Africa
Youth uprising in Burkina Faso
Some 20 prisoners escaped in Burkina Faso after middle and high school students set four police stations on fire to protest the killing of four youth by police last month.
North Africa
Libya: momentum gains for no-fly zone
International consensus is growing for some kind of foreign military intervention in Libya as Qaddafi’s forces continue to press their offensive against rebels both east and west of Tripoli.
East Asia
China: drought fuels “peak wheat” fears
Agriculture experts in China warn that the frequency and severity of droughts have increased over the past decade, causing heavy crop losses and posing a potentially grave threat to grain security.
Inner Asia
China imprisons Uighur web-editor in new crackdown
An ethnic Uighur website editor was sentenced to seven years in prison in China following a secret trial, weeks after four others received death sentences in connection with armed attacks.
Africa
Sudan: Khartoum sponsoring warlords to shift borders before secession?
Rebel militias have risen in South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states—fueling fears of a Khartoum strategy to take back lands from the SPLA before the South’s formal secession in July.
North Africa
Qaddafi claims Western support: real or hallucinatory?
Moammar Qaddafi defended his military’s right to put down the rebels by invoking Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, and insisted he still has “very good relations with the United States.”
Greater Middle East
Yemen: al-Qaeda attacks amid protest wave
Suspected al-Qaeda gunmen killed four soldiers in Yemen—one day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to yield to protesters demanding his immediate resignation.
Iraq
Iraq: thousands of protesters defy curfew
Thousands of protesters converged on cities and towns across Iraq, streaming in on foot in defiance of vehicle bans for rallies over corruption, unemployment and poor public services.
Greater Middle East
Bahrain: protesters demand king step down
Thousands of protesters faced down riot police at Manama’s al-Qudaibiya Palace, where Bahrain’s cabinet meets, chanting slogans against the small but strategic Persian Gulf state’s monarchy.
North Africa
Libya: battle for Tripoli begins; more massacres reported
Heavy gunfire broke out in Tripoli, as a militia led by the dictator’s son Khamis Qaddafi is said to have carried out a massacre while re-taking the rebel-held city of Zawiyah.
New York City
WHY WE FIGHT
From the New York Post, March 4: Woman knocked into coma in parking fight She was only trying to save a parking spot—and now doctors are trying to save her life. A petite young Bronx woman was pummeled into a… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Planet Watch
Arab unrest fuels “peak oil” fears; Saudi shortfall seen
Oil prices rose past $104 a barrel, a two-and-a-half-year high, on fears that Saudi Arabia will not be able to make up for the shortfall as chaos engulfs Libya and threatens the entire region.