Libya split looms near

Diplomatic efforts to rescue Syria from the violence that has engulfed it for the past year are being highlighted in the Arab press on Wednesday.

A-Sharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned daily published in London, leads with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s harsh words toward Bashar Assad in the Turkish parliament, saying that the Syrian leader will not escape punishment the way his father, former president Hafez Assad, did. Most of the daily’s article is devoted to American and European condemnations of Syria, with minimal reporting on the civilian death toll. The picture in the article is of a small girl in a demonstration at the town of Hawla carrying a sign reading “The people of Hawla welcome the position of Saudi Arabia towards the Syrian revolution.”

Al-Hayat, a liberal daily published in London, reports that the Syrian regime is trying to crush the domestic uprising before the arrival of UN envoy Kofi Annan and his team in Cairo on Wednesday.

Unlike the print newspapers, Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera opens with the death toll of 42 civilians in Syria on Tuesday, adding that a senior officer, Colonel Adnan Qasim Farazat, defected from the Syrian army and joined the Free Syrian Army. A separate story tells of new initiative to act against Syria in the United Nations Security Council. Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya is reporting that anti-government demonstrations are taking place all across Syria, and have even reached the main square of the capital, Damascus.

Saudi-owned news site Elaph has an interesting feature on the Christian minority in Syria, which is believed to constitute 8 to 10 percent of the population. According to the article, Christians are supporting Assad for fear of the rise of Islamists in the country. According to the articles, Syrian Christians enjoy more religious freedom than their coreligionists in Turkey or Iraq.

Libya unravels

Tribal leaders in eastern Libya have announced the establishment of an autonomous region, eliciting fears of secession among opponents of the “unilateral” move, Al-Hayat reports. All Arab dailies are covering the event with apprehension, highlighting the fact that the region is oil-rich.

Al-Jazeera quotes Mustafa Abd Al-Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council of Libya, the country’s leader, as saying that the move is a betrayal of the legacy of the Libyan revolutionaries. The channel reports wide popular opposition to the move as well, with demonstrations in all large eastern cities.

UK fundamentalist to be deported to Jordan

Al-Hayat reports that a deal between Britain and Jordan will be finalized soon, enabling the deportation of Islamic fundamentalist Omar Mahmoud Othman, Abu-Qatada, to Jordan. Britain has been trying to deport Abu-Qatada, considered Osama bin Laden’s emissary to Europe, for some 10 years but was thwarted by a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, which feared he would face torture in Jordan.

According to an anonymous Jordanian official, Jordan will provide the European court “legal and political guarantees” for the safety of Abu-Qatada once in Jordan.

Egyptian daily: Bread crisis looming

Egyptian independent daily Al-Masri Al-Youm is warning of a looming bread crisis, resulting from a diesel shortage in the country’s bakeries. Egypt’s Ministry of Supplies and Internal Trade is blaming the ministries of Finance and Petroleum for the situation, issuing orders to gas stations to grant priority in sales to bakeries.

According to the report, most bakeries have reserves of only 10 days, which are quickly dwindling.

Palestinian Authority prepares its answer to Netanyahu

The Palestinian leadership is scheduled to meet Wednesday to finalize a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the East Jerusalem daily Al-Quds reports Wednesday. Palestinians are disappointed with US President Barack Obama for his neglect of the Palestinian-Israeli issue in his AIPAC speech, the daily claims.

Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan denied rumors that the Islamic movement is planning to found a new political party. According to Hamdan, the reports, carried by various Arab news outlets, were “fabricated and completely untrue.” The Kuwaiti daily Al-Anbaa had reported that Hamas was discussing the establishment of a new party that would belong to the international Muslim Brotherhood movement and remove the tag of “terrorist movement” currently attributed to Hamas.