LIBYA

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state TV

Col Gaddafi signalled his defiance over a mounting a revolt against his 40-year rule

Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has dismissed reports that he had fled amid the unrest sweeping the country, calling foreign news channels "dogs".

Speaking to state TV from outside a ruined building, he asserted: "I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela."
UK Foreign Minister William Hague had said he had seen information suggesting Col Gaddafi was on his way to Caracas.

Col Gaddafi's statement came after security forces and protesters clashed in the capital for a second night.
Witnesses say warplanes and helicopters fired on protesters in the city. To the west, sources said the army was fighting forces loyal to Col Gaddafi.
Earlier, the newly established General Committee for Defence said its forces would cleanse Libya of anti-government elements.
A statement described the protesters as "terrorist gangs made up mostly of misguided youths", who had been exploited and fed "hallucinogenic pills" by people following foreign agendas.

But Libya's diplomats at the United Nations in New York called for international intervention to stop the government's violent action against street demonstrations in their homeland.

Deputy Permanent Representative Ibrahim Dabbashi said Libyans had to be protected from "genocide", and urged the UN to impose a no-fly zone.
Ali Aujali, Libya's most senior diplomat in the US, also criticised Col Gaddafi. He told the BBC he was "not supporting the government killing its people".
'Satisfied' Col Gaddafi appeared for less than a minute on state television shortly after 0200 local time (0000 GMT).

He was seated in the passenger seat of an old, white vehicle and held up an umbrella to shield himself from the rain while speaking.

"I am satisfied, because I was speaking in front of the youth in the Green Square tonight, but the rain came praise to God it bears well," he said.
"I want to clarify for them that I am in Tripoli not in Venezuela. Do not believe these channels - they are dogs. Good-bye."
It has been raining in Tripoli for much of the past two days.
Speculation mounted throughout Monday that Col Gaddafi had been forced to flee Libya, especially when Mr Hague told reporters in Brussels that he had "seen information that suggests he is on his way" to Venezuela.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kayem did, however, tell state TV that the leader was still in the country "as are all government officials".

Iran Rally

Iran rally 'could turn violent'

An Iranian pro-government agency claimed that armed opposition groups plan to fire on people at a rally.

 

In an apparent attempt to discourage protesters, an Iranian pro-government news agency has claimed that armed opposition groups plan to fire on people participating in a rally set for Sunday afternoon.
The report from the hardline Fars news agency said that teams from the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group, have entered the country to shoot people during the protest.
Iran's opposition has called for a rally to mark a week since the deaths of two people in clashes between security forces and opposition protesters in Tehran. The opposition maintains the dead were killed by government forces.
Last week's rally called by opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi in solidarity with the Egyptian uprising was the largest demonstration by the opposition in more than a year.
On Sunday, Mr Karroubi sent an open letter to judiciary reaffirming his backing for opposition demands on his website Sahamnews.net.
"God willing, there will be no doubt in Mahdi Karroubi continuing to defend the rights of Iranian people and I will stand by the people until my final moment," the statement said.
The opposition leader said hundreds of hardliners have gathered in front of his home over the past night and filled the air with anti-opposition chants and threats to his life.
Both opposition leaders have been under tight house arrest since calling the 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fraudulent.
Hundreds of thousand of people poured into the streets in protest to the result of the election. Opposition says scores were killed in massive crackdown on the protest demonstration. Government brought the number to about 30.
Authorities detained hundreds and sentenced about 80 of them to prison terms from six months to 15 years.

Libya Massacre

Libya: Scores killed in Benghazi 'massacre'

 

 

Details have emerged of huge casualty figures in the Libyan city of Benghazi, where troops have launched a brutal crackdown on protesters.

More than 200 people are known to have died, doctors say, with 900 injured.
The most bloody attacks were reported over the weekend, when a funeral procession is said to have come under machine-gun and heavy weapons fire.
One doctor, saying that fresh gunfire had broken out, told the BBC that what had happened was "a real massacre".
Human Rights Watch says at least 173 people have been killed in Libya since demonstrations began on Wednesday.
Benghazi, the country's second city, has been a leading focus of protests against Col Muammar Gaddafi's rule.
Libya is one of several countries in the region to have seen pro-democracy campaigns since the fall of long-time Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was forced from power on 11 February.
BBC Middle East correspondent Jon Leyne says the current unrest in Libya is the most serious challenge to Col Gaddafi in his four decades in power.
 Reports are difficult to verify as the Libyan authorities have imposed severe media restrictions.
The Benghazi doctor, known as Brayka, described to the BBC how casualties had been brought to Jala hospital - most of them with gunshot wounds.
"Ninety per cent of these gunshot wounds [were] mainly in the head, the neck, the chest, mainly in the heart," she said.
She said the Jala hospital mortuary had 208 bodies from Saturday's violence, and another hospital had 12.
However, it is not clear whether all of these bodies stem from Saturday's violence.
Another doctor told the Associated Press news agency of similar numbers of bodies, but said they had been taken to the morgue since the violence began earlier in the week.
'Stop the massacre'
The violence escalated on Saturday, when a funeral procession for victims of previous clashes made its way past a major security compound.

Witnesses said troops used machine-guns, mortars, large-calibre weapons, and even a missile, against the mourners.

Opposition supporters said the attack was unprovoked, although security sources suggested some protesters threw firebombs at the compound.
Some described scenes of chaos as army snipers shot from the roofs of buildings and demonstrators fought back against troops on the ground.
The doctor told the BBC that some Benghazi residents had been shot outside their homes by neighbourhood militias and bodies had been dumped on the street.
In an appeal sent to Reuters news agency, a group of religious and clan leaders from across Libya urged "every Muslim, within the regime" or anyone helping it: "Do NOT kill your brothers and sisters, STOP the massacre NOW!"
 
Most of Benghazi is said to be controlled by anti-government protesters.
There are reports that the government is bringing in elite forces to the city - as well as foreign mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa.
There have also been reports of anti-government protests in other eastern cities, including al-Bayda and Dernah, as well as Misrata further west, about 200km (125 miles) from the capital Tripoli.
There is no sign of major unrest in Tripoli, Col Gaddafi's main power base.
Austria announced on Sunday that it was sending a military plane to Malta to prepare for the evacuation of Austrian and other EU nationals from Libya or other Arab countries.

Unrest in Bahrain

 

                                 Anti-government protesters rejoiced as they entered Pearl Square

Bahrain unrest: Protesters enter symbolic Pearl Square

Thousands of anti-government protesters in Bahrain have resumed an occupation of Pearl Square, the focal point of protests in the capital Manama.

Jubilant protesters returned after riot police fired tear gas and shotgun rounds before withdrawing. Reports say some 60 people may have been injured.
The army, which guarded the square after using deadly force to clear it on Thursday, was earlier ordered out.
Bahrain's crown prince is holding initial talks with opposition parties.
They include the main Shia opposition parties in the Sunni-ruled Gulf state, our correspondent Caroline Hawley reports from Manama.
Earlier, reports said that the main Shia opposition bloc, Wefaq, had rejected an offer from the king to hold talks aimed at ending days of unrest. They demanded the withdrawal of the military from the streets before talks could begin.

In a statement made on Bahraini TV on Saturday Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa said "calm is needed at this time... for all parties to be able to present their opinions".

The crown prince - who controls the armed forces - ordered the army off the streets.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke to the Crown Prince on Saturday, British officials said, welcoming the military pullout but stressing the UK's "deep concern" and "strong disapproval" about the use of live ammunition on protesters.
Mourning call
Following the army's withdrawal on Saturday, heavily armed riot police fired volleys of tear gas and shotgun rounds as anti-government protesters arrived at the square from all directions.
As the protesters stood firm, police then pulled out, leaving the square to the jubilant crowd. They waved flags and carried banners into the square in a show of defiance to the authorities.
The crowds now appear determined to stay in the square, setting up a makeshift hospital and erecting tents.
"We don't fear death any more, let the army come and kill us to show the world what kind of savages they are," one woman, teacher Umm Mohammed, told the Reuters news agency.
The protesters have made the square, a large traffic roundabout, a focal point of demonstrations in recent days.
They have been increasingly angry at the violent suppression of their protests by the security forces.

At least 50 people were wounded on Friday as the army fired on protesters following the funerals for four killed when troops cleared Pearl Square early on Thursday.

Two people were also killed earlier in the week.
Crown Prince Salman has called for calm in an effort to hold a national day of mourning for those who have died.
Bahrain is one of several Arab countries to have experienced pro-democracy demonstrations since the fall of long-time Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was forced from power on 11 February.
The majority Shia population in Bahrain have long said they are discriminated against when it comes to housing and government jobs. They have also been calling for greater political rights from the Sunni royal family.
Correspondents say leaving the square to the protesters may be a response to US President Barack Obama's call for restraint.

Arabian Troubles

Both during and after the Cold War, the Arab world has lagged behind its peers on almost every front. The annual United Nations Development Report consistently ranks Arab governments at the bottom of the global index in terms of political reform, democratic participation, economic development and education. Autocratic rulers—many of whom have been in power for over three decades—often stymie free press, free assembly and the most basic forms of democratic opposition.
What explains this phenomenon? Norvell “Tex” DeAtkine, the former Army officer, places the blame on the Arabs themselves:

Over the decades I have been involved with the Arabs and their “world” I see their greatest problem as one of failure to recognize that their problems are deeply rooted and internal.

In other words, Arab governments should stop blaming the West for their domestic troubles. Tex goes so far as to blame Western academia for reinforcing the myth of outsiders having ruined the region.
The young journalist, on the other hand, a man named Nir Rosen, disagrees wholeheartedly. The United States and Western Europe do, in fact, share a large portion of the blame. After all, many of the region’s autocratic rulers, including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia’s royal family, are funded and supported by Washington:

From the 1950s the United States in collaboration with the Saudis … have opposed and suppressed any secular, leftist, liberal movements in the Middle East. The United States’ relationship with the Middle East is both colonial and post colonial, we are thoroughly implicated and rarely have we been a force for progress or freedom.

Two extremely dissenting (may I say, radical?) views, yet two that have come to dominate mainstream criticism of American policy in the Middle East.
But there’s a problem with both of these arguments. Both depend on a faulty assumption that the Middle East is “black and white” and easy to predict. History and reality, on the other hand, contradict these assumptions in multiple ways. Trying to put forth a “black and white” hypothesis for the Arab stagnation over the past half century seems counterproductive.
The Middle East is certainly suffering, but not in the stark way that officer Tex and Mr Rosen think. Taking both views and meshing them together, on the other hand, provides us with a more credible and detailed set of variables in order to explain what our Arab friends are going through.
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to ignore past US experience in the Middle East. During the Cold War, Washington was the chief arms supplier of a region that was already militarized, both to prevent the Soviets from expanding and to protect the stability of the oil supply. At the same time, Arab elites knowingly took those weapons regardless of their destabilizing consequences.
In 1980, Saddam Hussein launched a devastating invasion of Iran in the hopes of capturing crucial oil reserves and keeping the Shī’ah Islamic revolution at bay. The eight year war resulted in the deaths of over a million men, countless civilians, and the destruction of two economies. Yet the United States gladly contributed to the fighting by pumping arms into Iraq, praying that a continuation of the war would kill off Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s theocratic regime in Tehran.
Today, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak cracks down on peaceful protest as if it’s second nature. And although Washington is not directly involved in the suppression, it essentially sanctions the activity by ignoring the oppression and continuing to arm Egypt’s security services to the teeth.
The point is not to relegate any one party as the primary catalyst for the Arabs’ poor political and social progress. Rather, the point is to be fair in one’s criticism. Both the United States and the Arabs are to blame. And both need to change in drastic ways if the Middle East is expected to catch up to its partners in East Asia and South America.