At a time when online activism can be risky, as it is credited with -- or blamed for -- fanning the flames of activism sweeping the region, a veteran Syrian blogger has been arrested.

Ahmad Abu Khair was pulled over and arrested early Sunday morning while driving from the coastal town of Banias to Damascus, according to the advocacy group Global Voices and a Facebook group calling for his release (link in Arabic). The charges against him are still unknown, but Khair was enthusiastic in his online support of the ouster of former Tunisian President Zine al Abadine Ben Ali.

In a recent post on his blog titled "Inspired by the revolution" (Arabic link), Khair compared the conditions that led to the uprising in Tunisia with the situation in Syria and other Arab countries, concluding: "Change is possible ... but by revolution!"

But others have said that Khair's comments were not seen as particularly controversial and were echoed by many in the blogosphere.

"All Syrian bloggers praised the revolution and talked generally about why change is important," a source in Syria with knowledge of social media told Babylon & Beyond. "If his blog was the reason" for his arrest, "then this is surely a change of policy: If you support a revolution you'll be detained."

Syrian human rights activists say 1,500 people demonstrated in the Damascus neighborhood of Al Hariqa on Thursday after a young man was unjustly beaten by police.

--  Molly Hennessy-Fiske

A cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad living in exile has warned that the Syrian government must enact democratic reforms or face the "chaos" sweeping other Arab countries.

"Change or be changed," Ribal al-Assad, head of the London-based Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, told reporters Wednesday after his keynote address at the 14th European Police Congress in Berlin.

"Now I think they have to listen. It is not their choice any more, because they are feeling the heat, they are feeling what has been happening all around the Middle East," he told Agence France-Presse.

"We would prefer that the government does it and listens to their senses, listen to the people, to the voices of the people in the Middle East, and they start seeing that they need to change as soon as possible."

Human Rights Watch says governments in the Arab world are clamping down on protests inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

“Images of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have mesmerized the Arab public but have terrified their rulers,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement Tuesday. “They have responded with their usual mix of repression and intimidation to nip the buds of any wider democratic blossoming.”

Among the incidents cited by Human Rights Watch:

 Police and military forces in Yemen used live ammunition and rubber bullets to disperse protesters on Thursday.

Witnesses in Sudan reported that security forces used pipes, sticks and teargas to disperse anti-government protesters in Khartoum and Omdurman in January. One student was said to have died of his injuries. Human Rights Watch could not independently confirm the death.

Security forces in Saudi Arabia briefly arrested between 30 and 50 demonstrators in Jeddah after noon prayers Jan. 28, the group said. A Saudi dissident in London reportedly called for the demonstrations via his satellite TV program to protest the chaos caused by recent heavy rains.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the Palestinian Authority’s police and “special forces” punched, kicked and detained participants in a Wednesday rally in Ramallah in support of the protesters in Egypt.

In Syria, five young demonstrators were detained during a series of demonstrations in solidarity with Egyptian protesters and to protest corruption and high cellphone communication costs, the group said.

In a separate statement Tuesday, Amnesty International said that a Libyan political commentator arrested on charges of hitting a man with his car may have been targeted because he called for peaceful protests in the country. Jamal Hajji, who has dual Libyan and Danish nationality, was detained Feb. 1 in Tripoli.

"The Libyan authorities must clarify the legal status of Jamal al-Hajji," Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in the statement. "They must release him immediately and without conditions if the real reason for his continuing detention is his peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression."

-- Alexandra Zavis

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah gave an address on TV on Sunday night to lay out Hezbollah's rationale for orchestrating the collapse of the government last week.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah and its allies withdrew from the cabinet, dissolving the government and throwing Lebanon into a new phase of tense uncertainty.

Nasrallah explained in the clearest terms yet Hezbollah's demands of the Lebanese state regarding the U.N.-backed tribunal that is expected soon to indict members of Hezbollah accused of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

A gambling casino opened  Christmas Eve in the Syrian capital without much fanfare. But as patrons have started to pour in, it has begun to stir controversy among pious Syrian Muslims who view gambling as sinful.

Plans to open the Ocean Club casino on the highway next to Damascus International Airport largely fell under the Syrian media's radar. Now members of Syria's parliament are beginning to grumble. They're seeking to have the casino closed and questioning its legal status and whether it has government support.

The Ocean Club was packed to capacity on opening night, reportedly taking in 38 million Syrian pounds, or about $800,000. Despite calls to have it closed down, the casino remained in operation as of Sunday night, with a steady stream of patrons beginning early in the evening.

Israel's security Cabinet decided Wednesday to accept -- in principle -- the arrangement proposed by the U.N. and UNIFIL for withdrawing Israeli troops from the Lebanese part of the village of Ghajar. The details still have to be fine-tuned and brought before the Cabinet once more, but implementation will bring Israel closer to compliance with U.N. Security Council resolution 1701that ended the war in 2006.

Ghajar, the smallish village in question, is used to changing hands. They themselves never go anywhere, it's just the landlords that keep changing. Located between Syria, Israel and Lebanon, Ghajar is sort of in all three at the same time, which is a bit of a problem.

Mostly for the village, really.

So, Britain and France tried to figure it out as they divvied up the neighborhood in the last few decades of European colonialism but maps and versions differ. Whatever the ownership on paper, it was from Syria that Israel took the village in 1967 and it is to Syria the residents, Israeli citizens since 1981, say they wish to return -- and in one piece -- when peace comes, one day.

In a place as volatile as Lebanon, it can be hard to say what particular event or accusation will be the spark needed to ignite existing tensions and send the whole country and possibly the region up in flames.

Until recently, the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon was considered low-level background noise to the grander drama of Lebanese politics.

But as the anticipated indictments of some of its members draw closer, Hezbollah has drawn a clear line in the sand for its political rivals in government: civil peace or the tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah has made it clear that it considers the tribunal an attack on its existence and will not hesitate to do what is needed to defend itself. That, coupled with a report [Arabic link] in the sympathetic Lebanese daily Al Akhbar that Hezbollah is conducting military drills in preparation for possible indictments, leaves no room for doubt that Hezbollah is willing to use force against what it sees as a plot against its armed resistance to Israel.

The race is on for oil in the eastern Mediterranean, with at least four major competitors gunning to win.

But it's far from a friendly competition. Of those four, two are locked in an ongoing state of war and the third refuses to recognize the fourth.

So will Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus find a way to work things out?

Not likely, although the possibility of war between Israel and Lebanon is far more likely than an outbreak of violence between Turkey and Cyprus, observers say.

Turkey this week announced its intention to start oil exploration off the northern coast of Cyprus near the breakaway Turkish Cypriot enclave while simultaneously expressing dismay with the Greek Cypriot government's decision to negotiate oil exploration deals with Lebanon.

"Greek Cyprus does not represent the entire island and it cannot strike deals that concern the interests of the whole island," an unnamed Turkish diplomatic source told the Turkish English-language newspaper Hurriyet Daily News. "That's an attitude we have often shared with our Lebanese friends and I think they will take this into consideration."

Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and an American ally, appears to be developing a synchronized security strategy with Syria, a partner of Iran and the Shiite militia Hezbollah, in a development that is likely to increase Western anxieties over Turkey's shift eastward.

Just a decade after Turkey and Syria nearly went to war over Syrian support for Kurdish militants, the two neighbors are working together to stamp out the most powerful rebel Kurd group, the Kurdish Workers Party, known by the Turkish acronym PKK.

On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Damascus to discuss a joint Syrian-Turkish security crackdown on the PKK, which maintains a strong presence in northern Syrian and southeastern Turkey. The Turkish press also reported on efforts to step up cooperation with Iraq and Iran in an effort to wipe out the PKK completely.

Even Syrian President Bashar Assad expressed surprise at the speed with which Turkish-Syrian relations have improved, according to an official Syrian report based on an interview the president gave last week to Arabic-language Turkish channel TRT TV.

"There is very great momentum and acceleration … so we can say that yes, we expected this, but we're very glad that the time was less than expected," Assad said.

Back in July, Turkish media reported that Syria had arrested over 400 Kurds thought to have links to the PKK, which is on both the American and European Union's list of terrorist organizations.

The rich, dark wood furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay or mosaic decoration is a trademark of Syrian living rooms, luxury boutique hotels and government offices. But now the artisanal furniture from Damascus' traditional markets is increasingly attracting the eye of foreigners.

In the shops on Straight Street, furniture makers are experiencing a rise in exports, fueled by demand predominantly from the Gulf.

Al Moazen is a family outfit whose roots are more than 300 years old. The workshop, at the back of the shop, is abuzz as the handmade items are constructed. Chairs with beige cushions and mirrors surrounded by mosaic clutter the shop. Small tables and chests are stacked high upon one another.

"There is a lot more interest from outside Syria than there was," says Abdullah al-Moazen, the youngest generation to go into the business.

Syria is on the move and throwing its weight around in the Middle East and beyond. 

On Sunday, a Damascus court issued more than 30 arrest warrants against high-ranking Lebanese and international political and judicial officials in connection with alleged false testimony given in the United Nations-backed inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, killed in a 2005 car bomb attack at the Beirut seaside, along with 21 others.

Among those named were German prosecutor Detrev Melis, who led the initial stages of the investigation, and his aide, Gerhard Lehmann; Lebanese police chief Ashraf Rifi; top Lebanese prosecutor Saeed Mirza and Syria's exiled former vice president, Abdel Halim Khaddam.

The Syrian arrest warrants triggered new tensions in Lebanon's volatile political arena and upped the rhetoric between rival political factions. Politicians from the pro-Syria, Hezbollah-led March 8 bloc came out hailing the move, while the current Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, the son of the slain premier, and his supporters are chafing as they feel Syria and its local allies breathing down their necks.