(Al Jazeera English: 0714 PST, March 30, 2011) President Bashar al-Assad has defied expectations on Wednesday that he would lift Syria's decades-old emergency law after nearly two weeks of protests that have presented the gravest challenge to his 11-year rule.

Addressing the nation for the first time since the start of the unprecedented wave of protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world, Assad said he supported reform but offered no new commitment to change Syria's one-party political system. Al Jazeera's correspondents have more on this developing story.

(Euronews: 0837 PST, February 24, 2011) The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has given an extraordinary interview by phone with Libyan state television, blaming the revolt against his rule on al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden, he said, was the real criminal. Gaddafi said he himself had only moral authority in Libya and likened himself to Britain's Queen Elizabeth. He offered his condolences to those who had died in the fighting uprising.

(Al Jazeera English: 0830 PST, February 24, 2011) An excerpt from Muammar Gaddafi's speech on Libyan state television Thursday.

(Al Jazeera English: 1000 PST, February 22, 2011) In a lengthy televised address, Muammar Gaddafi variously blamed the media, the U.S., the UK, Italy, and hallucinogenic drugs forced on young protesters for causing the trouble in his country. The Libyan leader tried his hardest to appeal to anti-colonialist sentiment in the country but behind all the anger there seemed to be one key message: he has created Libya, and will never leave.

But pressure on Gaddafi is mounting. Several major cities across Libya are under the control of the opposition and the deadly crackdown on protesters seems to have been hardening the popular resolve. Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee reports.

(Al Jazeera English Headlines: 0330 PST, February 22, 2011) Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader of 42 years, appeared briefly under an umbrella to tell viewers that he had planned on sleeping among protesters in Tripoli, the capital, but couldn't because of the rain. State television then went on to broadcast video of an orchestra and singers.

Link's Latin Pulse/Pulso Latino programs have only been getting better, presenting hard-hitting journalistic reports from countries like Colombia, Mexico and El Salvador. If you missed the recent report "Colombia: Stories That Kill", be sure to go back and watch online for some great analysis on free speech (or the lack thereof) among journalists in Colombia.

Today, we've just published the web-exclusive complete interview with Hollman Morris, the award-winning journalist who is featured in the above-mentioned report. The Colombian secret police have been illegally spying on Morris since 2004, and this fascinating interview (conducted via the video phone service Skype) explains why.

(Click here for the original version of the interview, en Español.)

You can read more about the claims that journalist Hollman Morris was a Colombian secret police target at Contravia.tv, a partner organization of Latin Pulse.