After four years, Egypt today permanently opened the Gaza Strip's main gateway to the outside world, bringing long-awaited relief to the territory's Palestinian population and a significant achievement for the area's ruling Hamas militant group.

The reopening of the Rafah border crossing eases an Egyptian blockade of Gaza that has prevented the vast majority of the densely populated area's 1.5 million people from being able to travel abroad. The closure, along with an Israeli blockade of its borders with Gaza, has fueled an economic crisis in the territory.

But the move also raises Israeli fears that militants will be able to move freely in and out of Gaza.

Highlighting those fears, the Israeli army said militants from inside Gaza fired a mortar shell into southern Israel overnight. There were no injuries, and Israel did not respond.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The closure, which also included tight Israeli restrictions at its cargo crossings with Gaza and a naval blockade, was meant to weaken Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposes peace with Israel.

But since the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February, Egypt's new leadership has vowed to ease the blockade and improve relations with the Palestinians.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/egypt-permanently-opens-gaza-border-crossing-2290293.html

Was there ever a nation so marinated in hypocrisy as America? Week after week President Barack Obama trumpets Uncle Sam's virtues and dispenses homilies to other nations on how to behave themselves and honour freedom and democracy. This last week it's been Europe's turn to hear these self-righteous preachments.

A couple of weeks ago, Secretary of State Clinton attacked China, contrasting untiring efforts by the US to encourage human rights around the world, at a time when the Chinese "are trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible".

A week earlier Obama signed an expanded trade pact with Colombia where, in 2010, 51 Colombian labour organisers were murdered, many of them by government-sponsored death squads. As Richard Trumka, America's top labour leader, remarked, it was doubtful the trade agreement would be moving forward if 51 CEOs had been killed.

If there's one state in the Middle East where the US surely has clout it's Bahrain, which just happens to be the base for the US Fifth Fleet. While Clinton was wagging her finger at China, details were surfacing of the ferocious repression of Bahrain's Shia majority by the island state's Sunni rulers, backed by Saudi troops.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — As one nation after another has battled uprisings across the Arab world, the one major country spared is also its richest — Saudi Arabia, where a fresh infusion of money has so far bought order.

The kingdom is spending $130 billion to pump up salaries, build housing and finance religious organizations, among other outlays, effectively neutralizing most opposition. King Abdullah began wielding his checkbook right after leaders in Tunisia and Egypt fell, seeking to placate the public and reward a loyal religious establishment. The king’s reserves, swollen by more than $214 billion in oil revenue last year, have insulated the royal family from widespread demands for change even while some discontent simmers.

Saudi Arabia has also relied on its unusually close alliance with the religious establishment that has long helped preserve the power of the royal family. The grand mufti, the highest religious official in the kingdom, rolled out a fatwa saying Islam forbade street protests, and clerics hammered at that message in their Friday sermons.

But the first line of defense in this case was the public aid package. King Abdullah paid an extra two months’ salary to government employees and spent $70 billion alone for 500,000 units of low-income housing. As a reward to the religious establishment, he allocated about $200 million to their organizations, including the religious police. Clerics opposed to democratic changes crowed that they had won a great victory over liberal intellectuals.

“They don’t care about the security of the country, all they care about is the mingling of genders — they want girls to drive cars, they want to go the beaches to see girls in bathing suits!” roared Mohamed al-Areefy, a popular young cleric, in a recent Friday sermon.

Financial support to organizations that intellectuals dislike “was a way to cut out their tongues,” he said.

Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the United States, has struggled to preserve what remains of a regional dynamic upended by the Arab Spring — buttressing monarchies and blocking Iran from gaining influence.

While the United States has pressed other Arab nations to embrace democratic changes, it has remained largely silent on Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s efforts to squelch popular revolts in neighboring Bahrain and Oman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/world/middleeast/09saudi.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

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From a French Fable ...

A Cobbler singing from morning till night,
   this was wonderful to see.
Pleasure to hear him, vocalizing,
   More pleased with himself than a king.
His neighbor, on the contrary, everything was sewn with gold,
   Sang little, slept even less;
   He was a man of finance.
If during the day, he was sometimes dozing,
The Cobbler while singing awakened him,
   And the finance man complained
   That god in his goodwill
Was not selling sleep on the marketplace,
   Like eating and drinking.
    In his palace, the rich man brought
The singer and said: "Come on now, Sir Gregory,
What do you earn per year?" - "Per year? Why", Sir,
   Said with a tone of laughter,
The singing cobbler. "It is not my way
To count that way, and I hardly save
From one day to another: just in the end
   I survive till the last day of the year:
   Each day brings its bread."
"Well! What do you earn, tell me, by day?"
"Sometimes more, sometimes less: the evil is that...
(And without this my earnings would be a bit more)
The trouble is that during the year, on some days
   One is unemployed, and one can't work at Easter nor Christmas —
Nor for one celebration and another, and the priest
With the help of new Saints always demands more cash in his sermon..."
The Financier, laughing at his naivety,
Said: "I want to put you on the throne today.
Take these hundred guineas, keep them carefully,
   To use them as needed. "
The Cobbler thought he saw all the money that the earth
   had, for over a hundred years
   Produced for use by all people.
He returned home and locked in his basement
   Money and his joy at the same time.
   No more singing: he had lost his voice.
From the time he had it all without having to earn it,
   Sleep left his home.
   He became worrysome,
   With suspicions and alarms in vain.
All day he was on the lookout, and at night
   If a cat was making noise,
The cat took the money. In the end the poor man
    ran to the rich man who he awoke.
"Give me," he said, "my songs and my sleep,
   And take back your hundred guineas..."

Bahrain has begun the trials of 48 medical professionals accused of attempting to topple the monarchy.

Those on trial include some of the country's top surgeons, accused of supporting weeks of pro-democracy protests in the country.

It is the latest trial at a special security tribunal set up by Bahrain's rulers amid a far-reaching crackdown in the kingdom, which is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet.

Human rights organisations have condemned the trials, saying the staff are being targeted for treating hundreds of wounded protesters.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, David Michalski, of Medecins Sans Frontiers, said the move had far-reaching consequences for patients in Bahrain.

Salmaniya Hospital, Bahrain's main state-run hospital, was the scene of anti-government protests during the unrest that began in February.

"The hospital became politicised. And then in the middle of March it became militarised in the military crackdown,"Michalski said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/06/201161373514815872.html

------------------------------

Meanwhile, from Chris Floyd...:

Last week, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate met with the crown prince of Bahrain and "reaffirmed" the United States' "strong commitment" to the regime of unelected autocrats. The Peace Laureate -- who in his acceptance of the Prize wrapped himself in the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi -- also "expressed strong support" for the regime's "ongoing efforts to initiate national dialogue ... [and] forge a just future for all Bahrainis."

President Obama had dropped in a meeting the prince was having with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who likewise extolled the autocrats for their "national dialogue" and "important work."

There is indeed "important work" going on in Bahrain these days, and the autocratic regime's "ongoing efforts to initiate dialogue" -- the campaign lauded by the Laureate -- are quite vigorous. Here, for example, The Independent details a case study of just how the crown prince and his family's regime is pursuing "national dialogue" in the manner so warmly approved by the presidential peacenik:

Bahraini security forces beat the detained poet Ayat al-Gormezi across the face with electric cable and forced her to clean with her bare hands lavatories just used by police, members of her family said yesterday in a graphic account of the torture and humiliation suffered by those rounded up in the Gulf nation's crackdown on dissent.

The 20-year-old trainee teacher, who spent nine days in a tiny cell with the air conditioning turned to freezing, is due back in court this weekend on charges of inciting hatred, insulting the king and illegal assembly, and her family fear she may suffer further mistreatment in custody amid threats of another round of interrogation.

Masked police arrested Ayat at her home on 30 March for reciting a poem criticising the monarchy during a pro-democracy rally in the capital Manama in February. ... The details of her interrogation and imprisonment are similar to the experiences of other women detained by Bahraini security forces since they launched a full scale repression on 15 March against all those demanding democratic reform in the island kingdom.

--------------------

Yep... See don't touch the dunny... I know from experience in Africa that many Muslims and upper-crust Indians would never clean dunnies themselves. This task was always allocated to slaves or lower casts... or in the case of my toon, delegated to the west... if you see my drift...

Meanwhile at the petrol-head headquarters:

The Bahrain Grand Prix has finally been cancelled after Formula One teams complained about competing in the country, which has been racked by months of popular uprisings against the regime.

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone had already announced the race was now "not on" after a complaint from teams at the rescheduling of the event, which was initially put back to 30 October amid condemnation from human rights groups.

The Bahrain International Circuit chairman, Zayed Alzayani, said: "While Bahrain would have been delighted to see the grand prix progress on 30 October in line with the World Motor Sport Council's decision, it has been made clear that this fixture cannot progress and we fully respect that decision.

"We want our role in Formula One to continue to be as positive and constructive as it has always been; therefore, in the best interest of the sport, we will not pursue the rescheduling of a race this season."

The Formula One Teams Association (Fota) wrote to the FIA on Tuesday with objections to the race being held, understood to be based on personnel and logistics.

The event had been originally scheduled for March but was postponed as clashes intensified between Bahrain's majority Shia population and the Gulf kingdom's security forces, heavily backed by the forces of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/jun/10/bahrain-grand-prix-cancelled-team-protests