Al-Jazeera reported that Yemenis have flocked to the polling station throughout today to vote for Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as Saleh's successor. Despite being an uncontested election, voters did turn out, quoting religious duty as the main reason for casting a vote. Whilst attacks on polling stations have increased in recent days, Al-Jazeera did not report any attacks taking place today.
Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia is to send an ambassador to Iraq for the first time since the Gulf War of 1990. Reuters reported this as a positive move in Iraqi-Saudi relations, which have been strained since Shia Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki took power. I am more inclined to think that increasing Iranian influence in Iraq has provoked Saudi into sending "their man" to be present on site.
The BBC reported that Zainab al-Khawaja (pictured left) a leading Bahraini pro-democracy activist who was arrested last week for attending protests to mark the anniversary of the Bahraini attempts to join the Arab Spring, has now been released from prison. Al-Khawaja was outspoken following her release. Whilst she did not claim she had been mistreated in custody, she publicly declared that she will not give up her quest for democracy on the small island kingdom.And finally...
Al-Arabiya News reported that the speaker of the Kuwaiti parliament has rejected the possibility of a political union between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. Interestingly he cites a lack in freedom of speech as one of the main reasons:
"It is, for example, very difficult for a country like Kuwait that grants freedom of speech and where people are represented in parliament to form a union with countries whose prisons are full of thousands who are guilty of speaking their minds.”
Could this be a case of misrepresentation? I am not sure that Kuwait are quite so squeaky-clean.
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