New details have emerged on the escape route used by Gaddafi’s family to escape into neighbouring country New details have emerged on the escape route used by Muammar Gaddafi’s family to evade the grasp of the Libyan government and escape into neighbouring Algeria, triggering a diplomatic row over their fate. According to officials in the National Transitional Council, Gaddafi’s second wife, daughter and two sons slipped out of the country along a road through central Libya not yet under NTC control. The escape was made in a convoy of six armoured Mercedes limousines, once part of an extensive government fleet, which departed from the town of Bani Walid, the stronghold of the Libya’s biggest tribe, the Warfallah, where significant remnants of the regime are holding out. Guma al-Gamaty, the NTC’s UK coordinator, said the motorcade was carrying a total of 32 Gaddafi family members, including the ousted leader’s second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, and reached the Algerian border on Saturday. “They were kept waiting there for ten to twelve hours while the Algerian government decided what to do. It was the Algerian president himself [Abdelaziz Bouteflika] who authorised their entry,” al-Gamaty said. “We will definitely be seeking their return, and we are cooperating with Interpol to secure their return.” On Monday the Algerian foreign ministry confirmed that the Gaddafi entourage had crossed the border that morning, after denying a report to that effect on Sunday. The crossing is said to have taken place at a remote border post at Tinkarine in the far south east of Algeria, from where the family was taken to the town of Djanet. Aisha – a firebrand defender of the regime throughout the conflict – gave birth to a baby girl in Djanet’s hospital. According to one report, the new baby was named Safiah after her grandmother. An Algerian newspaper, El Watan, said Algerian troops were ordered to seal off the southern border immediately after the crossing. The escape took place while the NTC’s forces were focused on taking Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace and last coastal stronghold. The NTC leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has given loyalist forces there until Saturday to surrender or face a military onslaught. But the fact that a conspicuous convoy of six armoured limousines could drive unmolested down the length of the country, from Bani Walid to the pro-Gaddafi bastion at Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara desert, and then west to the Algerian border, indicates that there is a wide swathe of the central Libyan hinterland outside the NTC’s grasp. Al-Gamaty said the NTC now thought that Gaddafi was now “probably” in the Bani Walid area, where the situation was reported fluid but where pro-Gaddafi broadcasts were still being made on the local radio on Tuesday. “He probably thought Bani Walid was a stronger place to be [than Sirte], as it belongs to the Warfallah, the largest tribe in Libya,” he said. The manhunt for Gaddafi and his most powerful sons, Saif al-Islam, Mutassim and Khamis, is moving southwards to the Bani Walid-Sebha desert road. It was being assisted by western intelligence and special forces, including MI6 officers and the SAS. However, they are thin on the ground. Their role is to pick up signals from intercepting equipment not available to the Libyans and identifying their significance with NTC help. Any attempt to detain Gaddafi and his remaining sons would be carried out by Libyans, British sources stressed. The diplomatic row that has blown up in the wake of the family’s escape reflects the tensions caused by the western spread of the Arab spring, as the Algerian government tries to ensure it is not the next domino to fall. It has so far refused to recognise the provisional NTC government in Tripoli. For its part, the NTC is seeking to ensure Algeria does not become a base from which Gaddafi loyalists could mount a counter-revolution. The NTC’s interior minister Ahmed Darrat has reacted angrily to Algeria’s decision to grant members of the Gaddafi family asylum. “From a political point of view this situation is an enemy act,” Darrat told the Guardian. Al-Gamaty said the NTC are particularly anxious to extradite Hannibal and Mohammed Gaddafi for alleged large-scale embezzlement from the shipping and telecommunications industries respectively. An Algerian newspaper, Echorouk, has reported that the government had promised to hand over Muammar Gaddafi should he try to follow his family into Algeria. It quoted President Bouteflika as telling his cabinet that the deposed leader would be handed over to the International Criminal Court, where he faces charges of crimes against humanity for the brutality with which the first Libyan anti-government protests in February and March were suppressed. However, Algiers showed no readiness to hand back the family members taking refuge on its soil. The country’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mourad Benmehidi, told the BBC that in the desert regions there was a “holy rule of hospitality” by which his government had accepted the family on humanitarian grounds. Bouteflika was under heavy international pressure to relent and hand back at least some of the Gaddafi clan. “We would hope that there will be full cooperation from Algeria with any judicial process with regard to members of the Gaddafi family,” a European diplomat said. It has been confirmed that damage caused by retreating regime loyalists to the water lines supplying Tripoli was worse than first thought. The main damage is at a pumping station 160km south of the capital, and fixing it could take at least a week. The news comes as a blow for the NTC’s stabilisation plan, with the Islamic festival to mark the end of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, starting in Libya on Tuesday night. However supply lines to Tunisia along the main coastal road were fully open and food and drinking water was entering the capital. Ahead of the Eid festival, many shops opened in the central city for the first time in 10 days, and several shops in the Ben al-Ashura area were this afternoon opening their doors for the first time in six months. “This is what Gaddafi did to me,” said one vendor, Mansour, as he swept out his store which had stood abandoned since 20 February. Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Algeria Africa Julian Borger Martin Chulov Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Overreaction? Hardly – Hurricane Irene Resulted In 38 Deaths So Far, Numerous Floods
August 30, 2011 No CommentOne of the things I began to see on Twitter after Irene passed were comments like, “What a bunch of hype.” Really? Overblown, you say? Not to the many, many people whose towns have been devastated – or the 35 who died: The death toll from Hurricane Irene, later downgraded to a tropical storm, rose dramatically Monday as at least 35 people were reportedly killed by the storm that ripped its way up the East Coast and into New England. Earlier, officials estimated that at least 22 had died across 10 states. But as the massive cleanup and recovery effort got underway Monday, authorities tracing Irene’s destructive path raised the number of dead, according to the Associated Press. Among the fatalities: An 89-year-old Connecticut woman who was killed when a falling tree limb pulled power lines down on her home, starting a fire; and a 46-year-old man who tried to canoe down a flooded street. The canoe capsized, he disappeared, and his body was later recovered. PHOTOS: In the path of the storm The storm is estimated to have caused up to $7-billion worth of damage, a number that could grow, along with the death toll, as emergency assessments and flooding woes continue. Much of New York was regaining its stride — airports resuming flights, subways reopening — but swaths of Vermont were underwater after Irene dumped more than 5 inches of rain on the region. Authorities continue to warn residents there to remain indoors until the rising waters receded. Scott Towle, 54, a native of Brattleboro, Vermont, was stunned when he finally got a look at at the storm-swollen Whetstone Brook near his home. Normally, the tributary is a bubbling stream. “I’ve lived in Brattleboro all my life and I’ve never seen it like that,” he said. “It was a raging torrent. You could hear boulders, trees, everything going down through. It took out the road; it took out a couple of houses; it took out a bridge; it took out most of that street.” About 5 milllion residents were left without electicity Monday morning, but authorities up and down the coast were chipping away at that number. In New York City, the majority of customers were expected to have power by the end of the day Thursday, and much of the rest of the area by Friday. A National Weather Service official said Monday that the threat of flooding remains a top concern in New York and much of New England, even well after the rains subsided. David Vallee, the service’s hydrologist in charge of the Northeast, said that at one point 81 locations were at or above flood stage in the region, including a handful at record levels. “While the flash flood threat … has for the most part ended, we still have some of the moderate-sized and larger rivers that still will take all of today to crest,” Vallee said, including the Hudson River near Albany, N.Y. And he said of rivers including the Connecticut, “we’re not likely to see the rivers crest and reach their highest river elevation until midweek.”
Continue reading …Overreaction? Hardly – Hurricane Irene Resulted In 38 Deaths So Far, Numerous Floods
August 30, 2011 No CommentOne of the things I began to see on Twitter after Irene passed were comments like, “What a bunch of hype.” Really? Overblown, you say? Not to the many, many people whose towns have been devastated – or the 35 who died: The death toll from Hurricane Irene, later downgraded to a tropical storm, rose dramatically Monday as at least 35 people were reportedly killed by the storm that ripped its way up the East Coast and into New England. Earlier, officials estimated that at least 22 had died across 10 states. But as the massive cleanup and recovery effort got underway Monday, authorities tracing Irene’s destructive path raised the number of dead, according to the Associated Press. Among the fatalities: An 89-year-old Connecticut woman who was killed when a falling tree limb pulled power lines down on her home, starting a fire; and a 46-year-old man who tried to canoe down a flooded street. The canoe capsized, he disappeared, and his body was later recovered. PHOTOS: In the path of the storm The storm is estimated to have caused up to $7-billion worth of damage, a number that could grow, along with the death toll, as emergency assessments and flooding woes continue. Much of New York was regaining its stride — airports resuming flights, subways reopening — but swaths of Vermont were underwater after Irene dumped more than 5 inches of rain on the region. Authorities continue to warn residents there to remain indoors until the rising waters receded. Scott Towle, 54, a native of Brattleboro, Vermont, was stunned when he finally got a look at at the storm-swollen Whetstone Brook near his home. Normally, the tributary is a bubbling stream. “I’ve lived in Brattleboro all my life and I’ve never seen it like that,” he said. “It was a raging torrent. You could hear boulders, trees, everything going down through. It took out the road; it took out a couple of houses; it took out a bridge; it took out most of that street.” About 5 milllion residents were left without electicity Monday morning, but authorities up and down the coast were chipping away at that number. In New York City, the majority of customers were expected to have power by the end of the day Thursday, and much of the rest of the area by Friday. A National Weather Service official said Monday that the threat of flooding remains a top concern in New York and much of New England, even well after the rains subsided. David Vallee, the service’s hydrologist in charge of the Northeast, said that at one point 81 locations were at or above flood stage in the region, including a handful at record levels. “While the flash flood threat … has for the most part ended, we still have some of the moderate-sized and larger rivers that still will take all of today to crest,” Vallee said, including the Hudson River near Albany, N.Y. And he said of rivers including the Connecticut, “we’re not likely to see the rivers crest and reach their highest river elevation until midweek.”
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Watchdog says there is no evidence that Conservative party breached electoral law by failing to declare payments The Conservative party will not face an official inquiry into allegations that it broke electoral law by failing to declare News International’s payments to its former head of communications, Andy Coulson, after the elections watchdog concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a breach. The Electoral Commission had been asked to investigate a series of payments amounting to a six-figure sum made to Coulson by News International in the months after he arrived at Conservative campaign headquarters in 2007, as well as a company car and health insurance he received for three years. Tom Watson, the Labour MP and member of the Commons culture select committee, had raised concerns that the money could have amounted to an undeclared donation to the party. The revelation that Coulson received the severance payments from News International while working for the Conservatives put renewed pressure on the party, which had previously denied that he was paid by anyone else while employed by them. The Electoral Commission said there was no evidence that the payments related to his political activity with the Conservative party in any way. Specifically, they had not received evidence that the payments had subsidised Coulson’s wage, or that the health insurance had saved the party money. Watson has separately written to the parliamentary standards commissioner asking him to investigate why the payments were not declared in a register of passholders for 2007. Conservatives Andy Coulson News International Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bernie Goldberg: I Wish NYT Was Concerned With Religion and Politics When Obama Was in Wright’s Church
August 30, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters reported last week, New York Times outgoing executive editor Bill Keller believes presidential candidates should be questioned about their religious beliefs. On Monday's “The O'Reilly Factor,” media critic Bernie Goldberg marvelously said, “I wish that he and the New York Times was as concerned about religion and politics during the last campaign when it pertained to Barack Obama, who sat in a church with a hateful minister for 20 years” (video follows with transcript and commentary): Bill Keller, I wish that he and the New York Times was as concerned about religion and politics during the last campaign when it pertained to Barack Obama, who sat in a church with a hateful minister for 20 years. So I'm not sure if Bill Keller is the right person to preach to us about the importance of journalists asking about religion.
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Scotland Yard expected to have spent more on riots than it spent on all major public order events in the capital last year Scotland Yard is expected to have spent more on policing the riots than it spent on policing all major public order events in the capital last year, officials have said. The disturbances will cost the force more than £34m, with the total expected to rise even further as the final bills from other forces called in to help is settled, according to the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). This compares with a total of £34.8m spent by Scotland Yard on policing 42 major public order events between April 2010 and March 2011. Policing the student fees protests in London cost Scotland Yard £7.5m, while another £2.1m was spent providing security at the TUC anti-cuts demonstration in March, £1.9m on the Pope’s visit to Britain, and £2.2m around last year’s general election campaign. UK riots Metropolitan police London Police guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Politico ‘s piece by Jonathan Martin, “Is Rick Perry Dumb?” got them all in a tither today over at Fox News. Those gosh darn media elitists trying to get some attention by bringing up the obvious, that Governor Rick Perry of Texas is not the brightest bulb around. Megyn Kelly asks the questions only Fox can ask (with a straight face anyway), “Does it matter?” MEGYN KELLY: I want to ask you this—does it matter, should it matter, if somebody is dumb? Because you know, we’ve had—yes, there have been partisan attacks, no question, it does usually seem to focus on Republicans, is Michele Bachmann dumb, they’ve talked about, you know, her being on the House Intelligence Committee is a contradiction in terms, and they’ve anonymously sourced Republicans asking that question, now they’re asking this about Rick Perry, Sarah Palin—but is it unfair, just because it’s coming from some in the mainstream media? I mean, there were questions about the number of colleges Sarah Palin, you know, attended, there were questions about, you know Perry’s academic transcript and so on, does it make it illegitimate just because of who’s asking it? Michelle Malkin said of course it was an illegitimate question to ask, but not surprisingly didn’t bother to defend Perry’s intelligence, or lack thereof. The Politico piece began with: Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual. Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?” Doubts about Perry’s intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a state legislator nearly three decades ago. In Austin, he’s been derided as a right-place, right-time pol who looks the part but isn’t so deep — “Gov. Goodhair.” Now, with the chatter picking back up among his enemies and taking flight in elite Republican circles, the rap threatens to follow him to the national stage. “He’s like Bush only without the brains,” cracked one former Republican governor who knows Perry, repeating a joke that has made the rounds. …and went on for five more pages of this. I suspect anyone who watches the entire six minute segment above will only feel a bit stupider afterward so my apologies in advance.
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Click here to view this media Politico ‘s piece by Jonathan Martin, “Is Rick Perry Dumb?” got them all in a tither today over at Fox News. Those gosh darn media elitists trying to get some attention by bringing up the obvious, that Governor Rick Perry of Texas is not the brightest bulb around. Megyn Kelly asks the questions only Fox can ask (with a straight face anyway), “Does it matter?” MEGYN KELLY: I want to ask you this—does it matter, should it matter, if somebody is dumb? Because you know, we’ve had—yes, there have been partisan attacks, no question, it does usually seem to focus on Republicans, is Michele Bachmann dumb, they’ve talked about, you know, her being on the House Intelligence Committee is a contradiction in terms, and they’ve anonymously sourced Republicans asking that question, now they’re asking this about Rick Perry, Sarah Palin—but is it unfair, just because it’s coming from some in the mainstream media? I mean, there were questions about the number of colleges Sarah Palin, you know, attended, there were questions about, you know Perry’s academic transcript and so on, does it make it illegitimate just because of who’s asking it? Michelle Malkin said of course it was an illegitimate question to ask, but not surprisingly didn’t bother to defend Perry’s intelligence, or lack thereof. The Politico piece began with: Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual. Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?” Doubts about Perry’s intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a state legislator nearly three decades ago. In Austin, he’s been derided as a right-place, right-time pol who looks the part but isn’t so deep — “Gov. Goodhair.” Now, with the chatter picking back up among his enemies and taking flight in elite Republican circles, the rap threatens to follow him to the national stage. “He’s like Bush only without the brains,” cracked one former Republican governor who knows Perry, repeating a joke that has made the rounds. …and went on for five more pages of this. I suspect anyone who watches the entire six minute segment above will only feel a bit stupider afterward so my apologies in advance.
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CPS asked Essex officers to carry out further inquiries into allegations that energy secretary tried to dodge speeding penalty in 2003 The results of further investigations into claims that the cabinet minister Chris Huhne tried to dodge a speeding penalty have been given to prosecutors, Essex police have confirmed. The Crown Prosecution Service asked officers to carry out further inquiries into the allegations and handed back the files last Thursday, a spokesman for the force said. It is now up to the CPS to decided whether to pursue the case. Huhne is alleged to have asked his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, to accept penalty points on his behalf after breaking the speed limit in 2003. At the time, the Liberal Democrat was an MEP and was said to be driving home from Stansted airport after returning to the UK from the European parliament. In a newspaper interview in May, Pryce claimed Huhne, the energy secretary, had tried to pass on his points to her to avoid losing his driving licence. Huhne has denied the allegations. Chris Huhne Police guardian.co.uk
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Burglars suspected of using sleeping gas to ensure they are not disturbed during break-ins on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda Police in the billionaires’ retreat of Porto Cervo on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda believe thieves who made off with €315,000 (£280,000) in cash and jewels used sleeping gas on their victims to ensure they were not disturbed during the break-in. Similar robberies have been reported this summer in France and Spain. The burglaries in Porto Cervo, which took place last week, were only disclosed by police on Tuesday. The thieves sneaked into the rented holiday villa of a Milanese pharmaceuticals tycoon and left with a haul worth around €300,000. The businessman’s 42-year-old wife, her mother and their daughter were all in the house, along with a servant, but no one heard the burglars, even though they took the windows off their hinges to get in. At the villa next door, two holidaymakers found a watch and €15,000 in cash missing. They told police they had woken up feeling weak and dazed. In July, “gassing gangs” were reported to be targeting caravans and camper vans in France. Thieves sprayed sleeping gas in through air vents before breaking in. Earlier this month, at least six houses on an estate at Rincón de la Victoria on Spain’s Costa del Sol were burgled by thieves thought to have used sleeping gas. One of the residents, José Luis Gómez, was quoted as saying the victims had woken “dizzy, with headaches, vomiting and stinging throats”. Porto Cervo was built in the 1960s by Prince Karim Aga Khan and it has long been a playground for the super-rich. Earlier this month,the sign at the entrance to the Costa Smeralda was altered, apparently by an insufficiently prosperous holidaymaker armed with a spray can. The “Smeralda” was deleted and replaced with the word “troppo”, so it now reads in Italian: “Costs too much.” Italy Europe John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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