12:21
Reportage
The Spanish Untouchables
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[image: Busto del Rey Juan Carlos I de España en su vi...]
A new tell-all book that details what led to Spanish king Juan Carlos
giving up the throne woul...
Friday 23 September 2011
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas makes UN statehood bid
Thursday 22 September 2011
Europe leaves Bulgaria, Romania out in Schengen cold
Europe left Bulgaria and Romania out in the cold Thursday, when Finland and the Netherlands blocked their entry into the passport-free Schengen travel area. The Dutch and the Finns refused to let them in, at a meeting of EU interior ministers dogged by concerns about illegal migration, citing poor progress in the fight against corruption and organised crime. "Two member states today made it impossible for us to make a decision on Schengen enlargement," Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, lamented after the talks. "This leads me to a rather sad conclusion regarding mutual trust among the member states," Miller added, saying Bulgaria and Romania were promised a place in Schengen when they joined the European Union in 2007. "Today the promise has been broken," he said, adding that Romania and Bulgaria had made "huge progress." But the Dutch and Finnish governments disagreed. "What we wanted to avoid was to take a decision today that we would later regret," said Dutch Immigration Minister Gerd Leers. "Imagine you have a door with eight of the best locks in the world. But before that door is standing someone who lets everybody in -- then you have a problem," he said. The ministers did not vote, sending a decision to an EU summit in October, but the Dutch minister said his government was unlikely to change its mind. Schengen's enlargement requires unanimous consent. Poland sought to convince EU peers to accept a two-step solution that would allow Romanian and Bulgarian air and sea borders to open by October 31, while a date on opening land borders would be put off to next year. All nations backed the compromise except for the two opponents, diplomats said. "We don't have complete confidence that these countries will be able to secure outer EU borders because of corruption, among other issues," said Finnish Interior Minister Paeivi Raesaenen. Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told national radio that Finland and the Netherlands "presented abstract arguments" against the bids and were "isolated compared to other EU members." Schengen, an area stretching from Portugal to Poland, through which road, rail and even air travellers need only basic identity papers to move freely, has come under growing strain this year over fears about illegal migration. Greece's struggle to police its porous border with Turkey, fears that the Arab revolutions could unleash a wave of boatpeople, and rising populism in some nations have sparked calls for a shake-up of the whole system. Romania has accused the Dutch centre-right government of being held hostage to the far-right. The Dutch centre-right government rules with the backing of Geert Wilders' far-right Freedom Party (PVV). In Finland, the far-right True Finns made major gains in recent elections. After the Dutch indicated their likely stance in advance of Thursday's talks, Romanian border authorities this week blocked Dutch trucks carrying tulips from the Netherlands -- officially over a bacteria scare. Romanian daily Adevarul linked the move to the Schengen dispute, calling it the "war of the flowers." The trucks were finally allowed into Romania on Thursday.
French court fines women for wearing veils
Muammar Gaddafi has fled Sabha
The National Transitional Council are investigating an unconfirmed report that Muammar Gaddafi has fled from Sabha, NTC spokesman reports. NTC spokesman also states that Libyan government forces now control most of Sabha with small pockets of resistance from pro-Gaddafi snipers.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Pakistan bus attack kills dozens
25 Shia Muslim pilgrims have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a bus in western Pakistan, officials said. The pilgrims were going through Mastung district in Baluchistan province, en route to the Iranian border, when the attack occurred, said a senior district official, Saeed Umrani. Two motorcycles blocked the path of the bus and three gunmen stormed the vehicle, opening fire on the roughly 40 pilgrims inside, said a local tribal police officer, Dadullah Baluch, after interviewing survivors and eyewitnesses. At least 25 people were killed and more than a dozen injured in the attack on Tuesday, he added. The dead and wounded were being taken to a hospital in Quetta, about 35 miles to the north, he said. Pakistan is a majority Sunni Muslim state. Although most Sunnis and Shias live there relatively peacefully, extremists on both sides often target each other's leaders and activists. The Sunni-Shia schism over the true heir to the prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century.
Taliban turban bomber kills Afghan ex-president
A Taliban suicide bomber with concealed explosives in a turban on Tuesday assassinated former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading government peace efforts, police said. The bomber struck during a meeting at the Kabul home of Rabbani, who was last year appointed chief of the Afghan High Peace Council that President Hamid Karzai tasked with negotiating with the Taliban. His death is the most high-profile political assassination since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power and comes just two months after Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was also killed. The attackers arrived at Rabbani's house with Mohammad Massom Stanikzai, Rabbani's deputy, for a meeting before the turban bomber detonated his explosives, according to one source amid conflicting reports of the incident. A member of the High Peace Council, Fazel Karim Aymaq, said the men had come with "special messages" from the Taliban and were "very trusted." Kabul criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zaher said two men "negotiating with Rabbani on behalf of the Taliban" arrived at his house, one with explosives hidden in his turban. "He approached Rabbani and detonated his explosives. Rabbani was martyred and four others including Massom Stanikzai (his deputy) were injured." The bomber struck close to the US embassy, making it the the second attack within a week in Kabul's supposedly secure diplomatic zone. The killing prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to cut short his visit to the United States, his spokesman said, adding he was still expected to meet US President Barack Obama as scheduled before leaving. An AFP reporter saw an ambulance at the scene and said police had blocked off surrounding roads. The reporter also heard guards at the house shouting for an ambulance for Rabbani's deputy. Two of the former president's political allies, who did not want to be named and speaking before police confirmed Rabbani's death, wept as they told AFP he had been killed. "Yes, he is dead," said one of the two sources by telephone. The Taliban were not immediately reachable for comment, but the insurgency led by its militia has hit Kabul increasingly hard in recent months. The Pakistani government swiftly condemned the assassination, describing Rabbani as a "friend" with whom Islamabad was working closely on peace efforts. "The people of Pakistan stand by their Afghan brothers and sisters in this moment of grief," a joint statement released by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said, just days after the United States accused the Pakistani government of having ties to Taliban faction the Haqqani network. Among the most high-profile attacks was last week's 20-hour siege of the US embassy and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters which left 14 people dead. Rabbani was president of Afghanistan from 1992 until the Taliban took power in 1996 and headed a country wracked by civil war. Karzai's brainchild, the High Peace Council was intended to open a dialogue with insurgents who have been trying to bring down his government since the US-led invasion overthrew their regime. The 68-member council, hand-picked by the president, was inaugurated on October 7, 2010, amid mounting reports of secret peace talks with Taliban leaders and key insurgent groups. Delivering his acceptance speech, Rabbani said he was "confident" that peace was possible, according to a statement from the palace. "I hope we are able to take major steps in bringing peace and fulfil our duties with tireless effort and help from God," he was quoted as saying. According to Human Rights Watch, Rabbani is among prominent Afghans implicated in war crimes during the brutal fighting that killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the early 1990s.
Gadhafi spotted as rebels capture parts of south Libya town
Monday 19 September 2011
Iran arrests six 'BBC Persian film-makers'
The Iranian authorities have arrested a group of film-makers and accused them of working for the BBC Persian service, which is banned in the country. State TV reports that the group of six were paid to make secret reports for the Farsi-language service. The BBC says no-one works for the Persian service inside the country - either formally or informally. The arrests came a day after the service showed a documentary on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The BBC's James Reynolds says the channel's signal, which is sometimes accessible inside Iran, was disrupted during the broadcast. Increasing pressure The corporation said the documentary on the ayatollah was an in-house production and none of the six film-makers had been involved with it. "The individuals in question are independent documentary film-makers whose films have been screened in festivals and other venues internationally," said the statement. "As is common practice for the channel's documentary showcase programme, BBC Persian television bought the rights to broadcast these films." The BBC's language service chief Liliane Landor said BBC Persian had done nothing unusual in buying the rights to independent films. She said the arrests were part of the "ongoing efforts by the Iranian government to put pressure on the BBC" to influence its impartial and balanced coverage of its Farsi-language TV broadcasts. The corporation said BBC Persian has been subject to increasing and aggressive jamming from within Iran. The channel has suffered deliberate attempts to interfere with its signal intermittently since its launch in 2009.
Sunday 18 September 2011
Tony Blair 'visited Libya to lobby for JP Morgan'
A senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority, the $70 billion fund used to invest the country's oil money abroad, said Mr Blair was one of three prominent western businessmen who regularly dealt with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader. Saif al-Islam and his close aides oversaw the activities of the fund, and often directed its officials on where they should make its investments, he said. The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were told the "ideas" they were ordered to pursue came from Mr Blair as well as one other British businessman and a former American diplomat. "Tony Blair's visits were purely lobby visits for banking deals with JP Morgan," he said. He said that unlike some other deals - notably some investments run by the US bank Goldman Sachs - JP Morgan's had never turned "bad".
Saturday 17 September 2011
Former MI6 chief says ministers approved Gaddafi links
Sir Richard Dearlove, who was head of MI6 when British agents helped to send Muammar Gaddafi's opponents back to Libya, where they were tortured, said on Thursday that intelligence co-operation with countries with poor human rights records had always been cleared by ministers. "It has always been pretty clear that our governments in the UK have accepted that danger and difficulty and have given political clearance for that sort of co-operation," he told a meeting of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy international thinktank. Whitehall officials have already insisted that intelligence cooperation with Gaddafi's Libya was authorised by ministers. However, Labour ministers at the time, including Tony Blair and Jack Straw, have distanced themselves from MI6's co-operation with Gaddafi's security services, as has Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, then head of MI5. Dearlove said that MI6's co-operation with Gaddafi's regime against extremism was "uncomfortable" and "pragmatic". But he denied MI6 enjoyed a "cosy" relationship with the regime. He said that MI6 had had "phenomenal" success in disarming Libya, which had succeeded in acquiring the infrastructure needed to begin a nuclear weapons programme from the rogue Pakistani scientist, AQ Khan. "I resent the suggestion the relationship with Gaddafi was cosy," he said. "It was not a cosy relationship, it was a pragmatic one." Dearlove added: "It was a political decision, having very significantly disarmed Libya, for the government to co-operate with Libya on Islamist terrorism. The whole relationship was one of serious calculation about where the overall balance of our national interests stood." Papers found abandoned in the Tripoli offices of Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi's former foreign minister and intelligence chief, showed how MI6 was involved in sending suspected extremists back to Libya. They included Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former prominent member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which had links with al-Qaida, and who is now military commander in the Libyan capital. Referring to the forthcoming Gibson inquiry into allegations that British security and intelligence agencies colluded in the torture and abuse of terror suspects, Dearlove said that he should not say more about co-operation with countries which did not share the UK's views about human rights. Dearlove said he was surprised by the relative failure of violent Islamism to make a more lasting political impact. North Africa and the Middle East showed al-Qaida had failed to achieve the long-term political impact many people had predicted at the time of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He said the terrorist network appeared to be "on the back foot" and was struggling to mount operations in the developed world. "I think it faces an issue of credibility. It badly needs to demonstrate to its sympathisers and its core membership that it can pull off something really big," he said. He said he believed al-Qaida had made a "serious tactical error" in taking on the Americans in Iraq when they would have been better off trying to mount more 9/11-style attacks. "I think it was a vision of taking on the US military. Once the US military got its act together, it came out of that confrontation very badly," he said. He insisted the west had been right to respond in the way it did to the events of 9/11, even though it resulted in the radicalisation of many Muslims. "Confronting al-Qaida was a confrontation of beliefs and values. I think it was the right thing to do, despite the risks, to come out on the front foot to meet that threat militantly," he said.
Friday 16 September 2011
Saudi Arabia: Pretty Maids From Morocco Seen as Threat
Sunday 11 September 2011
Pirates kill Brit David Tebbutt and kidnap wife
BRITISH tourist has been killed and his wife kidnapped after suspected Somali pirates stormed their villa at an exclusive Kenyan resort. They were attacked by at least five men as they lay in bed in their beachside villa at 2am yesterday. David Tebbutt, 58, is believed to have been shot trying to protect wife Judith, 56, from the raiders. They bundled her into a speedboat and vanished. The couple, from Bishop's Stortford, Herts, had been at the Kiwayu Safari Village just a few hours and were the only guests. The secluded resort is 18 miles from the border with war-ravaged Somalia, notorious for its pirates. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said a massive search involving military boats, helicopters and ground forces had begun at dawn. He added: "We are hoping that we will be able to at least find the lady. "We believe it is a kidnap but we are yet to receive any communication from the alleged kidnappers." Pirates tend not to raid on land — and it is rare for them to harm any victims because they want to ransom them. That has led to speculation that the attack could be the work of local Islamic fanatics who wanted to make their mark on the 9/11 anniversary. But police commissioner Mathew Iteere said: "So far we are treating it as a bandit attack. We've not received any hint pointing at a terror group.
Saadi Gaddafi, third son of the former Libyan leader, has fled the country into neighbouring Niger,
His flight reduces the retinue of close family members sticking by Col Gaddafi to just two sons, Saif al-Islam and Mutassim, and his closest aide and brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi.
Marou Amadou, the Niger justice minister, confirmed he had crossed the two countries’ Saharan border in a convoy of vehicles and been intercepted by local troops.
He said the convoy was continuing to the northern town of Agadez and from there to the capital Niamey, where a number of Touareg tribal leaders formerly loyal to Col Gaddafi have also sought refuge in recent weeks.
His flight will be a further blow to the confidence of those troops remaining loyal to the old regime. Earlier in the day, rebels made advances on the two remaining loyalist hold-outs in northern Libya after a string of Nato bombing raids.
Saadi was one of the more westernised of Col Gaddafi’s family, though no less capricious that the rest. A former footballer, he played twice for Italian Serie A teams, though he was banned for failing a drugs test.
Friday 9 September 2011
Hague court jails ex-Yugoslav army general
highest-ranking officer of the former Yugoslav army has been jailed for 27 years by the UN tribunal at The Hague for war crimes. General Momcilo Perisic, who served as chief of staff of the Yugoslav army during the Balkans conflict, was found responsble for murder, persecution and attacks on civilians in Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s. The tribunal found Perisic, 67, guilty of helping Serb troops plan and carry out war crimes, including the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and of the 42 month-long siege of Sarajevo. Perisic was also convicted of failing to punish his subordinates for their crimes of murder, attacks on civilians, and injuring and wounding civilians during rocket attacks on Zagreb in Croatia. He was also found guilty of securing financial and logistical support for Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. Criminally responsible "Momcilo Perisic was found criminally responsible for aiding and abetting murder, inhumane acts, attacks on civilians and persecution on political, racial or religious grounds in Sarajevo and Srebrenica," Justice Bakone Moloto said. Perisic becomes the first Belgrade official to be convicted for Serbia's role in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, a role the regime in Serbia has always staunchly denied. The court also found Perisic bore command responsibility for the shelling of Zagreb in 1995. The tribunal found evidence that Perisic had had a "collaborative relationship" with Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic, and "substantially aided his operations". Perisic had kept General Mladic on the Yugoslav Army payroll list, and personally signed Mladic's promotion to the rank of colonel general in 1994. Mladic is currently on trial at The Hague on charges of crimes including genocide. But the tribunal did not find evidence that Perisic had "exercised effective control" over Mladic or any other Yugoslav Army officer serving in the Bosnian Serb army. Mladic has been indicted for genocide by the Yugoslavia tribunal and was arrested in May this year.
Freed Egyptians tell of torture in Libyan jails
With drawn and gaunt faces, some 30 Egyptians holed up in a modest Libyan hotel speak of the incarceration and torture they suffered at the hands of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists. “They told me, ‘You Egyptians, you caused problems in your country, and now you have come to destroy ours’,” said Mahmud Abu Zeid, referring to the popular uprising that ousted neighbouring Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak in February. “They wanted me to say that I was armed and had encouraged Libyans to rise up against Gaddafi,” he said. The 31-year-old said he was the first Egyptian to have been jailed in Abu Slim, a district of Tripoli that saw some of the fiercest fighting and worst atrocities before Gaddafi lost his grip on the capital late last month. Abu Zeid said the Gaddafi loyalists forced the Egyptians to record confessions that they had triggered the revolt against his regime, before they were eventually freed by revolutionary fighters. “For five months, they gave electric shocks to my son. I was so weak that I was unable to walk, so they dragged me like a sack,” he said, adding, “I ended up recording their message.” Under pressure he “confessed” to having used guns to encourage Libyans to call for the ouster of Gaddafi, he said, adding however that the Libyans who heard the recordings were not fooled. Abu Zeid’s account tallied with that of other refugees at the hotel in Benghazi, the rebellion’s stronghold in eastern Libya, some 600 kilometres (370 miles) from their homeland. “They gave out bread by kicking it at us, and we had a litre (two pints) of water to be shared among a dozen prisoners,” said another Egyptian man who added that he had been shot twice in the leg. It was still difficult for him to walk. Like him, other men in the hotel showed scars and burn marks on their backs they said were the result of torture. Tamer Rad, an Egyptian labourer who worked in Libya for two years, said he had been forced to to drink urine when he asked for water. “I was really thirsty. I asked for water, crying. They told me ‘You want to drink? Here!’ And they poured urine into my mouth. I was handcuffed, I could not resist so I had to drink it,” he said. The 26-year-old said the Egyptians had been stuck in Benghazi for several days and that he now had only one thought — of leaving Libya and returning to Egypt. The group said they fled to Benghazi after being freed on August 21 when anti-Gaddafi fighters broke open several jails as they overran Tripoli. And they had been unable to move on because, they said, the Gaddafi loyalists burned their travel documents and they are unable to contact the Egyptian embassy in Libya. On Monday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said the men would be repatriated on the same day, explaining that they had been forced to stay in Libya after the fall of the regime due to “insecurity on the roads” and the closure of airports.
Thursday 8 September 2011
Soldiers may face Mousa prosecution
British soldiers could face a fresh prosecution over the brutal death of an Iraqi civilian after a scathing report condemned the "shameful" abuse of prisoners in UK custody. A landmark public inquiry concluded that father-of-two Baha Mousa, 26, died after an "appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence" meted out by members of 1st Battalion the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (1QLR). Inquiry chairman Sir William Gage said a number of British officers who could have stopped the abuse, including 1QLR's former commanding officer Colonel Jorge Mendonca, bore a "heavy responsibility" for the "grave and shameful events". He also strongly criticised the "corporate failure" by the Ministry of Defence that led to "conditioning" techniques banned by the UK in 1972, including hooding and making prisoners stand in painful stress positions, being used by soldiers in Iraq. The £13 million public inquiry, which has published its 1,400-page final report, condemned the "lack of moral courage to report abuse" within Preston-based 1QLR. It named 19 soldiers who assaulted Mr Mousa and nine Iraqis detained with him, and found that many others, including several officers, must have known what was happening. The damning report said the violence could not be described as a "one-off" because of evidence that 1QLR troops abused and mistreated Iraqi civilians on other occasions. Lawyers for Mr Mousa's family called for the soldiers responsible for his death to face charges in the light of the findings. Seven members of 1QLR, including Col Mendonca, faced allegations relating to the mistreatment of the detainees at a high-profile court martial in 2006-07. The trial ended with them all cleared, apart from Corporal Donald Payne, who became the first member of the British armed forces convicted of a war crime when he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians. Payne was acquitted of manslaughter. The legal team for Mr Mousa's relatives and the other detainees believe that evidence in the inquiry's report could form the basis for a new prosecution. Sapna Malik, from law firm Leigh Day and Co, said: "In light of the cogent and serious findings by Sir William Gage, we now expect that the military and civilian prosecuting authorities of this country will act to ensure that justice is done." The Crown Prosecution Service said the inquiry's report had not been referred to it. The Service Prosecuting Authority, which brings military prosecutions, was not available for comment.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
20 people, including a senior army officer, were killed on Wednesday when two blasts were detonated by separate suicide bombers in southwest Pakistan
At least 20 people, including a senior army officer, were killed on Wednesday when two blasts were detonated by separate suicide bombers in southwest Pakistan, police officials said. A police officer assisted an injured man at the site of a double suicide bombing in Quetta, Pakistan, on Wednesday. The attackers targeted the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force commanded by army officers, stationed in Quetta. At least 30 people were injured in the explosions. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion immediately fell on Al Qaeda and Taliban militants . On Monday, Pakistani officials announced the arrest of a senior Al Qaeda leader, Younis al-Mauritani from Quetta. The operation was conducted by Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s intelligence organization, and the Frontier Corps, according to an army spokesman. The attack Wednesday morning in Quetta took place in a high-security neighborhood where several government offices and residences of high-ranking government officials are located. The attackers targeted the house of Brig. Farrukh Shehzad, the deputy inspector general of the Frontier Corps. One bomber detonated his vehicle outside the house of the officer, a witness told AAJ TV, a private television news channel. Soon after the first attack, another attacker entered the house on foot and started firing before detonating his explosives. Brigadier Shehzad was wounded and his wife was killed, according to initial local news reports. A colonel, Khalid Masood, was also killed in the attack. Local television networks broadcast images of charred vehicles as ambulances ferried the wounded to nearby hospitals. The house of the wounded brigadier was badly damaged. Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, has a history of sectarian and nationalist violence. Al Qaeda leaders and Taliban militants are also thought to have found a safe haven in the city and the provinceReuters
Heavy gunfire in central, north Syria; 11 killed
Syrian security forces unleashed a barrage of gunfire on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and leaving thousands cowering in their homes as President Bashar Assad's troops kept up the government's assault on a 6-month-old uprising, activists and witnesses said. Nine of the dead were in Homs, a hotbed of opposition to Assad's autocratic regime. Two others were shot dead during raids in Sarameen, in northern Syria. For days, security forces have been pursuing activists and anti-government protesters in Homs, part of a ferocious crackdown on the most serious challenge to the 40-year Assad dynasty. The UN says more than 2,200 people have died in nearly six months of protests. "All through the night, there was shooting. The gunfire didn't stop," a resident of the city said by phone on Wednesday. "I can't tell exactly what is going on because it's dangerous to go out." Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, said security forces simultaneously stormed several districts in the old part of the city, including the Bab Dreib, Bab Houd and the Bayada neighborhoods. Nine people were confirmed dead in ongoing shooting in those areas, the LCC said. The London-based Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across the country, said 10 were killed. Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has seen some of the largest anti-regime protests in Syria over the past months, despite repeated crackdowns. On Tuesday, security forces opened fire from a checkpoint in Rastan, just north of Homs, killing two people, including a 15-year-old boy, activists said. They said five unidentified corpses, including that of a woman, also were found dumped around the city centre.
Qaddafi Reports Add to Libyan Confusion
In another confusing round of claims and counterclaims by the Libyan rebels, a spokesman for their most powerful militia commander said Wednesday that rebel forces had cornered Libya’s fugitive leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, a report dismissed by a spokesman for the transitional government’s military. The claim came as rebel officials as well as officials in neighboring Niger said Colonel Qaddafi had not fled into Niger, nor had two of his most powerful sons, contrary to speculation after news reports said 200 armed vehicles or more headed into the country recently. On Tuesday, officials within Niger and some independent witnesses said that there was no such convoy, while confirming that some smaller number of Libyan vehicles had entered in recent days, and the State Department said that at least a dozen senior members of the Qaddafi government had fled to Niger. On Wednesday, Mohamed Bazoum, Nigerien foreign minister, told French Radio: “There’s no question that some people arrived. But it wasn’t at all of the order of magnitude that people have said. Two hundred vehicles, that’s inconceivable. Ten cars, maximum.” The Associated Press quoted a spokesman for Niger’s president as saying that one was Colonel Qaddafi’s security chief, Mansour Dao. The Wednesday claim that the fugitive leader was cornered came from Anis Sharif, the spokesman for Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who is the chairman of the Tripoli Military Committee and the leader of one of the biggest rebel militias. Mr. Sharif said a variety of rebel units had converged on an area in the desert where they had confirmed the presence of the leader. “We are waiting for the right moment to move in and in the meantime we are tracking his movements,” Mr. Sharif said. “He doesn’t have a very strong protection with him, not as much protection as we had expected. He only moves at night to avoid NATO air strikes.” Mr. Sharif declined to say where the location was, other than in the Sahara desert, which occupies more than half of the southern part of the country. He said that the rebel forces had advanced to within 40 miles of his location and had surrounded the area. “He cannot escape,” he said, adding he expected rebels to move in soon. “It’s up to the leaders on the ground who will make their move when it’s time.” Abdulrahman Busin, the military press liaison, said that the reports of Colonel Qaddafi being surrounded were rumors, and that there were also unconfirmed reports that he was in yet another convoy moving toward the remote Niger border. Niger also borders Burkina Faso, another landlocked Saharan country, which had previously announced that it would grant asylum to Colonel Qaddafi. On Tuesday however, according to the Associated Press, Burkina Faso officials said he would be arrested if he arrived there.
Tuesday 6 September 2011
NIGER'S FOREIGN MINISTER CLAIMS GADDAFI WAS NOT ON CONVOY
Neither Gaddafi nor any of his sons were on the convoy that arrived in Niger from Libya. The statement was made by Niger Foreign Minister, Mohammed Bazoum, on the microphones of Al Arabiya.& 13; The news was leaked by sources of the National Transational Council, according to which the 200-250 vehicle convoy that crossed the Fezzan desert to reach the ciy of Agadez, escorted by local security forces, carried an enormous load of gold and cash as well as several members of Gaddafi's family. "None of this is true", Bazoum said, cutting short, "it isn't Gaddafi and nor do I think that the convoy was as large as reported". In his opinion, the convoy carried former officials of Gaddafi's regime, although of intermediate ranking: this therefore also appears to deny the presence on the convoy of Mansour Daw, the chief of the Colonel's security forces. & 13; Also France, the former colonial power of the sub-Saharan Country, denied rumors concerning Gaddafi: "We have no information enabling us to think that Colonel Gaddafi is on that convoy", reiterated a spokesperson of the Elysee
The new Libya won't trust Britain so easily now | News
Monday 5 September 2011
talkSPORt to be broadcast to British troops stationed overseas
talkSPORT commentary on the Rugby World Cup 2011 is to be broadcast to British soldiers serving overseas, the British Forces Broadcasting Service has announced. Coverage commences on September 9 and will enable troops stationed in more than 20 countries; including Afghanistan, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, to keep up to date with all the games as they are played. England legend Brian Moore, aka The Pit Bull, will be heading up talkSPORT's coverage for the tournament alongside David Campese. He said: “The Rugby World Cup is a massive event and is sure to be a fantastic spectacle – I’m really pleased to be supporting our brave troops abroad.” BFBS Controller Nicky Ness said: “I am delighted that the BFBS and talkSPORT partnership now extends to Rugby World Cup coverage. This tournament is really important to the armed forces community for whom sport is crucial part of life. The fact that our troops will be able to listen on the front line and in far flung corners of the world will make a real difference to morale.
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