Update December 17, 2011: the situation heats up yet again in Egypt. Here's how it all started..

Susan notes February 6, 2011: 26-year-old Egyptian activist and prolific vlogger Asmaa Mafhouz was one of the main instigators of the Egyptian part of the Arab Spring. This is her account of what led up to the events of January 25, 2010, and beyond. Watch the vlog that set the nation on fire here.

When CNN interviewer Jonathan Mann asked the 2011 trio of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates:

"Is there any sense that you are here because of tokenism? Sexism...? That you're all just lumped together because you are women?", Liberian Laureate and peace activist Leymah Gbowee, visibly incensed, interrupted him before he could finish formulating his question... 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris). Here are the 30 articles, without preamble:

Article 1.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Marjane Satrapi (born 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author.

Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with communist and socialist movements in Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution.

A couple of years ago, on a flight to Kuwait, I met a young American soldier who was headed back to Iraq after a two-week furlough with his wife in Australia.

Of the five years they’ve been married, they'd spent a total of only two together, because he’s been serving in Iraq for most of their married life.