Saturday, February 19, 2011
The invisible food c
The invisible food crisis: Food prices are going up everywhere. Will they start rising in America, too? - By Annie Lowrey - Slate Magazine
The next time you are in your local grocery store, look for signs of dramatic inflation. You won't find any. In all likelihood, your bananas and breakfast cereal and milk are about the same price as they were a year ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of a basket of common foods increased only about 1.5 percent in 2010, after declining 0.5 percent in 2009.Perform the same exercise in an Egyptian or Bangladeshi market, and you would get a different picture. In the past few months, skyrocketing food prices have raised concern among economists and anti-hunger advocates—and rising food costs have even helped foment revolutions. This week, the World Bank reported that food prices increased 15 percent from October to January and have climbed 30 percent in the past year. Currently, the bank's price index sits just 3 percent below its 2008 record. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization keeps a separate index of food costs—and it blew past the all-time record last month. Wheat prices have doubled since last summer. The price of corn has risen about 75 percent since June. Prices for sugar and cooking oils have also jumped. The consequences are potentially devastating. The World Bank says that spiraling food costs have driven 44 million people into extreme poverty since June 2010.
What is causing such a drastic spike? And will it ever reach America?
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The price spike is explained through a number of dynamics. First, farmers have diverted more resources to growing crops for biofuels, such as ethanol made from corn and biodiesel made from palm oil. Currently, the United States diverts millions of bushels of corn to fuel-production—whereas it diverted virtually no corn to the process 10 years ago. Writing in the Washington Post, Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger says that biofuels now eat up 6.5 percent of the world's grain supply and 8 percent of its vegetable oil. Such competition for crops pushes prices up.
Second, the simple laws of supply and demand are in play as well. In developing nations, more people are buying more food. Moreover, they are purchasing more meat, which requires not just the cow or pig, but the grain to feed it. And as demand for food has increased, there have been supply shocks. A few key producers of food, such as Russia and Australia, have suffered brutal droughts or floods. And because nations now tend to hold smaller stockpiles of grains and other staples—partially due to changing World Trade Organization rules—the food supply chain is now more sensitive to such supply shocks.
Finally, there are less direct market forces. Commodity speculation—traders making bets on the direction of commodity prices—can drive up the price of crops and fuel, a major component of food costs. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, has printed trillions of new dollars in the last two years—lowering interest rates in the United States and increasing the amount of money available for investment. Those dollars might be seeking returns in emerging markets, driving up inflation there. (Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said earlier this month that the price spike could be better explained by the faster pace of economic growth in emerging economies—the so-called "two-speed recovery.")
One way or another, it's clear the food price bubble has reached crisis levels. But why hasn't it reached America? For one, Americans and residents of other industrialized nations consume higher proportions of processed foods—Doritos, hot dogs, and the like. A large part of the price of these foods comes from labor, packaging, and marketing, making them less sensitive to changes in food costs. They're less food than food-based products. Economist Mark Perry produced a chart that helps demonstrate the phenomenon. Food prices for raw goods (like wheat) fluctuate wildly, while prices for processed goods (like breakfast cereal) are far less volatile. Additionally, the lagging U.S. recovery has caused a slump in demand for consumer goods. Americans have not been buying much of anything for a few years now—whether restaurant food or cotton t-shirts. That has forced retailers to keep prices low across the board.
All that said, the honeymoon might soon be over. Indeed, some U.S. companies have started warning that they will need to increase prices due to rising commodity costs. For instance, cereal maker Kellogg says it has bumped up prices, and expects the price tag on a box of Wheaties to keep increasing this year. And a BLS report today shows signs of inflation in food and energy costs. In January, the core inflation index—which excludes more volatile food and energy prices—increased only 0.4 percent. But prices for fuel, a major contributor to food prices, spiked, with gas climbing 3.5 percent after a 6.7 percent rise in December. And the cost of food itself rose a sharp 0.5 percent. So don't expect low prices at your grocery store forever.
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Annie Lowrey reports on economics and business for Slate. Previously, she worked as a staff writer for the Washington Independent and on the editorial staffs of Foreign Policy and The New Yorker. Her e-mail is ")annie.lowrey@slate.com');.Photograph by Ciaran Griffin/Thinkstock.
Oil Flows, but High
Oil Flows, but High Prices Jangle Nerves
While Egypt and Tunisia have little oil, Libya is one of Africa’s largest holders of crude oil reserves, Algeria and Iran are major suppliers and Bahrain and Yemen both border Saudi Arabia on the peninsula that produces most of the world’s oil. Together, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain and Iran represent about 10 percent of global oil production.
Oil markets are famously skittish, especially when there is even the possibility of disruptions in the Middle East and North Africa, which account for some 35 percent of the world’s oil production and a greater percentage of the world’s known reserves.
That nervousness is likely to spread elsewhere, with so many economies still fragile in the wake of the worldwide economic downturn and with the possibility that higher crude prices could lead to further increases in food prices. The high cost of food has already led to unrest in several countries, even before political revolts began in the Middle East.
The increased price of energy is a “burden that can be a detriment to the global economic recovery,” said Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency.
Brent is a global benchmark crude oil that is produced in the North Sea and traded in London. It is typically the benchmark that is used to set the price for most of the oil from the Middle East. Another benchmark crude, West Texas Intermediate, closed at $86.20 a barrel on Friday. Each benchmark has an impact on gasoline prices in the United States, with the East Coast more affected by the Brent prices than other regions.
The reserves in the Middle East and North Africa (known as the MENA countries), while long important, have grown even more critical as demand for oil increases. Prices have risen about 30 percent since September, reaching their highest level since September 2008.
Those who track oil prices are especially worried about the renewed turmoil in Iran and the possibility of unrest spreading from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, which could have a major impact on oil’s price and its availability.
Richard H. Jones, the energy agency’s deputy executive director and a former American diplomat in the Middle East, said that about 17 million barrels of oil passed through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz every day. “So if that shuts down, we’re in big trouble,” he said.
But so far, Mr. Jones said, the effects of the regional turmoil have been small. Egyptian production and transportation of natural gas have continued despite an explosion at a pipeline in the Sinai as the demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak were under way. (An Egyptian investigator said four gunmen bombed the pipeline.) Although there have been labor protests among workers at the Suez Canal, so far analysts have said there is no danger of the vital waterway being affected by the country’s political upheaval.
The unrest in Libya, while serious, has not disrupted its production of oil. Mr. Jones and Didier Houssin, who runs the directorate for energy markets and security at the International Energy Agency, said that Libya was not a major producer, selling “only a little over one million barrels a day” and representing about 2 percent of world production. If there were to be a disruption of supplies from Libya, “We can cope,” Mr. Jones said.
Still, a Deutsche Bank commodities analyst, Soozhana Choi, said, “As antigovernment protests have spread from Tunisia and Egypt to the streets of Bahrain, Yemen and OPEC member countries Algeria, Libya and Iran, concerns about geopolitical risk and the potential for supply disruptions have returned aggressively” to the oil market.
The International Energy Agency monitors strategic oil reserves that total about 1.6 billion barrels, Mr. Tanaka said. The agency has sometimes released reserves to smooth out global oil prices, including in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The agency’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, said that with Brent crude over $100 a barrel, “we are entering a danger zone,” he said, with oil prices “creating inflationary pressures and risk for economic recovery.”
For now, although oil stocks are declining with increased consumption, “there is still plenty of spare production capacity, especially in OPEC countries,” Mr. Tanaka said.
Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank, speaking on Saturday at a Group of 20 meeting, said that the Saudis in particular had indicated that they had significant spare capacity, which may help to keep markets calm.
But over the past two years, Mr. Zoellick said, “There is a much closer connection between food and energy prices.” Part of the reason is biofuels, he said, but oil is also vital for fertilizers, transportation and agricultural equipment, especially in the developing world, where demand is increasing.
While the world is moving toward more renewable energy sources and re-examining nuclear power, it will be dependent on fossil fuels for years to come, Mr. Birol said. For the future, “90 percent of growth in oil production will have to be met by MENA countries,” he said. “If not, we’re in trouble.”
Jad Mouawad contributed reporting from New York and Clifford Krauss from Houston.
Canada issues strong
Canada issues strong travel warnings over Middle East unrest
Civil unrest and the potential for terror attacks in Bahrain and Libya has led the Canadian government to warn against all non-essential travel to those countries.
In Bahrain, riot police retreated from the main centre of protest in Manama — Pearl Square — which paved the way for thousands of antigovernment protesters to streamed back into their former stronghold.
The crowds had approached Pearl Square from different directions and stood facing riot police for half an hour. All of a sudden police ran to their buses and retreated.
The protesters, cheering and waving flags, ran to the centre of the traffic circle, reoccupying it even before all the police had left. The crowd waved the fleeing policemen through. Police vehicles drove over pavements in their haste to get out.
"We don’t fear death any more, let the army come and kill us to show the world what kind of savages they are," said Umm Mohammed, a teacher wearing a black abaya cloak.
Troops in tanks and armoured vehicles earlier withdrew from the square, which they had taken over on Thursday after riot police attacked protesters who had camped out there, killing four people and wounding 231.
In Libya on Saturday, mourners were burying some of the dozens of protesters who were shot and killed by security personnel during violent unrest in that nation.
Human Rights Watch said 35 people were killed in Benghazi late on Friday, adding to dozens who had already died in a fierce crackdown on three days of protests inspired by uprisings in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia. The New York-based group said it now estimates 84 people have been killed over three days of demonstrations.
Friday’s deaths happened when security forces opened fire on people protesting after funeral processions for victims of earlier violence, the group said.
The government, led by Muammar Gaddafi, has not released any casualty figures, nor made any official comment on the violence.
In Algeria, police in riot gear surrounded hundreds of protesters trying to stage a march through the capital inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arab world.
Unrest in Algeria could have implications for the world economy since it is a major oil and gas exporter, but analysts say an Egypt-style revolt is unlikely because the government can use its energy wealth to calm most grievances.
The protest was organized by human rights groups, some trade unionists and a small opposition party. Algeria’s main opposition forces, however, were not taking part.
Canadian traveller in Algeria are advised by the government to “exercise a high degree of caution” due to the demonstrations.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also has a warning in place for Canadians to avoid all travel to Yemen. The risks “due to terrorism, tribal violence and clashes between government forces and rebel groups” have made it hazardous for foreigners in that country, the federal department said.
With files from Reuters
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Cycle of Suppression
As Army Pulls Back,
Thousands Protest in
Wisconsin Protest :
China cracks down on
China cracks down on call for 'jasmine revolution' | News.com.au
CHINESE authorities cracked down on activists as a call circulated for people to gather in more than a dozen cities on Sunday for a "Jasmine Revolution".
The source of the call was not known, but authorities moved to halt its spread online. Searches for the word "jasmine" were blocked on Saturday on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and the website where the request first appeared said it was hit by an attack.
Activists seemed not to know what to make of the call to protest, even as they passed it on. They said they were unaware of any known group being involved in the request for citizens to gather in 13 cities and shout "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness".
Wisconsin Protest : NPR
Host Michele Norris speaks with our political commentators — E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and Linda Chavez, a syndicated columnist and chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity — about the ongoing protests surrounding planned budget cuts in Wisconsin.
Protest against Ivor
Libyan protesters ri
Libyan protesters risk 'suicide' by army hands | World news | guardian.co.uk
Gaddafi has warned anti-government demonstrators they risk being shot by the army. Photograph: Sabri Elmhedwi/EPA
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is confronting the most serious challenge to his 42-year rule as leader of Libya by unleashing his army on unarmed protesters.
Unlike the rulers of neighbouring Egypt, Gaddafi has refused to countenance the politics of disobedience, despite growing international condemnation, and the death toll of demonstrators nearing 100.
The pro-government Al-Zahf al-Akhdar newspaper warned that the government would "violently and thunderously respond" to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked "suicide".
William Hague, the UK's foreign secretary, condemned the violence as "unacceptable and horrifying", even as the Libyan regime's special forces, backed by African mercenaries, launched a dawn attack on a protest camp in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Britain is scrambling to extricate itself from its recently cosy relationship with Gaddafi, initiated by then prime minister Tony Blair in 2004. That rapprochement saw Libya open its doors to British oil companies in exchange for becoming a new ally in the "war on terror" while Britain sold Gaddafi arms.
Protest against Ivory Coast's President Two protesters died
At least two peoples were died and several others were injured in Ivory Coast after opened fire on an anti-government crowd.
Hundered of protesters gathered in neighbourhood of Abobo and start protest against President Laurent Gbagbo. They demanded to step down of president Gbagbo. Security forces tried to dispersed them and used tear gas and live builits, which cause the death of two protesters.
BBC News – Senegal
BBC News - Senegal soldier dies after setting himself on fire
A former soldier has died in Senegal after setting himself on fire outside the official residence of the president on Friday.
Bocar Bocoum apparently carried out the act as part of demands for compensation for military injuries.
The 36-year-old was taken to Senegal's military hospital, which is close to the presidency.
Local media report that he was part of a group of army veterans who staged a protest in the capital, Dakar.
In Libyan Protests,
In Libyan Protests, Both Sides Escalate Violence - Max Fisher - International - The Atlantic
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« Previous International In Libyan Protests, Both Sides Escalate Violence
Feb 19 2011, 4:54 PM ET By Max Fisher
As protesters across the region follow the Egyptian and Tunisian model of nonviolent occupation, Libya inches down a darker path
Late on Saturday, minutes after Libyan protesters seized the internal security headquarters in Benghazi, the country's second largest city and a focal point of anti-government demonstrations, Al Jazeera English broadcast a live telephone call between its anchor and a man in Benghazi. Security forces in the building, besieged by protesters furious over the crackdown that had killed 84 people in only three days, had taken to firing live rounds into the crowd. The Al Jazeera host asked if protesters planned to kill any government men they found in the building. The man on the phone, a doctor, replied without pause, "Yes, of course."By the time that Libya's sixth day of protests came to a close on Saturday, parts of eastern Libya, where the government has less control and where Benghazi is located, had disintegrated into some of the fiercest and most savage fighting since popular Arab demonstrations began in Tunisia nearly two months ago. Fragmentary reports paint an incomplete but disturbing picture of open and bloody battle between protesters and security forces, which are aided by foreign fighters believed to be mercenaries from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Because of the country's severe media restrictions, information out of Libya is extremely difficult to verify. Protesters send reports to Libyan exile groups or to open-source organizers such as Shabab Libya, which then filter through to social or traditional media. On Saturday, Switzerland-based exile groups told Reuters that protesters had completely seized Bayda, also located in the east. In the broken, urgent English common to such dispatches, Shabab Libya reported on Twitter, "Now breaking from #bayda they fought and beat the mercenaries and hanged them in the valleys surrounding bayda. now %100 secure." Reuters later added that government forces were attempting to retake the town.
Even by the mildest and most reliable accounts out of Libya, the uprising there has been far more violent than any of those across North Africa and the Middle East. Other such demonstrations have emphasized nonviolent occupation, with protesters seizing a central location such as Cairo's Tahrir Square and holding it against government attempts to disperse them. Libyan protesters began as the others, gathering peacefully in city centers. But over the past week, perhaps in response to the brutal and often fatal government response, the demonstrators have gone from enduring the crackdown to actively fighting back. Matching aggression with aggression, and likely fearing for their lives if they fail, the enraged protesters of Benghazi and elsewhere are attacking security forces and buildings.
For now, it's impossible to know for sure whether protesters really did secure Libya's third-largest city, whether the lush Mediterranean hills outside the city are punctuated with the hanging bodies of security forces, or whether government militias launched a counter-assault that may still be ongoing. But such claims are in line with a pattern of jarringly violent reports out of Libya. Security forces opened fire on a funeral procession in Benghazi, Al Jazeera reports, killing at least 15 mourners. According to BBC News, army snipers are firing indiscriminately at protesters. Libyan social media outlets, which have been several hours ahead of traditional media but may be prone to exaggeration, carry several shocking reports: that protesters have set fire to government buildings in the western city of Yifran, that security forces are raining mortars on civilians in Benghazi, that children are among the dead.
Libyan autocrat Muammar al-Qaddafi, despite recent gestures toward liberalization, still exercises a firmer hand and greater willingness to kill his own people than either of his now-deposed neighbors, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. As Qaddafi cracks down, the protesters in Libya's east appear willing to escalate in turn. There is no telling whether the ongoing fighting will be more or less likely to topple the regime than were the mass sit-ins of Egypt and Tunisia, or whether the protesters, as they become more isolated and violent, will coalesce into just another opposition militia in a part of the world that already has plenty. In a worst-case scenario, eastern Libya moves not toward peaceful regime change but low-level civil war. The nonviolent demonstrations elsewhere in the Arab world have produced many heroes and martyrs, but war has no innocents.
Image: Still from a YouTube video purporting to show protests -- and the killing of a protester by security forces -- in Benghazi on Saturday
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Deaths as Ivory Coas
Phone Cameras Credit
Phone Cameras Credited With Helping the World See Protests in Middle East
By uploading images of this week’s violence in Manama, the capital, to Web sites like YouTube and yFrog, and then sharing them on Facebook and Twitter, the protesters upstaged government accounts and drew worldwide attention to their demands.
A novelty less than a decade ago, the cellphone camera has become a vital tool to document the government response to the unrest that has spread through the Middle East and North Africa.
Recognizing the power of such documentation, human rights groups have published guides and provided training on how to use cellphone cameras effectively.
“You finally have a video technology that can fit into the palm of one person’s hand, and what the person can capture can end up around the world,” said James E. Katz, director of the Rutgers Center for Mobile Communication Studies. “This is the dagger at the throat of the creaky old regimes that, through the manipulation of these old centralized technologies, have been able to smother the public’s voice.”
In Tunisia, cellphones were used to capture video images of the first protests in Sidi Bouzid in December, which helped spread unrest to other parts of the country. The uploaded images also prompted producers at Al Jazeera, the satellite television network, to begin focusing on the revolt, which toppled the Tunisian government in mid-January and set the stage for the demonstrations in Egypt.
While built-in cameras have been commercially available in cellphones since the late 1990s, it was not until the tsunami that struck southeast Asia on Dec. 26, 2004, and the London subway bombings the following July that news organizations began to take serious note of the outpouring of images and videos created and posted by nonprofessionals. Memorably, in June 2009, cellphone videos of the shooting death of a young woman in Tehran known as Nedawere uploaded on YouTube, galvanizing the Iranian opposition and rocketing around the world.
Now, news organizations regularly seek out, sift and publish such images. Authenticating them remains a challenge, since photos can be easily altered by computers and old videos can resurface again, purporting to be new. YouTube is using Storyful, a news aggregation site, to help manage the tens of thousands of videos that have been uploaded from the Middle East in recent weeks and to highlight notable ones on the CitizenTube channel.
But journalists are not the only conduits. Cellphone images are increasingly being shared between users on mobile networks and social networking sites, and they are being broadly consumed on Web sites that aggregate video and images.
The hosting Web sites have reported increases both in submissions from the Middle East and in visitors viewing the content.
Among the sites, Bambuser has stood out as a way to stream video. Mans Adler, the site’s co-founder, said it had 15,000 registered users in Egypt, most of whom signed up just before last November’s election. He said there were more than 10,000 videos on the site that were produced around the time of the election, focusing on activity at the polls, in what appeared to be an organized effort.
Afterward, the level of activity settled down to 800 to 2,000 videos a day, but then soared back to 10,000 a day again when the mass protests erupted in Egypt last month, he said.
In Bahrain, the government has blocked access to Bambuser.
At training sessions to help activists use their cameras, Bassem Samir, the executive director of the Egyptian Democratic Academy, said that improving the quality of the images and video was a high priority.
“Videos are stories,” said Mr. Samir. “What happened on the 25th and 28th of January, it’s a story. It’s like a story of people who were asking for freedom and democracy, and we had, like, five or three minutes to tell it.”
Robert Mackey contributed reporting.
Deaths as Ivory Coast forces open fire on protesters (BBC News)
19 February 2011 Last updated at 15:05 ETDeaths as Ivory Coast forces open fire on protesters
The neighbourhood of Abobo has witnessed several recent clashes between protesters and troops
At least two people have died after Ivorian forces opened fire on protesters demanding President Laurent Gbagbo step down, witnesses said.
Several others were injured in the confrontation, which took place in a neighbourhood loyal to Mr Gbagbo's rival, Alassane Ouattara, in Abidjan.
Mr Ouattara is widely recognised as the victor of presidential polls last year, but Mr Gbagbo refuses to cede power.
Tensions have been high in the West African nation since the elections.
Hundreds of youths gathered in the neighbourhood of Abobo before security forces opened fire and used tear gas in an effort to disperse them.
A resident told AFP news agency that forces had "fired into the crowd leaving people running for cover, but they chased them".
'Store raided'Another resident, 30-year-old Tieba Doumbia, said a tear gas grenade had also landed in a local market, forcing dozens of women to flee.
One of those killed was a woman who was hit by a stray bullet, witnesses and an official told Reuters news agency.
Protesters also raided the department store of a Lebanese businessmen who is seen as close to Mr Gbagbo.
The neighbourhood of Abobo has often been the scene of violent clashes between security forces and civilians.
At least 300 people have been killed in violence since the polls, mostly supporters of Mr Ouattara killed by pro-Gbagbo forces, the United Nations says.
November's presidential vote was supposed to reunify the world's largest cocoa producer, which has been divided between north and south since a conflict in 2002.
Unrest spreads across Arab world - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Unrest spreads across Arab world
Posted 22 minutes ago
Jubilant Bahrainis have reoccupied Pearl Square. (AFP : Joseph Eid )
Anti-government protests have once again flared across the Middle East in a wave of unrest that threatens to destabilise the entire region.
As calls for regime change grow louder across Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Djibouti, some leaders are calling for dialogue, while others have ordered brutal crackdowns.
In Libya, human rights groups say more than 80 people have been killed, with the army reportedly using snipers to break up the protests.
There are reports that one protester was shot and killed in Yemen, while riot police in Algeria have dispersed a crowd of hundreds with batons.
Thousands of jubilant Bahrainis have reoccupied a symbolic central square in the capital - the focal point of bloody anti-regime demonstrations - after earlier being beaten back by at least 100 riot police.
Crowds had approached Pearl Square in Manama from different directions, creating a standoff with riot police, before security forces withdrew in an apparently conciliatory move on orders from the crown prince.
Police were seen racing to their buses, which drove away mounting kerbs in their haste to escape.
"We don't fear death anymore, let the army come and kill us to show the world what kind of savages they are," said Umm Mohammed, a teacher wearing a black abaya cloak.
Troops and armoured vehicles had occupied the square since Thursday after riot police staged a night-time attack on sleeping protesters who had camped out there, killing four people and wounding 231.
Following the withdrawal, crowds in Pearl Square swelled into the tens of thousands, to celebrate what is being hailed as a triumph for the mostly Shiite protesters who took to the streets on Monday, inspired by popular revolts that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
Bahrain's 70 per cent Shiite majority has long felt discriminated against in the Gulf Arab state that is ruled by a Sunni Muslim dynasty and is a close US and Saudi ally.
Shiites feel cut out of decision-making and complain of unfair treatment in access to state jobs and housing.
Libyan crackdown
Meanwhile, security forces in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed at least three people on Saturday but have withdrawn to a fortified compound, a witness said, after the worst unrest in embattled leader's Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power.
Human Rights Watch said 84 people have been killed over the past three days in a fierce security crackdown mounted in response to anti-government protests that sought to emulate uprisings in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia.
A resident in Benghazi said security forces had killed dozens of protesters over the past 72 hours but were confined to a compound, which he called the Command Centre, from which snipers were firing at protesters.
"They shot dead three protesters from that building today," said the witness, who did not want to be identified.
"Right now, the only military presence in Benghazi is confined to the Command Centre complex in the city. The rest of the city is liberated.
"Thousands and thousands of people have gathered in front of Benghazi's court house. There are now makeshift clinics, ambulances, speakers, electricity. It's fully-equipped.
"There is no shortage of food although not all stores are open. Banks are shut. All of the revolutionary committee (local government) offices and police stations in the city have been burned."
The account could not be independently verified and foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter Libya since the unrest began. Local reporters have also been barred from travelling to Benghazi and mobile phone connections have been frequently cut.
A security source earlier gave a different account, saying the situation in the Benghazi region was "80 per cent under control".
The private Quryna newspaper, which is based in Benghazi and has been linked to one of Mr Gaddafi's sons, said security forces had opened fire to stop protesters attacking the police headquarters and a military base where weapons were stored.
"The guards were forced to use bullets," the paper said.
The government has not released any casualty figures or made any official comment on the violence.
In other parts of the region similar demonstrations have flared.
In Iraq 10 protesters were injured in clashes with Kurdish security forces in the latest violent rally, calling for officials to combat graft and improve basic services, after protests earlier in the week left two dead.
Authorities in Djibouti have detained three top opposition leaders the day after a rally to demand regime change erupted into violence that left two dead.
While in Kuwait, riot police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of stateless Arabs who demonstrated for a second day demanding basic rights and citizenship.
- Reuters
Tags: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, algeria, bahrain, djibouti, iraq, kuwait, libya, tunisia, yemen
Reports That 200 Dem
Reports That 200 Demonstrators Killed In Libya
BREAKING: reports up to 200 demonstrators killed by snipers after attack in Benghazi #Libya
84 people killed in
Saudi Shi’ites hol
Saudi Shi'ites hold small eastern province protest | News by Country | Reuters
RIYADH, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Saudi Shi'ites have held a small protest in the kingdom's oil-producing eastern province, close to Gulf Arab neighbour Bahrain where unrest has cost six lives, local Shi'ite sources said on Saturday.
They said a group of Shi'ites staged a protest on Thursday in the town of Awwamiya, near the Saudi Shi'ite centre of Qatif on the Gulf coast, to demand the release of fellow Shi'ites held in prison without trial.
Top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia fears that unrest in Bahrain, where majority Shi'ites are protesting against the Sunni government, might spread to its Shi'ite minority who mostly live in the eastern province, the source of Saudi oil wealth.
84 people killed in protests in Libya
TUNIS, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The security forces in Libya have killed at least 84 people during clashes with demonstrators over the past three days, Tunisian official agency TAP reported on Saturday, citing eye witnesses and medical sources.
Protests broke out in several Libyan cities, particularly in the second largest city of Benghazi, where demonstrators called for political and economic reforms in the country ruled by Muammar Gaddafi for more than 40 years.