Libya: Misrata under siege

Libya: Misrata under siege

Misrata which is around 200 kilometers outside of Tripoli has been under siege from forces loyal to Gaddafi for several weeks now. These images were uploaded last week and are thought to show the intensive pillaging taking place in the city, which is the main rebel stronghold in the west of the country.

And opposition members are trying to describe the situation at the scene in various online documents. According to the site hosting this video, we see a vehicle targeted by pro-Gaddafi troops. One of the passengers is severely injured, and passersby come to his aid by using some rope to bring him to safety.

This footage, available to view on Facebook shows rebels celebrating after coalition forces bombed a pro-Gaddafi military convoy trying to enter Misrata.

Numerous civilians were injured in attacks. In this video, a surgeon explains that the city’s hospital is in the hands of government forces and doctors do not have what they need to tend to the wounded.

In view of this situation, a ship dispatched by Turkey carrying ambulances and medical supplies arrived in the port of Misrata on Saturday. The vessel then left taking hundreds of casualties with it, and numerous Turkish nationals were also evacuated by this ship.

Many foreigners have been caught up in the siege and cannot leave the city. In this video, people from Ghana, Nigeria and also Chad are asking for help and say they will do anything to leave the country.

German politician exposes personal data gathered by cell phone companies

The data collected and kept by mobile phone operators says a lot about their customers. This is what German politician and environmentalist Malte Spitz recently concluded after obtaining data his mobile provider was storing about him. Spitz decided to make this data available online to warn web users of the potential dangers this data collection could have on their private lives.

German Green Party member, Spitz, published online the data collected by his operator between August 2009 and February 2010. An impressive list as the provider had recorded his location on more than 35 000 occasions during this period.

Spitz handed this information over to the web site of German weekly Der Zeit, and they created this interactive map. We see everywhere he went with his telephone over a six month period, as well as other pieces of diverse information. We learn that on the 31st August 2009, the 26 year old received six calls and made 21, he wrote 29 text messages and also went to Enfurt.

The web site « Futurejournalismproject.org » has added to this impressive work and created this video which looks at just two days in the life of Malte Spitz, long enough to demonstrate that carrying a mobile phone means that all your comings and goings can be tracked and that this data could potentially threaten your private life.

American blogger John Rooney says these revelations show that owning a mobile phone means saying goodbye to your privacy because operators are generally obliged to hold on to their clients’ data and also have ways of locating you in the wink of an eye.

Cover your eyes

For the release of their first album, the French electro pop band, The Shoes, have launched an interactive video clip and web users need to own a web cam if they want to live the experience to the full. … The group wants fans to listen to their song with their eyes shut. So web users must cover up their eyes when they listen to the track, otherwise the music will stop and be replaced with very odd sounds and pictures. You can see what this project is all about on the site “Coveryoureyes.fr”.

The Skin project

“The Skin Project” is a participative novel project, launched in 2003 by American artist Shelley Jackson. She asked volunteers to each be tattooed with a word from a list of 2095, so as to assemble a story, called “Skins”, which exists only in flesh. And for an exhibition in California, Jackson asked 200 of the participants to film their tattoo, and say the word out loud. These 200 “pieces” were then edited to assemble a new story, as we can see in this video.

Video of the day

This video should be a hit with all thrill seekers. We see what members of the “Pyrénées Extrem Kayak” team got up to during a recent trip to Mexico. These kayak enthusiasts give a fantastic demonstration of their talents against a stunning backdrop of natural beauty.