Syria ( Dozens of people were killed in an eighth day of air strikes )

BEIRUT: Dozens of people were killed in an eighth day of air strikes on Aleppo in Syria on Sunday, a watchdog said, as a bombing in Homs killed five schoolchildren.
"Dozens of people were killed or wounded" in attacks that saw loyalist warplanes drop so-called barrel bombs near the Friday market in Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Separate attacks also targeted the rebel-held Sakhur, Ahmadiyeh, Baideen and Ard Al-Hamra neighbourhoods of the former commercial capital, it said.
The Aleppo Media Centre, a network of citizen journalists on the ground, also reported the attacks, adding that the barrel bomb attack "destroyed a bus, leaving no survivors".
The bombing also destroyed "some 10 cars, as well as a residential building," the AMC said.
It added that "hospitals are packed with wounded", and that the number of dead could not yet be confirmed.

The air force was "continuing to bombard several areas of Aleppo," the AMC added.
It posted footage on the Internet showing pools of blood inside the wreckage of the bus that was hit.
A second video showed burning vehicles, while images distributed by activists showed the bloodstained faces of wounded children.
The Observatory also reported a man and his son were killed in bombing on the Aleppo province village of Atareb, while a man, woman and child from one family were killed in Marea in the same province.
Footage distributed by Shahba Press, another network of citizen journalists, showed children in a bombed-out school in Marea, as one said "the warplane staged four raids here" while classes were on.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of grassroots activists, described "panic and mass flight to the countryside, despite the intense cold".
On Saturday, Human Rights Watch accused regime forces of "wreaking disaster" in Aleppo with its intense aerial bombing campaign, which has killed hundreds in the past week.
In the central province of Homs, a car bombing on Sunday killed eight people, six of them schoolchildren, the official SANA news agency reported.
"Terrorists blew up a car bomb near the primary school in the town of Omm al-Amd in the countryside outside Homs, killing eight people including six children, and wounding 34 others," SANA said.
The Observatory reported a higher death toll of at least 12, including five children

Iran ( Wife and Mother die in car accident after " Prison visit " of political prisoner )

 Posted on: 21st December, 2013                         

                  

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HRANA News Agency – Nahid Rahmani and Ziba Sadegh Zadeh, the mother and wife of the political prisoner, Payman (Amirreza) Arefi died on the way back home from visit, in a car accident.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), earlier in an interview with HRANA, the mother of Payman Arefi, who resided in Tehran, had stated that she was concerned about this prisoner’s exile to Masjed-Soliman prison.

Payman Arefi was arrested on May 2009, on charge of supporting monarchical society. First he was sentenced to death but the appeal court the sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

This political prisoner, align with his cousin, Arash Rahmani who was executed in 2010, were put to the post-election mass trial court, as a street rioter who was contemplating for armed action against national security and Islamic Republic, while they had been arrested before 2009 election.

Ziba Sadegh Zadeh, herself was arrested with Payman Arefi, and spent some times in ward 209 of Evin prison and had been interrogated. Payman Arefi has announced in a letter from prison that he had confessed against himself to make her wife be released.

DAMASCUS ( Syrian forces are “wreaking disaster” on Aleppo, killing hundreds in air strikes )

DAMASCUS: Syrian forces are “wreaking disaster” on Aleppo, killing hundreds in air strikes on the city, Human Rights Watch said Saturday, as peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held talks with Iran’s foreign minister.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), meanwhile, said the body of Abbas Khan, a British doctor who died in a Syrian jail, was to be transported to Beirut.
“Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men, women, and children alike,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“The Syrian air force is either criminally incompetent, doesn’t care whether it kills scores of civilians — or deliberately targets civilian areas,” Solvang added.
The HRW statement comes six days after the launch of a massive aerial campaign against opposition-held areas of Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial capital, involving dozens of warplane strikes and helicopter attacks using TNT-packed barrels.
The New York-based organization cited the Syrian Network for Human Rights as saying 232 civilians were killed from Dec. 15 to 18 in and around the northern city.
HRW concluded that the attacks, which targeted both Aleppo city and its province, showed “government forces had used means and methods of warfare that... could not distinguish between civilians and combatants, making attacks indiscriminate and therefore unlawful.”
It also lashed out against rebels for firing rockets and mortar rounds into civilian areas in government-controlled parts of Aleppo.
The city has been split into rebel and regime-controlled areas since mid-summer 2012 when rebels launched a massive offensive to try to take Syria’s second city.
On Saturday, a day after rebels made a fresh advance in the city, overrunning the Kindi hospital, regime troops pounded the area, which loyalists had for months been using as a base, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Aleppo Media Center, a network of activists on the ground, also said the army had launched a new attack against the opposition-held Qadi Askar neighborhood.
The loyalists, according to the AMC, used highly destructive TNT-packed barrel bombs, whose use has been condemned widely by rights groups.
The violence comes despite preparatory discussions for peace talks due for Jan. 22 in Switzerland, which should bring together opposition and regime representatives.
There has been no agreement yet on whether key Damascus backer Iran will participate in the talks.
On Saturday, peace envoy Brahimi talked by phone with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif about the latest on the Geneva 2 conference,” the ministry said.
Zarif, it said, “insisted on a political solution” that includes talks between the parties to the conflict which has claimed some 126,000 lives since it erupted nearly three years ago.
On Friday, Brahimi had said negotiators failed to reach agreement on whether Iran should be invited to the peace talks, but that Tehran was not yet “off the list” of participants.
“It’s no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran’s participation would be the right thing,” said Brahimi.
While Iran backs President Bashar Assad’s regime, the United States has insisted he should be excluded from a future transition.
Meanwhile, the ICRC announced the body of Abbas Khan, a British doctor who died in a regime jail, will arrive in Beirut on Saturday.
In the Lebanese capital, his remains will be handed over to the British Embassy.
London and a Syrian rights group has held Damascus responsible for Dr. Khan’s death.
But Syrian authorities said on Wednesday the doctor was found “hanging” in his cell, where he was being held for “unauthorized activities,” and that he had committed suicide.
Khan, a volunteer with London-based charity Human Aid UK, had traveled to Aleppo in northern Syria last year to help civilians when he was arrested by the regime.
The developments come a day after the opposition condemned the arrest by the security forces in the northern city of Qamishli of a prominent Assyrian Christian dissident, Gabriel Mushi Gowriyeh.
“The Syrian National Coalition condemns the detention in the city of Qamishli on Dec. 19 of Gabriel Mushi Gowriyeh, head of the Assyrian Democratic Organization’s political bureau,” the group said.

Saudi Arabia ( Saudi women strive to overcome obstacles as PR professionals )

As Saudi women strive to excel in the field of public relations/communications, society’s norms and traditions put obstacles in their way.
Many Saudi women entered the field driven by the successful experiences of professional women in the PR field recently. However, most haven’t ventured into the private sector yet as they prefer to work with government and charity organizations.


Media and PR specialists see a need in developing the PR field in government organizations, particularly women sections. Dr. Hamad Al-Mousa, a media professor and head of the Department of Higher Education and Scientific Research at Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University, said PR departments do not follow a clear plan.
“Many establishments don’t even allocate a budget for the PR department,” he said.
Some see traditional work approach as an added difficulty for women as employers adhere to gender-based division of work.
Dr. Mohammad Al-Hizan, president of the Saudi Association for Public Relations and Advertisements, says female government PR departments are marginalized. “Employers ask women to deal with hospitality and meeting hall arrangements,” Al-Hizan said. “The real PR tasks are assigned to other departments.”
Al-Mousa said that lack of media exposure among women decreases the efficiency of PR work. “Most PR women avoid media despite its vital need in their work. Media skills are diminished as a result,” he said.
Only 10 percent of Saudi women working in PR utilize modern technology, such as social media websites, to communicate with their target audience. The remaining 90 percent of the female administrations use traditional communication means, such as faxes and telephones.”
Salma Al-Motairi, a lecturer in the Media Department at King Saud University in Riyadh, criticized the lack of modern technology use in PR departments during the First Workshop for PR Officials held at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently.
Rania Al-Sharif, a Saudi academic specializing in information management, said: “The technology revolution advanced services in all sectors, particularly communications and PR departments, and women and their employers should have adopted it to their benefit.”
Al-Sharif said departments that allocated pages for social media networks in Saudi Arabia have not achieved the desired goals, because they were not inviting. “They are pages only used for answering questions, just like Twitter accounts for some Saudi universities,” she said.
While social media is developing as a tool for PR in Saudi organizations, the new field has a potential of becoming a women’s field of choice as it requires less media exposure.

Iraq ( Five Senior Army Officers Killed in Iraq Ambush )

BAGHDAD – At least five senior Iraqi army officers and 10 other soldiers were killed Saturday in an ambush by suspected Al Qaeda-linked militants in the western province of Al Anbar.

Fourteen other soldiers were wounded in the attack, a spokesperson for the police in Ramadi, Al Anbar’s capital, told Efe.

The fatalities include the commander of the army’s 7th Division and the commander of that division’s 1st Brigade.

The military men were killed in a powerful blast at the entrance to a militant hide-out in a region some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Ramadi.

The militants planted the explosives before fleeting the scene, the police spokesperson said.

Authorities accused the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has stepped up its attacks on Iraqi security forces in recent months, of responsibility for the ambush.

A recent rise in sectarian violence and terrorist attacks in Iraq left 948 people – mostly civilians – dead in November, according to the government.

Mexico ( Six Die in Shootout in Northeastern Mexico )

MEXICO CITY – Six gunmen were killed in a clash with army soldiers outside the northeastern Mexican border city of Matamoros, authorities said.

The Tamaulipas Coordination Group, which is made up of state and federal security forces, reported the number killed in the clash in a statement Friday, saying it took place shortly after midday Thursday in an area known as “Brecha 10” between the municipalities of Valle Hermoso and Matamoros.

Army soldiers were responding to a tip about the presence of several suspicious vehicles in the area, the group said.

After coming under attack by the gunmen, they repelled the aggression and killed “six of the assailants, while the others managed to flee.”

The soldiers confiscated 11 rifles, including a Barrett .50 caliber long-range assault rifle, a grenade launcher, hand grenades, ammunition, tactical gear and four SUVs at the scene.

The Gulf, Los Zetas and Sinaloa drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas state, where Matamoros is located, and smuggling routes into the United States for years.

Matamoros is located across the border from Brownsville, Texas

Protest ( A protester taunts " Water cannon " and gets it )