18 December 2013 Last updated at 08:00 GMT
Ziad Hashem says he was targeted after Abdel Hakim Belhaj was rendered to Libya in MI6/CIA operation
Egyptian Aliaa Elmahdy became an icon of the Arab Spring after she posted a nude photo of herself online. Then she fled to Sweden after receiving death threats from Islamist extremists. What and whom did her statement serve?
For the last two years, 22-year-old Egyptian Aliaa Magda al-Elmahdy has been a hunted woman because she used the delayed-action shutter release of her digital camera to take a photo of herself, which she then posted online. She is only wearing stockings and shoes in the photo.
South Sudan clashes 'kill 400-500' after coup claim
Hundreds of people are believed to have died in clashes between rival South Sudan army factions, the UN says, quoting unconfirmed reports.
UN diplomats said they had been told by sources in the capital, Juba, that the death toll was between 400 and 500.
South Sudan has seen two days of clashes following a reported coup attempt against President Salva Kiir.
Fugitive opposition leader Riek Machar has denied government accusations that he tried to seize power.
"What took place in Juba was a misunderstanding between presidential guards within their division, it was not a coup attempt," he told the Sudan Tribune, a Paris-based news website, in an interview published on Wednesday.
Gaddafi opponent says tortured dissident gave secret police his name
Ziad Hashem says he was targeted after Abdel Hakim Belhaj was rendered to Libya in MI6/CIA operation
A prominent opponent of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, has said that he was jailed, and later subjected to a strict control order, on the basis of information extracted from a leading dissident who was tortured after being seized in an MI6 operation.
Ziad Hashem, a Libyan granted asylum in 2004, was arrested and jailed for 18 months without trial after Libyan secret police were given his name and those of other Gaddafi opponents living in Britain.
Hashem and other Libyan dissidents were named by Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was secretly rendered in 2004 to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in a joint MI6/CIA operation, Belhaj tells al-Jazeera TV's People & Power programme to be broadcast on Wednesday.
Ukrainian president faces call to resign over bailout from Russia
Opposition and protesters say deal sold country out to former Soviet masters
Ukraine’s president faced calls to resign today over a $15-billion (€11 billion) bailout from Russia which the opposition and protesters said had sold the country out to its former Soviet masters in Moscow.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Kiev yesterday after president Viktor Yanukovich secured financial assistance and a gas price discount at talks with president Vladimir Putin, and several hundred spent the night in the freezing cold.
Russia said it will buy Ukrainian bonds under a deal which keeps Kiev firmly in Moscow’s orbit and out of the European Union’s grasp but sowed doubts in some Ukrainians’ minds about what Mr Yanukovich might have agreed to in secret.
From Icon to Exile: The Price of a Nude Photo in Egypt
Egyptian Aliaa Elmahdy became an icon of the Arab Spring after she posted a nude photo of herself online. Then she fled to Sweden after receiving death threats from Islamist extremists. What and whom did her statement serve?
When this story is published, Aliaa Elmahdy will have wiped away the traces of her former life and will be living in a location unknown to us. She will continue to flee and fear the day when one of the men from her native Egypt tracks her down and stands in front of her to take her back.
The image made Elmahdy an icon of the Arab Spring. Millions of people saw the photo in the first few days after it was released. Even at the time, it wasn't clear whether viewers were interested in the message or her naked skin, but nevertheless, Elmahdy was a star for a few weeks. She gave an interview to CNN, but then she received death threats, forcing her to flee from her country and go into hiding.
China's Smogageddon
December 18, 2013 - 6:40PMGal Luft
As temperatures drop in the Chinese mainland, schoolchildren there have become acquainted with their own version of a snow day: The smog day, which occurs when schools and workplaces shut down due to hazardous levels of pollution and heavy haze.
But you can't make smog angels. Indeed, citizen discontent at China's off-the-charts environmental degradation is quickly growing into a potential menace to the ruling Communist regime. Issues like unmet demand for political rights are no longer the party's only existential threat.
In one symptom of China's growing environmental menace, city-wide shutdowns are becoming the new normal.
In January, a thick blanket of soot descended on Beijing, bringing life to a near halt. In October, the level of pollution in Harbin, a city of 10 million in northeast China, exceeded the level acceptable to the World Health Organization by a factor of 40; schools, roads and airports were forced to close.
Mexico City's metro: the politics of a price increase
Fares on the long-subsidized Mexico City metro system jumped from 3 to 5 pesos this month, causing uproar among riders.
Book vendor Antonio Manriquez hauls some 50 titles in a small suitcase six days a week through the Mexico City metro. He used to pay 3 pesos (less than $0.25) for his 30-minute commute, but that ended last Friday, when the Mexico City government raised the one-way fare to 5 pesos.
The controversial price hike is an attempt to stem the metro system’s financial losses and improve services in a transportation option famed for crisscrossing one of the biggest cities in the world, but notorious for neglected infrastructure, pickpockets, and overcrowding.
“It was a drastic measure by the government,” Mr. Manriquez says outside a metro station near the Chapultepec Park, where his books – ranging from Nietzsche to Beatles song sheets – are spread out on the sidewalk.
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