Surf Arab States

Arab States Weekly Review 23rd – 29th April 2011

Syria’s government continued it’s crackdown on protests resulting in scores of deaths. More than 450 people are reported to have died since the protests started six weeks ago. There were calls from the international community to impose sanctions on Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ordered to be moved from a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh to a military medical facility, before being taken to a prison hospital in Cairo. Mubarak and his two sons seem likely to be tried to corruption and ordering troops to fire on demonstrators shortly before his regime fell.

A deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council proposed that Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. Opposition parties have agreed to the deal, though pro-democracy protesters are not pleased that Mr. Saleh is to be granted immunity from prosecution.

Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah party, which runs the West Bank, and the Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, agreed to be reconciled following a bitter five-year quarrel. Under the agreement, the Palestinian factions say they will form a unity government and fix a date for elections.

The battle for Misrata, the only remaining rebel enclave in western Libya, continued. Colonel Qaddafi’s forces withdrew from the city but the rebels came under heavy fire from the leader’s artillery outside.