enemies’ favor. “I will not wait on events,” vowed George W. Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address. We were told to wage war because time was not on our side.

Turns out, time was on our side. It was on our side militarily, because Saddam Hussein had no nuclear-weapons program and because in almost 10 years Al Qaeda hasn’t managed another attack on the scale of 9/11 anywhere in the world. But it was also on our side ideologically, because although our foes appeared ideologically strong, they were actually ideologically weak. From Egypt to Libya to Bahrain to Iran, the lesson of the last month is that any regime that offers its people neither free speech nor a decent job is ideologically weak, whether it wraps itself in the mantle of leftism, secularism, or Islam. Had America’s leaders understood that after 9/11, they might have realized that waiting on events, rather than trying to remake the Middle East at gunpoint, wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

We are relearning the lesson that the architects of containment understood more than a half century ago. Then, key conservative intellectuals argued—George W. Bush style—that because the Soviet Union would grow inexorably stronger, the U.S. must launch preventive war while there was still a chance. Conservative writers like James Burnham and Republican leaders like John Foster Dulles and Barry Goldwater demanded an “offensive” strategy aimed at rolling back Soviet communism while there was still time, even if that meant initiating combat. The United States, insisted Dulles in 1952, must abandon “treadmill policies which, at best, might keep us in the same place until we drop exhausted.”

By treadmill policies, Dulles meant containment: the Truman administration’s policy of building up America’s noncommunist allies, both economically and militarily, so they could withstand Soviet subversion. The strategy’s architects believed the U.S. did not need to vanquish Soviet communism militarily because beneath the bravado, our enemy was weak. Eventually, in a showdown against a freer and more prosperous West, communism would vanquish itself.

Truman and his successors made terrible mistakes in the Cold War, but America’s ultimate success stemmed from this basic insight: that as an economically vibrant democracy facing an economically destitute tyranny, the U.S. could afford to wait. And because America did wait, the Cold War ended without catastrophe.

Now we may be witnessing the end of the “war on terror” as well. The rise of democratically elected Arab regimes that are less beholden to the United States represents Osama bin Laden’s and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s worst nightmare. The only source of their appeal was their opposition to American foreign policy at a time when other Middle Eastern leaders looked like corrupt flunkies for the U.S. and Israel.

America will still face huge challenges in the Middle East, mostly because Arabs and Muslims no longer stand in awe of our power. But they won’t be the challenges of discredited, destitute tyrants. They’ll be the challenge of politically accountable, economically modernizing regimes that throw in their lot with China, India, Russia, or Brazil, and question America’s right to patrol the Middle East and cheaply consume the oil under its soil.

Now, as in the Cold War, the health of our system will prove decisive. We were strong vis-à-vis our enemies on 9/11—strong enough to wait them out as long as we confronted challenges at home. But we didn’t, and will now likely face more formidable competitors from a weakened state. It’s a glorious time, and a time for regrets.

Can Al Qaeda Survive Revolts?

Dictators weren’t the only ones caught off guard by the sweep of revolts across the Middle East—so was Al Qaeda. Bruce Riedel on how the revolutions will affect the future of global jihad.

As the Arab world undergoes the most profound changes it has seen in over a half century, and the first-ever democratic revolutions in its history, al Qaeda has been caught off guard like everyone else. Now it is trying to regain its footing by looking for ways to gain advantage. So the stakes in Arabia’s earthquake include not just the outcome in each country, the price of oil, and broader regional security, they also involve a battle for the future of the global jihad.

Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the Jasmine revolution in Tunis that began the winter of Arab revolutions, nor did it have anything to do with the Egyptian revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak. In both cases its various media mouthpieces were remarkably slow to catch up with events. Osama bin Laden has yet to utter one word about the changes in his native Arab world. But time will give it a chance to recover. Egypt especially matters enormously to al Qaeda as the center of the Arab world—its historic, demographic and cultural heart. How events play out in Egypt will directly impact al Qaeda’s ideology and narrative profoundly.

Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian number two in al Qaeda, was silent about the revolution that removed his nemesis until last week. He released the first of what promises to be several messages on the revolution through Sahab media (which literally means ‘in the clouds”). In this first commentary Zawahiri only repeated well-worn al Qaeda propaganda. Mubarak was a stooge of the American embassy. The Egyptian state is a creation of western imperialism. The great villain of Egypt is Napoleon Bonaparte! His 1798 invasion was the first plot “to call for the Jews to settle in Palestine,” Zawahiri claims, prefiguring Israel by a century and a half. Al Qaeda urges the complete overthrow of the corrupt Egyptian state, imposition of Islamic Sharia law, and Egypt’s merger into a new caliphate.

All of this is old stuff from Ayman (even the charge that Napoleon was a closet Zionist). This probably reflects the fact that what happened in Egypt is a total contradiction of al Qaeda’s ideology and he is playing catch up. For him change in the Islamic world should only come from violent jihad and terror, not broad based popular movements using Facebook and Twitter. Change should also not include the Muslim Brothers, Egypt’s largest and oldest Islamic party, which Zawahiri quit decades ago because it renounced violence. He has written a book, The Bitter Harvest, published in Pakistan on the Brotherhood’s many betrayals of jihad. The book is one of the gospels of global jihad.

Now Libya’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi has claimed he is fighting an al Qaeda led rebellion in his eastern province of Cyrenaica. This is a vintage Arab autocrat’s effort to try to smear any opposition as al Qaeda. Al Qaeda’s North African franchise, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb through its al-Andalusia media arm (AQIM demands the re-conquest of Spain for the jihad), belatedly endorsed the uprising in Benghazi and other eastern cities but only days after it started. Again it looks caught off guard.

But al Qaeda’s history is one of resilience and adaptation. It will seek opportunity. It has not had a significant presence in Egypt since Mubarak smashed its cells in the 1990s but if the army tries to slow down the process of holding elections and devolving power to a civilian regime, al Qaeda will be quick to call foul. It will argue the revolution has been stolen by a military coup backed by America proving that only terror and jihad can produce real change.

In Libya, al Qaeda has long had a larger presence. Its Libyan arm has tried to stage revolts in the past in Cyrenaica. Libya has produced proportionally a larger number of al Qaeda recruits than its small population would warrant. One of the reasons the Clinton and Bush administrations began a dialogue with Gaddafi was because his intelligence services had a great deal of information on the terrorists because many are Libyans. If Libya dissolves into a lawless state with armed gangs of various militias, in effect a Somalia on the Mediterranean, al Qaeda may get a foot hold. But that does not mean the revolution today is our enemy. Far better would be for Gaddafi to be toppled and a new regime emerge that reflects a cross section of Libyan society.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has embraced the uprising in Yemen but it too is not in the driver’s seat in the demonstrations in Sana or Aden. It will of course benefit from prolonged unrest which diverts attention from counter-terrorism efforts. AQAP has no role in Bahrain where the opposition is predominately Shia, who are by definition anathema to al Qaeda’s Sunni world view.

The revolutions in Arab states this winter have demonstrated that the epicenter of al Qaeda’s global jihad has long moved away from the Arabs to Pakistan and south Asia. Aside from its branches in Iraq and Yemen it has been marginalized in the Arab world. Even in Iraq the Muslim Brotherhood has attacked it, and even in Gaza, Hamas has attacked it. It has sympathizers and may yet stage a comeback but for now it is on the margin. Thus these democratic changes have tremendous opportunity to weaken al Qaeda further and deal it death blows in countries where new open societies emerge with responsible democratic processes.

In Pakistan by contrast, al Qaeda has a host of allies and fellow travelers. It works very closely with the Pakistani Taliban and with Lashkar e Tayyiba. It has long standing ties to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. Its leaders still find sanctuary in Pakistan and it helps to murder Pakistani leaders like Benazir Bhutto who fight it. You can’t argue with al Qaeda’s priorities. Pakistan has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world so it makes sense to put your main effort there.

NATO Action Mideast?

(CNN) -- If the U.S. military were to intervene in an increasingly chaotic Libya, it would most likely be part of a NATO action in which Libyan bloodshed has reached a humanitarian crisis, analysts said Thursday.

As reports emerged Thursday about deadly clashes between leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces and anti-government protesters in the town of Zawiya near Tunisia, analysts highlighted how Gadhafi has already pledged to fight a rebellion to martyrdom.

Military intervention "is something which I hope doesn't happen, but it looks as though at some point that it should happen," said Simon Henderson, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"What's an acceptable number of civilian deaths? I don't know. Choose your figure," Henderson said. "At the very least, instead of having a casualty list certainly in the hundreds, possibly in the thousands, we don't want a casualty list numbering in the tens of thousands, or 100,000 or so."

After 10 days of protest, Gadhafi has lost control of the eastern portion of a country he has ruled for 42 years, and analysts portrayed him as a dictator desperately clinging to power. Members of his government have defected, and in a sign of growing international pressure, Switzerland ordered Thursday that Gadhafi's assets be frozen.

"You've got to assume the worst about Moammar Gadhafi," Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former under secretary of state between 2005 and 2008, told CNN. "With his back to the wall, he's going to go out in a blaze of vicious attacks."

North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense chiefs ought to be holding discussions about "not taking action but preparation" for the Libyan crisis, said Robert Kagan, a Mideast expert who worked in the State Department under President Ronald Reagan.

"I don't think anyone is talking about immediate military actions now," Kagan told CNN, especially as 167 U.S. citizens are waiting on a ferry to leave Libya.

U.S. officials have said all options were under consideration, including sanctions and enforcement of a no-fly zone, to try to keep the Libyan government from attacking protesters.

Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, interpreted that statement as indicating that military force remains a possibility.

"In my opinion, it's still premature to talk about U.S. military intervention in Libya at this point, but we should not eliminate it completely," Sharqieh said.

Meanwhile, the Department of State recommended Thursday that the 6,000 or so Americans in Libya "depart immediately due to the potential for ongoing unrest."

Libya's disintegration, the latest Middle East uprising that has already toppled autocracies in nearby Tunisia and Egypt, poses greater impacts to Europe than the United States, analysts said.

Africa's largest oil producer, Libya exports 1.5 million barrels a day, mostly to Europe, which relies on the country for 10% of its energy needs, analysts said.

Meanwhile, refugees fleeing Libyan violence are expected to land in such European countries as Italy, analysts said.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama spoke with the leaders of France, Italy and the United Kingdom on coordinating an international response to the crisis in Libya, the White House said.

In separate phone conversations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama "expressed his deep concern with the Libyan government's use of violence, which violates international norms and every standard of human decency, and discussed appropriate and effective ways for the international community to immediately respond," the White House statement said.

While some critics say the Obama administration has been slow to react to Libya, the statement said Thursday's discussions were to "coordinate our urgent efforts to respond to developments and ensure that there is appropriate accountability."

"The leaders discussed the range of options that both the United States and European countries are preparing to hold the Libyan government accountable for its actions, as well as planning for humanitarian assistance," the White House statement said.

Complicating any consideration of military intervention is how American and European armed forces have been strained from repeated deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq for almost 10 years, analysts said.

Libya's factions and tribalism would make an intervention perilous, said Nathan Hughes, director of military analysis for the global intelligence firm Stratfor of Austin, Texas.

"It's not clear what a post-Gadhafi Libya looks like," Hughes said. "It's a very messy situation. It would be a very difficult situation to jump into militarily.

"There are no geographical boundaries. There are soft demographic, cultural and tribal boundaries. To get enmeshed in that without understanding the local culture ... it would be a pretty tough spot to put troops in," Hughes added. "Once the writing is on the wall that Gadhafi is going to go likely to go, the incentive for the various tribal factions and other factions within Libya is to maneuver to make sure they have a place in whatever comes next."

Were NATO to send armed forces into Libya, the rest of the Arab world wouldn't protest much, the analysts said.

"I don't think they would have any problem with this. I would suspect that the Arab world would support this," Sharqieh said.

Added Henderson: "On day one, they would probably think it's a good idea. On day two, come back and ask...me."

Oil Production to "Shut Down Completely"

LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Oil production in Libya is expected to shut down completely and could be lost for a prolonged period of time, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said on Thursday.

"We expect Libyan production to be shut down completely and we might lose sweet crudes from Libya for a prolonged period of time," Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Sabine Schels told Reuters.

Schels said that the world faced the prospect of real supply shock in which the loss of 1.6 million barrels per day of sweet oil could potentially trigger a steep rise in prices and force a sharp reduction in demand to balance the system.

"Some of the supply can be replaced with Saudi light crude and some from SPR, but if the disruption is prolonged, we will need demand to drop to balance the system," Schels said.

The bank is currently discussing scenarios and outlooks, and will publish a report on its findings in the coming days.

"We already faced a demand shock last year with global demand increasing by 2.8 million bpd and on top of that, what we have now is a real supply shock," Schels said.

"In a price shock scenario whereby we lose 1.6 million bpd, the rise in prices can be a lot greater than in the case of a demand shock.

Middle East Solidarity

CAIRO — Hundreds of thousands of protesters turned out in cities across the Middle East on Friday to protest the unaccountability of their leaders and express solidarity with the uprising in Libya that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is trying to suppress with force.

In Iraq, demonstrations for better government services spiraled out of control in many places. Protesters burned buildings and security forces fired on crowds in Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi and in Salahuddin Province, north of the capital, killing at least four people.

Large-scale demonstrations in Yemen appeared to proceed more peacefully, even festively. More than 100,000 people poured into the streets on Friday, after Yemen’s embattled president pledged on Wednesday not to crack down on protesters.

In Egypt, tens of thousands of people returned to Tahrir Square in central Cairo to celebrate one full month since the start of the popular revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

In Bahrain, pro-democracy demonstrations on a scale that appeared to dwarf the largest ever seen in the tiny Persian Gulf nation blocked miles of downtown roads and highways in Manama, the capital, on Friday. The crowds overflowed from Pearl Square in the center of the city for the second time in a week.

In a shift from Tuesday, when antigovernment protesters brought more than 100,000 people to Pearl Square, on Friday it was the country’s Shiite religious leaders who called for people to take to the streets. That development could change the dynamic in Bahrain, where Shiites are the majority but the rulers belong to the Sunni minority.

“We are winners, and victory comes from God,” protesters chanted in Manama.

A small number of black flags — a Shiite mourning symbol — could be seen for the first time in the vast sea of red and white, the colors of Bahrain. Crowds stretched two miles to the Bahrain Mall, east of Pearl Square, and about another two miles southwest of the square to the Salmaniya Medical Complex.

Throughout the unrest that has gripped the region for more than a month, protest organizers have mounted their largest demonstrations on Fridays, when most people are off work and the day is punctuated by an important Muslim prayer service at noon.

The violence in Iraq came after demonstrators responded to a call for a “day of rage,” despite attempts by the government to keep people from taking to the streets. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki made a televised speech on Thursday urging Iraqis not to gather, and security officials in Baghdad banned all cars from the streets until further notice.

.

As protesters took to the streets around the region, many kept their eyes on Libya, where the government has been waging a brutal crackdown against protesters, whose efforts over the past week have developed into a full-scale rebellion. Much of the east of the country is now in the hands of antigovernment rebels and clashes continue in the west. In Tripoli, which is under the control of mercenaries and militias as Colonel Qaddafi’s attempts to preserve the capital, protesters pledged to brave threats of violence to take to the streets.

In at least three neighborhoods of the capital, gunfire was reported after worshippers left Friday prayers in the early afternoon, with security forces acting either to disperse protesters gathering to march on the streets, or to deliberately target them. Those reports, in telephone interviews by news agencies, could not be independently confirmed.

Opposition leaders had also pledged to march to Tripoli from other cities, though the roads were reported to be thick with checkpoints and heavily armed forces that remain loyal to Colonel Qaddafi’s 40-year rule. But tens of thousands did turn out in Benghazi, the eastern city where the Libyan rebellion started over a week ago, and which is now in control of the opposition.

In Yemen, where protesters have faced sporadic violence from security forces and government supporters, roughly 100,000 people massed in the southern city of Taiz for demonstrations dubbed “Martyrs’ Friday,” in honor of two protesters who died in a grenade attack last week.

While weeks protests in the capital, Sana, have been tense, with repeated clashes between pro and antigovernment forces, the demonstration in Taiz, the intellectual hub of the country, took on a hopeful, exhilarated feel. Along with the youth who organized the protests on Facebook, older residents of the countryside flowed into the area of the town that protesters have dubbed Freedom Square.

“There are no parties, our revolution is a youth revolution,” read one banner. In emulation of Egypt’s Tahrir Square, the center of the protest zone in Taiz was filled with some 100 tents, where people had spent the night for more than a week, and there were national flags and large signs.

A cleric delivered a morning speech, reminding the people that the revolution was not against a single person but against oppression itself. And as noon prayers ended, the people broke out into the roaring chant that has now become familiar around the Arab world: “The people want to topple the regime.”

At the same time in the capital, tens of thousands of people were pouring into a square near the main gates of Sana University to call for the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh amid a tight security presence, The Associated Press reported.

In Cairo, tens of thousands of Egyptians flooded Tahrir Square as much to renew the spirit of Egypt’s popular revolution, which resulted in Mr. Mubarak’s resignation on Feb. 11, as to press for new demands. The square felt like a carnival, filled with banners in Egypt’s national colors of black, white and red. Vendors sold cheese and bean sandwiches and popcorn, a man fried liver on a portable grill, and others sold revolutionary souvenirs, like miniature flags, stuffed animals, and stickers for sale.

The utopian spirit of the revolution, which had included people from all aspects of Egyptian society, was still evident, as secular leftists, members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and women wearing full Islamic veils with children on their arms circulated through the crowd. Ismael Abdul Latif, 27, a writer, chatted with the religious women, only their eyes showing, as they drew revolutionary posters.

“I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that we would be talking to a munaqaba”— as women in full veils are called — “in Tahrir Square,” he said. “A secular artist is having a political debate with a fully veiled lady and having a meaningful conversation. What’s the world coming to?”

But there were also signs of tension, as well as reminder that it was the military that ultimately remains in charge. Several hours into the demonstration, an army officer demanded that protesters dismantle the tents they were erecting in the center of the square, touching off a series of angry arguments.

There were fervent political demands as well, foremost among them, the resignation of the cabinet that Mr. Mubarak had appointed before his downfall, as well as the dismantling of the security apparatus, the release of prisoners still held under Egypt’s repressive emergency laws, and the prosecution of former leaders guilty of corruption.

George Ishaq, one of the founders of Kifaya, an early protest movement here, led chants through speakers, saying, “Our demand today is a presidential council in which civilians will take part. We want it to be one politician one judge, and one representative of the armed forces.”

“We are not leaving, he’s leaving,” the crowd chanted, referring this time to Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister, with the slogan that had foretold Mr. Mubarak’s fall. “Mubarak left the palace, but Shafiq still governs Egypt.”

Government Shutdown Looming

With the clock ticking to a March 4 government shutdown, you might imagine the Capitol would be buzzing with lawmakers seeking to cut deals, make impassioned speeches and do everything they could to strike a deal on spending.

You'd be wrong.

House lawmakers stayed until 4:41 a.m. Saturday to finish up a spending bill to keep the government open, and sent it over to the Senate — only to be met with an empty chamber. Senators had closed up shop two days before and went home for a 10-day break to honor George Washington's birthday.

"We will do our work, but where is the Senate? They're on vacation," said Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican and member of the House Appropriations Committee who ran part of the floor debate over cutting spending for the new health care law. "Here we are knocking up against a March 4 deadline and they're missing the deadline again."

Indeed, the corridors of the Capitol have been empty this entire week, with both the House and Senate adjourned, leaving their leaders to try negotiations through press releases, Twitter messages and telephone conference calls.

"Less than 90 days into the job, House Republicans seem more interested in shutting down the government than showing the leadership necessary create jobs and help the economy recover," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said in a press release Thursday, responding to Republicans' press releases from the day before.

Aides said the Washington's birthday holiday has been on the books for weeks, and pointed out that both the House and Senate are off.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was in his home state this week, delivering a speech to the Nevada legislature and urging them to ban prostitution statewide.

Meanwhile, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, was in Florida this week doing fundraising. The speaker also found time to hit the golf course.

Other lawmakers, including many freshman, were at home in their districts, holding town hall gatherings and meeting with constituents.

A message left with Senate Democratic leaders' office seeking comment on the schedule wasn't returned, but a Senate Republican leadership aide said they are confident a shutdown will be avoided and Congress will pass a "continuing resolution," or "CR," in time.

"Speaker Boehner has already said that the House will pass a short-term CR, and this will give Harry Reid time to find a solution to reduce spending and keep the government operational," the aide said.

Staffers are doing some negotiating this week, though there is not yet a deal to bridge the gap between House Republicans' bill, which would cut $61 billion from 2010 spending levels, and Senate Democrats, who want to extend 2010 spending levels into April and said then they'll be willing to negotiate some cuts.

Senate Democratic leaders have already rejected House Republicans' bill, and President Obama has said he'll veto it.

On Thursday, top Democratic lawmakers released reports they said document how the cuts will hurt the poor and leave the federal government unable to fulfill basic functions such as immigration enforcement.

House Republicans said they've done their work. They stayed in session until 1 a.m. twice, worked until 3:43 a.m. another day, and then pushed until nearly 5 a.m. Saturday morning to get their bill done. Along the way, they considered hundreds of amendments and held more than 100 recorded votes.

The Senate, meanwhile, hasn't touched spending since before Christmas. Instead, senators have worked on a bill to update federal aviation rules, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support on Feb. 17.

Senators then left Washington, adjourning by unanimous consent, which means no lawmakers objected to the decision.

Freshmen House members were incredulous.

"It's just remarkable that we have this deadline looming and apparently they're not working on it," said Rep. Robert Hurt, Virginia Republican. "It's incumbent on them to get the work done — either adopt the measure as we've sent it over or get it back to us as soon as possible so we can work out the details."

Earlier this week freshman Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, New York Republican, said she "must wonder why the Senate is taking this week off if they are so concerned about a shutdown on March 4th."

Mr. Rehberg, the Montana lawmaker who has already announced he is seeking to run against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester next year, said it was clear to him senators are trying to stall. He said voters will show their displeasure.

"When a team stalls to win, they start getting booed from the audience," he said.

Democrats, though, counter that it is the GOP's cuts that will draw voters' ire.

"Republicans seem to want to take a meat ax to programs that keep our communities safe and keep our economy growing. We believe that we need to use a scalpel, not a meat ax," Mr. Reid told reporters in a Tuesday conference call, just hours after he delivered his speech to the Nevada legislature.

U.S. to Slip to #3 Economy

The world is going to become richer and richer as developing economies play catch up over the coming years, according to Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup.

"We expect strong growth in the world economy until 2050, with average real GDP growth rates of 4.6 percent per annum until 2030 and 3.8 percent per annum between 2030 and 2050," Buiter wrote in a market research.

"As a result, world GDP should rise in real PPP-adjusted terms from $72 trillion in 2010 to $380 trillion dollars in 2050," he wrote.

As the world watches oil prices rise sharply amid unrest in the Middle East, Buiter's analysis of the world's long-term prospects offer some hope that better times are ahead but if he is right power will shift from the West to the East very quickly.

"China should overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world by 2020, then be overtaken by India by 2050," he predicted.

One Way Bet on Emerging Markets?

Growth will not be smooth, according to Buiter. "Expect booms and busts. Occasionally, there will be growth disasters, driven by poor policy, conflicts, or natural disasters. When it comes to that, don't believe that 'this time it's different'."

"Developing Asia and Africa will be the fastest growing regions, in our view, driven by population and income per capita growth, followed in terms of growth by the Middle East, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS, and finally the advanced nations of today," he wrote.

"For poor countries with large young populations, growing fast should be easy: open up, create some form of market economy, invest in human and physical capital, don't be unlucky and don't blow it. Catch-up and convergence should do the rest," Buiter added.

Buiter has constructed a "3G index" to measure economic progress; 3G stands for "Global Growth Generators" and is a weighted average of six growth drivers that the Citigroup economists consider important:

A measure of domestic saving/ investment
A measure of demographic prospects
A measure of health
A measure of education
A measure of the quality of institutions and policies
A measure of trade openness
Using that index the nations to watch over the coming years are Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

"They are our 3G countries," Buiter said.

Lubbock Man Linked to Terrorist Plot

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - FBI agents arrested a Saudi Arabian man living in Lubbock, TX, on a charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction Wednesday.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of Lubbock, was arrested in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary to make an improvised explosive device (IED) and his research of potential U.S. targets.

According to an affidavit, Aldawsari researched various targets and emailed himself information on locations and people, including the names and addresses of three American citizens who had previously served in the U.S. military and had been stationed for a time at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, 12 reservoir dams in Colorado and California, hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants, and a nightclub.

On Feb. 6, 2011, the affidavit alleges, Aldawsari sent himself an email titled "Tyrant's House," in which he listed the Dallas address for former President George W. Bush.

Aldawsari is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Lubbock at 9 a.m. Friday. Aldawsari, who was lawfully admitted into the United States in 2008 on a student visa and is enrolled at South Plains College near Lubbock, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

According to an affidavit, Aldawsari had been researching how to construct an IED using several chemicals as ingredients. He had also acquired or tried to acquire most of the ingredients and equipment necessary to construct an IED.

The affidavit alleges that on Feb. 1, 2011, a chemical supplier reported to the FBI a suspicious attempted purchase of concentrated phenol, a toxic chemical that can be used to make the explosive trinitrophenol, also known as TNP, or picric acid.

Aldawsari allegedly attempted to have the phenol order shipped to a freight company so it could be held for him there, but the freight company returned the order to the supplier and called the police. Later, Aldawsari falsely told the supplier he was associated with a university and wanted the phenol for "off-campus, personal research." Frustrated by questions being asked over his phenol order, Aldawsari canceled his order and later emailed himself instructions for producing phenol. The affidavit alleges that in December 2010, he successfully purchased concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids, two other ingredients needed to produce TNP.

According to the affidavit, Aldawsari also emailed himself a recipe for picric acid, which the email describes as a "military explosive;" information on the material required for Nitro Urea, how to prepare it, and the advantages of using it; and instructions on how to convert a cellular phone into a remote detonator and how to prepare a booby-trapped vehicle using items available in every home.

One email allegedly contained a message stating that "one operation in the land of the infidels is equal to ten operations against occupying forces in the land of the Muslims."

Aldawsari allegedly described his desire for violent jihad and martyrdom in blog postings and a personal journal. "You who created mankind….grant me martyrdom for Your sake and make jihad easy for me only in Your path," he wrote.

"[Wednesday's] arrest demonstrates the need for and the importance of vigilance and the willingness of private individuals and companies to ask questions and contact the authorities when confronted with suspicious activities," said U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks. "Based upon reports from the public, Aldawsari's plot was uncovered and thwarted. We're confident we have neutralized the alleged threat posed by this defendant."

During a search of Aldawsari's home, FBI agents found a notebook at Aldawsari's residence that appeared to be a diary or journal. According to the affidavit, excerpts from the journal indicate that Aldawsari had been planning to commit a terrorist attack in the United States for years.

One entry described how Aldawsari sought and obtained a particular scholarship because it allowed him to come directly to the United State and helped him financially, which he said "will help tremendously in providing me with the support I need for Jihad." The entry continues: "And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for Jihad."

China Cracks Down on "Jasmine Revolution"

BEIJING—Chinese authorities detained dozens of political activists after an anonymous online call for people to start a "Jasmine Revolution" in China by protesting in 13 cities—just a day after President Hu Jintao called for tighter Internet controls to help prevent social unrest.

Only a handful of people appeared to have responded to the call to protest in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other cities at 2 p.m. Sunday, a call first posted on the U.S.-based Chinese-language news website Boxun.com and circulated mainly on Twitter, which is blocked in China.

But Chinese authorities seemed to take it seriously, deploying extra police to the planned protest sites, deleting almost all online discussion of the appeal, blocking searches for the word "Jasmine" on Twitter-like microblogs and other sites and temporarily disabling mass text-messaging services.

Ahead of the planned protests, more than 100 activists across China were taken away by police, confined to their homes or went missing, according to the Hong Kong-based group Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

The online protest appeal is likely to compound the apparent concern among Communist Party leaders that the recent uprisings against authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa could inspire similar unrest in China. The lackluster popular response, however, demonstrates how much harder it would be to organize a sustained protest movement in a country with a well-funded and organized police force, and with the world's most sophisticated Internet censorship system.

At one of the designated protest sites—a McDonald's outlet in Beijing's central Wangfujing shopping district—a crowd of several hundred people gathered, along with hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police, shortly before 2 p.m.

The crowd, however, consisted almost entirely of foreign journalists and curious shoppers—many of whom thought there was a celebrity in the area—along with a handful of young people who said they had heard about the protest appeal and came to watch.

The only sign of protest came from a young Chinese man who was detained by police after laying some jasmine flowers outside the McDonald's and trying to take a photograph of them on his mobile phone, witnesses said. At least two other people were detained after altercations with police, but it wasn't clear whether they were protesting, the witnesses said.

Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to China—who has been critical of the country's Internet controls—was also in the crowd but quickly left after he was identified by a Chinese crowd member with whom he was chatting.

In Shanghai, meanwhile, police led away three people outside a Starbucks outlet near the planned protest spot after they shouted complaints about the government and high food prices, according to the Associated Press. There were no reports of demonstrations in other cities where people were urged to protest, which included Guangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan and Chengdu.

The protest appeal had urged people to "take responsibility for the future" and to shout a slogan that encapsulated some of the most pressing social issues in China: "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness!"

It came at a sensitive time, as China prepares for the March 5 start of the annual meeting of its parliament, the National People's Congress. China's leaders are also anxious to ensure social stability in the run-up to a once-in-a-decade party leadership change next year, when Mr. Hu and six other top leaders are due to retire.

On Saturday, Mr. Hu urged national and provincial leaders to "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability of the society." Some Chinese and Western analysts have argued that China faces many of the same social problems that have inspired the protests in the Middle East and North Africa, especially rising housing and food prices.

Others, however, say that China is unlikely to suffer similar unrest because living standards are generally rising faster, and social controls are much stronger, especially online. Although an increasing number of people are becoming aware of censorship and ways to circumvent it, Chinese authorities have also been largely successful in controlling the spread of information. Locally operated websites must delete any content the government deems "harmful," and companies that store user information in China must comply if the government requests access to that information.

This has often enabled authorities to quickly identify and stop organized political action before it reaches too many people, all while staying under the radar of most ordinary citizens, who aren't constantly searching for political content. It also makes heavy-handed crackdowns affecting large numbers of Internet users mostly unnecessary.

China blocks websites like Facebook and Twitter, which were used by activists in Egypt, and keeps out other undesirable foreign content, from criticism of China's leaders to information about sensitive historical events, using Web-filtering technology.

President Hu called for even stronger Internet restrictions in his speech on Saturday at the Central Party School in Beijing, which trains rising leaders.

"At present, our country has an important strategic window for development, but is also in a period of magnified social conflicts," he said. Among the steps Beijing had to take, Mr. Hu said, was "further strengthening and improving management of the Internet, improving the standard of management of virtual society, and establishing mechanisms to guide online public opinion."

The Politics of the South

BILOXI, Mississippi — A Mississippi proposal to issue a state license plate honoring a Confederate general believed to be a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan has stirred protest and resurrected the state's ugly racial past.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans proposed that Mississippi issue a specialty plate honoring General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who many historians say was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist group that terrorized blacks in the South after the Civil War.

Forrest is the only individual they want to commemorate. All the other plates would be in remembrance of battles that took place in Mississippi or Confederate veterans as a whole.

The proposal must be approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Haley Barbour.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent a letter to Barbour on Friday saying it would be immoral and unconstitutional to honor a KKK leader.

"We are asking the governor to stop this action immediately. Every fair-minded southerner knows that the Civil War was a negative time in history and having a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan on the back of vehicles will only tarnish the state's image," NAACP state president Derrick Johnson said.

The KKK was a secret racist group active after the Civil War and well into the 20th century. Wearing White robes and masks, KKK mobs sometimes lynched blacks without trial.

This license plate controversy comes just months after Barbour, a Republican, told a weekly magazine that he does not remember the 1960s civil rights struggle in his hometown in Yazoo City as being "that bad." Barbour later clarified that he had not intended to condone segregation in the South.

Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that honors Confederate heritage, wants the state to issue the series of license plates to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Mississippi Democratic Rep. Willie Bailey, who handles license plate requests in the state House, said he has no problem with the organization creating any design it wants.

"If they want a tag commemorating veterans of the Confederacy, I don't have a problem with it," said Bailey, who is black. "As long as it's not offensive to anybody, then they have the same rights as anybody else has."

Mississippi has allowed over 100 different specialty license plates, which range from the innocuous -- such as wildlife conservation and NASCAR auto racing -- to more controversial such as one opposing abortion. Specialty plates are available to anyone in the state, usually for a fee of $30 to $50 per year. All designs have to be approved by the state government.

Contagious Revolution #5 Wisconsin?

MADISON, Wis. – Authorities say an estimated 25,000 people are protesting anti-union legislation at the Wisconsin state Capitol, and nine demonstrators have been arrested.

On the third day of protests, the Statehouse was completely jammed with protesters opposed to a bill that would strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. The crowd filled the building's hallways, sat cross-legged across the floor and chanted slogans.

For the moment, a group of Democratic senators have blocked the bill by refusing to attend a midday vote and leaving the Capitol. The sergeant at arms was looking for them.

One member of the group told The Associated Press that they had all left Wisconsin in an effort to force Republicans to negotiate.

Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but they need at least one Democrat to be present before voting.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A group of Wisconsin lawmakers blocked passage of a sweeping anti-union bill Thursday by ignoring orders to attend a vote and instead left the state to force Republicans to negotiate over the proposal.

As ever-growing throngs of protesters filled the Capitol for a third day, the 14 Democrats disappeared from the Capitol. They were not in their offices, and aides said they did not know where any of them had gone.

Hours later, one of them told The Associated Press that the group had left Wisconsin.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach said Democrats fled to slow down consideration of the bill in the hopes that Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers would discuss changes.

"The plan is to try and slow this down because it's an extreme piece of legislation that's tearing this state apart," Erpenbach told the AP in a telephone interview.

He refused to say where he was. Other Democratic lawmakers sent messages over Twitter and issued written statements, but did not say where they were.

The Democrats failed to show up when the Senate started its business around midday Thursday, and the sergeant at arms began looking for them. If he's unable to find them, he's authorized to seek help, including potentially contacting police.

Democratic Minority Leader Mark Miller released a statement on behalf of all Democrats urging Walker and Republicans to listen to opponents of the measure and seek a compromise. His statement did not address where Democrats were or when they planned to return.

"Today they checked out, and I'm not sure where they're at," Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. "This is the ultimate shutdown, what we're seeing today."

Senate rules and the state constitution say absent members can be compelled to appear, but it does not say how.

Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but they need at least one Democrat to be present before taking a vote on the bill.

As Republicans tried to begin Senate business Thursday, observers in the gallery screamed "Freedom! Democracy! Unions!" Opponents cheered when a legislative leader announced that there were not enough senators present to proceed.

The bill came to the Senate after the Legislature's budget committee endorsed it just before midnight Wednesday. Once passed by the Senate, the Assembly would take it up. Democrats in that chamber were present Thursday and they were cheered and high-fived by protesters as they left for closed-door caucus meetings.

Walker and Republican leaders have said they have the votes to pass the plan. Walker planned a news conference for Thursday afternoon.

Thousands of protesters clogged the hallway outside the Senate chamber beating on drums, holding signs deriding Walker and pleading for lawmakers to kill the bill as the expected vote neared. Protesters also demonstrated outside the homes of some lawmakers.

Hundreds of teachers called in sick, forcing a number of school districts to cancel classes. Madison schools, the state's second-largest district with 24,000 students, closed for a second day as teachers poured into the Capitol.

Hundreds more people, many of them students from the nearby University of Wisconsin, slept in the rotunda for a second night.

"We are all willing to come to the table, we've have all been willing from day one," said Madison teacher Rita Miller. "But you can't take A, B, C, D and everything we've worked for in one fell swoop."

The proposal marks a dramatic shift for Wisconsin, which passed a comprehensive collective bargaining law in 1959 and was the birthplace of the national union representing all non-federal public employees.

"The story around the world is the rush to democracy," said Democratic Sen. Bob Jauch of Poplar during the committee debate on the measure Wednesday night. "The story in Wisconsin is the end of the democratic process."

In addition to eliminating collective bargaining rights, the legislation also would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage — increases Walker calls "modest" compared with those in the private sector.

Republican leaders said they expected Wisconsin residents would be pleased with the savings the bill would achieve — $30 million by July 1 and $300 million over the next two years to address a $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

"I think the taxpayers will support this idea," Fitzgerald said.

Wisconsin has long been a bastion for workers' rights. It was the first state to grant collective bargaining rights to public employees more than a half-century ago. And the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was founded in 1936 in Madison.

But when voters elected Walker, an outspoken conservative, along with GOP majorities in both legislative chambers, it set the stage for a dramatic reversal of the state's labor history.

Under Walker's plan, state employees' share of pension and health care costs would go up by an average of 8 percent.

Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized.

In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Walker has threatened to order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers if the measure does not pass.

Contagious Revolution #4 Lybia

CAIRO – Egypt-inspired unrest spread against Libya's longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday, with riot police clashing with protesters in the second-largest city of Benghazi and marchers setting fire to security headquarters and a police station in the city of Zentan, witnesses said.

Gadhafi's government sought to allay further unrest by proposing the doubling of government employees' salaries and releasing 110 suspected Islamic militants who oppose him — tactics similar to those used by other Arab regimes in the recent wave of protests.

Activists using Facebook and Twitter have called for nationwide demonstrations on Thursday to demand the ouster of Gadhafi, establishment of a constitution and comprehensive political and economic reforms. Gadhafi came to power in 1969 through a military coup and has ruled the country without an elected parliament or constitution.

The Benghazi protest began Tuesday and lasted until around 4 a.m. Wednesday. It was triggered by the arrest of an activist but quickly took on an anti-government tone, according to witnesses and other activists. The protest was relatively small, but it signaled that anti-government activists have been emboldened by uprisings elsewhere.

It started at the local security headquarters after troops raided the home of rights advocate Fathi Tarbel and took him away, according to Switzerland-based activist Fathi al-Warfali.

Tarbel was released after meeting with security official Abdullah al-Sanousi, but the protesters proceeded to march through the coastal city to the main downtown plaza, he said.

Families of other prisoners marched to security headquarters to protest the detention of Tarbel and another activist, writer Idris al-Mesmari, who remained in jail, al-Warfali reported, citing witnesses.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said a total of nine activists have been arrested in Tripoli and Benghazi in an effort to prevent people from joining Thursday's rallies. Those protests were called to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the killing of nine people demonstrating in front of the Italian Consulate against a cartoon depicting Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

"This is a pre-emptive attempt to prevent peaceful protests on Feb. 17," the group's Heba Morayef said.

Independent confirmation was not possible because the government tightly controls the media, but video clips posted on the Internet showed protesters carrying signs and chanting: "No God but Allah. Moammar is the enemy of Allah," and "Down, down to corruption and to the corrupt."

Police and armed government backers quickly clamped down, firing rubber bullets and dousing protesters with water cannons.

Another video with the same date showed people running away from gunfire while shots are heard. A young man in a white, bloodstained robe was then seen being carried by protesters.

A Libyan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said 14 people, including 10 policemen, were injured. He said protesters were armed with knives and stones. Witnesses said the protests were peaceful but came under attack from pro-Gadhafi men.

In the southern city of Zentan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Tripoli, hundreds of people marched through the streets and set fire to security headquarters and a police station, then set up tents in the heart of the town while chanting, "The people want the ouster of the regime," witnesses told al-Warfali.

Resentment against Gadhafi runs high in Zentan because many of the detained army officers who took part in a failed coup in 1993 are from the city of 100,000 people.

In Beyida, to the east of Benghazi, hundreds of protesters torched police stations while chanting, "people want the ouster of the regime," according to Rabie al-Messrati, a 25-year-old protester. Al-Messrati said he was arrested five days ago after spreading the call on Facebook for a Feb. 17 protest. He said he was released Tuesday and took part in Wednesday's protests.

"All the people of Beyida are out in the streets," he said while security forces opened gunfire in the air.

The protests came as security forces in Beyida rounded up a number of activists while searching for Sheik Ahmed al-Dayekh, an outspoken cleric who criticized Gadhafi and corruption in Libya during a Friday sermon.

The outbreak of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Iran has roiled the Middle East and brought unprecedented pressure on leaders like Gadhafi who have held virtually unchecked power for decades.

It also has posed new challenges for the United States, which has strategic interests in each of the countries. President Barack Obama conceded Tuesday he is concerned about the region's stability and prodded governments to get out ahead of the change.

Libya's official news agency did not carry any reports of the anti-government protests. It reported only that supporters of Gadhafi demonstrated Wednesday in the capital, Tripoli, as well as Benghazi and other cities.

Libyan TV showed video of 12 state-orchestrated rallies of government employees, and students. The biggest was in Tripoli, where about 3,000 rallied in the streets, chanting: "Moammar is our leader. We don't want anyone but him."

JANA, the official news agency, quoted a statement from the pro-Gadhafi demonstrators as pledging to "defend the leader and the revolution." The statement described the anti-government protesters as "cowards and traitors."

Meanwhile, the government freed 110 Islamic militants who were members of a group plotting to overthrow Gadhafi, leaving only 30 members of the group in prison.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the leader's son, has orchestrated the release of members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is suspected of having links to al-Qaida, in the past as part of a reconciliation plan.

The government also proposed increasing the salaries of state workers by 100 percent.

Gadhafi, long reviled in the West, has been trying to bring his country out of isolation, announcing in 2003 that he was abandoning his program for weapons of mass destruction, renouncing terrorism and compensating victims of the 1986 La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Those decisions opened the door for warmer relations with the West and the lifting of U.N. and U.S. sanctions, but Gadhafi continues to face allegations of human rights violations in the North African nation.

The activist's arrest followed the collapse of talks between the government and a committee representing families of hundreds of inmates killed when security forces opened fire during 1996 riots at Abu Salim, Libya's most notorious prison. The government has begun to pay compensation to families, but the committee is demanding prosecution of those responsible.

Al-Warfali said the ultimate goal was to oust the Gadhafi regime.

"These are old calls by the Libyan opposition in exile, but Egypt and Tunisia have given us new momentum. They brought down the barrier of fear," he said.

Lubbock Group Sues President

A group of people has filed suit against the president of the United States in Lubbock, asking a federal court to declare unconstitutional massive health care legislation passed in 2010.

The class-action lawsuit against Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder, among others, is a re-filing of a case a federal judge in Tennessee’s Eastern District threw out.

“Lubbock has a really good reputation of the following the Constitution — following the law — so we decided to file there,” said Van Irion, a Tennessee attorney representing the plaintiffs for Liberty Legal Foundation. “It didn’t matter which district we decided to file in because we have members in every single one of them.”

Slaton resident Arthur Enloe is a member of the group and volunteered to serve as a plaintiff to challenge health care, Irion said.

Enloe could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Liberty Legal Foundation is a conservative activist group dedicated to “strategically challenging flawed court precedent to restore our Constitution.”

The lawsuit filed in Lubbock differs from other legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because it alleges the federal government has no authority to regulate health care because the Supreme Court misinterpreted the Constitution in 1942 in Wickard v. Filburn.

“The Wickard v. Filburn case misinterpreted the commerce clause and granted Congress and the federal government powers that it was never intended to be granted,” Irion said. “We’re trying to get Wickard v. Filburn overturned.”

Irion said he wouldn’t try to guess what kind of timetable on which the case would progress, but said he planned to file a motion for preliminary injunction, asking U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings to halt reform.

“It would produce a court order barring the federal government from enacting or enforcing any of the enactments of ‘Obamacare,’” Irion said.

Other federal lawsuits have challenged the health care reform legislation, but Irion said his group’s suit presents a unique legal argument.

“We agree the individual mandate is unconstitutional, but we think that the Congress doesn’t have the authority under the Constitution to be regulating health care at all,” Irion said.

Obama Cautious on Iran

President Obama addressed the Iranian demonstrations Tuesday with a large measure of caution, calling on Iran's leaders to allow protesters to express their grievances but stopping short of calling for a change in government.

Obama's careful formulation, outlined during a morning news conference, highlighted the sharp differences between the political dynamic that his administration faces in Iran and the one that shaped the recent revolt in Egypt. Obama faced a secular, allied government in Egypt that had lost broad popular support. But in Iran he confronts an Islamist regime hostile to American interests and eager to turn any opposition movement into a proxy for the United States and Israel.

In the final days of Egypt's unrest, Obama aligned himself with the demonstrators' demand for a new government. With Iran he has not been so bold. His call Tuesday for Iran's Islamic government to allow peaceful protest echoed the one he made after the opposition Green Movement emerged on Tehran's streets in June 2009 following a disputed presidential election, a response many conservatives criticized as tepid.

"We were clear then and we are clear now that what has been true in Egypt should be true in Iran - that people should be allowed to voice their opinions and their grievances and seek a more responsive government," Obama said. "What's been different is the Iranian government's response, which is to shoot people and beat people and arrest people."

Hours earlier in Iran, a day after anti-government demonstrators defied a government ban on protests, hard-line lawmakers called for the execution of three leading reformist and opposition figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami.

In his news conference, Obama continued to focus on the demonstrations underway and not on his preferred outcome, a balance he also maintained during the 18-day uprising in Egypt. Only in the final stage did he align the United States with the demonstrators' call for President Hosni Mubarak's immediate resignation.

Obama had more leverage in Egypt, where Mubarak had enjoyed American support and billions in U.S. aid since emerging from the military three decades ago to lead the country after his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. There was no such support or funding in Iran, where the 1979 revolution toppled the U.S.-backed shah and ushered in an Islamist government hostile to most U.S. interests.

Obama's caution stems from the same fear that appeared to guide his response in June 2009: that a clear U.S. call for regime change in Iran would allow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to cast the protest movement as a creation of Western governments and Israel.

"Each country is different, each country has its own traditions, and America can't dictate what happens in these societies," Obama said, adding that his administration would lend "moral support to those seeking better lives."

Obama pointed to the lack of anti-American sentiment that appeared in Tahrir Square during Egypt's uprising as evidence that allowing demonstrators to take the lead - without instructions or goals announced from Washington - was the correct course to take.

The administration is widely expected to follow the same path in Iran, where the public is more likely to resist any American endorsement of the protest movement than were Egyptians, whose country is one of only two Arab nations that has a peace agreement with Israel.

Obama seems to be striking a more cautious note on Iran than his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On Monday, Clinton celebrated the Iranian demonstrations, saying that she and others in the administration "very clearly and directly support the aspirations" of the protesters, who advocate an end to Iran's theocratic government.

Obama on Tuesday endorsed the Iranian demonstrators' right to protest against their government without explicitly aligning the United States with their goals.

"My hope and expectation is that we're going to continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative government, understanding that America cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran any more than it could inside of Egypt," he said.

Contagious Revolution #3 Iran

One day after protests took place in several Iranian cities, the online world is buzzing with reports of those who died, were injured or arrested in Monday's demonstrations.

In the aftermath of protests, several members of the country's parliament called for reprisals against the opposition leaders who called for the marches.

So far, two of the protesters have been confirmed dead by government sources who claim that the men - Sana Jaleh, 26, and Mohamad Mokhtari, 22 - were killed by members of an outlawed group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran.

The group denied the allegations on Tuesday, saying that government security forces had "crushed the demonstrators, firing live rounds and tear gas at them".

Jaleh and Mokhtari are named as "martyrs" by the government.

There is also chatter on the 25 Bahman Facebook page, where the demonstrations were organised, about a plan to hold a memorial for Jaleh at the arts university in Tehran on Wednesday morning.

There is a video posted on YouTube, purporting to be from Tuesday night, in which shouts of "Death to the dictator" can be heard being shouted from rooftops.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact demonstration mobilisers to confirm if the above events are happening. They did not respond to the inquiry.

Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, has called for an investigation into the deaths and injuries reported in Monday's protests.

A statement released on its website on Tuesday said that "the Iranian authorities have singularly failed to allow a largely peaceful demonstration to proceed", and that plainclothes security personnel "repeatedly beat the demonstrators with batons after surrounding them".

Dozens of injuries

Al Jazeera's Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Tehran, said that there are reports of dozens of injuries in Tehran, although it is unclear if there were any fatalities in other cities, such as Isfahan and Shiraz, where protests and clashes also took place on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Committee of Human Rights Reporters, an Iran-based rights group, published an article on its website on Tuesday, saying that Iranian officials "declared a list of 1500 detainees".

The story also said that all were transferred to Evin prison. Prior to that, Iranian authorities had told state media that 150 people had been arrested, and that nine security personnel were injured on Monday.

Our correspondent said that members of parliament urged Sadeq Larijani, the head of the judiciary, to bring opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi before a court to "answer for their parts in Monday's events".

The Fars state news agency reported that MPs want the opposition leaders held accountable for the damages sustained by Iran and the benefits afforded to its enemies as a result of the protests.

Iranian parliament members chanted "Death to Karroubi, death to Mousavi" during a session on Tuesday, and calling for both to be executed.

Karroubi and Mousavi called for Monday's demonstrations in a show of solidarity with the Egyptian people, who overthrew the country's president last week. Both Karroubi and Mousavi are under house arrest [there are reports that his house was surrounded on Tuesday afternoon] and were unable to participate in the protests, for which Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, blames the US.

In a statement on Tuesday, Barack Obama, the US president, announced his support for the protesters.

"My hope and expectation is that we are going to continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedom and a more representative government," he said.

He also insisted that the US "cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran".

Contagious Revolution #2 Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) - Thousands of people marching for the ouster of Yemen's U.S.-allied president clashed Tuesday with police and government supporters, and at least three demonstrators were injured in a fifth straight day of Egypt-inspired protests.

Police tried to disperse the demonstrators using tear gas and batons, but about 3,000 protesters defiantly continued their march from Sanaa University toward the city center, chanting slogans against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, including "Down with the president's thugs!"

The procession gained momentum with hundreds of students and rights activists joining along the way.

The unrest comes as ties between the U.S. and Saleh have been growing recently over rising alarm in Washington about the activities of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. military has embarked on a plan to deepen its involvement in training Yemen's counterterrorism force to counteract a local affiliate of al-Qaida that has mounted several attacks against the U.S.

Saleh, who has been in office for more than 30 years, has tried to blunt recent unrest by promising not to seek re-election when his term ends in 2013.

He has been contacting powerful tribal leaders in a bid to enlist their support as he attempts to defuse the protests, according to officials familiar with the president's moves. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The officials said Saleh feared that his rule would not withstand the pressure of a tribal decision to join the protesters in seeking his ouster. For now, said the officials, Saleh was counting on the security forces and armed backers who support his rule in dealing with the protesters.

On Tuesday, riot police blocked the main road leading to the city center and clashed with protesters throwing stones. Three protesters were injured and taken to the hospital in ambulances. About 2,000 government supporters staging a counterdemonstration joined the police in battling the protesters.

"We will not back off, whatever the government thugs do," said Tawakul Karman, a senior member of the opposition Islamic fundamentalist Islah Party, She was briefly arrested last month for leading anti-government protests.

"We will retain the dignity of the people and their rights by downing the regime," she added.

Rights activist Fathi Abu al-Nassr called the demonstrations "the people's uprising."

"We will not be intimidated by the thugs' attacks," he said, adding that the government funded the demonstrations by supporters, some of whom included senior party members.

Independent lawmaker Ahmed Hashid appealed to international human rights groups to intervene and end the government's harsh treatment of peaceful demonstrators.

In Yemen's southern province of Taiz, more than 5,000 protesters demonstrated for a second day in a main street downtown, and they engaged in an exchange of stone-throwing with police and government supporters. A large number of the protesters had spent the night in the streets, with many others joining them early Tuesday.

Police arrested 120 protesters Monday, but later released 75.

Impoverished Yemen is one of several countries in the Middle East feeling the aftershocks of pro-reform uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The protests in Yemen have mushroomed since Friday's ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after an 18-day revolt fueled by grievances similar to those in Yemen - poverty, unemployment and corruption.

Contagious Revolution #1 Bahrain

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Thousands of protesters took over a main square in Bahrain's capital Tuesday — carting in tents and raising banners — in a bold attempt to copy Egypt's uprising and force high-level changes in one of Washington's key allies in the Gulf.

The move by demonstrators capped two days of clashes across the tiny island kingdom that left at least two people dead, parliament in limbo by an opposition boycott and the king making a rare address on national television to offer condolences for the bloodshed.

Security forces — apparently under orders to hold back — watched from the sidelines as protesters chanted slogans mocking the nation's ruling sheiks and called for sweeping political reforms and an end to monarchy's grip on key decisions and government posts.

The unrest in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, adds another layer to Washington's worries in the region. In Yemen, police and government supporters battled nearly 3,000 marchers calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a fifth straight day of violence.

Yemen is seen as a critical partner in the U.S. fight against a network inspired by al-Qaida. The Pentagon plans to boost its training of Yemen's counterterrorism forces to expand the push against the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula faction, which has been linked to attacks including the attempted airliner bombing in December 2009 and the failed mail bomb plot involving cargo planes last summer.

Saleh has been holding talks with Yemen's powerful tribes, which can either tip the balance against him or give him enough strength to possibly ride out the crisis.

The political mutinies in the Arab world show the wide reach of the calls for change spurred by the toppling of old-guard regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

In Jordan, hundreds of Bedouin tribesmen blocked roads to demand the government return lands they once owned. Saudi activists are seeking to form a political party in a rare challenge to the near-absolute power of the pro-Western monarchy.

Yemen's grinding poverty and tribal complexities also stand in contrast to the relative wealth and Western-style malls and coffee shops in Bahrain's capital of Manama.

But many in Bahrain still boiled down their discontent to a cry for economic justice as well — saying the Sunni rulers control the privileges and opportunities and the Shiite majority struggles with what's left over and are effectively blackballed from important state jobs.

"I demand what every Bahraini should have: a job and a house," said student Iftikhar Ali, 27, who joined the crowds in the seaside Pearl Square. "I believe in change."

Protesters quickly renamed it "Nation's Square" and erected banners such as "Peaceful" that were prominent in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Many waved Bahraini flags and chanted: "No Sunnis, no Shiites. We are all Bahrainis."

Others set up tents and distributed tea and kabobs for those planning to spend the night under one of the city's landmarks: a nearly 300-foot (90-meter) monument cradling a giant white pearl-shaped ball that symbolizes the country's heritage as a pearl diving center.

Someone used stones to spell out the message in Arabic: "The real criminals are the royal family."

There is no direct call to bring down the king, whose family has ruled Bahrain for more than two centuries. But he is suddenly under unprecedented pressure to make serious changes in how the country is run.

The key demands — listed on a poster erected in the square — included the release of all political prisoners, more jobs and housing, an elected Cabinet and the replacement of the longtime prime minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Even the security forces they have battled represent something more than just state-backed muscle.

Bahrain's leaders have for years granted citizenship to Sunnis from across the region to expand their base of loyalists and try to gain demographic ground against Shiites, about 70 percent of the population of some 500,000. Many of the Sunnis — Jordanians, Syrians and others — receive police jobs or other security-related posts.

In a clear sign of concern over the widening crisis, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa went on nationwide TV to offer condolences for the deaths, pledge an investigation into the killings and promising to push ahead with promised reforms, which include loosening state controls on the media and Internet.

"We extend our condolences to the parents of the dear sons who died yesterday and today. We pray that they are inspired by the Almighty's patience, solace and tranquility," said the king, who had previously called for an emergency Arab summit to discuss the growing unrest.

Bahrain is one of the most politically volatile nations in the Middle East's wealthiest corner despite having one of the few elected parliaments and some of the most robust civil society groups.

The nation's Shiites have long complained of discrimination. A crackdown on perceived dissent last year touched off weeks of riots and clashes in Shiite villages, and an ongoing trial in Bahrain accuses 25 Shiites of plotting against the leadership. The detainees allege they have been tortured behind bars.

Bahrain is also an economic weakling compared with the staggering energy riches of Gulf neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which can afford far more generous social benefits. Bahrain's oil reserves are small and its role as the region's international financial hub have been greatly eclipsed by Dubai.

In Geneva, a statement by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called on Bahrain to "curb the excesses" of security forces.

"Too many peaceful protesters have recently been killed across the Middle East and North Africa," Pillay said.

The deaths also brought sharp denunciations from the largest Shiite political bloc, Al Wefaq, which suspended its participation in parliament, and could threaten the nation's gradual pro-democracy reforms that have given Shiites a greater political voice. The group has 18 seats in the 40-member chamber.

The second day of turmoil began after police tried to disperse up to 10,000 mourners gathering at a hospital parking lot to begin a funeral procession for Ali Abdulhadi Mushaima, 21, who died in Monday's marches.

Officials at Bahrain's Salmaniya Medical Complex said a 31-year-old man, Fadhel Salman Matrook, became the second fatality when he died of injuries from birdshot fired during the melee in the hospital's parking lot. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to journalists.

A statement from Bahrain's interior minister, Lt. Gen. Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, expressed "sincere condolences and deep sympathy" to Mushaima's family. He expanded on the king's pledge: stressing that the deaths will be investigated and charges would be filed if authorities determined excessive force was used against the protesters.

But that's unlikely to appease the protesters. In the past week, Bahrain's rulers have tried to defuse calls for reform by promising nearly $2,700 for each family and pledging to loosen state controls on the media.

UPDATE 2/18

Four days after the death of a protester named Ali, Manama is seeing the largest anti-government demonstrations yet for his funeral Friday. Exploding grenades were heard as government forces opened fire on marchers. A helicopter then fired at a reporter filming the violence. Why does the rising unrest in Bahrain matter? As The New York Times reports, Bahrain is key ally of the U.S., housing the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, but matters are more complicated than in Egypt revolution: Bahrain’s conflict is less between pro- and anti-democracy forces, as it is between the ruling Sunni class and the Shiite majority. Iran’s Shiite government is closely watching the situation, although Bahrain’s Shiite political figures deny they want a Islamic theocracy similar to Iran’s.

Thousands of people are marching down the main road in Sitwa, a neighborhood of Manama where more than 15,000 Bahrainis live below the poverty level.

Friday afternoon, it became ground zero for this Gulf country’s ever-growing number of anti-government protesters as it hosted the funeral procession for Ali, the first demonstrator killed by police (shot in the back on Tuesday) and this movement’s greatest martyr.

What the protesters in Sitwa know is how far they’ve come in just 24 hours.

From mere amendments to their rights, they now want to rid Bahrain of its monarchy and ruling government, namely the prime minister, a member of the Khalifa family who’s held office for 42 years.

What they don’t know is what they’d like instead.

Someone democratically elected, yes. Someone Bahraini. Beyond that, they say none of the grassroots opposition leaders have the leadership experience required. But they also say this is “just the beginning, just a start” for the protests. They’re small enough that they can be leaderless, depending on a dedicated group of activist organizers. They’ve got time.

They chant, raise their fists.

“Dear martyr! We will support you with our blood!”

Since the first blood spilled in the early hours of Wednesday morning—when police cracked down on peaceful protesters slumbering in Pearl Square—this protest has seen a dramatic shift.

On Tuesday, demonstrators asked for simple amendments to the current constitution—the same rights for all Bahrainis.

Now, as graphic details emerge about what transpired in Pearl, they want the extreme—the ousting of the ruling monarch, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and his royal government.

Abdul Wahab Hossein, leader of the Al Wafa opposition group, blares over the loudspeakers. He lists his demands—first, the release of all political prisoners and the dismantling of the government (and what someone next to me calls an “un-legitimate” parliament.)

“We have to develop a new government, an elected government, to be led by a member of this country and decided on by the people—not [just] by Sunnis or Shiites,” he says in Arabic.

“We have to establish a new organization to draft a new constitution.” (The current document, a bystander tells me, “has no room for reform.”)

“The existing parliament is good for nothing. We have to take to justice the Interior Minister and the other officers who gave orders to shoot people.”

The greatest honor in this society is to be martyred, and Ali is getting special treatment. His casket is carried through a crowd and loaded into a sport utility vehicle decorated with Bahraini flags and huge black and whites of Ali’s own face.

His best friend, propped up by two men, sobs uncontrollably and has to be half-dragged behind the car.

It’s driven down the long main road to the other end of town, to the burial ground where Ali, fearing the worst, had told his father he’d like to be buried next to his uncle.

Behind the car, the demonstration picks up steam. Much larger now than anything ever seen by Pearl Square, the few hundred people I’ve been with since the morning have been joined by thousands of others. They’ve heard the news and called their friends and ahead of us and behind us the sea of young men and women in headscarves goes on and on.

As they walk they sing a rhyme, popular in Bahrain’s culture, typically addressed to the martyr’s mother.

They sing to her now, in Ali’s voice: “Please remember me when you see a marriage ceremony [because I will never get married now.] The candle of my youth—who will put it out? My blood is my tattoo.”

“We are giving a message to the mother—be optimistic. We will not change our demands,” says Mohammed, a Gulf Air steward who’s become one of my walking companions.

(Proving that this is no longer just a demonstration by the marginalized poor, there’s also his friend, who quit his job as an air host to “become a protester,” and Taqi, the general manager of a construction company.)

Underlying cultural issues have bubbled up during these four days of unrest.

Most of the police here are foreigners, and their severe attacks on the Bahrain nationals in Pearl Square have brought to the surface tension between nationals and certain foreigners—like the government-friendly officers—they say treat them badly in their own country.

“It’s an issue of living, of the poverty experienced by so many Bahrainis,” Taqi says.

The expat-heavy nation “brings people in from outside—from Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi—they are all imported. The riot police are imported, and they come and beat us. They have no morals. The Bedouins have two or three wives and lots of children, so now our schools are overcrowded.”

Then, of course, there’s economics.

Though most Western media pegs the tension in Manama to classic Sunni-Shiite disputes—the Sunnis, including the ruling family, make up just five percent of the population yet seem to control all aspects of its government and economy—it doesn’t seem to be the case on the ground.

Again and again this week I have been told the Sunni vs. Shiite line is government propaganda, meant to deflect its own shortcomings.

There is widespread anger among protesters who say the government’s branding of them as “pro-Iran” makes the Western world apprehensive about their plight.

And even the middle-class Bahrainis are “economic slaves,” Taqi tells me.

“If you, the King, control all the sources of money and only give it to your own [family] while people are starving, what else is that but slavery?”

Another man says people in Sitwa “don’t have enough money to buy lunch and dinner in a day. They have to choose one or the other.” But the Khalifa, he laughs, spent 120 million Bahraini Dinars on a bowl made of pearls.

“He gave it to his wife.”

As the afternoon continues, everyone’s on the phone to friends at other protest sites. They’re coordinating what’s to come later—unlike in Egypt, where some citizens turned on each other, this is a one-aim grassroots group effort—and trying to figure out when the police will strike next.

Military helicopters have been droning overhead all day.

It could be once the funeral’s over, they warn. We’ve identified which allies to run down should tear gas, rubber pellets and shotguns make another appearance.

They get angrier as details from Thursday’s attack continue to pour in—Bahrain’s a low-tech country, news can take a while to go from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Friday’s rumors say officers in Pearl Square bound and handcuffed demonstrators, then pushed them off a nearby freeway bridge.

“That’s why there were so many people with broken bones,” Mohammed says.

There’s discussion of the 60-year-old man shot at point-blank range while he lay sleeping—his face was blown away, and he’s already become a legend among the protesters.

“It was an execution,” one says.

There’s also speculation about the 48 demonstrators who have been remained missing from Pearl since Thursday morning.

A body was found in the sea, someone calls over.

Another guy, draped in a Bahraini flag, says the missing are all dead and the bodies have been taken to Saudi Arabia via causeway.

It’s impossible to know.

Bahrain's King praised the military Friday, with Iran’s Press TV saying he “stressed that the government has widened the scope for 'peaceful and legal freedom of expression.”

Press TV also said he has discussed ongoing strategy with Commander-in-Chief Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and top-ranking defense officials.

In the U.S., whose ties to its strong Gulf ally encompass Bahrain’s hosting of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who in December referred to the island nation as a “model” foreign partner) urged “restraint” Thursday in a call to Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa—statement that was viewed by most on the ground in Sitwa as “weak.”

In a statement posted on the Ministry’s website, Minister Khalifa said a commission had been established to determine the cause of the Pearl deaths.

Human Rights Watch, which has been patrolling demonstration sites and hospitals here, has been trying desperately to prove that shots from real guns—and not just fake pellets—were fired Thursday.

“The commission will carry out its work impartially and transparently,” the statement said. “We call upon all states and international organizations to strive for truth and accuracy, and not to prejudge matters in advance of the conclusions of the investigation.”

At a hospital near Pearl early Friday, an aid worker who wished (for this portion of our conversation) to remain anonymous showed me a death certificate.

Under cause of death: entry by plastic foreign object.

“Does that mean it was definitely a bullet?” I asked.

She folded it away. “It means it’ll never leave this hospital.”

Back in Sitwa Friday, it’s almost 3. The sun’s scorching and people have wrapped themselves in Bahraini flags.

An elderly history teacher explains the meaning of their red and white jags—“We are taught that it’s the number of battles the Khalif had to fight to come and establish this country. They teach people here that he came by blood. On Thursday, he tried to say—we came here by blood, we will not leave here without blood.”

As he disappears into the crowd, a tall guy runs down the protest rank. It’s a small town, Manama, and even smaller among the movement’s young, mostly male population.

Taqi recognizes the runner as a friend from high school. “We were in the same class. He spent a lot of years in jail.”

(I’ve heard this time and time again in Bahrain—I know this guy. My father. My friend’s brother. Everyone marching seems to know a political prisoner.)

On our way out of Sitwa, a hotshot drives by Mohammed’s car. As I get in, he takes stock of the notebook and camera. “Down with the Khalifa!” he shouts.

Mohammed’s messaging work on his iPhone. (He’s going to be a little late for the flight to Dubai. Pro-government protesters have been staging car rallies all day, and traffic’s a mess.)

As the guy speeds into traffic, my new friend looks up.

“Well,” he says. “He just told you exactly what he wants.”