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From the category archives:

Libya

Tony Blair faces calls for greater transparency over Middle East role

by News Source 09.26.2011

The Guardian reports:
Tony Blair is facing calls for greater transparency in his role as Middle East peace envoy after it emerged that he visited Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 while JP Morgan, the investment bank that employs Blair as a £2m-a-year adviser, sought to negotiate a multibillion-pound loan from Libya.
Blair also championed two large business deals [...]

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Libyan rebels discover Gaddafi’s chemical weapons

by News Source 09.22.2011

The Guardian reports:
Libyan rebel forces claim to have discovered banned chemical weapons stockpiles in southern desert areas captured from Gaddafi loyalists in the last few days.
Spokesmen for the National Transitional Council (NTC) said a depot had been found in the Jufra area, 435 miles (700km) south of Tripoli, during part of an offensive against regime [...]

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Overblown fears about the rise of Islamists in Libya

by Paul Woodward 09.16.2011

In the United States, the term Islamist is often one small step away from al Qaeda. The idea that someone could be an Islamist and not an extremist seems barely conceivable. And the existence of pro-Western Islamists sounds about as probable as the discovery of unicorns.
When the New York Times declares, in one of its [...]

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Libya’s new leader calls for civil state

by News Source 09.13.2011

The New York Times reports:
Aisha Gdour, a school psychologist, smuggled bullets in her brown leather handbag. Fatima Bredan, a hairdresser, tended wounded rebels. Hweida Shibadi, a family lawyer, helped NATO find airstrike targets. And Amal Bashir, an art teacher, used a secret code to collect orders for munitions: Small-caliber rounds were called “pins,” larger rounds [...]

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Libya’s new PM Mahmoud Jibril faces growing unrest

by News Source 09.09.2011

The Guardian reports:
Libya’s interim prime minister arrived in Tripoli on Thursday for his first public appearance in the capital since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown more than two weeks ago, to face criticism that the country is experiencing a power vacuum.
Mahmoud Jibril’s debut press conference coincided with a meeting of revolutionary activists from across Libya who [...]

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Libya’s nightmare factory

by News Source 09.09.2011

Felix Kuehn reports:
The cells are barely large enough for one person to lie down in. There is no water, no toilet. Light falls through a small hole in the ceiling. Most cells don’t even have a mattress, just a strip of cloth on the floor, a cut-open plastic bottle, and the naked concrete walls, inscribed [...]

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Libyan rebel leader says MI6 knew he was tortured

by News Source 09.05.2011

The Independent reports:
“They knew I was being tortured, I have no doubt of that,” Abdelhakim Belhaj, a former prisoner who is now the rebel security chief of the Libyan capital, said about the British intelligence agents who came to interrogate him while he was in the hands of Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police.
“I hoped they would [...]

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Women celebrate in Tripoli’s Martyrs’ square

by News Source 09.02.2011

Farah Abushwesha writes:
At this week’s conference on Libya in Paris, the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) and the international community talk about “inclusiveness” in the new country’s future. It seems strange, then, that half of the population – women – seem to be excluded from the discussions on the future of their country.
It is not [...]

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Gaddafi wanted to be Libya’s only hero

by News Source 08.29.2011

Luke Harding visits Tripoli’s museum, now guarded by two friendly rebels, Naiem and Islam.
Naiem told me how he and other locals liberated the museum on Sunday 21 August – the day the rebels surged into western Tripoli, and a popular insurrection erupted inside it. The Gaddafi soldiers were armed; the locals had no weapons other [...]

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Libya is no Iraq – this revolution is the real deal

by News Source 08.24.2011

Mohamed Salem writes:
Muammar Gaddafi and his sons are now on the run, fleeing from the Libyan people, yet already the doomsayers and prophets of disaster have lined up to tell the world it isn’t worth it, that Libya is destined to go down the route of chaos and fragmentation. Libya will be another Iraq and [...]

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NTC leader: ‘Free elections in eight months’

by News Source 08.24.2011

Al Jazeera reports:
The leader of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has said the new government will hold free elections within eight months and pledged to put Muammar Gaddafi on trial in the country rather than an international court.
In comments published on Wednesday in Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil also promised to [...]

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Gaddafi is gone. Long live unity, democracy and the rule of law

by News Source 08.22.2011

Hisham Matar writes:
We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words. I thought it might have to be something like: “Gaddafi has died of old age”; a terrible sentence, not only because of what it means but also the sort of bleak and passive future it promises. [...]

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Libya rebels have won the war but biggest battle will be uniting factions

by News Source 08.22.2011

Martin Chulov writes:
The lessons of what becomes of a Middle East state that suddenly loses its strongman are recent and raw. More than eight years after Baghdad fell with the same ignominious haste as Tripoli, it remains a basket case of competing agendas, a disengaged political class and citizens left with the reality that the [...]

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Libya’s Goldman dalliance ends in losses, acrimony

by News Source 05.31.2011

The Wall Street Journal reports:
In early 2008, Libya’s sovereign-wealth fund controlled by Col. Moammar Gadhafi gave $1.3 billion to Goldman Sachs Group to sink into a currency bet and other complicated trades. The investments lost 98% of their value, internal Goldman documents show.
What happened next may be one of the most peculiar footnotes to the [...]

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Libyan gold rush followed end to sanctions

by News Source 05.26.2011

The Washington Post reports:
Some of the world’s most sophisticated banks and investment firms rushed to do business with Moammar Gaddafi’s government in Libya after the United States rescinded the country’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism five years ago, according to an internal financial document obtained by The Washington Post.
HSBC, Goldman Sachs and other [...]

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Gaddafi — our best enemy

by News Source 05.25.2011

A documentary on the West’s conflicted relationship with Muammar Gaddafi by Antoine Vitkine. The complete film appears at the bottom of this post, but depending on the speed of your internet connection, it may be easier to watch in segments.

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News roundup — May 18

by News Source 05.18.2011

Hamas deputy foreign minister talks about Israel
ROBERT SIEGEL (NPR host): And I’d like to ask you to begin with what has been a major difference between Fatah and your group, Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, spoke the other day of the Palestinians’, and I quote, “great hope of [...]

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News roundup — May 12

by News Source 05.12.2011

Sunni monarchies close ranks
Reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering some form of membership for two non-Gulf states – Jordan and Morocco – confirm that the conservative Sunni monarchies of the Middle East are closing ranks against Iran, Shiite-led Iraq and the democratic wave sweeping the region.
GCC secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani made the [...]

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News roundup — May 11

by News Source 05.11.2011

NATO steps up bombing in Libya; rebels report gains
NATO carried out its most forceful attacks in weeks in Libya on Tuesday, part of an apparently coordinated push with rebel forces to bring an end to Moammar Gaddafi’s 41-year-long rule.
NATO warplanes pummeled command-and-control targets in four cities, including Tripoli and Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte. U.S. [...]

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Arab Awakening – Libya: Through the fire

by News Source 05.07.2011

The New York Times reports:
Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi scattered antitank land mines on the port of this besieged city late Thursday night, threatening once more to close the city’s only route for evacuation and supplies, according to accounts of witnesses, photographs and physical evidence collected on the ground.
The land mines were delivered [...]

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