This is our new Friday Digest! Every Friday, this weekly news round-up gives us the occasion to share with you news from various topics: politics to arts, entertainment, media, science, sports, fun and less fun news… This digest is a list of news published this week on the Internet (Friday to Friday), selected by the Sama Team, and it is by no means exhaustive.

If you want to suggest a news to be added in the next Friday Digest, contact us.

Hands-On With the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet
With dozens of companies looking to gain tablet PC market share away from Apple and Samsung, it’s going to take a special kind of product to succeed, one that offers consumers fast performance and expanded options on the competition. In other words, something that’s not only different but better, in its own way. RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook could be that tablet. To be sure, the PlayBook is no iPad. It’s smaller and more intimate…
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/hands-on-blackberry-playbook/

WikiLeaks supporter says U.S. has subpoenaed information from Twitter
A member of parliament from Iceland who is connected to WikiLeaks says U.S. officials have subpoenaed information about her from the social media website Twitter. “Department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info — i got 10 days to stop it via legal process before twitter hands it over,” Birgitta Jonsdottir said on her Twitter account. The Department of Justice documents Jonsdottir appears to be referring to were posted…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/us.wikileaks.twitter/

Thousands of Egyptian Muslims Show Up as “Human Shields” to Defend Coptic Christians From Terorism
On New Year’s Day, a devastating terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt killed 21 people and injured 79 others. Although the identity of the culprits was not known, it was assumed that they were Muslim extremists, intent on targeting those they saw as heretics. Religious tensions immediately rose in the country, and angry Copts stormed streets, battled with police, and even vandalized a nearby mosque. The riots and heightened…
http://www.truth-out.org/thousands-egyptian-muslims-show-up-human-shields
-defend-coptic-christians-from-terorism66684

Iraq Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr urges Iraqis to unite
Anti-US Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has told an enthusiastic crowd of followers in Iraq to give the country’s new government a chance. The radical cleric was making his first speech since returning to his stronghold in Najaf after nearly four years of self-imposed exile in Iran. Last month his movement secured a deal to join the new government with seven ministries and 39 seats in parliament. He urged resistance against…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12141874

2 French Hostages Are Found Dead in Niger
Two Frenchmen kidnapped in Niger were found dead on Saturday after a rescue attempt on the border with Mali that involved the militaries of both Niger and France, the French government said. The hostages were kidnapped late Friday night from a bar in Niamey, the Niger capital, reportedly by four armed men wearing turbans who tried to take them into Mali. They were pursued by Niger’s military, with French military help, and were intercepted…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/world/africa/09niger.html

9-Year-Old Victim Was a 9/11 Baby, a ‘Face of Hope’
Christina Green was on the student council of her elementary school, so on Saturday her mother’s friend thought she might enjoy seeing government in action — the local congresswoman meeting with constituents outside a supermarket near Christina’s home. “I allowed her to go, thinking it would be an innocent thing,” said the girl’s mother, Roxanna Green, 45. It did not turn out that way. A gunman shot Representative Gabrielle…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/10green.html

Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan
Mark Zuckerberg. Who? Mr. Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old Facebook chief executive and co-founder, may be the man of the moment in the United States and much of the rest of the online world. But here in Japan, one of the globe’s most wired nations, few people have heard of him. And relatively few Japanese use Facebook, the global social-networking phenomenon based in Palo Alto, Calif., that recently added its 583 millionth…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10facebook.html

Hubble telescope zeroes in on green blob in space
The Hubble Space Telescope got its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it’s strangely alive. The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don’t normally form. The blob of gas was first discovered by a Dutch school teacher in 2007 and is named Hanny’s Voorwerp (HAN’-nee’s-FOR’-vehrp). Voorwerp is Dutch…
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/8ef5320729ce4298abefc1903704c7d5/Article
_2011-01-10-Space%20Blob/id-d194911534ae4d568b3cb02831d03821

Four Hours Of Screen Time Shortens Lifespan (VIDEO)
Reading this article may be shortening your life. A new study suggests that spending four or more hours per day in front of a screen is not only bad for your health, but may be life-threatening. According to the report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) the risk of heart attack and stroke for those that spend over the allotted four hours in front of a screen (TV or computer monitor) increased by…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/four-hours-of-screen-time_n_
807570.html

Hezbollah Forces Collapse of Lebanese Government
Hezbollah and its allies forced the collapse of the government here on Wednesday, deepening a crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former prime minister. Eleven of the cabinet’s 30 ministers announced their resignations, a move that dissolves the government. They said they were prompted to act by the cabinet’s refusal to convene an emergency session to oppose the tribunal…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/middleeast/13lebanon.html

Brazil flood and mudslide deaths rise as search goes on
The number of people killed by flooding and mudslides in south-east Brazil has reached 335, local officials have said. In the mountain towns of Nova Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis, the death tolls are reported at 155, 146 and 34 respectively, Brazilian media reported. Rescuers are bringing helicopters in as the search for survivors continues in the region north of Rio de Janeiro.  Brazil has seen severe flooding in recent years…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12180079

Italy’s Mt. Etna is Spewing Lava (VIDEO)
Italy’s Mt. Etna is rumbling again, sending lava down its slopes and an ash cloud into the air. And while no one was hurt in this week’s eruption, it did close down a nearby airport. A live webcam is letting volcano-buffs monitor the lava flows. The largest active volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world, Etna’s last major eruption was in 1992. Its most violent recorded eruption occurred on March 11, 1669…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trending/archive/2011/01/13/italy-s-mt-
etna-is-spewing-lava.aspx

Davos imposes gender quota
Each year, prime ministers, bankers, business tycoons and other movers and shakers of the global elite gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos. And each year, one key thing has been missing: women. Now, in an attempt to improve the traditionally dismal gender balance at this month’s event, which starts a week next Tuesday, the WEF has for the first time imposed a minimum quota of women…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/12/davos-imposes-gender-quota

Berlusconi probed in prostitution case
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is under investigation for allegedly having sex with a teen-ager, prosecutors in Milan said on Friday. The teen, identified as night-club dancer Karima El Mahrough and nicknamed Ruby, was 17 at the time of the alleged activity, from February till May. The Milan prosecutor said Berlusconi is being probed for complicity in prostitution and abuse of power. But the premier’s attorneys called…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/01/14/italy.berlusconi/index.html