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Egyptian Revolution – Documentary

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

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“Bahrain king orders release of political prisoners”

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

Bahrain’s king ordered the release of some political prisoners today, conceding to another opposition demand as the embattled monarchy tries to engage protesters in talks aimed at ending an uprising that has entered its second week. The king’s decree — which covers several Shiite activists accused of plotting against the state — adds to the brinksmanship on both sides that has included a massive pro-government rally yesterday, an opposition march in response and the planned return of a prominent opposition figure from exile. It’s unclear how many prisoners will be freed, said government spokeswoman Maysoon Sabkar. But they include some of the 25 Shiite activists on trial for allegedly plotting against the Sunni rulers of the strategic island kingdom, a leading member of Bahrain’s Shiite opposition, Abdul Jalili Khalil, told The Associated Press.

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Latest News on Libya

Posted on February 24, 2011 | 1 comment

Tripoli: a city in the shadow of death

Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli’s international airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi’s rump state, paying Libyan police bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry, desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat those who pushed their way to the front.  Among them were Gaddafi’s fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation. The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to see Gaddafi’s capital if you are a “dog” of the international press.  There was little sign of opposition to the Great Leader. Squads of young men with Kalashnikov rifles stood on the side roads next to barricades of upturned chairs and wooden doors. But these were pro-Gaddafi vigilantes – a faint echo of the armed Egyptian “neighbourhood guard” I saw in Cairo a month ago – and had pinned photographs of their leader’s infamous Green Book to their checkpoint signs.

There is little food in Tripoli, and over the city there fell a blanket of drab, sullen rain. It guttered onto an empty Green Square and down the Italianate streets of the old capital of Tripolitania. But there were no tanks, no armoured personnel carriers, no soldiers, not a fighter plane in the air; just a few police and elderly men and women walking the pavements – a numbed populous. Sadly for the West and for the people of the free city of Benghazi, Libya’s capital appeared as quiet as any dictator would wish. But this is an illusion. Petrol and food prices have trebled; entire towns outside Tripoli have been torn apart by fighting between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces. In the suburbs of the city, especially in the Noufreen district, militias fought for 24 hours on Sunday with machine guns and pistols, a battle the Gadaffi forces won. In the end, the exodus of expatriates will do far more than street warfare to bring down the regime.

I was told that at least 30,000 Turks, who make up the bulk of the Libyan construction and engineering industry, have now fled the capital, along with tens of thousands of other foreign workers. On my own aircraft out of Tripoli, an evacuation flight to Europe, there were Polish, German, Japanese and Italian businessmen, all of whom told me they had closed down major companies in the past week. Worse still for Gaddafi, the oil, chemical and uranium fields of Libya lie to the south of “liberated” Benghazi. Gaddafi’s hungry capital controls only water resources, so a temporary division of Libya, which may have entered Gaddafi’s mind, would not be sustainable. Libyans and expatriates I spoke to yesterday said they thought he was clinically insane, but they expressed more anger at his son, Saif al-Islam. “We thought Saif was the new light, the ‘liberal'”, a Libyan businessman sad to me. “Now we realise he is crazier and more cruel than his father.”The panic that has now taken hold in what is left of Gaddafi’s Libya was all too evident at the airport. In the crush of people fighting for tickets, one man, witnessed by an evacuated Tokyo car-dealer, was beaten so viciously on the head that “his face fell apart”.

Continued on the Libya page

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Libya and Bahrain Revolution

Posted on February 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Libya protests: UN Security Council condemns crackdown

February 23, 2011

The UN Security Council has condemned the Libyan authorities for using force against protesters, calling for those responsible to be held to account. In a statement, the council demanded an immediate end to the violence and said Libya’s rulers had to “address the legitimate demands of the population”. Nearly 300 people have been killed so far, according to Human Rights Watch. Earlier, Col Muammar Gaddafi urged his supporters to attack the “cockroaches” and “rats” protesting against his rule. Anyone who took up arms against Libya would be executed, he warned. Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi later resigned and called on the armed forces to “join and heed the people’s demands”. The UN Security Council’s statement came after a day of debate on the uprising in Libya, which has seen the state lose control of much of the east of the country, foreign mercenaries allegedly attacking civilians on the streets and warplanes reportedly shooting and bombing protesters. The council’s 15 members said the Libyan authorities should “meet its responsibility to protect its population”, act with restraint, and respect human rights and international humanitarian law.

The Libyan authorities should also hold accountable those people responsible for attacking civilians, and respect the rights of its citizens to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and press freedom, they added. British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the statement was “extremely strong” and indicated further measures were likely in the coming days. Libya’s deputy permanent representative to the UN in New York, Ibrahim Dabbashi, who on Monday called on Col Gaddafi to step down, said the council’s statement was “not strong enough” but still “a good message to the regime in Libya about stopping the bloodshed”. But his superior, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Shalqam, dissociated himself from the remarks, calling Libya’s ruler “my friend”. The Arab League also condemned the “crimes” against protesters in Libya and said it would bar the country from League meetings. But Col Gaddafi was defiant in a rambling 75-minute speech broadcast on state television, saying he vowing to crush the revolt by “rats and mercenaries”. Standing outside the Bab al-Aziza barracks in Tripoli, which was damaged by a US air strike in 1986, he vowed: “I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr. I shall remain here defiant.”

He also called on his supporters to “cleanse Libya house by house” unless the protesters surrendered. “All of you who love Muammar Gaddafi, go out on the streets, secure the streets, don’t be afraid of them… Chase them, arrest them, hand them over,” he said. He portrayed the protesters as misguided youths who had been given drugs and money by a “small, sick group”, and blamed “bearded men” – a reference to Islamist – and Libyans living abroad for fomenting the violence. “The hour of work is here, the hour of onslaught is here, the hour of victory is here. No retreat, forward, forward, forward. Revolution, revolution,” he shouted at the end of the speech, pumping both fists in the air. Shortly after the speech, a BBC correspondent in Tripoli heard the sound of guns being fired, apparently into the air. She said fireworks were also set off and cars drove through the city at high speed, their horns blaring.  In the eastern city of Benghazi, people watching the address reportedly threw shoes at television screens as a sign of their anger. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Col Gaddafi’s speech was “very, very appalling” and “amounted to him declaring war on his own people”. In New York, Mr Dabbashi said he had received information that the Libyan leader’s supporters had started attacking people in all western cities. “The Gaddafi statement was just code for his collaborators to start the genocide against the Libyan people. It just started a few hours ago. I hope the information I get is not accurate but if it is, it will be a real genocide,” he told reporters.

Amnesty calls for tighter controls before training foreign police

Amnesty International has called for police in Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK to review their training of Libyan and Bahraini police in the light of the crackdowns against pro-democracy protesters. The human rights organisation said significant questions must be raised about what human rights criteria and standards, if any, were applied to the training given by the police service, especially given Libya and Bahrain’s record on crushing internal dissent and public protest. Amnesty International Northern Ireland programme director Patrick Corrigan said: “The PSNI [Police Service of Norhtern Ireland] has been involved in delivering training to security forces in Libya, Bahrain and other countries with atrocious human rights records.

“Given events in those countries, with the deaths of perhaps hundreds of innocent protesters at the hands of security forces, it looks as if the government’s risk-assessment system isn’t working. We need much tighter checks when training is being given to police forces with a history of human rights abuses. “We call on the chief constable and the Northern Ireland policing board to look closely at recent events in Libya, Bahrain and other countries where they have helped to train the security forces, to ensure that much-needed lessons are learnt.

“A rigorous human rights assessment must be made before any future agreement to offer training to an overseas police force. In addition, the PSNI should carry out follow-up evaluation to ensure that any training offered results in an improvement in human rights and policing in that country. “The Northern Ireland Policing Board should ensure that such criteria and assessments are applied to all such overseas training. In addition, we call for greater transparency around the delivery of such training, and ask that the chief constable openly declares such training in his annual report.”

Bahrain king under pressure to sack prime minister uncle

Shia opposition leaders said they would resist a government offer of dialogue until the kingdom’s Sunni rulers made a significant gesture by sacrificing Prince Khalifa, who has held his position since Bahrain’s independence from Britain in 1971. They also called for the release of political prisoners. A day after King Hamad was forced to call his army off the streets after a brutal military crackdown that killed at least seven people failed to quell the protests, the opposition has sensed momentum swinging its way. They are also hoping to take advantage of rumoured rifts in the Al Khalifa dynasty that have pitted hardliners, including the prime minister, against a group of reformists around the king and his son, Crown Prince Salman. The desire to see Prince Khalifa ousted is almost universally shared by the tens of thousands of protesters that reoccupied Pearl Monument, the symbolic centre of the capital Manama, after the security forces withdrew on Saturday evening. The prime minister, whose longevity has made him a hugely powerful figure in a royal family that numbers thousands, is widely blamed for the economic and political marginalisation of Bahrain’s Shia majority, which accounts for up to 70 per cent of the island kingdom’s native population.

Regarded as one of the richest men in the state, many Bahrainis – including some Sunnis – see him as a symbol of the corruption allegations that have blighted the ruling family. “After 40 years of being in power, the time has come for him to step down,” said Jawad Fairooz, a senior member of the main Shia opposition party Wefaq. “We are in favour of dialogue, but we should have enough confidence that the dialogue will be successful. We want some positive indications and a change of the government should be part of it.” With Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, adding her voice to international calls for reform yesterday, King Hamad has instructed the Crown Prince to begin negotiations with the opposition. It is demanding the introduction of a constitutional monarchy, genuine political representation and a fairer deal for Shias, who have largely shut out of jobs in government and the security forces. Protesters said they would remain at Pearl Monument until such demands were met.

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Libyan Pilots Ordered To Bomb Protesters defect to Malta

Posted on February 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Libya protests: Tripoli hit by renewed clashes

Security forces and protesters have clashed in Libya’s capital for a second night, after the government announced a new crackdown. Witnesses say warplanes have fired on protesters in Tripoli. To the west of the city, sources say the army is fighting forces loyal to ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi, who appears to be struggling to hold on to power. Libya’s deputy envoy to the UN has called on Col Gaddafi to step down, and accused his government of genocide. Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if Col Gaddafi did not relinquish power, “the Libyan people will get rid of him”. The BBC’s Jon Leyne, in neighbouring Egypt, says Col Gaddafi has now lost the support of almost every section of society.Reliable sources say Col Gaddafi has now left the capital, our correspondent adds.

Clashes in Tripoli on Sunday night were suppressed by the security forces. On Monday, state TV reported a renewed operation had begun against opposition elements. Mr Dabbashi, the deputy envoy to the UN, called for international intervention to end the crisis. “It is a real genocide whether it is in the eastern cities of Libya or whether what is going now in Tripoli,” he said. “The information that we are receiving from the people in Tripoli is the regime is killing whoever goes out to the streets.” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had urged Col Gaddafi in a 40-minute phone call to halt the escalating violence. EU foreign ministers released a statement condemning the “ongoing repression against demonstrators”, and said they deplored the violence and death of civilians.

Some European ministers have voiced concern that there could be a wave of illegal immigration, after Libya threatened to break co-operation on controlling the flow of Tunisians to Italy. Libya had warned it could suspend co-operation in response to the condemnation of its crackdown on protesters. Meanwhile, two Libyan fighter jets have landed in Malta, where officials say the pilots defected after they were ordered to bomb civilians.
Two Libyan helicopters apparently carrying French oil workers have also landed in Malta.

Gaddafi urges violent showdown and tells Libya ‘I’ll die a martyr’

Muammar Gaddafi set the stage for a violent, final showdown to crush Libya’s popular uprising by urging loyalists to take to the streets to fight “greasy rats” in the pay of enemies ranging from the US to al-Qaida. In an angry, ranting and often incoherent speech, the beleaguered Libyan leader ignored evidence of repression and bloodshed, including new reports of death squads, to insist that he would die in his homeland rather than flee abroad. “I am not going to leave this land,” Gaddafi vowed in a live broadcast on state TV. “I will die as a martyr at the end … I shall remain, defiant. Muammar is leader of the revolution until the end of time.” Speaking in front of the Tripoli compound bombed by US planes in 1986, he invoked the spirit of resistance to foreign powers and warned that the US could occupy Libya like Afghanistan. He claimed protesters were on hallucinogenic drugs and wanted to turn Libya into an Islamic state. They deserved the death penalty, he said, waving his Green Book.

His address showed that, despite an estimated 300 people already killed, he is prepared to unleash more violence even though parts of the country, including its second city, Benghazi, Tobruk and other eastern towns, are already out of control of his security forces. Ominously, he observed that “the integrity of China was more important than [the people] in Tiananmen Square” – scene of the 1989 massacre of democracy protesters. Reports from Tripoli described corpses left in the streets, burnt-out cars and shops, and armed mercenaries who looked as if they were from other parts of Africa. Residents were running out of food and water because they feel too threatened to leave their houses. Videos emerged on a filesharing website of mobs lynching two people who were understood to be mercenaries. Other film appeared of a demonstrator shot in the head by a sniper and of bodies torn apart, perhaps by artillery fire.

“Men in brand new Mitsubishi cars without licence plates are shooting at groups of people, three or four, wherever they see them gathering,” said a resident of the Tripoli neighbourhood of Fashloum. “These are Gaddafi’s death squads.” The BBC broadcast footage sent out of Libya via the internet which showed protesters under fire in Tripoli and troops patrolling residential neighbourhoods. Phone lines into the country were down. International efforts to influence the Libyan crisis moved painfully slowly. The UN security council was meeting in New York but was not expected to do more than issue a presidential statement condemning the violence. Western diplomats said it was too soon for the council to discuss sanctions against Libya or the imposition of an internationally policed “no-fly zone” to stop Libyan aircraft targeting civilians. But Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, called for the “immediate cessation of grave human rights violations committed by Libyan authorities”.

Citing reports of the use of machine guns, snipers and aircraft against civilians, she called for an independent international investigation into the killings. “The callousness with which Libyan authorities and their hired guns are reportedly shooting live rounds of ammunition at peaceful protesters is unconscionable,” Pillay said. With communications sporadic, it was impossible to confirm reports that key army units had defected or that officers had refused to obey orders to attack civilians. A Libyan naval frigate which sailed in the Maltese capital, Valletta, was thought to be seeking to surrender. Unconfirmed reports on Tuesday said the interior minster had resigned, urging the army to join the people and respond to the “legitimate demands”.

Libyan and foreign analysts said Gaddafi’s characteristically bizarre performance underlined his desperation. “He is like an injured animal,” said an exiled opposition activist, Abu Nasser. “He knows he has his back to the wall.” Noman Benotman, a former Islamist fighter, said: “He will stay and fight until the last day.” Like his son Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi played deliberately on fears of division, foreign occupation and civil war and Somalia-like state collapse. Crowds of protesters were seen hurling shoes at a giant TV screen as Gaddafi spoke. State TV broadcast pictures of supporters cheering and waving flags.

William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, scorned Gaddafi’s claim of a conspiracy of world leaders against him. “There is no such conspiracy,” he said. “It is his own people who are rising up against him and trying to overthrow him and it is his own people who he has shamefully failed to protect from his own forces.” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the speech “very frightening”. The Arab League, meeting in special session in Cairo, said it was suspending Libya from its sessions. In Brussels, the EU suspended a framework agreement it had been negotiating with Libya. In London, Libyan anti-government protesters gathered at Downing Street to demand Gaddafi step down. Film-maker and opposition activist Mohamed Maklouf attacked the “hypocrisy” of the west. “They don’t care about the Arabs … they only care about the oil,” he said.

Chaos Grows in Libya; Defiant Qaddafi Vows to Fight On

TOBRUK, Libya — Libya appeared to slip further into chaos on Tuesday, as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi vowed to “fight until the last drop of my blood” and clashes intensified between rebels and his loyalists in the capital, Tripoli. Opposition forces claimed to have consolidated their hold over a string of cities across nearly half of Libya’s 1,000 mile Mediterranean coast, leaving Colonel Qaddafi in control of just parts of the capital and some of southern and central Libya, including his hometown. Witnesses described the streets of Tripoli as a war zone. Several residents said they believed that massacres had taken place overnight as forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi drove through the streets opening fire at will from the backs of pickup trucks. “They would drive around, and they would start shooting, shooting, shooting,” said one resident reached by telephone. “Then they would drive like bandits, and they would repeat that every hour or so. It was absolute terror until dawn.” Human Rights Watch said it had confirmed at least 62 deaths in the violence in Tripoli so far, in addition to more than 200 people killed in clashes elsewhere, mostly in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising began last week. Opposition groups estimated that at least 500 people had been killed.

For a second time, Colonel Qaddafi appeared on state television. Dressed in brown robes with a matching turban, he sometimes shouted and seemed to tremble with anger as he delivered a harangue that lasted some 73 minutes. His lectern was planted in the middle of the old wreckage of his two-story house in the Aziziyah barracks in Tripoli, a house American warplanes had destroyed in a 1986 air raid and which he has left as a monument to American perfidy. In the rambling, sometimes incoherent address, he said those challenging his government “deserved to die.” He blamed the unrest on “foreign hands,” a small group of people distributing pills, brainwashing, and the naïve desire of young people to imitate the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Without acknowledging the gravity of the crisis in the streets of the capital, he described himself in sweeping, megalomaniacal terms. “Muammar Qaddafi is history, resistance, liberty, glory, revolution,” he declared. Earlier, the state television broadcast images of a cleaned up Green Square in central Tripoli, the scene of a violent crackdown Monday night. It showed a few hundred Qaddafi supporters waving flags and kissing photographs of him for the cameras. With the Internet largely blocked, telephone service intermittent and access to international journalists constrained, information from inside the country remained limited, and it was impossible to determine whether the demonstrations were staged.

The rebellion is the latest and bloodiest so far of the uprisings that have swept across the Arab world with surprising speed in recent weeks, toppling autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia and challenging others in Bahrain and Yemen. Opponents of Colonel Qaddafi had tightened their control of cities from the Egyptian border in the east to Ajdabiya, an important site in the oil fields of central Libya, said Tawfiq al-Shahbi, a protest organizer in the eastern city of Tobruk. He said that had visited the crossing station into Egypt and that border guards had fled. In Tobruk and Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, protesters were raising the pre-Qaddafi flag of Libya’s monarchy on public buildings, he and other protesters said. Despite the crackdown by pro-Qaddafi forces, clashes continued in several neighborhoods in Tripoli, including one called Fashloum, as protesters tried to seal off the streets with makeshift barricades of scrap metal and other debris. Forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi so far failed to surmount the barricades and young protesters appeared to be gathering rocks to defend against another attack. Outside the barricades, militiamen and Bedouin tribesmen defending Colonel Qaddafi and his 40-year rule were stationed at intersections around the city. Many carried Kalashnikov assault rifles and an anti-aircraft gun was deployed in front of the state television headquarters. “It is extremely tense,” one witness said, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals.

Gaddafi heir who (inevitably) is a friend of (Prince Andrew) Andy and (Peter Mandelson) Mandy

Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saif wagged his finger repeatedly at the cameras during his rambling state address on Libyan television on Sunday night. It was a habit borne of the belief that he would one day take over from his tyrannical father to continue Libya’s brutally repressive rule. But there was no doubting the desperation in his voice as he warned that ‘rivers of blood’ would run through the country and it would be plunged into civil war unless the uprising was crushed.  He blamed drug addicts, drunks and foreign agents for fomenting the violence now coursing through the land where he and his family once had an iron grip. There was no hint of contrition. Not once did he apologise for the countless deaths inflicted by the soldiers and henchman of his father’s bloody regime. And yet, with his impeccable English and flawless manners, 38-year-old Saif Gaddafi has long been regarded as the acceptable face of the Gaddafi clan. What is so deeply worrying is that he has tentacles deep in the heart of the British establishment. He has extremely powerful friends in Britain, among them Prince Andrew and the Rothschilds as well as Peter Mandelson.

In the boardrooms and cabinets of Western capitals Saif was always the preferred choice as heir. Colonel Gaddafi has seven sons, but the second, Saif al-Islam (it means Sword of Islam) was always generally considered the most likely to follow his father – although another brother, Mutassim, Libya’s national security adviser, recently emerged as a serious contender.  Despite his incoherent statement in support of an authoritarian crackdown on Sunday night, Saif has in the past spoken enthusiastically about reform, democracy and human rights. He was educated in Europe and did a PhD at the London School of Economics, for which he has a particular affection and regard. He is an accomplished amateur artist and an architect with his own practice, although his wealth is said to come from interests linked back to Libya’s national oil company. Certainly, he is rich. By way of diversion, Saif likes to romp with his pet tigers.

He keeps them at his villa on a hillside overlooking Tripoli, along with his hunting falcons, sporting guns and other  trappings essential to the life of a  desert princeling. Saif often emerges from his encounters with the big cats bloodied and bruised, yet cheerfully game for a re-match. It may help to explain why, in his campaign to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, he found Labour ministers were mere pussycats. Saif has a house close to Bishop’s Avenue, the so-called Millionaire’s Row, in Hampstead, north London. The Georgian style, newly-built property has eight bedrooms, an indoor pool, sauna and a cinema lined in suede-covered panelling. It cost him £10million. In Britain, Saif moves in exclusive circles. He and Prince Andrew have a mutual close friend, the Kazakh-born socialite and businesswoman Goga Ashkenazy.

She recently helped arrange Saif’s visit to Kazakhstan where he met the president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and senior figures in the energy industry.
Prince Andrew has made a number of visits to Libya as Britain’s ambassador for trade and has spent time with Saif in Tripoli. In return, the prince has hosted Saif at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. Witness, too, the shooting party given in 2009 by Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild at his home in Buckinghamshire, Waddesdon Manor, a Renaissance-style chateau sometimes described as ‘a mini Versailles’. Saif was a guest, with Lord Mandelson, then Business Secretary. Cherie Blair, whose acquisition of a country house nearby makes her the Rothschilds’ neighbour, was there the same weekend for dinner, but not at the same time as Saif.

Mandelson and Saif got along famously and the subject of Al Megrahi, who was still in jail, was raised. Mandelson insists there was no negotiation. Also at Waddesdon Manor was Nat Rothschild, Lord Rothschild’s son. Nat and Saif are great pals. They also have a friend in  common, Oleg Deripaska, the controversial Russian oligarch who was the last man standing after the bloody war for control of Russia’s aluminium industry in the 1990s. Deripaska, it will be recalled, was part of the infamous summer gathering at the Rothschild house on Corfu in 2008 when Mandelson and George Osborne, then chancellor-in-waiting, were guests. Saif has also stayed with the Rothschilds on Corfu and, on a separate occasion, met Mandelson there.

The August 2008 affair led to Osborne denying he had asked Deripaska for a donation to the Tory party and denials by Mandelson that he had favoured the Russian’s aluminium interests when he was a European commissioner. It was all very messy. Deripaska has a valuable interest in Porto Montenegro, a vast marina and superyacht project in the Bay of Kotor on the Adriatic. The driving force behind the scheme is Peter Munk, the 83-year-old billionaire head of the world’s biggest goldmining concern, Barrick Gold. Jacob and Nat Rothschild are also investors in the Montenegro venture which, Munk says, will become the new Monaco. When Saif threw a huge party to celebrate his 37th birthday he held it close to his friends’ Montenegro development, inviting some of the world’s leading business figures, including Munk, a few very powerful Russians and Lakshmi Mittal, the British-based steel tycoon. The party was seen as an effort to give a boost to the profile of his friends’ marina project. His closeness to Nat Rothschild and Deripaska is also believed to be behind Libya’s decision to invest heavily in Deripaska’s aluminium concern, Rusal.

The Libyan Investment Authority took a $300million (£185million) stake in Rusal when it was floated in Hong Kong last year. The Rothschilds were Deripaska’s advisers and separately Nat invested $100million (£62million) in the company, the world’s largest producer of aluminium. Saif was also involved in an ongoing plan for Rusal to produce aluminium on a major scale inside Libya. Aluminium, however, will be the last thing on Saif’s mind tonight as Tripoli goes up in flames. As for his friends and business partners in the West, they may well be regretting getting quite so close to the dictator’s son whose television address on Sunday night showed him at last in his true colours.

Febraury 21, 2011

Febraury 22, 2011

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The Full Video: Bahrain’s army deliberately kills peaceful protesters

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Wisconsin protests continue against ‘union bashing’

Posted on February 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Thousands stand up for collective bargaining rights as Republicans set to replicate move to cut union rights across US

Tens of thousands of demonstrators staged a fourth successive day of protests in Wisconsin against the most sustained “union-bashing” measures proposed in the US for decades. Wisconsin has become a test-bed for Republicans planning similar anti-labour moves elsewhere as they seek to remove union rights and cut benefits in states facing huge holes in their budgets. Unions, backed by Barack Obama, have responded by mobilising workers throughout the country in support of Wisconsin workers. The Republicans provoked the Wisconsin confrontation by trying to pass legislation on Thursday to remove the collective bargaining rights of an estimated 300,000 workers, ranging from teachers to prison guards. The bill was delayed by an odd technicality that involved Democratic senators fleeing the state.

The union movement is a shadow of the power it was for much of the 20th century, and cannot afford to lose further ground. Obama told a Wisconsin TV station that while he understood the need for cuts, the Republicans were going too far. “Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” he said. Many schools in Wisconsin have been closed as teachers joined the protests. The state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, has threatened to bring in the National Guard if services are disrupted.

Union leaders are pouring resources into Wisconsin but are also planning for battles in Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Michigan and other states facing budget crises. They have put aside $30m for the campaigns. “Plans are being put into place to silence workers, lower their wages, cut their benefits and increase the likelihood that they will suffer injuries and fatalities at work,” said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has 1.6 million members, said. “It is happening at a breakneck pace.” Republicans in the state senate in Ohio are also proposing legislation to end collective bargaining, a move that prompted thousands to protest on Thursday.

James Gregory, a professor of history specialising in labour studies at the University of Washington, said the consequences could be felt for years to come. “This is a threat not just to unions but to American democratic institutions. The past century has seen a significant expansion of civil rights, including workplace rights, and democratic institutions, including the principle that employees have the right to negotiate terms of employment and be represented by unions. ” For a state government to take away these rights long after they have been established is probably unprecedented and is deeply troubling.” Gregory added: “I can’t think of any previous anti-union legislation that represented the same kind of threat. The Taft-Hartley Act passed in 1947 placed restrictions on how unions could operate. Some states passed so-called Right to Work laws beginning in the 1950s.”

The move at state level is mirrored in the battle in Washington over budget cuts. Obama, who is planning relatively modest budget reductions given the size of the US deficit, has vowed to resist deep cuts voted through by Republican members of Congress. The Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, has hinted that the federal government may be closed down from 4 March, the budget deadline. The Wisconsin legislation would remove workers’ rights, in place since a landmark decision in 1959 that is part of union history, to negotiate over pensions and health insurance, both of which are being cut. They will be allowed to continue bargaining over wages. The bill means state workers will have to pay half their pension costs and at least 12.6% of their healthcare coverage.

Police and firefighters were excluded, though firefighters took part in the protests in a show of solidarity. The legislation also weakens the unions by dictating elections and changing rules on collecting union dues. Walker said the “modest” cuts in pensions and health insurance would result in savings of almost $30m by July and almost $300m over two years. Wisconsin has a projected $3.6bn budget gap over the next two years. The legislation was due to be passed on Thursday but was delayed by a technicality. In an almost comic move,14 Democratic senators fled to neighbouring Illinois, where they checked into a modest hotel for the night. Their flight meant the 19 Republican senators were one short of the quorum of 20 needed for passage of the bill. If they had remained in Wisconsin, the police could have rounded them up and forced them to the chamber.

Walker, speaking yesterday on CBS, urged the senators to return. “The state senators who are hiding out down in Illinois should show up for work, have their say, have their vote, add their amendments, but in the end, we’ve got a $3.6bn budget deficit we’ve got to balance,” Walker said. One of the Democratic senators, in an interview with ABC, said: “We left the state so we were out of the reach of the Wisconsin state patrol, which has the authority to round us up and bring us back to the legislature.”

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Bahrain protest: ‘The regime must fall, and we will make sure it does’

Posted on February 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Despite the killings after the army fired live ammunition at the crowds, the mood in Manama is one of staunch defiance

Ali Ismail had helped wash the body of a dead protester for burial and he was already talking of more blood. “We will go to them and they will attack us,” he said of Bahrain’s riot police. Within hours he was proved correct. Just after 5.30pm on Friday, central Manama again erupted in gunfire and screaming. Up to 200 demonstrators had attempted to march on Pearl Square, the scene of Thursday morning’s savage assault that left three dead. Just over a mile from the central Bahrain landmark, soldiers and police opened fire, killing at least one more protester and leaving 50 others wounded. “We don’t care if they kill 5,000 of us,” a protester screamed inside the forecourt of the Salmaniya hospital, which has become a staging point for Bahrain’s raging youth. “The regime must fall and we will make sure it does.”

Just before dusk, riot police advanced on the hospital, apparently chasing protesters who had attempted to link up with the group bound for Pearl Square. Sound grenades cracked in the distance, gradually getting closer as protesters beat a retreat to the only place in Manama where they now feel safe to gather in numbers. Within minutes, the bitter scent of tear-gas had wafted into the hospital grounds, sparking panic that the riot police were coming for them there as well. The police backed off and the crowd in the hospital swelled to at least 7,000 people, all of them chanting anti-regime slogans that they would not have dared to utter a month ago. “Down with the king, down with the Khalifas,” they cried, referring to the kingdom’s ruling family. Anger among the overwhelmingly Shia Muslim demonstrators towards the Sunni dynasty that has ruled Bahrain for more than 200 years is now virulent.

“They have done nothing for us in the past except discriminate against us,” said one nurse, sobbing against a hospital gurney. “Now their new trick is to kill us.” Inside the hospital I saw a young man being wheeled into a makeshift trauma room, which is usually used to conduct angiograms. The gurney was soaked in blood and he had been shot in the head. “There are at least two bullets. I don’t think he will live,” said a young doctor as he left the room. He didn’t. The man’s death takes to at least five the number killed during clashes with police since Wednesday. Scores more have been injured. Most of those brought to the emergency ward had wounds from rubber bullets, although at least one youth had a gaping wound to his calf that specialists said was caused by a live round.

The early evening clashes brought a dramatic end to a day that had started off with three large funeral rallies through the suburbs of Manama. More than 50,000 demonstrators attended – between 5% and 10% of the tiny kingdom’s population. They were among the biggest public rallies the Arab world’s smallest state has ever seen. At the largest of them, in the suburb of Sitra, around 25,000 mourners marched in a long looping column to a graveyard, demanding that the regime be changed. “No to Sunni; no to Shia,” they cried at one point. “We are all Bahraini.” Mahmoud Muhim, the father of one of the dead protesters, took the microphone during the march and said: “Not one person has offered me commiserations. Everyone has said congratulations, because I now have a martyred son. He died for Bahrain.”

Security Forces in Bahrain Open Fire on Protesters

MANAMA, Bahrain — At exactly 5:18 p.m. Friday, the pro-democracy demonstrators, mostly young men, came to a fork in the road. Turn right, and they would head to a hospital that has cared for protesters. Turn left, and into Pearl Square, the symbolic center of the nation, where the army was waiting. The crowd paused, just briefly, to let out a cheer, and turned left. Within minutes they were screaming, “Live fire, live fire,” as the military began shooting — from a high-rise building, from a helicopter and from the road in front of the demonstrators. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa’s government had warned them: march and you will be shot. The opposition had warned the king that it would never give up.

Both sides held fast in a confrontation that continued to escalate by the day as the king, a Sunni, showed his increasing willingness to use lethal force to preserve his absolute authority, and the opposition, mostly from the majority Shiite community, showed that it was increasingly galvanized by that use of force. “My friend, my brother, he just got shot in the head,” said Mazen Al Smeh, 27, as he struggled to catch his breath on the side of the road, his face covered in tears, his hands painted with blood. “I tried to take him, but they kept firing. He’s dead, he’s dead now. We were just here to demand our rights.”

When ambulances arrived for the injured, the army opened fire. When the shooting seemed to stop, a few young men dropped to their knees to pray on the bloodstained road, and the army started to shoot at them, again. There are many details that remained unclear on Friday night, including how many died, how many were injured, and what kind of munitions were fired: live ammunition, rubber bullets or both. Doctors at Salmaniya Medical Complex said at least one young man was dead and four or five critically wounded with head and chest injuries.

What was clear though, was that if the king’s goal was to intimidate his critics into staying home, he appears to have miscalculated, at least so far. The politics of the Shiite community — which already felt disenfranchised — are deeply and inextricably linked with a faith that reveres martyrdom and holds social justice as a principal value. With each outrage this week, more people turned to the streets, perpetuating the cycle Bahrain now seems caught in, with no obvious way out. Friday night, thousands of angry demonstrators gathered outside the hospital, chanting “Death to Khalifa,” referring to the king.

“We are not going to stop and we are not scared at any time,’ said Raed Aman, 31, one of the demonstrators who escaped uninjured and was at the hospital checking on his friends. “If anybody in my family dies, I will have more power. Even if I lose my life, I will be there every time.” This small Persian Gulf nation, a strategic ally of the United States, has long strained against the pressure of the political tensions between a Shiite majority and a king and ruling class of the Sunni minority. That tension has been supercharged in recent weeks as demands for democracy, rule of law and social justice have rocked the Middle East with popular movements that have forced the resignation of the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt.

By Friday night, the royal family appeared to be trying to find a more peaceful solution, with the king authorizing the crown prince, his son, to begin a dialogue with the opposition, but it was unclear if the protesters would accept talks. In an appearance on Bahraini TV, the prince, Sheik Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, pleaded for calm and offered “condolences to the people of Bahrain for the painful days they are living.”

Journalists targeted in Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya

New York, February 18, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities today in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya to cease their attempts to prevent media from reporting on anti-government demonstrations. Bahraini authorities used live ammunition–including fire from a helicopter–against peaceful protesters and journalists, according to news reports. Pro-government thugs attacked at least two journalists in Yemen, and the Libyan government appeared to be shutting down Facebook, Twitter, and Al-Jazeera’s website as a means of silencing reporting on protests. “Security forces firing on journalists from a helicopter is a dangerous escalation in Bahrain’s attempt to censor media coverage of the political turmoil,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “The authorities must cease all hostile acts against journalists immediately and allow the press to work freely and securely. “

Bahrain:

* According to the New York Times, “forces in a helicopter that had been shooting at the crowds opened fire at a Western reporter and videographer who were filming a sequence on the latest violence.” The targeted journalists were Times reporter Michael and Times video producer Sean Patrick Farrell, the paper reported.

* Sixteen foreign journalists from BBC, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, CBS, and other media outlets were detained at the airport and not allowed to enter the country for several hours, according to local journalists and news reports.

* A local journalist speaking on the condition of anonymity told CPJ that independent journalists are receiving threats via phone and text messages to stop reporting on the crackdown.

* An unidentified foreign photographer was injured and seen being taken to a hospital, according to local journalists.

Comment with George Galloway

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Former CIA Ray McGovern assaulted by Police at Clinton Speech on Freedom

Posted on February 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Former CIA Agent Ray McGovern Discusses Arrest at Secretary Clinton’s Internet Freedom Speech

On Tuesday, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on issues of free speech at George Washington University, 71-year-old former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was assaulted, dragged from the room and double handcuffed with metal cuffs causing profuse bleeding. What had he done to elicit this treatment? He stood in “silent witness.” This was not the first time this former Army intelligence officer employed this form of peaceful, civil resistance. In 1992, McGovern who is a Roman Catholic, expressed his dissent of the church’s position on women as priests by standing during Sunday Mass in what became a years’ long protest. This civil protest ultimately resulted in media attention and a conversation with James Cardinal Hickey. Ray explained that it was in this spirit that he chose to protest Clinton’s policies and track record.

“Hillary is the driving force, together with a few others, behind the wars in Afghanistan. She’s one of the big hawks in Iran. When I look at her and her husband that they don’t know the first thing about war. I do and so do my fellow Veterans for Peace. I have to make clear that we Veterans for Peace think that her policies are an abomination to the nation, that they are at cross purposes to the country and not everybody should applaud and give her the idea that she’s doing the right thing. I knew that Hillary knew, at the beginning of the war, that Hillary knew how things would go. There was a young lady who was working as Hillary Clinton’s personal staff chief, when she was a senator in 2002 and 2003, was in a class I taught in DC and I’d ask her to give her boss articles I wrote.

And she did give them to her. So I know that. She made a political calculation that she needed to be strong because she was a woman even though she knew from us that the unintended consequences would be catastrophic. She knew all that and made that calculation. The height of irony, of course, is that was her tragic flaw that let Obama beat her. She supported the war and Obama didn’t. She is the height of hypocrisy. When people die because we have hypocrites at the top of our government, that compels me to make a statement in whatever way I can. It was not the theme of her speech that I was protesting. It was her war policies and support of Mubarak.”

“They grabbed me and the shock wore off. There was a real struggle. I shouted, ‘This is America.’ Then I said, ‘Who are you?’ This is a mystery to me. Who were they? The guy in the suit was the one who did the damage. He was brutal. They took me outside, put two sets of iron handcuffs that pierced my wrists. The bleeding went all over my pants. One guy said, “I pricked my finger” like it was his blood. I was bleeding in the car so I said ‘I think you need to put some gauze on me.’ They handed me to the DC police and they told I was being charged with disorderly conduct. I was booked, fingerprinted, mug shot taken. They put me in a little cell — must be the same size as Bradley Manning’s — about six by four feet. It was about three hours that they held me until they let me out. I had to take a cab to the hospital where they x-ray’d me, treated me and dressed my wounds. Then the doctors told me that since this was an assault on me, I had to inform the police about who had assaulted me. A little humor helped then.”

“When Clinton started talking about how people beat up and arrested people in Iran, it gave some poetic justice, a great irony, to my standing there and what happened to me then, when she’s talking about what happened in other countries and there I am being handled in a vicious way…God knows what would happen next. Maybe some senior would ask her questions (she doesn’t take questions). As bad as Donald Rumsfeld was, he let me speak. He let me speak and engaged me in dialogue. At the same (Rumsfeld) speech, there was a courageous guy who stood with his back to Rumsfeld the entire speech. They left him completely alone and he walked out at the end, unbothered. Four years later, things have changed.”

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Bahrain protests banned as military tightens grip

Posted on February 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Protests have been banned in Bahrain and the military has been ordered to tighten its grip after the violent removal of anti-government demonstrators, state TV reports. The army would take every measure necessary to preserve security, the interior ministry said. Three people died and 231 were injured when police broke up the main protest camp, said Bahrain’s health minister. The unrest comes amid a wave of protest in the Middle East and North Africa. Bahrain’s demonstrators want wide-ranging political reforms and had been camped out in the capital, Manama, since Tuesday.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed Washington’s “deep concern” in a call to the Bahraini foreign minister on Thursday.

Mrs Clinton “urged restraint moving forward. They discussed political and economic reform efforts to respond to the citizens of Bahrain,” a state department official told the BBC. Police action was necessary to pull Bahrain back from the “brink of a sectarian abyss”, Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said on Thursday. Bahrain’s Shia Muslim majority has been ruled by a Sunni Muslim royal family since the 18th Century. The announcement on state television said the army had taken control of “key parts” of the city. Tanks, army patrols and military checkpoints are out on key streets, with helicopters deployed overhead. Barbed wire has been erected on roads leading to the main protest area, Pearl Square, and the interior ministry has warned people to stay off the streets.

Protesters and opposition politicians expressed outrage at the violence of the crackdown. A leader of the main minority Shia opposition, Abdul Jalil Khalil, said 18 MPs were resigning in protest. Ibrahim Sharif, of Bahrain’s secular Waad party, told the BBC the protests would continue. “We are going to do what’s necessary to change this into a democratic country, even if some of us lose our lives,” he said. “We want a proper, functioning, constitutional democracy.” Mr Sharif said the riot police had moved into Pearl Square at about 0300 (0000 GMT) as people were sleeping.

Bahrain security forces accused of deliberately recruiting foreign nationals

Bahrain’s security forces are the backbone of the Al Khalifa regime, now facing unprecedented unrest after overnight shootings. But large numbers of their personnel are recruited from other countries, including Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen. Tanks and troops from Saudi Arabia were also reported to have been deployed in support of Bahraini forces. Precise numbers are a closely guarded secret, but in recent years the Manama government has made a concerted effort to recruit non-native Sunni Muslims as part of an attempt to swing the demographic balance against the Shia majority – who make up around 65% of the population of 1 million.

Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries. Officers are typically Bahrainis, Syrians or Jordanians. Iraqi Ba’athists who served in Saddam Hussein’s security forces were recruited after the US-led invasion in 2003. Only the police employs Bahraini Shias. The secret police – the Bahrain national security agency, known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat – has undergone a process of “Bahrainisation” in recent years after being dominated by the British until long after independence in 1971. Ian Henderson, who retired as its director in 1998, is still remembered as the “Butcher of Bahrain” because of his alleged use of torture. A Jordanian official is currently described as the organisation’s “master torturer”.

“Now they recruit young Bahraini Sunnis to open Twitter accounts to give the government point of view in the social media battle,” a local journalist said. The large-scale naturalisation of foreign Sunnis has been described by analysts as a “clear political strategy to alter the country’s demographic balance in order to counter the Shia voting power.” Al-Wifaq, the leading Shia party, has long criticised these “political naturalisations”. The government claims few foreigners are being naturalised, but it has convinced few Bahraini Shias. “This is in part because hardliners grouped around the royal court minister, Khalid bin Ahmad, and cabinet minister, Ahmed bin Atiyatallah, have successfully resisted calls for a transparent naturalisation system,” the US embassy in Manama reported in December 2009, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks.

But the chief of public security, Major General Abdul Latif al-Zayani, was praised for blocking his subordinates’ efforts to naturalise the mostly Pakistani special forces company that was due to deploy in support of US troops in Afghanistan. “Zayani reportedly cited the political sensitivity of naturalising Sunni expatriates and wanted to avoid provoking the opposition,” the embassy said. Opposition groups have protested that people chosen for naturalisation are not just Sunnis but religious fundamentalists who have strong anti-Shia feelings.

Brutal Crackdown in Moderate Bahrain

As a reporter, you sometimes become numbed to sadness. But it is just plain heartbreaking to be in modern, moderate Bahrain today and watch as a critical American ally uses tanks, troops, guns and clubs to crush a peaceful democracy movement and then lie about it. This kind of brutal repression is normally confined to remote and backward nations, but this is Bahrain!  An international banking center. An important American naval base, home of the Fifth Fleet. A wealthy and well-educated nation with a large middle class and cosmopolitan values. To be here and see corpses of protesters with gunshot wounds, to hear an eyewitness account of an execution of a handcuffed protester, to interview paramedics who say they were beaten for trying to treat the injured – yes, all that just breaks my heart.

The pro-democracy movement has bubbled for decades in Bahrain, but it found new strength after the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Then the Bahrain government attacked the protesters early this week with stunning brutality, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets at small groups of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Two demonstrators were killed (one while walking in a funeral procession), and widespread public outrage gave a huge boost to the democracy movement. King Hamad initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security – that’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.

I was not at the roundabout at the time of the attack, but afterward at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties) I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children. One nurse told me that she was on the roundabout and saw a young man of about 24, handcuffed and then beaten by a group of police. She said she then watched as they executed him at point-blank range with a gun. The nurse told me her name, but I will not use full names of some people in this column to avoid putting them at greater risk. I met one doctor, Sadiq Al-Ekri, who was lying in a hospital bed with a broken nose and injuries to his eyes and almost his entire body. He couldn’t speak to me because he was still unconscious and on oxygen, after what colleagues and his family described as a savage beating by riot police outraged that he was treating people at the roundabout.

Dr. Ekri, a distinguished plastic surgeon, had just returned from a trip to Houston. He identified himself as a physician to the riot police, according to other doctors and family members, based partly on what Dr. Ekri told them before he lost consciousness. But then, they said, the riot police handcuffed him and began beating him with sticks and kicking him, while shouting insults against Shiites. Finally, they pulled down his pants and threatened to rape him, although they abandoned that idea and eventually allowed an ambulance to rescue him. “He went to help people,” said his father, who was at the bedside. “It’s his duty to help people. And then this happened.” Three ambulance drivers or paramedics told me that they had been pulled out of their ambulances and beaten by the police. One, Jameel, whose head was bandaged and his arm was in a cast, told me that police had clubbed him and that a senior officer had then told him: “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

A fourth ambulance driver, Osama, was unhurt but said that a military officer – whom he said was a Saudi, based on his accent in Arabic – held a gun to his head and warned him to drive away or be shot. (By many accounts, Saudi tanks and other military forces participated in the attack, but I can’t verify that). The hospital staff told me that ambulance service has now been frozen, with no ambulances going out on calls except with approval of the Interior Ministry. Some of the victims, though not all, said that the riot police shouted anti-Shiite curses when they attacked the protesters, who were overwhelmingly Shiite. Sectarianism is particularly delicate in Bahrain because the Sunni royal family, the Khalifas, presides over a country that is predominately Shiite, and Shiites often complain of discrimination by the government. Hospital corridors were also full of frantic mothers searching desperately for children who had gone missing in the attack.

In the hospital mortuary, I found three corpses with gunshot wounds. One man had much of his head blown off with what mortuary staff said was a gunshot wound. Ahmed Abutaki, a 29-year-old laborer, stood by the body of his 22-year-old brother, Mahmood, who died of a shotgun blast. Ahmed said he blamed King Hamad, and many other protesters at the hospital were also demanding the ouster of the king. I think he has a point: when a king opens fire on his people, he no longer deserves to be ruler. That might be the only way to purge this land of ineffable heartbreak.

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