Date: May 11, 2011
Source: Associated Press
 
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest

SYRIA
A human rights group reports that more than 750 people have been killed in a crackdown on seven weeks of unrest. Tanks and troops roll into southern villages near the heart of Syria's anti-government uprising, with activists saying the regime has isolated parts of the country. The military has been sealing off various areas of Syria and conducting house-to-house raids in search for people whose names are on wanted lists, with many fleeing cities and towns for fear of detention by the regime of President Bashar Assad
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EGYPT
An Egyptian court has convicts the country's former tourism minister of corruption and sentences him to five years in prison. He's the second former high-ranking official of ex-President Hosni Mubarak's regime to be convicted of corruption since Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster. Also, latest figures show inflation in Egypt running above 12 percent annually and food prices jumping 20 percent. Both are issues that helped ignite the popular revolution.
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LIBYA
NATO warplanes strike a command center in the capital, Tripoli, after pounding regime targets around the besieged port of Misrata. Rebels hope the stepped-up attacks could help extend some of their biggest advances to date, including a major outward push from Misrata. The opposition also says it made gains along a long-deadlocked front near the eastern town of Ajdabiya. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's autocratic ruler since 1969, has not been seen in public since one of his sons was killed in a NATO airstrike April 30. A NATO official, Italian Brig. Gen. Claudio Gabellini, says the alliance had no evidence to indicate whether Gadhafi was alive or dead.
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YEMEN
Yemen stops producing oil because of internal strife, plunging a nation that is already the Arab world's poorest into further economic decline as pressure builds on longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. Yemen was producing about 290,000 barrels of oil a day, a small amount in global terms, but income from the oil sales has provided funds for about three quarters of the government's budget. Opponents of the regime, including powerful tribes, appear to be using the oil weapon to press their demand for Saleh's resignation.