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Kuwait police crackdown on stateless protests
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/201211420266902157.html

Kuwaiti riot police have used tear gas and batons to disperse hundreds of stateless demonstrators for the second day in a row and arrested dozens, witnesses and a rights group said.

A day after security forces beat protesters demanding citizenship in Jahra, northwest of Kuwait City, demonstrations expanded on Saturday to include Sulaibiya, west of the capital.

The independent Kuwait Association of Human Rights (KAHR) said three of its members monitoring the protests were arrested but one was later released.

Riot police chased demonstrators and arrested dozens in the two towns where most of the 105,000 stateless bidoons live, witnesses said.

Ahmed al-Tamimi, head of the Kuwaiti Bidoons Committee, told a news conference that riot police had sealed off the two towns and used police dogs to chase protesters.

He said protests were still continuing into the night, claiming that police has randomly rounded up more than 100 people. He appealed to the prime minister to intervene.

ElBaradei will not seek Egypt presidency
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/2012114123959528822.html

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog and Nobel laureate, has said he will not run for the Egyptian presidency.

Declaring there is still no real political change in the country, ElBaradei said on Saturday in a statement: “My conscience does not allow me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless there is real democracy.”

He praised the revolutionary youths who led massive popular uprisings that toppled president Hosni Mubarak last year but said “the former regime did not fall”.

ElBaradei compared the revolution to a boat and charged that “the captains of the vessel ... are still treading old waters, as if the revolution did not take place”.

Iran blast kills “nuclear scientist”
►http://www.aljazeera.com//news/middleeast/2012/01/201211162848691713.html

A nuclear scientist who supervised a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility has been killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in northern Tehran, Iranian media reported.

The incident on Wednesday coincided with the anniversary of a explosion that killed a senior Iranian nuclear scientist.

Iran sentences ’CIA agent’ to death
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/20121911832710932.html

An Iranian court has convicted a US man of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death, state radio reported.

Iran says that Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former US marine, received special training and served at US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran for his alleged intelligence mission.

The radio report on Monday did not say when the verdict was issued. Under Iranian law, he has 20 days to appeal.

The 28-year-old former military translator was born in Arizona and graduated from high school in Michigan. His family is of Iranian origin.

Bahrain resumes retrial of convicted medics
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/2012198237486796.html

A civil court in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, has begun a new hearing for a group of 20 medical staff who were convicted of taking part in crimes against the state during anti-government protests that rocked the country last year.

The doctors, nurses and paramedics were handed sentences, ranging from five to 15 years in prison, on September 28, over a raft of charges, including incitement to overthrow the the ruling Al Khalifa family.

But a retrial was initiated on October 23 after prosecutors dropped confessions from the defendants, who had protested that the statements were extracted under torture.

The hearing for the new trial had been adjourned in November.

Most of the staff worked at, or volunteered at, the Salmaniya Medical Centre in Manama that was stormed by security forces in mid-March after they drove protesters out of nearby Pearl Square.

The workers received the heavy jail terms from the military-run National Safety Court, but are now being tried in a civil court.