News stories by Mel Frykberg, page 5

TRIPOLI, Sep 12 (IPS) - The killing of U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens comes in the wake of a new threat of Islamic fundamentalism that has rocked Libya over the last few weeks.

TRIPOLI, Sep 02 (IPS) - In the aftermath of Libya’s revolution, Libyan fighters and weapons are flooding areas of conflict in neighbouring countries, according to local fighters and officials in several countries.

TRIPOLI, Aug 14 (IPS) - The security situation in Libya remains tense as violence by way of car bombings, political assassinations of high-ranking government and military officials, attacks on foreign diplomatic staff and NGOs, and young men sorting out minor disputes with AK-47s continues unabated.

TRIPOLI, Aug 08 (IPS) - Pregnant women miscarrying due to mistreatment, detainees mainly from sub-Saharan Africa denied adequate food and water. Small cells crammed with 80-100 detainees subjected to arbitrary justice by Libya’s volatile militias, politically persecuted Somalis forcibly repatriated to Mogadishu, and hundreds of boat people dying trying to flee Libya for a better life in Europe.

TRIPOLI, Jul 14 (IPS) - “The human rights situation in Libya now is far worse than under the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi,” Nasser al-Hawary, researcher with the Libyan Observatory for Human Rights tells IPS.

TRIPOLI, Jul 10 (IPS) - Libyans appear to be putting their hopes in Mahmoud Jibril’s liberal National Forces Alliance (NFA) to cement a coalition and build bridges between Libya’s fractious militias. Many believe the party can also unite other ideologically opposed political parties, and both opponents and supporters of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

If the life sentences for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and one of his key allies were meant to placate Egyptians, they have had the opposite effect.

'It was so frustrating but so exciting at the same time,' recalls 15-year-old Mariam Assam, a year-10 student in Cairo. Assam was recalling the days she tried to join protestors during the Egyptian revolution in January 2011 but was intially prevented by her parents who said street protests were no place for a girl to be.

Like the delayed after-effects of an earthquake below the ocean before the subsequent tsunami hits adjacent coastlines, Egyptian anger finally exploded this week after several days of stunned silence following the controversial results of Egypt’s first-round of presidential elections.