It's official — the government has fallen from power, clearing the way for a spring election.

The opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois came together Friday afternoon in a historic vote to say they no longer have confidence in the Conservative government.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed reporters after the vote and said he would meet with the Governor General on Saturday "to inform him of the situation and to take the only course of action that remains," referring to the dissolution of Parliament and an immediate election campaign.

Harper began his remarks by saying that while Canada's economic recovery has been strong, the global economy is still fragile.

"The budget presented this week by the minister of finance, the next phase of Canada's Economic Action Plan, is critically important," Harper said.

"There's nothing — nothing — in the budget that the opposition could not or should not have supported. Unfortunately Mr. Ignatieff and his coalition partners, the NDP and the Bloc, had already decided they wanted to force an election instead," Harper said. "The fourth election in seven years. An election Canadians clearly don't want."

"Thus the vote today that disappoints me, will, I expect, disappoint Canadians," Harper said.

[I love Canada's politics. They are oh so much saner than anything in this country.]

March 22-Simply astounding photos of what is going on in "Kurdistan" along the Iran/Iraq border from Uskowsi on Iran via Payvand.

Is their motto: Trade or Die?

Be sure to follow through to see more of them at the Payvand link.

The New York Times paywall is costing the newspaper $40-$50 million to design and construct, Bloomberg has reported.

And it can be defeated through four lines of Javascript.

... All NYTClean does is call four measly lines of Javascript that hide a couple <div>s and turn page scrolling back on. It barely even qualifies as a hack. But it allows you access to any New York Times story, even when you’re past the monthly limit. (I just tested it out with a Canadian proxy server — works just like it says.)

“It’s very possible that there has been some kind of leak at the No. 3 reactor,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman at the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in Tokyo today. While radioactive water at the unit most likely escaped from the reactor core, it also could have originated from spent fuel pools stored atop the reactor, he said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-25/reactor-core-may-be-breached-at-damaged-fukushima-plant.html

By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online, March 24, 2011

ISLAMABAD - After a prolonged lull, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has launched a series of covert operations in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan following strong tip-offs that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been criss-crossing the area in the past few weeks for high-profile meetings in militant redoubts..[....]

Asia Times Online has learned that decision-makers have put a lot of weight on the information on Bin Laden's movements as it has come from multiple intelligence agencies, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. For at least two years, little credible news has emerged of Bin Laden's movements and motives. Now, intelligence officials believe they have top-grade accounts as they come from the inner circles of militant camps.

Officials are said to be "stunned" by the visibility of Bin Laden's movements, and their frequency.[....]  The development has fueled speculation in intelligence circles that al-Qaeda could be planning another major attack along the lines of the September 11.....However, extensive investigations by Asia Times Online, including exchanges within al-Qaeda's camps, point in another direction.[....]

By Nayla Razzouk and Caroline Alexander, Bloomberg News, March 24, 2011

Syria’s government considers the demands of protesters “legitimate” and may lift an emergency law under which most constitutional rights have been suspended since 1963, a presidential adviser said after reports that demonstrators were killed in the southern city of Daraa.

The government also will increase judiciary authority and prepare a political parties law, Buthaina Shaaban, President Bashar Al-Assad’s political and media adviser, said in a televised briefing. The decisions will be implemented today, with more measures to come next week, she said.

“This does not refute the fact that there were some mistakes or some actions that were not satisfactory,” Shaaban said. She said Assad didn’t give orders to use bullets against his people. “The demands of the people of Daraa and the rest of the Syrian people across all provinces are legitimate,” she said...

Also see:

Protests prompt Syria to pledge reforms
Al Jazeera, 24 Mar 2011 20:43 GMT
Government to consider ending emergency rule and licensing political parties in wake of deadly protests.

and:

Syrian people outraged over government shootings in Daraa
By Katherine Marsh in Damascus, Guardian.co.uk, March 24, 2011
Human rights groups say that more than 100 people may have been killed when troops opened fire on a mosque.

By Barry Hatton, Associated Press, March 24, 2011

LISBON, Portugal – Portugal's financial collapse appeared inevitable on Thursday, as markets took the government's resignation as proof the debt-heavy country will lose its year-long battle to avoid a bailout....The Socialist government quit late Wednesday after opposition parties rejected its latest debt-reduction plan, generating new market jitters and likely shortening the time the country can hold out before asking for help....

Euro Shrugs Off Portugal, But Spain Poses Big Test
By Javier E. David and Clare Connaghan, Dow Jones Newswire, March 24, 2011

NEW YORK --The austerity woes that felled Portugal's government had but a fleeting impact on the euro, but Spain could pose the toughest test yet to the integrity of the 17-nation currency bloc....

From The Guardian:

"Britain and France are facing a rising torrent of international criticism over military intervention in Libya, with Russia and China leading calls for an immediate ceasefire. Just as a majority of Britons distrusts their government's motives, according to a new YouGov poll, many, if not most, countries around the world also view the action as risky, self-interested, and duplicitous.

The fragile consensus on intervention achieved last week, when the UN security council approved "all measures necessary" to protect Libyan civilians against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, has shattered in the wake of large-scale US, British and French ground and air attacks.

The attacks were widely seen internationally as disproportionate, careless of civilian lives, and extending beyond the agreed plan to impose a defensive no-fly zone....

Chinese criticism, largely expressed through state-controlled media, has been particularly virulent, possibly reflecting second thoughts in Beijing about its unexpected decision to abstain in last week's vote, rather then use its veto.

"The air attacks are an announcement that the west still wants to dominate the world. [It] still believes down to its very bones that it's the leader of the world," said the online Global Times....

.... Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, voted in favour of UN resolution 1973 after he was personally lobbied by Barack Obama. But he has quickly changed his tune.

Speaking this week, Zuma called for an immediate ceasefire, expressing concern about civilian casualties. South Africa, he said, "rejected any foreign intervention, whatever its form". The air strikes, he suggested, were more to do with regime change than humanitarian assistance....

... Nigeria and India, have joined the campaign demanding Britain and France back off. "The measures adopted should mitigate and not exacerbate an already difficult situation," the Indian external affairs ministry said.

Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, added hypocrisy to the Anglo-French charge sheet. "In Libya they are very eager to impose a no-fly zone. In Bahrain and other areas where there are pro-western regimes, they turn a blind eye to the very same or even worse conditions...."

Britain and France may try to shrug off this tidal wave of global criticism, in the way western powers historically always have. But some very influential countries, with an increasing capacity to make life uncomfortable, are now ranged against them. Ignoring them will be harder to do the longer the war continues, and the more people are killed.

United Nations News Service,  23 March 2011

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today condemned the continued use of force in western Libya, where Government troops have been engaged in fighting with the opposition movement that emerged from public protests against the regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi.

Mr. Ban, in a statement issued by his spokesperson, deplored the use of force in that part of Libya, including in the towns of Zintan and Misrata.

“He reiterates his call for an immediate end to violence by all parties, in accordance with Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973, and for the responsibility to protect civilians,” the statement noted.

“All those who violate international humanitarian and human rights law will be held fully accountable.”....

Whoops—in its bid to sue hundreds of bloggers, commentors, and website operators from posting even a few sentences from newspaper stories, the copyright zealots at Righthaven have just scored an own goal. Last Friday, a federal judge ruled in one of the company's many lawsuits, saying that even the complete republication of copyrighted newspaper content can be "fair use."

[...]

Steve Green, a reporter at the competing Las Vegas Sun newspaper, attended the hearing. Judge Mahan told both sides that the purpose of copyright law was to encourage creativity and to disseminate public access to information, so long as that did not unfairly hinder the market for the original story. In this case, Mahan said that the tiny Oregon nonprofit had essentially zero overlap between the readers of its website and the readers of the Review-Journal. In addition, the effect on the "market" for the work is unclear, since Righthaven is solely using the copyright to prosecute a lawsuit, not to defend its news operations (it has none).

[...]

As Green noted in a follow-up piece, the result here is almost comical: Righthaven goes to war in the name of tough copyright enforcement and winds up with a ruling that complete republication by some nonprofits falls under the scope of fair use. "Some 250 Righthaven lawsuits later, Righthaven's startling achievement is that newspapers now have less—not more—protection from copyright infringers," Green concluded.

The British defence secretary, Liam Fox, said the scale was in line with UN resolutions that had been "essential in terms of the Gaddafi regime's ability to prosecute attacks on their own people". He also said it was possible that Gaddafi himself could become a target of air attacks if the safety of civilians could be guaranteed.

[Submitter's note: I really rather doubt this will happen. I suspect, as has been reported elsewhere, that Gaddafi is not in Libya at this time. He has most likely amscrayed a long time ago. Probably some friendly South American Country]