It was a controversial mission from the beginning, the nation of Syria was resistant from the get go, the President of Syria even openly criticized it while it was going on but the Arab League observer mission in Syria comes to an end this weekend. That doesn't mean the League monitors are leaving the country. The head of the mission is due to present his report to the League this weekend and their mandate could be extended.

More than 7,000 websites shut themselves down on Wednesday in a one-day protest of the anti-piracy bills now in Congress. The blackout has some U.S. lawmakers thinking twice about voting for the bills. The Protect IP Act, or PIPA, lost support from two former co-sponsors, Republican Senators Marco Rubio and John Cornyn. Reddit.com's co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, talks about why his website joined in on the blackout and if he thinks it was a success.

An estimated 10,000 people participated in the first day of an indefinite strike against the government on Monday. These protests were motivated by alleged corruption and the elimination of a subsidy that has sent fuel prices skyrocketing in Nigeria. Meanwhile, terrorist attacks by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, who most recently claimed responsibility for a Christmas Day church bombing that killed 37 people and wounded 57, have reached a fever pitch.

It's been a controversial start to the new year in Hungary. The turn of the year meant changes to the country's constitution, changes that some say are incompatible with Hungary's membership in the European Union. Tens of thousands of people are protesting the new constitution, and the EU is contemplating sanctions against Budapest. BBC correspondent Nick Thorpe reports.

On December 17, 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest of his treatment at the hands of municipal officials. His act of desperation would become the catalyst for a full-scale revolution that would sweep across North Africa and into the Middle East in what would become known as the Arab Spring. This week has brought more violent clashes between protesters and police in Egypt, but the idea of such actions transpiring just a year ago would have been unfathomable. The year 2011 has seen democratic movements swell in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.

Time magazine has declared 2011 the year of the protester. In the year that gave the world the Arab Spring, austerity-related uprisings throughout Europe, and the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is no surprise the newsweekly chose "The Protester" as its iconic 2011 Person of the Year. Two protesters from very different movements join The Takeaway to talk about the popular uprisings that have dominated headlines and captivated minds around the globe in 2011.

The impact of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations around the country is difficult to see in raw numbers. But the way in which the national discourse has been moved, and how individual lives have been changed tells another compelling story of the movement's potential. The families in millions of households across the nation who are fighting to hold onto their homes against banks, authority, and the much reviled "1 percent" may have a powerful new ally. Occupy Our Homes, the latest incarnation of the OWS, is seizing foreclosed homes and claiming them for families in need.

Occupy Wall Street encampments have been disappearing across the country. But after seeing seeing their presence steadily diminish in recent weeks as cold weather and police-led evictions have cleared camps, Occupy has found a new rallying cry. "Foreclose on banks, not people" is the maxim of a new viral video from Occupy Our Homes, the next iteration of the movement. Occupy Our Homes began a major campaign Tuesday, staging marches in 25 cities, and taking over foreclosed properties for homeless families.

"We do not kill our people," a defiant President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told ABC News's Barbara Walters in a rare interview broadcast on Wednesday. Assad refused to take responsibility for ordering the bloody crackdown on the protest movement calling for his ouster, which the United Nations estimates has taken the lives of 4,000 people. The increasingly isolated Assad claimed most of the deaths were his own supporters. Now in their ninth month, the Syrian government continues to stubbornly insist the uprisings are fueled by foreign governments like the U.S. and Israel.

Despite existing on the extreme right and left of U.S. politics respectively, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements both claim that the American dream has gone away, and that hard work alone will no longer allow common people to be masters of their own destinies. However, the means for either group to successfully defy the U.S.'s two-party system and impact change remains ill-defined. And, according to a new Pew poll, support for Tea Party policies are down by 10 percent in their former strongholds, as compared to a year ago.

Egyptians headed to the polls today to vote in the country's first parliamentary elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. But the election hasn't come without a great deal of controversy: throughout the past week, protests against Egypt’s military rule erupted throughout the country. Over people were 40 killed, and more than a thousand were injured. How will this affect the validity of the elections? And, amid all this turmoil, should they have even happened in the first place?

For more than two months The Takeaway has been looking at news from various, loosely connected protests known as Occupy Wall Street. In that time the movement grew from a group of non-violent sit-ins at New York’s Zuccotti Park; to the violent images of downtown Oakland California on November 2, when protesters shut down the Port of Oakland; to the now-infamous pepper spray events of last week at UC Davis. But, what about the origins and the future of this movement?

Among the many shocking images to emerge from the clashes between police and Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country, perhaps none is as striking as the photograph of an elderly woman after being hit with pepper spray in Seattle. Eighty-four-year old activist Dorli Rainey has since become something of an icon to the Occupy movement. The incident preceded another controversial use of pepper spray by police, this time at the University of California Davis, where student protesters, sitting with their arms locked together, were sprayed by campus cops.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians flooded into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday night for a third day of protests against the country's transitional military leaders. Activists hope to capitalize of the resignation of Egypt's civilian cabinet, calling for a million-strong demonstration on Tuesday. Security forces and protesters have clashed violently, recalling the events that led to the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak. Elections scheduled for next week are now uncertain.

The Egyptian army used teargas, rubber bullets and birdshot in clashes with protesters in Cairo over the weekend. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to begin in stages a week from today — but this violence raises questions about whether free, democratic elections are possible at this time in Egypt. 

Video of UC Davis students being pepper sprayed in a protest related to Occupy Wall Street over the weekend has gone viral. Without any apparent provocation, campus police released a stream of pepper spray onto a row of seated protesters. Two of the officers involved in the spraying have been placed on leave. The incident has left many wondering why the police reacted this way and what can be done.

They may have lost their home in Zuccotti Park, but Occupy Wall Street made its presence felt in Lower Manhattan on Thursday. Nearly 300 people were arrested as Occupy Wall Street protesters marked the movement's two month anniversary with a "Day of Action." Demonstrators attempted to delay the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. They later held demonstrations on New York City's subway system before gathering for a march across the Brooklyn Bridge. And it wasn't just New York. Demonstrations were held across the country as the movement plans its next moves. 

The Arab League has given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until Saturday to cease his bloody crackdown on protesters and allow a monitoring team into the country. To date, some estimate that Bashar al-Assad’s regime is responsible for the death of up to 3,500 citizens since the Spring. Are the proposed sanctions and suspension by the Arab League enough to convince Bashar al-Assad to step down from power? And if that were to happen is that even the best outcome for the country?

A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled Tuesday to uphold New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's decision to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters from their camp in Zuccotti Park. It was a setback that some worry the movement cannot recover from. Yet, protesters themselves remained upbeat yesterday claiming evictions will only make them stronger. But perhaps instead of quelling the movement as he intended, Bloomberg actually reinvigorated it. 

President Bashar Assad of Syria is facing increasing pressure now that Jordan’s King Abdullah II voiced his desire to see Assad's regime to step down for the good of the country. King Abdullah was the first Arab leader to make such a call but he did so amid increasing violence within the country between anti-government protesters and soldiers still loyal to Assad. Dr. Zaher Sahloul has seen the Assad’s violent methods of tamping down civilian protest first hand.