Angry protests exploded throughout Jordan on the night of Nov. 13, after the government announced an increase in fuel prices. Demonstrators burned tires, smashed traffic lights and blocked roads in several cities, as riot police responded with tear gas.  In Dhiban, a city of 15,000 south of the capital, Amman, protesters burned pictures of King Abdullah II—defying laws imposing a prison term for criticizing the king. In Salt, which has been a focus of popular discontent, protesters destroyed two cars outside the prime minister’s home, which was empty. And in Amman, thousands filled the circle outside the Interior Ministry near midnight, chanting, "Revolution, revolution," and "The people want the fall of the regime"—slogans made famous in Egypt and Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began. The fuel price hike is part of an effort to close the country's growing budget deficit and secure a $2 billion IMF loan. (RIA-Novosti, Nov. 14; NYT, Nov. 13)

Pretty funny. CIA director David Petraeus, responsible for countless civilian deaths in his lawless drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal territories, resigns in contrition saying, "I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair." (NYT, Nov. 9) After reading numerous accounts, we still can't figure out exactly how this came to light, but it seems to have originated in an FBI investigation of harassing e-mails apparently sent to an unnamed third party by Petraeus' paramour and biographer Paula Broadwell. After the Benghazi blow-out in the presidential debate last month, we were left wondering how the CIA could not have known for two weeks after the fact that the consulate attack was an armed ("terrorist") attack and not just a rowdy demonstration. Now we are left wondering how the director of the CI goddam A could not have known that the FBI was reading his e-mail. And it appears that, at least in the minds of the paranoid, there may be a link between these two apparent lapses...

A Bahrain appeals court upheld verdicts against two teachers on Oct. 22 for organizing a teachers' strike early last year to support anti-government protests. At their first hearing in front of a military tribunal, the pair were convicted of using their positions as vice-president and president of the Bahrain Teachers' Association (BTA) to attempt to overthrow the Bahraini government through a teachers' strike that halted the educational process and "incited hatred" against the regime. No evidence has been presented that they used or advocated violence of any means, according to an Amnesty International backgrounder. Mahdi 'Issa Mahdi Abu Dheeb was sentenced to five years in prison while Jalila al-Salman was given a six-month sentence. Abu Dheeb has been detained for 18 months. Al-Salman was in confinement for five months but was released on bail. However, al-Salman has alleged torture while being detained.

Egyptian Prosecutor-General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud on Oct. 22 ordered an investigation into allegations of forgery during the recent presidential elections. The order came after former Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafiq made allegations that ballots were forged and votes were bought by current president Mohammed Morsi. Shafiq added that previous investigations into the allegations were stopped without justification by the presidential election commission. Shafiq, who left for the United Arab Emirates right after his loss in the elections, has faced corruption charges of having misused public funds while in office as minister of civil aviation during the 30-year regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Shafiq has argued that the charges against him are politically motivated. He has also noted that he will remain politically active and return to Egypt soon. The call for the investigation came after Egyptian authorities seized Shafiq's assets as part of his corruption investigation.

Egypt's new government has launched the most serious set of attacks on workers' rights since the days of Mubarak, according to activists in the independent unions. Hundreds of trade unionists have been sacked from their jobs for organizing since the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi won the presidential elections in June, and pressure from management and the courts has increased in recent weeks. Five dockers in Alexandria were given three-year prison terms in absentia because they blew the whistle on corruption in the state-run Holding Company for Land and Maritime Transport. Workers at the Alexandria Container Company organised a strike demanding the resignation of the Holding Company's board and the return of the wharves to state control, after they were sold off to a Chinese company. The next hearing in the case will be held this week. Meanwhile dockers in Ain Sokhna port, near Suez, were also hauled before the courts on Oct. 18, charged with "incitement to strike."

A top Lebanese security official who was bitterly opposed to Syrian leader Bashar Assad was killed Oct. 19 in a car bomb in Beirut that also claimed the lives of seven others and left 80 more wounded. Gen. Wissam Hasan, head of the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces, was one of eight killed in the mid-afternoon attack in the Christian district of Ashrafieh. The blast was the first car bombing in Beirut since 2008. Hasan led the investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, and he had also been a close aide to Hariri. Al-Jazeera reported that he was believed to be involved in organizing support for the Syrian insurgents. The opposition March 14 coalition accused Damascus of being behind the attack. "Assad has repeatedly threatened to set fire to the region if the noose tightened on him," March 14 leader Fares Souaid told a television station. (Reuters, Lebanon Daily Star, Daily Star, Al-Jazeera, Oct. 19)

Obama seemed to score a win in last night's debate by catching Mitt Romney in a lie, or at least an error, over the question of when the deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi was deemed "terrorism." Obama's snappy come-back "Get the transcript" is already an Internet meme. Here's how the Associated Press "Debate Fact-check" calls it:

Mitt Romney wrongly claimed that it took 14 days for President Obama to brand the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya a terrorist act...

OBAMA: The day after [the] attack... "I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we're going to hunt down those who committed this crime."

In an Oct. 15 statement, Human Rights Watch called on Tunisian authorities to investigate a series of attacks by religious extremists over the past 10 months and bring those responsible to justice. The statement noted a letter sent in July to the ministers of justice and interior, detailing six incidents in which apparent Islamists assaulted artists, intellectuals and activists. Human Rights Watch said no progress had been made in these cases, and it meanwhile received reports of another such attack against the organizers of a festival in August. "The failure of Tunisian authorities to investigate these attacks entrenches the religious extremists’ impunity and may embolden them to commit more violence," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.