This is my second monthly selection of news, reports, and articles covering  the Middle East (except Egypt). I hope you find useful.

Main Headlines

 Iran

• Iran FM Zarif outlines ideas to exit nuclear dispute
• Hard bargainingin Geneva on Iran nuclear deal
• Breakthrough deal curbs Iran’s nuclear activity
• Nuclear deal seen reducing bomb risk despite Israeli criticism
• Region will lose sleep over Iran deal: Saudi advisor
• Gulf states urge Iran to cooperate fully on nuclear deal
• Iran sees nuclear deal implementation starting by early January
• Iran says to continue building at Arak nuclear site despite deal
• Iran hardliners mark 1979 hostage crisis
• Iran Revolutionary Guards commander killed in Syria
• Iran parliament threatens to remove Rouhani’s science minister
• FIFA chief urges Iran to admit women to stadiums
• Iran unveils Sayyad-2 missile production line
• Iran’s deputy minister of industries shot dead in Tehran
• Iran to ban morality police from targeting women
• Iran’s…

Main Headlines

 Monday

• Egyptian police disperse first protest after new law passed
• Former presidential candidate Sabahy launches presidential race
• Railway service to Upper Egypt resume again
• Salvation Front: Mobilizing for ‘yes’ to Constitution
• Egyptian Lawyers Syndicate threatens mass demos against protest law
• Egypt issues demands to end tension with Turkey
• Egypt to start fuel cuts in 2014

Tuesday

• US State Department criticizes Egypt’s Protest Law
• Egypt army kills Sinai’s most wanted Jihadist
• Security forces, and activists clash as protest law takes effect
• Constituent assembly suspends session until detained protestors are released
• Egyptian female detainees were released in desert following downtown clashes: Activist
• Government source: Gulf attempts to persuade Egypt to resume negotiations with IMF
• Tamarod slams protest law, urges human rights council to amend it
• Constitutional referendum in December: Salmawy

 Wednesday

• Egypt prosecutor orders arrest of two leading activists
• Egyptian government vows to enforce protest law
• Police…

(satire?)

London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced greed and envy are to be sold off to private developers as part of his plans to reduce the seven deadly sins across London to just five.

In a controversial speech on Friday, Mr Johnson revealed he was planning to allow city developers to take over the entire provision of greed and envy in the capital – with the majority of the remaining five vices to be rebranded and officially downgraded from ‘cardinal’ to ‘pretty good’.

The announcement comes only weeks after Mr Johnson also announced a drastic reduction in the number of graces in the capital from three to just one – with Hope and Charity to be axed altogether leaving only Faith to be outsourced to G4S in what one insider described as “a multi-million pound deal”.

G4S has long been regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in the…

A Snowy Owl was seen by a group of Rubis workers on Thursday on top of an oil storage tank, and it was later found on a house roof near Gibbs Hill lighthouse by Tim Brewer, and photographed by Andrew Dobson, Bernews.com reports.

A post on the Bermuda Audubon Society’s Facebook page asked people to continue to report sightings, and noted: “There have only been 3 records in the past 30 years and about a further 10 historical records.

“Snowy Owls move south from their Arctic breeding grounds with some reaching the US East Coast and accidentally to Bermuda.”

According to National Geographic, “The snowy owl is a patient hunter that perches and waits to identify its prey before soaring off in pursuit. Snowy owls have keen eyesight and great hearing, which can help them find prey that is invisible under thick vegetation or snowcover. The owls deftly snatch…

Standing at the precipice

you can’t catch me

it is too late for a fling

hanging on a string

once a drip of water

now but winter’s daughter

*

I stand at the precipice

active are lights and colors

scents cloud my reason

sounds of the season

wrapped in bows

I pivot on my toes

*

I stand on the precipice

so many things I missed

struggling to catch them as I fall

wishing to embrace it all

unsuccessful was my list

the many words I missed

*

I jump from the precipice

you can judge the distance

28 more days

the sun shines too little rays

I smile at the thought

all the places where we walked