From the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), April 14:

Today, our friend and colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza.

The Syrian regime pledged to free scores of people detained in the recent wave of protests, excluding only those convicted of "criminal acts." Recently appointed Prime Minister Adel Safar also announced formation of a new government on April 14. Meanwhile, snipers shot dead a soldier and wounded another in Banias, state news agency SANA said, a day after a deal was struck for the army to restore order there.

Inspired by the Arab Spring, protesters in Swaziland are calling for King Mswati III—Africa’s last absolute monarch—to allow multi-party democracy and rescind salary cuts to public employees. The king has not responded publicly, but his army and police have unleashed a heavy crackdown, including preemptive arrests of labor leaders, journalists, and student activists, as well as the use of tear gas and water cannons on the streets. On April 13, the third day of protests, labor and student leaders announced a pause in the campaign to rethink their strategy, but some warned against backing down. "You can choose, if you want to, to end the protests and in the process send a clear a message to your government that ... the best way to deal with protests is clubs and tear gas," the Swaziland Support Network (SSN) in a statement. "The alternative is fighting back." (CSM, April 14)

At least seven people were killed, including four police officers who clashed with a dissident army unit, as hundreds of thousands of anti-regime protesters rallied across Yemen on April 13. The police apparently attacked an army checkpoint maintained by dissident troops in Amran province, The targeted army unit operates under the commander of northwest Yemen's military region, Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who has closed ranks with the protest movement and accused regime supporters of trying to assassinate him. In the southern the port city of Aden, soldiers shot dead two protesters and wounded nine others. The army apparently opened fire as protesters tried to set up roadblocks to enforce a general strike, which they have vowed to stage in Aden every Saturday and Wednesday until President Ali Abdullah Saleh's fall. Security officials said some of the protesters were armed, and included supporters of both the anti-Saleh parliamentary bloc, Common Forum, and the secessionist Southern Movement. (Middle East Online, April 13)

Workers at two major industrial enterprises in Iran's southern province of Khuzestan are on strike, according to a report on Radio Farda, Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The report says some 1,500 employees of the Imam Port Petrochemical Complex have been staging gatherings in front of the company headquarters since April 9 to demand their work contracts be concluded directly with the plant's management rather than with contractors. The Free Union of Workers in Iran told Radio Farda that 1,000 workers at the Pars Paper Mill in southwestern Iran similarly launched a strike on April 9, protesting the dismissal of 60 workers who were on temporary contracts with the factory. (RFE/RL, April 12)

Japan raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis to seven on April 12—putting it on par with the Chernobyl disaster—as stricken reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex continue to release large amounts of radioactive substances. The Nuclear Industry and Safety Agency (NISA) had previously assessed the crisis at at level five, the same as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979. The move came as engineers were fighting another fire at reactor Number 4, and as a 6.3 aftershock centered off the coast of Chiba rocked eastern Japan. (Brisbane Times, April 12; Reuters, April 11)

As battles rage for the Libyan coastal cities of Misrata and Ajdabiyah, refugees arriving in Tunisia report atrocities by Moammar Qaddafi's forces in the remote Western Mountains—including the shelling of homes, poisoning wells with petrol, and threatening women with rape. "The bombardment...is targeting homes, hospitals, schools," said Mohamed Ouan, from the town of Kalaa, who arrived at Tunisia's Dehiba border crossing with about 500 other Libyans from the Western Mountains. "No one is interested in this region, which is suffering in silence." The Western Mountains region, which includes the towns of Nalout, Kalaa, Yafran and Zintan, is populated by Berbers, a group traditionally viewed with suspicion by Qaddafi, and has been the scene of a local civil rebellion. Videos posted on the Internet show crowds in Kalaa waving the green, black and red flag of the anti-Qaddafi rebels and chanting slogans in the Berber language. Another video, from Nalout, showed people at a protest holding up a banner with the words: "The rebels of Nalout are supporting the Benghazi rebels." (Reuters, April 10)

Security forces and pro-government gunmen killed four protesters April 10 in Syria's port city of Banias. The army had sealed off the city as hundreds of protesters gathered. State television reported that nine soldiers were killed in an ambush near the city. (AP, April 10) In Egypt, several hundred protesters staged an overnight vigil in Cairo's Tahrir Square in defiance of a military crackdown, and say they will not be moved. The protesters, who have barricaded the square with a burnt-out army truck, barbed wire and beams chanted against military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who has headed the country since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted. One person was killed and several wounded the previous day when the army tried to clear the square, although the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said the shooting was the work of pro-Mubarak provocateurs. (Middle East Online, CSM, April 10)