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Apology posted:"Kill people faster! They're disturbing our workers who are busy stealing your oil!!!"
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:22 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 10:55 |
Spiderfist Island posted:Unlike Somalia, it seems that the people of Libya have found their identity in the country. An identity opposed to him. I'd have to agree. Libya full on caught the revolution bug. These are not times to gently caress around as a dictator but to get on a plane and plan your new life.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:28 |
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Amazing footage of today's protest in Bahrain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7bWWLU-IDQ It's hard to imagine that many people in one place without seeing it for yourself. Meanwhile, things are heating up in Ivory Coast: quote:Gun battles erupt in Ivory Coast's main city http://rtbnews.rtb.gov.bn/?c=newsDetail&news_id=18031 Looks like our holiday cups of cocoa and Peppermint Schnapps are going to cost a lot more next Christmas And an account by a man who was tortured by the Bahraini police: quote:'Abdallah Salman Mohammad Hassan told Amnesty International that he and his friend were stopped in their car at a checkpoint near Manama's Pearl Roundabout. http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bahrain-must-protect-peaceful-protesters-torture-2011-02-22 Ouch, that door thing sounds really painful. The creative ways we think of to injure and agonize our fellow man even with crude implements and short supplies. If you don't have a club, use a broom handle or a stick. If you don't have a metal hook in the ceiling, just hang someone over a door. It's not the type of ingenuity that we should appreciate
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:33 |
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Apology posted:If you don't have a metal hook in the ceiling, just hang someone over a door. It's not the type of ingenuity that we should appreciate Must be a common police torture tactic: quote:They took me to Imbaba police station and put me in a room by myself. Two officers came in and told me to confess. I asked, "What to?" They answered, "Confess to the theft." The head of the Criminal Investigations unit said, "Work on him until he confesses." They handcuffed my hands in front of me and hung me from the door for more than two hours. They had whips and hit me on the legs, on the bottom of my feet, and on my back. When they took me down, they brought a black electric device and applied electro-shocks four or five times to my arms until they started smoking. All of this time they kept saying, "You have to confess." The next morning they beat me again and whipped me with the cable on my back and on my shoulders. I fainted after three hours of the beating.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:38 |
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Exitlights posted:Must be a common police torture tactic: There must be a handbook or something out there Note also the old whip-em-with-an-electrical-cord-or-cable trick. Gruesome.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:43 |
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That must be what Gaddafi was reading earlier.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:44 |
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Ace Oliveira posted:I wish they would go back to how they were in the 1950s. Intervening in the Korean War is probably the most useful thing they've ever done. Yeah I'm glad the UN forces were able to assist the UN in bombing the poo poo out of the peninsula. They didn't even end the war, simply a ceasefire. I think you mean you liked it when the UN was a tool of the US that would go along with everything America does.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 04:57 |
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Chade Johnson posted:Yeah I'm glad the UN forces were able to assist the UN in bombing the poo poo out of the peninsula. They didn't even end the war, simply a ceasefire. I think you mean you liked it when the UN was a tool of the US that would go along with everything America does. Look at North Korea and South Korea at the present day. The difference of a country on the peninsula under the American sphere vs. under the then Communist sphere couldn't be more stark. That's got to count for something.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:00 |
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The protests (and the violence) are still going strong in Yemen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GpDC_I4eRg Also, a written account: quote:
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/7296873.html One man's brutal suppression is another man's riches: quote:The turmoil in Libya, Africa's fourth largest oil producer, sent oil prices soaring with Brent North Sea crude costing $108.57 per barrel at one stage, the highest level since September 2008. http://www.mysinchew.com/node/53663?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter And an interesting article about meshnets, which are developing technology that would allow mobile phones to link together to form a crude replacement for the internet in case of a blackout: quote:Mobile phones are a valuable infrastructure that often gets overlooked in discussions of resiliency. Everyone has a phone so everyone is a potential node. Research in wireless meshnets that use mobile phones instead of carrier backbones offer localized solutions for resilient networks. If a city loses it’s carrier support, if AT&T & Verizon are offline, mobiles can default to a lilly-pad model where voice & data move from phone to phone, hopping across the community through wireless overlaps. The phone becomes the hot-spot and a personal IP address. This allows information to pass from across the mobile meshnet until it reaches an internet uplink, such as a Meraki node. In this manner individuals can still coordinate resources & activities if, say, an earthquake or a dictator has taken mobile carriers & ISP’s offline, and can hop to a strong wireless uplink outside the range of blackout. http://www.urbeingrecorded.com/news/2011/02/20/meshnets-freedom-phones-and-the-peoples-internet Hahaha, gently caress you, Kill Switch, can't stop the signal. Taking a taxi in Yemen = Hitch-hiking in Detroit quote:Yemeni women expose sexual harassment by taxi drivers http://opinions-alaaisam.blogspot.com/2011/02/yemeni-women-expose-sexual-harassment.html?spref=tw
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:00 |
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Apology posted:There must be a handbook or something out there Note also the old whip-em-with-an-electrical-cord-or-cable trick. Gruesome. Torture is a terrible thing, and it's too loving common in developing countries like Egypt, but even in developed countries like Russia it happens time to time. And it doesn't help that certain rich countries have both used or condoned torture themselves and delivered prisoners to Egypt among other places fully knowing that they will be tortured, all in the name of T.W.A.T. I was in a torture seminar where a nurse from a centre specialized on therapy for torture victims described some of the various things done to people. Eg. the bottom of feet are beaten with a stick, which may sound bad already, but it's worse in the long run. Eventually the feet will start to lose their delicate elastic structure due to all the swelling and soft tissue turning hard, and when that happens you can't walk properly any more because after a hundred steps your feet are in insufferable pain. And the damage can't be repaired or healed.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:01 |
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Apology posted:There must be a handbook or something out there Note also the old whip-em-with-an-electrical-cord-or-cable trick. Gruesome. Sound like strappado, also known as Palestinian hanging. If I remember correctly, the dead guy the contractors posed with at Abu Ghraib died from being beaten while hung like that.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:11 |
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Nenonen posted:Torture is a terrible thing... Torture has a horrific history, a terrible present and unfortunately, an equally awful future. Devices like the Pain Ray will almost certainly be employed by future regimes to inflict unending agony and pain on dissidents, and there will be no scars nor wounds to tell the tale. Humanity does some scary poo poo.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:12 |
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Vladimir Putin posted:Look at North Korea and South Korea at the present day. The difference of a country on the peninsula under the American sphere vs. under the then Communist sphere couldn't be more stark. That's got to count for something. It's impossible to tell what the DPRK would be like today if Kim Il-Sung had won the war for good. One theory is that it would have helped the country to avoid some of the ultra-Stalinism that resulted, as there wouldn't have been a foreign army in the southern part of the peninsula threatening the communists militarily, or a rival Korean government to threaten the communist political hegemony. That is to say, the stale mate of the Korean war made North Korea what it is today. It likely wouldn't be a great place had they won, but maybe it'd be more like Vietnam today. But we cannot know.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:13 |
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I think if that happened, it would've still persisted because of the American presence in Japan.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:17 |
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Nenonen posted:Torture is a terrible thing, and it's too loving common in developing countries like Egypt, but even in developed countries like Russia it happens time to time. And it doesn't help that certain rich countries have both used or condoned torture themselves and delivered prisoners to Egypt among other places fully knowing that they will be tortured, all in the name of T.W.A.T. Oh man oh man, my toes curl just thinking about it In other news: Egypt's provisional government is still trying to set up a Mubarak shadow government, those pricks: quote:Key ministers stay in Egyptian cabinet reshuffle http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/key-ministers-stay-in-egyptian-cabinet-reshuffle?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter I swear these protest will never end if Mubarak's old cronies don't stop dicking around, the pricks And why would revolutions cause the price of food to slump? Because there's speculation that demand will be low, because people won't be able to afford more food quote:Corn, Wheat Extend Losses on North Africa Unrest; Rice Tumbles http://www.businessweek.com/news/20..._medium=twitter This last bit of news about the food prices has really gotten to me. I think I'll go watch some TV now and eat some junk food while other, less fortunate people starve
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:20 |
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Nenonen posted:Torture is a terrible thing, and it's too loving common in developing countries like Egypt, but even in developed countries like Russia it happens time to time. And it doesn't help that certain rich countries have both used or condoned torture themselves and delivered prisoners to Egypt among other places fully knowing that they will be tortured, all in the name of T.W.A.T. Still is harsh. Thanks for sharing.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 05:24 |
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CNN's commentary by Zakaria tonight was very interesting. http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/02/22/exp.ps.gadhafi.libya.zakaria.cnn You have to sit through a quick commercial before the interview, just FYI.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:24 |
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Trying to not recklessly post unconfirmed reports, but I've been watching this guy on the libya17feb live stream from inside Libya (when it's up). His accounts and his contacts' accounts from within the country have been pretty accurate so far. That being said, I hope for the sake of human decency that these aren't: defecting soldiers in Benghazi were crushed/buried alive for refusing to shoot protestors (italics are mine): transcript of translated phone relay conversation posted:IN FATHEEL CAMP[army barracks in Benghazi] TODAY THEY FOUND MORE SOLDIERS THAT REFUSED TO SHOOT PROTESTERS. BURIED UNDERNEITH CONCRETE. AND THEY ARE TRYING TO TAKE THEM OUT WITH A BULL DOZER. THEY HEAR CRIES. The same source estimates that 300 mercenaries are in custody of protestors in Benghazi, many of whom surrendered to the protestors and some of whom may have been killed by the protestors as well: speaker posted:I TOLD YOU GUYS THEY HAD 60 MERCENARIES IN THE NORT COURT [Court of North Benghazi] LIKE YESTERDAY RIGHT? NOW THEY HAVE 300...CAPTURED speaker, referring to an unnamed female contact also in the city posted:She tries to upload videos, but the internet always cuts off after 3 minutes. She tells me of a mercernary with all his limbs and his head cut off. She saw it. Basically, she is scared for her life. Sleepless nights. IF these accounts are accurate, it paints an interesting picture of how desperate the forces still loyal to Gaddafi became when it was evident that they were losing the east, and fled while leaving the mercenaries behind to be overwhelemed and/or slaughtered by the protesters.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:29 |
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UltraShame posted:CNN's commentary by Zakaria tonight was very interesting. This is great. Someone needs to make a Gaddafi bingo card.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:33 |
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Hipster_Doofus posted:This is great. Zakaria may be the smartest man in American news short of Lehrer. Or maybe it's just that Parker and Spitzer are so idiotic with the questions that they ask that it makes Zakaria look like a genius.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:41 |
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Toplowtech posted:That would work too. Isn't Ruby Moroccan? She's Egyptian, but you keep your filthy hands off of her! Shageletic posted:Might want to turn on PBS for frontline's report on Egypt. Saw clips of it earlier and they had some spectacular shots of the revolution. Definitely worth watching. The first segment follows the April 6 group which was instrumental in organizing the January 25th protests. The second part is about the Muslim Brotherhood. Lots of really good footage throughout. You can watch the entire program at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/ edit: Forgot to mention that gas prices jumped about $0.10/gal around here this afternoon. The Costco near me hadn't raised their prices as of 7pm, so there were lines about three times as long as usual. quadratic fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Feb 23, 2011 |
# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:45 |
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PBS is good for you, folks. fake edit: American folks.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 06:50 |
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whoflungpoop posted:Trying to not recklessly post unconfirmed reports, but I've been watching this guy on the libya17feb live stream from inside Libya (when it's up). His accounts and his contacts' accounts from within the country have been pretty accurate so far. AJE is reporting this as underground cells, which makes more sense then how it's described in the twitter. Onto other things that are going to end badly in Libya quote:8:19am @AbdulHamidAhmad, the editor in chief of Gulf News, tweets: Whelp, he's probably already dead.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 07:37 |
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I wouldn't be suprised if he was kidnapped by some splinter faction of the protester, not that I don't support them but I think the guy only resigned to cover his own hide when it became obvious the regime was/is crumbeling. Then again I kow nothing about him so I might be wrong.
Nckdictator fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Feb 23, 2011 |
# ? Feb 23, 2011 08:02 |
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Chade Johnson posted:Yeah I'm glad the UN forces were able to assist the UN in bombing the poo poo out of the peninsula. They didn't even end the war, simply a ceasefire. I think you mean you liked it when the UN was a tool of the US that would go along with everything America does. Yeah, you forgot the part where the North started the war.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 08:17 |
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farraday posted:AJE is reporting this as underground cells, which makes more sense then how it's described in the twitter. That transcript was translated to English in real-time earlier today from the Skype sessions between Mohammad and various journalists. I'll check to see if there's an original arabic transcript that provides more clarity.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 08:43 |
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Vladimir Putin posted:Look at North Korea and South Korea at the present day. The difference of a country on the peninsula under the American sphere vs. under the then Communist sphere couldn't be more stark. That's got to count for something. South Korea was a horrible dictatorship that brutally massacred protesters and only changed within the last 20 years. Though if you go for long-term (meaning now) then I guess yeah. No comment on the war itself, but just wanted to remind people that South Korea was pretty bad right after the war. Related to South Korea though: I was talking to a Korean person about Libya, Egypt, etc and the person asked why I'm bothering to pay attention because it's not like we can do anything so it's a waste of time.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 09:12 |
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Apology posted:
From what I saw in Qatar, this kind of creepy behaviour is not unique. I've had friends followed home in their car several times, have comments made to them at traffic lights, has someone crash into them, then offer them money for a date while discussing the insurance details etc... Hell being *with* someone wasn't protection, for example. England vs Brazil match, went with a Brazilian friend of mine, went for a piss, I was gone less than five minutes, when I came back there was a guy sitting in my reserved seat, trying to chat my friend up and touch her. Guys there has very little tact, and just came off as creepy and desperate.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 09:46 |
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Don't derail this into a debate about Middle-East sexual harassment, it ruined the last thread.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 09:52 |
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Lascivious Sloth posted:Don't derail this into a debate about Middle-East sexual harassment, it ruined the last thread. sorry didn't see that last thread
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 09:53 |
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Live blogs for today: AJE Guardian The Guardian has an update of the last 12 hours for those of you who need catching up on events: quote:Muammar Gaddafi appears increasingly isolated as the UN security council yesterday called for an immediate end to the violence in Libya and demanded that he lives up to his responsibilities to protect his own people. But the man who has ruled Libya for 42 years made clear in a long, sometimes incoherent speech that he is not giving up without a fight. Urging loyalists to take to the streets to fight "greasy rats" in the pay of enemies ranging from the US to al-Qaida, he declared: "I am not going to leave this land. I will die as a martyr at the end … I shall remain, defiant. Muammar is leader of the revolution until the end of time."
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 09:55 |
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Nenonen posted:It's impossible to tell what the DPRK would be like today if Kim Il-Sung had won the war for good. One theory is that it would have helped the country to avoid some of the ultra-Stalinism that resulted, as there wouldn't have been a foreign army in the southern part of the peninsula threatening the communists militarily, or a rival Korean government to threaten the communist political hegemony. That is to say, the stale mate of the Korean war made North Korea what it is today. It likely wouldn't be a great place had they won, but maybe it'd be more like Vietnam today. But we cannot know. There's also the theory that Kim Il-Sung would have been just as miserable a Stalinist thug with control over the whole peninsula, and would have subjected the entire Korean people to his batshit, wannabe-Stalin rule. Post-war South Korea wasn't exactly paradise, but it was a step up on the North (and has been infinitely better since the 80s). And there's the argument that Japan would have been re-militarized ala West Germany with Kim so close. As you said, it's impossible to tell. But on the whole, it's hard to argue against having intervened in Korea considering what we now know about the DPRK and on the grounds that, yeah, Kim invaded the South. It wasn't like Vietnam. It was also a test of the UN's legitimacy at the time. Libyan intervention via the UN is a non-starter, as other posters have pointed out. It's just a glorified talking shop on good days, and Russia and China would oppose anything beyond statements of basic condemnation. And isn't Libya still on the Human Rights Council?
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:03 |
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NYT has a hilarious article about how insane the family is, taken from cable leaks: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/africa/23cables.html?partner=rss&emc=rssquote:Before Condoleezza Rice visited Libya in 2008 — the first secretary of state to do so since 1953 — the embassy in Tripoli sought to accentuate the positive. True, Colonel Qaddafi was “notoriously mercurial” and “avoids making eye contact,” the cable warned Ms. Rice, and “there may be long, uncomfortable periods of silence.” But he was “a voracious consumer of news,” the cable added, who had such distinctive ideas as resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a single new state called “Isratine.”
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:08 |
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It's quite telling when you get ostracized by the Arab League for being too brutal against protesters. Arab League's members include Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan and a bunch of other countries with not a very good track record. On one hand it tells that the scales have tipped in the Middle East and North Africa against tyranny; and on the other, those autocratic governments still in power probably want to use Gaddafi to divert attention away from how terrible their own secret police is.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:09 |
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There's a lot more videos appearing on the various live blogs now the media have more access to the country. The AJE blog has one of Tripoli residents fighting the pro-Gaddafi supporters, shows what they are up against.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:15 |
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Roark posted:And isn't Libya still on the Human Rights Council? That is meaningless unless we're to expect that the Colonel will personally attend the meetings in New York. No Libyan diplomats will be defending his good name, not in UN and not anywhere else. Anyway, it's the General Assembly and Security Council that make decisions, and I don't think that Libya has much leverage in either. Especially after Gaddafi's touching speeches, both in General Assembly and yesterday...
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:19 |
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From Twitter: Reports of pro-Gaddafi forces atacking an Egyptian aid convoy. 3 dead & 14 wounded Getting another confirmation that the pro-#Gaddafi attack on Misurata has been thwarted. Attack was directed at local radio station. In benghazi #libya. Everything closed. Feels abandoned. Comms down. Hospitals still full. No sign of ghaddafi's people Seen anti aircraft shell casings on streets in benghazi #libya. Damage on nearby buildings shows they were widely used Every town to benghazi a checkpoint. Reporters as rare as rain here. Confirmed: Libyan military vessel has defected to Malta after refusing orders to attack Benghazi. #French President's top diplomatic adviser now says European nations should consider sanctions against #Libya French official: possible sanctions against Libya to include travel embargo and freezing assets French official: those responsible for mass killings will face international trials Confirmation that Furjan tribe joined the revolution is significant; they are from around Sirt, #Gaddafi's home town. #Libya gas supply to Italy stopped ... Aljazeera now showing footage of dead in Tripoli; report that some morgues were raided and corspes taken by Gaddafi troops Reports that Libyan consulate in Alexandria now flies the independence flag. Reports from Al-Bayda: Situation peaceful; but citizens on alert for attacks, especially air strikes. Reports from Al-Bayda: Bakeries giving bread for free; pharmacies giving medicine for free; neighborhood watches formed. The west city Nalut is under control of its citizen, blocks were set up from yesterday on the road entering the city Eyewitnesses in Tripoli report seeing more mercenaries in jeeps roaming the city. On one wall in Torbuk saw grafitti: "freedom=AlJazeera" Cameras & reporters strengthen demonstrators. Libya is sealed off. Everyone I speak to there says: 'Tell the world.' Reuters FLASH: Italian foreign minister says estimates of 1000 dead in #Libya are "credible". From AJE quote:WikiLeaks has released at least three US diplomatic cables relating to Libya in the past 24 hours. Two appear on the WikiLeaks website:
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 10:54 |
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Thanks for the update Moses. I sort of wish there was another thread strictly for situation updates as wading through derail arguments about unrelated things to get to the news is getting a little tiresome.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 11:07 |
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On Al Jazeera:quote:Iranian President Ahmadinejad condemns Libya's use of force on demonstrators.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 11:09 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 10:55 |
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If success in Libya inspires the Iranian protesters he'll be using exactly the same tactics if he wants any chance of staying in power.
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# ? Feb 23, 2011 11:11 |