In a surprise appearance, the Libyan leader gives a defiant speech to supporters in Green Square in the centre of the country’s capital.
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As the crisis in Libya unfolds, it has become clear that the government’s perspective on the unrest is very different to that of the people on the ground. In this report from Malta, Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry compares the two views through the eyes of a former Libyan embassy worker, and his employer.
Continue reading …With protesters closing in on the capital and the international community uniting against him, Moammar Gadhafi is apparently hoping a little bribery will help his cause. He’s promising to give families $400 apiece, reports Global Post , a sum that might speak more of the nation’s living standards than anything else….
Continue reading …Researchers have discovered the oldest cremated human remains ever unearthed in northern North America, they tell the Anchorage Daily News . The Fairbanks team found the remains of a 3-year-old in an ancient fire pit in central Alaska; they believe the child—only the second ice-age child discovered on the continent—…
Continue reading …The federal government wants tobacco companies to admit they lied about the addictiveness of nicotine and the benefits of light cigarettes—in print, and pretty explicitly. On Wednesday, a federal judge unsealed a government proposal that would have tobacco companies cop to the lies in national ads and on cigarette…
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Information is power and in the age of the information revolution, cyber and satellite communication is transforming our lives, reinventing the relationship between people and power. New media, from WikiLeaks to Facebook, Twitter to YouTube, is persistently challenging the traditional flow of information, and cyber disobedience is exposing powerful governments. Websites are now being treated like hostile territories; whistleblowers and leakers as terrorists, and hackers as insurgents. Governments are scrambling to salvage their influence and take advantage of the new cyber and satellite media. From China to the Sudan, Egypt to Iran, despots and armies are tracking web activity and setting up Facebook accounts to spy on their citizens. So is this the century of free information and expression as the cyber utopians predicted, or new methods of electronic oppression as the cyber sceptics warned?
Continue reading …Virginia’s Senate passed a bill yesterday requiring that all abortion clinics meet the same standards as hospitals—a move critics say will force 17 of the state’s 21 clinics to close. The new rules will force clinics to do things like buy new equipment, increase staff training, and make cost-prohibitive…
Continue reading …Fashion designer John Galliano was arrested last night after allegedly going on an anti-Semitic rant and attacking a couple at a French cafe. Galliano, the chief designer at Christian Dior since 1996, was believed to have had a lot to drink at a bar in Paris’s Marais district, known as…
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Rock star and activist Yusuf Islam talks about this latest song inspired by the popular uprisings in the Arab world.
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