In Tunisia students were using triangulation to pin point sniper locations. Hey folks, so I got back from my 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat last week and must say i feel fully re-charged, super-positive and healthier than ever. Overall it was an absolutely life-changing experience. MORE

Today is International Women’s Day. Hurrah! I like celebrations, and I like women, and international is cool (although as a lifelong new Yorker I am biologically programmed to disdain other places, I will make an exception for the whole wide world.). MORE

More recently, Tunisia ‘s Ben Ali and Egypt ‘s Hosni Mubarak also lost power once they could no longer count on security forces and military to fire into crowds. Things are getting better all the time! Right? MORE

But what about now that dictators have fallen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and perhaps Syria – and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement has gone global this past weekend? What a difference a year can make – not always for the better, mind you. But in today’s post we see grounds for optimism when it comes to the development of social networks and of social movements forcing political and economic change. MORE

Tunisia. Back in March of 2009 I wrote a post entitled “ Latest mobile phone statistics from Africa and what this means ” based on a report that had come out from Blycroft Publishing tracking 2008 African mobile phone market stats. MORE

But what about now that dictators have fallen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and perhaps Syria – and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement has gone global this past weekend? Blogs Civics Communications Community Cross-Post News and Current Affairs Opinion Social Media Storytelling Tweets Civil Rights Movement communication Facebook Libya Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker Occupy Wall Street Social network Technology Tunisia Twitter Wall Street web 2.0 MORE

And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity. Did you see this speech? MORE

We’ve urged leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya to recognize women as equal citizens with important contributions to make. What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? YESTERDAY! I want you to pay attention to the vocabulary in this speech. MORE

She cites Jillian York’s level-headed take : To be honest, so much of the rhetoric around the use of social media in Egypt and Tunisia makes me want to scream — folks act like these American tools just dropped from the sky like humanitarian food rations, set to save the people from their (American-supported, natch) dictators. This is a matter of hot debate. On one hand, there is outrageous hype suggesting social media is fomenting revolutions. MORE

Now maybe to everyone else on the web this is old news, but did you know that: "In November 2007 Tunisia blocked access to the popular video-sharing sites YouTube and DailyMotion, which both carried material about Tunisian political prisoners. MORE