Libya: Police return to the streets of Benghazi

Libya: Police return to the streets of Benghazi

A Benghazi security patrol is preparing to go out to work … Libyan cities under rebel control appear to be returning to normal life after months of siege and fighting. Public services are slowly starting to function once more. The police force in particular, which was asked by the National Transition Council last month to return to work, even though officers would not initially be paid.

This video has been uploaded onto the site Alive in Libya, and shows interviews with members of the Benghazi police force. Here, Lieutenant Ibrahim Elhawari explains the reasoning behind the patrols.
 
This video is focusing on the uniformed children who act as traffic police in the streets of Benghazi. These teenagers take their role very seriously. They belong to an organization which supports the Benghazi traffic police, and intervened three months ago to assist them. 

According to this officer, who was interviewed by a video blogger, there has been a fall in crime in Benghazi since the popular uprising. Security forces are currently concentrating their efforts on regaining people’s trust, and pretty successfully it would seem.

This web user has tweeted he was glad to have been stopped by police and did not mind them searching his bag.

Hacker group LulzSec says it is disbanding

The hacker group Lulzsec, whose symbol is a boat, posted a communiqué online on Saturday, announcing it was to disband. This decision comes less than one week after a suspected member of the hacker group was arrested in Great Britain.

The group has claimed responsibility for a number of impressive cyber-attacks in recent weeks. The latest being an attack on the Arizona police department website to protest against the immigration law in place in this US state.

The group drew attention to itself last month by hacking into Sony and Nintendo’s web sites and exposing their data.  It then went on to launch cyber-attacks on (amongst others) America’s Public Broadcasting service PBS, the US Senate and the CIA. The group says the attacks were just for fun.

But other groups do not appreciate the fact that Lulzsec is portraying hackers as ‘practical jokers’. And so some hackers have decided to help the FBI in finding members of the group. This blog published write ups from discussions between members of Lulzsec, as well as information on who they might be.

But before disbanding, the group formed an alliance with Anonymous, another hacker group. And on Twitter, Lulzsec in encouraging web users to continue carrying out cyber-attacks and against governmental sites worldwide in particular.

Swiss police post photos of stolen jewelry

Police in Geneva, Switzerland, have posted photos of over 7 kilos of stolen jewelry online, in a bid to return the pieces to their rightful owners. The loot was seized following the arrest of 9 people involved in a jewelry theft network.

The authorities say it’s likely the burglaries began in the Geneva region in 2009, and hopes this online scheme will help determine exactly where they were stolen from. 

“This Land”

A 16 day expedition, over 2 000 kilometers travelled, and an average temperature of -20 °C. This Land is a web documentary made by photographer Diane Whelan. In 2007, she accompanied a Canadian Army patrol to the extreme north of the country, to the Arctic. Here’s her travel journal, an interactive narrative, with audio accounts, photos and videos.

Video of the day

This photo has been circulated all over the web. Dubbed the « Vancouver Kiss », it was taken on the 15th of June during the riots which broke out after an ice hockey match. But a Canadian blogger has uploaded a video which sheds light on the circumstances surrounding this shot which was taken by Richard Lamb from photo agency Getty Images. The photo paints a romantic picture, but the images in the video are much more violent …