Spain tries to avoid conflict with protest camps

May 30, 2011

Madrid - The Spanish government on Monday sought to avoid conflict with a two-week-old protest movement that has vowed to continue occupying city squares around the country.

The government and police would act 'prudently,' said Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, who has come under pressure from the Madrid regional authorities and shopkeepers to disperse hundreds of people from the capital's central Puerta del Sol square.

Police last week temporarily dispersed a similar protest camp in Barcelona. About 120 people were injured in the clashes, which sparked criticism of the police and a new wave of sympathy for the movement, known as 15-M (May 15).

Demonstrators who have returned to Barcelona's Catalonia Square announced over the weekend that they will stay put at least until Tuesday.

Protest camps were removed in some cities but were expected to remain at least for a few days in most parts of the country.

Meanwhile on Monday, the French consulate in Barcelona was forced to close its doors after about 20 demonstrators prevented staff from entering.

The protesters said they were acting in solidarity with about 1,000 French people who demonstrated against corruption and unemployment, and were dispersed by police from Place de la Bastille in Paris over the weekend.

However, the Spanish protest camps were beginning to experience problems such as insufficient electricity and outsiders coming to eat at their food stalls.

The M-15 was increasingly moving from central squares to neighborhood assemblies around the country.

In the Madrid region, more than 20,000 people attended over 120 weekend assemblies discussing proposals to improve Spain's political system, according to figures given by organizers.

The M-15 movement emerged a week before the May 22 local and regional elections. It seeks a reform of Spain's democracy, which it sees as corrupt and as serving the interests of financial markets.

The movement was launched by young people, but many older people have also joined it. A main point of criticism is Spain's 20-per-cent jobless rate. Among young people, unemployment exceeds 40 per cent.

The M-15 has already collected more than 250,000 signatures from supporters, according to representatives in Madrid.

It has also spread around Europe and Latin America, with about 40,000 people attending a rally in the Greek capital Athens over the weekend.

Source: Monsters and Critics.
Link: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1642407.php/Spain-tries-to-avoid-conflict-with-protest-camps.

Libya rebels launch station to fight Qaddafi TV

By MICHELLE FAUL | AP
May 31, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya: Libya’s rebels have launched their first homegrown satellite TV station, trying to counter the regime’s powerful media machine, which churns out Muammar Qaddafi’s message, depicts the opposition as terrorists and drums up patriotic fervor by beaming images of burning buildings hit by NATO strikes.

Libya Alhurra, or “Free Libya,” began broadcasting Monday night, a major step in the rebels’ attempts to get its message to the Libyan public, whose main source of information on the crisis roiling their country has been Qaddafi’s TV and radio.

Thousands of Libyans waving flags gathered in a public square in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to watch the first broadcasts, celebrating a newfound freedom from 40 years of media oppression.

“This is freedom. I hope this shows the true color of Libyan people and their real faith in a new, free Libya,” station co-founder Zuhair Albarasi told The Associated Press from the square, which has become a rallying point for the revolt against Qaddafi.

The channel was born out of an Internet video streaming site launched by Albarasi and fellow Libyan businessman Mohammed Al-Nabbous, who since the uprising began in mid-February searched for a way to show it to the world and to the Libyans themselves.

They started toting video cameras to protests, jerry-rigged a home satellite system and turned to the Web.

The danger of their effort was quickly made clear: Al-Nabbous, 27, was killed in Benghazi on March 19, shot under the right eye by a sniper as he filmed rebels armed with rocket launchers preparing to confront Qaddafi’s tanks as they approached the city. Benghazi was saved that day by the first international airstrikes.

Still, their site continued, streaming video and audio reports direct from the battle front, including audio of fighters and the sounds of whizzing bullets and whooshes of rocket launchers. It also hosts a chat room that draws Libyans inside and outside the country as well as sympathetic foreigners, in English and Arabic.

But in a country where Internet access has been sharply curtailed for much of the population, the channel — hosted on Livestream — remains limited in its reach.

That made it vital to reach satellite TV, which reaches an estimated 90 percent of the Libyan public. The Gulf nation of Qatar, which has been at the forefront of Arab nations assisting the rebels, hosts a pro-rebel Libyan station out of its capital, Doha. But Albarasi and his colleagues in Benghazi were determined to launch one from their nation’s soil.

With the channel’s airing on Monday, Albarasi paid tribute to his lost friend. “The relaunch of Libya Alhurra is done in his name,” he said. “We are all looking forward to providing the people of Libya with a professional and independent service.” Monday night’s launch ran late with a procession of proclamations from various rebel and community leaders that might have bored an audience in a free country. But the thousands gathered at newly named Liberation Square remained spellbound, not budging long after midnight to revel in the denunciations of Qaddafi and promises of a better life in a free and democratic Libya.

“This is a victory for freedom of speech. For the first time we can express our opinion. This channel belongs to the Libyan people,” said Saiz Mahmoud, a 22-year-old mathematics student.

The rebels acknowledge that in the media war, Qaddafi has the upper hand so far, with his state-run TV and radio reaching across the country, including in the rebel-held east and the opposition’s de facto capital, Benghazi.

“Qaddafi’s media are very effective,” said Albarasi.

“We know because a lot of people still believe Qaddafi’s propaganda, even here in Benghazi.” Earlier this month, for example, Qaddafi’s state TV announced the rebels’ administration had received $3 billion to pay salaries, keep utilities running and fund the war. “’Go and get your money,“’ Albarasi quoted the announcer as saying.

Within hours, throngs of people converged on banks in Benghazi to try to collect money that wasn’t there.

The uprising against Qaddafi’s four-decade rule began in mid-February. Qaddafi’s military and militias hold the capital, Tripoli, and most areas in the west. The rebel forces are concentrated in the east, with Benghazi as their center, but have been fighting to hold high ridges in a western mountain range as well as the port of Misrata in the west.

Before the uprising, few bothered to watch the several state-run satellite TV stations, which showed only the daily activities of “brother leader” Qaddafi, leavened by badly produced Libyan-made dramas. But now they are drawing audiences with images of buildings in the capital set ablaze by NATO airstrikes and appeals to Libyan patriotism to stand together against “the Crusaders,” as Qaddafi calls the Western coalition members.

On another front, the rebel administration is fighting to get Qaddafi’s channels off the air, arguing they are spreading hatred and inciting violence. The administration has appealed to Egypt-based distributor Nilesat to hand them Qaddafi’s frequencies. Nilesat head Ahmed Anis said they’re a commercial company and such demands should be taken to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry.

The Arab League passed a resolution asking Nilesat to block Qaddafi’s TV stations. And at the United Nations, diplomats are working to broaden sanctions on the regime to include shutting down state-run channels.

Albarasi said he is against censorship: “We don’t want to forbid Qaddafi’s channels, only have the same freedom to voice our views.” In the first days of the uprising, as Qaddafi was claiming he was fighting Al-Qaeda terrorists and drug addicts, Albarasi and Al-Nabbous realized the importance of showing the truth to Libyans and others abroad.

Al-Nabbous brought the satellite dish from his home and, working with volunteers, the two set up cameras and an account with Livestream and began feeding video to the world.

Albarasi, a business administration graduate who works in hotel and oil management, used a video camera to interview protesters and document the heavy weapons the regime turned against unarmed protesters.

“I was scared,” Albarasi recalled. “I know what kind of monster Qaddafi is, and Internal Security was watching and filming us,” he said.

At first, people thought he was a foreign correspondent.

“When I told them I’m Libyan, this channel is yours, it’s ours, our free space where we can express ourselves, people would hug me, crying, kiss my hands,” he said. “I was crying myself. They even tore my shirt trying to touch me.”

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article444101.ece.

North, south Sudan agree to demilitarized border

By MAGGIE FICK | AP
May 31, 2011

JUBA, Sudan: North and south Sudan have agreed to establish a jointly patrolled demilitarized border zone between the two sides as the south prepares to declare independence in July, the African Union said Tuesday.

AU adviser Alex de Waal, who has facilitated negotiations on security issues between Sudan’s north and south regions, said the parties agreed on Monday during talks in Ethiopia’s capital to form a common, demilitarized zone stretching across the 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) north-south border. It’s not yet known when the zone will go into effect.

The zone will stretch 6 miles (10 kilometers) north and south from the 1956 border, the tentative line drawn when Sudan became independent from Britain.

De Waal told The Associated Press by phone from Addis Ababa that discussions over a third-party military monitoring body — a United Nations peacekeeping force, for instance — were still to come.

Col. Philip Aguer, spokesman for the south’s army, said the southern military will support the agreement “100 percent” if both sides can agree where the actual border is.

“To me that is a good agreement, but the issue now is where is the border,” he said.

North and south Sudan fought two civil wars off and on over more than four decades before signing a 2005 peace deal. But the sides’ relations took a nosedive earlier this month when the northern Sudanese army invaded and seized the disputed border town of Abyei.

The military action came after months of building tensions between the two armies in Abyei, a fertile, oil-producing border zone which both the north and south claim. It sent an estimated 80,000 residents of the area running for their lives, fleeing into villages and towns in the southern state of Warrap, which is now experiencing what Western diplomats and UN humanitarian officials have called a perfect storm of factors resulting in food, fuel, and shelter shortages.

De Waal said the agreement to establish a demilitarized border zone provides a model for solving the Abyei crisis.

He called the deal a necessary step between the two parties that will allow the Sudanese government to take the necessary action to demilitarize Abyei.

Since the Sudanese Armed Forces invaded the town of Abyei on May 21 with tanks, heavy artillery and air cover, the UN Security Council and a host of Western nations have repeatedly condemned the act. President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan called it a disproportionate response to an attack by the southern army on a UN-escorted northern military convoy in the area on May 19.

The Security Council has called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the northern army from Abyei, but the government of President Omar Al-Bashir has not made any concessions. On the evening of May 26, the northern army bombed and destroyed the strategic bridge across the Bahr el Arab, called the River Kiir by southerners, which forms the 1956 border in the area.

De Waal expressed optimism that the agreement will provide a basis for re-establishing cooperative relations between north and south at a time when a number of key issues related to the future of the two regions, including the sharing of oil wealth, remain unresolved.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article444211.ece.

Reindeer see a weird and wonderful world of ultraviolet light

London, UK (SPX) May 31, 2011

Researchers have discovered that the ultraviolet (UV) light that causes the temporary but painful condition of snow blindness in humans is life-saving for reindeer in the arctic.

A BBSRC-funded team at UCL has published a paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology that shows that this remarkable visual ability is part of the reindeer's unique adaptation to the extreme arctic environment where they live.

It allows them to take in live-saving information in conditions where normal mammalian vision would make them vulnerable to starvation, predators and territorial conflict. It also raises the question of how reindeer protect their eyes from being damaged by UV, which is thought to be harmful to human vision.

Lead researcher Professor Glen Jeffery said "We discovered that reindeer can not only see ultraviolet light but they can also make sense of the image to find food and stay safe. Humans and almost all other mammals could never do this as our lenses just don't let UV through into the eye.

"In conditions where there is a lot of UV - when surrounded by snow, for example - it can be damaging to our eyes. In the process of blocking UV light from reaching the retina, our cornea and lens absorb its damaging energy and can be temporarily burned. The front of the eye becomes cloudy and so we call this snow blindness. Although this is normally reversible and plays a vital role to protect our sensitive retinas from potential damage, it is very painful."

Human beings are able to see light with wavelengths ranging from around 700nm, which corresponds to the color red, right through all the colors of the rainbow in sequence to 400nm, which corresponds to violet.

Professor Jeffery and his team tested the reindeer's vision to see what wavelengths they could see and found that they can handle wavelengths down to around 350-320nm, which is termed ultraviolet, or UV, because it exceeds the extreme of the so-called visible spectrum of colors.

The winter conditions in the arctic are very severe; the ground is covered in snow and the sun is very low on the horizon. At times the sun barely rises in the middle of the day, making it dark for most of the time. Under these conditions light is scattered such that the majority of light that reaches objects is blue or UV. In addition to this, snow can reflect up to 90% of the UV light that falls on it.

Professor Jeffery continued "When we used cameras that could pick up UV, we noticed that there are some very important things that absorb UV light and therefore appear black, contrasting strongly with the snow. This includes urine - a sign of predators or competitors; lichens - a major food source in winter; and fur, making predators such as wolves very easy to see despite being camouflaged to other animals that can't see UV."

This research raises some interesting questions about the effect of UV on eye health. It had always been assumed that human eyes don't let UV in because of the potential that it will cause damage, just as it does to our skin. In our eyes, UV could damage our sensitive photoreceptors that cannot be replaced.

This would lead to irreversible damage to our vision. Arctic reindeer are able to let UV into their eyes and use the information effectively in their environment without suffering any consequences.

Professor Jeffery added "The question remains as to why the reindeer's eyes don't seem to be damaged by UV. Perhaps it's not as bad for eyes as we first thought? Or maybe they have a unique way of protecting themselves, which we could learn from and perhaps develop new strategies to prevent or treat the damage the UV can cause to humans."

Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive, BBSRC said "We can learn a lot from studying the fundamental biology of animals and other organisms that live in extreme environments. Understanding their cell and molecular biology, neuroscience, and other aspects of how they work can uncover the biological mechanism that meant they can cope with severe conditions. This knowledge can have an impact on animal welfare and has the potential to be taken forward to new developments that underpin human health and well-being."

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Reindeer_see_a_weird_and_wonderful_world_of_ultraviolet_light_999.html.

Libyan rebels rename themselves National Liberation Army

May 30, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya's rebel leaders, the National Transitional Council (NTC), have announced that they have renamed their armed forces the National Liberation Army (NLA).

"The NTC hopes that the temporary name will help better define the increasingly professional and disciplined military efforts to overcome the Kadhafi regime," said the statement.

Rebels have been fighting troops loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi since the February 17 uprising that has effectively split the country in two, with the rebel forces entrenched in the east of the country.

But their military force is made largely of young, inexperienced volunteers and the force is poorly equipped compared to the soldiers fighting for Kadhafi.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

Iraqi vice president resigns in sign of infighting

By REUTERS
May 31, 2011

BAGHDAD: One of Iraq’s deputy presidents has stepped down, a top Shiite leader said on Monday, a sign of divisions in the coalition government formed by Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation came as Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki fends off critics who say he has not delivered on power-sharing promises since forming a fragile multisectarian government in December after nine months of political deadlock.

Ammar Al-Hakim, the leader of the Iranian-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), said Abdul-Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician in ISCI, had presented his resignation but it had yet to be approved by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

“We were supposed to present this resignation before, but the president was abroad, so once he came back the resignation was submitted to him,” Hakim said.

Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, was one of three deputies appointed by Parliament this month to the government led by Al-Maliki.

Hakim said he hoped the resignation would prompt others to follow suit to reduce the size of the government. There have been divisions among the Shiite allies.

The vice president’s post is largely symbolic as it carries no real power but it was a part of the power sharing deal between Iraq’s political factions to form the government.

Abdul-Mahdi’s departure is unlikely to pressure the coalition, which still has the backing of most other Shiite blocs in the government, including the powerful Sadrist bloc with 39 seats in Parliament.

But it highlights increasing political wrangling in Iraq as US troops prepare to withdraw by the end of the year.

Opposition leaders are already seeking to pressure Al-Maliki, who faces a self-imposed early June deadline to show progress to Iraqis demanding much-needed basic services after years of war and violence.

More than eight years after the US-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraqis complain their governments have not done enough to resolve day-to-day problems such as supplying electricity and creating jobs.

The Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance, led by former premier Iyad Allawi, also criticizes Maliki for failing to form a national advisory body Allawi was meant to head and delaying the naming of key posts such as the defense and interior ministries.

Iraq was ravaged by sectarian violence unleashed by the invasion. Overall violence has dropped sharply from the dark days of sectarian slaughter in 2006-07, but attacks by insurgents and Shiite militia continue daily.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article442223.ece.

Palestinian makes artistic mark on passports

By JIHAN ABDALLA | REUTERS
May 31, 2011

RAMALLAH, West Bank: It is like no other passport control on earth. No stern official sitting behind a glass wall, no scanning of travel documents, no terse questions about where you are going. Instead, a lone artist greets arriving visitors and politely asks them if they would like an entry stamp.

Living in occupied territory, the Palestinians do not have the right to set up their own frontier controls. Anyone who passes through Israeli checkpoints is swiftly absorbed into the bustling streets of West Bank cities like Ramallah.

But art student Khaled Jarrar has decided to fill the institutional void with a dainty entry stamp of his own design, which he offers to foreigners as they tumble out of the buses.

“I believe in art that makes a difference, that talks about change. My art is making a political statement,” said Jarrar, spurning traditional galleries for Ramallah’s chaotic central bus station.

While many tourists arriving from nearby Jerusalem appear enthusiastic about the project, few are willing to hand over their precious passports for the sake of art.

Jeff Reynolds, a visitor from Canada, listens intently as Jarrar explains the idea behind the unofficial stamp, then politely declines, fearful that Israeli authorities will give him grief when he tries to fly home.

“I’m just worried about missing my flight at Tel Aviv airport if they question me for a long time about it,” he says, referring to security guards who grill passengers at length before they leave, asking where they went and whom they met.

Palestinians want to set up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital, on land the Israelis seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

Nearly 20 years of on-off peace negotiations have failed to secure an accord, and the Palestinians say they will now seek United Nations’ approval for a sovereign state in September.

Diplomats say this move stands little chance of success, meaning 35-year-old Jarrar might be the only Palestinian passport controller in the West Bank for some time to come.

His small, round stamp is circled with the words ‘State of Palestine’, written in Arabic and English. In the middle is a drawing of the Palestine Sun Bird flying near delicate flowers.

“In regards to the question of statehood, I think I have sent the message. I think I have done what I can,” says Jarrar, who has set up a Facebook page to promote his stamp — Live-and-work-in-Palestine.

After a string of polite rejections, Jarrar finally finds some foreigners eager to hand over their passports.

“I’m very supportive of the Palestinian cause, and I think this is occupation. So I find it outrageous that they don’t have the right to have their own authority,” says Morgana Benedetti, visiting the West Bank from Italy.

She asks Jarrar to put the stamp on page 9 of her passport — her favorite number — saying it is important for her to have both an Israeli and a Palestinian stamp.

“It’s silly, but it’s like a country. I get a stamp of Israel, but I don’t get a stamp of Palestine?” she says.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article442237.ece.

UAE seeks $100m in support for F-16 fleet

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 31, 2011

DUBAI: The US Defense Department says the United Arab Emirates is seeking $100 million worth of supplies and maintenance services for its fleet of F-16 fighters.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement posted last week it notified Congress of the sale May 24.

It says the proposed deal would include a range of classified and unclassified equipment, munitions, spare parts as well as training and ground support. It calls the UAE “an important force for peace, political stability, and economic progress in the Middle East.” The UAE in March deployed six of its F-16s to help enforce the NATO-led no-fly zone over Libya. One of those planes crashed on landing at an air base in southern Italy last month.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article442254.ece.

Armed residents put up resistance to Syrian Army

By BASSEM MROUE | AP
May 31, 2011

BEIRUT: Syrian troops shelled a town in the center of the country Monday, and for the first time in the two-month-old revolt against the president, residents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades put up fierce resistance, activists said. State media said four soldiers were killed.

Most of the opposition to autocratic President Bashar Assad has taken the form of peaceful protests by unarmed demonstrators, though authorities have claimed throughout the uprising that it was being led by armed gangs and propelled by foreign conspiracies.

Two activists in the area said residents of two towns under attack in central Homs province since Sunday had taken up arms against troops and members of the security forces and that there were new casualties, though they did not know how many.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria, which help organize and document the protests, said two bodies were found Monday morning in the area of Bab Amro cemetery, raising the death toll from the two-day crackdown in the country’s turbulent heartland to 11.

“The army is facing armed resistance and is not able to enter the two towns,” said a Homs resident who has wide connections in the province. “The army is still outside the towns and I was told that army vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, were burnt.” The other activist said the army “is being subjected to stiff resistance” by residents using automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in the two towns, Tabliseh and Rastan. He said many people are armed in Syria and over the past years weapons have been smuggled into the country from Lebanon and Iraq.

Syria has barred foreign journalists from entering the country and prevented coverage of the revolt, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts coming out of the country.

Monday’s accounts by the two activists, however, were the first credible reports of serious resistance by people who have taken up arms. It is not clear how widespread such resistance might be elsewhere in the country, but the government has claimed that more than 150 soldiers and policemen have been killed since the unrest began.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria said military forces hit Tabliseh with artillery early Monday and that snipers were deployed on roofs of mosques.

Syrian troops, backed by tanks, have been conducting operations in Tabliseh and the nearby town of Rastan Teir Maaleh since Sunday.

Syria’s state-run news agency said four soldiers were killed and 14 wounded in Tabliseh.

Assad’s use of the military signals he is determined to crush the two-month-old revolt, despite US and European sanctions, including an EU assets freeze and a visa ban on Assad and nine members of his regime.

The uprising, which began in mid-March, is posing the most serious challenge to the Assad family’s 40-year rule. What began as a disparate movement demanding reforms has erupted into a resilient uprising seeking Assad’s ouster. Human rights groups say more than 1,000 people have been killed in the crackdown.

In Geneva, the UN’s top human rights official said Monday the brutality and magnitude of repression in Syria and Libya against anti-government groups is “shocking.” Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the crackdown in those countries is marked by an “outright disregard for basic human rights.” He urged the Syrian government Monday to allow a UN fact-finding mission to visit the country. The team has been awaiting Syria’s reply since requesting a visit on May 6.

Rights activist Mustafa Osso said troops have entered several towns in the restive Homs province and detained hundreds of people since Sunday. He added that since Sunday night, Rastan and Tabliseh have been subjected to heavy machine gun fire.

Residents of the Homs towns have held anti-regime protests since the start of the uprising. Those protests have increased recently, with crowds taking to the streets day and night to call for the fall of Assad’s regime, an activist said.

Osso said there were several demonstrations in different parts of Syria overnight, adding that there were no reports of security forces opening fire.

In recent days, many Assad opponents have been holding protests and candlelight vigils at times of the night when the security presence has thinned out.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article442250.ece.

Jordan opposition calls for government's resignation

By ABDUL JALIL MUSTAFA | ARAB NEWS
May 31, 2011

AMMAN: Jordan’s main opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), and the country’s strongest pro-democracy coalition on Monday urged the resignation of Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit’s government for its failure to adopt the needed reforms.

“The way out of the deep crisis we experience lies in the formation of a national reform government, to be led by a national personality which believes in reforms and adopts a program with clear objectives, including the adoption of real, political and constitutional reforms,” the IAF said in a statement.

The IAF, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, considered last week’s resignation of two Cabinet ministers indicative of Bakhit’s failure to fight corruption and “the unprecedented political, economic and social crisis Jordan is grappling with.”

Bakhit said that the Justice Minister Hussein Megalli and Health Minister Yassin Hosban resigned on Thursday to concede responsibility for the ”mistakes” committed in their ministries that enabled the convicted businessman Khalid Shahin to flee from the country on Feb. 25.

In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Megalli said that he had decided to resign because he found the “path of reforms deadlocked.”

Local media on Monday expected more cabinet ministers to quit in connection with Shahin’s affair that dominated the thinking of the Jordanian public opinion over the past three months.

Shahin was serving a three-year jail term after the State Security Court found him guilty of bribery in his bid to obtain a 1.2-billion-dollar contract for the expansion of the country’s sole refinery.

The call for Bakhit’s resignation also came on Monday from the March 24 Youth group, which has set July 14 a date for a marathon rally to protest the failure to adopt the required political and constitutional reforms in the country, including an independent judiciary.

“We hereby promise our people that we will not back down in our struggle to accomplish radical reforms and disclose all corruption files and ensure punishment of those involved,” the gathering said in a strongly-worded statement.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article442229.ece.