SWITZERLAND: Nearly $1 billion in despots’ possible assets found.
The Swiss government said Monday that it has identified potential assets to be frozen worth $957 million belonging to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi and the ousted presidents of Egypt and Tunisia.
Switzerland has ordered banks and other financial institutions to freeze possible assets belonging to the three men.
SYRIA: Scores arrested in effort to crush uprising.
Syrian troops went door to door in cities and towns across the nation Monday, arresting scores of people in a campaign of intimidation aimed at crushing an uprising against President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime, activists said.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said hundreds of people had been arrested over the past two days alone.
YEMEN: Thousands demand ruler resign after he rejects deal.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across Yemen on Monday to press embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after he balked at signing a deal by Arab mediators to end the impoverished nation’s spiraling political crisis.
Security forces fired guns to disperse a crowd of protesters in the southern city of Aden, killing a bystander watching the march from his balcony, activist Wady al-Shaabi said.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Teachers’ panel victim of crackdown.
An activist said authorities cracking down on a small reform movement dissolved the board of a teachers’ association after its members signed a petition calling for an elected parliament.
The step appeared linked to the government’s efforts to silence calls for democratic reforms in the oil- rich gulf nation. Five democracy advocates were arrested last month, and the board of a lawyers group was dissolved last week, also for signing the petition.
Denver Post wire services
