Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigerian unions plan to resume talks with the government Saturday following days of national protests over corruption and soaring fuel prices in Africa's largest oil producer.

The two sides plan to meet ahead of a promised labor shutdown of the Nigerian oil industry.

In solidarity with protesters, the oil union has threatened to stop production Sunday if the government does not reinstate subsidies that will return the cost of fuel to previous levels.

A decision to halt production would affect global oil prices; Nigeria is the world's eighth-largest exporter.
Outrage over fuel prices in Nigeria
Outrage over fuel prices in Nigeria

Throngs of protesters have rallied to demand government accountability and a return of fuel subsidies ended on January 1, a move that doubled gas prices and sent the cost of other goods skyrocketing.

"This is not the first time the subsidy has been removed in Nigeria. For two decades, every single government has done this," said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the nation's finance minister. "There is a very short memory. It has always resulted in resistance and a strike and so on."

Labor unions urged protesters to take a break from their five-day strike Saturday and Sunday to stock up on food and water supplies.

Stores and supermarkets shut down as part of the national strike will reopen over the weekend to allow protesters to get supplies, said Folorunso Oginni, chairman of the nation's oil union, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.

(CNN) -- Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are used to meeting in grand slam finals, but the dominance of Novak Djokovic in 2011 means the two great rivals will feature in the same half of the draw for the first time in seven years at the Australian Open.

The former world No. 1s, who have clashed in eight title deciders, could meet in the semifinals of the tennis season's opening major, which begins in Melbourne on Monday.

Federer, seeking to extend his record of 16 grand slam titles, will start against a qualifier, as will Nadal -- bidding for his 11th elite crown.

Defending champion Djokovic, however, will start out against Italy's 108th-ranked Paolo Lorenzi as he starts a campaign that could see him meet last year's runner-up Andy Murray in the last four.


Fourth seed Murray, who lost to Federer in the 2010 final, begins against American 19-year-old Ryan Harrison, ranked 84th.

In the women's draw, world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki is top seed for the sixth grand slam in a row. The Dane, who is yet to win one of the four grand slams, starts off against Australia's Anastasia Rodionova.

Las Vegas (CNN) -- When it comes to TVs -- often the flashiest, most buzzed-about gadgets at the International Consumer Electronics Show -- it takes several years for reality to catch up to the hype.

HDTV debuted at CES in 1998, but it was another five or six years before HD sets became common in living rooms. 3-D TV arrived at CES in 2009 amid massive hoopla but has yet to catch on with mainstream consumers.

So judging from the variety of next-generation products being unveiled at this year's show, TV manufacturers are still scrambling to find the next killer feature that will entice buyers to ditch their flat-panel plasmas for something better.

The buzz surrounding 3-D has subsided, but television makers here are pushing other enhancements in the hopes something will stick: TVs that connect seamlessly with the Internet, TVs that interact wirelessly with your tablet device, TVs with built-in social features so you can post to Twitter about the show you're watching and TVs you control by speaking or waving your arms.

But there's no evidence that the average person wants all these new features when shopping for a TV, said Andrew Eisner, a gadget analyst with Retrevo, an electronics shopping site.

"Do consumers really care? I don't know," Eisner said. "As long as it looks decent and it won't break down and it's within their budget, that's what's important to most people."
The biggest buzz at CES has surrounded TVs with OLED screens instead of plasma or liquid crystals. OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, produce a crisp picture and deep, saturated colors. They appear in some high-end smartphone displays but until now have been difficult to manufacture in larger screens.

At a CES press event Monday morning, LG Electronics introduced what it called "the world's thinnest, largest and lightest" OLED TV: a 55-inch model with a remarkable picture.

There was an audible gasp in the room when it was unveiled, and a throng of photographers crowded around the set afterward like paparazzi around a starlet.

Not to be outdone, Samsung unveiled its own 55-inch OLED TV that afternoon, calling it "the ultimate in picture quality."

Both LG and Samsung say their OLED sets will hit the market in 2012, although neither would talk about price. The TVs won't be cheap; Eisner, the Retrevo analyst, expects them to sell initially for at least $8,000.

OLED "is beyond the reach of most consumers at this point," he said. "But it looks gorgeous."

To confuse matters further, Sony unveiled a 55-inch prototype TV that uses an eye-opening 6 million LEDs in place of pixels.

But these impressive-looking TVs won't be mainstream products anytime soon.

Based on CES press announcements and interviews with analysts, here are some TV features that may be on display at your neighborhood electronics store within the next 12 months:

Voice and motion controls

The remote control may be an endangered species. Some TV makers are following the lead of Apple's Siri, the iPhone 4S "virtual assistant," and Microsoft's Kinect gaming system, which allows players to operate their TVs and manipulate onscreen avatars by moving their bodies.

Samsung on Monday announced its flagship ES8000 LED model, whose built-in cameras, microphones and software let users speak commands like "channel 7" to control the TV. Users also will be able to use gesture controls for Web browsing, adjusting the volume and more.

LG also is adding voice control to the Magic Remote interface that comes with all its high-end Cinema Screen TVs in 2012.

And don't forget Apple, which may add Siri voice-recognition functions to the TV set it is rumored to be building this year.

More social features

It's been documented that more people are watching TV with a phone or tablet nearby so they can check Facebook during commercials or chat with their friends about what they're watching.

Now, manufacturers want to help you do all that through your television. On Monday, Panasonic announced a series of Web-connected "Smart Viera" TVs that will flash your social-networking updates on the screen. The company also unveiled a split-screen feature that lets you launch Skype and chat with friends while you're watching TV.

Justin Timberlake appears during a Panasonic press event to announce Myspace TV.

Panasonic also announced it's partnering with flagging social network Myspace for a new service called Myspace TV. Pop star Justin Timberlake, a Myspace investor, appeared onstage Monday to help promote the product, which will let viewers use a connected tablet to share music and TV shows with friends.

Bigger, thinner, lighter screens

TV sets can't get much thinner, but that hasn't stopped manufacturers -- always looking for a design edge over a competitor -- from trying.

"We've gone to great lengths to reduce the thinness of our TVs without sacrificing picture quality," said Wayne Park, president of LG Electronics USA, whose 55-inch OLED TV is just 4 millimeters thick (or thin).

Sharp Electronics, on the other hand, spent much of its press event Monday emphasizing its push toward massive screens. The company showed a video encouraging consumers to fit larger TVs into smaller spaces in their homes and handed out special glasses to demo what it claims is the world's first 80-inch 3-D LED TV, coming in April (price not announced).

Better sound

It's not all about bigger, brighter screens. There's been some chatter, but few specifics, at CES about the next generation of home-theater audio, including 3-D sound systems that create "sound fields" around the TV viewer. Expect to see more of this by the end of the year.

"Sound is always the unappreciated element of TVs," Eisner said. "People don't pay much attention to it, and they probably should, because surveys have shown that good sound can make the picture look better."

(CNN) -- This is the time of year when Hollywood traditionally gets back to basics, almost as if it's embarrassed by the number of worthy Oscar hopefuls clogging up the multiplexes.

Look on "The Devil Inside," "Contraband" and even Steven Soderbergh's "Haywire" as a kind of collective cleanse as the studios attempt to flush out all the pretension and excess accrued from the holiday period.

As rudimentary as its name, "Contraband" is a straightforward crime thriller, its only claim to novelty hailing from the significant portion of the action set on board a tanker en route from New Orleans to Panama (and back again). Mark Wahlberg is (get this) the reluctant criminal: a married-with-kids security consultant forced to return to his first love when his brother-in-law panics and deep-sixes a cocaine shipment intended for a deliciously unreasonable Giovanni Ribisi.

Wahlberg's character, Farraday, is something of a legend in these circles. He and best buddy Ben Foster were the "Lennon and McCartney of smuggling," we're told in the first scene, though it's up to us to work out which is which. In truth, Farraday seems more like a one-man band, the brains and the beauty, with the reliably unreliable Foster relegated to more of a Pete Best role.

Reworking the Icelandic film that he produced and starred in three years ago, "Reykjavik-Rotterdam," Baltasar Kormakur has assembled a very decent cast that also includes Kate Beckinsale (as Mrs. Farraday), Lukas Haas, J.K. Simmons, David O'Hara and Diego Luna as a crazed Panamanian gangster. But there's not much here for any of them to sink their teeth into.

(CNN) -- Meriem Ben Salah's 2-month-old will never know his mother's Tunisia.

He won't play in a neighborhood where government minders are lurking and watching.

He won't have to praise and thank the president before giving a book report.

He won't fear talking about politics, afraid that he'll say something the regime doesn't like.

"My son represents the new Tunisia," Ben Salah, a Tunisian native, recently told CNN. "I will tell him what I had to do and what I grew up with and he'll understand that now there is no fear. Fear left with Ben Ali. May he and that fear never come back."

A year ago, the 28-year-old posted an iReport about what it was like to grow up in Tunisia under former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. As she wrote, Tunisia was in the throws of a historic revolution, a movement that would spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Yemenis women show off their fists painted in the colors of five Arab national flags

The movement, known as the Arab Spring, was born in Tunisia with a street vendor's self-immolation last year on December 17.

Mohamed Bouazizi was reportedly pushed to such extraordinary ends after a municipal official and her aides were alleged to have harassed and humiliated him, and confiscated his goods. Tunisians viewed Bouazizi's act to be the ultimate protest against corruption in Ben Ali's government that they blamed for high unemployment and a lack of speech and political freedom.

Throngs of Tunisians took to the streets demanding the ouster of Ben Ali who became president in 1987. Following the 28-day Tunisian revolt that toppled Ben Ali, revolt spread in other countries: Egypt and the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The civil war in Libya and death of Moammar Gadhafi. Continued protests in countries such as Yemen and Bahrain. And a series of bloody demonstrations in Syria.

(CNN) -- Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation one year ago was an act which symbolized the frustration and desperation of millions in the Arab world, setting into motion a series of revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa.

His was a cry for dignity, justice, and opportunity, which continues to be heard around a region undergoing tumultuous change. In today's Middle East, people matter. Many are now engaged in what could be a life-long struggle to fight long-standing grievances and take greater control of their lives. This process must involve the creation of new democratic political systems, which ensure greater accountability of leaders, and level the playing field of opportunity for all, not just a select few.

Salman Shaikh

It has been a remarkable year. Three dictators have been toppled and one has transferred power to a deputy. Nonetheless, analysts and policy-makers continue to speak about the slow pace of change in the region and warn of the onset of an "Arab Winter." Such distinctions -- spring and winter -- are misleading. Many seasons will come and go in the transformative years that lie ahead for the Arab world. Revolutions take time to settle. The transformation of societies takes even longer. The colored revolutions of Eastern Europe, two decades on, are still developing. It took centuries for democratic systems to be refined in Europe. We cannot expect democracy in the Middle East to be solidified in only one year.

Still, across the region, there is cause for concern. Egypt's transition to civilian rule carries major worries, even as Egyptians continue to go to the polls. The concern remains that the ruling military council will relinquish power only under heavy pressure; and Egypt's economy and confidence are in nosedive as the populace awaits civil rule. Syrians meanwhile face a regime intent on killing and torturing its citizens to end their uprising. All this as a largely impotent international community argues over how to stop the increasing violence.

In Yemen, many are not convinced by a regionally brokered transition deal, which allows Saleh and his family immunity from prosecution as well as continued political influence. Bahrain continues to reel from the absence of a genuine national dialogue between its rulers and the underrepresented and relatively impoverished majority Shia community. Libya's revolutionaries now face the immediate challenge of building a state from scratch, based on the rule of law and democratic principles. To do so, they are learning, they will first have to put down their guns.
While events elsewhere in the region have been less dramatic, the desire for change is still palpable. Under popular pressure, Morocco now has an elected prime minister under a revised constitution; Jordan's king has been forced to change the government twice this year; Oman's Sultan has devolved some powers to his consultative council. Only time will tell if people accept these changes as going far enough to meet their rising expectations.

As the respected Arab commentator Rami Khouri somewhat prophetically predicted last year, we are witnessing the "birth of Arab politics." For the first time, people have a voice and the opportunity to launch new parties and institutions, independent of the autocratic rulers and external interference that long stifled political development. Civil society organizations, the "software" of any democratic system, have mushroomed in transitional states such as Egypt and Tunisia. A truly democratic and accountable political culture is finally developing in the region.

Undoubtedly, the biggest political winners over the past year have been Islamist parties, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood movement. As real Arab politics emerges, this is not surprising. One should accept that today, the center of gravity of the region's societies' is religiously pious, socially conservative, and economically liberal. The rise of the Brotherhood and the more fundamentalist Salafi parties is a natural legacy of years of political exclusion, and economic corruption and stagnation. As the West looks on, it should be remembered that a faith-inspired vision led to the establishment of the American state itself.

(CNN) -- One year ago, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi torched himself out of economic despair, and the news of his desperate act spread like a brushfire across the North African country, through the rest of the Arab world and around the globe.

His plight touched a chord in Tunisia, stirring popular anger and protest. Less than a month after the self-immolation, Tunisian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali was ousted from power.

The Tunisian revolution emboldened Egyptians. Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center and fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, constantly heard about Bouazizi and Tunisia in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. They couldn't believe that such open protest to a long-standing dictatorship could unfold. Subsequently, an Egyptian uprising took hold and President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power.

In another corner of the Arab world, Ibrahim Mothana, a Yemeni activist, said the self-immolation and the ouster of Ben Ali stunned his fellow Yemenis because citizens actually confronted "a police state, where you cannot react." After months of massive demonstrations, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is now on his way out of office under a power transition plan brokered by a coalition of Gulf Arab states.

"I think he resonated everywhere," Shaikh said. "As the narrative was told, as the story was told it did strike a chord with so many Arabs."

Bouazizi was an unknown street vendor struggling to feed his family by selling fruit, earning the equivalent of barely $10 a day as he pushed his cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia.

Tunisian on life one year later: No fear

On the morning of December 17, a female municipal inspector named Faida Hamdy accosted Bouazizi. An altercation erupted during which the inspector seized Bouazizi's produce.


After the incident, the humiliated fruit vendor repeatedly tried and failed to get the attention of town officials. Finally, he purchased fuel, doused himself with it, and lit a lethal flame outside the gates of the governorate building.

"These government inspectors used to confiscate our goods and demand bribes," says Bouazizi's uncle Ridha, who also operates a fruit cart in downtown Sidi Bouazid. "It was because of their tyranny that Mohamed set himself on fire."

Almost immediately, protests erupted in Sidi Bouzid and then quickly spread to other cities and towns across the country. Bouazizi died of his injuries in a hospital on January 4.

(CNN) -- Egyptian doctor Amany Sadek was treating patients in a makeshift hospital close to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday when the building was surrounded by armed forces.

The doctors turned their lights off, kept quiet and were unable to let anyone in or out of their doors.

"It was horrible, we could hear shots outside," said Sadek.

"We carried on treating patients in the dark. When we opened the doors an hour or so later, we found people desperately looking for somewhere to be treated.

"I was scared and my friends were scared, but you kind of get used to it," she said. "Despite the attacks, the hospital is still one of the safest places to be."
We carried on treating patients in the dark
Amany Sadek, Tahrir Doctors Society

Sadek is one of the founders of the Tahrir Doctors Society, a group of volunteers that formed after spontaneously treating protesters injured during Egypt's revolution in January.

Last Friday, when violence broke out between protesters and security forces after the second round of voting in parliamentary elections, the society set up its makeshift hospital for the fifth time this year.

The interior ministry has said at least 100 security officers have been wounded in the clashes. CNN has not been able to independently verify this claim.

The field hospital in Omar Makram mosque near Tahrir Square was still in place and stocked with necessary supplies since the last clashes in November. The doctors were able to re-open it quickly to treat victims of the new wave of violence.

"We got a call at 5 a.m. to say the army were attacking people sleeping in their tents," Sadek said. "By the time we got there we found lots of casualties, so we re-opened the hospital and it was ready to go straight away."

"We have treated over 1,000 wounded patients since Friday, and lots of people have been transferred to other hospitals for surgery.

"We are seeing all kinds of injuries, many from live bullets."

The society said on Saturday that one of its members had been shot in the stomach and others had been threatened with arrest.

Tahrir Doctors Society currently has about 20 volunteer doctors on duty at any time of the day or night. It's facility is a short distance from Tahrir Square; other makeshift hospitals closer to the scene of the clashes have had more trouble continuing with their work.


"The army attacked one of the other field hospitals. The doctors were told to leave or they would be attacked, and the army took their drugs and burned them," Sadek said.

(CNN) -- Over a million visitors travel to the rock-cut architectural wonders of Petra, Jordan each year.

The magnificent rose-red city was first established sometime in the 6th century B.C. by an ancient nomadic tribe called the Nabataeans.

At the crossroads between Arabia, Egypt, and Syria-Phonecia, it became one of the most vibrant trading hubs in the region -- a caravan center for the silks of China, the spices of India and the incense of Arabia.

Today, tourists must make the two kilometer walk down a narrow gorge known as "The Siq" before being rewarded with the awe-inspiring sight of the dusky-pink face of Al-Khazneh or the "Treasury."

It is the first of an array of magnificent sights, including elaborate rock-cut tombs, sacrificial altars, a roman amphitheater and the Al-Deir monastery, housed in the 264,000 square meters of Petra Archeological Park.

Few realize that among these relics of an ancient people there are still those living in the area that maintain the traditional nomadic way of life.

"(The Bedouins) are here as controller for these caves, for all Petra. Because Petra is very important to them," said Jehad Hamadeen of the Petra Archaeological Park.
The Bedouin community has been drifting across the sand since long before Jordan existed. The name in their native tongue of Arabic literally means "desert dwellers," and for centuries they have carved a life in this harsh landscape.

Despite often being isolated, the Bedouin people are known for their hospitality to travelers and are often happy to share a meal with visitors they come across.

(CNN) -- Nine-year-old Mahmood Ahmed was playing near his home in Zintan, western Libya, when he found a green object he had never seen before.

He wanted to know what was inside, so took it into his backyard and began hitting it with a stone.

The object was a bullet from an anti-aircraft machine gun and it exploded, taking off his left hand. He is now getting used to life with a plastic hand.

Mahmood is one of the accidental child victims of the war that toppled Colonel Moammar Gadhafi in August and he is far from alone.

The International charity Mines Advisory Group (MAG), which highlighted his case, has recorded 90 casualties -- mostly children -- from similar accidents involving mines and unexploded ordinance left over from the war in the region of Zintan and Misrata alone this year.
The organization also recorded 45 casualties in Libya's Western Mountains and is still trying to gather data from accidents in the rest of the country.

Among the statistics were several members of the same family in Ajdabiya in June. Three-year-old Shada Yonis brought a hand grenade into the living room and pulled out the pin. Her father, Yonis Sala, who tried to shield his children, was killed, as was Shada, and five-year-old Shema. Her mother, eight-year-old brother Sulah and two other children were seriously injured.

Two children were killed on Saturday, December 10, in Sirte when a device exploded as people were compiling a museum of weaponry from the war, MAG said.

As well as gaining information on contaminated areas and clearing them, MAG is trying to educate communities on the dangers.

Libyans find voice in new era of press freedom
Louise Skilling, the group's regional community liaison manager, said: "There is a lot of contamination in houses and residential areas.

"Accidents are mainly involving children -- particularly teenage boys -- who don't understand the danger of handling items.

"We are trying to change behavior among young boys and the best way to do that is through their mothers.

"We are working through schools, women's groups and door-to-door in contaminated areas. "

She added: "The number of accidents has increased since the war ended because people who were displaced are returning to their homes and trying to get their lives back together.