• Call for 1 million strong march in Yemen despite fighting
• The Syrian opposition plans another Friday of defiance
• 'Second day of rage' planned in Egypt
• Reports of Gaddafi on the run prompt Apache deployment
More from Reuters at the G8 summit in Deauville, France, on Russia's offer to mediate in the Libyan crisis (see 11.14am http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/may/27/yemen-syria-middle-east-unrest#block-10). Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said:
If the respectful tone that Russia maintains in its dialogue with the Libyan authorities would help Mr Gaddafi take the right decision, I think this will become our serious and significant contribution to the resolution of the grave and potentially even more dangerous situation for Libya and the region.
He added that he felt Gaddafi had lost all legitimacy and should step down.
Colonel Gaddafi has deprived himself of legitimacy with his actions; we should help him leave. There are no disagreements about that with G8 partners, although the tone may differ.
An aide to Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, told reporters later that Russia had partners in the Libyan leader's entourage with whom it could negotiate his departure.
Other G8 officials have said they are unsure what role Moscow might play in Libya. European diplomats said there were signs that Russian officials were apparently in contact with Libyans, but it was unclear to western governments what that involved.
Three residents in Dael, a southern town close to Deraa, were shot dead by security forces this morning, Nidaa Hassan reports from Syria.
Both the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Reuters are reporting the killings, citing local residents. The death toll since mid-March has now reached more than 1,000 people, while thousands more have been detained.
Reuters correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi,who spent several days reporting from the southern protest hub of Deraa in March and was later detained by the Syrian security forces, has written a strong account of the scenes of torture he witnessed during his detention.
"Mostly I was blindfolded, but the blindfold was removed for a few minutes," he writes.
"That allowed me - despite orders to keep my head down so that my interrogators should remain out of view - to see a hooded man screaming in pain in front of me.
"When they told him to take down his pants, I could see his swollen genitals, tied tight with a plastic cable. 'I have nothing to tell, but I am neither a traitor and activist. I am just a trader,' said the man, who said he was from Idlib province in the north west of Syria.
"To my horror, a masked man took a pair of wires from a household power socket and gave him electric shocks to the head."
Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym
UN officials say most of Choucha refugee camp in Tunisia, at the main border crossing with Libya, has been damaged and needs rebuilding; the Guardian revealed yesterday that locals burned and looted the camp. The Associated Press news agency reports:
UN refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Friday at least two-thirds of the camp had been destroyed or looted after a fire in the camp last Sunday "set off a spiral of events" that led to the deaths of four Eritrean refugees and left numerous others injured. The UN withdrew staff because of the unrest.
Some of the 3,500 refugees at the camp outside Ras Ajdir demonstrated over fears they will be sent back to home countries or abandoned.
On Tuesday, a mob of local residents wielding clubs and iron bars attacked refugees. Tunisian troops fired tear gas and warning shots.
Russia says it is prepared to mediate in the Libyan crisis following a request from its G8 partners, according to Reuters, citing Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov.
Earlier the US and France upped the rhetoric further against Muammar Gaddafi's regime, by vowing to "finish the job" in Libya.
Speaking at joint press conference with Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama said: "Meeting the UN mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when Gaddafi remains in Libya, directing his forces in acts of aggression against the Libyan people. We are joined in resolve to finish the job."
Meanwhile, Nato has given an update on the latest air strikes against Libya, amid reports that Apache attack helicopters will be deployed within the next 24 hours.
Video from the Yemeni capital Sana'a shows families fleeing the violence on Thursday. It also shows sandbagged checkpoints as a gunshot rang out.
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Since the video was recorded there has been a lull in the violence, according to the Guardian's Sana'a correspondent Tom Finn and the Yemen Post.
Syrian opposition activists are planning to map today's protests and reports of deaths in a Google map that will be updated throughout the day.
The group the Local Coordination Committee of Syria has also been tracking the number of killings in Syria since the crackdown began, in an interactive chart.
Egyptian blogger and activist Wael Khalil explains why protesters are taking to the streets again today in a "Second Day of Rage".
In a post on Comment is Free, he writes:
The call for a "second revolution" chimes with a growing restlessness and impatience at the pace of developments and the overall performance of the governing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ...
One concern is the growing talk and continuous leaks about intentions to pardon Hosni Mubarak and members of his regime from facing criminal trials. We demand no clemency for Mubarak, his family or his regime.
The biggest grievance has been the manner in which the security forces – the military police, the army and the police – reacted when the protests got more heated. There has been more than one incident since the revolution when they have used disproportionate force, mass arrest, torture as well as live ammunition against protesters. We demand that not a single peaceful demonstrator should be confronted, arrested, beaten up or humiliated. The Egyptian people have earned themselves that right.
The army have also extended their use of military trials against civilians to unprecedented levels, with hundreds of civilians having received severe and disproportionate prison sentences.
Thousands and thousands are flocking towards the protest camp at Sana'a university, Yemen, amid reports that mediators have intervened to stop the fighting, Tom Finn reports from the Yemeni capital.
"Every week we have seen more and more people filling up this motorway, which is a ring road round Sana'a. Last week it was four miles worth, this week it is going to be more," he said.
Troops loyal to General Ali Mohsin, who defected in March, will watch over the protest, Tom reports. On Thursday the general made a "fiery speech" urging soldiers not to obey Saleh, but so far his troops have stayed out of the fighting.
Meanwhile, the battle between Saleh's troops and the Hashid tribal militia have calmed in the last 24 hours, Tom says.
There has been an eerie quiet hanging over Sana'a. I'm told there are tribal mediators doing some negotiations behind the scene. We haven't heard any mortar fire or machine guns for at least 10 hours.
A lot of people will be joining the protest because of the violence. They desperately don't want to see Yemen dragged into a violent conflict, so they want to show their solidarity with peaceful protesters.
Tom says reports of mediation to end the tribal fighting point to a possible involvement of Saudi Arabia. "They [Saudi Arabia] have lots of informal networks with politicians and businessmen and are able to pull the strings without people knowing about it. So it quite possible that they are involved in these negotiations."
Tom also warned Twitter users to be wary of "sensational and fear-mongering tweeting about Yemen".
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Widespread protests are once again expected today - on the 11th Friday of Syria's uprising, Nidaa Hassan reports from Damascus.
Amnesty International said it had evidence that the Syrian government was implementing a "shoot-to-kill" policy, citing video footage.
This matches with protesters' accounts that bullets are predominantly being shot at the head and neck, and is raising the international pressure on the regime whose senior officials have already been hit by US and EU sanctions and a UN security council resolution is being prepared.
Reuters, which has seen a draft of the text pushed by European countries, reports that the text says Syria's actions may amount to crimes against humanity. Amnesty says officials should be referred to the international criminal court.
As the protests continue to rumble on and the regime continues to hit back, opposition and diplomats say they are concerned that protesters will increasingly pick up arms.
Some - a small minority - have already done so, say diplomats and protesters. This may account for a small number - though not all - of the deaths of Syrian security forces.
Syrian government officials told AFP on Thursday that 112 soldiers and security troops and 31 police officers had been killed.
Meanwhile, Syrian TV yesterday aired a statement by the prominent Deraa shiekh Ahmed Sayasna saying he was mistaken in backing activists.
"I realised too late that there is a conspiracy and calls for bloodshed in Syria," he said. Activists have condemned it as a fake confession extracted under pressure, pointing to the central role played by Sayasna, whose Omari mosque became a field hospital and focus for protesters in the southern hub as he spoke out against the government.
Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym
The Yemeni capital Sana'a is now a city divided, Reuters reports. It claims that the north of the city is controlled, not by the militia leader Sadeq al-Ahmar, but by a general who until now has stayed out of the conflict.
South Sana'a is under the control of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's security forces, and the north is mainly controlled by General Ali Mohsin, one of Yemen's most powerful military leaders, who defected in March to protesters demanding the end of Saleh's nearly 33-year-old rule.
Heavily armed soldiers behind barricades, sandbags and checkpoints separate the two sides as they continue a week-long battle that may decide the future of a failing state convulsed by protests for the past four months.
The fighting, pitting forces loyal to Saleh against members of the country's most powerful tribe, the Hashid led by Sadeq al-Ahmar, was the bloodiest Yemen has seen since anti-government protests began in January.
Human Rights Watch has written to Formula One urging it to reconsider rescheduling the Grand Prix in Bahrain.
F1 bosses are meeting next week to decide a new date for the Bahrain Grand Prix after the event was postponed in March due to security concerns. HRW suggested the event should be cancelled in protest at the continuing political repression in the Kingdom.
In the letter, deputy programme director Tom Porteous, wrote:
We seriously question whether a successful Formula One event can be staged in an environment characterised by an unrelenting official campaign of punitive retribution against many who participated in or otherwise supported the pro-democracy protests, which authorities from the prime minister on down have retrospectively characterised, with zero evidence, as a treasonous coup inspired by Iran.
A colonel in Yemen's Republican Guard is reported to have defected and issued a video condemning Saleh as a butcher whose orders should not be obeyed.
Yemen watcher Jane Novak writes:
This may be the straw that broke the camels back. It's quite significant. The Republican Guards are the unit headed by Saleh's son Prince Ahmed. Coupled with the earlier tribal excommunication, I'm nearly optimistic for a quick resolution. Tick tock.
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Welcome to Middle East Live. Will be tracking planned protests after Friday prayers in Yemen, Syria and Egypt today.
In Yemen huge demonstrations are expected after protesters called for a "million-man" march and a "day of peaceful revolution to defy the small minority seeking violence".
In Syria the opposition is planning another Friday of defiance as dissidents prepare to meet in Turkey to set up a transition council to represents the Syrian revolution.
In Egypt Cairo's Tahrir Square will again be the focus as the opposition plans a Second Day of Rage. Marches are also planned in Alexandria and Suez.
The Egyptian daily Ahram lists the protesters demands:
There is no one demand that unites all participants, but the chief ones are: replacing the military council with a presidential one that would rule the country until the coming elections, designing a new constitution before parliamentary elections, holding former regime figures and above all ousted president Hosni Mubarak accountable through prompt fair trials, releasing all political detainees arrested in the last three months by military police, ending the trials of civilians in military courts, abolishing the emergency law, and lifting censorship from state-owned media.
Here's a round-up of the some of other key developments in the region.
• Yemen edges closer to civil war as clashes between Hashid clan and president's forces intensify. The foreign secretary, William Hague, urged Saleh to hand over power, reduced embassy staff and warned all British expatriates to leave Yemen immediately.
• David Cameron has been told by UK intelligence that Muammar Gaddafi is increasingly paranoid, on the run, and hiding in hospitals by night. The MI6 report prompted Cameron to authorise a high-risk escalation of attacks by agreeing to deploy four Apache helicopters into Libya with orders to gun down regime leaders.
• Libya's battered regime has made its most plaintive plea yet for a ceasefire, offering to talk to anti-government rebels, move towards a constitutional government and compensate victims of the three-month conflict. The plan represents an advance on previous ceasefire bids, which had focused largely on implementing a proposal by the African Union that calls for international monitors to observe a negotiated truce. But Gaddafi's name was again conspicuously absent from the new discussion about a ceasefire.
• Britain is to set aside £110m over the next four years to foster democracy and economic growth in Tunisia and Egypt as part of a wider international package to show support for the Arab spring. David Cameron argued that if Britain did not help the fledgling democracies of north Africa the result would be poisonous extremism and waves of illegal immigration into the UK.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/may/27/yemen-syria-middle-east-unrest
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