Libya/Crisys: Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi Forces Move on Town Near Rebel-Held Benghazi

AJDABIYA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi advanced Sunday on this anxious town, a strategic linchpin on the doorstep of the opposition capital of Benghazi and within grasp of a highway crucial to recapturing the eastern border and encircling the rebellion with heavy armor and artillery.

After another day of headlong retreat, this time from the refinery and port at Brega, one town west of here, the rebels prepared for what some called a last stand at Ajdabiya, taking refuge in military barracks where they stacked ammunition boxes six deep, positioned a handful of tanks and tried to bring order to a jumble of small artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Bulldozers built berms three feet high near a pair of green, metal arches that mark the town’s entrance.

The fate of Ajdabiya, an eastern town of 120,000 near the Mediterranean coast, may prove decisive in the most violent and chaotic of the uprisings that have upended the Arab world. Under a sky turned gray by a menacing sandstorm, the rebels valiantly vowed victory but acknowledged the deficit posed by their weapons and pleaded for a no-flight zone that seemed a metaphor for any kind of international help.

“Our retreat is a tactic,” said Said Zway, 29, a civil engineer-turned-fighter, at Ajdabiya’s entrance. “We can wait until they impose a no-fly zone. If they don’t, what can we do, my friend? We fight and die. God is with us, God willing.”

¶From its ecstatic beginning, Libya’s uprising has taken a darker turn, as Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have recaptured Zawiyah, near Tripoli, and are now besieging Misurata, a commercial capital and an oasis of rebel control in the west. Officials in Tripoli talk with bluster, and a more sullen mood has settled over Benghazi, where reports of lawlessness grow.

¶The United Nations Security Council may take up this week an Arab League call for a no-flight zone over Libya, a decision that Colonel Qaddafi’s government deemed Sunday an “unexpected departure” from the league’s charter. The foreign ministers of major industrial nations are expected to consider the topic at a meeting in Paris on Monday. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to fly on to Egypt and Tunisia afterward, and is expected to meet with Libyan opposition leaders.

¶But a front line that shifted eastward by the day and plunging morale here threatened to outpace a decision that still faces opposition from Russia and China and lacks the clear support of the United States and Europe.

¶The debate abroad overshadowed the stark reality on the ground — planes alone have not defeated the rebels, but rather a relentless onslaught of tanks, artillery, helicopters and ships at sea has sent rebels hurtling back the past several days from a series of oil towns along Libya’s flat, virtually indefensible coastal plain.

¶At the front, pleas for foreign help have grown by the day, from demands for a no-flight zone to growing calls for bombing of Libyan ships at sea, military bases and Bab al-Aziziya, the compound in Tripoli that serves as Colonel Qaddafi’s headquarters.

¶“We demand intervention from America, from Britain, from France!” shouted Wanis Kayhani, 42, a fighter waiting in a parked Toyota pickup near the front. “I personally want them to send troops from abroad to stop this dictator. I swear to God almighty!”

¶“No, no, that won’t work!” another fighter shouted.

¶“Whatever it takes,” Mr. Kayhani replied.

¶Libya’s former interior minister, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, appeared unexpectedly before reporters in Benghazi on Sunday evening in his role as the new head of the rebel army and promised a vigorous defense of Ajdabiya, calling it a “key” city.

¶Once a close ally of Colonel Qaddafi and head of the country’s special forces, General Younes resigned his post in late February to join the rebels. He said that he had spent days at the front lines and acknowledged that opposition fighters had overextended: they advanced “too far, too fast and did not protect the areas they gained,” he said.

¶Striking an optimistic note, though, he cast the setbacks as a strategic decision.

¶“War is a matter of advance and tactical withdrawal,” he said. “What we are trying to do is lure him into an area where we can even the fight.”

¶The day began with military vehicles, ambulances, cars and pickup trucks loaded with everything from anti-aircraft guns to a coat rack fleeing Brega, which rebels held just Saturday. Winds blew sand across the street like drifting snow, as rebel trucks and cars hurtled down both lanes of a two-lane road toward an old sign that read, “Warning ... speeding is the quickest way to die.” There was no traffic going the other way.

¶They regrouped at the entrance to Ajdabiya, where only last week jubilant crowds of many hundreds had beckoned convoys of fighters west to Tripoli.

¶“We are going to defend Ajdabiya now, we have to defend Ajdabiya,” said Massoud Bousier, a 36-year-old fighter who fled Brega. “He has a tank and we have a stone. This Kalashnikov,” he said, raising his rifle, “does nothing. This is like a stone.”

¶So far, the strategy of an invigorated, though no less bizarre Colonel Qaddafi, absolute ruler here for nearly 42 years, has proven clear. With little regard for life, he has pummeled into submission rebel-held towns in his traditional stronghold of the west — Surt and Misuratah among them — and deployed to the east forces believed loyal to his sons to recapture strategic oil towns between his birthplace of Surt and Ajdabiya.

¶Ajdabiya is most strategic for its location, 100 miles from Benghazi and perched on a highway that bypasses eastern Libya’s coastal cities and cuts straight to the border with Egypt, which rebels have lightly defended. It was still unclear whether Colonel Qaddafi would try to take the city in a bloody battle or bypass it en route to Benghazi and the highway.

¶General Younes said he hoped Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would overextend as they advance, and many rebels speculated that his army was already running short on fuel.

¶Even in regions he controls, his rule remains contested. Women organized a small protest in the capital on Sunday, witnesses said, and a rebel spokesman in Misurata said 30 soldiers had defected from a brigade organized by Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Khamis, that has besieged the city.

¶But optimism was in short supply on the rebel side, and officials in Tripoli boasted they would quickly and easily, as they put it, liberate Benghazi, where the opposition has formed a state in waiting.

¶“You do not need a full-scale military attack because when we come to them, they just raise their hands and give up,” said Col. Minad Hussein, a military spokesman.

¶At the edge of Ajdabiya, rebels tried to bring military discipline to the throngs of fervent youth who have volunteered to fight. Gates were closed to two makeshift military bases, where hundreds of boxes of ammunition were stacked in a sprawling courtyard. Volunteers filled dozens of sandbags that were lined behind berms and not yet tied shut.

¶On loudspeakers, rebel leaders urged the curious to leave.

¶“If you don’t have a tank or a heavy weapon, go back home,” one shouted.

¶Rumors swirled — that rebel special forces had encircled government forces in Brega after nightfall, that 8,000 volunteers were coming under cover of night from Benghazi and that Colonel Qaddafi was deploying mercenaries from Egypt. A fear of the unknown endemic to wartime rippled through a town of dull buildings interspersed with pastels of pink, orange and green. Doctors reported shortages of equipment at the hospital, and residents stocked up on infant formula, medicine and food.

¶“When you start fighting, do you think how it’s going to end?” asked Mr. Zway, the engineer. “You don’t. There is no chance to go back now, believe me. Believe me.”

¶A little ways away, near the bulldozer that build the sand embankment, a smiling Abdel-Salam Maatouk sat with friend and drank tea boiled on a small fire.

¶“You live how many times?” he asked. “Once. You die how many times? Once.”

¶His friends nodded, as he offered a smiling soliloquy: “We’ll draw the line at Ajdabiya. And then from there to Surt and then to Tripoli. God willing, I’ll be able to shout chants at Martyrs’ Square in Tripoli, and I’ll be able to do that on a day soon.”

¶Maybe it did not really matter that he could say it tomorrow. He said it today. And as he did, the tea may have tasted a little sweeter and the campfire felt a

¶Kareem Fahim in Benghazi and David D. Kirkpatrick in Tripoli contributed reporting.

By ANTHONY SHADID/Nyt

Analysis: Seawater helps but Japan nuclear crisis is not over

NEW YORK/VIENNA (Reuters) - Pumping seawater into troubled nuclear reactors in Japan should keep them from a catastrophic full-scale meltdown, but conditions are still so volatile that it is far too early to declare the emergency over, nuclear experts said.

It is probably the first time in the industry's 57-year history that seawater has been used in this way, a sign of how close Japan is to facing a major nuclear disaster following the massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday, according to the scientists.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) workers on Sunday were pouring seawater into two reactor cores at the coastal Fukushima Daiichi power plant and were considering using seawater on a third. Authorities have been forced to vent radioactive steam into the air to relieve pressure in the plant and reactors at the company's nearby Daini plant are also troubled.

"I am not aware of anyone using seawater to cool a reactor core before. They must be desperate to find water and the seawater was the only thing nearby," said Richard Meserve, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and president of the Carnegie Institution, in an interview on Sunday.

He said that suggests the company has decided it will sacrifice the reactors altogether, in what has become the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

The method being used to regain a semblance of control of the reactors smacks of last-resort desperation, said Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies and formerly a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy.

"I would describe this measure as a Hail Mary Pass but if they succeed, there is plenty of water in the ocean and if they have the capability to pump this water in the necessary volume and at the necessary rates...then they can stabilize the reactor," said Alvarez in a press conference on Saturday.

In a sign of how volatile the situation is, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement on Sunday in Washington that it fears the situation "took a turn for the worse as serious problems developed" at the Unit 3 reactor at Daiichi.

It said that statements from Tokyo Electric officials indicate that water levels have dropped so far that approximately 90 percent of the fuel rods in the core of the reactor were uncovered and that despite pumping in seawater the water level is still well below where it should be.

The Daiichi plant was shut immediately after the March 11 earthquake when outside power was lost. Diesel generators kept the cooling water running over the superheated uranium fuel rods in the reactor core for about an hour until water from the tsunami caused them to stop.

Without circulating cooling water, the water inside the core was heated by the rods and enough evaporated causing some to partially melt. Adding the seawater should keep the rods from melting further, the scientists said.

The fear is that if the uranium fuel rods did not cool, then they could melt the container that houses the core of the reactor, or even explode, releasing a radioactive material cloud.

The experts interviewed by Reuters cautioned that it is still far too early to definitively say that the day has been saved, especially as the information from the company and the authorities is incomplete.

But they say that with every hour that goes by, the chances of a major catastrophe is diminished -- as long as water from the sea or elsewhere, keeps reactor cores from overheating.

Japanese authorities "appear to be having enough success to have forestalled a definite core melt accident that's difficult to control," said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "After three days that is very good news."

Still, he said it was "still a touch-and-go situation."

A meltdown of nuclear fuel -- which contains most of the radioactivity -- would not lead to a major escape of potentially dangerous clouds into the air as long as thick walls shielding the reactor cores were not breached. The danger is that a full-scale meltdown could cause the pressures that could create that breach through an explosion.

The passage of time may help to reduce the danger, said Professor Richard Wakeford at the Dalton Nuclear Institute of Britain's University of Manchester.

"The reactor cores were still hot when the reactor shut down, as time goes on that radioactive decay heat will get less and the problem will get less," he said in a statement.

TEPCO officials have not publicly addressed the danger facing workers involved in the seawater operation at the three reactors. However, a statement from TEPCO Director Tsuyoshi Otani suggested there is some concern.

"TEPCO staff are currently working near and in the plants and injecting seawater and boric-acid into the reactors to cool down the core under such high radiation atmosphere in order to prevent catastrophe," he said in a press release.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there might have been a partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the No. 1 reactor at the Daiichi plant.

A German industry expert, however, said any partial meltdown "is not a disaster" and that a complete meltdown was unlikely.

Robert Engel, a structural analyst and senior engineer at Switzerland's Leibstadt nuclear power plant, said he believed Japanese authorities would be able to manage the situation at the damaged Fukushima facility north of Tokyo.

Engel was an external member of a team sent by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Japan after a 2007 earthquake that hit Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, at the time the largest such event to affect a nuclear complex.

"I think nobody can say at this time whether there is a small melting of any fuel elements or something like that. You have to inspect it afterwards," he said.

Normally, Engel said, the water level inside a reactor core is 3 to 4 meters above the fuel. If the rods are not covered by water for a short period of time then they will be damaged and a core melting is possible.

"I think they will be able to manage it ... when the (reactor) containment is intact only a small amount of radioactivity can go out, like in Three Mile Island," he said referring to the 1979 nuclear accident at a plant in Pennsylvania in the United States that badly setback the nuclear industry in the United states.

At Three Mile Island, a cooling fault led to a build-up of pressure in the radioactive core and resulted in a relatively small radiation leak.

But Wakeford, the University of Manchester professor, said the Japanese authorities were doing the right thing by evacuating people in the case the worst happens.

"If the fuel is uncovered by cooling water it could become so hot it begins to melt -- if all the fuel is uncovered you could get a large scale meltdown," he warned.

By Scott DiSavino and Fredrik Dahl

Competitive parenting’s latest weapon: Just what competitive parents need in the race to have the best child in the world.

There’ll be no more excuses for under-performing children now their parents can get them tested for sporting prowess.

So, kids, just give up those dreams of being an astronaut and start running! Pic: AP

A US company is selling DNA home testing kits – just swab the little darling and post it off, and they’ll let you know whether you’re nurturing the next Usain Bolt.

Just what competitive parents need in the race to have the best child in the world. Now they can hang around the school gate boasting that not only did little precious learn to align a Rubik’s Cube at two months, he also has the genes of a champion.

Never mind that the science is wobbly at best – with experts arguing that eight in 10 humans have the relevant gene (ACTN3), and that athletic success is slightly more complex than an inbuilt genetic predisposition.

What matters is that for a mere $200-odd, parents have a piece of paper that justifies their overly optimistic expectations.

I used to coach kid’s soccer for an exclusive private school. And the parents were living the stereotype – always thinking their tubby little two-left-footer should be up the front. They’d be on the sidelines, screeching at other kids to pass to their wunderkind.

Imagine if they’d had this kid tested and found out his DNA showed he was set to be the next Flores. There’d be no stopping them.

Or imagine some poor young boy who only dreams of rocketships being told his future is long-distance running. Out come the trainers, on goes the expectant parental smile.

Atlas Sports Genetics describe the test as safe for “the youngest of athletes”, and helpfully suggest it would make a wonderful birthday present for little Johnny.

The Journal of the American Medical Association warns the tests will lead to a “winning is everything” culture for kids, while Australian Medical Association SA President Dr Andrew Lavender said:

It smacks of Hitler’s idea of the ideal race. The product preys on insecurity and ignorance. Most genes interact with each other so it is impossible to exclude specific results.

When mum or dad takes the swab of their kid’s cheeks, what are they dreaming of? Are they imagining the pure joy of their child, forced up before dawn for extra laps of the local pool?

I doubt it. They’re imagining what they’ll be able to tell their friends. Their colleagues. They’re imagining being in the VIP stands as their kid wins Olympic gold, or sitting just behind Bec and Lleyton at the tennis, while their respective progeny battle it out.

And what, then, when the kid hits the oily skids of early adolescence, when he has lost all interest in the outside world and dreams only of slaying cyber-dragons?

Will the parents’ disappointment be all the more bitter for having dreamed of physical perfection?

And this poor kid, battling with the usual pains of growing up, to know they were genetically blessed, but must be mentally flawed to have failed so badly.

Competitive parenting is a blood sport, and this mail-order test is the latest weapon.

The Punch

Japan Earthquake Live Blogs and Live Streams

Live Blogs:

Guardian

BBC

Reuters

Al Jazeera English

NYT’s The Lede

Washington Post

Wall Street Journal

National Post

National Journal

NPR

France24

The Globe and Mail

EA Worldview

MSNBC World Blog

CNN

Salon

The Atlantic Wire

Financial Times

Daily Kos

Blogs of War Crisis Monitor (realtime feeds of Japan hashtags)

Live Streams:

Al Jazeera English

BBC

MSNBC

CNN International

Hawaii TV Live Streams via ProducerMatthew

California, Washington and Oregon TV Live Streams via ProducerMatthew

Kate Winslet Servizio Fotografico – Best Pics Ever

Libya/Crisys: NATO, war, lies and business

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL -  (Taken from CubaDebate)

AS some people know, in September of 1969, Muammar al-Gaddafi, a Bedouin Arab soldier of unusual character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, promoted within the heart of the Armed Forces a movement which overthrew King Idris I of Libya, almost a desert country in its totality, with a sparse population, located to the north of Africa between Tunisia and Egypt.

Libya’s significant and valuable energy resources were progressively being discovered.

Born into the heart of a Bedouin community, nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is known that a paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by the latter in 1911. The colonial regime and fascism changed everyone’s lives. It is likewise said that his father was imprisoned before earning his daily bread as an industrial worker.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries confirm that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high school for his anti-monarchical activities. He managed to enroll in another school and later to graduate in law at the University of Benghazi, aged 21. He then entered the Benghazi Military College, where he created the Union of Free Officers Movement, subsequently completing his studies in a British military academy.

These antecedents explain the notable influence that he later exercised in Libya and over other political leaders, whether or not they are now for or against Gaddafi.

He initiated his political life with unquestionably revolutionary acts.

In March 1970, in the wake of mass nationalist protests, he achieved the evacuation of British soldiers from the country and, in June, the United States vacated the large airbase close to Tripoli, which was handed over to military instructors from Egypt, a country allied with Libya.

In 1970, a number of Western oil companies and banking societies with the participation of foreign capital were affected by the Revolution. At the end of 1971, the same fate befell the famous British Petroleum. In the agricultural sector all Italian assets were confiscated, and the colonialists and their descendants were expelled from Libya.

State intervention was directed toward the control of the large companies. Production in that country grew to become one of the highest in the Arab world. Gambling was prohibited, as was alcohol consumption. The legal status of women, traditionally limited, was elevated.

The Libyan leader became immersed in extremist theories as much opposed to communism as to capitalism. It was a stage in which Gaddafi devoted himself to theorizing, which would be meaningless to include in this analysis, except to note that the first article of the Constitutional Proclamation of 1969, established the "Socialist" nature of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

What I wish to emphasize is that the United States and its NATO allies were never interested in human rights.

The pandemonium that occurred in the Security Council, in the meeting of the Human Rights Council based in Geneva, and in the UN General Assembly in New York, was pure theater.

I can perfectly comprehend the reactions of political leaders embroiled in so many contradictions and sterile debates, given the intrigue of interests and problems which they have to address.

All of us are well aware that status as a permanent member, veto power, the possession of nuclear weapons and more than a few institutions, are sources of privilege and self-interest imposed on humanity by force. One can be in agreement with many of them or not, but never accept them as just or ethical measures.

The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world. Through now not a word was said, silence was maintained and business was conducted.

Whether a latent Libyan rebellion was promoted by yankee intelligence agencies or by the errors of Gaddafi himself, it is important that the peoples do not let themselves be deceived, given that, very soon, world opinion will have enough elements to know what to believe.

In my opinion, and as I have expressed since the outset, the plans of the bellicose NATO had to be condemned.

Libya, like many Third World countries, is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and other international organizations, via which relations are established independently of economic and social system.

Briefly: the Revolution in Cuba, inspired by Marxist-Leninist and Martí principles, had triumphed in 1959 at 90 miles from the United States, which imposed the Platt Amendment on us and was the proprietor of our country’s economy.

Almost immediately, the empire promoted against our people dirty warfare, counterrevolutionary gangs, the criminal economic blockade and the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, guarded by an aircraft carrier and its marines ready to disembark if the mercenary force secured certain objectives.

Barely a year and a half later, it threatened us with the power of its nuclear arsenal. A war of that nature was about to break out.

All the Latin American countries, with the exception of Mexico, took part in the criminal blockade which is still in place, without our country ever surrendering. It is important to recall that for those lacking historical memory.

In January 1986, putting forward the idea that Libya was behind so-called revolutionary terrorism, Reagan ordered the severing of economic and commercial relations with that country.

In March, an aircraft carrier force in the Gulf of Sirte, within what Libya considered its national waters, unleashed attacks which destroyed a number of naval units equipped with rocket launchers and coastal radar systems which that country had acquired in the USSR.

On April 5, a discotheque in West Berlin frequented by U.S. soldiers was the target of a plastic explosives attack, in which three people died, two of them U.S. soldiers, and many people were injured.

Reagan accused Gaddafi and ordered the Air Force to respond. Three squadrons took off from 6th Fleet aircraft carriers and bases in the United Kingdom, and attacked with missiles and bombs seven military targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. Some 40 people died, 15 of them civilians. Warned in advance of the bombardments, Gaddafi gathered together his family and was leaving his residence located in the Bab Al Aziziya military complex south of the capital. The evacuation had not been completed when a missile directly hit the residence, his daughter Hanna died and another two of his children were wounded. That act was widely rejected; the UN General Assembly passed a resolution of condemnation given what was a violation of the UN Charter and international law. The Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League and the OAU did likewise in energetic terms.

On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying from London to New York disintegrated in full flight when a bomb exploded aboard, the wreckage fell on the locality of Lockerbie and the tragedy cost the lives of 270 people of 21 nationalities.

Initially, the United States suspected Iran, in reprisal for the death of 290 people when an Airbus belonging to its state line was brought down. According to the yankees, investigations implicated two Libyan intelligence agents. Similar accusations against Libya were made in the case of the French airline on the Brazzaville-N’Djamena-Paris route, implicating Libyan officials whom Gaddafi refused to extradite for acts that he categorically denied.

A sinister legend was fabricated against him, with the participation of Reagan and Bush Senior.

From 1975 to the final stage of the Regan administration, Cuba dedicated itself to its internationalist duties in Angola and other African nations. We were aware of the conflicts developing in Libya or around her via readings and testimonies from people closely linked to that country and the Arab world, as well as impressions we retained from many figures in different countries with whom we had contact during those years.

Many known African leaders with whom Gaddafi maintained close relations made efforts to find a solution to the tense relations between Libya and the United Kingdom.

The Security Council had imposed sanctions on Libya which began to be overcome when Gaddafi agreed to the trial, under specific conditions, of the two men accused of the plane sabotage over Scotland.

Libyan delegations began to be invited to inter-European meetings. In July 1999 London initiated the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with Libya after some additional concessions.

In September of that year, European Union ministers agreed to revoke the restrictive trade measures imposed in 1992.

On December 2, Massimo D’Alema, the Italian prime minister, made the first visit to Libya by a European head of government.

With the disappearance of the USSR and the European socialist bloc, Gaddafi decided to accept the demands of the United States and NATO.

When I visited Libya in May 2001, he showed me the ruins left by the treacherous attack during which Reagan murdered his daughter and almost exterminated his entire family.

In early 2002, the State Department announced that diplomatic talks between the United States and Libya were underway.

In May, Libya was once again included on the list of states sponsoring terrorism although, in January, President George W. Bush had not mentioned the African country in his famous speech on members of the "axis of evil."

At the beginning of 2003, in accordance with the economic agreement on compensation reached between Libya and the plaintiffs, the United Kingdom and France, the UN Security Council lifted its 1992 sanctions against Libya.

Before the end of 2003, Bush and Tony Blair reported an agreement with Libya, which had submitted documentation to British and U.S. intelligence experts about conventional weapons programs and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers. Officials from both countries had already visited a number of installations. It was the result of many months of conversation between Tripoli and Washington, as Bush himself revealed.

Gaddafi kept his disarmament promises. Within five months Libya handed over the five units of Scud-C missiles with a range of 800 km and hundreds of Scud-B which have a range exceeding the 300 kilometers of defensive short-range missiles.

As of October, 2002, a marathon of visits to Tripoli began: Berlusconi, in October 2002; José María Aznar, in September 2003; Berlusconi again in February, August and October of 2004; Blair, in March of 2004; the German Schröeder, in October of that year; Jacques Chirac, November 2004. Everybody happy. Money talks.

Gaddafi toured Europe triumphantly. He was received in Brussels in April of 2004 by Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission; in August of that year the Libyan leader invited Bush to visit his country; Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and Conoco Philips established renewed oil extraction operations through joint ventures.

In May of 2006, the United States announced the removal of Libya from its list of nations harboring terrorists and established full diplomatic relations.

In 2006 and 2007, France and the U.S. signed accords for cooperation in nuclear development for peaceful ends; in May, 2007, Blair returned to visit Gaddafi in Sirte. British Petroleum signed a contract it described as "enormously important," for the exploration of gas fields.

In December of 2007, Gaddafi made two trips to France to sign military and civilian equipment contracts for 10 billion euros, and to Spain where he met with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Contracts worth millions were signed with important NATO countries.

What has now brought on the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO members' embassies?

It all seems extremely strange.

George W. Bush, father of the stupid anti-terrorist war, said on September 20, 2011 to west Point cadets, "Our security will require … the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world. … to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.

"We must root out terrorist cells in 60 countries or more … with our friends and allies, we have to stop their proliferation and confront regimes which harbor or support terrorism, as is required in each case."

What might Obama think of that speech?

What sanctions will the Security Council impose on those who have killed more than a million civilians in Iraq and those who everyday are murdering men, women and children in Afghanistan, where just recently the angry population took to the streets to protest the massacre of innocent children?

An AFP dispatch from Kabul, dated today, March 9, reveals, "Last year was the most lethal for civilians in the nine-year war between the Taliban and international forces in Afghanistan, with almost 2,800 deaths, 15% more than in 2009, a United Nations report indicated on Wednesday, underlining the human cost of the conflict for the population.

"… The Taliban insurrection has intensified and gained ground in these last few years, with guerrilla actions beyond its traditional bastions in the South and East.

"At exactly 2,777, the number of civilian deaths in 2010 increased by 15% as compared to 2009," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan annual report indicated.

"On March 3, President Barack Obama expressed his profound condolences to the Afghan people for the nine children killed, as did U.S. General David Petraeus, commander in chief of the ISAF and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

"… The UNAMA report emphasizes that the number of civilian deaths is four times greater than the number of international forces soldiers killed in combat during the same year.

"So far, 2010 has been the most deadly for foreign soldiers in the nine years of war, with 711 dead, confirming that the Taliban's guerilla war has intensified despite the deployment of 30,000 U.S. reinforcements last year."

Over the course of 10 days, in Geneva and in the United Nations, more than 150 speeches were delivered about violations of human rights, which were repeated million of times on television, radio, Internet and in the written press.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, in his remarks March 1, 2011 before Foreign Relations ministers in Geneva, said:

"Humanity's conscience is repulsed by the deaths of innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign interference, and guarantee the integrity of that nation."

Some of the final paragraphs of his speech were scathing.

"If the essential human right is the right to life, will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash war?

"Will it suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and attacks on the civilian population, like those taking place in Palestine?

"Will it apply measures to powerful countries which are perpetuating extra-judicial executions in the territory of other states with the use of high technology, such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?

"What will happen with states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories, facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons aboard, or participate in acts of torture?

We fully share the valiant position of the Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

We are against the internal war in Libya, in favor of immediate peace and respect for the lives and rights of all citizens, without foreign intervention, which would only serve to prolong the conflict and NATO interests.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 9, 2011

9:35 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

African consumer stands tall amid commodity boom

 

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Soaring commodity prices are boosting African economies and state budgets, but strong growth on the poorest continent is much more deep-seated than just bumper revenues from ores and oil.

In a far cry from the strained budgets of late 2008 and 2009, when oil and minerals prices collapsed, treasuries in major hydrocarbon producers such as Nigeria and Angola and copper exporters such as Zambia are now flush with cash.

Not only do the flows allow more state spending on the infrastructure needed to entrench prosperity, they also facilitate borrowing -- as is the case with Zambia, which is looking for a $500 million loan from world markets in the next six months.

However, another sharp fall in commodity prices does not spell doom for sub-Saharan Africa, which the International Monetary Fund thinks will grow 5.5 percent this year and 5.8 percent next.

"It's not as direct a correlation as people might think," said John Green, head of global business development at Cape Town-based Investec Asset Management, which has $4 billion invested in Africa outside South Africa.

"In most of sub-Saharan Africa, there's a high level of entrepreneurial energy, and basic infrastructure in terms of communications and banking is now in place. It's very difficult to just shut that down," Green said, speaking at the Reuters Africa Investment Summit.

Proving the point is the vigorous economic performance during the 2002-2008 commodity boom by non-resource producers, such as Kenya, which was humming along at 5 percent annual growth or more from 2005 to 2008.

Similarly, the lesson from the 2008/09 economic crisis is that even in countries with a heavy reliance on mineral extraction, the non-mineral sector can run its own course regardless.

For instance, diamonds are more than a third of GDP in Botswana, the world's biggest producer of the gems, meaning the overall economy took a hammering two years ago when mines were forced to close for the first time in the country's history.

But while mining contracted by 20 percent year-on-year in 2009, the financial and business services sector grew 14 percent and transport and communications 12 percent.

CONSUMING MORE

Of course, oil prices sticking above $100 a barrel will impose a large inflationary burden on the continent, where even major exporters such as Nigeria end up importing most of their petrol and diesel because of a lack of domestic refineries.

But Africa, where food and fuel makes up a much larger slice of the inflation basket than in developed markets, managed to endure crude at $120 a barrel in mid-2008.

And should prices fall back, even producers should be able to weather the storm, according to a 2010 McKinsey analysis of Africa's performance that suggested as little as 20 percent of the region's growth in the last decade was attributable to soaring commodity prices.

Reflecting this, the majority of frontier Africa investors tend to target the region's evolving consumer middle class that is expected to increase its spending from $860 billion in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2020.

"The African growth story is not being led by commodity prices," said Kofi Bucknor, a partner at private equity firm Kingdom Zephyr, which is in the middle of investing a $429 million fund across the region.

Zephyr's existing investments include a South African electricity transmission company, a tuna-processing plant in Ivory Coast and a Barcelona-based firm specializing in producing low-cost housing for north African markets such as Morocco.

In general, banks and telecommunications firms are key investment picks because of the explosive growth they are expected to register in the world's last major untapped region.

A study by consultancy Bain released this week suggests the continent's financial services will grow by 15 percent a year over the next decade, and account for nearly 20 percent of regional output in 2020, from 11 percent now.

"It's a story about economic and political change. It's a story about opening up markets and attracting capital. And it's a story about a growing consumer class that is seeing the effects of globalization, changing its spending habits and asking for a wider range of goods and services," Bucknor said.

"Commodity prices have just been the icing on the cake."

By Ed Cropley, African Investment Correspondent