HUMAN RIGHTS

Social-networking sites such as Facebook, or search engines such as Google, may face court action if they fail to obey planned EU data privacy rules, European Union justice chief Viviane Reding said on Wednesday.

The uprising against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi will be crushed within the next forty-eight hours as forces loyal to the government close in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the eastern part of the embattled country, according to Gaddafi’s son.

The leader of France’s extreme right-wing National Front party, Marine Le Pen, has said that North African migrants who have arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa to escape from unrest in Tunisia and Libya should be immediately turned back to their native countries.

Communiqué of European Council on the crisis in Libya, March 11, 2011, Brussels

A journalist working for the British newspaper Guardian is missing in Libya and has not been heard from since Sunday.

The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, has urged Moammar Qaddafi to immediately cease all acts of violence against his people, according to S.A. Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said.

The king of Morocco, King Mohammed VI, has vowed to enact comprehensive political and constitutional reforms, including the bestowal of real power onto a popularly elected prime minister, rather than a royal appointee.

Governor Pat Quinn’s Statement on Abolishing Death Penalty.

A young woman from Mexico who took on the top police chief role last year in a small Mexican border town has fled to the United States with her entire family apparently after receiving death threats and is formally seeking asylum, according to reports.

A French flight attendant, who was fired by United Airlines, has been allowed to pursue her federal discrimination claims against her former employer, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Officials in Saudi Arabia have freed a popular Shia cleric whose earlier arrest had prompted protests and calls for a day of rage demonstration on Friday.

They are the leaders, business heads, fashionistas and movie stars and they have come a long way since March 19, 1911 when the first IWD was celebrated in Germany following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America.

Tunisia's interim interior ministry has said it will dissolve the State Security Department, the nation's once feared secret police service.

Anti-government protests are escalating in Bahrain, as demonstrators have already marched on the U.S. embassy are now assembling before the main financial hub of downtown Manama.

Usher is the latest celebrity to say that he will return the money he was paid for performing at a Gadaffi family party in St. Barts.

Rebels in eastern Libya have captured members of a British special forces team but the issue will be resolved shortly, rebel sources said on Sunday.

The United States will put improved relations with Beijing at risk if it does not stop selling arms to Taiwan, China's Foreign Minister said on Monday.

Calls for Jasmine Revolution protests in Beijing are doomed to fail as people want peace and stability and government policies are popular, a spokeswoman for the city's government said on Sunday.

Egypt’s fearsome ex-interior minister Habib el-Adly has been put on trial in Cairo, facing charges of corruption and instructing his officers to use deadly violence against protesters last month who demonstrated against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.

China will beef up its military budget by 12.7 percent this year, the government said on Friday, a return to double-digit spending increases that will stir regional unease.

The irony can't be missed when the scion of a tiny sub-Saharan country, which has the dubious distinction for having the highest child mortality rate in the world and abysmal public health and education systems, splurges ill-gotten money on a multi-million dollar super-luxury yacht.