Return of the News Roundup

Things have totally been happening. I, however, have been too busy mooning about to write about it.
This stops now. Sorry about that.

COMPENSATIONAL HUGE-ASS NEWS ROUNDUP!!!1!

Aristide!

Haiti: Aristide's coming back, and as with most things related to Haiti, it makes the US nervous. The former-priest-turned-first democratically-elected-President of Haiti  won office by 67%--in a  field of 12 candidates--in 1990, but the left-wingy policies that put him in office turned out to be too spooky for US Republicans, and various machinations and a coup later, he was in exile in South Africa. Now that he's back during yet another bout of electoral unrest in Haiti, rumours fly of more violence to come--to yet again be blamed on Aristide. Personally, if shit does hit the fan, I'd blame it on his new bodyguard Danny Glover. Yes, that Danny Glover.

Pakistan: Remember the CIA-contractor jerkoff that killed two Lahore motorcyclists in January execution-style? The CIA guy, a one Mr. Raymond Davis formerly of Blackwater, was investigating the radical Pakistani Islamist group Lashkar when the shit went down and inflamed angry discussion about how far diplomatic immunity actually goes. Now he's out of prison, everyone's still pissed about it, and the families of the men killed were paid $2.3 million dollars. For context, the average suggested pay to families of innocents killed in US ops hovers around $5,000.

Sierra Leone: War-crimes-missing-hands-and-blood-diamonds-fame Charles Taylor's 3-year trial closed March 11, to let the Hague decide what to do with him. If convicted, he'd be in lockup in the US.

Indonesia: Jakarta's evacuating people on the slopes of its most active volcano, rising alerts to the highest level they can, proving that the Ring of Fire is on a roll jerking around the human race. Look out California.

Japan: You probably have heard by now that exactly a week ago, one of the most brutal earthquakes in human history hit one of the most densely populated islands on the planet. You probably also know that it was swiftly followed by a substantial tsunami along the North East coast, and a huge string of nuclear plant failures making an unbelievably bad, bad humanitarian disaster into a humanitarian disaster with panic, apocalyptic overtones and carcinogenic fallout. There's so much information on this particular continuing disaster that it's more useful for me to list some good stuff for you than it is to try and summarize it all, so:

• Channel 4 has a cool interactive video timeline combining resources about the original Sendai quake (and aftershocks), the tsunamis, and the nuclear plant problems all in one handy place.
• Boingboing rounds up Japan Nuclear issues with the utmost quality that they are known for
• Maggie Koerth-Baker drops the science and explains why people in North America are not getting radiation poisoning, relax.
• Flickr set of US Navy relief efforts at Tomodachi 
• Here's the AJE liveblog, and the Reuters liveblog too.
• Boston.com's The Big Picture photo series about the crisis

One thing to remember about Japan: the nuclear angle is the scariest, but the humanitarian disaster angle is by far the most destructive. Two things to remember about Japan: if you want to donate, do it wisely.

Bahrain: Protests proceed, things get messy, and opposition leaders are arrested for "talking to foreign agents".

Yemen: 31 people are dead after the continuing protests for the sniper treatment. My awe of the regular Joes of the Middle East continues unabated.

America: The Foo Fighters recorded their latest album in Dave Grohl's garage, did a documentary about it for SXSW, and are doing a tour of concerts in peoples' garages. That you can maybe have in YOUR garage. After a day of bad news, how effin' cool is that?

Breaking: Libyan Gov Declares Ceasefire after UN Declares No-Fly Zone

Al Jazeera breaks it, and my spidey senses...do somethin.

The statement from the government claims an immediate stop to all military operations, and an immediate ceasefire. And it also says that "Libya takes great interest in protecting civilians".

I'm gonna try to walk that line between crying and laughing hysterically at that one.

This is happening because yesterday, the UN stopped shuffling their feet and enacted a No-Fly Zone over Libya in response to the month of the Gaddafi regime shooting, burning, bombing and otherwise brutalizing their population. The sheer thought of the international community actually putting their proverbial shoulders to a cause (especially when that cause includes more jets than they have) might have been enough to make the regime approach sensibility. Or just try and find ways to quell protests in ways that put them on international television less.
As with most Libyan news, any good news is suspect. We'll see whether this "ceasefire" actually results in anyone from the military side actually not firing (case in point: reports from Misurata say the Gaddafi regime is still shelling them. You say ceasefire, I say bomb a suburb...).
In the meantime, cautious optimism for the win?

State of the Revolution II: Revolution Harder

Good morning, my little sunspots! It's Friday! That makes it Pray-Then-Protest day in the Middle East--and I've got a couple hours in Toronto to burn, so let's catch up, shall we?

Yemen: after a few weeks of fairly regular protests, current president Ali Abdullah Saleh offered a unity government with the Joint Meeting Parties and the rest of the opposition (who? These guys). To which they said "HA." and promptly kept protesting. Today, the opposition groups counter-offered with an exit strategy. To which the protesters said "HA." and promptly demanded he leave now. Understandable, considering the reports of military firing on protesters in the North. Despots of the Middle East, please stop killing people and just talk already.

One cannot simply rock out of Mordor.

Libya: In Libyan diplomatic (wow, oxymoron) news, a mediator between Gaddafi and the rest of the universe has come to the table in the form of everyone's favourite guitarron-playing Venezuelan egoist, Hugo Chavez! It's completely unclear what sort of mediation could possibly make anything the crazypants dictator is doing even remotely okay, but Gaddafi's apparently cool with it. The rest of the world is mostly ignoring the proposal, looking instead at all the bombing and terrible atrocities happening all over the country. Huh. Go figure. Meanwhile, people in Libya are getting scared to protest--surprise--and there are rumours that the Crazypants Militia is preventing people from leaving via Tunisia. They're also killing their own. Graphic, brutal, and really, really making me want to radicalize, march over there, and do something foolish to that asshole in the mumu.

Tunisia: is busily announcing a new government. This is cool, but significantly less cool once you remember that they've had three interim governments since the revolution. Apparently it's still quite unstable. Understandable.

Bahrain: 's Shiite groups say they're ready to negotiate, so that's what's going down.

Take two! Rolling...

Egypt: Remember them? They recently ousted the prime minister that Mubarak appointed, slowly whittling down the old regime piece by piece. Next target: dissolving the entire National Democratic Party and the State Security Agency.

Wisconsin: Okay, not technically in the Middle East. Mid-West, maybe. Still--did you know they've been protesting in the state building in support of their unions' bargaining rights for like, over a week?? It's been intense! Bring it home, Dairyland!

Libyupdate: Yup, Still Insane.

The last few weeks have confirmed a couple things about Libya.

look at that sign. That's an awesome sign.

1) It's become a bad, bad place to be. Rarely was Tripoli a cushy vacation destination before, but this is just ridiculous:

-the air bombing continues, this time in Brega, an oil outpost. Just to clarify and reiterate: Gaddafi is using the air force to bomb his own country.

-Reports are coming in that Gaddafi's forces have been tying up and burning soldiers that refuse to fight, and burying them in the streets and barracks where they fall. They've also been shooting from ambulances, and killing wounded protesters in hospitals.

-it's becoming increasingly dangerous for Sub-Saharan Africans working in Libya--they're being targeted for violence because they're assumed to be mercenaries hired by the regime. Whether or not they actually are is up for debate, but pre-revolt, sub-Saharan Africans were the majority of over a million foreign nationals in Libya: they certainly can't all be working for the nutbar in the mumu.

-being reasonable people, thousands of Libyans and expats alike are looking around at their situation and deciding to get the hell out of Libya. As a result, the Tunisian and Egyptian borders are overrun with desperate refugees, threatening to rival Tripoli as a humanitarian hypercrisis. Aid staff is trying, and airlifts are happening, but it's understandably quite difficult and really tense.


2) Gaddafi is effin' certifiable. He's orders of magnitude more disconnected from reality than Hosni Mubarak was. The man isn't even in the solar system anymore; he's like an interstellar machine that pumps out human rights atrocities and really ridiculous outfits. I recently learned he wants to abolish Switzerland. What. And it doesn't appear that he's going anywhere.

Yesterday, the world spent a lot of diplomatic face time asking "WTF do we do about Libya?".
It sort of went down like this:

UN Security Council: So Gaddafi's nuts enough to bomb his own capital and endanger the security of a whole hell of a lot of oil interests.... I dunno, let's sanction him and his goons, freeze his assets? Any arguments? Didn't think so. (gavel!)
UN Human Rights Council: Yeah, sack that crazy man. Suspend him from the council. Wtf is he doing on here anyway? Ugh. I need to go wash my hands.
International Criminal Court: Send him to us. I don't care if he hasn't stepped down yet, you heard me.
President Sarkozy of France: Oui, he needs to GTFO.
Basically Every Other EU Leader: What he said.
Prime Minister David Cameron, UK: Yeah, get out--or we'll send in the army! Or we won't. Maybe.
The Arab League: Waitasecond there...
NATO: Guys, this is pretty intense...should I launch a no-fly zone?
Everyone: (foot shuffling) Ummmm.....
(scene.)


In addition, everyone outside of Libya is scrambling to send frigates, planes and warships to rescue their expats from the crazy so they can drill another day.

To lighten the mood, boingboing posted a fantastic video of the UK's Charlie Brooker sending a verbal lashing to Gaddafi. Extra points to the included fashion montage.

And as a last note on Nelly Furtado: big up on you for donating the million dollars Gaddafi paid you for a 45 minute concert in 2007. In honour of your press-worthy save-face, I'll still do my wondering about why 41 years of brutal absurdist military dictatorship and human rights abuses were okay for a pop star to profiteer off before it was really in the news--but I'll do it quietly.