Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/12/2011

Refugees from the political chaos in North Africa continue to arrive on the shores of Sicily, precipitating a humanitarian emergency for the Italian government. Today’s unrest in Algeria prompted the authorities to shut down the internet and Facebook.

Meanwhile, Hosni Mubarak is reckoned to have accumulated more than $50 billion during his 30 years as Egypt’s president. Much of his wealth is tied up in foreign banks, and Switzerland has placed a freeze on his assets in Swiss banks. However, it is believed that during his last few weeks in office, Mr. Mubarak and his family made efforts to place much of their wealth beyond the reach of investigators.

In other news, the US trade deficit increased to $40.6 billion during December of last year.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, Insubria, JD, JP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.