STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Gadhafi forces are leaving Bani Walid residents to starve, an NTC spokesman says
- NEW: The NTC rejects a suggestion that loyalists captured foreign mercenaries
- More than 20 of its fighters were killed Sunday in Sirte, the transitional government says
- Residents in southern Libyan towns celebrate freedom from Gadhafi
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) — Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi are creating a humanitarian disaster in Bani Walid, the National Transitional Council’s military spokesman charged Monday.
Col. Ahmed Bani told reporters that Gadhafi forces are robbing food stores, leaving civilian residents to starve. He also charged that Gadhafi loyalists are shooting everyone trying to join the revolution, including men, women and children. “They are carrying out mass killings,” Bani said.
“This proves they are trying to destroy the town before it is liberated,” he added, calling the Gadhafi forces “criminals” and “killers.”
Asked by CNN why, if there is such a humanitarian disaster, NTC forces do not immediately enter the city, the colonel said the problem is “geography.” There are tactics the forces must follow to reduce casualties, he said.
via NTC claims humanitarian disaster in Gadhafi stronghold – CNN.com.
Syrian security forces have killed 2,700 people since anti-government protesters started six months ago, the United Nations human rights office said.
“As of today, 2,700 people, including at least 100 children, have been killed by military and security forces since mass protests erupted in mid-March,” Kyung-wha Kang, deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Monday.
She said “the scale and nature of these acts may amount to crimes against humanity” and that her office was prepared to send its confidential list of 50 suspects linked to those crimes to the International Criminal Court, if the UN Security Council refers the situation in Syria to the Hague-based court.
via UN: Syria death toll tops 2,700 – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
Netflix has decided to split its DVD-by-post business from its movie streaming service.
The streaming service will keep the name Netflix but the postal DVD rental business will be renamed Qwikster.
The announcement comes two months after US firm Netflix bumped up the price of the combined renting and streaming service by 60%.
The price hike is thought to be behind the sharp drop in subscriber numbers Netflix has seen.
In July, Netflix reported that it had about 25 million subscribers. In an earnings report last week it said it now expected subscribers to number 24 million at the end of September.
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“Start Quote
I messed up”
Reed Hastings Netflix boss
The news caused shares in the firm to drop 19% which brought the total decline in its share price to almost 50% following the July price rise.
Netflix boss Reed Hastings took to the company’s blog in a bid to calm the ongoing furore by explaining its reasoning behind the changes.
He said problems had arisen as Netflix evolved from the DVD rental business that spurred its initial growth to a company in which most of its customers were streaming movies via the web.
“…streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently,” Mr Hastings wrote.
This was the reason it split DVD rental and streaming into separate businesses and charged for both, he said.
After the split, customers will be charged for each service they use and their bank and credit card statements will show separate payments. In addition, any feedback they give on good or bad movies via one service will not be mirrored on the other.
“Arrogance” based on past success meant the company neglected to keep its customers informed, he said.
“I messed up,” he wrote. “I owe everyone an explanation.”
Security forces in Yemen have killed more than 50 people in two days of violence against anti-government protesters, activists say, in the country’s bloodiest clashes for months.
Snipers in Sanaa fired from rooftops at a protester camp, killing bystanders including a child, witnesses said.
Government forces also shelled areas held by troops loyal to the protesters.
The opposition has promised to carry on its campaign to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
For months, thousands of people have been waging a campaign to depose Mr Saleh, who has ruled the country since 1978 and is currently in Saudi Arabia recovering from a bomb attack in June.
The opposition believes the government is deliberately orchestrating the violence to derail any chance of agreement.
But a Yemeni minister strongly denied reports that the authorities had fired on peaceful demonstrators, telling the BBC government forces were being attacked by militants sympathetic to al-Qaeda.
The US and EU nations were among members of the UN Human Rights Council who used a meeting in Geneva on Monday to urge Yemen’s government to stop using force against protesters.
Meanwhile, as the violence intensified, envoys from the UN and the Gulf Co-operation Council arrived in Yemen, in a new attempt to negotiate a handover of power from Mr Saleh.
via BBC News – Yemen unrest: Death toll from Sanaa clashes tops 50.
