At least 200 were reported killed Feb. 2 in the Syrian city of Homs as security forces pursued their campaign to take back opposition-held areas on the eve of a UN Security Council vote on a much-disputed resolution on the country's crisis. Woman and children were among the dead in shelling of the city's Khalidya district, according to the the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (The Guardian, Feb. 3) That same day, Syrian security forces tightened their grip on the city of Hama (just to the north of Homs, see map) as protesters splashed red paint symbolizing blood in the streets to mark the 30th anniversary of the famous massacre carried out there by President Bashar Assad's father and predecessor Hafez Assad. The 1982 Hama massacre, in which entire neighborhoods were levelled to put down a local rebbellion, has become a rallying cry for the Syrian uprising that began nearly 11 months ago. Amnesty International estimates up to 25,000 were killed in the massacre. Graffiti on the walls this week read: "Hafez died, and Hama didn't. Bashar will die, and Hama won't." (AP, Feb. 2)

From Haaretz, Feb. 3:

Jerusalem's Armenians outraged as city approves Jews-only parking lot in Old City
Armenian residents of Jerusalem's Old City are protesting a municipal decision to designate a parking lot in the area solely for Jews, although part of it stands on land belonging to the Armenian Patriarchate.

We have expressed our skepticism of the interminable Chicken Little routine about a supposedly imminent attack on Iran. Mixed signals emerge from the headlines this week. First this, from Politico.com, Feb. 2:

Leon Panetta story sparks Israel-Iran speculation
The prospect of war in the Middle East stoked media attention Thursday after a Washington Post editorial writer claimed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes that Israel may attack Iran this spring.

Two people were shot dead by police in Suez and more than 400 injured in protests across Egypt Feb. 2, sparked by the deaths of 74 people in a riot following a football match in Port Said the previous day. In Cairo, thousands of protesters marched on the interior ministry, where security forces fired tear gas to keep them back. Protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible for the bloodshed in Port Said, with Muslim Brotherhood militants and others charging the violence was a provocation organized by Mubarak-loyalsists. (BBC World Service, BBC News, Reuters, Feb. 3)

Four accused assassins of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri will be tried in absentia, a UN tribunal said Feb. 1. The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) at The Hague said that after considering the efforts taken by the prosecution and the authorities to apprehend the suspects, they would move forward with the trial. The four alleged Hezbollah members are accused of involvement in a February 2005 truck bomb that killed Hariri and 22 other people. The STL determined that the prosecution took "all reasonable steps" to apprehend and inform the accused, and that the proceedings were a "last resort":

From Huffington Post, Feb. 1:

Mind-Reading Advance Lets Brain Scientists 'Eavesdrop' On Thoughts
Scientists already know how to see into your mind's eye, and now they can hear the voices in your head. In a new paper published in PLoS [Public Library of Science] Biology, researchers present evidence showing that they can track the brain activity of a person listening to spoken words and use it to reconstruct the words.

Us old-school lefties have been wondering for a quite some time, which is more annoying—the legions of "Anonymous" hacktivists who think that faceless adventurism is the cutting-edge of revolution, or Ron Paul supporters who think that this ultra-reactionary Republican crank stands for progressive change? Well now, much to our amusement, they appear to be at each other's throats! And we have to give an editorial tip o' the hat to Anonymous for uncovering more dirt on Paul's ties to real live neo-Nazis. In their latest cyber-attack, they apparently hacked the website of some nimrods calling themselves American Third Position, or A3P—a Southern California-based outfit that is seeking to mainstream white supremacism by running candidates, in the style of David Duke back in the '90s. The hackers evidently splashed a bunch of the A3P crew's internal e-mails on the group's homepage—and, lo and behold, it turns out they are a well integrated into Paul's political machine! This account from the UK's International Business Times, Jan. 31:

In a Jan. 30 Google-sponsored "video chat," President Barack Obama gave the first public acknowledgment of what has been a very open secret—the use of US drones against militant forces in Pakistan's tribal areas. Obama responded to a question from a young man in Brooklyn, who noted that the president had ordered more drone attacks in his first year in office than his predecessor George Bush. Saying the attacks cause "a lot of civilian casualties," he asked if they were worth it. Obama responded (rather disingenuously, in light of some recent horrific news accounts): "I want to make sure that people understand that actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates. And we are very careful in terms of how it has been applied." Asked by another participant in a follow-up question whether drone strikes "send a message" that the US is interfering in other countries' affairs, Obama responded with the kind of downright Orwellian logic that he has already proved himself capable of: