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Explosion at the French embassy in Libya via @Eh4b10 on Twitter

Twitter user @Eh4b10 has posted several photos on twitter of a car explosion near the French Embassy today around 6:50 am local time in Tripoli, Libya.

Music for a better future. Screenshot from Mideast Tunes’ Indiego campaign video.

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Ramzy Baroud writes [fr] about the conflict in Mali on Pambazuka:

British security firm G4S will rake in enormous profits due to the crisis taking place in Mali, Libya and Algeria. Recognized as the biggest security firm in the world, the group was downgraded at the time of the Olympic Games in London last year, as a result of its inability to meet the terms of a government contract. However, with the growing instability in Northern and Western Africa, it is expected that the firm will make a strong recovery in the near future.

Jihadis venture capitalism extended to an even more lucrative business: kidnapping western hostages all over the Sahara yielded over 90 Million Euros over a decade [..] The modus operandi was very simple: why get killed trying to create an Islamist emirate in “apostate-ruled” neighboring countries when you can build your own sanctuary AND have the West pay for it?

Nasser Weddady unpacks the reasons for the current troubles in Mali. He opines that the roots of the problem are more complex than the existing narratives in the media lead us to believe.

M. Lynx Qualey, blogger, who is interested in Arab and Arabic literature, wrote a series of posts introducing acclaimed Arab poets, novelists, and short-story writers’ favorite Arab reads of 2012. She started with a list of nonfiction books, then followed by a list for poetry [En] and fiction [En].

Almost one year after Muammar Gaddafi's death, his former stronghold and heart of the Warfalla tribe, the town of Bani Walid, seems about to fall under the attacks of the Lybian army. Some sources [it] define its two week bloody siege as a ‘small genocide'. The operation is lead by armed militias and Islamist forces of Benghazi and Misratah, long time enemies of the Warfalla. It seems that medical and other essential supplies are now being prevented from entering the city, which is under rocket and mortar fire with some reports of toxic gas use. Twitter updates are under the #BANIWALID hashtag, while the International community seems unaware and/or disregarding this “cleansing” operation, which is clearly causing severe suffering to local population.