When the protests started in the center of Tunisia in early December and made their way up north, thousands of tourists were evacuated from the resort towns. After the fall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country saw a drop of 40 percent in the number of tourists in January.Things haven't improved since then either.

As anti-government unrest continues to ripple across the Middle East, many in Israel are worried that changes in the Arab world could lead to renewed hostilities against them.

Contending forces—be they from the ruling class or activists organizing from below—make strategic choices based on the quantity and type of the resources they have at their disposal.

On 12 March, the Arab League called on the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal contends that “American liberals and the Western European chattering classes,” are the people mainly complaining about US presence in the Arab world, not Arabs. While the Obama administration, plagued by “American self-abnegation,” relies on the international community to intervene in the Libyan conflict, the United States may be losing the confidence of the Arab street.

Regardless of how the Libyan revolt plays out, in the global economy the humanitarian crisis is just one deadly aspect of the fighting. Thousands are believed dead, and the fabric of society has been shredded in what has become a civil war. But to the nations of Europe that have come to rely on a steady flow of oil and petrodollars from Moammar Kadafi's nation, the destruction of what could be called Libya Inc. is likely to be the most painful blow.

Much attention has been paid to the crucial role played by new media in promoting and enabling the revolutions that are sweeping across the Arab world. However, Radio Netherlands Worldwide highlights the concurrent surge in importance of mainstream media in the region, and reasons that both were central in the recent Arab uprisings.

Libyan immigrants worldwide are banding together to call for aid to their embattled homeland and drumming up support for international relief groups. The Libyan Community Association of Oregon, for example, formed in February when the unrest first erupted. Since then, the state's Libyan community – some 225 people – has staged four rallies in the Portland area and helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for aid groups, says leader Jamal Tarhuni.

But scores of unemployed young men still slouch in the cafes in the afternoons, smoking water pipes, playing cards and sipping coffee. And at night, the fishing boats still ferry thousands of desperate workers across the Mediterranean, to Europe.