Bahrain Crown Prince Calls for Talks With Opposition

Bahrain’s Crown Prince called for dialogue with the country’s opposition to break a deadlock in the restive Persian Gulf Arab state, an appeal met with skepticism by rights activists.
The ruling Al-Khalifa family, who are Sunni Muslims, used martial law and help from Persian Gulf Arab neighbors to put down a revolt in March last year against alleged discrimination of Bahrain’s majority Shiite Muslim population, but violence has resumed, Reuters reported.
Protesters and police clash almost daily and the island has seen bombings this year. Demonstrations are banned.
Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifah, who was seen as losing influence to hardliners in the ruling family during mass protests last year, said Bahrain must continue political and judicial reforms.
“I call for a meeting between all sides, as I believe that only through face-to-face dialogue will any real progress be made,” he said late on Friday in an address to a conference on Middle East security organized by the International Institute for Security Studies.
No opposition figures were invited to the conference.
“We know dialogue would help solve the problems in Bahrain, but we don’t see any positive messages from the authorities,” said Mohammed Al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights.
“The repression is ongoing, people are facing unfair trials, activists are in jail... You have to ask - if he is serious, why doesn’t he make this address at a national level? It’s just propaganda by the authorities,” he said.
An opposition group held a peaceful protest in the capital Manama on Friday despite the ban on demonstrations.
In his speech, Crown Prince Salman urged all political figures to condemn street violence but also said the government needed to push harder to reduce inequality.
“We must do more to change laws which still can lead to, in my opinion, judgments which go against protections guaranteed in our constitution. We must do more to stop the selective enforcement of law,” he said.
The conference was attended by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, US Assistant Secretary for State William Burns and the foreign ministers of other Persian Gulf Arab states.
Crown Prince Salman singled out Britain for particular praise for its support for Bahrain during its crisis but did not mention the United States in what delegates present at the conference saw as implied criticism of Washington.
“You have stood head and shoulders above others,” he said of the British government, which he praised for engaging with both the Bahraini government and opposition and aiding reform of the police and judiciary.
Appearing at the conference on Saturday, Bahrain’s foreign minister denied the crown prince had deliberately left out the United States.
“Our Royal Highness thanked our friends in the West. He did not exclude anyone,” Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa said.

Meshaal Rejects Any Territorial Concession With Israel

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“Resistance is the right way to recover our rights, as well as all forms of struggle--political, diplomatic, legal and popular, but all are senseless without resistance,” he said.

“Our Reference Is PLO”
Turning to the question of unity, he said: “We are a single authority, a single reference, and our reference is the PLO, which we want united.”
That was a reference to the Palestine Liberation Organization which, in the eyes of the international community, is the sole body that purports to speak for all the Palestinian people.”
Hamas does not belong to the PLO, but Meshaal said a year ago that it and other factions were “on the path to joining” it.
His remarks could be seen as the latest bid by Hamas to integrate with the PLO and consolidate Palestinian ranks.
More than 100,000 Palestinians gathered in Gaza on Saturday for the rally marking the 25th anniversary of Hamas.
Khaled Meshaal crossed from Egypt on Friday on his first ever visit to Gaza and his first to the Palestinian territories since 1975.
Meshaal arrived at the main stage in the Al-Qitaba complex west of Gaza City which was transformed into a sea of green Hamas flags. He was accompanied by his deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk and Gaza’s Hamas premier Ismail Haniya.
The celebrations come just over two weeks after an Egyptian-brokered truce ended eight days of bloodshed with Israel which left 174 Palestinians dead.
“We used only 10 percent of our capacity in the fighting,” a spokesman for Hamas military wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades told the crowd.
“If you had escalated (your attacks), so would we have,” he told Israel. “We will cut the hand that extends in aggression against our people and leaders.”
Fatah is the rival Palestinian faction of Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank-based administration.
Around the rally venue, security forces were out in strength, closing off nearby roads from the early hours.
Dozens of masked members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades kept watch from surrounding rooftops.
Huge portraits of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, assassinated by Israel in 2004, and Hamas military commander Ahmed Jaabari, assassinated by Israel on November 14 this year, were on the main stage.
Between the portraits was a model of an M75 rocket of the sort fired at Israeli cities during last month’s conflict that began with Jaabari’s assassination.
On the backdrop was a model of Beit-ul-Moqaddas’s golden-domed Al-Aqsa mosque, which appears on the Hamas emblem.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said at least 3,000 people from Arab and Islamic states had arrived in Gaza in recent days to attend the events.
Founded in 1987 shortly after the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, Hamas was inspired by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Its charter calls for the eventual destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state on the pre-1948 borders of the British Palestine Mandate.
In 2006, Hamas won a landslide general election victory, routing Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah. Some 18 months later, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza after several weeks of running street battles.
Speaking in Gaza on Friday, Meshaal promised to “walk down the route of reconciliation, bury the division (with Fatah) and empower unity in order to be aligned as one in the face of the Zionist entity,” Israel.

Saudi Arabia Says Persian Gulf Arab States Cannot ‘Tolerate’ Unrest

A senior Saudi official says Persian Gulf Arab states must quash any Arab Spring-inspired unrest or risk threats to their leadership across the oil-rich region.
The comments by Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, the Saudi deputy foreign minister, echo calls by Persian Gulf authorities to widen crackdowns on perceived opposition such as rights activists and Islamist factions.
His remarks also seek to justify the intervention last year in Bahrain by a Saudi-led Arab military force after an uprising by the kingdom’s Shiite-led majority. Bahrain remains the Persian Gulf’s main flashpoint.
Prince Abdulaziz says Persian Gulf states “cannot tolerate instability” that could lead to challenges to the Western-allied leaders from Kuwait to Oman. He spoke on Saturday at an international security summit hosted by Bahrain.

Syria Warns ‘Terrorist Groups’ May Resort to Chemical Weapons

Syria warned the United Nations on Saturday that rebels may employ chemical weapons after they gained control of a factory producing toxic chlorine east of Aleppo city.
“Terrorist groups may resort to using chemical weapons against the Syrian people... after having gained control of a toxic chlorine factory,” the foreign ministry said, adding that Syria would never use chemical weapons against its own people.
Syria also told the United Nations it will never use chemical weapons on its people. Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that certain Western states and their regional allies such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have been trying to fuel the turmoil. There are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals. Several international human rights organizations have accused the foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.

Kuwaiti Protesters Demand Dissolution of Parliament

Thousands of Kuwaitis demonstrated Saturday to demand dissolving the new parliament elected last week despite a massive boycott as the oil-rich state plunged into political stalemate.
“This parliament is illegitimate, this (electoral law) amendment is illegal,” chanted the protesters, who included a large number of women and children, AFP reported.
The opposition supporters demonstrated for the second week in a row attracting large numbers of people as police watched the protest without interfering after the organizers obtained a license.
The demonstrators who held orange color and national flags also raised banners reading “no to violence, enough arrests,” in reference to violent clashes between police and protesters over the past several days.
Violent confrontations broke out between riot police and youth activists who staged protests every night since Monday to express their rejection to the election. Dozens of protesters were arrested.
Last week’s snap polls were boycotted by the opposition and all the 50 seats were won by pro-government candidates, including a record 17 seats by the Shiite minority.
The Islamist, nationalist and liberal opposition boycotted the polls in protest against the amendment of the electoral law which the opposition says it enables the government to control the outcome of polls.
The country’s major tribes were the main losers in the election because the boycott to voting was the highest in tribal districts.
Head of the National Election Commission Ahmad Al-Ajeel said on Monday that voter turnout was 39.7 percent while the opposition claimed it was only 26.7 percent.
Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on Wednesday reappointed Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah as premier after the cabinet resigned in a routine step required after the election.
The emir also invited the new parliament to hold its inaugural session on December 16 which means a rejection to calls by the opposition to dissolve the house.
The Persian Gulf state has been rocked by a series of political disputes since mid-2006 between MPs and the government.

Egypt Military Calls for Dialog to End Crisis

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But it has begun asserting itself again, with soldiers sealing off the presidential palace with tanks and barbed wire, as rival protests and street battles between Morsi’s supporters and his opponents turned increasingly violent.
The statement said the military “realizes its national responsibility in protecting the nation’s higher interests” and state institutions.

Violent Protests
At least six civilians have been killed and several offices of the president’s Muslim Brotherhood set on fire since the crisis began on Nov. 22. The two sides also have staged a number of sit-ins around state institutions, including the presidential palace where some of the most violent clashes occurred.
Images of the military’s elite Republican Guards unit surrounding the area around the palace showed one of the most high-profile troop deployment since the army handed over power to Morsi on June 30.
A sit-in by Morsi’s opponents around the palace continued Saturday, with protesters setting up roadblocks with tanks behind them amid reports that the president’s supporters planned rival protests. By midday Saturday, TV footage showed the military setting up a new wall of cement blocks around the palace.
Tensions have escalated since Morsi issued new decrees granting himself and an Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly immunity from oversight by the judiciary. The president’s allies then rushed through a constitution and he announced a Dec. 15 nationwide referendum on the charter.
Morsi has called for a national dialogue and scheduled a meeting on Saturday, but opponents say he must first cancel the referendum on the draft constitution and rescind his recent decrees.
Only veteran liberal opposition politician Ayman Nour attended the meeting with Morsi on Saturday. The other eight delegates were Islamists.
The president has insisted his decrees were meant to protect the country’s transition to democracy from former regime figures trying to derail it.

Delay to Referendum Rejected
Egypt’s main Islamist parties, including Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood,
rejected on Saturday opposition demands to delay referendum on the new constitution.
The 13 parties “insist that the referendum on the constitution take place on the scheduled date, with no modification or delay,” according to a joint statement read to media by the number two of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat Al-Shater.
Egypt’s Vice President Mohamed Mekki on Friday said the referendum could be delayed, but only if the opposition guaranteed it would not exploit what would be a legal breach of Morsi’s duty to hold the plebiscite by December 15.

Yemeni General Killed

General Nasser Naji bin Farid, commander of military forces in central Yemen, was killed on Saturday in an ambush, army and tribal sources said, blaming Al-Qaeda.