When my family were permitted to visit me in 1992, my husband brought me a copy of The Power of the Powerless. I have just flicked quickly through the pages of this now shabby, well-thumbed volume and reread some of the phrases I underlined in the book. "... an examination of the potential of the 'powerless' -- can only begin with an examination of the nature of power in the circumstances in which these powerless people operate ..." "... freedom is indivisible ..."

Liu Xiaobo, 56, is the first Chinese citizen living in China to win the Nobel Prize, and is a national embarrassment for the Chinese authorities, who view his peaceful campaign for democracy as dangerous criminal activity. 'No Enemies, No Hatred' comes as China steps up its repression of dissidents and activists across the country. China's approaching leadership transition, combined with the upcoming first anniversaries of the so-called Jasmine Revolution and Arab Spring, have led to severe crackdowns.

Despite the seemingly endless stream of news stories focusing on violence, crime and death that are splashed across the world's front pages, humans are now living in one of the most peaceful periods of our existence. That's according to a new book by Steven Pinker, a Harvard Psychology professor and one of the "World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals" according to Time magazine.

Many Egyptians watched a warning message in a YouTube video that began to circulate last year named "Message From Iranian Women to Tunisian and Egyptian Women." The video features pictures of the life of Iranian women before and after the Islamic revolution there in 1979. Depicting a reversal of women's rights with the implementation of Islamic rule after the revolution, the video warns women in Egypt and Tunisia to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them.

At least 15 ethnic Tibetans - most of them current or former Buddhist clergy members - have set themselves on fire in the past year, including four this month, part of a wave of anti-government protests in Tibet and the western Chinese province of Sichuan. "The blame lies with the Chinese government and its very hardline, insensitive policies,'' said Lobsang Sangay, the Dalai Lama's political successor. "This vicious cycle of crackdowns and repressions by China seems likely to continue."

The best hope for Syria is that continued protests, strikes and other forms of nonviolent resistance, combined with targeted international sanctions, will cause enough disruption that powerful economic interests and other key sectors currently allied with the regime would force the government to negotiate with the opposition for a transfer of power to a democratic majority. Indeed, this is the scenario that eventually forced an end to another notorious minority regime, that of South Africa.

Last year, the outside world hailed the walk-to-work protests as the vehicle that would teleport popular uprisings to sub Saharan Africa. But in the end, walk-to-work turned out to be the Arab Spring's impoverished cousin as President Museveni's government lived to die another day. Whether that day is on the horizon remains to be seen.

The protest that paralyzed Yemen's main airport erupted when an air force officer hurled a boot at his commander, a relative of the outgoing president and a symbol of the corruption that divides even his supporters. "This is all I have left for the month," says Faris Al-Jabar, one of about 50 officers who blocked Sanaa airport's runway this week, plucking a few banknotes from his tattered wallet. "I earn in a month what my superiors spend in a day."

The force that was once praised as "the protector of the revolution" has seen a plummeting of popular legitimacy, with Egyptians angered by the SCAF's impromptu, opaque decision-making, its increasingly brutal tactics and its apparent unwillingness to cede power. The SCAF has worked to ensure that in any government handover to a civilian authority, it will preserve its own political and economic autonomy and maintain its de facto status as a state within the state.

Thousands of people in the northwest Argentine province of La Rioja are mobilising to stop an open-cast gold mining project in the Nevados de Famatina, a snowy peak that is the semi-arid area's sole source of drinking water. La Rioja "is a dry province and we have just enough clean water to live on, but not to share with miners," one of the protesters, Héctor Artuso, a resident from the small town of Villa Pituil, in the Famatina area, told IPS.