Showing posts with label Qaddafi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Qaddafi. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Kadhafi fait un tabac sur YouTube grâce à un spot musical israélien : Un spot musical israélien incorporant des extraits d’un discours enflammé la semaine dernière du numéro un libyen Mouammar Kadhafi se taille un franc succès sur YouTub >>> AFP | Dimanche 27 Février 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: TRIPOLI, Libya — Mercenaries and army forces put down an attempt by protesters on Friday to break Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s hold on this capital city, opening fire on crowds who had taken to the streets after prayers to mount their first major challenge to the government’s crackdown, witnesses said.The bloodshed heightened a standoff that has pitted Colonel Qaddafi — who vowed Friday to turn Libya into “a hell” as he hunkered down in his stronghold — against a spreading rebel force and increasingly alarmed international community, which condemned the violence and promised sanctions in coming days.
A rebel officer who is coordinating an attack on Tripoli, Col. Tarek Saad Hussein, asserted in an interview that an armed volunteer force of about 2,000 men — including army defectors — was to arrive in Tripoli on Friday night. There was no way to confirm his claim.
He was especially angered at the reports of security forces’ firing on protesters after prayers. “They did not have weapons,” he said, speaking at an abandoned army base in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is firmly under rebel control. “They shot people outside the mosque.” >>> David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim | Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: WASHINGTON—The government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi hasn't destroyed significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical-weapons agents, raising fears in Washington about what could happen to them—and whether they may be used—as Libya slides further into chaos.
Tripoli also maintains control of aging Scud B missiles, U.S. officials said, as well as 1,000 metric tons of uranium yellowcake and vast amounts of conventional weapons that Col. Gadhafi has channeled in the past to militants operating in countries like Sudan and Chad.
Current and former U.S. officials said in interviews that Washington's counterproliferation operations against Libya over the past decade have scored gains, in particular the dismantling of Tripoli's nascent nuclear-weapons program and its Scud C missile stockpiles. But the level of instability in Libya, and Col. Gadhafi's history of brutality, continues to make the U.S. focus on the arms and chemical agents that remain, they said.
"When you have a guy who's as irrational as Gadhafi with some serious weapons at his disposal, it's always a concern," said a U.S. official. "But we haven't yet seen him move to use any kind of mustard gas or chemical weapon" during the unrest. >>> Jay Solomon | Thursday, February 24, 2011
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is struggling to maintain his authority in the country, as vast swathes of territory in the east now appear to be under the control of pro-democracy protesters. >>>
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: BAIDA, Libya — Thousands of African mercenaries and militiamen were massing on roads heading toward Tripoli on Wednesday to reinforce the stronghold of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as rebels protesting his 40-year rule claimed to have taken control of cities closer to the capital, witnesses said.The week-old uprising that has swept the country now appeared headed for a decisive stage, with Colonel Qaddafi fortifying his bastion in Tripoli and opponents in the capital saying they were making plans for their first coordinated protest.
“A message comes to every mobile phone about a general protest on Friday in Tripoli,” one resident there said, adding that Colonel Qaddafi’s menacing speech to the country on Tuesday had increased their determination “100 percent.”
The looming signs of a new confrontation came as a growing number of Libyan military officers and officials said Wednesday that they had broken with Colonel Qaddafi over his intentions to bomb and kill Libyan civilians challenging his four decades of rule. >>> KAREEM FAHIM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK | Wednesday, February 23, 2011
FOX NEWS: Swedish tabloid Expressen says Libya's ex-justice minister claims Muammar al-Qaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.
Expressen on Wednesday quoted Mustafa Abdel-Jalil as telling their correspondent in Libya that "I have proof that Qaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie." He didn't describe the proof.
Abdel-Jalil stepped down as justice minister to protest the violence against anti-government demonstrations.
He told Expressen Qaddafi gave the order to Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
"To hide it, he (Qaddafi) did everything in his power to get al-Megrahi back from Scotland," Abdel-Jalil was quoted as saying. >>> Associated Press | Wednesday, February 23, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — After New Year’s Day 2009, Western media reported that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just four songs at a bash on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.In the newspaper he controlled, Seif indignantly denied the report — the big spender, he said, was his brother, Muatassim, Libya’s national security adviser, according to an American diplomatic cable from the capital, Tripoli.
It was Muatassim, too, the cable said, who had demanded $1.2 billion in 2008 from the chairman of Libya’s national oil corporation, reportedly to establish his own militia. That would let him keep up with yet another brother, Khamis, commander of a special-forces group that “effectively serves as a regime protection unit.”
As the Qaddafi clan conducts a bloody struggle to hold onto power in Libya, cables obtained by WikiLeaks offer a vivid account of the lavish spending, rampant nepotism and bitter rivalries that have defined what a 2006 cable called “Qadhafi Incorporated,” using the State Department’s preference from the multiple spellings for Libya’s troubled first family.
The glimpses of the clan’s antics in recent years that have reached Libyans despite Col. Qaddafi’s tight control of the media have added to the public anger now boiling over. And the tensions between siblings could emerge as a factor in the chaos in the oil-rich African country.
Though the Qaddafi children are described as jockeying for position as their father ages — three sons fought to profit from a new Coca-Cola franchise — they have been well taken care of, cables say. “All of the Qaddafi children and favorites are supposed to have income streams from the National Oil Company and oil service subsidiaries,” one cable from 2006 says. >>> Scott Shane | Tuesday, February 22, 2011
BBC: A look at the roles and relationships of the Libyan leader's closest family, amid ongoing protests and violence across the country. >>> | Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, August 24, 2009
”And I say to my friend Brown, the prime minister of Britain; the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth; Prince Andrew, who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to make this historic and courageous decision, despite the obstacles.” – Colonel Qaddafi
THE HUFFINGTON POST: Where British Tradition once mandated subjects to genuflect before their royals, Britain is now busy instructing itself on how to properly render homage by prostrating themselves nose to ground before their new potentates, the oil barons of Araby.
There he was, Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who had been found guilty of the murderous Lockerbie air disaster that took the lives of 270 people, stepping off his specially chartered Libyan aircraft to a cheering crowd upon his arrival at the airport in Tripoli. Eichmann being received by a cheering crowd in Germany would have been the same, not in dimension, but certainly in principle.
Al-Megrahi's release was being trumpeted by Mr. Kenneth MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, as an act of compassion for a man said to be diagnosed with prostrate cancer and having but three months to live. It was a decision met with outrage by family members of the victims, and a general outcry of disgust throughout much of the world ranging from President Obama to FBI Director Robert Mueller, "makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988".
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that the act of releasing al-Megrahi had been the the decision of the Scottish Secretary alone. But was it?? Or as commented in the Financial Times, politicians are now prepared to go to extra lengths to maintain good relations with his country -- the richest in North Africa and an important supplier of energy to Europe. Even more pointedly according to Lord Trefgarne, Mr. al-Megrahi's release had opened the way for Britain's leading oil companies to pursue multibillion dollar oil contracts with Libya which had demanded Mr. al-Megrahi's return in talks with British officials and business executives.
Scandalous? Perhaps. But then again maybe not if this has become Britain's new norm. Kowtowing to moneyed Middle Eastern/North African oil interests may not be new but it does assume a singular level of malice when it is dealt with in such a brazen manner trashing tradition and principles of law, in the lust for lucre or responding to outright intimidation and blackmail. >>> Raymond J. Learsey* | Monday, August 24, 2009
*Scholar and Author of 'Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil’s Grip on Our Future'
Monday, March 03, 2008
Hat tip: Ibn Misr
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