Protests against the crackdown in Syria. Photo credit: Yunchung Lee, www.flickr.com/photos/bleuman/5706355818/

Syria tortures protesters for Facebook passwords
Syria is continuing its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, with reports that Syrian authorities are torturing protesters for their Facebook passwords, The Telegraph reported. Facebook pages, such as Syrian Revolution 2011, have sustained the uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad, however, activists worry that the government has compromised those sites after arresting a reported 8,000 protesters. The Times reporter Martin Fletcher entered Syria, which has been largely shut off to foreign journalists during the last seven weeks of protest, under the guise of a tourist; he ended up in a secret detention center in the besieged city of Homs. He was released after Syrian officials could find nothing implying that he was a journalist on him; the others brought into the detention center, Fletcher claimed, were not so lucky. The regime is arresting virtually “every male of fighting age” it can find, he reported; the city streets are deserted, shops boarded up.

NATO in nighttimes airstrikes on Libya
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya, amid NATO airstrikes on the capital city of Tripoli, Reuters reported. Rebels, bolstered by NATO airstrikes, and forces loyal to the Libyan regime under Col. Muammar Gaddafi have been in a stalemate for the last three months.

The UK’s Coalition government celebrates its first anniversary today – but is it a happy one?

Drivers to receive on-the-spot fines
Police may soon have the power to fine careless drivers on the spot, rather than taking them to court, as part of a government strategy to make British roads safer, the BBC reported. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond will explain the proposal to MPs today; the proposals will then have to go through Parliament. The proposals are also expected, The Guardian reported, to reduce Britain’s reliance in speed cameras.

Greeks rebel against austerity measures

Duke and Duchess honeymoon in Seychelles
The newly created Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Catherine, are reportedly pottering around on old bikes on their honeymoon on a private island in the Seychelles, the Mirror claimed. In other Royal Wedding news, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, told American talk show host Oprah Winfrey that not being invited to the wedding was “difficult”.

Rome braces for quake prediction
It smacks a bit of the Nostradamus, but thousands of people are avoiding Rome today nonetheless, after rumours circulated that a seismologist who died in 1979 predicted that the city would be hit by a devastating quake on May 11. Though Roman officials have taken to the airwaves to pacify spooked citizens, explaining that there’s not way to really predict a quake and certainly not with that sort of accuracy, the BBC reported that people are staying away from the city anyway.