Yemeni officials announced June 12 that government troops have recaptured two al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula strongholds in the country's south after a month-long offensive against AQAP, which seized the areas more than a year ago. Officials said Yemeni troops and tribal allies took full control of Abyan's provincial capital, Zinjibar, and the town of Jaar to the north. They said government forces also re-opened the highway linking Abyan with the southern port of Aden. (VOA, June 12) The next day, airstrikes destroyed a car parked near a house in the AQAP-held town of Azzan, Shabwa province, leaving nine dead. AQAP charged in a statement that the strike came from a US drone. (AP, June 13)

In the wake of the May 25 massacre in Houla, shock and revulsion reverberate across the world—except among "anti-war" voices in the West, those supposedly most concerned with war crimes and mass killings of civilians. Kind of funny, eh? Amnesty International calls for action from the International Criminal Court, finding: "The Syrian military's barrage of shells, mortars and rockets and raids on the residential area of Teldo...left at least 108 dead, including 34 women and 50 children." Said AI's Middle East director Philip Luther: "The high civilian death toll—including scores of women and children—in Houla must spur the Security Council to act in unison and immediately refer the situation in Syria to the ICC." Since then, the annual UN "Children and Armed Conflict" report has been released, accusing the Assad regime of torturing kids:

An Egyptian court on June 2 found former president Hosni Mubarak guilty of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and sentenced him to life in prison. The court also found former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli guilty of the same charge and sentenced him to a life term. But corruption charges were dropped against Mubarak's sons, Alaa and Gamal. And six senior security officials, including former head of the now-disbanded State Security Investigations service (SSI), were acquitted. During the protests that resulted in the overturning of his 33-year regime, Mubarak ordered government officials to use gunfire and other violent measures to subdue demonstrations, resulting in some 850 deaths. Mubarak's 10-month trial marks the first time a former Arab leader has been held accountable for his actions in a court of law.

Following last week's indecisive elections, the Muslim Brotherhood is urging Egyptians to support its presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi in next month's seemingly inevitable run-off with Ahmed Shafiq, the ex-air force chief who was Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. The Brotherhood is deriding Shafiq and his supporters as "feloul"—a scornful Arabic term for "remnants" of Mubarak's order. (Middle East Online, May 26; Egyptian Gazette, May 25) The Brotherhood's own website Ikhwanweb.com sports a headline reading "Muslim Brotherhood, Freedom and Justice Party: We Seek National Unity to Save Revolution," calling on "all patriotic parties and political players to join hands and face up to [presumably meaning 'stand up to'] the heinous coup of reactionary Mubarak-era leftovers." But Egypt's secular progressives are no more heartened by the Brotherhood than the "feloul." Ahmed Khairy of the liberal Free Egyptians Party called the likely runoff "the worst-case scenario," describing Mursi as an "Islamic fascist" and Shafiq as a "military fascist." (Ahram Online, May 25)

The opposition Syrian National Council is urging the UN Security Council to act after regime forces "massacred" more than 110 people in the town of Houla—half of them children. "Some of the victims were hit by heavy artillery while others, entire families, were massacred," the SNC's Basma Kodmani in a statement. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 50 civilians, including 13 children, were killed in shelling of Houla, in the central province of Homs. But the SNC put the figure twice as high, and said that after the army shelled the opposition stronghold, pro-government militia went house to house and killed residents at close range. (NPR, Sept. 27; Middle East Online, May 26)

Demonstrators marked Jordan's 1949 independence from British rule on May 25 by demanding reform and rejecting government plans to hike commodity prices and taxes to offset a $3 billion budget deficit. Chanting "No independence without reform" and "Do not set the country on fire by raising prices," more than 1,000 people, including opposition Islamists, trade unionists and youth groups, chanted as they marched in central Amman. The demonstration came a day after MPs gave a vote of confidence to Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh's government, which plans to increase commodity prices and taxes as part of an austerity package to avoid the huge deficit in the 2012 $9.6 billion budget. (Middle East Online, May 26)

A court in Bahrain on May 24 sentenced Zainab al-Khawaja, the daughter of jailed pro-democracy activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja to one month in prison for trying to organize an anti-government protest, according to Bahraini opposition groups. The court also fined her $530 on a separate charge of insulting a government employee. Zainab al-Khawaja refused to pay the fine and will face an additional 40 days in prison unless she pays it. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja has been on hunger strike for three months, expressing opposition to the Bahraini government's ongoing trials of pro-democracy protesters. He was sentenced to life in prison n June 2011. Zainab al-Khawaja is scheduled for another hearing this weekend on other protest-related charges.

While the devastating suicide bomb in the Yemeni capital Sana'a grabbed international headlines, the country's ordinary people are increasingly fighting just to make ends meet. In a joint statement, a group of seven charities warned this week that 10 million Yemenis—44% of the population—are undernourished, with 5 million requiring emergency aid. The so-called Friends of Yemen gathering in the Saudi capital Riyadh this week is widely expected to concentrate on shoring up security and the fragile political transition the in the country. In their warning, the aid agencies—CARE, International Medical Corps, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Mercy Corps, Oxfam and Save the Children—say this focus is preventing action to alleviate poverty and hunger. They say malnutrition rates have doubled in Yemen since 2009, partly as a result of a surge in food and fuel prices. More than half a million Yemenis have fled their homes because of increased violence and the country is also coping nearly 300,000 refugees from Somalia and the Horn of Africa.