Will Thailand deport a refugee footballer to Bahrain?

Hakeem al-Araibi's case sparked an international campaign involving governments, activists and the football world.

Hakeem al-Araibi, a refugee living in Australia, fears he'll be tortured if he's deported from Thailand to his native Bahrain.

Despite international appeals to free the 25-year old, a court in Bangkok denied bail on Monday and adjourned the case until April.

He spent more than two months jailed in Thailand after being arrested at Bangkok's airport by Thai police acting on an Interpol red notice issued by Bahrain.

Can the GCC still be relevant?

The ongoing Gulf rift is not the first crisis to hit the bloc, but what is the impact going to be this time around?

The Gulf Cooperation Council is in its worst crisis ever after three of its six members cut ties with Qatar.

The Emir of Kuwait was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.

He is plane-hopping around the Arabian Peninsula, hoping to mediate in what's being called the Qatar Crisis.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE, as well as Egypt, have severed ties with Qatar, closing land and sea borders and airspace.

They say Qatar is supporting "extremist groups" in Iraq and Syria, which Qatar strongly denies.

They have also had disagreements over its alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

What is behind the diplomatic breakdown in the Gulf?

Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen all abruptly cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar.

The latest spat involves more than just recalling ambassadors. Land and sea borders have been closed.

On top of that, major airlines are cancelling flights to and from Doha and Qatar residents have two weeks to leave the Gulf states in question.

Qatari leaders say they are astonished at what they call the unjustified decision by seven countries to cut diplomatic relations.

A cabinet statement said the aim is to strip Qatar of its sovereign decisions.

The foreign ministry said: "The aim is clear and it is to impose guardianship on the state. This by itself is a violation of Qatar's sovereignty as a state."

Syria: US begins air strikes on Islamic State targets

Breaking NewsThe US informed Syria's UN envoy about the air strikes before they took place, the Syrian foreign ministry says.

05:38:

The Syrian government statement has also seen it confirm that strikes hit Raqqa: "The American side informed Syria's permanent envoy to the UN that strike will be launched against the Daesh terrorist organisation (IS) in Raqqa."

 

Lyse Doucet Chief international correspondent

tweets: Turning point #Syria war with US air strikes helped by Arab states.. wars in region often turn in unexpected ways.. and will again. 

05:16:

Where do key countries stand on Islamic State? Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Jordan have all signed a communique pledging to fight IS.

05:10:

US media are reporting that Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the Arab countries involved in the strikes in Syria - citing anonymous US officials.

(CNN) -- American jets began bombing ISIS targets in Syria early Tuesday, raising U.S. involvement in the war-torn country and sending a forceful message to the terror group.

The airstrikes focused on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, a U.S. official told CNN, though other locations were hit as well. They're the first strikes against the terror group inside the country since President Barack Obama's announcement this month that he was prepared to expand the American efforts beyond targets in Iraq.

All foreign partners participating in the strikes with the United States are Arab countries, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. Those nations are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

In Bahrain citizen journalists are under arrest

On August 14, protesters have promised to take to the streets once more to demand democratic reform in the latest installment of a two-year long protest movement. The response of the government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to the protest wave has been repression, and the government has made it almost impossible for foreign reporters to cover the turmoil.

Following the protests that erupted in Bahrain as part of the Arab Spring the Bahraini government tried and convicted a group of doctors and nurses for providing treatment to protesters injured in clashes with government security forces.

 Twenty doctors and nurses jailed during the spring revolt against Bahrain's ruling monarchy received sentences of up to 15 years in prison Thursday.The government of the Persian Gulf kingdom leveled a range of charges against the medical workers, including possession of weapons and taking part in efforts to overthrow the regime. Human rights groups are calling the verdicts "bogus" and say the doctors are being falsely targeted for doing their jobs and treating wounded protesters.

Given the government's willingness to jail doctors and nurses for simply treating the injured imprisoning citizen journalists is just the next logical step in keeping the population uninformed and repressed.

 With August 14 quickly approaching, citizen journalists are the government's new targets. A week ago, I spoke online with a citizen journalist inside Bahrain who told me his arrest might be imminent because he feared a crackdown had begun against him and his colleagues. He had good reason to worry. At 3 am on July 31, fifteen masked men woke up Bahraini blogger Mohammed Hassan in his house and arrested him.His computer, camera, phone and every other electronic item found in his room were also confiscated. The young blogger's family was only told that he was "wanted." On Friday, after his lawyer AbdulAziz Mosa tweeted about evidence that Hassan had been beaten in detention, Mr. Mosa was arrested. 

The U.S. the government in its usual role of complete hypocrisy on the one hand "condemning the violence" while on the other fully supporting the governments doing the repression.

  "Under the frame and discourse of terrorism, the Bahraini regime is attempting to prevent protests from taking place," Maryam AlKhawaja, the Acting President of BCHR, told me over the phone from Copenhagen in Denmark. She accused the government of going after citizen journalists and activists to make coverage of the protests impossible. She tried to fly into Bahrain this Friday, but was turned away at the airport in Copenhagen, told by her airline that she was on a list of people banned from entering Bahrain.

Bahrain is a perfect case study of this double standard the U.S. has barely mentioned the abuses meted out by the government on its citizens for simply exercising their rights because of the U.S. Fifth fleet which is stationed in Bahrain