Turkey expels Israel’s ambassador over refusal to apologise for Gaza flotilla raid
September 2, 2011 No Comment
Move comes on same day that UN report finds that Israel used ‘excessive and unreasonable force’ to stop flotilla Turkey dramatically downgraded its relations with Israel on Friday, expelling the country’s ambassador and cutting military ties with its former ally over Israel’s refusal to apologise for an armed assault on a Gaza-borne aid flotilla that killed nine people. The move, which takes Turkish-Israeli relations to a new low, came on the day a UN report into the Gaza flotilla incident was published. It found that Israeli had used “excessive and unreasonable” force to stop the flotilla approaching Gaza, but that it was justified in maintaining a naval blockade on the Palestinian enclave. Announcing the measures, Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said that the Israeli ambassador, Gabby Levy, and other senior Israeli diplomats would have to leave their posts by Wednesday and that Turkey’s representation in Israel would be downgraded to the junior level of second secretary. Levy was reported to be in Israel and would not be returning to Ankara. “The time has come for Israel to pay for its stance that sees it above international laws and disregards human conscience,” Davutoglu said. “The first and foremost result is that Israel is going to be devoid of Turkey’s friendship … as long as the Israeli government does not take the necessary steps, there will be no turning back.” Davutoglu also said Turkey would take measures in the future to protect its shipping, without going into detail. The UN investigation chaired by Geoffrey Palmer, a former New Zealand prime minister, focused on the events of 31 May last year on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged vessel which was the largest ship in an flotilla aimed at breaking the Gaza blockade. It was boarded by Israeli commandoes who were resisted by some of those on board. Nine pro-Palestinian activists – eight Turkish citizens and a Turkish American – were killed in the raid. The breakdown in diplomatic relations followed several months of delicate negotiations between Turkish and Israeli diplomats over the wording of an Israeli apology for the incident and compensation for bereaved families, which Ankara had made a condition of improving relations. However, a compromise over a text broke down when it was rejected by right-wingers in the Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu. “There is a deep sense of frustration within the Turkish foreign policy establishment that despite the efforts to mend the relationship and despite coming very close to agreeing to a text, the situation became untenable,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who is now an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank. “The publication of the UN report really established a deadline. Its publication had already been postponed twice, and the Israelis then asked for another six months delay, which Turkey would not accept. “There is a feeling that neither Israel nor Turkey has anything to win by this, and there must be a degree of frustration in Washington too, as it invested a lot of time and effort in the efforts to mend this. Turkey seems to have lost the ability to play a role in the Middle East peace process because of the breakdown in the relationship with Israel. It was one of the few countries that could talk to both sides. That ability is gone and is unclear if we will be able to regain it. By being unable to settle the relationship with Turkey, meanwhile, Israeli has lost a friend and ally. This is a lose-lose situation.” Israel issued no official response to the Turkish decision, but Israeli officials have suggested to journalists that Ankara was distancing Israel to improve its standing in the Arab world. They have also pointed to the judgment in the Palmer report that the blockade of Gaza is justified under international law. Turkey has rejected that finding and called for the blockade to be reassessed by the UN and by the international court of justice. However, Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat who once served in Turkey, argued that the current government had made a strategic mistake by failing to agree an apology with Turkey. “The talks on the apology and on fixing this crisis in the relationship had been continuing for six months. The professional staff, the military and legal experts and diplomats had reached an agreement, on a technical apology, but even this was rejected by [foreign minister and coalition partner Avigdor] Lieberman. The issue of an apology is very unpopular in Israel, and Netanyahu ultimately adopted the Lieberman position,” Liel said. He warned that the Turkish expulsion of the Israeli ambassador would increase public pressure in Jordan and Egypt for their governments to follow suit. Liel said: “In my 30 years as a diplomat we always put contacts with Middle East countries as a top priority, second only to the United States, but it seems that this government have given up on the region, assuming there will be no peace with Palestinians so nobody will like us anyway.” In the streets of Istanbul, the breach in relations with Israeli was mostly popular. Many Turks are angry that Israel refuses to apologise. Yalçin Kuzgöl, owner of a barber shop in the gentrifying neighbourhood of Cukurcuma, thinks the UN was unable to issue an independent opinion: “All UN decisions and statements are always made in the favour of Israel, no matter what they have done. This is also the case for the Mavi Marmara report.” In the pre-dominantly Kurdish neighbourhood of Tarlabasi, barber Hassan Teke said: “Israel has become like a spoiled child, the spoiled child of the US.” None of his customers have heard of the government announcement yet, but the mention of Israel and the Mavi Marmara still gets a reaction: many Turks are angry that Israel refuses to apologise. A few metres further down the street, a Kurdish man who wishes to remain anonymous has a very different opinion: “I think that the reaction of the Turkish government is two-faced and wrong. Turkey has no right to complain about the lack of human rights in other countries as long as the Turkish government keeps killing its own citizens in the [Kurdish] southeast.” He added: “So Israel made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. To cut all relations because the other party does not want to apologise is exaggerated.” Turkey Middle East Europe Israel Gaza flotilla Gaza Palestinian territories United Nations Julian Borger guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Gov. Barbour’s ‘Disadvantaged’ Relative Masterminded $100 Million of Post-Katrina FEMA Fraud
September 2, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Rosemary Barbour, the ‘disadvantaged minority’ married to Gov. Haley Barbour’s nephew. For Republicans, it’s all in the family! Corruption, I mean: WASHINGTON — Six years after Hurricane Katrina, a relative of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was found by a federal court to have masterminded a massive fraud against the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the inspection of the legendary trailers that housed storm refugees along the Gulf Coast. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found last week that Rosemary Barbour’s company, Jackson, Miss.,-based Alcatec LLC, had engaged in a fraudulent billing scheme as part of a $100 million, five-year maintenance contract with FEMA. She was ordered to pay more than $350,000 in penalties and damages. In often colorful language, the judge described the testimony of Rosemary Barbour during an eight-day trial in May in Jackson as “exasperating” and “bumble-headed.” Rosemary Barbour, the company’s sole owner, is the wife of the governor’s nephew, Charles Barbour, a former Hinds County supervisor who last week lost a Mississippi Senate GOP primary. But of course, politically-connected wrongdoers never serve jail time, as we’ve all learned. This 2005 New York Times story’s pretty interesting: “PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss., Dec. 6 – Rosemary Barbour happens to be married to a nephew of Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour. Since the Reagan administration, when Mrs. Barbour worked as a White House volunteer as a college student, she has been active in the Republican Party. She also happens to be one of the biggest Mississippi-based winners of federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. To some contract watchdogs, this could be an example of how the federal government responsibly reached out to give a piece of the billions of dollars in federal hurricane-recovery work to a small Mississippi-based company owned by a Latina. Mrs. Barbour, 39, who was born in Guatemala but now lives in Jackson, Miss., is certified by the United States Small Business Administration as a disadvantaged small-business owner.” This is interesting, don’t you think? Alcatec qualified as a minority-owned firm during the bid process. Barbour, an American citizen and active in Republican politics, was born in Guatemala. She said she used her maiden name, Ramirez, when she made the bids, so that federal officials would not know of her family ties.” Righht. From Lefthanded Leftist, who’s following the story : How can a graduate of Westover and Goucher who worked in the Bush 41 administration and married into a powerful political family at age 24 be legitimately certified as “disadvantaged?” Even if she was born in Guatemala? The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that her story about using her maiden name might be just that–a story, to try to throw us rubes off the nepotism/cronyism trail. I’m sure she probably is registered with the SBA as a disadvantaged minority and actually did fill out the paperwork with her maiden name, but that’s likely only because one of Haley’s or her own old Washington buddies or friends of friends helped her cook up that cover story…when they found out that she was born in Guatemala and her maiden name is Ramirez, a Latina/minority/disadvantaged-sounding name if there ever was one… But this seems like an abuse of “disadvantaged minority” status by both Barbour/Ramirez and the SBA. Because the “disadvantaged minority” Rosemary Barbour is neither.
Continue reading …Julian Assange faces arrest in Australia over unredacted WikiLeaks cables
September 2, 2011 No Comment
Government says at least one intelligence official identified after complete cache of cables was published Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week. WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website’s original media partners. Australia’s attorney general, Robert McClelland, confirmed in a statement on Friday that the new cable release identified at least one individual within the country’s intelligence service. He added it is a criminal offence in the country to publish any information which could lead to the identification of an intelligence officer. “I am aware of at least one cable in which an ASIO officer is purported to have been identified,” he said. “ASIO and other Government agencies officers are working through the material to see the extent of the impact on Australian interests. “On occasions before this week, WikiLeaks redacted identifying features where the safety of individuals or national security could be put at risk. It appears this hasn’t occurred with documents that have been distributed across the internet this week and this is extremely concerning.” The new development adds to the pressure on the WikiLeaks founder, who is currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden to answer allegations of sexual misconduct. Assange will be unable to remain in the UK if his extradition appeal is successful, as his visa will by then have expired. Assange already faces legal action in the US, where a grand jury has been convened in Virginia to decide whether to prosecute the founder of the whistleblowing website. Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the document, remains in custody in the US facing 34 separate charges. The newly published archive contains more than 1,000 cables identifying individual activists; several thousand labelled with a tag used by the US to mark sources it believes could be placed in danger; and more than 150 specifically mentioning whistleblowers. The cables also contain references to people persecuted by their governments, victims of sex offences, and locations of sensitive government installations and infrastructure. The Guardian, New York Times, El País, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, who worked with WikiLeaks publishing carefully selected and redacted documents in December last year, issued a joint statement condemning the latest release. “We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk,” it said. “Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. We will continue to defend our previous collaborative publishing endeavour. We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data – indeed, we are united in condemning it. “The decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone.” Julian Assange WikiLeaks Australia New York Times Newspapers Le Monde Newspapers & magazines The Guardian James Ball guardian.co.uk
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In joint statement, European Union countries agree to embargo on oil industry over violence against pro-democracy protesters European Union governments have agreed to ban imports of Syrian oil and extended sanctions to seven new Syrian individuals and bodies to intensify pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The US, the EU and other western powers want Assad to end a violent five-month-old crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that the United Nations says has killed 2,000 civilians. But Assad shows no sign of heeding their calls for him to step down. The EU has already banned Europeans from doing business with dozens of Syrian officials, government institutions and military-linked firms tied to the violence, but those measures seem to have had little influence on Assad’s policy. Friday’s steps are the first time the EU has targeted Syrian industry and the key oil sector, but analysts say the sanctions, which do not go as far as the investment ban imposed by the US last month, may have only a limited impact on Assad’s access to funds. “In view of the gravity of the situation in Syria, the council today further tightened the EU’s sanctions against that country,” EU governments said in a statement. “The prohibition concerns purchase, import and transport of oil and other petroleum products from Syria,” they said. The decision also expanded the list of people and entities subject to EU travel bans and asset freezes by seven, including four individuals. The measures goes into effect on Saturday. But Italy has won an exemption on existing contracts, which can be fulfilled until 15 November, underscoring divisions in Europe over energy sanctions which have slowed the implementation of economic measures against Assad. Italy defended its demand for a grace period, with its foreign minister, Franco Frattini, saying Italian firms needed time to adapt. “It is a technical request,” Frattini told reporters. “Given that Italy imports 30% of all EU imports from Syria, we need … some weeks to comply with these sanctions, which we support and which obviously Italy had always called for.” Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal argued that the sanctions would apply real pressure. “They will go straight to the heart of the regime. This will squeeze the regime,” he said, but added that what was required was a UN resolution and a tough stance towards Assad by the Arab League. Firms such as Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell and France’s Total are significant investors in Syria. EU countries are the main buyers of Syrian oil exports, but industry sources say that even when imports to Europe are blocked, European companies will continue operating within Syria until the EU imposes sanctions on all co-operation with Syrian energy firms. Syria Middle East Oil Commodities European Union guardian.co.uk
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enlarge FDR – the concept of America being a group effort. Click here to view this media In 1941 it was only a matter of time before the U.S. would be engaged in a shooting war. On that Labor Day it was about building up military strength for what was going to be a very long haul and the Labor Movement was crucial to what would become a Herculean War Effort. In this Labor Day Address (which fell on September 1st), President Roosevelt called on the American people to put aside fundamental differences and focus on what needed to be done. Pres. Roosevelt: “On this day, this American holiday, we are celebrating the rights of free laboring men and women. The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them, but to the whole future of Christian civilization.” In 1941 Labor was regarded an an integral part of American society. Today, it’s all different.
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CPS drops case against Rebecca Leighton, who was accused of tampering with drips at a Stockport hospital Prosecutors have dropped charges against the 27-year-old nurse accused of poisoning patients at a hospital. It is “no longer appropriate” to continue the case against Rebecca Leighton, who was charged with contaminating saline drips at Stepping Hill hospital, Stockport, the Crown Prosecution Service said. CPS prosecutor Nazir Afzal said: “The inquiries, which are still ongoing, have not so far provided us with a stronger case which would meet the test that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.” Leighton, who was arrested in July by detectives investigating the deaths of patients, was being freed from jail this afternoon. The CPS said Greater Manchester police’s investigation into the deaths continues and “if further evidence is presented”, then the prosecution could be restarted. Afzal added: “Rebecca Leighton was charged on the basis that there was a reasonable suspicion she had committed the offences and there were reasonable grounds for believing the continuing investigation would provide further evidence within a reasonable amount of time. “When we make a decision on this basis, it would be wrong of us to keep a suspect in custody indefinitely without keeping a very close eye on what evidence is emerging and whether objections to bail can be justified.” Leighton was held in Styal prison while a trial date was being set for next year amid accusations that she tampered with saline ampoules, saline bags and medical products. Afzal said: “We have conducted a review of the case with senior police officers and sought the advice of leading counsel on whether it would be right to keep Rebecca Leighton in custody while investigations are continuing. “The advice we have received is that on the evidence currently available there is not a case in law which could proceed and that the charges should be discontinued. “We have therefore this afternoon informed the prison where Rebecca Leighton is being held on remand that the case against her has been discontinued and she can be released immediately. It is right and proper for us to do this.” Afzal said there was “sufficient evidence” for a conviction against Leighton over one charge of theft of medication but “we have decided it is not in the public interest to proceed” considering the time she had already spent in custody. Police continue to investigate the suspicious deaths of Tracey Arden, 44, Arnold Lancaster, 71, Derek Weaver, 83, and Vera Pearson, 84. The alarm was raised when a higher than normal number of patients were reported to have “unexplained” low blood sugar levels. Crime guardian.co.uk
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Followers told jungle drink ayahuasca cured serious illnesses including cancer A British “shaman” caught administering a potion containing a class A hallucinogenic drug to 17 followers at a candlelit “healing” ceremony has been jailed for 15 months. Peter Aziz, from Devon, who claims to have spent years in the jungles of Peru learning the art of making the drink ayahuasca, provided the brew which contained N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) during a week-long retreat in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. He told the followers at the Dorville hotel in December 2007 that it would cure serious illnesses including cancer. Aziz, 51, of Buckfastleigh, was found guilty producing and supplying a class A drug by a jury at Bristol crown court. Judge Michael Roach accepted Aziz had tried to help others but told him: “You knew it was wrong to produce this drug and you knew it was wrong to supply it but produce and supply it you did. “I have to treat this matter as serious, which means a prison sentence.” Kate Brunner, prosecuting, told the jury: “The participants sat around in a circle, candles were lit and he poured out his brew into plastic or paper cups. “They drank it and when people drink this brew they vomit frequently. Some participants had hallucinogenic experiences. They felt that they were going on a journey. “Whilst some found the experience restorative, others felt terrified.” Nick Lewin, representing Aziz, said he was a “fundamentally good man” who was determined to help other people. Aziz made only £10,000 a year and lived in a two-bedroom former council house with his family. “This isn’t a case where a man is selling cocaine to make a good living of Maseratis and villas on the Riviera,” he told the court. “The money he was making from these events was little more than a subsistence income. “It has caused him a considerable amount of worry as far as his personal beliefs are concerned. He has learned what can be learned from this and will not be before the court again.” According to his website, Aziz has spent 35 years training as a shaman. He claims to have helped a disabled boy walk again and healed broken bones within a few hours. Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Phil Jones, of Avon and Somerset police, said DMT was a dangerous drug. Crime Drugs Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Regulator forced to accept overseas nurses without up-to-date training while similar UK applicants are turned away Nurses and midwives from other EU countries are being registered to work in the UK despite not having worked with patients for 20 years, regulators have told a House of Lords inquiry. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is being forced to accept foreign applicants without any recent experience to its register while British nurses without up-to-date training have had to leave the profession. The council’s chief executive, Dickon Weir-Hughes, said it had to operate a two-tier system because of EU rules on the free movement of workers. The revelation came in evidence to a Lords sub-committee investigating the mobility of healthcare professionals between member states. In evidence to the same inquiry the doctors’ regulatory body, the General Medical Council (GMC) revealed that a foreign doctor’s husband contacted them on her behalf to register her for work because she could not speak English. The European commission is reviewing the rules governing mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The government and healthcare bodies have been pressing for changes for two years after the Guardian revealed how a German doctor, Daniel Ubani, who was subsequently ruled incompetent by a coroner and the GMC, accidentally killed a patient on his first UK locum shift by administering a massive overdose of painkillers. The sub-committee has published written and oral evidence as it prepares what is expected to be an extremely critical report on the current arrangements. The NMC has a register of 670,000 professionals, with about 7,000 nurses and midwives from elsewhere in the EU applying each year. Weir-Hughes told peers he was concerned about the “integrity” of the register. The council required British nurses and midwives to undergo a specific number of hours of continuing professional development (CPD) and training every three years, he said. Nurses who did not complete this further training could no longer be registered. However, some EU applicants had not worked as nurses in two decades. “They make no secret of that; they simply have not practised as they have been doing other things,” he told the sub-committee. “Until fairly recently I was refusing those people entry to the register but under EU law that was not acceptable, so our council very reluctantly decided that I had to admit them. “We now have a situation whereby we are admitting people who literally have not been near a patient for 20 years, have done no CPD and have to be admitted to the register because they have freedom of movement and rights. Yet if they were a UK-registered nurse or midwife, they would not be allowed to continue. Indeed, they would have to do a return-to-practice course at a school of nursing or midwifery.” At another hearing, the GMC’s chief executive, Niall Dickson, told how a member of his staff was contacted over an EU doctor’s potential application to join the UK’s medical register. They realised “they were speaking to the doctor’s husband because the doctor could not speak English well enough to have a conversation with someone in a contact centre”, said Dickson. “Our member of staff kept on saying ‘I need to speak to the doctor.’ The husband helpfully said, ‘No, you can’t speak to her because I am busy translating for her.’” Ubani, though struck off in Britain, is still allowed to practise in Germany. In July an administrative medical court in Westfalen-Lippe, Germany, fined him €7,000 (around £6,000) for breaking the country’s code of conduct for doctors. However, a ruling said his performance in the UK “cannot be seen as an expression of his indifference towards his patients”. It added: “It serves rather more to cast doubt on the professional competence of the accused than his personal integrity and his professional ethics.” Nursing Midwifery Doctors Health NHS European Union Europe James Meikle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …So we have another tropical storm brewing in the Gulf, and it reminds me that I saw an interview the other day with Weather Underground blogger and meteorologist, Dr. Jeff Masters. He noted that while they had the right track for Hurricane Irene, they still need to collect more and better data to learn how to forecast intensity – and that takes money, the kind everyone wants to cut now. But hey, it’s not as if these storms actually hurt people! Better intensity forecasts of hurricane are possible, but it will take a large investment in hurricane research over an extended time to do that. Such an effort is underway; we are currently in year three of a ten-year program called the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP), funded at just over $1 million per year. The goals of the HFIP are to reduce the average errors of hurricane track and intensity forecasts by 20% within five years and 50% in ten years with a forecast period out to 7 days. In an interview I did last fall with the leader of the project, Dr. Frank Marks of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, he expressed to me optimism that the program could meet its objectives, provided it remains fully funded. Some of the experimental computer models developed by HFIP have done very well so far during the 2011 hurricane season, so I see reason for optimism, too. However, this project is in serious danger of failure, due to the current budget-cutting emphasis in Washington D.C. A key tool we need to make better intensity forecasts is to have detailed measurements inside the core of the hurricane from instrumented aircraft. Without detailed observations, there is no hope of making a good intensity forecast, no matter how good your model is. During Hurricane Irene, the two P-3 hurricane hunter aircraft and G-IV jet operated by NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center flew continuously into the storm, taking detailed measurements via dropsonde and Doppler radar that were fed in real time to the experimental HFIP computer models. In theory, these measurements by the Hurricane Hunters should be able to significantly improve our intensity forecasts over the coming years. However, the current proposed budget from the House of Representatives mandates a $400 million cut for NOAA, and the NOAA Hurricane Hunters are slated to have their budget cut by 40 percent, from $29 million to $17 million per year. If these cuts materialize, the ability of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters to continue to aid improvements in hurricane forecasting will be seriously impacted. Many of the critical technologies used operationally now by the Air Force Hurricane Hunters and NOAA jet to improve hurricane forecasts–dropsondes, real-time high-density observations, and the SFMR surface wind measuring instrument–were developed on the NOAA P-3s as research projects, then were migrated to operational use once they proved their worth. The cost of hurricane damages in the U.S. has been doubling every ten years since the 1960s, and is expected to continue to double every ten years, even without the likely coming increase in storm surge damages due to accelerating sea level rise. A Category 1 hurricane doing $10 billion in damage should be a wake-up call that we need to continue our investments in hurricane research to reduce the costs of the inevitable coming storms. Slashing funding by 40 percent for a research group that was instrumental in saving $700 million in costs from just one storm makes no sense, and I hope Congress will reconsider the proposed cuts for NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center. Yeah, because we all know how Republicans love science!
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West fears heatseeking surface-to-air missiles will fall into terrorists’ hands Libya must urgently secure weapons hoarded by the Gaddafi regime amid growing fears that smugglers are exploiting the chaos there to loot hundreds of portable missiles and other small arms, western officials have warned. The US and Nato are pressing the National Transitional Council to make the issue a priority because of concerns that the trade has already begun, with reports that some African mercenaries who fought for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi are returning home laden with weapons. One anxiety is that Gaddafi’s remaining stockpile of shoulder-launched missiles could end up in the hands of terrorists. The UK’s National Security Council raised the issue with Libyan rebels in March and the Guardian understands that US officials based in Benghazi are now taking a lead in helping to identify where the caches may be, and how best to protect them. The UK and France have special forces in Libya, but officials would not be drawn on whether the soldiers are now involved in anti-smuggling operations. In a private meeting with NTC leaders at the Friends of Libya summit in Paris, the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the safety of the Gaddafi’s weapons was “an urgent security priority facing Libya and the broader region”. A Nato official added: “The risk of seeing weapons reaching members of terrorist organisations is always a concern. We know from experience that extremists and terrorists can take advantage of instability and lawlessness. We should do our utmost to avoid that situation. We expect all sides to maintain accountability of weapons.” A spokesman for the British government said: “The issue of proliferation in Libya has been a priority for the National Security Council since this crisis began.”We have raised it with the NTC at regular intervals to ensure that weapons are secured and monitored the situation closely.” The Guardian has spoken to a number of NGOs and independent observers who believe that scores of weapons from the Gaddafi arsenal have already disappeared and that the trade presents a potential threat to the region. Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch, who is in Tripoli, said anti-tank missiles were among weapons looted by Libyans before anti-Gaddafi militias overran western towns. “There are reports of Libyans picking up anti-tank missiles like ants. Every second Libyan has arms. The UN should be thinking of a decommissioning programme, a buy-back programme.” Abrahams said concern was not only about the number of missiles, including Grad truck-mounted rockets, but what he called “standard bullets and bombs” – equipment that could be used to make improvised explosive devices, widely deployed by insurgents in Afghanistan. Early in the six-month conflict, thousands of 122mm Grad rockets were reportedly found in abandoned bunkers in eastern Libya. British officials say they are concerned in particular about heatseeking man-portable air defence systems (Manpads), such as SA7 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, getting into the wrong hands. Though most military aircraft are now equipped with countermeasures, civilian planes are not. Helicopters remain vulnerable to rocket-propelled grenades, officials said. Referring to reports that anti-Gaddafi rebels have been selling arms, Matt Schroeder, director of the arms sales monitoring group at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said this was “feasible and plausible … weapons may have been trafficked”. The US has promised $4.5m to collect and destroy Libya’s missiles and other light weapons, according to the congressional research service and state department. Officials in Mali confirmed last week that a leader of the country’s last Tuareg rebellion had been killed on his way back from fighting for Gaddafi. Though the circumstances were confused, Reuters quoted a military official in Mali saying that Ibrahim Ag Bahanga was killed as he smuggled weapons across the border from Libya. “He had got his hands on lots of weapons in Libya … and he hid them on the border with Algeria and Niger,” the official said. US officials were reported as saying that a small number of Soviet-made SA 7 missiles from Libya had reached the black market in Mali, where al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has been active. Other regional governments fear that the region could become even more lawless due to an influx of weapons and fighters from Libya’s conflict. Earlier this week, Algeria’s foreign minister said his government was certain that al-Qaida’s north African affiliate had obtained weapons on the black market that flourished during the Libyan civil war. Mourad Medelci said countries across North Africa had seen proof “on the ground” that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb had taken advantage of instability in Libya to procure weapons with which to expand its campaign of terrorism. “It’s not just a worry or a feeling, it’s a certainty,” Medelci told French radio. Libya was vulnerable to terrorists taking refuge within its borders and using the country as a springboard for terrorism throughout the region, AFP, the French news agency, reported. Pieter Wezeman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sipri, which monitors the arms trade, said Gaddafi imported hunderds of French-made Milan guided missiles and Russian SA 24 missile launchers adding to an arsenal which included some 20,000 older short-range surface-to-air missiles. “Many of those, we know, are now not accounted for, and that’s going to be a concern for some period of time,” General Carter Ham, head of the US military’s Africa Command, told the Senate armed services committee in April. The British government approved the sale to Libya of equipment including guns and small-arms ammunition valued at more than £200m over the first nine months of last year, according to the latest figures compiled for the Foreign Office. In 2007–2008 Ukraine supplied more than 100,000 rifles to Libya. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa Global terrorism Nato Arms trade al-Qaida Military Richard Norton-Taylor Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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