A R A B I C A ارابيكا

YEMENI ATTACK
*As Yemeni state television aired a photo montage of President Ali Abdullah Saleh accompanied by background music, the crawl beneath reads: "President Saleh, may God protect him, is in good health and reports of his death are untrue." Al Arabiya and other news outlets reported that Saleh had sustained a minor injury to the back of his head during an attack on the presidential compound on Friday. A source in Saleh's ruling party, the General People's Congress, told the network that Saleh escaped an assassination attempt, accusing the opposition and tribesmen loyal to Sadiq al-Ahmar of orchestrating the shooting.

*At least three people were killed on the attack on the presidential compound in Sanaa, including the mosque imam who was leading the prayers for Saleh and other senior officials when the shells hit.

SYRIAN SLAUGHTER
BBC Arabic reports that 34 people were killed during Friday protests in the conservative city of Hama, where President Bashar Assad's father killed up to 20,000 people during an Islamist uprising in 1982. In the accompanying video report, protesters chant, "the Syrian people are one. One, one, one." In another clip, protesters (including small children) walk through the streets chanting, "the people want the regime to fall."

*Internet service was cut in most of the country. But Al Jazeera interviewed an eyewitness in Hama, who breaks down while recounting that dozens of people were killed when Syrian security forces opened fire on the crowds. Why Hama when protests unfolded around the country, the interviews asks. "I don't know, but probably because of the enormous size of the protest in Hama." The eyewitness said at up to 60 people, including children, were killed by live bullets. "It was deliberate, targeted killing," he says.

EGYPTIAN WAGES
*Egypt's Finance Minister Samir Radwan announced that the minimum wage for public-sector employees will go up to $117 per month. The wage hike is a key grievance of protesters who maintain that the current $67 doesn't come close to keeping up with the cost of living. But the higher wage doesn't apply to the private sector, where most of the workforce is employed. The minimum wage struggle is a hot-button issue in Egypt, where it remained at its 1984 rate of $5.89 per month until last November.

EGYPTIAN ARMY
*Also in Egypt, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council ruling the country, said certain unnamed "paid elements' are seeking to "drive a wedge between the people and the army." Tantawi also acknowledged divisions within the armed forces, and said they would be resolved. He pledged that the armed forces would continue to serve as "a protective shield" for Egypt.

June 3, 2011

photo credit: illustir