Under Extreme Pressure, Assad's Opponents Retain Defiance and Sense of Humor

While the ongoing bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs continues — as a report from a CNN crew in the city showed in vivid detail — there is new evidence that opposition to the Assad family dynasty in rebel-held enclaves in the north of the country also remains strong.

Jonathan Rugman, a correspondent for Britain’s Channel 4 News, filed a video report on Thursday from the town of Saraqib, not far from the Turkish border in Idlib Province, that showed the Free Syrian Army patrolling the city.

After sneaking into Saraqib, Mr. Rugman reported, “The town is surrounded by dozens of tanks and snipers loyal to President Assad’s regime — many residents live in fear of being shot at by government snipers nearby.” He added that “spirits remain high,” even though “the ramshackle militia’s hold over the town is precarious.”

There were also signs in the Syrian capital, Damascus, that there is defiance toward President Bashar al-Assad there too. Activists uploaded video that appeared to show opposition activists rallying at a funeral in the residential neighborhood of Mezze on Thursday.

Video posted online by activists, said to show a funeral in Damascus on Thursday.

Hamza Shargabi, an activist and doctor who grew up in Mezze, confirmed to The Lede on Thursday that he recognized the neighborhood from another clip, apparently showing the same rally. Dr. Shargabi posted a link to the second clip on his @ichamza Twitter feed, with the comment: “my neighborhood in Damascus! That’s where I grew up … so proud of them!”

In a clip said to have been recorded on Thursday in Damascus, activists blurred out the faces of chanting protesters.

In another part of the capital, a raid by Syrian intelligence agents on the office of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression on Thursday led to the arrest of 12 activists. Among those detained, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, were the center’s director, Mazen Darwish, and the Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi. The foundation reported that the raid was carried out by members of the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence division in civilian dress, who took the detainees to an undisclosed location.

I chatted with Razan yesterday. I asked her: Are u being harassed? She said, “No, I told u I’m not that important.” #FreeRazan #syria

— BSyria (@BSyria) February 16, 2012

As Hisham Almiraat of Global Voices Advocacy explained, Ms. Ghazzawi was arrested just over two months ago:

She was first detained in December 2011 at the Syrian-Jordanian border when she was about to attend a conference on freedom of expression online. Her arrest sparked an online outcry and an international campaign called for her immediate release. Razan was eventually released after spending 15 days in jail.

Ghazzawi is a U.S.-born Syrian blogger who has contributed to Global Voices Online and Global Voices Advocacy. She is one of the few courageous bloggers in Syria who writes under her real name.

#FreeRazan #FreeHussein #FreeEveryone #FreeUsFromThisHell #Syria

— Shakeeb Al-Jabri (@LeShaque) February 16, 2012

One day earlier, in another part of northern Idlib Province, activists in the town of Hass showed that the conflict had not dulled their sense of humor. The activist comedians posted a video online that they mockingly called compelling evidence that the Free Syrian Army is being armed by the United States and Israel. The video is a comedy sketch featuring actors dressed as rebels showing off their new military hardware: donkeys and farm tools.

Shakeeb Al-Jabri, a Syrian activist in Lebanon, explained on Twitter that one of the actors “calls the donkeys advanced 4-by-4’s that work on biofuel and cannot be detected by Iranian and Russian radars.”

The video was uploaded to an activist YouTube channel that featured very graphic images of the bodies of men identified as “martyrs” on Thursday, but last month another darkly comic sketch was posted there. The earlier skit poked fun at the Arab League observer mission, by dramatizing a massacre in front of actors dressed in the brightly colored jackets worn by the monitors.

According to a version of that clip with English subtitles, the sketch ended with one of the monitors holding a wad of dollar bills and telling the camera, “The situation in Syria is very good,” before denouncing by name one Arab League monitor who spoke out against the Syrian government.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 17, 2012

An earlier version of this post mistakenly attributed a report about the situation in Saraqib to Jonathan Miller, a correspondent for Britain's Channel 4 News, instead of his colleague Jonathan Rugman.

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Under pressure, BOJ may edge near Fed-style price target

TOKYO (Reuters) - Pressure is mounting on the Bank of Japan to set a Fed-style explicit inflation target, and the central bank may respond by using stronger language to describe its commitment to beating deflation in a two-day rate review that kicks off on Monday.

Further monetary easing, via an increase in asset purchases, also cannot be ruled out with financial markets vulnerable to any sudden worsening of developments in Europe's debt crisis.

Data released on Monday showed Japan's economy shrank more than expected in October-December, underscoring the pain from slowing global growth and a strong yen.

But with Sunday's approval of a key austerity bill by Greek lawmakers and the yen pulling back from record highs, the BOJ may find it hard to justify loosening policy now and instead debate setting a clearer price goal in response to growing political calls for one.

"The BOJ is likely to stand pat on monetary policy for the time being barring a sudden rise in the yen, as it has already taken into account the economy's underlying weakness," Yoshiki Shinke, senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, said after the data.

The central bank may tweak its wording to clarify that it will aim to achieve consumer inflation of 1 percent, or signal that a major revision to its price commitment is under way, analysts say.

"At this meeting, the BOJ may clarify its phrase defining the median (desirable consumer inflation) at 1 percent so that it becomes close to a price goal," said Takahide Kiuchi, chief economist at Nomura Securities in Tokyo.

While that would hardly be enough to please politicians demanding bolder action, it is probably the least it can do for now to prevent them from following through on their threat to revise the BOJ law to give the government more room to intervene in monetary policy, analysts say.

BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa was grilled in parliament last week by lawmakers who may face a snap election, and the government is worried that growth may not be robust enough to stomach tax increases proposed to fix stretched public finances.

Economics Minister Motohisa Furukawa weighed in, saying on Sunday he hopes the central bank examines a way to make its price commitment easier to understand. He repeated his calls for more action on Monday, a rare move by a cabinet minister on the day the bank's board was meeting.

"It's clear that the government and the BOJ need to work even harder than before to put a stop to deflation, and I expect the BOJ to take firm monetary policy measures when needed," he told a news conference.

MORE EASING?

The BOJ pledges to keep ultra-low interest rates until an end to deflation is in sight, and defines desirable long-term price growth as consumer inflation of 2 percent or lower with the median for the nine-member board at 1 percent.

It has described this as the board's "understanding" of desirable inflation rather than an explicit price target, for fear of binding its hands on policy.

But this has drawn criticism from lawmakers as too vague compared with the Fed's 2 percent inflation target and its extended commitment to near-zero rates announced last month.

The BOJ is due to review the loose price goal in April as a regular practice. It may move forward this schedule in the face of political pressure. But the consensus-favoring board may lack time to agree on Tuesday to any substantial changes such as setting a higher price target or a deadline to achieve it.

That means it may try to appease lawmakers by modifying its language, which could disappoint markets and further heighten political calls for bolder action.

Growing political pressure amid signs of economic weakness means that even if the BOJ refrains from action on Tuesday, it may loosen policy in March.

The BOJ has expressed its readiness to act if Europe's debt crisis, slowing overseas growth and a strong yen threatened Japan's fragile economic recovery.

But with rates virtually at zero, central bankers also want to save ammunition in case Europe's crisis flares up again, spilling over to global credit and financial markets.

If the BOJ were to ease policy, the most likely step would be to further top up its 55 trillion yen ($708 billion)asset buying and lending scheme, under which it buys government and private debt and lends cheap funds against various types of collateral.

(Additional reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Joseph Radford)

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Sun arrests pile pressure on Murdoch media empire

LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch is under pressure over his Sun tabloid after the arrests of several senior staff in a corruption probe, but whistleblowers inside his media empire may pose more of a threat than the public outrage that forced the closure of its sister paper.

Murdoch closed his News of the World weekly after allegations last year it hacked the phone of a murdered schoolgirl prompted a public outcry. Advertisers cancelled contracts and Prime Minister David Cameron set up a inquiry into media practices.

News Corporation boss Murdoch closed the newspaper and flew to London to handle the crisis, which triggered such hostility in Britain's parliament bid that he was forced to give up his bid to take over lucrative pay-TV operator BSkyB.

The veteran media mogul is due to fly to London later this week as another scandal engulfs one of his British newspapers, but he is likely to handle the Sun crisis differently given the public response to the paper's alleged actions is muted.

Police have arrested nine current and former Sun staff in the past two weeks, including the deputy editor and other senior employees, as part of an investigation into the bribing of police and other public officials for information.

The arrests came after News Corp passed information to police, angering employees, some of whom are already briefing against Murdoch.

But while the News of the World (NoW) scandal led to a chorus of condemnation from the public and politicians of all stripes, there has been a low-key response to the Sun arrests.

In a sharp contrast to the mood that prevailed at the height of the NoW scandal last summer, the British minister responsible for the media on Sunday praised Murdoch for increasing British media plurality through his Sky satellite broadcasting network.

"Rupert Murdoch, through the investment he made in Sky for example, has massively increased choice in the UK and given us one of the most competitive broadcasting markets in Europe," Jeremy Hunt told the BBC.

He also praised newspapers, including the News of the World, for uncovering criminals and holding politicians to account.

"People remember how important our newspapers are. I think about the MP (member of parliament) expenses scandal .... People are realizing how important a free press is in our democracy," he added.

Last year, Cameron labeled allegations that the News of the World hacked into the phone of murdered school girl Milly Dowler as "really appalling," "truly dreadful" and called for a "vigorous investigation."

PUBLIC INTEREST DEFENCE?

"The backlash on bribing policemen is not going to be on the same scale as hacking into private phone messages," said Ivor Gaber, political journalism professor at City University London.

"The Sun is a bigger proposition than the News of the World. It makes more money. It has more clout and it's six days a week," he added.

Gaber said possible payments to police or other officials may be covered by a public interest defense that was not available in the News of the World hacking case.

"I think there's more of a debate to be had. It's less black and white," he said.

Hunt praised the Daily Telegraph for its stories about MP expenses even though it had paid a mole for the information on leaked computer disks.

In a statement late on Saturday, the chief executive of News Corp's British newspaper division News International Tom Mockridge indicated Murdoch was far from throwing in the towel.

"Some of the individuals arrested have been instrumental in breaking important stories about public bodies, for example the scandal of our under resourced troops in Iraq .... We must take care not to pre-judge the outcome of the police interviews," he said.

Two of those arrested along with the Sun employees on Saturday in connection with illegal journalist payments were a defense ministry employee and a member of the armed forces, a source said.

THREAT FROM WITHIN

Nevertheless, Murdoch critics say the pressure on News Corp should not be underestimated, especially as some disgruntled News International staff are briefing against him.

The arrest of Sun staff in the last fortnight was the result of information supplied to the police by News Corp's Management and Standards Committee (MSC), a fact-finding group the firm set up in a bid to rescue its reputation.

A source at News International's Wapping office in London said staff were in uproar at what they feel is News Corp sacrificing ordinary employees to protect top executives.

Many staff during the NoW episode said Murdoch was trying to protect his News Corp executive son and presumptive heir James, and Murdoch confidante and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks.

"The company has turned against the staff," said the Wapping source on condition of anonymity.

Lawmaker Tom Watson, one of Murdoch's most trenchant critics who last year questioned him and his executive son James over phone-hacking at a parliamentary committee hearing, said a number of News International staff had asked him for help, including two since the arrest of Sun employees.

"A number of staff within News International are talking to me privately .... What you're seeing now is greater willingness of staff on the frontline .... to talk about the conditions they worked under and it's not pleasant listening," he told Reuters.

He said they told him of a culture of bullying by senior staff and a high pressure office culture that led to journalists doing things they were extremely uncomfortable with.

"We are now seeing three of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers investigated for different things ranging from phone hacking to email hacking to potentially bribing public officials," he said, referring to email hacking at Murdoch's highbrow daily The Times.

"There comes a point where you have to say 'How has this institution potentially allowed these things to go on for so long?'. And that's down to the leadership of Rupert Murdoch."

(Additional reporting by Kate Holton and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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