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Over 200 people, Africans fleeing Libya by boat, drowned on Wednesday before reaching safety in Italy. It is just one of many tragedies resulting from North Africa’s refugee crisis, one of the world’s worst, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. Many of the refugees who were fleeing Libya in fact came from Somalia, Eritrea and Ivory Coast.

Ai Weiwei was being monitored around the clock by the secret police when **Time Out Hong Kong** gained access to his Beijing studio to discuss the ‘Jasmine Revolution’. This must be the last interview before his disappearance. Although Mr Ai has had numerous run-ins with China’s state security apparatus he has never been formally detained or disappeared in this way before.

The South African government demanded that outgoing Cote d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, recognized by the UN as the winner of the November elections.

South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane asked Gbagbo to step down for peace in Cote d’Ivoire, said South African Journal Business Report.

Intentional or not, as there are no documents to support this hypothesis, the attack on Libya has served as a diversion to hamper a possible “second wave” of popular revolts in the Arab world. These are the thoughts of the political analyst Immanuel Wallerstein in Znet, published on 2 April by Rebelión and we circulate it because it is a different – and possible – view.

A climate of tensions and charges of fraud increase today in Haiti after the release Monday of the preliminary results in the elections that gave victory to singer Michel Martelly.

The PEC announced that the representative of Peasant Answer Party achieved 67.57 % of the valid votes against 31.74 for Miriande Marigat of Regrouping of the National Progressive Democratic Party.

The former Landsbankinn in Iceland that went bankrupt in the big financial crash in Iceland in October 2008 offered its British customers sky high interests, way above any that of any other bank. The question at stake in the referendum is whether or not Icelandic taxpayers should compensate those who put their money in the Icesave account now that Landsbankinn is bankrupt.

During the March 26th demonstration in London a group of nonviolent protesters from UK Uncut occupied the Fortnum and Mason luxury store in Piccadilly to bring attention to it’s owners tax avoidance strategies. In spite of their not causing any damage the protesters were arrested after being promised by the police they would not be if they agreed to leave peacefully.

The White House-massaged media spin portrays President Barack Obama’s decision to go to war in Libya as a triumph for a triumvirate of liberals — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Obama adviser Samantha Power — who have well-established records of advocating the use of U.S. military force for “humanitarian” purposes.

Below is a letter from Anne, an English teacher living in Japan for the last 10 years. Having survived the Earthquake she writes about the very human response to the tragedy that is afflicting the people in this part of Japan in stark contrast to the scenes of looting and violence that seem to accompany other natural disasters around the world.

The likelihood of DU use in Libya has now increased following the deployment and use of A-10 and Harrier AV-8B aircraft. ICBUW calls for pressure to be brought on the US to clarify the situation, and to put DU ammunition beyond use.