NPR 2011-02-21

The government crackdown against protesters in Libya continues. The Associated Press is quoting a doctor at a hospital in Benghazi as saying the morgue there has received at least 200 dead from the days of unrest. Meanwhile, Fred Abrahams with Human Rights Watch is putting the number closer to 170. He tells NPR troops continue to fire at the protesters.

“Yesterday and today, the protesters, they gathered to mourn and carry the bodies to the cemetery 1 of people who had been killed in previous days, so the procession marches peacefully and goes by the main security compound in the town of Benghazi in the east about a million people. And as the crowd gets near to the compound, security forces from inside are opening fire. This is what we’ve gotten on the phone from witnesses as well as doctors who’re treating the wounded and seeing the dead come to the hospital.”

Again, that’s Fred Abrahams, an advisor 2 to Human Rights Watch.

The US ambassador to the United Nations says leaders in the Middle East and North Africa facing the protests should recognize a yearning 3 for reform. And as NPR’s Allison Keyes tells us, lead the way rather than be forced.

Ambassador Susan Rice says the Obama administration has been encouraging Bahrain and other governments in the region to understand that the desire for change and reform isn’t going to go away. And then it has sent a consistent message that those governments need to get ahead of reform by leading rather than being pushed, but Rice tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” the White House is very concerned about reports of violence and attacks on civilians 4 in Libya and elsewhere.

“We’ve been very clear with our partners in Bahrain that they ought to exercise restraint, that there’s no place for violence against peaceful protesters there or anywhere else, and we’ve condemned 5 that violence.”

Rice says the US isn’t pushing leaders in the region out or dictating 6 that they stay. Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.

The US is hoping to reach out to new populations by launching Twitter feeds in Arabic and Farsi. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appearing on ABC’s “This Week”, says she has high hopes for the feeds.

“We want them to hear directly from us what our policies are. We want to use it to rebut 7 some of the falsehoods and accusations 8 that unfortunately are made against the United States.”

Clinton says by launching the feeds they'll be reaching millions of new populations like those demonstrating in the Mideast.

Authorities say it was an engine failure that forced a Delta 9 Airline’s flight to make an emergency landing this morning. Aviation officials say they recovered several pieces of what appears to be a damaged engine from a highway near the Fort Lauderdale airport. No injuries were reported. It is unclear what caused the engine to malfunction 10. The 140 passengers were rebooked on other flights.

This is NPR News.

A winter storm is getting in the way of travel plans for folks using the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Officials say hundreds of flights in and out of city have been canceled as a major storm sweeps in. The National Weather Service says 10-15 inches of snow could fall by tomorrow.

A European Union team starts to work in Italy today, providing backup for local authorities overwhelmed by thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from Tunisia. They've recently arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Terri Shultz reports from Brussels that EU member states are grappling with the obligation to show solidarity 11 with Italy while not wanting to accept more refugees themselves.

The EU has fast-tracked funding from Brussels to help with accommodating and processing the more than 5,000 migrants. A team of 30 people, a plane and some ships has just arrived to help stop more Tunisians from sailing the 70 miles to Italian territory. Italy is angrily reminding its fellow EU members. They're required by regulation to provide assistance. The so-called “principle of solidarity”, that's one of the basic tenets of the bloc 12. But Austria, France and Germany have said publicly they won’t take in any significant number of Tunisians; no government has said it will. Rome wants an emergency EU summit of heads of state to deal with the situation. So far, that’s not in the works. But foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels tonight to discuss the crisis. For NPR News, I’m Terri Shultz in Brussels.

Four Senators are asking Florida’s governor to enact 13 some sort of program to keep better track of the flow of abused prescription 14 drugs out of the state. Senators from Florida, New York, Rhode Island and West Virginia call the flow the “Flamingo Express”. The governor of Florida says he will repeal 15 the state’s drug trafficking law and monitoring system before it can take effect.