Home » Posts tagged with » barack-obama

Chris Matthews Sees Japan Earthquake an ‘Opportunity’ for Obama to Remind People He Was Born in Hawaii

Hundreds if not thousands of people are dead due to a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But at least it gave Barack Obama an avenue to remind everyone he was born in Hawaii. That's the silver lining for MSNBC's Chris Matthews. “Was this sort of a good opportunity for the president to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii?” [We're working on clipping video and will post it shortly] That's a question that Chris Matthews posed to MSNBC host and White House corresondent Chuck Todd about President Obama taking a question from a Japanese reporter during a news conference earlier today at the White House. Matthews pegged this question on the fact that there are many persons of Japanese heritage who live in the Hawaiian islands, which were themselves impacted by smaller tsunami resulting from the earthquake. “That's the first thing I thought of,” Matthews insisted. “Such a large number of people believe he grew up in [Kenya], they're buying this thing that's coming from Huckabee,” Matthews insisted. A somewhat visibly flustered Todd politely rejected Matthews's argument: TODD: Look, do I think they thought this was another chance? No. I mean, they called this press conference because they hadn't had an opportunity to speak about gas prices…. This was a case where events crowded out the whole purpose of the press conference. That's an interesting theory. It certainly did give him an opportunity to remind folks of where he grew up and the folks he grew up with.

March 11, 2011No CommentRead More

Michelle Rhee Cozies Up With Rick Scott For Assault on Public Schools

March 10, 2011 No Comment

Michelle Rhee is a puzzle. Widely touted as an public education crusader ( who also appears to overstate her qualifications ), she seems to have no problem trashing the teachers’ unions and tenure while promoting charter schools as the answer. And now she’s cuddling up with Rick Scott in Florida to help him privatize Florida public schools. Who is this woman and why is the Obama administration (and Obama himself) so enamored of her ? In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Richard Kahlenberg credits the Obama administration and Democrats for handing Scott Walker a defense for his blatant union-busting: But Walker’s argument – that greedy teachers are putting their own interests over the interests of the public – resonates in part because in recent years, many Democrats have made that argument as well. Exhibit A is former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Under Democratic mayor Adrian Fenty, she repeatedly clashed with the Washington Teachers’ Union, which she said put the interests of adults over those of children. “Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-building are way overrated,” Rhee said at the Aspen Institute’s education summit in 2008. She told journalist John Merrow it is imperative that teachers-union bargaining rights exclude issues such as devising a fair teacher-evaluation system. Since resigning as chancellor last year, Rhee has launched a new organization , StudentsFirst , with the express goal of raising $1 billion to counter teachers unions. Her approach remains confrontational. In a profound sense, Democrats like Michelle Rhee have paved the way for Scott Walker. But Rhee couldn’t have done it alone. Then-candidate Barack Obama endorsed Rhee in a 2008 debate as a ” wonderful new superintendent ” and later applauded the firing of every single unionized teacher at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. (The teachers were later rehired.) Rhee’s agenda also received a big boost from liberal movie director Davis Guggenheim, whose film, ” Waiting for ‘Superman ,’ ” implies that teachers unions are to blame for the failures of urban education and that non-unionized charter schools are the solution. The movie includes no acknowledgment that the things teachers want for themselves – more resources devoted to education, smaller class sizes, policies that allow them to keep order in the classroom – are also good for kids. It’s no secret to regular readers of this blog that the Republican end game is to convert our public school systems to private, for-profit concerns, and no one is more committed to that goal than Rick Scott. To that end, there’s a bill being jetstreamed through the Florida state legislature ” reforming education “. The legislation would measure teacher performance based on four categories, and give principals the option to reject teachers who have not been rated highly effective or effective; end teacher contracts for those who receive two unsatisfactory evaluations in three years; give teachers hired after July 1, 2011, annual and not continuing contracts; and put teachers hired after July 1, 2014, on performance-based scales. The House amended its measure (proposed bill 11-01) to mirror a substitute Senate bill (SB736) that passed its final committee Wednesday morning. The measures are speeding toward Gov. Rick Scott, who has said he would sign the bill once it reaches his desk. Former Gov. Charlie Crist famously vetoed SB6, last year’s controversial teacher tenure bill. The bill also mirrors Wisconsin’s legislation forcing teachers to contribute to their retirement and health plans as well as stripping the majority of their collective bargaining rights. Michelle Rhee’s roadmap. Again. And in Tennessee, she’s busy too . The outcome of Rhee’s work, when combined with the travesty that is NCLB and the general assault on teachers is decisions like this one, where a gifted, committed, successful teacher decides she doesn’t want to be a teacher anymore . There are many policy areas where I can make exceptions or give benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to education, I say that President Obama is dead wrong and worse yet, he’s enabling a movement that will gut our educational system. When he goes to Florida and appears with Jeb Bush , the king of school privatization, it’s a shot in the gut of every teacher in the country. I’ve had three kids go through the public school system. My youngest finishes next year. All three have gotten good, solid, strong educations. They know how to think, how to read, how to function and they were or will be college-ready. All three have had wonderful teachers in an underfunded school district which does not serve rich people. It’s diverse and more students are minorities or poor than the other way around. This is not to say public schools are perfect. They’re not. But much of the reason they’re not is the result of No Child Left Behind, which could possibly be the worst “education reform” I’ve ever seen. One of my kids graduated before NCLB took effect. One graduated a few years in. My youngest has spent more years in the system under that idiot law than not. My experience? She got a great education in spite of NCLB and because of her teachers. To lay the problems with our public school system at the feet of teachers and teachers’ unions is ridiculous, yet Rhee persists, and the Obama administration blesses it! What is the matter with them? Daily Kos points out some (possibly) unintended consequences of Rhee’s “advice”: But slashing pensions? Fantastic! Limiting collective bargaining to “basic things like the salary”? Why, that’s the Michelle Rhee program! I think that, you know, unions can collectively bargain over basic things like salary but they don’t have a place in getting involved in policies and so I think that the move to try to limit what they bargain over is an incredibly important one. If teachers are restricted to bargaining over salary and pension issues, how long do you think it will take the Michelle Rhees of this world to start screaming about how teachers are only in it for themselves, and all they care about are their salaries? What’s that you say? That’s already what she and her ilk are saying? Huh. Funny. It’s almost like she’s suggesting policies that will give her an excuse to do more of what she’s already doing. For generations, teachers—and their unions—have fought for increased education funding, smaller class sizes, and other resources. But so-called reformers like Rhee want to squash teachers’ ability to advocate for their students. Her attacks on teachers helped lay the groundwork for what Scott Walker is trying to do. They’ve helped create the atmosphere that’s made talented, dedicated teachers say I don’t want to be a teacher any more. For all the talk about how terrible it is to leave our children and grandchildren in debt, no one seems to be as outraged about how terrible it is to leave our children and grandchildren without hope of a decent education. That is a far broader problem than the national debt, and the Obama administration needs to quit partnering with Michelle Rhee to undermine the public school system. Now.

Continue reading …

Bill O’Reilly tries to argues that Obama had ‘huge advantage’ of being ‘the first black’ to run for President. WRONG!

March 9, 2011 No Comment
Bill O’Reilly tries to argues that Obama had ‘huge advantage’ of being ‘the first black’ to run for President. WRONG!

Click here to view this media Mike Huckabee had a really bad week when he kept opening his mouth and sewerage kept coming out. he tried a phony apology by saying he misspoke. Nobody believed that one either. Now, here comes the anointed King Of Kabletown, Bill O’Reilly, really knocking a whopper out of the park to Charles Krauthammer. They were a bit down as they discussed George Will’s column on the lousy Republican candidates that Will believes are valid at this point. Krauthammer largely agreed with Will, and it seemed O’Reilly did too; the main point of contention they had was that nobody knew any of these Republican governors. I guess O’Reilly sensed that it was a motley crew of candidates, so to make his audience happy he said that President Obama had an advantage because he was the first African Americam to run for President as they discussed the GOP 2012 list of candidates. Krauthammer: It’s not a strong field. Not being known now is not dispositive — nobody had ever heard of Barack Obama at this time in the cycle. O’Reilly; That’s what they always said, but let me challenge you. Barack Obama, a black man. OK, I mean he’s half black and half white, but his appearance is black. The first black to ever run, OK? Huge, huge advantage in a campaign. Enormous. The press loved him. LOVED HIM, alright? Promoted him, actively promoted him. NBC News actively promoted his candidacy and so did their parent company General Electric. HUGE advantages Nobody on that list has anything. Krauthammer: All of that is true, although Jesse Jackson actually was the first who ran. Congratulations to Krauthammer for at least having a memory cell still remaining — though a slightly faulty one at that, considering that Shirley Chisholm was actually the first black person to run as a candidate in either of the two parties. Still: Bill, the King of Kableland, has a huge staff at his disposal and the entire saving account of Ailesbucks available to him, so what’s his excuse for being so wrong? I thought at least everyone remembered Jesse Jackson, because he scared the Bejesus out of the GOP so badly that they purged the voter rolls after his run. How could BillO not know this? Jesse has been a guest on BillO’s own show. Wikipedia: In 1888 Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention . Afterward during the roll call vote, he received one vote, so was nominally a candidate for the presidency. In those years, the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency were chosen by state representatives voting at the nominating convention. Many decisions were made by negotiations of state and party leaders “behind closed doors.” Douglass was not a serious candidate in contemporary terms. In 1972, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American major party candidate for president. She was a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination and participated in the Democratic primaries in numerous states. [1] She campaigned in 12 states and won 28 delegates. [2] In 1984 and 1988 , Jesse Jackson was the first major party black candidate to run nationwide primary campaigns . He also ran as a Democratic Party candidate. [3] In 1992 Alan Keyes was the first African-American candidate to run in the Republican presidential primaries.[ citation needed ] Keyes ran again, unsuccessfully, in 1996, 2000, and 2008. In 2004, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton ran as unsuccessful candidates in the Democratic primaries. But you know — being black is a real advantage when you run for president. Uh-huh.

Continue reading …

Cairo women’s march turns into shouting match

March 9, 2011 No Comment
Cairo women’s march turns into shouting match

Click here to view this media About a thousand women turned out to march on International Women’s Day Tuesday in Cairo to demand “fair and equal opportunity for all Egyptian citizens — beyond gender, religion or class.” The activists in Egypt, who had called for a “Million Woman March,” were disappointed when some men chanting anti-feminist slogans caused the rally to degenerate into a shouting match. “Men are men and women are women and that will never change and go home, that’s where you belong,” was one of the chants heard at the march. “As the women stood there and they chanted, suddenly this group of young men started chanting things, that women should go home, that they should stay in the home and the proof of that is that God didn’t make any female prophets,” NBC’s Anne Thompson reported from Cairo Tuesday. In a Facebook post, organizers of the March said they were not after minority rights. “We are not after symbolic political representation,” they said. “The bodies of women, so often used as ideological battlegrounds, have withstood all kinds of police violence, from tear gas to live bullets. The real battleground did not differentiate between women and men.” Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s revolution, was chosen for the march because the women demand to be part of the new Egyptian government. Only one woman was included when Egypt’s new cabinet was sworn in Monday. “When the prime minister came to Tahrir to speak to the people, was he blind?” Nehad Abu El Komsan, head of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, asked upon hearing the news . “Did he not see that half of the people filling the square were women?” “If we’re not involved in building the constitutional and legislative future of this country now, then when? Why do we see women, who were almost 50 percent of the protesters in Tahrir, not represented in decision-making rooms?” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared Tuesday that women must get a role in the new government. “The United States will stand firmly for the proposition that women must be included in whatever process goes forward,” she said. “They have now insisted that their voices be heard,” Clinton added. “And in the coming months and years, the women in Egypt and Tunisia and other nations have just as much right as the men to remake their governments — to make them responsive, accountable, transparent.” Tuesday marked the 100th anniversary of the first International Women’s Day.

Continue reading …

Mike Huckabee’s distasteful "Mau Mau Revolution" Rant, via Colbert

March 9, 2011 No Comment

S Stephen Colbert has been on a brilliant streak that has been going for years now. Mike Huckabee was put On Notice by Colbert because of two strange and mentally challenged rants last week by the Foxer. Stephen was a bit perturbed when ‘The Huckster’ attacked Natalie Portman for being pregnant, but not married. However, what really got his goat was Mike telling right wing talkie, Steve Malzberg that Obama was born in Kenya and then just digging deeper into dog whistle territory . Yeah, Huckabee said he misspoke because he really meant to say Indonesia, but he freakishly then went into a dissertation on the Mau Mau Revolution. Did the Mau Mau Revolution take place in Indonesia? And is there any evidence Barack Obama had ever even heard of it while growing up? Huckabee: When he gave the back the … bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather. Colbert said this bothered him: Colbert; Now, in case you missed it, he said Obama grew up in Kenya, with his Kenyan father. Kenya, Kenya, Kenya. First off, Obama didn’t grow up in Kenya, he was born in Kenya before moving to Islamistan to where he traveled back in time to plant his birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper. But I understand the Governor’s point. The Kenyan view of the Mau Mau revolution is far different than the American view which is generally ” what is the Mau Mau revolution? ” — OK, he simply misspoke for five minutes about the Mau Mau revolution which he evidently thought happened in Indonesia for five minutes. The important thing isn’t where the Mau Mau revolution happened. The important thing is for people to start associating Barack Obama with the words Mau Mau.. . Leslie Savan of The Nation writes about the coded racism Huckabee is deploying: That’s when Huckabee, to the surprise of most everyone, started squawking that President Obama grew up in Kenya, where he was influenced by his father’s and grandfathers’ anticolonial Mau-Mauism to despise the British Empire—and, by implication, all white power. Only after being called out did the Fox News host say he “misspoke” on the growing up in Kenya part (he later claimed he apologized, though that, too, isn’t true). Then he blamed the media for attacking him, and simply relocated the lie from Kenya to Indonesia. “Most of us,” he told far-right radio talker Bryan Fischer , “grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.” (Of course, Obama was born and grew up primarily in Hawaii, spending only the years between ages 6 and 10 in Indonesia—where, by the way, there were Rotary Clubs and he was a Cub Scout . In fact, according to the Boy Scouts of America, “The BSA is the second-largest Scouting organization in the world. The largest is in Indonesia .”) Huckabee even managed to trash his relatively decent stand on Obama’s birthplace. “What I have never done,” he said ,“is taken the position that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or anywhere other than Hawaii, where he claims to have been born.” That little “claims” is of a weasely piece with John Boehner, who says he “believes” that Obama is an American-born Christian because he takes the president “at his word.” To be an electable Republican today you don’t have to be racist, you just have to convince racists that you’re not going to make them feel uncomfortable. You have to genuflect, speak ambiguously, and hope that independent voters forget all that by the general election. All this garbage started last year with Dinesh D’Souza’s repulsive headliner for Forbes , which maintained that Obama’s “anti-business” policies could be explained only by his “Kenyan anti-colonialism.” That other presidential flirt, Newt Gingrich, had hailed this nonsense as the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama” and “the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.” “What if he is so outside our comprehension” that he can be understood “only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior?” (The media long ago should have retired its characterization of Gingrich as an “intellect,” but, remarkably, you still hear it.) But here’s a simpler theory: The right spews this bizarre “anticolonial” claptrap because it gives them a chance to say “Mau Mau,” which conjures a more fearsome threat than the N-word itself. You can always count on Dinesh to be one of the most disgusting of the wingnuts, but one who manages to fly under the radar most of the time.

Continue reading …

Libya uprising

March 9, 2011 No Comment
Libya uprising

• Tanks move towards centre of Zawiyah • Airstrike hits oil terminal near Ras Lanuf • Gaddafi mounts diplomatic offensive • Gaddafi accuses west of being after Libya’s oil • UN launches investigation into torture by Gaddafi forces Click here for a summary of the latest developments 4.45pm: This section of the today’s blog is closing – live-blogging of events in Libya and elsewhere is now continuing here . 4.21pm: Hafiz Ghoga, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council, Hafiz Ghoga, has told a news conference that opposition fighters have come under heavy fire in Bin Jawad. He said: The revolutionary forces have entered Bin Jawad and are now being subjected to heavy artillery and air attack. Near the frontline, rebel fighter Alamin Mashesh told Reuters: “I was just in Bin Jawad. We took it and now we are in control … We just burned five tanks with missiles and rocket propelled grenades.” Another opposition fighter, rebel Abdel Karim Mustafa, gestured to show uncertainty when asked if it was under rebel control. “We just went into Bin Jawad, but there are air strikes,” he said. 4.06pm: A live video stream has been posted of what is said to be a mass anti-demonstration protest in Benghazi, the eastern city that is the heart of the opposition movement and home of the transitional national council. 3.46pm: Libyan government emissaries have flown to Brussels to talk to European and NATO officials ahead of the organisations meetings on Thursday and Friday, the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said today. It seems that Gaddafi is on a diplomatic offensive but what his representatives are putting on the table, if anything, is unclear. From Reuters: “Two aircraft of the Libyan regime appear to have left Libya for Brussels with the intention of enabling emissaries of Gaddafi to meet representatives taking part in the meetings of the EU and NATO tomorrow and the next day,” Frattini said. He noted that the visits to Cairo and Brussels suggested that the situation was very fluid and he cautioned against taking any action which might be premature. “I don’t know what will be said in Cairo, I don’t know who will meet whom in Brussels but these movements are a fact that we have to take account of,” he said. Earlier, a Maltese official said Libyan emissaries had arrived on the Mediterranean island on Wednesday for talks with Maltese officials, and then flown to Portugal. There was no immediate confirmation from Lisbon but a source in Brussels said the plane was carrying a moderate member of Gaddafi’s government to meet Luis Amado, the Portuguese foreign minister. 3.41pm: An al-Jazeera video shows footage of one of Gaddafi’s fighter planes near Ras Lanuf, as well as the oil terminal that was bombed. – 3.27pm: The opposition movement has claimed it is in back in control of Bin Jawad, which the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend, Reuters reports: The rebel movement announced via loudspeakers in the centre of Benghazi that rebels now controlled Bin Jawad, a town near the front between rebels and Muammar Gaddafi’s forces about 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli. Crowds in Benghazi cheered. A Reuters correspondent at the frontline, who spoke to rebels, said their fighters had moved forward towards Bin Jawad from the town of Ras Lanuf after a heavy exchange of fire. But one rebel back from the front said they had not reached Bin Jawad. 3.08pm: A government spokesman in Tripoli has claimed there are 40 opposition fighters remaining in Zawiyah, at most. “Maybe 30-40 people, hiding in the streets and in the cemetery. They are desperate,” he told Reuters. But Khaeri Aboshagor, spokesman for the London-based Libyan League for Human Rights, said the town might prove hard to control entirely. “If they have taken the square, the resistance might diminish – it’s a symbolic place, and you could say whoever holds the square holds the town – but they will keep fighting. It’s a very spread out town and you can’t just hold it with 50 tanks and some pickup trucks.” 2.58pm: Apparently, Libyan state TV is claiming that al-Qaida bombed the oil terminal near Ras Lanuf, in its latest piece of propoganda. Al-Jazeera reported at least three bombs were dropped on the facility by Gaddafi’s forces. 2.46pm: There has been more fighting in Bin Jawad – the town the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend – according to al-Jazeera. It reports that the fighting is for control of the western parts of the town and a plane has been flying overhead. @Libyanfsl tweets (translation from Arabic) : February 17 rebels entered the city of heroes Bin Jawad after the arrival of the supply of Libyan troops #Feb17 #Libya 2.29pm: A Tunisian man who crossed the border on the way from Tripoli to Tunis in mid-afternoon said government forces have sealed off the western city of Zawiyah. Bachir al Tunesy told Reuters: The road was okay until we got close to Zawiyah. They’ve encircled the city and dug up the road leading to it so nobody can come in or out of Zawiyah. 2.12pm: At least three bombs have been dropped on an oil terminal outside Ras Lanuf has been hit by at least three bombs, al-Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports. The images on television show a huge plume of smoke coming out of the oil terminal. Rowland says there is “intense fighting” in the oil port. – 1.58pm: The home of Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, has been occupied by squatters showing solidarity for the Libyan revolution, according to the local paper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express . – 1.50pm: The Guardian has a gallery of images from the Ras Jidr camp on the Tunisian border with Libya . It provides a glimpse into the conditions that greet the thousands of refugees who have fled Libya. Another good photo gallery is on the New York Times website , which has more than 200 photos from Libya from the past two weeks. 1.42pm: Forces loyal to Gaddafi hit storage tanks in the oil terminal of Es Sider in east Libya on Wednesday during a heavy bombardment of rebels in the area, rebel fighters told Reuters: Big, black plumes of smoke rose above the terminal. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm the report that the storage tanks were hit or to ascertain if the cause was the bombardment by Gaddafi’s forces or a stray rebel rocket. “We were standing over there in the direction of Es Sider. It was a fierce, random bombardment on us and then it hit the storage tanks,” rebel fighter Abdel Salam Mohamed told Reuters. 1.41pm: I reported earlier that the hospital in the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf has been evacuated. Apparently, it has been evacuated because the water to the town was cut by yesterday’s bombing and not because of an increased military threat as originally believed. 1.03pm: Here’s a summary of events so far today: • Gaddafi’s tanks have reportedly been moving towards the centre of Zawayiah . The city, 30 miles west of Tripoli, came under fierce attack yesterday and the tanks are believed to be moving towards Zawiyah’s opposition-held square. People in the city painted a grim picture of what is happening. A fighter named Ibrahim told Reuters by phone that tanks are “everywhere”. “There are many dead people and they can’t even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There’s nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky,” he said. A resident said: “The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks … It’s very scary.” • There have been a fresh airstrikes on the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf , al-Jazeera has just reported. • Three of Gaddafi’s private jets have reportedly headed to Cairo . One has already landed. Al-Jazeera suggested Libya might be sending a delegation to the Arab League, which is due to hold a meeting in the Egyptian capital on Saturday. It also reported that the delegation will be meeting with the ruling Egyptian military. AP said a high-ranking member of the Libyan government was carrying a message from Gaddafi. • The UN’s special rapporteur for torture has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi’s forces since the beginning of the uprising. Juan Mendez said Gaddafi’s use of torture and illegal detention in the past is “very well-documented”. • Gaddafi has accused western powers of trying to get their hands on Libya’s oil and wealth . He also accused them of trying to re-colonise the country. The Libyan leader once more blamed foreign intervention for the uprising and said that Libyans would “take up arms and fight” if a no-fly zone was imposed. He said a no-fly zone would be “useful” because it would open the eyes of the Libyan people to the true intentions of the west. 12.51pm: There has been fighting near near the east Libyan oil terminal of Es Sider, close to Ras Lanuf, reports Reuters: “The bombardment is further east from Es Sider, near where the rebels are now. They are firing back with rockets,” said Reuters correspondent Mohammed Abbas on the frontline. He said rebel forces moved out of Es Sider, a town they have controlled, after the bombardment. They have moved out of the town before only to retake it later. “This is really very heavy bombardment from Gaddafi forces,” said Abbas. 12.41pm: A fighter jet has been circling over Ras Lanuf but there have been no major clashes so far, reports Reuters. It says opposition forces have been staging periodic hit-and-run attacks on dug-in troops loyal to Gaddafi in the east of the country and resupplied their own frontline with guns and ammunition. A warplane circled a rebel checkpoint at the main gate to the rebel-held oil town of Ras Lanuf which has sustained repeated air strikes in the past days. There were six anti-aircraft guns, two mortar launchers and boxes of ammunition at the gate waiting to go forward. One fighter was carefully assembling home-made bombs with small fuses and tins of TNT explosive. “We’re in a defensive position right now because of the heavy artillery ahead. We moved forward another five km (three miles),” rebel Colonel Masoud Mohammed. The threat of heavy artillery and the defensive position was repeated by Colonel Bashir Abdul Qadr. On Wednesday, there was one rebel army truck mounted with a multiple rocket launcher near the front, which lies along a barren stretch of desert and scrub roughly 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli between the towns of Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf. A Reuters correspondent also saw an armoured personnel carrier travelling away from the front. Another two sources, unarmed rebel volunteers, said there had been minor skirmishes at the front line at dawn, but no major military confrontations. – 12.15pm: A UN special investigator has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi’s forces since the start of the uprising, reports AP. The UN’s special rapporteur for torture, Juan Mendez, told reporters at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva that Gaddafi’s use of torture and illegal detention in the past is “very well-documented”. Mendez was asked whether he would investigate media reports that Gaddafi’s soldiers have been using ambulances to remove patients from hospitals and execute them but would not elaborate. 12.09pm: An update on the Libyan jet that has arrived in Cairo from AP: An Egyptian airport official says a high-ranking member of the Libyan government has landed in Cairo saying he has a message from Muammar Gaddafi. The official told The Associated Press that the head of Libya’s logistics and supply authority arrived on a private jet Wednesday afternoon. Libyan embassy staff told Egyptian officials that Major Gen Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi was carrying a message from Gaddafi. 12.08pm: Al-Jazeera suggest that at least one of the flights might taking a Libyan delegation to negotiate with the Arab League, which is based in Cairo. A meeting of the Arab League is due to take place on Saturday but the league has ruled out any Libyan participation. The news station’s Rawya Rageh has been tweeting that all three planes are now headed to Egypt: The #Gaddafi family jet that landed in #Egypt had a military official on board who’ll be meeting with Egypt’s military rulers #Libya #Feb17 The two other #Gaddafi family jets that were initially headed to Europe now re-routed to #Egypt, as well #Libya #Feb17 11.54am: Despite some excitement on Twitter about the three Gaddafi family jets on the move, it should be pointed out that the planes have been on the move previously since the uprising began so people shouldn’t hold out too much hope as to their significance. The wife of Gaddafi’s son Hannibal, who is Lebanese, was reportedly refused permission to land in Lebanon last month, while a day later the dictator’s daughter Aisha denied she was trying to flee when a jet was turned back from Malta . Another flight was reported to Minsk in Belarus . 11.25am: Chris McGreal, in Benghazi, has been gauging the mood of the opposition forces. He says the bombardment over recent days has convinced the Libyan transitional national council that its forces are in for a protracted battle and of the need for foreign intervention but they are still adamant that they are not engaged in a civil war: Certainly the euphoria of the early days when the rebels pushed hundreds of km towards Tripoli and they thought that Gaddafi might fall within days, those days have gone. They realise that he’s going to fight on if he can and not only has the push towards Tripoli stalled, but it’s been reversed. They realise it’s going to be a long struggle… They’re looking increasingly to foreign governments to support them with no-fly zones, discussion of whether there will be weapons supplied, recognition of the revolutionary council as the legitimate government. At the moment the revolutionary council decided that they’re not regarding it as a civil war. They say that they see Gaddafi trying to to create a civil war in order to justify bombing cities. – 11.09am: Karl Stagno-Navarra, a journalist in Malta, told al-Jazeera taht three out of five of the Gaddafi family jets are in the air, headed to Vienna, Athens and Cairo respectively. His sources were air traffic control in Malta and Cyprus. 11.00am: The Greek defence ministry says that Gaddafi’s plane has crossed Greece en route to Egypt, al-Arabiya reports . No further details are available at present but if Gaddafi is aboard one wouldn’t imagine he would get a warm reception in Egypt, which only recently ousted its own dictator. 10.48am: Opposition forces in Ras Lanuf, the oil town in eastern Libya, have evacuated the hospital there because of fears that it could be the target of an attack, either from an airstrike or on the ground, Chris McGreal, the Guardian’s correspondent, who is in Benghazi, has just informed me. Ras Lanuf has repeatedly been a target for Gaddafi’s jets over the past few days with at least four airstrikes reported yesterday. 10.25am: The global civic advocacy network, Avaaz.org, has a petition on its website for a no-fly zone . It hopes to get one million signatures before the UN security council meeting on Friday. It currently has more than 640,000 signatures. The petition says: Dear United Nations security council delegates, We call on you to take immediate steps to impose a no-fly zone under Chapter VII of the UN charter to stop the aerial bombings of civilians in Libya and restore access for humanitarian flights to Libyan air space. Only through robust international action and oversight can the bloodshed in Libya be stopped. 10.09am: Despite Hillary Clinton’s expressed concern that the no-fly zone should get international backing , that does not necessarily mean a UN mandate – likely to prove tricky because of Russian and Chinese resistance – according to a report in the Washington Post . A Nato official told the paper international support could instead come from a regional bloc. The official said: If you have [support from] the Arab League, the African Union, NATO and potentially the European Union, you have every country within 5,000 miles of Libya. That gives you a certain level of legitimacy. 10.05am: Here’s video of Gaddafi’s speech , delivered to members of Libya’s Zentan tribe, in which he once more blamed foreign elements for the revolt against his leadership: – 9.55am: The oil refinery in Zawiyah has been shut down because of fierce fighting, Reuters reports. An official told the news agency: Heavy weapons have been fired nearby and we can’t run the refinery under these conditions. The Zawiyah refinery is the biggest provider of gasoline for cars in Libya, and has a total capacity of 120,000 barrels per day. The refinery has been operating at 70% capacity for the past two weeks. 9.30am – Yemen: Human Rights Watch says at least seven people were wounded in the capital Sana’a last night when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at peaceful anti-government protesters: A field doctor said one demonstrator was in critical condition from a bullet wound to his head and that six others were shot in the arms and legs. The doctor said more than 50 others suffered cramps, brief fainting spells and other physical problems from the tear gas. Pro-government gangs prevented one ambulance containing wounded from reaching the nearest government hospital, forcing the driver to divert to a private hospital, the field doctor said. A government statement said police tried to apprehend armed men at a checkpoint outside the protest area. But a witness said the incident began when uniformed members of Yemen’s central security forces tried to prevent protesters from using tents near the square, though demonstrators had been sleeping in such tents for days without incident. A few hundred protesters “gathered and started to scream at the government,” the witness said. “Suddenly the central security forces attacked the protesters with gunfire and tear gas.” The square was calm several hours later, the doctors and witnesses said. 9.26am: More details on the interview with Gaddafi broadcast on Libyan state television this morning (the interview was actually given yesterday), from al-Jazeera . The Libyan leader once more blamed foreigners for the revolt and said several foreign fighters were captured on Monday. He said: Yesterday, the mosque that the security forces regained power over, they had in this mosque, they had weapons and alcohol has well. Some of them come from Afghanistan, some of them come from Egypt, some of them come from Algeria, just to misguide our children. Meanwhile, he told Turkey’s state-run TRT Turk television that Libyans would “take up arms and fight” if a no-fly zone was imposed. 9.17am: A resident in Zawiyah has told Reuters by phone: The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks … It’s very scary. There are a lot of snipers. 8.53am: Here are some more details on the advance of Gaddafi tanks into Zawiyah, reported by Reuters. Interestingly, a rebel fighter claims the bombardment of the oil port was prompted by the death of one of Gaddafi’s cousins in fighting there, earlier this week. “We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,” he told Reuters by phone from inside the city. The fighter, named Ibrahim, said forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were in control of the main road and the suburbs of Zawiyah. Rebel forces still controlled the square and the enemy was about 1,500m away, he said. Ibrahim said there were army snipers on top of most of the buildings, shooting whoever dared to leave their homes. He said half the city was destroyed by air attacks. “There are many dead people and they can’t even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There’s nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky,” he said. Rebels had killed a high-ranking cousin of Gaddafi in fighting earlier in the week, and “that’s why he bombed the city. They wanted to retrieve the body and they did,” Ibrahim said. He said about 60 rebel fighters had gone to attack an army base on Tuesday about 20kms (12 miles) from Zawiyah. “None of them has returned and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive. We haven’t heard from them,” he said. 8.47am: Good morning. Welcome to live coverage of the continuing battles in Libya. We’ll also be keeping you up to date with what’s happening elsewhere in the Arab world. Here’s a summary of the latest developments: • Tanks of pro-Gaddafi forces Are closing in on the rebel-held main square of Zawiyah . A devastating assault by on the key refinery town, 30 miles west of the capital Tripoli, continued into the night, according to residents. One told Reuters of dozens of bodies on the streets after the bombardment. The government claims it has retaken the town but opposition forces appear to be in control of at least part of the town. Foreign reporters have been prevented from entering Zawiyah • David Cameron and Barack Obama have agreed to draw up “the full spectrum” of military responses to the crisis in Libya . The UK prime minister indicated that Britain has won important US support for a possible no-fly zone over the country. But the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, indicated it was not a decision for the US to take. She said: “We want to see the international community support it (a no-fly zone). I think it’s very important that this not be a US-led effort.” • Muammar Gaddafi has accused western powers of planning to seize Libya’s oil and wealth , in an interview broadcast on Libyan state TV today. He accused groups from Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria of being behind the uprising in Libya . In another interview he said France wanted “to colonise Libya again”. Arab and Middle East protests Libya Muammar Gaddafi Protest Yemen Saudi Arabia Iran Kuwait Oman Bahrain Egypt Tunisia Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk

Continue reading …

Libya uprising

March 9, 2011 No Comment
Libya uprising

• Tanks move towards centre of Zawiyah • Airstrike hits oil terminal near Ras Lanuf • Gaddafi mounts diplomatic offensive • Gaddafi accuses west of being after Libya’s oil • UN launches investigation into torture by Gaddafi forces Click here for a summary of the latest developments 4.45pm: This section of the today’s blog is closing – live-blogging of events in Libya and elsewhere is now continuing here . 4.21pm: Hafiz Ghoga, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council, Hafiz Ghoga, has told a news conference that opposition fighters have come under heavy fire in Bin Jawad. He said: The revolutionary forces have entered Bin Jawad and are now being subjected to heavy artillery and air attack. Near the frontline, rebel fighter Alamin Mashesh told Reuters: “I was just in Bin Jawad. We took it and now we are in control … We just burned five tanks with missiles and rocket propelled grenades.” Another opposition fighter, rebel Abdel Karim Mustafa, gestured to show uncertainty when asked if it was under rebel control. “We just went into Bin Jawad, but there are air strikes,” he said. 4.06pm: A live video stream has been posted of what is said to be a mass anti-demonstration protest in Benghazi, the eastern city that is the heart of the opposition movement and home of the transitional national council. 3.46pm: Libyan government emissaries have flown to Brussels to talk to European and NATO officials ahead of the organisations meetings on Thursday and Friday, the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said today. It seems that Gaddafi is on a diplomatic offensive but what his representatives are putting on the table, if anything, is unclear. From Reuters: “Two aircraft of the Libyan regime appear to have left Libya for Brussels with the intention of enabling emissaries of Gaddafi to meet representatives taking part in the meetings of the EU and NATO tomorrow and the next day,” Frattini said. He noted that the visits to Cairo and Brussels suggested that the situation was very fluid and he cautioned against taking any action which might be premature. “I don’t know what will be said in Cairo, I don’t know who will meet whom in Brussels but these movements are a fact that we have to take account of,” he said. Earlier, a Maltese official said Libyan emissaries had arrived on the Mediterranean island on Wednesday for talks with Maltese officials, and then flown to Portugal. There was no immediate confirmation from Lisbon but a source in Brussels said the plane was carrying a moderate member of Gaddafi’s government to meet Luis Amado, the Portuguese foreign minister. 3.41pm: An al-Jazeera video shows footage of one of Gaddafi’s fighter planes near Ras Lanuf, as well as the oil terminal that was bombed. – 3.27pm: The opposition movement has claimed it is in back in control of Bin Jawad, which the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend, Reuters reports: The rebel movement announced via loudspeakers in the centre of Benghazi that rebels now controlled Bin Jawad, a town near the front between rebels and Muammar Gaddafi’s forces about 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli. Crowds in Benghazi cheered. A Reuters correspondent at the frontline, who spoke to rebels, said their fighters had moved forward towards Bin Jawad from the town of Ras Lanuf after a heavy exchange of fire. But one rebel back from the front said they had not reached Bin Jawad. 3.08pm: A government spokesman in Tripoli has claimed there are 40 opposition fighters remaining in Zawiyah, at most. “Maybe 30-40 people, hiding in the streets and in the cemetery. They are desperate,” he told Reuters. But Khaeri Aboshagor, spokesman for the London-based Libyan League for Human Rights, said the town might prove hard to control entirely. “If they have taken the square, the resistance might diminish – it’s a symbolic place, and you could say whoever holds the square holds the town – but they will keep fighting. It’s a very spread out town and you can’t just hold it with 50 tanks and some pickup trucks.” 2.58pm: Apparently, Libyan state TV is claiming that al-Qaida bombed the oil terminal near Ras Lanuf, in its latest piece of propoganda. Al-Jazeera reported at least three bombs were dropped on the facility by Gaddafi’s forces. 2.46pm: There has been more fighting in Bin Jawad – the town the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend – according to al-Jazeera. It reports that the fighting is for control of the western parts of the town and a plane has been flying overhead. @Libyanfsl tweets (translation from Arabic) : February 17 rebels entered the city of heroes Bin Jawad after the arrival of the supply of Libyan troops #Feb17 #Libya 2.29pm: A Tunisian man who crossed the border on the way from Tripoli to Tunis in mid-afternoon said government forces have sealed off the western city of Zawiyah. Bachir al Tunesy told Reuters: The road was okay until we got close to Zawiyah. They’ve encircled the city and dug up the road leading to it so nobody can come in or out of Zawiyah. 2.12pm: At least three bombs have been dropped on an oil terminal outside Ras Lanuf has been hit by at least three bombs, al-Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports. The images on television show a huge plume of smoke coming out of the oil terminal. Rowland says there is “intense fighting” in the oil port. – 1.58pm: The home of Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, has been occupied by squatters showing solidarity for the Libyan revolution, according to the local paper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express . – 1.50pm: The Guardian has a gallery of images from the Ras Jidr camp on the Tunisian border with Libya . It provides a glimpse into the conditions that greet the thousands of refugees who have fled Libya. Another good photo gallery is on the New York Times website , which has more than 200 photos from Libya from the past two weeks. 1.42pm: Forces loyal to Gaddafi hit storage tanks in the oil terminal of Es Sider in east Libya on Wednesday during a heavy bombardment of rebels in the area, rebel fighters told Reuters: Big, black plumes of smoke rose above the terminal. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm the report that the storage tanks were hit or to ascertain if the cause was the bombardment by Gaddafi’s forces or a stray rebel rocket. “We were standing over there in the direction of Es Sider. It was a fierce, random bombardment on us and then it hit the storage tanks,” rebel fighter Abdel Salam Mohamed told Reuters. 1.41pm: I reported earlier that the hospital in the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf has been evacuated. Apparently, it has been evacuated because the water to the town was cut by yesterday’s bombing and not because of an increased military threat as originally believed. 1.03pm: Here’s a summary of events so far today: • Gaddafi’s tanks have reportedly been moving towards the centre of Zawayiah . The city, 30 miles west of Tripoli, came under fierce attack yesterday and the tanks are believed to be moving towards Zawiyah’s opposition-held square. People in the city painted a grim picture of what is happening. A fighter named Ibrahim told Reuters by phone that tanks are “everywhere”. “There are many dead people and they can’t even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There’s nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky,” he said. A resident said: “The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks … It’s very scary.” • There have been a fresh airstrikes on the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf , al-Jazeera has just reported. • Three of Gaddafi’s private jets have reportedly headed to Cairo . One has already landed. Al-Jazeera suggested Libya might be sending a delegation to the Arab League, which is due to hold a meeting in the Egyptian capital on Saturday. It also reported that the delegation will be meeting with the ruling Egyptian military. AP said a high-ranking member of the Libyan government was carrying a message from Gaddafi. • The UN’s special rapporteur for torture has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi’s forces since the beginning of the uprising. Juan Mendez said Gaddafi’s use of torture and illegal detention in the past is “very well-documented”. • Gaddafi has accused western powers of trying to get their hands on Libya’s oil and wealth . He also accused them of trying to re-colonise the country. The Libyan leader once more blamed foreign intervention for the uprising and said that Libyans would “take up arms and fight” if a no-fly zone was imposed. He said a no-fly zone would be “useful” because it would open the eyes of the Libyan people to the true intentions of the west. 12.51pm: There has been fighting near near the east Libyan oil terminal of Es Sider, close to Ras Lanuf, reports Reuters: “The bombardment is further east from Es Sider, near where the rebels are now. They are firing back with rockets,” said Reuters correspondent Mohammed Abbas on the frontline. He said rebel forces moved out of Es Sider, a town they have controlled, after the bombardment. They have moved out of the town before only to retake it later. “This is really very heavy bombardment from Gaddafi forces,” said Abbas. 12.41pm: A fighter jet has been circling over Ras Lanuf but there have been no major clashes so far, reports Reuters. It says opposition forces have been staging periodic hit-and-run attacks on dug-in troops loyal to Gaddafi in the east of the country and resupplied their own frontline with guns and ammunition. A warplane circled a rebel checkpoint at the main gate to the rebel-held oil town of Ras Lanuf which has sustained repeated air strikes in the past days. There were six anti-aircraft guns, two mortar launchers and boxes of ammunition at the gate waiting to go forward. One fighter was carefully assembling home-made bombs with small fuses and tins of TNT explosive. “We’re in a defensive position right now because of the heavy artillery ahead. We moved forward another five km (three miles),” rebel Colonel Masoud Mohammed. The threat of heavy artillery and the defensive position was repeated by Colonel Bashir Abdul Qadr. On Wednesday, there was one rebel army truck mounted with a multiple rocket launcher near the front, which lies along a barren stretch of desert and scrub roughly 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli between the towns of Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf. A Reuters correspondent also saw an armoured personnel carrier travelling away from the front. Another two sources, unarmed rebel volunteers, said there had been minor skirmishes at the front line at dawn, but no major military confrontations. – 12.15pm: A UN special investigator has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi’s forces since the start of the uprising, reports AP. The UN’s special rapporteur for torture, Juan Mendez, told reporters at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva that Gaddafi’s use of torture and illegal detention in the past is “very well-documented”. Mendez was asked whether he would investigate media reports that Gaddafi’s soldiers have been using ambulances to remove patients from hospitals and execute them but would not elaborate. 12.09pm: An update on the Libyan jet that has arrived in Cairo from AP: An Egyptian airport official says a high-ranking member of the Libyan government has landed in Cairo saying he has a message from Muammar Gaddafi. The official told The Associated Press that the head of Libya’s logistics and supply authority arrived on a private jet Wednesday afternoon. Libyan embassy staff told Egyptian officials that Major Gen Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi was carrying a message from Gaddafi. 12.08pm: Al-Jazeera suggest that at least one of the flights might taking a Libyan delegation to negotiate with the Arab League, which is based in Cairo. A meeting of the Arab League is due to take place on Saturday but the league has ruled out any Libyan participation. The news station’s Rawya Rageh has been tweeting that all three planes are now headed to Egypt: The #Gaddafi family jet that landed in #Egypt had a military official on board who’ll be meeting with Egypt’s military rulers #Libya #Feb17 The two other #Gaddafi family jets that were initially headed to Europe now re-routed to #Egypt, as well #Libya #Feb17 11.54am: Despite some excitement on Twitter about the three Gaddafi family jets on the move, it should be pointed out that the planes have been on the move previously since the uprising began so people shouldn’t hold out too much hope as to their significance. The wife of Gaddafi’s son Hannibal, who is Lebanese, was reportedly refused permission to land in Lebanon last month, while a day later the dictator’s daughter Aisha denied she was trying to flee when a jet was turned back from Malta . Another flight was reported to Minsk in Belarus . 11.25am: Chris McGreal, in Benghazi, has been gauging the mood of the opposition forces. He says the bombardment over recent days has convinced the Libyan transitional national council that its forces are in for a protracted battle and of the need for foreign intervention but they are still adamant that they are not engaged in a civil war: Certainly the euphoria of the early days when the rebels pushed hundreds of km towards Tripoli and they thought that Gaddafi might fall within days, those days have gone. They realise that he’s going to fight on if he can and not only has the push towards Tripoli stalled, but it’s been reversed. They realise it’s going to be a long struggle… They’re looking increasingly to foreign governments to support them with no-fly zones, discussion of whether there will be weapons supplied, recognition of the revolutionary council as the legitimate government. At the moment the revolutionary council decided that they’re not regarding it as a civil war. They say that they see Gaddafi trying to to create a civil war in order to justify bombing cities. – 11.09am: Karl Stagno-Navarra, a journalist in Malta, told al-Jazeera taht three out of five of the Gaddafi family jets are in the air, headed to Vienna, Athens and Cairo respectively. His sources were air traffic control in Malta and Cyprus. 11.00am: The Greek defence ministry says that Gaddafi’s plane has crossed Greece en route to Egypt, al-Arabiya reports . No further details are available at present but if Gaddafi is aboard one wouldn’t imagine he would get a warm reception in Egypt, which only recently ousted its own dictator. 10.48am: Opposition forces in Ras Lanuf, the oil town in eastern Libya, have evacuated the hospital there because of fears that it could be the target of an attack, either from an airstrike or on the ground, Chris McGreal, the Guardian’s correspondent, who is in Benghazi, has just informed me. Ras Lanuf has repeatedly been a target for Gaddafi’s jets over the past few days with at least four airstrikes reported yesterday. 10.25am: The global civic advocacy network, Avaaz.org, has a petition on its website for a no-fly zone . It hopes to get one million signatures before the UN security council meeting on Friday. It currently has more than 640,000 signatures. The petition says: Dear United Nations security council delegates, We call on you to take immediate steps to impose a no-fly zone under Chapter VII of the UN charter to stop the aerial bombings of civilians in Libya and restore access for humanitarian flights to Libyan air space. Only through robust international action and oversight can the bloodshed in Libya be stopped. 10.09am: Despite Hillary Clinton’s expressed concern that the no-fly zone should get international backing , that does not necessarily mean a UN mandate – likely to prove tricky because of Russian and Chinese resistance – according to a report in the Washington Post . A Nato official told the paper international support could instead come from a regional bloc. The official said: If you have [support from] the Arab League, the African Union, NATO and potentially the European Union, you have every country within 5,000 miles of Libya. That gives you a certain level of legitimacy. 10.05am: Here’s video of Gaddafi’s speech , delivered to members of Libya’s Zentan tribe, in which he once more blamed foreign elements for the revolt against his leadership: – 9.55am: The oil refinery in Zawiyah has been shut down because of fierce fighting, Reuters reports. An official told the news agency: Heavy weapons have been fired nearby and we can’t run the refinery under these conditions. The Zawiyah refinery is the biggest provider of gasoline for cars in Libya, and has a total capacity of 120,000 barrels per day. The refinery has been operating at 70% capacity for the past two weeks. 9.30am – Yemen: Human Rights Watch says at least seven people were wounded in the capital Sana’a last night when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at peaceful anti-government protesters: A field doctor said one demonstrator was in critical condition from a bullet wound to his head and that six others were shot in the arms and legs. The doctor said more than 50 others suffered cramps, brief fainting spells and other physical problems from the tear gas. Pro-government gangs prevented one ambulance containing wounded from reaching the nearest government hospital, forcing the driver to divert to a private hospital, the field doctor said. A government statement said police tried to apprehend armed men at a checkpoint outside the protest area. But a witness said the incident began when uniformed members of Yemen’s central security forces tried to prevent protesters from using tents near the square, though demonstrators had been sleeping in such tents for days without incident. A few hundred protesters “gathered and started to scream at the government,” the witness said. “Suddenly the central security forces attacked the protesters with gunfire and tear gas.” The square was calm several hours later, the doctors and witnesses said. 9.26am: More details on the interview with Gaddafi broadcast on Libyan state television this morning (the interview was actually given yesterday), from al-Jazeera . The Libyan leader once more blamed foreigners for the revolt and said several foreign fighters were captured on Monday. He said: Yesterday, the mosque that the security forces regained power over, they had in this mosque, they had weapons and alcohol has well. Some of them come from Afghanistan, some of them come from Egypt, some of them come from Algeria, just to misguide our children. Meanwhile, he told Turkey’s state-run TRT Turk television that Libyans would “take up arms and fight” if a no-fly zone was imposed. 9.17am: A resident in Zawiyah has told Reuters by phone: The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks … It’s very scary. There are a lot of snipers. 8.53am: Here are some more details on the advance of Gaddafi tanks into Zawiyah, reported by Reuters. Interestingly, a rebel fighter claims the bombardment of the oil port was prompted by the death of one of Gaddafi’s cousins in fighting there, earlier this week. “We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,” he told Reuters by phone from inside the city. The fighter, named Ibrahim, said forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were in control of the main road and the suburbs of Zawiyah. Rebel forces still controlled the square and the enemy was about 1,500m away, he said. Ibrahim said there were army snipers on top of most of the buildings, shooting whoever dared to leave their homes. He said half the city was destroyed by air attacks. “There are many dead people and they can’t even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There’s nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky,” he said. Rebels had killed a high-ranking cousin of Gaddafi in fighting earlier in the week, and “that’s why he bombed the city. They wanted to retrieve the body and they did,” Ibrahim said. He said about 60 rebel fighters had gone to attack an army base on Tuesday about 20kms (12 miles) from Zawiyah. “None of them has returned and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive. We haven’t heard from them,” he said. 8.47am: Good morning. Welcome to live coverage of the continuing battles in Libya. We’ll also be keeping you up to date with what’s happening elsewhere in the Arab world. Here’s a summary of the latest developments: • Tanks of pro-Gaddafi forces Are closing in on the rebel-held main square of Zawiyah . A devastating assault by on the key refinery town, 30 miles west of the capital Tripoli, continued into the night, according to residents. One told Reuters of dozens of bodies on the streets after the bombardment. The government claims it has retaken the town but opposition forces appear to be in control of at least part of the town. Foreign reporters have been prevented from entering Zawiyah • David Cameron and Barack Obama have agreed to draw up “the full spectrum” of military responses to the crisis in Libya . The UK prime minister indicated that Britain has won important US support for a possible no-fly zone over the country. But the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, indicated it was not a decision for the US to take. She said: “We want to see the international community support it (a no-fly zone). I think it’s very important that this not be a US-led effort.” • Muammar Gaddafi has accused western powers of planning to seize Libya’s oil and wealth , in an interview broadcast on Libyan state TV today. He accused groups from Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria of being behind the uprising in Libya . In another interview he said France wanted “to colonise Libya again”. Arab and Middle East protests Libya Muammar Gaddafi Protest Yemen Saudi Arabia Iran Kuwait Oman Bahrain Egypt Tunisia Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk

Continue reading …

France and Britain draft resolution to impose no-fly zone over Libya (Video)

March 7, 2011 No Comment
France and Britain draft resolution to impose no-fly zone over Libya (Video)

UNITED NATIONS – While the United States has not committed to a no-fly zone that would remove Libya’s air defenses, France and Britain are drafting a U.N. resolution that would establish a no-fly zone over Libya. On Monday President Barack Obama made some remarks from the Oval Office about Libyan’s…

Continue reading …

Ed Schultz’s Incredibly Short Memory: ‘Wisconsin’s a Political Standoff We Haven’t Seen in Decades if Ever’

March 7, 2011 No Comment
Ed Schultz’s Incredibly Short Memory: ‘Wisconsin’s a Political Standoff We Haven’t Seen in Decades if Ever’

Remember during the peak of Bush Derangement Syndrome in the previous decade when it seemed that liberal media members had forgotten all of our nation's history prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003? On Monday's “The Ed Show,” the host went into a tirade about Wisconsin governor Scott Walker with seemingly no recollection of last year's healthcare battle (transcript and commentary follow with video pending): ED SCHULTZ: Scott Walker’s dogmatic approach is never going to change. I think we know that. His ego’s too big. But the key now for the Democrats is to hold tight, don’t give in, and swing these vulnerable Republican senators right into the no column. So what we have here is a premiere, political standoff that we haven’t seen in this country in decades if ever. We have a governor who is going against all of the polls and the wishes of the people, against the popular (?) in that state, and he is willing to throw and watch his fellow Republicans get thrown under the bus by their constituents so he can push his ideology. Now is that what the last election was all about? This is so delicious it requires almost a sentence by sentence analysis. Let's start with the first three: Scott Walker’s dogmatic approach is never going to change. I think we know that. His ego’s too big. Who does that sound like? Think hard. I'll give you a hint: his middle name is Hussein . Correctomundo. If you substitute Barack Obama for Scott Walker, those first three sentences would perfectly describe the current White House resident's approach his first two years in office, especially during the healthcare debate. Next: “But the key now for the Democrats is to hold tight, don’t give in, and swing these vulnerable Republican senators right into the no column.” Wasn't the key for Republicans last year to hold tight, don't give in, and try to swing vulnerable Democrats right into the no column? Pretty much exactly like last year's healthcare battle, right? Yet, Schultz actually said, “So what we have here is a premiere, political standoff that we haven’t seen in this country in decades if ever.” D'oh! The final version of ObamaCare passed the House on March 21, 2010. Less than a year later, one of MSNBC's prime time commentators appears to have forgotten the battle that ensued prior to that point, and the dogmatic approach taken by the President of the United States and his fellow Democrats to ram this legislation down the throats of a protesting nation. But there's more: “We have a governor who is going against all of the polls and the wishes of the people, against the popular (?) in that state, and he is willing to throw and watch his fellow Republicans get thrown under the bus by their constituents so he can push his ideology.” In 2010, we had a President that went against the polls and the wishes of the people, and he was willing to watch his fellow Democrats get thrown under the bus by their constituents so he can push his ideology. “Now is that what the last election was all about?” Yes. That is what the last election was about, for Obama and the Democrats suffered the largest midterm loss of any Party in decades as a result of their behavior during a far greater and consequential political standoff than what is currently going on in Wisconsin. But Schultz apparently has forgotten all of it. And he's got his own national television show five days a week. Makes you weep for the future, doesn't it?

Continue reading …

Matthews Compares Will’s Condemnation of Gingrich and Huckabee to Buckley’s Ban on Anti-Semitic Writers

March 7, 2011 No Comment
Matthews Compares Will’s Condemnation of Gingrich and Huckabee to Buckley’s Ban on Anti-Semitic Writers

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, George Will this weekend lambasted Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee about separate comments the two have made regarding Barack Obama's background and upbringing. On Monday, during his fifth day in a row on this subject, MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually compared Will's column to William F. Buckley Jr. banning anti-Semitic writers from the National Review in the '50s (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this very important column by George F. Will this weekend. I count it a milestone in conservative positioning. I compare it to the position William F. Buckley Jr. took back in the 1950s against anti-Semitism. As the great Sam Tanenhaus once wrote, “American conservatism then bore its taint of anti-Semitism, and Bill Buckley read that point of view right out of the conservative movement. He cleaned it up from that bit of bad thinking and bad feeling.” Well this Sunday, in his widely syndicated newspaper column, George F. Will read a different kind of talk out of the presidential selection process for 2012. He heard the words of Mike Huckabee on AM radio last Monday, heard Huckabee echoing and enlarging a canard thrown by Newt Gingrich and dumped the pair of them from the list of plausible candidates. What Huckabee did, and let’s not let this not be covered over in meandering talk, was pander to a radio talk show host who had just asked him what he thought of the President not being able to show any record of who he is. No health records, no college records, no birth certificate. In other words, a fictitious character figure pretending to have been born and grown up in Hawaii to have gone to Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law. In short, an imposter. Some extraordinary case of identity theft. A product of some outrageously bold plot to get a kid, a black American or black African and white American parents named Barack Hussein Obama elected president a half century later. What was Huckabee’s response to what George Will calls this paranoia? Quote, “I would love to know more,” Huckabee agreed, as if this talk show guy of wild conspiracy theories might be on to something here. “What I know is troubling enough,” Huckabee said, eager to add to the wild speculation. “And one thing I do know is that his having grown up in Kenya, his perspective as growing up in Kenya, with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya is very different than ours.” Well our president never spent a day of his youth in Kenya or anywhere else in Africa. Huckabee knew that, he actually says he knew that. He knew, too, that all this talk about Mau Maus and Kenya would sell with the haters and he was dishing it out to them until he got caught. Newt Gingrich is the guy he apparently got this stuff from. Gingrich calls it a predictive model of what President Obama will do on any given issue. Newt knew he didn't grow up in Kenya. So did Huckabee. He told us he knew it. So why did he get caught telling us this story? Well, George F. Will should be commended for knowing precisely why he did. He’s removing from the conservative movement or at least a presidential candidate level of it for the same good reasons why Bill Buckley bounced that crowd back in the 1950s, because it doesn't make the rest of the movement look so good to be clowning around with these guys. For those unfamiliar with this issue, when Buckley was the editor of the American Mercury, he left as a result of what he felt were the magazine's anti-Semitic tendencies. After starting National Review a few years later in 1955, he banned anti-Semitic writers from the publication while going on a personal mission to eliminate such malevolent ideas from the conservative movement. To compare this to Will calling out Gingrich and Huckabee's views of one man is an insult to Jews all around this country. No matter what Matthews thinks of the current White House resident, he is indeed one man. Gingrich and Huckabee are entitled to their opinions of this man which, contrary to what Matthews and other pathetic so-called journalists routinely claim, are not borne of racism. What the “Hardball” host has continually missed in the past five business days as he's focused so much attention on this issue – he once again began and ended his program excoriating Gingrich and Huckabee – is that the concepts they've both addressed regarding Obama's worldview were first offered by Dinesh D'Souza in a Forbes article published last September. As such, what they are saying is nothing new, and really shouldn't be getting this kind of attention. Matthews likely wouldn't care at all about Gingrich and Huckabee if they weren't amongst the front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination. It is a metaphysical certitude this matter wouldn't have come up at all let alone been the focus of five “Hardballs” in a row if neither of these conservatives was considering running for president. But Matthews is on a mission to assassinate every possible Republican candidate, and Will's column has for the time being made that easier. For Will's part, if he disagrees with Gingrich and Huckabee, he's entitled to offer his opinion which I myself found enlightening enough to share with my readers. As I wrote Saturday, I agree with Will that candidates focusing on Obama's upbringing and background rather than his policies not only distracts from the issues, but is also likely to turn off independent voters that are far more concerned with high unemployment, high gas prices, high food prices, exploding debt, and violence spreading throughout Africa and the Middle East threatening our national security. But does that make Will's column as historic as Buckley banning anti-Semitic writers from his magazine which I myself have had the great honor of contributing to? Hardly, and the mere suggestion is offensive. I'd say that Matthews and his bosses should be ashamed of themselves for making such a comparison, but that seems futile. The folks at MSNBC are as far in the tank for Obama and the Democrats as any major news outlet in this country, and are therefore beyond shame. Makes me wonder why I'm part of an industry with so little integrity and such low professional standards.

Continue reading …
Page 1 of 25123Next ›Last »