Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

I thought that Mrs Clinton had been locked in a broom cupboard after last week's debacle.

After [the protestors] realized there was not going to be popular support for them, they began running away and left the scene.

When will there be an election?

The timetable set out by Mubarak as he struggled to stay in power was for elections to take place in September 2011 at the latest, and this is what a majority of those who took part in the 25 January revolution would like to see – though not on his terms, of course. But Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian Nobel peace laureate, wrote in The New York Times yesterday of a process overseen by a presidential council, including a representative to oversee the constitutional changes required to ensure free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections "within a year". The problem is how to achieve such reforms – which include lifting emergency powers, guaranteeing freedom of speech, limiting presidential terms, allowing any bona fide candidate to stand, and perhaps transferring some presidential powers to a prime minister – without recourse to the current parliament, whose legitimacy is so low because of last November's rigged elections.

Finn: I missed the "Six months or less" suggestion. I see at it as being closer to a year.

I hope that's what they mean't but I'm uncertain.

Oh! This will be a big help.

6:56pm GMT: Hillary Clinton has sent a message of support for Iranian protesters and accused Iran's government of "hypocrisy" for praising the protests in Egypt while cracking down on dissent in its own country.

Clinton said Iran's protesters "deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright," and that the US government "very clearly and directly support the aspirations of the people who are in the streets" of Tehran

now normally i have little or no use for ms. clinton, but here i say bravo

14 February 2011 Last updated at 20:52 GMT
Iran police fire tear gas at opposition rally in Tehran

Thousands of opposition supporters have clashed with security forces in the centre of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Police used tear gas and detained dozens rallying in solidarity with uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. There was one report of a death in Tehran.

The BBC also received reports of similar protests being held in the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz.

Earlier, the police placed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi under house arrest, according to his website.

It said the move was intended to prevent the former prime minister attending the march in Tehran, which the authorities had prohibited. The road leading to Mr Mousavi's house was also blocked by police vans.

Fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament and a senior cleric, is also reportedly under de facto house arrest.

Riding on the back of a motorbike, holding my mobile to take video footage, I went to central Tehran on Monday afternoon. My driver skilfully found back alleys to reach Azadi (Freedom) Square, the Iranian counterpart of Egypt's Tahrir Square.

Thousands of people made their way amicably and silently towards the square, most of them young. Many wore trainers, suggesting they were anticipating having to run away from the security forces to escape arrest.

Riot police began to disperse the crowd before they even started the rally. Men on motorbikes belonging to the police and Republican Guards charged the protesters and beat them severely with batons. However, this merely emboldened them.

When the troops fired tear gas at the crowd, it became very difficult to breathe. Some girls and women fainted. Many of the protesters were also detained. Others set rubbish bins on fire to combat the effects of the gas.

My driver was hit by a paintball fired by a policeman and lightly injured, but he was still able to drive me back to the office. Once there, I was shocked to see that official and semi-official news agencies were saying everything was normal when for a couple of hours, there had been total chaos.

Both men disputed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, which triggered mass protests that drew the largest crowds in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The demonstrations eventually led to a brutal crackdown.

The opposition says more than 80 of its supporters were killed over the following six months, a figure the government disputes. Several have been sentenced to death, and dozens jailed.

Paintball shooting

In their first major show of dissent since Ashura in December 2009, when eight people were killed, thousands of opposition supporters defied the government ban and gathered at Tehran's Azadi Square on Monday, chanting, "Death to dictators".

Riot police and plain-clothes police backed by the elite Republican Guard used tear gas to disperse the protesters, he adds. ...<cont>

Thousands rally across Yemen
Last Modified: 14 Feb 2011 18:07 GMT

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Yemen for the fourth straight day, demanding political reforms and the downfall of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's long-serving president.

The 3,000-strong throng of demonstrators in the capital, Sanaa, comprising students, human rights activists and lawyers clad in black robes, clashed with police and pro-government supporters on Monday.

Rival groups, armed with clubs and rocks, were seen facing off after supporters of Saleh reportedly confronted the protesters.

At least three people were injured, including one stabbed with a traditional Yemeni dagger, in fighting outside Sanaa's university where protesters chanted: "A revolution of free opinion ... A revolution of freedom ... We should be allowed to decide."

Further chants of "After Mubarak, Ali" and "No corruption after today" reverberated around the city.

"It's very tense on the streets here," Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting form Sanaa, said.

"The anti-government protests are gathering momentum, despite the huge concessions given by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said that he will step down in 2013, and that his son, General Ahmed Abdullah Saleh - who was being groomed to take over - won't inherit power.

"Thousands of young Yemenis are saying: 'We won't trust Ali Abdullah Saleh, because we trusted him in the past, particularly in 2006, when he said he was about to resign - only for him to continue and to ask for the constitution to be amended to allow him to be appointed for life'. ...<cont>