'60 Minutes' Video: North Korean prisoner escaped after 23 brutal years

Incredible story:

Russian court bans 'extremist' Pussy Riot video from websites

We are watching Russia descend into a despotic regime reminiscent of the old Soviet system. And it seems no one can stop it. Although, some are courageous enough to try. Of course, the political cowards in the West will standby and allow it to happen. The implications are very dangerous for world peace:

A Russian court ruled Thursday that video footage of the Pussy Riot punk group protesting against President Vladimir Putin in a church was "extremist" and should be removed from websites.

The demonstration last February offended many Russian Orthodox Christians. But Putin has been criticized by U.S. and European leaders over what they saw as disproportionate jail sentences imposed on three Pussy Riot members.

Their trial was also seen by Putin's critics as part of a clampdown on dissent.

US Confirms Blind Activist Wants to Leave China

Will the Obama administration cave?

The rural Chinese activist at the center of a diplomatic standoff between Washington and Beijing now wants to leave China with his family, a U.S. spokeswoman said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters that U.S. officials had spoken twice Thursday with Chen Guangcheng and also with his wife and "they as a family have had a change of heart about whether they want to stay in China."

"We need to consult with them further to get a better sense of what they want to do and consider their options," Nuland said.

The blind, self-taught lawyer spent six days in the U.S. Embassy after fleeing illegal house arrest and other mistreatment in his rural town where his activism angered local officials. He emerged Wednesday when U.S. officials said they had an agreement with Chinese officials for him to set up a new life in another province.

It's unclear whether China would be willing to negotiate further over Chen's fate. The government already has expressed anger that the U.S. harbored a Chinese activist, and China's Foreign Ministry reiterated its displeasure Thursday, calling the affair interference in Chinese domestic matters.

Gunmen Attack Syrian Army from Boats

Hopefully the West is army the rebels by way of Turkey and other means. If they are it's not enough. We know that the Russians are arming the Assad regime. The UN intervention is a complete joke and allows the Syrian government to get an advantage. The removal of Assad, and his minions, should be a major foreign policy of this country. The White House can't be trusted to do the right thing. That's why the World must speak out:

Gunmen in inflatable dinghies have attacked a military unit on Syria's Mediterranean coast, state media say, in the first seaborne assault of a 13-month-old uprising.

The official SANA news agency said several gunmen and soldiers were killed in a firefight that followed the coastal attack near the northern port of Latakia, 35 km south of the Turkish border.

"The fighting ... resulted in the death and wounding of a number of military personnel while the number of those killed from the terrorist group was not known because they attacked the military unit at night," SANA said.

It did not state the nationality of the attackers.

The Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad has accused Turkey of allowing weapons and funds to flow to insurgents throughout the uprising.

Fugitive Chinese activist 'under US protection'

This could turn into a major international dispute. The Chinese are not going to tolerate any interference in "domestic matters." Will the administration cave? Most likely. This White House like the previous don't give a damn about human rights in China:

  A leading Chinese activist who escaped from house arrest last weekend is now under US "protection" and Washington and Beijing are in talks over his status, an overseas rights group said Saturday.

Chen Guangcheng, who has been blind since childhood, fled last Sunday with the help of his supporters from under the noses of dozens of guards, and subsequently recorded a video alleging abuses against him and his family.

China Aid, a group run by the former Tiananmen Square democracy activist Bob Fu, said it had learned from a "source close to the Chen Guangcheng situation" that the activist was now "under US protection".

"High-level talks are currently under way between US and Chinese officials regarding Chen's status," said the statement, which also called on the United States to ensure the safety of the activist and his family.

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Blind Chinese Dissident Flees House Arrest for Safety in Beijing

Source:

Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng escaped house arrest in eastern China and is now safe at an undisclosed location in Beijing, a U.S.-based rights group said in a statement.

Chen escaped earlier this week from his home in Shandong province where he has been under house arrest since being released from prison in Sept. 2010, Midland, Texas-based ChinaAid reported on its website. The group said there is speculation he is in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

“Dear Premier Wen, I’ve escaped after trying so hard,” a man who claimed to be Chen and resembled him said in a video that was posted on YouTube today, in a reference to Premier Wen Jiabao. “I am free now, but I am still very worried because my beloved wife and son are still under the devilish hands.”

Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei says internet censorship will fail

Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei says internet censorship will fail | The Raw Story

Dissident artist Ai Weiwei warned the Chinese government that its attempts to censor the internet would inevitably fail, in an article published in Monday’s Guardian newspaper.

Ai, who was held for 81 days last year as police rounded up dissidents amid online calls for Arab-style protests in China, wrote in the British newspaper that new “real identity” rules to curb troublesome microbloggers would only “push the problem to the next generation”.

Chinese Forces Break up Tibetan Protest with Tear Gas

The world has forgotten Tibet, again:

Chinese security forces fired tear gas to break up a protest by Tibetans in the southwest province of Sichuan, an advocacy group said, the latest sign of volatile ethnic unrest in the region.

Reports from advocacy groups earlier said that in a separate clash, coinciding with this week's Chinese New Year celebrations, troops fired on thousands of Tibetans protesting in the same province, killing at least one and wounding more.

Free Tibet, a London-based organization that campaigns for Tibetan self-determination, said in an email that on Monday troops fired tear gas at Tibetan protesters in Meruma township, Aba County, called Ngaba County by Tibetans.

"Tibetans had gathered to protest Chinese oppression on the occasion of Chinese New Year, having decided that they would not celebrate the lunar New Year because of the current repression in Tibet," Free Tibet said.

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Russian Liberal says Kremlin Bars him from Vote

Russia has descended into a quasi-dictatorship. And we in the United States need to be worried about the future of that country:

Election officials have refused so far to allow the leader of Russia's leading liberal party to compete in March's presidential election, a move the politician said reflects the government's fear of genuine competition.

Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of Yabloko party, said authorities want to prevent him from challenging Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's bid to extend his 12-year rule by reclaiming the presidency. He said other contenders are only nominal rivals who are following the Kremlin's guidance.

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Tibet Monks Set Themselves On Fire, Group Says

Source:

A Tibet activist group says two people have set themselves on fire in southwest China in the latest in a series of apparent self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.

The London-based Free Tibet said in an emailed statement late Friday night that witnesses saw a man set himself on fire Friday near a monastery in Aba prefecture in Sichuan province. It says security forces put out the flames and took the man away. His condition is unknown.

Free Tibet says someone else died about the same time in a self-immolation nearby. It gave no other details.
 

130 Doctors Without Borders staff disappear in Sudan

These people are heroic and should get a nobel peace prize:

Doctors Without Borders goes where others don't. And that often gets its staff in trouble.

The doctors and medics of the group, also known by their French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres, go to centers of conflict where most other medical teams do not. And that means they are often in danger.

On December 29, two staff members were killed in Somalia.

The latest news from South Sudan is especially worrying. Some 130 staff at the Doctors Without Borders clinic in Pibor, South Sudan, are missing, according to a statement from the group.

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Video: Syrian man Records his Own Death

Basil Al-Sayid, a 24-year-old man in Syria, was shot to death while documenting violence committed by the government:

Hundreds of thousands in Syria protest gov't

We must support the war on tyranny. Let's not forget how America came to be. And we would not have won against the British without support from other nations. Let's keep the heat on Assad just as we did with the tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc. If we don't succeed then we are all in danger:

Source: dailymail.co.uk

 Hundreds of thousands of Syrians poured into the streets across the nation Friday in the largest protests in months, shouting for the downfall of the regime in a defiant display invigorated by the presence of Arab observers, activists said.

Despite the presence of the monitors, activists said Syrian forces killed at least 19 people, most of them shot during anti-government protests.

Rami Abdul-Raham, who heads the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the crowds were largest Friday in Idlib and Hama provinces, with 250,000 people each. Other massive rallies were held in Daraa province and the Damascus suburb of Douma, he said.

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Egyptian Police Raid Pro-Democracy Groups: Should U.S. Cut Aid to Egypt?

You mean we haven't cut aid to the Egyptian military?

Egyptian police raided 17 offices of pro-democracy and human rights groups Thursday over speculation that those groups are taking foreign money. Out of the 17 groups, three are supported by the United States.

With $1.3 billion of U.S. aid going to the ruling Egyptian military a year, this event is a clear violation of U.S. interests in the region. If the U.S. appears to be supporting autocratic regimes at a time where so many are seeking the democratic values the U.S. advocates, the America could possess the image of being on the wrong side of history regarding the Arab Spring.

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Video: Witness to Homs Massacre

A member of the Syrian opposition talks to AC360's Tom Foreman about the continued uprising in Syria, and the brutal crackdowns in the city of Homs:

Strikes spread across Yemen as government employees rally against corruption

Looks promising for a revolution in Yemen:

Labor strikes spread through Yemen Wednesday as workers demanded reforms and dismissal of managers over alleged corruption linked to the country’s outgoing president.

Corruption was one of the grievances that ignited mass protests against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February. After months of stalling, Saleh last month signed an agreement to transfer power.

The deal includes immunity for prosecution for the longtime leader, but protesters reject that. They are also demanding that his relatives and associates, also suspected of corruption, be removed from their posts in the government and military and put on trial.

This is why we shouldn't allow the "President" of Yemen into the U.S. It would create all kinds of ill will. The government made that mistake with the Shah of Iran. Look at what that led to:

The White House has not yet formally decided whether to admit Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to the U.S. for medical treatment, but Obama administration officials as recently as last week considered granting Saleh a visa, in part to "get him out of the region," a senior administration official said Tuesday.

One advantage the administration sees in letting Saleh come to the U.S. is that it would remove from Yemen a symbol of the country's repression of its citizens and perhaps smooth the transition to new leadership, the official said.

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Russia Scolds United States for Human Rights Abuse

Relations between the U.S. and Russia have deteriorated to dangerous levels. Eventhough Putin is helping move Russia towards dictatorship we need to have good relations with whomever is ruling that country. We don't want to push them into the hands of the Chinese. So it's in our strategic interest to get along with the Russians. This does not mean we remain silent when they violate human rights. But we can't rub Putin's nose in it either. It is foolish U.S. foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union that have contributed to pushing Russia away from the West and democracy and towards oppression. The Obama administration seems intent on making things worse:

 Russia sought to undermine the authority of the United States as a global judge of human rights on Wednesday with Moscow's first report to detail allegations of torture, phone tapping and abuse by the U.S. government.

Criticising the United States for double standards, Russia said President Barack Obama had failed to shut the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and accused the White House of sheltering officials and CIA operatives from prosecution.

The Foreign Ministry's report "On the situation with human rights in a host of world states," follows China's example in highlighting U.S. failings in an attempt to counter U.S. State Department criticism of domestic human rights abuses.

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Iran Stoning: Woman To Be Executed For Adultery

This monstrosity of a regime would not have happened had it not been for the U.S. government overthrowing the Iranian democracy in the 1950s. Now they are totally impotent in dealing with the Tehranian rulers:

Authorities in Iran said Sunday they are again moving ahead with plans to execute a woman sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery conviction in a case that sparked an international outcry, but are considering whether to carry out the punishment by hanging instead.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is already behind bars, serving a 10-year sentence on a separate conviction in the murder of her husband. Amid the international outrage her case generated, Iran in July 2010 suspended plans to carry out her death sentence on the adultery conviction.

On Sunday, a senior judiciary official said experts were studying whether the punishment of stoning could be changed to hanging.

There is some question whether she's guilty at all. This from 2008:

A lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning has told a British newspaper she was tortured for two days before confessing on state TV to being an accomplice to her husband's death.

Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani's lawyer told the Guardian on Thursday that his client, a 43-year-old mother of two, was forced to give the interview, which was recorded in Tabriz prison where she has been held for the past four years.

"She was severely beaten up and tortured until she accepted to appear in front of camera. Her 22-year-old son Sajad and her 17-year-old daughter Saeedeh are completely traumatised by watching this programme," lawyer Houtan Kian said on the newspaper's website.

Video: Russia Protests are Reminiscent of 20 Years Ago

Troops, Protesters Clash in Yemeni Capital

It was naive to believe that the rulers in Yemen would give up power simply because of some toothless agreement. There had to have been more restrictions on the military. There also had to have been the threat of international war crime trials if the the agreements were not adhered to. In addition, the opposition would have to had a promise of some kind of support if the agreement had been ignored by the government:

Yemen's powerful Republican Guard forces opened fire with guns, tear gas and water cannons Saturday at a march by more than 100,000 protesters demanding that the outgoing president be put on trial.

The protesters were attacked as they entered the capital Sanaa after marching for four days from Taiz, a city that has been a major opposition center 170 miles to the south. The first of its kind protest was called the March of Life and aimed to put pressure on the country's new government not to grant Ali Abdullah Saleh immunity from prosecution.

The violence underlined the continuing turmoil in Yemen even after Saleh signed a U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal last month by which he handed his powers to his vice president and committed to step down completely in return for immunity.

Protesters who rallied by the thousands for the past nine months rejected the deal, demanding Saleh be tried for his bloody crackdown on their movement.

At the same time, Saleh has seemed to continue to exercise influence through his relatives and loyalists still in their positions, even after Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi formed a unity government between the opposition and ruling party. Forces loyal to Saleh have defied orders to withdrew from the streets of Sanaa after a deadline was reached Saturday to do so.

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