Saudi Arabian forces prepare to enter Bahrain after day of clashes

Saudi Arabian forces were preparing to enter Bahrain after clashes between police and protesters. Photograph: James Lawler Duggan/AFP/Getty Images

Saudi forces are preparing to intervene in neighbouring Bahrain, after a day of clashes between police and protesters who mounted the most serious challenge to the island's royal family since demonstrations began a month ago.
The Crown Prince of Bahrain is expected to formally invite security forces from Saudi Arabia into his country today, as part of a request for support from other members of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council.
Thousands of demonstrators on Sunday cut off Bahrain's financial centre and drove back police trying to eject them from the capital's central square, while protesters also clashed with government supporters on the campus of the main university.
Amid the revolt Bahrain also faces a potential sectarian conflict between the ruling minority of Sunnis Muslims and a majority of Shia Muslims, around 70% of the kingdom's 525,000 residents.
The crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, said in a televised statement that Bahrain had "witnessed tragic events" during a month of unprecedented political unrest.
Warning that "the right to security and safety is above all else", he added: "Any legitimate claims must not be made at the expanse of security and stability."
The crown prince has also promised that national dialogue would look at increasing the power of Bahrain's parliament, and that any deal could be put to nationwide referendum.
However, some protesters have pressed their demands further to call for the toppling of the Sunni dynasty.
The unrest is being closely watched in Saudi Arabia, where Shia are some 15% of the population.
The secretary general of the Gulf Co-operation Council, Abdulrahman bin Hamad al-Attiya, expressed the "full solidarity with Bahrain's leadership and people", adding that "safeguarding security and stability in one country is a collective responsibility".
In an apparent reference to Iran, which Gulf Arab ruling elites fear may capitalise on an uprising by Shiites in Bahrain, he also expresssed "strong rejection of any foreign interference in the kingdom's internal affairs, asserting that any acts aiming to destabilise the kingdom and sow dissension between its citizens represent a dangerous encroachment on the whole GCC security and stability." Reports that the Saudi National Guard was poised to enter Bahrain were cited by the Foreign Office, alongside a recent increase in protests, as it changed its advice to advise British citizens against all travel to Bahrain.
Earlier on Sunday, police moved in on Pearl Square, a site of occupation by members of Bahrain's Shia majority, who are calling for an elected government and equality with Bahrain's Sunnis.
Witnesses said security forces surrounded the protesters' tent compound, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the activists in the largest effort to clear the square since a crackdown last month that left four dead after live ammunition was fired.
Activists tried to stand their ground yesterday and chanted "Peaceful, peaceful" as the crowd swelled into thousands, with protesters streaming to the square to reinforce the activists' lines, forcing the police to pull back by the early afternoon.
At Bahrain University, Shia demonstrators and government supporters held competing protests that descended into violence when plainclothes pro-government backers and security forces forced students blocking the campus main gate to seek refuge in classrooms and lecture halls, the Associated Press reported.
The latest demonstrations took place a day after the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, visited Bahrain and said that the Khalifa family must go beyond "baby steps" reform and enact substantial economic and political change.
Ben Quinn @'The Guardian'

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My Embed with a Warlord

"You sons of Jews. You servants of infidels. You brought others here to occupy Afghanistan. You brought people to kill innocent Afghans. You are responsible. You motherfuckers. You sons of whores."
Half a dozen police officers were clustered around a radio in the headquarters at Pol-e-Khomri, capital of Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban insults came through loud and clear. The insurgents were only a few miles away. And they had good radios, Motorolas they had stolen from the police.
The radios had been taken last year in an incident the police didn't like to talk about but which was, nevertheless, revealing. Several policemen were captured by the Taliban. The insurgents seized their weapons and equipment. The policemen were beaten, and certainly humiliated, but they were not killed. That was only sensible on the part of the Taliban: War in Afghanistan has always been marked by changing alliances. Today's enemy may be tomorrow's friend. "This is not Iraq, where thousands of bodies were turning up in Baghdad with holes drilled in their kneecaps," one NATO officer with experience of both places told me.
The killing here may be restrained by pragmatism, but the exchange over the radio was bitter enough. "Murderers," the police officers shot back. "You servants of the Pakistanis. You brought Punjabis, ISI officers [Pakistani spies], Arabs, and Chechens here. You robbed millions of girls of an education. You destroyed this country to please your foreign masters."
The Taliban retorted: "You will pay. If you are men, why don't you fight us? Why do you hide like women? Why do you hide like foxes? Come out, sons of Jews."
The Taliban were about to get their wish. The police in Pol-e-Khomri were preparing an attack. An offensive was already under way across three other northern provinces. In Baghlan, the main thrust would be against one district, Borka, which was firmly in Taliban hands.
The man in charge of the offensive was a soft-spoken and charismatic general named Mohammed Daoud Daoud. He had once been secretary to martyred Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, whose picture is still displayed everywhere in this part of the country. Daoud now commanded all Interior Ministry forces in the north, including his own elite force of police commandos, Pamir 303. The government in Kabul was shortly to announce which parts of the country would begin transitioning to Afghan security control, and Daoud had invited my BBC crew -- me, my cameraman, a security guy, and an interpreter -- he said, so that we could see how Afghan forces were already conducting their own operations with very little help from NATO. He wanted to show us that Afghans were ready to lead the fight against the Taliban...

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Paul Wood @'FP'

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"Worrying is always bad for your health." Wrong. A study lasting for more than 80 years debunks conventional wisdom.
Philip was a bright, nervous child. He was younger than average in his grade, his mother having started him a year early. He was close to his parents, who divorced when he was 13, and then lived with his mother, who struggled to make ends meet. As he grew up, married, and became a father, he evolved into a worrier. He divorced, remarried shortly after. He joined the military and seemed to enjoy it, but later reported that his job was not fully satisfying, and he felt he hadn't lived up to his potential. He died early, before his 65th birthday, of a heart attack.
Philip was one of 1,500 bright children who were tracked for more than 80 years in a massive longitudinal study begun in 1921 by psychologist Lewis Terman. Terman and his successors—he died before many of the children—collected millions of details about these subjects, including whether they were breast-fed, how much they exercised, what their marriages were like, how satisfying their sex lives were, how satisfying their jobs were. Could this sea of information teach us how to avoid Philip's fate?...

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Phil Lesh on Bear: 'There’s nothing wrong with Bear that several billion fewer brain cells wouldn't fix'

Fare thee well, Bear
A Beautiful Mind

I received a text in the middle of last night that Bear Stanley has
died in a car accident in Australia. Bear, for me, was a true kindred
spirit; when we first met, it was as if I had met a long-lost brother
from another lifetime. I am heartbroken and devastated at his passing.
He was a friend, a brother, an inspiration, and our patron at the very beginning of our creative lives. We owe him more than what can be counted or added up- his was a mind that refused to accept limits, and he reinforced in us that striving for the infinite, the refusal toaccept the status quo, that has informed so much of our work.
He never gave up his quest for pushing the limits of whatever he was working on. We had just been discussing his concept of point-source sound reinforcement in relation to a new project of mine, and his vision incorporated the latest developments in technology and perceptual research.
My heart goes out to his family, for whom he had such love and pride- his wife Sheilah, his children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren- who have lost their patriarch.
A mind like Bear’s appears very rarely, and it’s been my privilege and honor to have known and loved two such minds- Jerry and Bear. I always laugh when I think about what Jerry once said about Bear: There’s
nothing wrong with Bear that several billion fewer brain cells wouldn't fix.
I am eternally grateful for all of the gifts that Bear brought to the scene and to the music.
Fare you well; I love you more than words can tell.
- Phil

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Wikileaks row: US spokesman Crowley quits over gaffe

US state department spokesman PJ Crowley has resigned after calling the treatment of the man accused of leaking secret cables to Wikileaks "stupid".

He said he was taking responsibility for the impact of his remarks about Bradley Manning.
Private Manning is being held in solitary confinement at a maximum security US military jail.
He has been on suicide watch at the Quantico marine base in Virginia and is shackled at all times.
He faces 34 charges relating to the leaking of 720,000 diplomatic and military documents.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she accepted Mr Crowley's resignation "with regret".
She said he had served his nation "with distinction", "motivated by a deep devotion to public policy and public diplomacy".
Mr Crowley was speaking to an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about new media and foreign policy when he made the controversial remarks.
He was asked by a participant about the "the elephant in the room" - Wikileaks - and, in the questioner's words, "torturing a prisoner in a military brig".
"I spent 26 years in the air force," Mr Crowley reportedly replied.
"What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don't know why the DoD [Department of Defense] is doing it. Nevertheless, Manning is in the right place."
He said his comments were on the record, though he later added that they were his own opinion.
In his resignation letter he said: "Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation."
His remarks were revealed in a blog by the BBC's Philippa Thomas, who attended the event.
President Barack Obama later insisted he had received assurances that the terms of Pte Manning's confinement were "appropriate".
Earlier this year, rights organisation Amnesty International expressed concern about the conditions in which Mr Manning was being held.
It said he had been held "for 23 hours a day in a sparsely furnished solitary cell and deprived of a pillow, sheets, and personal possessions since July 2010".
He was also reportedly forced to disrobe on a daily basis.
@'BBC' 
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'Bear' interview 2007

For the unrepentant patriarch of LSD, long, strange trip winds back to Bay Area