Here's a summary of the latest developments.

• Syria announced it would set up a committee to investigate the killing of a French journalist and eight Syrians in Homs on Wednesday. The announcement came after France and groups such as Human Rights Watch called for an independent probe to be launched into the attack, the circumstances of which remain unclear. A journalist with Gilles Jacquier when the blasts hit told French radio he thought the attack could have been a "trap".

• Organisers of an aid convoy consisting of around 200 activists said they had been barred from delivering food and medical aid to Syrians. AP and Reuters reported the so-called 'Freedom Convoy' activists- from Europe, North America and the Arab world, including Syria- had been barred by the Syrian authorities. Al Jazeera reported that they had been stopped by Turkish police.

• A Sudanese monitor became the second member of the Arab League delegation in Syria to resign, a spokesman said. AFP reported that the observer- who was not identified- was said by Syria operations chief Adnan Khodeir to be "returning to his country for personal reasons".

• General Mustafa al-Dabi, the chief observer in Syria, slammed the claims of the first monitor to resign. Dabi said Anwar Malek's words were "baseless" as he had not left his hotel for six days and had left for sickness reasons. Malek was then reported to have called on the League to produce the letter in which it claims he cited health reasons.

• Iran urged the UN to condemn Wednesday's killing of a nuclear scientist and claimed it had firm evidence that "certain foreign quarters" were behind this and other assassinations. A letter to UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon from Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, described the attacks as "cruel, inhumane and criminal acts of terrorism against Iranian scientists."

Libya

• Scotland Yard opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons. The announcement came as police and the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual MI5 or MI6 officers following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bahrain

• Bahrain's main telecommunications firm said it would re-employ workers who were fired after strikes connected to the pro-democracy protests. A Labour Ministry committee had put pressure on the company after a ministry review found that 102 of the 172 Batelco staff who lost their jobs had been illegally dismissed, Reuters reported.

Syria has said it will set up a commission of inquiry into the death of French journalist Gilles Jacquier, according to state media.

SANA writes (apologies for the weird English):

[The] Governor of Homs, Ghassan Abdel al-Al, issued a decision to form a committee to conduct an investigation into the facts, evidence and circumstances of the attack which claimed the lives of the French journalist Gilles Jacquier, the correspondent of France 2 TV, and 8 Syrian citizens, leaving 35 others injured. The committee consists of a judge, Head of the Criminal Security Branch in Homs City, two weapons experts and a representative of the France 2 TV channel. Jacquier was visiting Ekrima neighborhood in Homs along with a foreign media delegation to document the damages left by terrorists on building with photos and interviewing citizens who were victims of terror in the city when armed terrorist member fired mortar projectiles on the delegation.

A Moroccan rapper who has become one of the monarchy's boldest critics vowed today to carry on protesting despite being imprisoned for four months on charges his lawyers say were trumped up.

After his release from Casablanca's Oukacha prison, Mouad Belrhouat, known as El-Haqed or "The Sullen One", told Reuters he would continue to rail "against the contempt ordinary Moroccans endure at the hands of the state and politicians".

I will continue to spread my message and denounce the massive corruption in our country.

Belrhouat- who also goes by the name L7a9d- was freed after serving four months for assault, a charge which his supporters say was a ploy to muzzle the popular singer. He was quoted by AFP as declaring:

We will not go backwards. Long live the people! Thanks to rap, I am committed to the people and to their problems. Our demands are huge...They have brought in a new government but the thieves continue to benefit from impunity. We have to get rid of this scum.

The Algerian monitor who quit the Arab League delegation in Syria is reported to have hit back at the organisation for suggesting he had left the mission for health reasons.

Rawya Rageh, a Cairo-based reporter for Al Jazeera, has posted this Tweet:

The plot thickens: Anwar Malek challenges the #ArabLeague to produce the letter the head of mission claims shows Malek cited illness #Syria

Two Bahraini companies have announced they are re-instating staff who were fired after strikes connected to pro-democracy protests.

On Wednesday Bahrain's Formula One circuit, due to host a race in April after the 2011 edition was cancelled, re-hired staff, Reuters reports.

And today Bahrain's main telecommunications firm has said it will re-employ workers "who agree to abide by Bahrain's labour law and Batelco internal policies".

A Labour Ministry committee had put pressure on the company after a ministry review found that 102 of the 172 Batelco staff who lost their jobs had been illegally dismissed. More than 2,000 mainly Shi'ite workers were sacked from state-controlled companies last year for taking part in strikes and protests against perceived discrimination and the dominance of the ruling Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa family. A commission of international lawyers set up by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to investigate the unrest said in November that many Bahrainis had been unfairly dismissed. The government promised to implement its recommendations.

Tunisia has seen a five-fold increase in self-immolations in the past year, according to the BBC.

Middle East Correspondent Wyre Davies has brought back this report from the country, whose revolution was sparked just over a year ago by Mohammad Bouazizi's decision to set himself on fire.

Davies has uncovered alarming statistics which show there has been a huge rise in the number of people setting themselves on fire in Tunisia, despite the advent of democracy. They are mostly young men from poor, rural areas. They are also, generally, unmarried and have only basic education. Most importantly they are out of work and, despite strenuous efforts, they have little prospect of employment. These are the young Tunisians who set themselves alight or self-immolate. They are acts of sheer desperation that usually lead to death within 48 hours or, if they survive, a life of agony for the men and their families.

Activists in Homs have set up a "condolence tent" for the French journalist Gilles Jacquier.

A video clip shows several residents of the Safsafa area paying their respects to the reporter at the makeshift shrine. Activists continue to blame security forces for the attack which killed Jacquier and eight others. The government said terrorists were responsible.

A Guardian article by two academics which accused Britain of being complicit in continuing human rights atrocities in Bahrain appears to have angered the Kingdom and its advisers.

The article by Ala'a Shehabi and Kristian Ulrichsen described Britain as the "backbone" of the ruling Khalifa family and accused British firms of continuing to "profit from the ongoing crackdown".

It said:

From providing the intelligence-gathering software to monitor social media and spy on activists, to arranging canine security for the interior ministry, tender records show how British companies, consultants and special advisers are raking in the cash from the security crackdown. They include legal and PR services to advise on "reform" and minimise the fallout from continuing repression, as well as organising the Bahrain International Airshow.

Unsurprisingly, Bahrain's British PR advisers to the oil-rich kingdom have demanded a right to reply. But they have also underlined the point of the article by putting forward former British ambassador to Bahrain, Sir Harold "Hooky" Walker, to write the piece.

Former Sunday Times political editor David Cracknell, now employed by Big Tent Communication, wrote this email to the Guardian's Comment desk, on behalf of his clients:



The Government have asked me to request the right of reply to this piece that appeared yesterday: It contains a number of factual inaccuracies, including the claim that nothing has been done to implement the recommendations of the report of an independent human rights inquiry headed by an UN expert published in November. In fact 18 of the 34 recommendations have already been actioned and all will be implemented by the end of next month – as promised by the Government. Another false claim, often made by the Opposition PR machine, is that human rights have not progressed in 200 years. This is nonsense: Bahrain has created a Human Rights Ministry, and gave women suffrage in the 1920s not long after the UK, to name but a few reforms. The Government, and King Hamad, have publicly stated that mistakes were made last year during February and March, and those police officers responsible for mistreatment are currently being prosecuted. All sentences against demonstrators have been overturned, several charges dropped, with full civilian open trials having been begun. Despite what those who do not know Bahrain well some times think, freedom of expression and right to assembly is entrenched in the constitution – hundreds of demos go ahead each year without trouble. But currently some vandals have started ambushing police patrols with Molotov petrol bombs, yet the police have a policy of non-engagement where possible so as to avoid injuries and fatalities. I really think the counterview deserves to be aired by the Guardian – in the past when a one-sided piece has appeared on CiF for other clients you have agreed to take a counter-balanced piece. In this case I propose to offer an article by the former UK ambassador to Bahrain Sir Harold Walker for publication. I can send it over tomorrow.

The Guardian has suggested that Sir Harold, Cracknall or the Bahraini government can post a comment on the article like everyone else.

A Sudanese monitor has become the second member of the Arab League delegation in Syria to resign, a spokesman has said.

AFP reports that the observer- who has not been identified- was said by Syria operations chief Adnan Khodeir to be "returning to his country for personal reasons". At the Arab League HQ in Cairo, he said:

Two monitors have excused themselves – an Algerian and a Sudanese.

Earlier, General Mustafa al-Dabi slammed Anwar Malek's post-resignation claims, saying in a statement:



What observer Anwar Malek said on satellite television is baseless. Malek was deployed to Homs as part of a team, but for six days he did not leave his room and did not join members of the team on the ground, pretending he was sick.

A brief return to the Freedom Convoy turned away from the Turkish-Syrian border: Al Jazeera is reporting that it was the Turkish police- not the Syrian authorities- that prevented the activists from crossing.

Turkish police have stopped an aid convoy of Syrian expatriates from crossing into Syria to deliver blankets, medicine and food to people affected by the government's crackdown on protests. The "Freedom Convoy to Syria", including activists from Europe, North America and the Arab world, was stopped outside the town of Kilis, about 15km from the Oncupinar border crossing. The provincial governor offered to take a small group of activists to the border to see if they could pass.

A former colleague of Gilles Jacquier has told Le Figaro that neither the Syrian authorities nor the opposition had a reason to kill the French journalist.

Martine Laroche-Joubert, a so-called "grand reporter" at the France 2 television channel, was quoted as saying:

In Syria, Gilles wanted to do a report on the Assad family, on the workings of the clan and how it communicated. He had not gone to cover the demonstrations. The supporters of Bashar al-Assad, just like his opponents, therefore had no reason to kill him. If there was a blunder, we'll find out about it.

The piece linked to above, by Rue89, gives a good overview of Jacquier's death and the questions it raises.

Organisers of the so-called Freedom Convoy say the Syrian authorities have barred its activists from crossing the border from Turkey, reports AP.

Hundreds of activists had been preparing to deliver aid to victims of the Syrian regime's crackdown.

About 200 activists, mostly Syrians traveling from countries that include Bulgaria, the Netherlands, France, and the United States, gathered on the Turkish side of the border Thursday to protest the violence and deliver truckloads of food, medical aid and other supplies. Bilal Dalati, a spokesman for the Freedom Convoy group, said Syrian authorities would not allow the convoy nor the aid in. The United Nations estimates more than 5,000 people have died since March in Syria's crackdown.

Iran has urged the UN to condemn Wednesday's killing of nuclear scientist and claims it has firm evidence that "certain foreign quarters" are behind this and other assassinations.

A letter to UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon from Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, described the attacks as "cruel, inhumane and criminal acts of terrorism against Iranian scientists."

A text of the letter sent to the Guardian says:



The perpetrators used the same terrorist method in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, i.e. attaching a sticky magnetic bomb to the car carrying the scientists and detonating it. Furthermore, there is firm evidence that certain foreign quarters are behind such assassinations. As has been claimed by these circles, such terrorist acts have been carried out as part of the efforts to disrupt Iran's peaceful nuclear program, under the false assumption that diplomacy alone would not be enough for that purpose. These quarters have spared no efforts in depriving the Islamic Republic of Iran from its inalienable right to peaceful nuclear energy and called for conducting covert operations ranging from assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists to launching a military strike on Iran as well as sabotaging Tehran's nuclear program ... It is highly expected from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and President of the Security Council of the United Nations as well as all other relevant organs and bodies to condemn, in the strongest term, these inhumane terrorist acts and to take effective steps towards elimination of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

A self-declared "Morality Police"- official title: the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice- has announced it will hold its first training session for volunteers in Cairo tonight.

Ahram Online reports that the group proclaimed on its new official Facebook page that it had acquired 1,000 tazers to be distributed to volunteers who will promote "virtue" and combat "vice" in the Egyptian street.

The "Morality Police", which models itself on a similar group in Saudi Arabia that monitors citizens social behaviour, added in its announcement that these electric shocks batons will help in self-defence against any possible attacks on volunteers, adding that volunteers would be instructed to use the tazers only in "extremely necessary" situations. The Facebook page announced that the first field training session for volunteers will be on Thursday evening in El-Mandara neighbourhood in Alexandria.

The head of the Arab League's delegation in Syria has reportedly issued a statement dismissing the concerns of his former Anwar Malek.

p>Rawya Rageh, a Cairo-based Al Jazeera journalist, has posted these Tweets:

Head of the #ArabLeague's mission to #Syria Mohammed AlDabi issues statement deriding Algerian monitor Anwar Malek Mohammed AlDabi says Anwar Malek's remarks to #AlJazeera "have nothing to do with reality," adds Malek "broke the oath he took." #Syria In a not-so-covert swipe at #AlJazeera, head of #ArabLeague mission Mohammed Al Dabi urges the media to be accurate, objective (re #Syria)

The activist group the Local Coordination Committee in Syria claimed 20 soldiers have defected in the southern province of Deraa. It said the group included 10 snipers who were deployed on rooftops to kill protesters.

Earlier this week around 15 soldiers in Deraa announced their defection in a video. It is unclear if this is the same group.

p>The LCC also claimed the number of people killed today has increased to 12, including two defected soldiers.

A hard-line Iranian newspaper calls today for retaliation against Israel, which it accuses of being behind the killing of a scientist in Tehran yesterday.

A column in the Kayhan newspaper by editor Hossein Shariatmadari asked why Iran did not avenge the death of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan by striking Israel, according to AP. Shariatmadari is quoted as writing:

Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in his recent remarks spoke about damaging Iran's nuclear program. Assassinations of Israeli military and officials are easily possible

Meanwhile the US has key support from Japan for tough oil sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, Reuters reports.



Japan pledged to take concrete action to cut Iranian oil imports after visiting US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged Tokyo, a major importer, to help deprive Iran of vital oil revenues. In Iran, sanctions are biting, with the rial currency losing 20 percent of value against the dollar in the past week.

p> Anwar Malek, the Algerian who quit the Arab League's monitoring team this week, said many of his former colleagues shared his concerns, and some had also quit.

Reuters reports:

"I cannot specify a number, but many. When you talk to them their anger is clear," he told Reuters by telephone, adding that many could not leave because of orders from their governments. He said a Moroccan legal specialist, an aid worker from Djibouti and an Egyptian had also left the mission. Their departures could not immediately be confirmed. But another monitor, who asked not to be named, told Reuters he planned to leave Syria on Friday. "The mission does not serve the citizens," he said. "It doesn't serve anything."

Yemeni's are taking a part in day without Qat - the mild stimulated chewed by more half the population.

The campaign is designed to highlight the detrimental effects on Yemen's agriculture, economy, health and society, according to a blogpost on Global Voices.

The post says: "Massive time and resources are wasted to chewing this cursed plant, paralysing Yemenis to think or work towards building Yemen."

p>Here's one of many videos to raise awareness campaign

Global Voices says:

The campaign was a collaborative effort of many people tapping on keyboards, behind screens, on who deeply care about Yemen's well being, transcending to people in the streets of Yemen who made it a reality.

It is unclear how wide the take up of the campaign has been in Yemen itself.

Earlier this week, the Dutch government pledged to ban Qat, to curb its use and stop people re-exporting it to other European countries.

Hundreds of Syrian and foreign activists are trying to cross into Syria from Turkey and Jordan to take humanitarian aid to the areas worst-hit by the crisis.

On its website, the Freedom Convoy said:

Our aim is ... to deliver humanitarian aid to the families in the afflicted areas that suffer from daily brutal bombing and totally unacceptable living conditions.

Up to 150 activists, brought together by a campaign on the social networking website Facebook, left the southeastern city of Gaziantep today in buses and cars, carrying token relief supplies of blankets, medicine and food, Reuters reported.

Group member Bilal Dalati told Voice of America he was protesting because his relatives were being killed.

Just last week I lost a cousin, an immediate cousin of mine. He got shot in the area of Zabadani. It's heartbreaking. You know, those people are dying. They're my people. People that I was, you know, associated with for most of my life, or half of life, before I traveled to the U.S.

Voice of America reports:

Organizers say activists have traveled to Turkey's southeastern province of Gaziantep, mostly from European countries and from the United States in a show of support for the people of Syria. At a news conference, Zena Adi, who said she has recently fled Syria, described the situation in the restive country. There are entire towns in Syria that don't have electricity, that don't have the oil to run their cars or to heat their homes. People don't have food. The towns are under siege, surrounded. When someone tries to bring in food, it's thrown on the side of the street. Organizers say the Freedom Convoy has brought truckloads of food, medical aid and supplies that the activists will try to get across the border into Syria. If Syrian authorities refuse to let them cross, they intend on pitching tents and camping out in a three-day protest.

The French government is not alone in calling for an investigation into the attack in Homs yesterday.

Nadim Houry, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, has also called for an independent, preferably international, investigation, according to AP.

Yesterday's case of the killing of the French journalist raises a number of questions, who launched the attacks, what was the purpose. The answer is we don't know. So at this point, what's important is again to launch a credible investigation.

Wissam Tarif, a campaigner for the online global activist group, Avaaz, also called the official version into question.

The journalists were attacked in a heavily militarized regime stronghold it would be hugely difficult for any armed opposition to penetrate the area and launch such a deadly attack.

Some parts of the French press are also raising concerns. Europe 1 writes that "the Syrian context does not help to dissipate doubt".



First of all because it is impossible to know who fired the shell or the mortar which killed Gilles Jacquier. Also because a very restricted journalist trip by an authoritarian regime always evokes heavy suspicions of manipulation. And, finally, because Syria has often been accused of giving its secret services a lot of freedom, notably in Lebanon, which reinforces the suspicion rather more.

Thierry Thullier, editorial director of France Télévisions, is travelling to Syria today along with the two editors of Envoyé spécial, the France 2 programme for which Jacquier worked.

In a message posted earlier this morning by Celia Mériguet, editor-in-chief of FTVi, said the purpose of their trip was to "bring back to France the cameraman Christophe Kenck, the photographer wife and the body of the journalist, which is at the French hospital in Damascus."

A doctor and a psychologist is accompanying them. They will take care of the two survivors, who are in shock.

p>Mériguet said they could say nothing more about the circumstances of the attack in which Jacquier was killed. Last night Thullier gave an indication as to how unclear the details remain.

As far as the circumstances are concerned, they have not yet been confirmed. We had Christophe Kenck, the other member of the team, on the phone from the hospital, and he told us that they had come under fire- was it was mortar fire or rocket fire? We don't know for the moment. Where did the fire come from? We don't know that, either.

Syrian activists in Paris say they were prevented by police from placing a tribute to Gilles Jacquier at the Syrian Cultural Centre in Paris.

The identities of the people in this video could not be immediately established.

p>In the clip the the man says:

We have come here to the Syrian Cultural Centre to pay tribute to our friend Gilles Jacquier who died for truth. He went to Homs in Syria, to show the reality to the world, and he was killed in a cowardly and savage way by the regime. He died fighting for an ideal; he died fighting for the truth; he died doing his job. Today we wanted to leave a picture of him at the Syrian Cultural Centre representing the crime of Bashar al-Assad's regime and we were surprised to see before us the police and a very significant security presence...protecting the place and who prevented us from putting up this photo in hommage to Gilles Jacquier. We would like to express our surprise at this and we would like an explication for why we have been prevented from paying a simple tribute to this journalist, this hero.

p> Here's a summary of events so far today:

Syria

• One of the journalists who witnessed the attack that killed French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, said the incident was a "trap". Jacques Duplessy said "we were royally manipulated" and said state media response was suspiciously swift. France, which has demanded an investigation into the attack, sent its Syria ambassador, Eric Chevallier, to Homs to inspect the scene.

• Russia claims that some Nato countries are preparing military intervention in Syria. Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council, said: "We are receiving information that Nato members and some Persian Gulf states, working under the 'Libyan scenario', intend to move from indirect intervention in Syria to direct military intervention."

• Activists said the security forces have killed six people in Syria so far today. The Syrian Revolution General Commission said one of those killed was a soldier who died under torture in Hama after refusing to fire at protesters.

• A second Arab League monitor is poised to quit in protest at the failure of the mission, according to Reuters. The unnamed monitor said: "The Syrian authorities have exploited the weakness in the performance of the delegation to not respond. There is no real response on the ground."

• Human Rights Watch has urged the Arab League to condemn the Syrian security forces for shooting peaceful protesters who were attempting to reach its observers in the northern city of Jisr al-Shughur. Anna Neistat, its associate emergencies director said: "Such incidents, and the ever rising death toll, clearly demonstrate that the presence of Arab League observers has done little to compel the Syrian authorities to stop their crimes."

Saudi Arabia

• David Cameron is to travel to the Saudi capital for talks with King Abdullah, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. It is unclear what the two leaders will discuss.

Libya

• Scotland Yard has opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli, where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons. The announcement came as the Metropolitan police and the director of public prosecutions, Kier Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute individual MI5 or MI6 agents following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspcts in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Yemen

• A UN envoy is in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a to review the implementation of agreement for president Ali Abdullah Saleh to stand down. Jamal Benomar said there are still "obstacles and challenges" to the deal.

Bahrain

• The trial has begun in Bahrain's capital, Manama, of five police officers implicated in the death in custody of a blogger last year, the BBC reports. Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri died on 9 April, seven days after he had been arrested as part of a crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the kingdom.

The official version of Wednesday's attack in Homs - that it was carried out by armed opposition fighters - has been publicly questioned this morning by one of the journalists on the government trip.

Speaking to Europe 1 radio, Jacques Duplessy said he wondered if the entire incident had been a "trap".

I think we were royally manipulated. It wasn't a freak incident at all because after those four shells, there was nothing more. It was over: no attack, no shooting.

Duplessy said he was suspicious of the Syrian state media's rapid response.

Syrian television was everywhere- three cameras. They filmed everything...One wonders if it was actually a trap, if it wasn't a deliberate attack on journalists.

He added: "Of course, we know nothing. We have no proof."

Thierry Thuillier, head of news at France Télévisions, ruled out such ideas. "It seems to me to be really premature to be talking of manipulation," he said.

The activist group, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, has named five people it says were killed by the security forces today.

It said three people were killed in Homs, and a soldier was tortured to death for refusing to fire against protesters in Hama. A fifth man died from wounds in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, scene of heavy gunfire on Tuesday.

The reports cannot be independently verified.

Arab League observers and France's ambassador to Syria, Eric Chevallier, have visited the site of the attack in Homs that killed a French journalist and eight others, CNN reports.

It points out that Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, tweeted this reaction.

My deepest condolences to the loved ones & admirers of Gilles Jacquier, killed today trying to show the world what is happening in #Syria. — Ambassador Rice (@AmbassadorRice) January 11, 2012

Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague had a similar reaction:

These deaths highlight once again the terrible price being paid by the people of Homs, as well as the courage of journalists who take great personal risks to bring to light what is happening to the people of Syria. We support the Arab League's efforts to stop the killing and repression. We urge the Syrian regime to implement in full its commitments to the Arab League on 2 November. It must end the violence, withdraw troops from the streets, release all detainees and engage in a meaningful dialogue with opposition groups. We call again on president Assad to step down and heed the will of the Syrian people.

Josef Eid, an AFP photographer who was also in Jacquier's group of journalists, has described seeing Gilles Jacquier "lying in a pool of blood" in Homs yesterday.

He is quoted in the France Soir newspaper as saying:

We arrived at Homs surrounded by the government minders. All the journalists insisted on being able to go out and about. The authorities decided to take us to Hadara, an Alawite neighbourhood. The first shell fell on a house while we were interviewing pro-Assad protesters who had followed us to this house. We got up onto the roof. In the meantime a second shell fell on the building and, as I was going back down, I saw people dead on the ground and I started to photograph them. The other journalists went down to see what was happening and those that went out of the building felt the full force of the third shell. In front of the building, the pro-Assad protesters had also been hit. As I went down, I saw Gilles lying in a pool of blood. An ambulance arrived and I jumped inside. At the hospital it was total chaos. Another injured peron was arriving every very five minutes.

Dutch journalist Steven Vassenar suffered eye injuries, he added.

Christophe Kenck, the France 2 cameraman, has recounted the multiple shelling in Homs that led to his colleague's death yesterday.

Le Monde quotes him saying:

They took us on a tour of the town; we came across a mini-demo on a road. We got out; we started shooting [film]. And then the first mortar fell about 500 metres from the demo, so panic broke out. Afterwards a second mortar blast hit a school- but it was empty. Then there was a third mortar blast. I felt the impact as I was 10 metres away. I was lightly injured but I'm fine. And then the fourth mortar blast fell on a building where Gilles Jacquier had sheltered. I got to the building and we put Gilles in a taxi to take him to hospital, but when I saw Gilles come out with his wife in tears, I knew he had died on the spot.

It is understood that Jacquier's partner was on the trip with him. Kenck adds:

He had tried to protect himself, so he had the right reaction. It was me who had the wrong reaction, in inverted commas of course, because I was outside- I was filming shots of the people who had been injured, the shouting. Today we have lost a true professional, and a friend as well.

David Cameron is to travel to the Saudi capital for talks with King Abdullah, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Characteristically the agency said very little about what would be discussed.

The meeting is expected to focus on bilateral relations and ways to promote them in addition to discussing regional and international issues of common interest.

Possible topics for discussion include Syria, Iran and arm's sales, but probably not the crackdown on the unrest in Bahrain.

Syria's Ministry of Information says the killing of French journalist Gilles Jacquier highlights the terrorism that Syria is exposed to.

An interestingly-worded report by the state news agency, Sana, will fuel suspicions that the Syrian government was to blame for the attack.

The field tour of the foreign media delegation in Homs comes in the framework of Syria's admission for the mass media to move freely in different Syrian regions and convey the events to the world public opinion.

Foreign journalists have not been given unfettered access to Syria. The press trip to Homs was heavily controlled, according to the Guardian's Ian Black who was on separate escorted trip to Homs on Wednesday.

Russia claims that some Nato countries are preparing military intervention in Syria.

Bloomberg quoted Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russian Security Council telling Inferfax:

We are receiving information that NATO members and some Persian Gulf states, working under the 'Libyan scenario', intend to move from indirect intervention in Syria to direct military intervention.

Welcome to Middle East Live.

Syria remains the main focus amid growing doubts about the future of Arab League mission and after the killing of the first foreign journalist since the uprising began.

Here's a round up of the latest developments:

Syria

• A second Arab League monitor is poised to quit in protest at the failure of the mission, according to Reuters. The unnamed monitor said: "The Syrian authorities have exploited the weakness in the performance of the delegation to not respond. There is no real response on the ground." Earlier Anwar Malek, an Algerian member of the team, resigned saying the mission was becoming a farce. He said it was not acting independently and was serving the regime's interests.

• US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has held talks with Qatar's prime minister, Hamed bin Jassem on the Arab League's next move on Syria.

p>After the meeting she said:

I think that it's clear to both the prime minister and myself that the monitoring mission should not continue indefinitely. We cannot permit President Assad and his regime to have impunity. Syrians deserve a peaceful transition. We are looking to work with the Arab League when the current monitoring mission expires on 19 January.

• The death of an acclaimed French television correspondent Gilles Jacquier was a stark reminder of what are routine dangers for ordinary people in the war in Syria, writes Ian Black from Homs.

< Following unconfirmed reports that mortar bombs were used in the attack, the local revolutionary council blamed government forces – claiming that only the Syrian army had mortars. Sana, Syria's official news agency, blamed "terrorists" for the attack and said that mortars had been used.

• The French authorities have demanded an investigation into the killing. "Gilles Jacquier was just doing his journalist's job by covering the violent events in Syria resulting from the regime's unacceptable repression of the population," said President Nicolas Sarkozy.

• Jacquier, was a highly respected special correspondent for France's acclaimed flagship documentary programme, Envoyé Spécial, on the state TV channel France 2. He spent two decades covering numerous conflicts, from Algeria in the 1990s to Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, the Balkans and the Arab spring.He received the French Pulitzer prize equivalent, the Prix Albert Londres, in 2003 for his work on the second intifada after he shot through his bullet-proof vest.

• Like many activists, blogger Ammar Abdulhamid believes the regime was behind the attack.

It should also be obvious that protesters would never risk hurting the very people who are taking their story to the world, seeing that almost every story filed by foreign journalists who were allowed access to the country has served to corroborate the protesters' version of events.

• The Arab League should condemn the Syrian security forces for shooting peaceful protesters who were attempting to reach its observers in the northern city of Jisr al-Shughur, according to Human Rights Watch. Anna Neistat, associate emergencies director, said: "Such incidents, and the ever rising death toll, clearly demonstrate that the presence of Arab League observers has done little to compel the Syrian authorities to stop their crimes."

Iran

• A chemist working at Iran's main uranium enrichment plant was killed on Wednesday when attackers on a motorbike stuck a magnetic bomb to his car. The assassination – the fifth against Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years – is likely to further escalate tensions between Iran and the west. Iran has said the US and Israel are behind the assassinations, and blamed the Mossad for Wednesday's killings.



• Egypt's interim government is to resume talks with the International Monetary Fund over an emergency $3bn (£2bn) credit facility amid signs of a deepening crisis in its hard-hit economy, Peter Beaumont in Cairo reports. Sporadic outbreaks of violence, particularly in Cairo, have discouraged foreign investors and devastated the tourism industry, on which Egypt is heavily reliant. Empty hotels and deserted riverboat restaurants and clubs have become the most visible sign of the city's abandonment by foreign tourists.

• Former US president Jimmy Carter says he doubts Egypt's general will fully submit to the authority of the civilian democracy they had promised to install, the New York Times reports. After meeting Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, leader of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Carter said: "I don't think the SCAF is going to turn over full responsibility to the civilian government. There are going to be some privileges of the military that would probably be protected.

• Scaf has declared 25 January a national holiday to mark the first anniversary of the Egypt revolution, in an attempt to try to head off further protests. There will also be a football match between Egypt and Tunisia according to Egyptian Chronicles.