FPI Overnight Brief: April 9, 2010

FPI Overnight Brief
April 9, 2010

Nuclear Weapons/Missile Defense

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed Thursday the most significant arms-control treaty in nearly two decades, declaring a new chapter of cooperation between the nations on nuclear issues and beyond. "The pursuit of peace and calm and cooperation among nations is the work of both leaders and peoples in the 21st century," Mr. Obama said. "We must be as persistent and passionate in our pursuit of progress as any who would stand in our way." While hailing the moment, Mr. Medvedev tempered his praise with a warning that any "qualitative and quantitative increase in [antiballistic missile] capability" could render the treaty inoperative… The U.S. administration wants to move quickly to the next round of arms negotiations, which promise to be far more difficult. Those talks would aim at bringing nuclear weapons caps to 1,000 or below, and would include Russia's advantage in tactical "battlefield" nuclear weapons and the U.S. advantage in mothballed nuclear warheads, still functional but not counted under the caps because they are not deployed. Russian leaders have vowed to go no further unless the U.S. includes its missile defense program in the talks. "I don't think it's the end of the road for arms control with the Russians," a senior U.S. administration official said confidently. –Wall Street Journal

The remarks made by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, as well as the text of the treaty and protocol, may be read on the White House website.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has canceled his plans to attend the Nuclear Security summit meeting in Washington next week and will send a minister in his place, Israeli and American government officials said Thursday. The official declined to explain the last-minute cancellation. But Israeli news media reported that the prime minister feared that Muslim states were planning on using the occasion to raise the question of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear armed power in the Middle East, but it refuses to discuss the issue and has declined to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The official said that Dan Meridor, the minister for intelligence affairs, would attend the meeting, which starts Monday. –New York Times

Senators McCain and Kyl say: While we were initially advised that the only reference to missile defense was in the preamble to the treaty, we now find that there are other references to missile defense, some of which could limit U.S. actions. Further, the Russians have unilaterally declared that the article which allows either Russia or the U.S. to withdraw from the treaty is intended to allow Russian withdrawal if it believes new U.S. missile defense capabilities pose a threat to its strategic nuclear forces. This has the potential to constrain improvements to U.S. missile defenses, if objected to by the Russians. – Senator McCain’s office

Baker Spring writes: Whether the Obama Administration wants to admit it or not, it has let Russia use New START to impose not just a direct limit on U.S. missile defense options, but a limit that will impose ever more severe restrictions on these options as time goes on and the number of strategic offensive arms come down under New START’s provisions. It is now clear that New START will render the U.S. unable to defend itself against missile attack, and therefore is inimical to U.S. vital interests. –The Foundry

Kyrgyzstan

The president of Kyrgyzstan declared from hiding Thursday that he would not surrender to a violent uprising that put the opposition in control of much of the country, home to a U.S. air base key to the war in nearby Afghanistan…The opposition has seized vital official buildings in Bishkek and elsewhere and was giving orders to at least some security forces, declaring it controlled four of the nation's seven provinces. Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said parliament had been dissolved and she would head an interim government that would rule for six months until elections were held. She urged Mr. Bakiyev to resign. Mr. Bakiyev, who has fled the northern capital for his stronghold in the south, told a Russian radio station, "I don't admit defeat in any way." However, he also said he recognized that "even though I am president, I don't have any real levers of power." Although the opposition previously has voiced objection to Manas, Ms. Otunbayeva said there were no plans yet to review the lease, which runs out in July, and her government would meet U.S. diplomats for talks in Bishkek. – Associated Press

Kyrgyzstan's self-proclaimed new leadership said on Thursday that Russia had helped to oust President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and that they aimed to close a U.S. airbase that has irritated Moscow. Their comments set Wednesday's overthrow of Bakiyev, who fled the capital Bishkek as crowds stormed government buildings, firmly in the context of superpower rivalry in central Asia. No sooner had presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed an arms reduction pact in Prague as part of an effort to "reset" strained relations than a senior official in Medvedev's delegation urged Kyrgyzstan's new rulers to shut the base. The official, who declined to be named, noted that Bakiyev had not fulfilled a promise to shut the Manas airbase, which the United States uses to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan. He said there should be only one base in Kyrgyzstan -- a Russian one. Omurbek Tekebayev, a former Kyrgyz opposition leader who took charge of constitutional matters in the new government, said that "Russia played its role in ousting Bakiyev.” "You've seen the level of Russia's joy when they saw Bakiyev gone," he told Reuters. "So now there is a high probability that the duration of the U.S. air base's presence in Kyrgyzstan will be shortened." - Reuters

Alexey Semyonov and Baktybek Abdrisaev write: For the Obama administration, there's a powerful lesson in this week's events: The U.S. government's policy of supporting security at the expense of democracy has come back to bite the United States. For the past several years, the United States has been noticeably quiet while the Bakiyev regime has held rigged elections, trampled on human rights and resorted to violence to silence the opposition and independent media; U.S. behavior has most likely been out of deference to the Bakiyev regime for allowing the U.S. military to operate Manas Air Base, which supports operations in Afghanistan…The United States could play a role in helping the opposition deal with the considerable economic and political challenges facing Kyrgyzstan. Washington should encourage the citizen government to work with the people in an honest and open way. It could also seek to maintain its security relationship while encouraging Kyrgyzstan to find common ground with the country's long-standing partner, Russia. Following the acting government's decision to dismiss parliament and hold elections, the United States and other nations should offer technical assistance to ensure free and fair elections. – Washington Post

Simon Tisdall writes: [I]f Moscow were found to have had a hand in this latest upheaval, it would hardly come as a shock. Machiavellian Russian machinations in Kyrgyzstan, as in the other former Soviet republics of central Asia, has become the norm in the Putin era. Competition with China and the US for control of strategically important energy resources and transit routes is one key motivator. More fundamentally, Moscow still unfashionably insists on regarding this vast region as falling within its sphere of influence. Evidence of Russian meddling in Kyrgyzstan is not hard to find. Financial and commercial blandishments dangled by Putin during a visit to Moscow by Bakiyev last year, including a $2bn loan, preceded a decision by the then president to evict the US from its Manas air base, a key staging and supply route to Afghanistan. Only some nifty footwork by the Obama administration, and a sudden Bakiyev volte-face, allowed the US to hang on to Manas. It is unlikely that Bakiyev's apparent double-dealing endeared him to Putin, no more than his recent counter-terrorism training deal with US general David Petraeus. Perhaps not coincidentally, Russian televisions stations not usually noted for their concern for human rights have freely criticised Bakiyev and his family in recent months for corruption, nepotism and cronyism. -Guardian

Jackson Diehl writes: The self-proclaimed interim leader of Kyrgyzstan -- an obscure Central Asian state with a very important U.S. military base -- raised some alarms in Washington when she took a congratulatory phone call from Vladimir Putin and thanked Russia for its “significant help” in disposing of the regime of Kurbanbek Bakiyev. Bakiyev, after all, had defied Putin by refusing to close the U.S. Manas Air Base, which is important to the war in Afghanistan, even after Putin summoned him to Moscow last year and essentially paid him to do so. An unnamed Russian official in Prague fueled the speculation by telling reporters Thursday that Kyrgyzstan should have only one foreign military base -- and that it should be Russian. So, did Moscow somehow sponsor this week’s popular rebellion-cum-coup in order to expel the United States from what it regards as its sphere of influence? Not likely. I’ve met Roza Otunbayeva, the new Kyrgyz leader, as have many in Washington. She lived here for several years in the 1990s while serving as her country’s first ambassador to the United States. She is a product of the former Soviet Union; she was once the Soviet ambassador to Malaysia. But the good news is that she comes as close as anyone in Kyrgyzstan does to being a liberal democrat.PostPartisan -

Iran

The presidents of the U.S. and Russia, meeting [in Prague] to sign a major arms-control treaty Thursday, also began negotiating a specific package of sanctions against Iran that U.S. President Barack Obama confidently predicted would win United Nations passage this spring. But in extensive private talks, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev laid out clear limits on what Russia would accept in punishing Iran for its nuclear program. A senior Kremlin aide all but ruled out one of the most potent weapons that hawks in the U.S. want to include in any international sanctions: gasoline and other refined petroleum products. "A total embargo on deliveries on refined oil products to Iran would mean a slap, a blow, a huge shock for the whole society and the whole population," said Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister. "These types of things that shock the fundaments of a society or country are something that we definitely are not prepared to consider." The intense negotiations, which took up much of Mr. Obama's 85-minute private session with Mr. Medvedev, underscored how intertwined the array of nuclear talks are with U.S. efforts to isolate Iran. – Wall Street Journal

Iran’s opposition leader renewed his campaign for resistance on Thursday in a meeting with sympathetic politicians. It was his first public act of defiance since the Iranian New Year on March 21, when the authorities boasted that they had quelled the protest movement for good. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, told the politicians, a small group of reformists in Parliament, that dissent went beyond street protests and that the Iranian establishment continued to lose legitimacy. The meeting was reported by the opposition Web site Iran Green Voice. No location was given. “One of the problems is that the government thinks that it has ended the dissent by ending the street protests,” Mr. Moussavi said. He said that people had lost confidence in the establishment because of widespread corruption, incompetence and mismanagement in the 10 months since he lost the presidential election in June to the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a suspiciously lopsided vote that Mr. Moussavi said had been rigged. “I would have given into the fraudulent election results if the government had shown signs of competence,” Mr. Moussavi said. “But we did not see that.” His comments appeared to be an effort to energize the movement and define a new strategy for its survival despite increasing government pressure. He said that the movement needed to expand its influence among certain social groups, like teachers and workers. “Our interests are intertwined with their interests, and we need to defend their rights,” he said. –New York Times

Iran's intelligence minister accused three Americans jailed since crossing the border from Iraq in July of having links to U.S. intelligence services, state TV reported Thursday. The comments toughened Iran's accusations against the group, suggesting authorities could be close to bringing them to trial after months of mixed signals and fears in the United States that they could be used as bargaining chips in Iran's confrontation with the West. Their families say the three were on a hike in the scenic Kurdish region of northern Iraq and unintentionally strayed across the border. Iran has accused them of spying and said it intends to bring them to trial. The Iranian English-language satellite channel Press TV said Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told the station in an exclusive interview that Tehran has "credible evidence" the three were linked to U.S. intelligence. He did not elaborate but said the evidence would be revealed to news media soon. –Associated Press

Roger Noriega writes: As Washington policy makers scramble to craft effective sanctions against Iran, they seem to have completely ignored Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's blossoming relationship with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. This strategic alliance provides the Iranian regime with a clandestine source of uranium, helps it evade restrictions on trade and financing, and gives Middle Eastern terrorists access to weapons from Mr. Chávez's growing arsenal. So even if the West is able to implement a sanctions plan with bite, Tehran's partnership with Caracas might cancel it out. –Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Afghanistan/Pakistan

Pakistan's National Assembly on Thursday passed sweeping constitutional reforms that sharply curtail the president's power and have at least the potential to stabilize the nation's habitually turbulent political system. The changes wipe away a host of measures introduced by military dictators in recent decades that had eroded the power of parliament and centralized authority in the hands of the president. Under the reforms, Pakistan's prime minister and its provincial governments are expected to have greater latitude in running the country, which has become a central battleground for the United States in the fight against religious extremist groups. President Asif Ali Zardari will now have an official role that is largely ceremonial, although he is expected to continue to wield significant influence as leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, or PPP. Zardari handpicked the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, and the two men are believed to agree on most major issues. –Washington Post

Jeffrey Gedmin writes: Everyone concedes that no one -- save the Taliban, sadly -- profits from a spiraling blame game. And the game continues…One well-connected observer told me Karzai was simply fed up with being lectured, not just by the United States, but by each and every U.N. official and European parliamentarian who turns up in Kabul. This leads to the question of how to manage the relationship psychologically. Karzai discussed this very issue during our meeting. "A country with centuries of history, of cultural complexity, and a downtrodden economy that has been ravaged by war wants to feel respected," he told me . This may seem like misdirection to his critics, but it strikes a chord with many Afghans. I've heard repeatedly that the United States was over-the-top arrogant to inform Karzai of Obama's visit just before the U.S. president landed in Kabul. The problem is, it's not true. The Afghan side was informed several days in advance. But the larger point is clear: Trust on both sides is badly damaged. Given what the country has gone through over the last 30 years, it's a miracle that everyone I've met here still wants foreign troops -- led by the United States and its allies -- to stay. Even if some tribal leaders have their suspicions, there's widespread acknowledgment in Kabul that premature withdrawal will collapse the progress that has been made and facilitate the Taliban's return to power. One religious leader old me, "Pursue your interests; I only ask that Americans are honest and care for the Afghan people, too." –Foreign Policy

Abe Greenwald writes: The point here is not that Karzai is a paragon of trustworthiness and good governance. He is a very flawed and, in some ways, compromised figure. The issue is how best to keep him from actively obstructing our mission and how to lay the foundation for a genuine tilt toward a stable and accountable representative government in Afghanistan. That’s achieved first by backing up a rock-solid commitment to defeat the Taliban and staying on for institution building. At the same time, Karzai should be intelligently coerced in private, not undermined in public. For a president who has invested so much in style over substance, and dwelled so incessantly on the virtues of listening over dictating, Obama has achieved a strikingly ill conceived tone on Karzai. What’s more his penchant for the perfect compromise has not served him well on Afghanistan. We cannot at once be committed to fighting and winding down the same war. Nor can we treat a partner as both an ally and an antagonist. For all Obama’s talk of Bush’s failures in Afghanistan, the president could learn a few things from his predecessor. -Contentions

Fouad Ajami writes: Still, this recent dust-up with Mr. Karzai—his outburst against the West, his melodramatic statement that he, too, could yet join the Taliban in a campaign of "national resistance," his indecent warning that those American and NATO forces soldiering to give his country a chance are on the verge of becoming foreign occupiers—is a statement about the authority of the Obama administration and its standing in Afghanistan and the region. Forgive Mr. Karzai as he tilts with the wind and courts the Iranian theocrats next door. We can't chastise him for seeking an accommodation with Iranian power when Washington itself gives every indication that it would like nothing more than a grand bargain with Iran's rulers. In word and deed, Mr. Obama has given a sense of his priorities…Granted, Mullah Omar and his men in the Quetta Shura may not be seasoned observers of Washington's ways. But they (and Mr. Karzai) can discern if America is marking time, giving it one last try before casting Afghanistan adrift…All this plays out under the gaze of an Islamic world that is coming to a consensus that a discernible American retreat in the region is in the works. America's enemies are increasingly brazen, its friends unnerved…The shadow of American power is receding; the rogues are emboldened. The world has a way of calling the bluff of leaders and nations summoned to difficult endeavors. Would that our biggest source of worry in that arc of trouble was the intemperate outburst of our ally in Kabul. –Wall Street Journal

Democracy and Human Rights

A bipartisan working group on Egypt - including FPI Director Robert Kagan and FPI Director of Democracy and Human Rights Ellen Bork - issued a letter to Secretary Clinton, urging the United States to promote democratic reform in Egypt in advance of the 2010 parliamentary elections and the 2011 presidential elections. “The longer the United States and the world wait to support democratic institutions and responsible political change in Egypt, the longer the public voice will be stifled and the harder it will be to reverse a dangerous trend.” –Carnegie Endowment

Sudan

Sudan's first multi-party polls in almost quarter of a century are on track to begin on Sunday despite boycotts and fraud allegations that have marred preparations, and few people expect any rerun. Incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir hopes a win in the complex presidential, legislative and gubernatorial polls would legitimize his government, in defiance of an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for war crimes in Darfur. A Bashir victory is almost certain after his two main rivals withdrew, alleging widespread fraud, but it would be overshadowed by questions over the elections' credibility. "Even if all these parties participated I don't think there would be fair or credible elections," said Sudanese activist Omer Elgarrei, founder of the Democracy First group. The elections mark a key stage in a 2005 north-south peace deal which ended Sudan's 22-year civil war, and precede a 2011 referendum on southern independence. The semi-autonomous south is widely expected to secede. But the international community, in particular Washington, has made it clear that no matter how bad the elections are, their priority is a peaceful referendum. The election results are likely to stand, even if voting provokes as much controversy as last year's Afghan presidential polls which were marked by fraud. -Reuters

Citing "disturbing" circumstances in Sudan ahead of national elections, the United States said Thursday that it would consider supporting a brief delay in the voting for the sake of greater credibility. Sudan's first multiparty elections in 24 years are scheduled to begin Monday. But several opposition parties announced plans to boycott the voting, and European Union election observers withdrew from the Darfur region, saying safety concerns hindered their work. "I think our view has been that if a very brief delay were decided to be necessary, and we thought that a brief delay would enable the process to be more credible, we would be prepared to entertain that," said Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "That's obviously up to the authorities themselves," she said. "But the larger picture is that much is awry in this process, and that is a real concern." Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, rejected talk of a delay. "The government itself cannot do that, and elections are not going to be delayed at all," Abdalhaleem told reporters. "After all, these types of functions [are] the responsibility of the national electoral commission and not the government." –Washington Post

Maggie Fick writes: Now is a moment when the Obama administration could be standing in solidarity with – or at least acknowledging – opposition movements and citizens who are rightfully fed up and fearful of the repressive policies and unjust rigging of elections that were intended to mark a transformational moment. Instead, western diplomats are ultimately lending credence to a process that will disenfranchise the 18 million Sudanese citizens who were brave enough to register to vote in the first place (and their fellow citizens who did not or could not register). Sadly, the consequences of accepting these elections may not produce the result desired by the west – prevention of all-out conflict before next year's vote on southern independence. -Guardian

Iraq

Ahmed Ali writes: Wooing the Kurdish alliance remains Allawi's most pressing challenge. Iraqi Kurds are not only leery of the anti-Kurdish figures in the alliance, they are skeptical of the alliance's ability to form a government in the event of the Shiite alliances' merger…Allawi may also be able to use the ongoing power-sharing crisis in Ninewah province, caused by frictions between Hadbaa and the Kurdish parties, to convince the Kurds of the need for a Kurdish-Iraqiyya alliance. This issue, as well as the final status of Kirkuk, are top priorities for the Kurds. Iraqiyya captured six seats out of 12 in Kirkuk, allowing Allawi to make the argument that his coalition's support in the disputed province makes it necessary to work with him on the national level to resolve this explosive issue…Allawi will also likely need to consistently turn to Iraq's most revered Shiite religious figure, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to improve his image in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sistani is unlikely to endorse Iraqiyya or any other alliance, but any statement from his office that denies the existence of a veto on Allawi, or makes it clear his coalition's weight should be reflected fairly in the government, will provide a tremendous boost to Iraqiyya. Sistani's blessing could limit the SLA's and the INA's ability to portray Iraqiyya as a camouflaged Baathist alliance and give Allawi an opening to win over Shiite voters. –Foreign Policy

Ideas

Daniel Calingaert writes: The internet will only be a force for freedom if the United States government adopts a clear and rigorous policy to make it so. The United States should prevent the use of U.S. technology by repressive regimes to censor internet content or to monitor online activities. It should also engage with European and other democratic allies to introduce common standards to stop the sale of technology that repressive regimes can employ to commit abuses against the rights of internet users. Controls of technology exports, however, must be combined with affirmative measures to bolster internet freedom. The United States should invest more heavily in innovative technologies to circumvent internet censorship and surveillance, challenge restrictions on the internet through vigorous diplomacy, and extend greater support to digital activists in repressive environments so that internet users can more effectively assert their rights for freedom of expression online. – Policy Review

China

Hu Jia, an internationally known human-rights activist who has been imprisoned for more than two years on charges of subverting state power, is seriously ill with a liver disease that may be cancer, his wife said Thursday. She said that she had asked the authorities to grant him parole but that she and Mr. Hu’s lawyer had received strong indications from prison officials that the request was unlikely to be granted. Mr. Hu’s wife, Zeng Jinyan, said in an interview that doctors discovered a mass on his liver during tests after he was admitted to a Beijing prison medical center on March 30. Mr. Hu, 36, is the 2008 winner of Europe’s highest human-rights honor, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and was said to be a front-runner for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. He gained a worldwide following during a dozen years of efforts on behalf of environmental causes, AIDS patients and the expansion of democratic rights inside China. – New York Times

Like the United States, China is having its own "tea party" movement, but this one has a very different agenda. Police have long tried to shush and isolate potential activists, usually starting with a low-key warning, perhaps over a meal or a cup of tea. Now the country's troublemakers are openly blogging and tweeting their stories about "drinking tea" with the cops, allowing the targeted citizens to bond and diluting the intimidation they feel. The movement is an embarrassment for officials, who are suspicious of anything that looks like an organized challenge to their authority. It can't help that "drinking tea" stories seem to be spreading among ordinary Chinese, including ones who signed a recent online call for political reform. The country's top political event of the year, the National People's Congress, has given the stories another bump. More than 200 people said they were invited by police to "drink tea" in the week after the congress began last month, said independent political blogger Ran Yunfei. "That's according to what I gathered from the Internet," he said. "And that doesn't include the people who didn't identify themselves." – Associated Press

Americas

After a two-year battle that has killed more than 5,000 people, Mexico's most powerful kingpin now controls the coveted trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez. That conclusion by U.S. intelligence adds to evidence that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico's drug war. The assessment was made based on information from confidential informants with direct ties to Mexican drug gangs and other intelligence, said a U.S. federal agent who sometimes works undercover, insisting on anonymity because of his role in ongoing drug investigations. The agent told The Associated Press those sources have led U.S. authorities to believe that the Sinaloa cartel has edged out the rival Juarez gang for control over trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez, ground zero in the drug war…The twin border cities of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, are a primary crossing point for drugs smuggled into the United States. Control of drug routes in Chihuahua, the state along New Mexico and West Texas where Juarez is located, is vital to Guzman's efforts to grow his massive drug cartel's operations. Already, the Sinaloa cartel is the world's largest, and Guzman last year made Forbes magazine's list of the world's top billionaires. – Associated Press

The jailing of a judge in Venezuela threatens the independence of her colleagues and the rule of law in the Latin American OPEC member, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni was arrested by police on December 10, a day after she ordered the conditional release of a long-imprisoned banker accused of fraud. Venezuelan opposition leaders often accuse populist President Hugo Chavez of cracking down on constitutional freedoms, while he argues his rivals are working secretly with Washington to try to topple his elected government. Chavez has publicly denounced Afiuni and the banker, Eligio Cedeno, as "bandits," and has called for the judge to be given a 30-year jail sentence for corruption. New York-based HRW said the judge was right to free Cedeno because he had been in pretrial detention for nearly three years, despite a two-year limit prescribed by Venezuelan law. "Throwing a judge in prison for doing her job and issuing a decision that upholds fundamental rights protected under both Venezuelan and international law is not something you'd expect in a functioning democracy," Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at the global rights watchdog, said in a statement. "Once again the Chavez government has demonstrated its fundamental disregard for the principle of judicial independence." - Reuters

Thailand

Thai anti-government protesters stormed Friday into a telecom company compound where authorities had shut down their vital TV channel, as soldiers and riot police tried to hold them back with tear gas and water cannons. It was the first use of force by the government in monthlong protests aimed at ousting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and forcing new elections. Meanwhile, the Criminal Court said it had issued arrest warrants for three top protest leaders. The ''Red Shirt'' protesters had threatened to charge into the building if a senior military commander didn't come out to negotiate with them to restore their People Channel, or PTV. Hurling rocks, the protesters breached the barbed-wire perimeter of the Thaicom Public Co. Ltd. within minutes, though they were not immediately able to enter the main building. As they moved into the compound, security forces threw tear gas canisters and fired water cannons but then quickly retreated into the main building as thousands of protesters swarmed around it. Some security forces were seen throwing down their shields and riot gear and shaking hands with the protesters. The Red Shirts offered water to soldiers and police. –Associated Press

Announcements

FPI has produce a fact sheet on the state of the Iranian Green Movement. It can be read on FPI's website.

ENDS

© Scoop Media