Crowds have set fire to the courthouse and other buildings on a third straight day of demonstrations in the southern Syrian city of Daraa. Residents said one person was killed and scores injured when security forces used live rounds against protesters. Witnesses said dozens were also taken to be treated for tear gas inhalation at the main Omari mosque.
The United Nations nuclear agency, IAEA, says there have been positive developments in Japan's efforts to tackle a nuclear emergency after the 11 February quake.
A three-storey building in a military command centre used by Muammar Gaddafi has been destroyed in an air strike by coalition forces. The Sunday-night strike was the first reported attack on the Bab al-Azizia, a sprawling compound in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that Gaddafi has used several times as a setting for televised addresses, and which was bombed by the United States in 1986.
By Younes Abouyoub, Ph.D.
Shortly after the popular uprising started in Libya, the situation quickly turned violent. At first rumors, then confirmed reports talked about mercenaries wreaking havoc in different cities in Libya.
It’s not only Libya. Turmoil and unrest is escalating in the rest of the Middle East and North Africa with violent repression and promises of reform as people take to the streets in growing numbers. Such is the case in Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
The US, UK and France on Saturday began attacking Libya as enforcement of the UN-mandated no-fly zone gets under way. Pentagon officials say the US and the UK have fired more than 110 missiles.
The fourth round of European Union/Mercosur negotiations for a trade agreement concluded in Brussels Friday with no major advances which could be a setback for the original plan to have a deal sealed by the end of the year.
United States President Barack Obama called his British and French counterparts on Thursday and the three agreed Libya must comply with a new U.N. Security Council resolution, the White House said.
Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy also agreed that violence against the civilian population of Libya must cease.
Disappointed and shocked with the self-centred performance of President Cristina Kirchner at the G-20 summit in Washington in 2008, a group of powerful countries seriously considered kicking Argentina out of the industrialized and emerging countries’ Group of Twenty.
Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports. Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.