By Ian Sager, msnbc.com news editor

Sunday, February 27

I hope Moammar is seated.

Reuters is reporting that Galyna Kolotnytska, 38, arrived in Kiev early Sunday morning aboard a plane that evacuated 122 Ukrainians and 68 foreigners from the North African nation.

Efforts by the news agency to get in touch with the medical professional, who WikiLeaks described as a "voluptuous blonde" who "travel[s] everywhere" with Gadhafi, proved unsuccessful. According to television reports in the Eastern European nation, Ms. Kolotnytska will make her way to her native town Grovary, near Kiev, where her daughter lives.

Libya was a popular destination for Ukrainian medical professionals before the unrest.

Weeks of spiraling violence will make some wonder: will a certain eccentric Libyan in need of “medical care” try to make the opposite move?

Saturday, February 26

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has lost the backing of key ambassadors, much of his people, along with some of the nation’s armed forces, but one departure in particular may be hard for the embattled dictator to stomach.

According to reports, Galyna Kolotnytska, described in a cable published by WikiLeaks as a "voluptuous blonde" who "travel[s] everywhere" with Gadhafi, says she is heading home to Ukraine.

Kolotnytska will join the thousands of foreign nationals rushing to depart the turmoil-hit North African nation. Ukrainian daily Segodnya reports that the colonel’s confidant called her family in Kiev on Friday, telling them she intends to return home. Her daughter explains: "Mom got in touch yesterday. She said she was now in Tripoli…she spoke in a calm voice, asked us not to worry and said she'd soon be home."

Like many of his fellow world leaders, the Libyan dictator was not immune to the sting of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. If anything, they served to shed further light on Gadhafi's unique indulgences.

One bizarre cable describes Gadhafi's insistence on staying on the first floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the United Nations.

In one of the more salacious releases, Gadhafi is described as someone who relies heavily on his staff of Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a "voluptuous blonde." The cable speculated about a romantic relationship between Gadhafi and Kolotnytska, but nothing of that nature was ever confirmed.

Ms. Kolotnytska’s daughter also revealed that her mother had been in Libya for nine years, originally employed in a hospital prior to working for the regime.

There’s no telling how the Libyan leader will react to this latest bitter pill.

I write “Gaddafi,” you write “Khaddafy,” let’s call the whole regime off! 

Libya’s leader has been on the world stage for more than 40 years, since he seized power in 1969 – yet major news organizations cannot agree on how to spell his name.

What gives? Why the disconnect? Apparently the difficulty of translating Arabic into English (as well as other languages) has stymied any uniform spelling.

Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader Moammar Gadhafi.

However, the Business Insider thought that was a lame excuse, so they provided a good explanation of the subtleties of the Arabic translation in a column headlined: “EXPLAINED! Why No One Knows How The Hell To Spell Qaddafi/ Gadhafi/Gaddafi/ Qadhafi.”

Meantime here is a short list of some of the various spellings by major news organizations.

AP style (which msnbc.com follows): Moammar Gadhafi

Reuters/BBC/ Al Jazeera English: Muammar Gaddafi

New York Times:  Muammar el-Qaddafi

Washington Post: Moammar Gaddafi

New York Post: Col. Moamar Khadafy

CBS News: Muammar Qaddafi

AFP: Moamer Kadhafi

And there are apparently dozens of other spellings. So many that when ABC News tackled the question two years ago they discovered 112 different spellings.

What do you think? Which spelling would you go with?

What are mercenaries doing in Libya and what is their connection to Moammar Gadhafi?

Given the near media blackout in cities like Tripoli, reports are hard to confirm, but eyewitnesses say they have seen black, French-speaking mercenaries reportedly from countries as diverse as Chad, Niger, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Suhaib Salem / Reuters

Suspected African mercenaries held by anti-government protesters stand in a room at a courthouse in Benghazi on Friday.

Ali Al-Essawi, the former Libyan ambassador to India who resigned in protest over the reported violence, told Al Jazeera English about reports he heard about the use of mercenaries. “They are black Africans and they don't speak Arabic. They are foreigners, doing terrible things. They are going to houses where there are children and women and killing them.”  Al-Essawi spoke to Al Jazeera in New Delhi and said he could not possibly return to Libya at the moment, out of fears for his safety. 

Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, chairman of the U.N. Working Group on the use of mercenaries, said he has received reports from both journalists and non-governmental organizations in Libya that “mercenaries – foreign private forces – have been recruited by Col. Gadhafi to repress the peaceful demonstrations of the people in Libya.” 

But how does one go about employing a small army of mercenaries? 

Given Gadhafi’s 40-year rule of Libya and his history of pan-Africanism, he has longstanding relationships with the continent’s leaders, rebels, and would likely have ready access to a deep pool of would-be mercenaries.

Pan-Africanism
Listening to his recent ramblings on state radio about how al-Qaida was spiking teenagers’ Nescafe, it’s hard to remember that at one time Gadhafi won acclaim in the region for his efforts toward closer co-operation between the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. For several years, he proposed a “United States of Africa” (which would have conveniently shared the U.S.A. abbreviation with the United States).

His idea was for a continent-wide government with a single currency, a single passport for Africans that would allow them to move around more freely, and even a single military, an African Legion, based on the idea of the French Foreign Legion. The idea never took off, but given his nation’s oil wealth, he remained highly influential.

“You have to understand something: Gadhafi is the only Arabic leader who had an African policy. So he spent over 30 years getting involved in African affairs, being in touch with all the African governments and all the Africa rebels,” said Thierry Vircoulon, Central African project director for the International Crisis Group based in Nairobi.   

Vircoulon explained Gadhafi long history of supporting of foreign militaries. “The Libyan regime used to be a training area for a lot of rebel groups in the Sahel region,” referring to the geographic region in North Africa.

“He has got a huge network of contacts across the continent…so that’s the reason why you have all these people who were actually very used to flying to Libya to get a bit of money and [go] back to their country. Even Nelson Mandela flew to Libya to get money in 1994.”

Vircoulon said that the idea of mercenaries from Chad, Mali, Niger would seem, “geographically and politically normal and explainable.” But he called the idea of Congolese mercenaries in Libya “far-fetched.”

Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“Congolese are not known to be very efficient soldiers or fighters.  I’m not even sure there is such a thing as Congolese mercenaries on the market.”

Big market for mercenaries
Del Prado, from the U.N. committee on mercenaries, explained that the world market for “guns for hire” is robust – particularly given the privatization of warfare.

“You have plenty of ex-combatants…former military, former paramilitaries, former employees of private military and security companies that are unemployed, and ready to go anywhere,” del Prado explained. “You have a lot of people who are ready to go and fight for money.”

Del Prado noted that mercenaries are easy to come by via shady, fictitious companies on the Internet. But Vircoulon did not think that Gadhafi would have to rely on outside companies to hire the foreign fighters.

“I think it’s all the contacts that he had and that his security services had with those African rebel groups. That’s enough actually,” said Vircoulon, adding, “it shows clearly the very deep link between the Libyan government and indeed the rest of Africa.”

Del Prado noted that South Africans are a big contingent of the mercenary market. “After the apartheid regime finished, they dumped to the market many foreign military and policemen – and they are still there. They are still fighting in different private security companies in Iraq, or everywhere.”

While South Africans mercenaries had not been mentioned among the litany of foreign fighters in Libya, Vircoulon doubted they would be there given Gadhafi’s past support of the anti-apartheid movement. 

“It would be very weird that a Muslim leader like him would link up with some white Christian South African mercenaries,” said Vircoulon. “It doesn’t seem very natural. The other African people seem very natural. But some white, former South African Special Forces in Libya? Well it seems unlikely.” 

‘It’s creepy’
Of course, the fear of foreign mercenaries in any conflict situation is that they would be extremely harsh and show no mercy toward civilians. They would also be less likely to hesitate shooting on people with whom they share no cultural or tribal affiliation.

“It’s creepy,” said John Campbell, the Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies. “If you talk about using mercenaries, at least I tend to assume, that they are going to show less restraint firing on people than say the Egyptian forces did with respect to Egyptians.”  

Del Prado said that one of main problems with mercenaries is the fact that there is “no accountability,” their only goal is profit. He speculated that Gadhafi is probably down to a core group of foreign fighters defending him.

“There are some army forces who have just abandoned Gadhafi because it is very hard to kill your brothers,” said del Prado. “Whereas if you are a foreigner and you have been recruited as a private soldier, you don’t have anything to lose. Except if Gadhafi doesn’t win, you will lose your job and your money.”

This image, taken from video, shows graffiti on a wall in Tripoli, Libya, reading: "In every street of you, my country, the voice of freedom is calling."

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

A British teenager on her first visit to Libya to see relatives is seeing revolution close up.

Fatima arrived a month ago, and now she is stuck at her grandmother’s house in the capitol, Tripoli. 

She has had to endure tear gas and the sounds of gunfire, which starts about 7 p.m. and lasts “till really late at night.”

Meanwhile, her father is making a frantic attempt to get from Manchester, England, to Tripoli. He rushed first to Tunisia – but was turned back from the border – then to Egypt, where he was allowed to enter Libya. Fatima was supposed to return to England on Monday.

“I don’t want to go back home,” Fatima, 18, said in a Skype chat with msnbc.com (She asked that her last name not be used out of concern for her family’s safety.) “What’s happening here isn’t fair … the violence used here doesn’t allow the people to just protest for what they want. They have no laws, and the people don’t have any rights.”

Fatima said she went out on the streets Thursday afternoon and saw packed petrol stations and people lining up for bread.

“They all looked like they’re in a rush,” she said. “Most shop(s) are still closed. I think people are still scared.”

Windows were shuttered and lights were off in homes. Some of the protesters had sprayed graffiti on the walls, with one reading, “In every street of you, my country, the voice of freedom is calling.”

“I was scared the first day this started, but now I don’t feel that scared,” she said. “I want to stay here till this murderer leaves.”

Related story: Gadhafi blames bin Laden, drugs for revolt

By George Lewis, NBC News Correspondent

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand: The police superintendent is grim-faced as he reads off the names:

“Joseph Tehanu Pohio, age 40 of Christchurch.”

 “Jaime Robert McDowell Gilbert, age 22, of Christchurch.”

His voice cracks as he reads the names of the youngest victims.

“Jayden Harris, nine months, of Christchurch.”

“Baxter Gowland, five months, of Christchurch.”

Police Superintendent Dave Cliff said a total of 98 bodies have been recovered so far in the rubble from the Christchurch earthquake. Out of an abundance of caution, the authorities are being very slow and deliberate in releasing the names of victims, waiting until the bodies are positively identified and families have been notified. It may be up to one month before many bodies are released and relatives of the dead can lay their loved ones to rest.

The toll will go higher. Cliff said there are 226 people missing, many of them trapped in the ruins of the Canterbury TV building, a local channel that now displays an on-air slide that says “down but not out,” as its headquarters was flattened.

In a scene reminiscent of the 9/11 aftermath in New York, relatives of the missing victims have flocked to local police stations and hospitals, begging for any information about people who may have been in the TV building.

There is great compassion in the midst of all the suffering. Local radio has a flood of callers offering to help their less-fortunate neighbors with food and clothing, lodging and transportation. Folks just trying to lend a hand. 

Tim Manning, a deputy FEMA administrator from Washington, D.C., was in Christchurch for a conference when the quake hit. A former firefighter, Manning immediately volunteered to help with the search and rescue effort.

“I just went block to block with volunteer construction workers and New Zealand police,” he said, “looking for survivors, trying to render whatever assistance we could.”

Half the city’s water supply is knocked-out and power is off in many neighborhoods. Volunteers stand at intersections handing out bottled water while tanker trucks distribute water in schoolyards.

Mayor Bob Parker said all the easy fixes to the water system have been made, and that it could be a matter of weeks before most of the water is back on and the huge cracks in roads and bridges have been repaired.

Older buildings with unreinforced concrete and brick walls suffered much of the heaviest damage. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told NBC News that his government will reassess building codes in the aftermath of this earthquake, although he noted that those codes are already fairly strong.

People’s nerves are badly frayed. Continual aftershocks jolt Christchurch, a reminder of just how powerless humans living in earthquake country can be over the seismic danger that lurks beneath them. It is an ominous lesson for those of us who call places like Los Angeles or San Francisco or Seattle home.

Filippo Monteforte / AFP - Getty Images

Karima El-Mahroug, better known by her stage name “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” went from a runaway belly dancer to the richest (alleged) concubine in Italian President Silvio Berlusconi’s harem in a few weeks.

by Claudio Lavanga of NBC News 

ROME - She is known as the “Heart Stealer” but she could just as well have called herself the “gold-digger.”

In only a few weeks, Karima El-Mahroug, better known by her stage name “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” went from a runaway belly dancer to the richest (alleged) concubine in Italian President Silvio Berlusconi’s harem.

A recently published list of the presents she received from Italy’s embattled prime minister could prove either that they really had sex, as Italian investigators claim, or that Berlusconi is the most generous philanthropist in Italy?

Delving into the treasure trove she filled with presents from the prime minister, investigators found goodies totaling more than $300,000. Among them are two Rolex watches worth approximately $70,000 each, a $25,000-designer necklace and an expensive Valentino dress he gave her on Valentine’s Day, when they first met. Is there a better day to meet a heart stealer?

Because he is accused of having had sex with El-Mahroug when she was still a minor, therefore committing a felony, Berlusconi has defended himself with a series of contradicting accounts. First he said he believed her when she told him she was the granddaughter of now-deposed President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Then the prime minister said he showered El-Mahroug with presents after taking pity on her.

So what’s worse? If the prime minister believed that the nightclub belly-dancer was a relative of a head of state, how can Italians trust he will be taken seriously on the international stage? But if Berlusconi showered El-Mahroug with expensive presents because he took pity on her, when is he going to take pity on the rest of recession-battered Italy?

Example for women?
While Italy has never been a model of gender equality, others are more concerned with the example “Rubygate” is providing a generation of Italian women. Many are afraid that admissions by dozens of party-goers that they earned a living by attending Berlusconi’s reputedly wild events will only encourage young women to use their bodies to get ahead.

On Feb. 13, hundreds of thousands of women across the country protested against sexist norms that, many believe, Berlusconi’s cavorting encourages.

“Women in this country are denigrated by the repeated, indecent and ostentatious representation of women as a naked sexual object on offer in newspapers, televisions and advertising,” The Washington Post quoted protest organizer Ida Poletto as saying.

While in Milan, NBC News interviewed two of the many former and current TV showgirls who are said to have attended Berlusconi’s “bunga-bunga” parties, or sex-fueled post-dinner fiestas at the prime minister’s villa. They said they saw nothing wrong with receiving expensive presents from a 74-year-old leader.

"He’s like a second father to me, and yes, sometimes he helps us out,” Barbara Guerra, a starlet on one of Berlusconi’s private channels, told NBC News. “But as a friend, without asking anything in exchange. Like any friend would do in his position.”

The question many women who have rebelled against this renewed culture of sexism in Italy are asking is: Where does an act of friendship end and prostitution begin?

Whatever the answer, more and more women I have interviewed in Rome have no doubt in their minds: If they were given $200,000, they too would gladly go to one of Berlusconi’s wild parties.

Intelcenter / Al-sahab Via Ap / AP file

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's deputy leader, speaking during a video released in 2009.

A top al-Qaida figure--who is also a native son of Egypt--appeared in a videotaped statement released Friday warning that his home country had "deviated from Islam" and warned that democracy "means that sovereignty is to the desires of the majority, without committing to any quality, value or creed.”

In the 34-minute tape, Ayman al-Zawahri appeared to be warning Egypt's liberal, secular activists who agitated for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak that they were likely to repeat the sins of the long-time leader if they failed to pursue an Islamic state.

But top U.S. counterterrorism officials told NBC that Zawahri’s comments, issued after a puzzling silence from the Islamist terror organization, are probably “too little, too late and too weak” to influence the emerging new order in Egypt.

The statement was the first by either Zawahri or al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden since the wave or demonstrations starting sweeping the Muslim world last month. The lack of a statement made many in the intelligence community speculate on the organization's future relevance.

In the video posted on militant websites, Zawahri blames Western colonialists for imposing secular law.

“Egypt's present is one of deviation from Islam including all of what that entails of corruption and immorality, and injustice, suppression and dependency,” he says in the message. “There is ideological corruption, political corruption, economic and financial corruption, and societal and moral corruption.”

Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a militant uprising against Mubarak in the 1990s that was crushed.

The U.S. counterterror official said of the militant: "It must be driving him crazy not to be in the game," referring to the revolution in his home country.

Zawahri makes no mention of the protests or Mubarak's fall, only a vague reference to “what happened and happens in Egypt,” and it is unclear when it was produced.

It is dated to the Islamic lunar month of Safar, which corresponds with the dates Jan. 5-Feb. 3. Mubarak finally resigned on Feb. 11. A military council is acting as interim government.

A second U.S. official added that al-Zawahiri may be "nervous" that his whole life's work may be at risk. "He's worked a lifetime on this and gotten nothing. It's the demonstrators who are effecting regime change," he said.

The head of Tunisia's transitional government appeared on state television Friday to announce amnesty for political prisoners, in a move that would likely affect many convicted under harsh anti-terrorism laws, The Washington Post reports.

The announcement, by interim Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, comes a month after the ouster of autocratic president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled into exile.

Ben Ali had harshly suppressed hard-line Islam under anti-terror rules that many opposition figures and rights activists complained were too broad.

Ghannouchi said the general amnesty would take effect over the weekend "so that all those convicted under the former regime can get their civic and political rights back and be reintegrated into Tunisian society."

Estimates of the number of Tunisians convicted on terror charges ranged from 300 to 2,500.

Amid a near black out on news in Libya, and a ban preventing foreign journalists from entering, fragmentary reports suggested death toll rising into the dozens as anti-regime protesters clashed with authorities in several cities.

A Libyan newspaper says that at least 27 people have been killed in two cities, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya reports.

The website for the publication, Oea--said to be associated with leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son--says anti-regime protests left 20 dead in the city of Benghazi and seven fatalities in Darnah.

Human Rights Watch had earlier said the death toll in Libya had reached 24. AFP compiled fatalaties from various sources, reporting a total of 41.

After a fierce attack by armed men and special forces in Benghazi on Thursday, protesters set fire to the headquarters of a local radio station on Friday, Agence France Presse reported.

Amid the crackdown, the semi-independent Quryna newspaper reported that the government would replace many state executives and decentralise and restructure the government. The report could not be immediately confirmed, but could suggest some effort to calm the unrest.  

But offering a contradictory message in a pro-Gadhafi website, the regime on Friday vowed to snuff any further attempt to challenge the Libyan leader, after the opposition "day of anger" turned into a bloodbath.

"The response of the people and the Revolutionary Forces to any adventure by these small groups will be sharp and violent," the Revolutionary Committees said on the website of their newspaper.

The committees are a key instrument of power for Gadhafi's regime.

"The power of the people, the Jamahiriya (government by the masses), the Revolution and the leader are all red lines, and anyone who tries to cross or approach them will be committing suicide and playing with fire," the statement continued.

Reports from other cities suggested spreading unrest: In the inland city of Zentan, protesters set fire to local premises of the Revolutionary Committees offices and the security forces, the Libyan newspaper Quryna reported on its website. There were also protests and clashes reported in al-Bayda city

As UK newspaper The Guardian reported Friday: “There was a blizzard of rumors and claims about killings by mercenaries and defections by members of the security forces.”

It said prisoners were reported to have escaped en masse from al-Jadida jail in the capital, Tripoli, which had previously been calm.

The Guardian also quoted diplomats who described events in Libya as "a rapidly deteriorating situation."

The foreign reporters who are based in Libya operate under government restrictions on travel, so verifying reports from outside of Tripoli is difficult.

The ruling military council in Egypt has banned "illegal" strikes which it said were harming the economy, state television reported Friday, quoting a statement from the military.

The military council took power after protests finally pressured long-time President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

As protests grew, strikes by public workers, from policemen to state-owned bank employees, undertook work stoppages, calling for better wages and conditions. The workers also lent their considerable muscle to the mass demonstrations led by young activists in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Now the council is trying to restore order, and some fear that the council could revert to more repressive measures.

The council understood workers' demands and had instructed the relevant state bodies to study and act on them, the statement said. But citizens must do their duty to the state, it added.

There was no immediate indication that the prohibition against strikes would affect other types of protest.

Friday marked the one-week point since Mubarak's resignation was announced, an occasion that was treated as a large celebration by throngs of Egyptians who once again gathered in Tahrir Square.

Carsten Koall / Getty Images Contributor

Huge crowds gather in Tahrir Square to celebrate former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster and call on Egypt's military rulers to speed up reforms and their crackdown on corruption.

CAIRO – If people vote with their feet, then the millions of Egyptians who crowded into Tahrir Square on Friday were expressing their unadulterated joy at the success of their popular revolt. 

Most people feel that rampant corruption under former President Hosni Mubarak stunted Egypt's human and economic potential, so now they look forward to what they believe will be better days once the country purges remnants of the old regime.

There is tremendous pressure on the military to bring the most flagrant profiteers of Mubarak’s regime to justice. Thursday night, police rounded up three top ministers, as well as steel tycoon and Mubarak crony, Ahmed Ezz, possibly Egypt's most hated man. 
YouTube video showed three of the men led into Cairo’s Tora Prison in handcuffs.

Analysts think the arrests, on the eve of Cairo's "Victory Day" demonstration, the largest gathering in Cairo so far, were meant to placate protesters' hunger for reform.

But those who worked hardest for Mubarak's overthrow want a clean sweep.

Long list of demands
The planners of the revolution, as well as the leadership council of the 25th of January Revolution, insist that the protests continue until emergency law is lifted, political prisoners are released, ministers who served under Mubarak are purged from the government and a provisional civilian government is set up alongside the provisional military government.

Few doubt the military's will to hold elections on schedule, but many worry that they are seeing too many old faces in the government and on the council for constitutional reform – and no representatives of the January 25th movement. Feminists complain that half the Egyptian population – women – have been excluded from the council that will determine constitutional amendments. 

Secularists are also fretting about the fact that there is one Muslim Brotherhood member on the council, as well as others who they say are sympathetic to Islamists, but no countervailing secularists, reformists or human rights lawyers.

What’s at stake is Article 2 of the Egyptian constitution which establishes Islamic religious law as the basis of civil law in Egypt. Practically speaking, Islamic civil law allows men easy and unilateral divorce rights, legalizes polygamy and permits sons twice the inheritance of daughters. Egypt's top clerics have already said that Article 2 is off limits and cannot be altered, but reformists insist it must be changed.    

Ben Curtis / AP

Six-month old Shourouk is carried on her mother's shoulders, as tens of thousands of Egyptians gather to pray and celebrate the fall of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, and to maintain pressure on the current military rulers, in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Friday.

Meantime, the ecountry remains crippled by closed banks, striking workers, closed schools and higher crime since only half the old police force is back at work. 

But even the challenges have not stifled a pervasive feeling of optimism and hope. Cairo’s drivers honked their support for the hundreds of thousands crowded into central Cairo on Friday. The demonstration was not only a celebration, but a message to the military leadership: ignore us at your peril.

"Of course it's a good thing," affirmed a taxi driver. "We are a rich country. We have tourism, the Suez Canal, oil, gas and industry. Now things will get better."

John Moore / Getty Images

Friends and family members mourn during a funeral for slain anti-government protester Ali Ahmed al Muameen on Friday in Sitra, Bahrain.

Amid chaos in the streets of Bahrain, and mounting casualties from clashes between police and protesters, the King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has asked the crown prince to start a national dialogue "with all parties."

In an official statement, reported by Reuters, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa had been given "all the powers to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of all gracious citizens from all sections."

Soldiers opened fire Friday on thousands of protesters defying a government ban and streaming toward the landmark square that had been the symbolic center of the uprising to break the political grip of the Gulf nation's leaders.

Officials at the main Salmaniya hospital said at least 50 people were injured, some with gunshot wounds.

CNN reports that at least four have died in Friday’s mayhem.

Tunisians opposed to prostitution on Friday tried to set fire to a well-known stretch of brothels in Tunis, but were dispersed by police using helicopters, a police official told Al-Arabiya, a regional news network.

"Islamists tried to get into Abdallah Guech Street to set it on fire," the official said, according to the report. "Residents kept them out until the security forces arrived."

Dozens of protesters calling for Tunisia's brothels to be closed had rallied outside the interior ministry following Friday prayers before marching to Abdallah Guech Street, the report said.

The red light district is a popular destination for tourists, especially those from other Arab countries. Tunisia’s prostitutes also ply their services at the city’s cafes.

The protesters included women, some wearing veils -- a rarity in Tunisia -- while others sported tight jeans.

Some shouted: "No to prostitution houses in a Muslim country!"

"It's a shame for all Arab Muslim countries to allow these houses to remain open," a 24-year-old student is quoted as saying.

Tunisia is in the control of an interim government, following popular protests that ousted long-time President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Under existing laws, prostitution is illegal, but there are government-sanctioned brothels where prostitutes are provided regular heath checks.

In the 1980s and 1990s there was an Islamist movement that was crushed by Ben Ali’s government, and with his departure some analysts are predicting an reemergence. But it remains unclear whether Tunisia’s growing middle-class will approve of a role for the Islamists in the new government.

President Barack Obama condemned reports of harsh responses to protests in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, calling on governments of those countries to show restraint, newswires reported on Friday.

In addressing the actions of nations where the United States has delicate relationships and vital interests, Obama chose his words carefully.

"I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence against peaceful protesters in those countries, and wherever else it may occur."

He expressed condolences to the families of those killed.

White House press secretary Jay Carney read the president's statement to reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One from California to Oregon on a trip to highlight high technology.

Reuters and regional press are reporting that two more countries in the Middle East and North Africa--Kuwait and Djibouti--have been hit by large protests, as well as Syria, where only a small flurry of dissent had been seen during the current wave of demonstrations.

In oil-rich Kuwait, a nation sandwiched between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, more than 1,000 stateless people protested, demanding citizenship on Friday, according to Reuters, and dozens were arrested by police, witnesses said.

Security forces aggressively dispersed the demonstration, using smoke bombs and water cannon, after protesters ignored warnings to leave. There were no reports of casualties.

The stateless people, longtime residents of Kuwait known as Bedouin, are seeking benefits that are available to Kuwaiti nationals --free education, free health care and jobs, as well as citizenship.

Also new on the turmoil map was Djibouti -- a tiny country on the Horn of Africa -- where protesters were calling for their president to step down.

Al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based news network reports that thousands of opposition supporters, mainly students, were gathered to demand the resignation of President Ismael Omar Guelleh.

Guelleh, 63, has been in power since 1999 and amended the constitutional last year to allow him to stand for two more six-year terms.

Amid a tight police deployment, the demonstrators gathered at a stadium with the intention of staying there until their demands are met.

Al-Arabiya also cited an opposition website in the tightly controlled police state of Syria in reporting that hundreds of protesters are demonstrating against security forces after traffic police beat up a young man in the capital's Old City.

The Dubai-based all4Syria.info said Imad Nasab, son of a shop owner in the cobbled commercial strip of Hariqa, was assaulted by traffic police officers, sparking a spontaneous rally on Thursday in solidarity with the victim.

"The Syrian people will not be humiliated," chanted the crowd, according to Al-Arabiya.

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Yemeni anti-government demonstrators demand the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen on Friday.

With protesters across the Middle East and North Africa calling for “Days of Rage,” it raises the question: Where does the term come from? What is the etymology of the phrase and when was it adopted by Arab protesters?

The term appears to have been first used in the United States by the Weathermen, also known as the Weather Underground, a radical leftist, anti-government organization. The anti-Vietnam war organization planned several “days of rage” as an effort to “bring the war home.”  Beginning on Oct. 8, 1969, a few hundred protesters ran through the well-heeled streets of Chicago’s Gold Coast smashing everything from cars to fancy shop windows.  After four days of protests and repeated clashes with the police, 287 people were arrested. The Weathermen organization eventually petered out after the end of the Vietnam War.

But then, the expression fell into disuse, according to a Google timeline of the terms usage. It only re-emerged in 1989 when a cultural kerfuffle erupted over the broadcasting of a PBS documentary called “Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians.” Produced by Jo Franklin, an award-winning producer for the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, the documentary was met with resistance because it told the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Palestinian perspective. it featured Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza denouncing their treatment by their Israeli occupiers and was made in the height of what became known as the First Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, from 1987-1993.

PBS viewers, particularly those in New York, took issue with the documentary being broadcast on public TV because they said it was “pure propaganda” and did not provide balance by showing the Israeli perspective.  

The documentary became a polarizing topic of debate, with the New York Times widely denouncing the project to the Los Angeles Times championing it as a fresh look at the conflict from voices seldom heard in the American media. Channel Thirteen, the New York PBS station lists the controversy among “Thirteen’s Most Shocking Moments.”

After months of public debate, the documentary eventually aired to a huge audience, with the Israeli perspective edited in and a roundtable discussion held after the broadcast. It also aired across the Middle East – which is why Franklin believes the term became synonymous with protests in the Arab world to this day.

Franklin said that the phrase was not a translation of an Arabic term she had heard on the street, but rather just an idea that came to her as she was editing the film. In Arabic, the term is يوم الغضب , pronounced “youm al ghadab.”

“I was just watching the footage day after day. You know how it is when you are editing a 90-minute film and all of a sudden it came to me – the core of the film was rage. Consequentially I named the film, ‘Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians,’” Franklin said during a recent phone interview.

Reuters

Anti-government protesters shout slogans during a demonstration in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz on Friday.

She said that in the midst of the U.S. controversy, a friend at the Washington Post was traveling to Jordan and asked if he could show the film to the then King Hussein. She said that Hussein not only watched it, but he “put it on the satellite out of Jordan and broadcast it all over the Middle East!”

While she essentially coined the term at the time, she’s still surprised to see it being used now. “It is just absolutely fascinating to me now, years later, to see that literally became ‘the term. ’” 

First intifada? Second intifada?
In fact, the term has become so widespread since then that a number of Middle East experts couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it was first used.

Martin Fletcher, NBC News' longtime Middle East correspondent said that he couldn’t remember exactly when it came into common parlance, but believes it wasn’t until the 1990s.

Lawrence Pintak, now dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, covered the Middle East as a correspondent for over 30 years beginning in the early 1980s and is the author of "The New Arab Journalist."

Pintak, who started his career as a reporter in Beirut in the early 1980s and then moved on to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said he always assumed the term “day of rage” was an English translation of an Arab saying. 

“I certainly remember it in the Second Intifada [2000-2005], but I don’t specifically remember if it was in the First Intifada or not. But it’s like the chicken and the egg. If Jo [Franklin] says she made it up, not because of what she heard on the ground, that’s very interesting.”

Likewise, Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said he couldn’t remember exactly when he first heard the term. “I have vague recollection of it being used during the First Intifada… I can’t be sure, but I have a vague recollection of that.”  

However, when asked if Franklin’s documentary might have started the trend, he said, “that may actually be it.”

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist also started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the early 1980s. “I would say it dates back to the Palestinian intifada. But I could not really answer you specifically when it actually started. Or what was the one occasion that actually got the name kind of tacked on to it,” Kuttab said.

“I think it started in one place and they just picked it up. There is a lot of copy-catting here. As they say, ‘courage is contagious.’”    

Regardless of where the term came from, Cook, from the CFR pointed out that the term is used because it fits the occasion. “I wouldn’t attach too much importance to it being used in one era – like the first intifada or the second intifada…and then it being used in Cairo for the first Friday of protests. It’s just an obvious thing that people who are rising up against their government might use.”

And Kuttab pointed out that whatever  the “rage” implied in the term translates to, the Egyptians deserve credit for what they achieved – but mostly for keeping it non-violent.  He added, “As President Obama said, ‘their moral power was to keep it non-violent.’ You pay a price for that, but it’s so much more powerful.” 

If you have any ideas about the origin of the term, please contribute via the comment section below.

By Robert Windrem, NBC News investigative producer for special projects

U.S. officials say they believe that Iranian warships' planned transit of the Suez Canal is still uncertain, that neither the Egyptians nor Iranians have made final decisions, despite early reports that the plan had been scrapped.

On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigor Lieberman made some news when he spoke about the transit, calling it a “provocation.”

The Iranians said they planned to send two warships through the canal and in fact Iranian TV reported Thursday that the ships were en route.

The Suez Canal Authority runs the canal and must grant permission for warships to pass through the canal. Only warships require permission.

The authority said Wednesday that the Iranians had made and rescinded a request, which the Iranians subsequently denied.

U.S. officials say that the transit is "still in play" and will be "for a couple of days," that it's uncertain the Egyptians will grant permission and uncertain that the Iranians will ask for it.

"All parties are still debating this," said the official.

As for whether the transit and movement into the Mediterranean is a "provocation" as the Israeli claim, a U.S. official said that in fact the operation does appear to be nothing more than a training mission.

AFP - Getty Images

March 21, 2006, photo shows then-Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife, Leila, attending a parade during ceremonies for the 50th anniversary of Tunisia's independence. Deposed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is "in a coma" in a Saudi hospital following a stroke, says a family friend.

Just days after reports that ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak fell ill after stepping down, come reports from Reuters news agency of similar concerns that Tunisia's former leade.

Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali is in grave condition in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi source said on Thursday.

Ben Ali, 74, was ousted in a popular revolt last month and fled Tunisia after 23 years in power. He has been in exile in Saudi Arabia since then.

"He is in a grave condition," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, who said he was unsure which hospital was treating the former ruler.

The source did not say what Ben Ali was suffering from.

Ben Ali's overthrow sparked a series of popular uprisings which have rocked the Arab world and inspired the protests that forced out Mubarak.

He was seen as a leader who ensured political stability and economic growth but rode roughshod over human rights and democratic values. He denies the allegations.