• Myanmar government ends direct media censorship

    By NBC News wire services

    YANGON -- Myanmar abolished direct censorship of the media Monday in the most dramatic move yet toward allowing freedom of expression in the long-repressed nation. But related laws and practices that may lead to self-censorship raise doubt about how much will change.


    Under the new rules, journalists will no longer have to submit their work to state censors before publication as they for almost half a century. However, the same harsh laws that have allowed Myanmar's rulers to jail, blacklist and control the media in the name of protecting national security remain unchanged and on the books.

    "This is a step in the right direction and a good approach, but questions of press freedom will remain," Aung Thu Nyein, a senior associate at the Vahu Development Institute, told Reuters. The institute is a Thailand-based think tank. "We can expect the government to still try to assert some control, probably using national security to keep the media in check."

    For decades, this Southeast Asian nation's reporters had been regarded as among the most restricted in the world, subjected to routine state surveillance, phone taps and censorship so intense that independent papers could not publish on a daily basis. President Thein Sein's reformist government has significantly relaxed media controls over the last year, though, allowing reporters to print material that would have been unthinkable during the era of absolute military rule — like photographs of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

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    The Information Ministry, which has long controlled what can be printed, made the announcement on its website Monday. The head of the ministry's Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, Tint Swe, also conveyed the news to a group of editors in the country's main city Yangon. The move had been expected for months but was repeatedly delayed as the government struggles to draft a new media law to overhaul the industry here.

    Tint Swe previously said the censor board itself would be abolished when censorship ends. But Monday's announcement indicated the board will stay and retain the powers it has always had to suspend publications or revoking publishing licenses if they deem publishing rules are violated.

    Those laws, in place since a military coup in 1962, include edicts prohibiting journalists from writing articles that could threaten peace and stability, oppose the constitution or insult ethnic groups. Critics say some laws are open to interpretation and give the government enormous power to go after its critics. They have been used repeatedly in recent years to jail members of the press. 

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    Nyein Nyein Naing, an editor from the Seven Day News Journal who attended Monday's meeting, said journalists will still have to submit their articles to the censor board. But now, she said, they will be required to do so after publication, apparently to allow the government to determine whether any publishing laws are violated. She told The Associated Press: "We have to be very cautious as (the state censor board) will keep monitoring us."

    Since last year, when the nation's long-entrenched military junta ceded power to a nominally civilian administration dominated by retired army officers, censorship has ended on subjects such as health, entertainment, fashion and sports. Media outlets publishing such topics — deemed less sensitive — were allowed to publish without submitting their work to state censors beforehand.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • 1 dead in Libya voting violence

    People in Libya are casting their ballots to elect a new Parliament with preliminary results expected to be announced Sunday. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    A Libya anti-election protester was shot dead in the eastern town of Ajdabiya on Saturday when he tried to steal a ballot box from a polling station during the nation’s first free national poll in 60 years, officials say.

    Ajdabiya has been a focus of protests against the election by eastern Libyans who say the vote designed to shake off the legacy of Moammar Gadhafi’s 40-year, one-man rule and elect a 200-member parliament is a sham and want more autonomy for their region. The east had been allotted only 60 seats in the assembly compared to 102 for the west.


    An official said by telephone that the protester was killed in an exchange of fire with local people trying to prevent disruption of the election. Two people were wounded.

    Elsewhere, Libyans’ joy over voting was tempered by boycott calls, the burning of ballots and attacks on eastern polling centers. The unrest exposed major fault lines in the oil-rich North African nation of 6 million people — the east-west divide and efforts by Islamists to assert power.

    PhotoBlog: Libyans vote in first election in 60 years

    Polls closed at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) in most places, but delays in starting caused voting to go later in some cities, Al Jazeera reported. In Ajdabiya and other places where voting did not get under way until the afternoon, balloting will go as late as 7 a.m. Sunday, the Arab news agency reported.

    Preliminary results are expected to be reported Sunday.

    Despite troubles, overall turnout was high, the BBC reported.

    Earlier: Tension as polls open in first Libyan election in 60 years

    Few Libyans remember their last national vote in 1965, when no political parties were allowed, the BBC said, noting even fewer took part in their country's first parliamentary elections in February 1952, shortly after independence.

    Mohammed Abed / AFP - Getty Images

    Libyan protesters demanding greater representation shout slogans Saturday outside a polling station in the eastern city of Benghazi.

    "I feel free at last. It's a feeling I cannot describe: Like a human being," Asmaddin Arifi told the BBC.

    Voters flashed the V-for-victory sign as they entered polling centers, The Associated Press reported. Motorists honked their horns as they drove past. Others shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Greater," from their car windows.

    In the Mediterranean port city of Benghazi, cradle of the Libyan revolution, pro-autonomy activists Saturday seized electoral papers and ballot boxes. A BBC Arabic reporter said security forces did not intervene.

    Libyan election worker killed in chopper crash day ahead of balloting

    A day earlier outside Benghazi, gunfire struck a helicopter and killed an election commission worker aboard the flight that was carrying voting materials.

    Armed men stopped voters casting their ballots in the port town of Ras Lanuf, the BBC reported.

    But Nuri al-Abbar, the head of the election commission, told the BBC that 94 percent of polling stations across the country had opened normally.

    The four major contenders in the Libyan race range from the Muslim Brotherhood-linked party and another Islamist coalition on one end of the spectrum to a secular-minded party led by a Western-educated former rebel prime minister on the other.

    Despite the divisions and unrest, the prevailing mood was one of triumph.

    "We are celebrating today and we want the whole world to celebrate with us," Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib said after he cast his ballot in Tripoli.

    This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

    Could sun-soaked Libya be the Mediterranean's next tourism hot spot? 

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  • Tension as polls open in first Libyan election in 60 years

    Less than a year after Moammar Gadhafi's fall, Libyan's vote in what U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon hailed as "a march toward democracy." It's the country's first democratic election in more than half a century as Libyans choose a National Congress. Lindsey Hilsu, Channel 4 Europe, reports.  

    By msnbc.com news services

    TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya -- Libyans began voting in their first free national election in 60 years on Saturday, a poll designed to shake off the legacy of Moammar Gadhafi but which risks being hijacked by autonomy demands in the east and unrest in the desert south.

    Voters will choose a 200-member assembly which will elect a prime minister and cabinet before laying the ground for full parliamentary elections next year under a new constitution.

    Candidates with Islamic agendas dominate the field of more than 3,700 hopefuls, suggesting Libya will be the next "Arab Spring" country after Egypt and Tunisia to see religious parties secure footholds in power after last year's uprisings.

    But the credibility of the vote will be wrecked if armed militia with regional or tribal loyalties discourage voters from turning out, or if disputes over the outcome degenerate into pitched battles between rival factions.

    Libyan election worker killed in chopper crash day ahead of balloting

    In the oil-rich east, where there is a thriving autonomy movement, calls for a boycott and pre-election violence have cast a shadow over the vote. But in Tripoli, voters were jubilant.

    Libyans flashed the "V" for victory sign as they entered the polling centers. Motorists honked their horns as they drove past to greet the voters lined outside. Others shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Greater," from their car windows.

    The election lines brought together Libya's women, men, youth and children accompanying their parents. There were women in black abayas, or black robes, bearded men, elderly men and women on wheelchairs or using canes to support themselves. Some voters arrived at polling centers with the Libyan red, green and black flags wrapped around their shoulders.

    "Look at the lines. Everyone came of his and her own free will. I knew that day would come and Gadhafi would not be there forever," said Riyadh Al-Alagy, a 50-year-old civil servant in Tripoli. "He left us a nation with a distorted mind, a police state with no institutions. We want to start from zero," he said, as a woman came out of the polling center ululating and flashing the purple ink on one of her fingers. The ink is used to prevent multiple voting. 

    Slideshow: Conflict in Libya

    Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS

    An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

    Launch slideshow

    Inside a school being used as a polling station in central Tripoli, a few dozen women lined up. Some carried the new Libyan flag on their backs or wore jewelry in its red, green and black colors. Some had tears in their eyes.

    "I am a Libyan citizen in free Libya," said Mahmud Mohammed Al-Bizamti, outside the polling station.

    "I came today to be able to vote in a democratic way. Today is like a wedding for us," he said.

    Civil war a possibility
    The greatest threat comes from the eastern region around the city of Benghazi, cradle of the NATO-backed uprising that ousted Gadhafi nearly a year ago but which complains of neglect by the interim government in Tripoli in the west.

    "There is no doubt there could be a civil war between us in the east and the west," Hamed al-Hassi, a former rebel who now heads the High Military Council of Cyrenaica, the name of the eastern region, told Reuters.

    "The country will be in a state of paralysis because no one in the government is listening to us," said Hassi, whose group is charged with securing the east but has fallen out with the government over representation.


    On Friday, local armed groups shut off half the North African country's oil exports to press their demands for greater representation in the new national assembly. At least three major oil exporting terminals were affected.

    "The strikes will continue for 48 hours if the government does not respond positively to their requests," said a note to oil companies from shipping agents.

    Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a square in central Benghazi late on Friday, saying they would boycott the vote in protest at the fact that the east had been allotted only 60 seats in the assembly compared to 102 for the west.

    In the latest attack on election authorities in the east, a helicopter carrying voting material had to make an emergency landing near Benghazi on Friday after being struck by anti-aircraft fire. One person on board was killed.

    Could sun-soaked Libya be the Mediterranean's next tourism hot spot?

    "There is no security in this country," complained Emad El-Sayih, deputy head of the High National Election Commission.

    Concerns exist elsewhere. In the isolated southern area of Kufra in the Saharan desert, tribal clashes are so fierce that election observers will be unable to visit, and some question whether the vote can proceed in certain areas there.

    'First things first'
    In Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, a former fishing village on the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea, the mood ahead of the polls was restrained, with some saying they would not vote.

    "They should take care of us first, look at our homes," said Abed Mohammed, a resident of District Two neighborhood which saw some of the heaviest fighting and where Gadhafi was believed to have hidden before being captured and killed.

    Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years

    Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

    A look at the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader.

    Launch slideshow

    "We are not against elections in the future, but first things first," he said.

    Yet many Libyans are eager for a first taste of democracy and will be heading enthusiastically to the polls.

    While analysts say it is hard to predict the political make-up of the new assembly, parties and candidates professing an attachment to Islamic values dominate and very few are running on an exclusively secular ticket.

    The Justice and Construction offshoot of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood is tipped to do well, as is al-Watan, the party of former CIA detainee and Islamist insurgent Abdel Hakim Belhadj.

    Libya begins battle to seize $20B in Gadhafi assets -- starting with London mansion

    Parity rules for the new assembly mean there are many female candidates. Yet many of their campaign posters in Tripoli have been defaced, underlining the ambivalence felt by some in Libyan society about a greater female role in politics.

    "Politics is a new field for men and women in Libya," said Lamia Busidra, 38, a leading candidate for the al-Wattan party in Benghazi. "The qualifications are there, women can do it, they just need the confidence in themselves to do it."

    Early partial results after polls close at 8 p.m. (12 p.m. ET) on Saturday will give some guide to the make-up of the assembly but full preliminary results are not due until Monday.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • South Africa enters adulthood as 'born frees' come of age

    /

    20 years ago today: Voters sing while they wait to vote in a voting station April 27, 1994 in Lindelani, in Natal Province, South Africa.

    By Rohit Kachroo, NBC News Correspondent in Johannesburg

    Modern South Africa has officially entered adulthood. It is eighteen years old today, and millions of its people are celebrating ‘Freedom Day’, the anniversary of the country’s first democratic elections and the moment that marked the miracle birth of Nelson Mandela’s ‘Rainbow Nation’.

    Today, a public holiday, South Africans are reflecting upon the country’s phenomenal progress, with concerts, private parties and civil celebrations. Citizens are sharing their memories of where they were that day and how it felt to vote for the first time. Some will try to re-live the euphoria and optimism of those historic moments.

    South Africa’s eighteenth year of freedom marks a coming of age, with the first children to be born after the end of the racist regime now able to vote for the first time. But increasingly, many South Africans see Freedom Day as a time to reflect upon today’s challenges rather than the victories of yesteryear - a time to ask why South Africa has not progressed further than it has.

    Sudan has declared war on us, says South Sudan president

    As South Africa approaches its third decade of democracy, many of its black communities are still blighted by poverty and hopelessness; they are on the wrong side of the so-called “economic apartheid”.

    Others believe that the cancer of public corruption is modern South Africa's greatest problem, complaining that today’s politicians are mere shadows of the leaders of Nelson Mandela’s generation and have become more focused on their own interests than those of their people.

    Slideshow: Nelson Mandela: A revolutionary's life

    /

    View images of civil rights leader Nelson Mandela, who went from anti-apartheid activist to prisoner to South Africa's first black president.

    Launch slideshow

    One recent report suggested that forty per cent of South Africans believe most of the country’s lawmakers to be corrupt.

    For many citizens, violent crime is the real issue. Although the police claim to be winning the war on many crimes, the recent gang-rape of a mentally disabled girl in Soweto which was filmed and posted onto the internet appeared to indicate a wider epidemic. According to one estimate, a woman is raped in South Africa every 26 seconds.

    Viral gang-rape video shocks South Africa

    This is a youthful society, where most people are too young to have any memory of the dark days of Apartheid. They only know democracy, but are equally familiar with society’s current-day ills. In an editorial, The Star newspaper of Johannesburg reflects on what it calls the nation's ‘crucial crossroads’, arguing that although much has been achieved,  democracy has not always been “the magical panacea” that South Africans have hoped for.

    “The so-called ‘born frees’ reach adulthood, many of them with little or no interest in the momentous events that led up to the year of their birth. Many other older South Africans have been left bitterly disappointed in what has been achieved since“, it says.

    Jackson Mthembu, a spokesman for the ruling party, the African National Congress, defends the record of the government in the same newspaper. “In 18 years a lot has been done, but hardly enough to reverse 300 years of colonialism. The structural weakness of the racist policies did more damage than we care to acknowledge.”

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  • Cuba dissidents occupy church in the name of freedom ahead of Pope's visit

    Desmond Boylan / Reuters

    People walk near the Church of Our Virgin of Charity in Havana, which has been taken over by dissidents, Wednesday.

    By msnbc.com news services

    HAVANA, Cuba -- Cuban dissidents have occupied a Roman Catholic church in Havana in what a Church spokesman said was part of a broader orchestrated action to get Pope Benedict to press for change when he visits later this month.

    Thirteen men and women who said they were members of political parties went into the Church of Our Virgin of Charity in central Havana on Tuesday and refused entreaties from Church officials to leave, according a statement from the archbishop's office in Havana.

    It said similar incidents had happened in other churches in the country on Tuesday, but that elsewhere the dissidents had since "abandoned the temples."

    Vladimir Calderon Frias, 47, told Reuters through a locked gate at the Havana church that he was executive director of the National Republican Party.

    Only church can end 'suffering'
    He said he and his colleagues were demanding freedom for political prisoners, freedom of expression, freedom of movement and better salaries, among other things.

    The Catholic Church, he said, was the only institution that "can mediate for the end of the suffering of the Cuban people."

    "We're doing it prior to the coming of the pope because we don't want any other thing except that the Vatican hears it," Calderon added.

    Cuba's Ladies in White call dissident death 'murder'

    The Church statement said that the occupation “has to do with a strategy prepared and coordinated by groups in various regions of the country.”

    The statement added that its officials had been in constant contact with the government throughout the incident and that authorities assured them no action would be taken against the dissidents.

    The Church called the occupation "an illegitimate and irresponsible act."

    "Nobody has the right to convert the churches into political trenches," the statement said.

    As pope visit nears, spotlight on Cuba's cardinal

    Human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said a group of 25 in eastern Holguin province was ejected from a church by the local archbishop and that in nearby Las Tunas dissidents were detained before they could occupy their target church.

    The German-born pontiff will come to Cuba March 26-28 after a three-day visit to Mexico.

    The Church, led in Cuba by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, has in the past two years helped negotiate the release of political prisoners, stepped in to ease government harassment of the dissident group Ladies in White and pushed President Raul Castro to move ahead with reforms liberalizing Cuba's Soviet-style economy.

    'We love Fidel'
    The dissidents' presence attracted loud disagreement from some passers-by who said they supported the government.

    "We love Fidel (Castro), we love Raul (Castro), we love our government," said retiree Heriberto Serrano, 65.

    "These people are confused, these people are people of low cultural level, because he who has no culture is the only one that can go against the country and the revolution," he said.

    Last month, a crowd of government supporters surrounded the home of a leading Cuban dissident where opposition activists were quietly paying homage to a hunger striker who died two years ago.

    Some 200 pro-government protesters shouted slogans and insults at members and supporters of the Ladies in White opposition group at the home of Laura Pollan, the late leader of the dissident group.

    "Down with the worms!" and "Long Live Raul!" the government partisans shouted, the latter a reference to Cuban President Raul Castro.

    Cuba considers all dissidents to be mercenaries sent by Washington to destabilize the island's government. Pro-government protesters occasionally show up to scream insults at Ladies in White gatherings, particularly on important dates or anniversaries.

    Cuba maintains the counterprotests are spontaneous, though little is done to disguise coordination with security agents on the scene.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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