Libyan Revolution Tweets, Day 7, Part 2 (Richard III in a bad & dangerous way)

LibyanThinker The Libyan Thinker
Remains of Soldiers Burned to Death for Not Shooting Protesters in #Libya http://www.twitvid.com/YXKOT & http://tinyurl.com/4d6a57n

AUDIO HERE in Arabic, no translation 4 now

http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=U0tXUG9EMmlhczNMN1l5Yjh6b2N6QT09

Libya: Ex-official kidnapped; interior minister said he resigned
By the CNN Wire Staff
February 23, 2011 -- Updated 1038 GMT (1838 HKT)


(CNN) -- Hours after Libya's former interior minister said he resigned to support anti-government protesters, the Libyan government said he had been kidnapped.

Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN Wednesday that he resigned Monday after hearing that 300 unarmed civilians had been killed in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city. He accused Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi of planning to attack civilians on a wide scale.

But the same day, Libyan state media reported that "gangs" in Benghazi had kidnapped him. Witnesses have reported that Benghazi has essentially been taken over by the opposition. Witnesses also told CNN they saw Younis on Sunday and Monday in Benghazi, where he was siding with the protesters.

CNN could not immediately confirm reports for areas beyond Benghazi. The Libyan government maintains tight control on communications and has not responded to repeated requests from CNN for access to the country. CNN has interviewed numerous witnesses by phone.

...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/23/libya.interior.minister/index.html

http://www.kuriren.nu/inc/imagehandler.ashx?id=5806681&height=312&quality=75

Article in Swedish. Use google chrome for instant translation


http://www.kuriren.nu/nyheter/default.aspx?articleid=5806661

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Mugabe Sends Elite Commandos to protect Gaddafi



There are unconfirmed reports doing the rounds in Zimbabwe State intelligence circles saying President Robert Mugabe has sent troops from his Commando crack unit to Libya to save his long time ally and financier Colonel Muammaur Gaddafi.



The accuracy of these allegations have not been not been verified but plausible bags of evidence based on the relationship between the two leaders are hugely backing the reports.
Libya’s ambassador to India, who resigned following a crackdown on protests, told Reuters on Tuesday that African mercenaries were being used by the authorities, prompting some army troops to switch sides to the opposition.

In Harare the rumour mill in the intelligence and military circles said a chartered Russian aircraft flew into Harare on Monday evening and left for Libya early Tuesday morning carrying troops from the crack Commando Unit.


http://theamericanaudacity.blogspot.com/2011/02/mugabe-dispatches-commandos-to-protect.html?spref=tw

Updated: Libyan aircraft denied landing permission


A government spokesman said there was no information that Col Gaddafi's daughter was on board.

A Libyan Arab Airlines ATR 42 turbo-prop aircraft is heading back to Libya after having been denied permission to land at Malta International Airport.

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Landing permission was immediately denied and the aircraft then circled for some 20 minutes south of Malta while attempts were made for the decision to be reversed.

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It is understood that the plane had been carrying 14 passengers. There was no confirmation that the passengers included Aisha Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's daughter. A government spokesman said the government had no information of that sort .

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Earlier this week, Lebanon refused to grant landing rights to a private plane transporting Aline Skaff, the Lebanese wife of Hannibal, one of Gaddafi's sons.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110223/local/libyan-aircraft-denied-landing-permission-at-mia

Off Libya, warships converge
Published on February 23, 2011 by Nicolas Gros Verheyde

http://www.bruxelles2.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/HmsCumberland@Uk110214.jpg
Le Hms Cumberland de retour du Golfe d'Aden (après avoir passé le relais à l'Iron Duke) va être positionné au large de la Libye (crédit : Royal Navy)

While the evacuation of European citizens and other foreign nationals in Libya is accelerating (1), different shipping methods converge in the region, ostensibly to protect evacuations underway (all countries) or prevent illegal immigration (Italy ). I recorded a dozen ships (all NATO members) who have received their marching orders or are already on site: 4 Italy, 2 Turks, 1 British, 1 Dutch ...

Frigates, destroyers, ship listening and support ... it is too early to speak of operation, it resembles a pre-positioning means, or at least a "show of force" as we say in aviation . A monitor! That may be the beginning of the end for the Libyan leader.

It is also symbolic of an awareness, a little late for some countries (France and Italy), the need for rapid evacuation of nationals of the Libyan territory, and an evolution of states mind (after all, fast in international diplomacy, always reluctant to abrupt changes) against the harshness of the Libyan regime.

...
http://www.bruxelles2.eu/politique-etrangere/moyen-orient/au-large-de-la-libye-les-navires-de-guerre-convergent.html

LPC #Benghazi. Overview of situation in city. #Libya #Feb17 17:20local
31 minutes ago


AUDIO in clear English

http://audioboo.fm/boos/285918-lpc-benghazi-overview-of-situation-in-city-libya-feb17-17-20local

Tuesday, February 22, 2011
World Medical Camp for Libya: charity to respond to the urgent medical needs in Libya
I am writing you today to ask for your help in addressing what has now become an unbearable situation in Libya, where for the past week we have seen unrelenting military attacks undertaken against innocent and unarmed Libyan civilians. As a recent Foreign Policy article indicated, "Libyans are painfully aware of the fact that their country does not attract nearly the same level of interest as Egypt or Iran <...>. This, despite the fact that the Qaddafi regime has been in power significantly longer than nearly any other autocratic system, during which time it has proved itself among the world's most brutal <...>.”

Eyewitness reports to this effect are already trickling in from Libya, and the death toll appears to be slowly mounting with reports of nearly 300 casualties. Though growing, regrettably, international attention has thus far been minimal and action to stop the violence has been non-existent.

We are a group of Libyans who have established a UK registered charity called the World Medical Camp for Libya (WMCL) to respond to the urgent and immediate medical needs in Libya. With such high civilian targeting and limited physical access permitted for support agencies, we know that these needs are critical. Sources on the ground have reported that the situation is dire with hospitals in Benghazi and elsewhere in Eastern Libya lacking the basic medical supplies and equipment to treat the injured and wounded.

We currently have $50,000 USD worth of donated medical supplies and arrangements are being made for a convoy to transport these much-needed supplies from Libya by road via the Egyptian border which has recently been opened. This current run will allow us to deliver aid directly to hospitals in Benghazi as well as to other eastern towns including Derna, Bayda, and Tobruk, where reports have been received of a greater number of injuries. We will use a wide network of well-established local contacts in Marsa Matrouh (at the Egyptian border) and Tobruk who are experienced in the logistics of transporting cargo across the border into Libya. Representatives on the ground are currently receiving the medical supplies in Egypt and coordinating the transport arrangements so the supplies may be delivered as soon as possible. The representatives will also lead the convoy until its final delivery points within Libya and identify additional needs.

....

http://nonprofitpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-medical-camp-for-libya-charity-to.html

“We’re Witnessing the Violent Lashings of a Dying Beast”: Libyan Novelist Hisham Matar on Gaddafi’s Brutal Crackdown in Libya
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Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, vows not to leave the country as opposition protesters take control of key cities. After a week of demonstrations, thousands of protesters have been killed or injured by pro-Gaddafi police and hired mercenaries, and more than a thousand people are missing. For more on Libya, we are joined from London by Hisham Matar, a renowned Libyan novelist. He is the son of a prominent Libyan dissident, and he is currently helping to run an ad hoc news desk informing the Western media of events occurring in Libya. “The world now is watching a massacre, and history will hold the international community responsible,” Matar says, "not only because we are watching a dictatorship, an unelected dictatorship, massacring its own people, but we are watching a dictatorship that the world has profited from close relations with.”

Guest:

Hisham Matar, Renowned Libyan novelist based in London. He is the son of a prominent Libyan dissident. He has spent the last several days helping run an ad hoc news desk informing the Western media of events occurring in Libya. His debut novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.


HISHAM MATAR: Well, the latest is that I think what we’re witnessing is the violent lashings of a dying beast, who is willing to go to extreme measures in order to try to cling on to power. It’s definitely unraveling, but the question that remains is that how many more people will this man kill before he either leaves or meets his end, one way or the other. That seems to be the question. And although, yes, most of the East now is under the control of the people, who were demonstrating peacefully in the beginning, before they were attacked, he controls Tripoli, of course. And Tripoli is the central—it’s the capital of the country. And he is hiring mercenaries to fly planes and bomb demonstrators, fire from the air on demonstrators.

There’s a palpable sense of fear. I think the country is actually going through—I think we’re going to live with this trauma for a long time. You know, there’s terrible eyewitness accounts of people huddled in their flats, watching these mercenaries walking up and down the streets with yellow hard caps. I mean, Orwell couldn’t have made it up. And they’re hitting people with sticks and machetes and hammers. And there’s this kind of sort of—I think it’s the recklessness of it and the kind of madness of it that has disturbed most of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Gaddafi’s speech yesterday, and where he gave it in Tripoli?

HISHAM MATAR: Well, he gave it in the part of his big camp in Tripoli where it’s basically a military base, but he lives in the middle of it, which I think says quite a lot about his rule and the nature of his rule and how people view it, that he feels only safe living in the middle of a military camp in the heart of the capital. Part of it was bombed in the air raids that Reagan ordered in the late ’80s, in which several people died, of course. And it was a great gift for Gaddafi, because what it did is it gave him this kind of heroic, kind of man in the third world fighting the great empire kind of image, which is far from the truth about his real —

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http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/23/were_witnessing_the_violent_lashings_of

WikiLeaks exposes Gaddafi corruption
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 02:26 PM

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's children flaunted their wealth plundered from the country and behaved like mini-tyrants, according to secret US diplomatic memos.

Among their extravagant displays of wealth was a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to the memos released today by the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.

Growing anger over crass behaviour by Gaddafi's offspring, such as son Hannibal's 2008 arrest for beating servants in a hotel in Switzerland, may have helped spark the current uprising.

"The family has been in a tailspin recently," a memo assessed a year ago.

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http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/wikileaks-exposes-gaddafi-corruption-494571.html