Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil released from prison

Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil released from prison

With the first anniversary of the Egyptian uprising just around the corner, the country’s ruling generals have officially pardoned nearly 2,000 prisoners, including blogger Maikel Nabil who has been detained since April.

The 26 year old Coptic Christian was arrested after publishing a blog post detailing cases of the ongoing violence used by the military even after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. He was initially sentenced to three years in prison charged with “insulting” the army, and this was reduced to two years at his appeal hearing in December.

He protested his imprisonment by undertaking a hunger strike back in August which he ended on the 31st December. Campaigning for his release intensified throughout this period, amid serious fears for his health, which his family reports has severely deteriorated. Maikel Nabil has become a symbol of the fight against the ruling military which many accuse of hijacking the Egyptian revolution.

His brother Mark says pardoning Maikel is not enough, and is appealing to the army to release all the civilians who have tried before a military court.

Cyber activists have reported that at least 12,000 Egyptians have been brought before military tribunals since the fall of the former regime. In recent months these trials have fuelled protests in Tahrir Square, with activists calling for fresh rallies on Wednesday to mark the revolution’s first anniversary.

President Obama defends his record

The US president has often been on the receiving end of critical comments from his republican adversaries, and even more so since the start of the Republican primaries. Barack Obama has now decided it’s time to counter attack and he’s is making great use of the web to defend his first term at the White House.

The president’s campaign team has released this clip highlighting everything the Obama administration has accomplished in four years. It is being aired both on the television and online, and hails, amongst other things, Obama’s commitment to developing clean energy, and making the country more energy independent.

US Energy policy was just one of many issues addressed by the president during his first term. Well this is the message his supporters are being asked to convey to voters. And to help them do so, a series of fact files summing up the high points of Obama’s time as president, have been uploaded on to his official re-election campaign website, highlighting his work on combating the financial crisis, the war on terrorism, health reform, the list goes on … to illustrate everything the head of state has achieved over the past 4 years.

And so it would appear Barack Obama regards his first term as a positive one, and he’s also keen on reminding people that he is a president who keeps his promises. This other clip looks back over everything he undertook to do during his 2008 presidential campaign. The campaign ad claims he honoured all his promises, including reducing taxes for American families and ending the war in Iraq.

Facebook set to hit one billion users by August

According to a study carried out by web analyst Gregory Lyons, Facebook is set to hit one billion users by August. This staggering figure means the social networking website founded by Mark Zuckerberg is now leaving other sites far behind. Twitter for example has 100 million users and LinkedIn has 130 million.

Contemporary web sites recreated with technology of 1997

Here’s what Google+, YouTube and Facebook might have looked like in 1997. The team behind the “Once Upon” project are taking us back in time and recreating three of this millennium’s major websites with the technology and spirit of the beginnings of the Internet. So, on YouTube for example, videos take ages to load because the connection speed is limited to 8 kilobits per second.

Video of the day

A Brazilian pilot of an Airbus A320 set up a small camera in the cockpit to share with web users his unobstructed and stunning views of the cities and landscapes he flies over, as well as the actual landing itself and the video will undoubtedly prove highly popular with anyone who has dreamt of one day piloting one of these jet airliners…