LIBYA WARNING 06/10/2011: YouTube removes VSMRK’s Truth on Libya reporting account

FROM: Controlled YouTube has removed one of the few Truth on Libya showing accounts after it revealed the results of NATO bombings on Sirte hospital.

If you click at VSMRK’s YouTube account address, as from today you’ll get the following screen and message:

This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement.

Those “severe violations” exist of videos which were uploaded on October 5 and which showed the results of the heavy NATO bombings on the hospital of Sirte which has been repeatedly hit over the past few days during the indiscriminate bombardments on Libyan leader Gaddafi’s hometown. The videos showed part of the hospital being blackened by explosions and hit by bullets from the NATO-rebel forces as well as the numerous victims of the criminal NATO bombing and shelling, and included the following descriptions:

Red Cross reported that NATO Mercenaries were directly attacking Sirte hospital, Hichem Khadhraoui said that “Several rockets landed within the hospital buildings while we were there. We saw a lot of indiscriminate fire At the same time, NATO is stopping civilians from reaching the hospital by bombing roads, residential areas, causing hundreds of wounded civilians to die in the process. Khadhraoui reported that “other wounded or ill people cannot get to the hospital because of the fighting and NATO air strikes”.

and (quoting Libya’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim who visited Sirte on September 26):

The hospital already had stopped working altogether because there is little water, the hospital lacks food and any sort of electricity, it lacks medicine and lots of medical equipment has stopped working. Above that the sewage system of Sirte stopped working so many streets are flooded at the moment, which is of course a ripe environment for diseases, referring to the World Socialist Web Site article The slaughter in Sirte.

One of the last videos VSMRK uploaded included an undated report by a rebel who has been caught by the Libyan army and who told of abductions and killings of Libyan civilians by NATO. Another video mentioned PressTV has become more and more a NATO tool.

During the passed few months the account of VSMRK has shown lots of demonstrations by the five million Libyans who have been protesting against the NATO aggression on Libya which has killed thousands of Libyan men, women and children. Those demonstrations as well as the results and victims of the NATO “humanitarian” bombing of Libya are not showed by the mainstream media and therefore must have been a reason for censorship by Zionist controlled YouTube.

NATO already has tried to cut off any kind of communication in an attempt to hide their criminal actions in Libya by bombing TV stations and phone lines. On the occasion of the anniversary of the Al-Fateh Revolution on September 1, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said about that:

“They [NATO] cut off all communications because they can’t breathe. They fear my voice, to only hear me is already dangerous to the colonizers. Those colonizers and agents fear us communicating and being in touch with each other, which proves that the enemy is weak. If they weren’t weak they wouldn’t have bombed our TV and they would have allowed us to communicate with each other.“

From: Eccleza.

Libya/War4Oil: Anti-Gaddafi Fighters Loot, Burn Homes In Sirte

ABU HADI, Libya -- After capturing this hamlet, a center for Moammar Gadhafi's tribe, revolutionary fighters have gone on a vengeance spree, looting and burning homes and making off with gold, furniture and even automobiles.

Anti-Gaddafi Fighters Loot, Burn Homes In Sirte

Other fighters are trying to persuade them to stop and have sought to protect the tribesmen of the ousted leader. As a result, the rampage in Abu Hadi, a suburb of Gadhafi's home city of Sirte, has underscored a geographical split among the forces loyal to Libya's new interim government.

Most of those looting homes are unorganized, volunteer bands of gunmen from the city of Misrata, to the west, which was brutalized in a bloody siege by Gadhafi's forces during the nearly 7-month uprising against his rule. Trying to rein them in are revolutionaries from eastern Libya, which shook off Gadhafi's rule early and have since had time to organize their forces.

"The Misrata fighters came into the revolution with a sense of bitterness and anger," Breiga al-Maghrabi, an eastern fighter, said Wednesday. "They want revenge for what happened to them in Misrata."

"Look – it's Ali Baba," he told an Associated Press reporter as he cruised streets of Abu Hadi in his pickup truck. He pointed at a residential street where a number of revolutionaries walked out of a home with belongings in their arms. The looters loaded a white Chrysler on the back of a truck and drove away with it.

The capture of Abu Hadi earlier this week was a key step in the revolutionaries' weeks-long siege of Sirte, the most important of the pro-Gadhafi cities that are still holding out against Libya's new rulers. Abu Hadi lies to the south of Sirte, and with revolutionary fighters already on the eastern and western sides of the city – and the Mediterranean Sea lying on its northern side – that means Gadhafi loyalists inside Sirte are now trapped.

The loyalists in the city center have been putting up a powerful defense for three weeks now, and on Wednesday the two sides traded artillery, tank and mortar shelling. Still, a spokesman for the revolutionaries' Defense Ministry, Col. Ahmed Bani, vowed on Wednesday that its forces "will be able to completely dominate Sirte in the next few days."

Deputy Defense Minister Fawzy Abu Kataf said it would take two days of heavy shelling to uproot the remaining pro-Gadhafi fighters in the city. But he said revolutionary fighters were holding off on an all-out assault to allow residents to leave.

Abu Hadi, a center of the ousted leader's Gadhadhfa tribe 10 miles (16 kilometers) from downtown Sirte, was a ghost town. Streets were littered with bullet casings, and black smoke billowed from four homes that had been set ablaze by fighters. Many of the homes laid out in rows in the residential complexes had been broken into, with wooden doors busted, stoves and refrigerators overturned, baby clothes and homework strewn all over the floors.

Fathi al-Shobash, an eastern revolutionary, said that when he tried to stop Misrata fighters from raiding homes, they would push him away and say this was their time to treat the Gadhadhfas the way they were treated by their leader. Gadhafi drew heavily on the Gadhadhfa and other loyalist tribes for his military and other key parts of his regime.

"I came to sincerely fight for freedom and my one goal is to rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi," said al-Shobash. "Why take it out on innocent people from his tribe?"

The tensions between east and west have begun to percolate on a national level as the interim government – set up by easterners – tries to solidify its authority after the fall of Tripoli and Gadhafi's ouster in late August. Already, some in the west have rankled at what they see as attempts by easterners to dominate.

Eastern Libya was the first to rise up in February and set up a quasi-state with a de facto capital in Benghazi, the country's second largest city. That gave them more time to organize their forces, creating a command structure and a degree of discipline in the ranks.

In contrast, western cities faced heavier crackdowns by Gadhafi's forces that kept them divided. Misrata was battered by a siege that was repelled after weeks of bloody street fighting. Western cities have formed brigades of volunteer fighters that have been criticized for being disorganized and acting like armed gangs.

"We ask them, 'Who is your commander,' and they say 'We don't have one,'" al-Maghrabi said of the western revolutionaries at Abu Hadi. "Many are just armed and running around taking out their anger on the homes here."

The tensions erupted at a checkpoint at an Abu Hadi roundabout held by Benghazi fighters. Scuffles broke out when a Misrata fighter refused to take orders from the Benghazi revolutionary.

"You divided the country, admit it – you divided it," the Misrata man shouted at the Benghazi fighter as other revolutionaries tried to pull them apart.

One Misrata revolutionary, Abdullah Faisal, denied men from his city were behind the looting, insisting eastern fighters had let a "fifth column" slip in.

Col. Bashir Abu Thafeera, who commands a brigade of eastern fighters at Abu Hadi, said the Misratans' thirst for vengeance was understandable, given the brutality of the Gadhafi siege of their city.

"They suffered a lot at the beginning of this revolution, and this is also the reaction of 42 years of oppression under Gadhafi," Abu Thafeera told the AP. He said many of the homes that were burned were believed to belong to Gadhafi loyalists who participated in the Misrata siege.

Still, he warned that the same looting could erupt in Sirte itself when it falls. He said eastern fighters would try to move into Sirte more quickly to take control to prevent looting and vengeance attacks.

Most of Abu Hadi's residents fled last week during the fighting before its capture. Families packed up what they could and set up a tent camp several miles away. Abu Thafeera said his troops were trying to ensure their safety so they could return.

One resident, Saada Gheit, came to look in on her home and found it looted. "They took my gold, raided my closets. I don't know why they are taking out their anger on us," she told the AP.

The 47-year-old Gheit and 10 other families have taken refuge in another house nearby. Gheit on Wednesday cooked a meal in a giant cauldron over a bonfire in the courtyard as children ran around nearby. She said her family car was packed with blankets and clothing in case they need to flee again.

"All we can do is run from place to place," she said. "They don't like Moammar Gadhafi, but what was our crime?"

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI 10/ 5/11
04:31 PM ET

Benghazi Oil-rich city of east bids for power in new Libya

Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi would risk fading back into obscurity after a six-month interlude as the seat of the revolutionary government were it not for one powerful asset: oil.

Benghazi residents are struggling to convert their wartime sacrifices into economic clout to restore the status of a city once deemed on a par with the capital, Tripoli, and rescue it from its relative obscurity in the Muammar Gaddafi era.

Under Gaddafi, Benghazi was at the mercy of Tripoli for its share of state funding, even though most of this is generated from nearby eastern oil fields. Libya’s economy is almost entirely reliant on oil and gas revenue.

Cradle of the anti-Gaddafi revolt, Benghazi had languished low on the deposed ruler’s list of spending priorities, which many see as punishment for a tradition of eastern resistance to his 42 years of one-man rule — and to Tripoli’s dominance.

“There’s a feeling of entitlement in Benghazi and they want rewards. They held the fort for six months and this came on the back of a period of repression,” said a Libyan oil industry source in the city where the interim National Transitional Council (NTC) set up its headquarters early in the revolt.

Youssef Mahmoud, an engineer at Jowef Oil, a subsidiary of the state National Oil Corporation (NOC), typifies the sort of grassroots resource regionalism that has the potential to shake up the North African country’s bedrock industry.

He heads a group of about 4,000 state oil workers called the Feb. 17 Oil Committee, and is lobbying Libya’s interim rulers for a “greater say in oil policy” that would be symbolised by moving NOC headquarters from Tripoli to Benghazi.

“Gaddafi took it (the NOC) to Tripoli because he wanted control. But where are the fields?” complained Mahmoud, jabbing his finger at a map of Libya, showing a large clump of black circles representing oil fields in the eastern Sirte Basin.

The east supplies more than 60 percent of oil exports and much of Libya’s untapped oil is thought to be in this region, including the virgin Kufra Basin near the Sudanese border.

Libya has Africa’s largest oil reserves.

Benghazi residents hope oil revenue, worth around $130 million a day at current Brent prices, can fuel an economic revival in the east, from cleaning up the streets to promoting new industries such as tourism.

“It’s not just oil, we have beautiful places,” said Ali, who works in a youth hostel in Benghazi.

Old postcards in hotel cabinets remind visitors of the city’s former charms. One shows the long, crescent-shaped Italian ‘Lungomare’, or seaside promenade, with its Doric columns and distinctive double-domed Catholic cathedral. Another pictures Juliana Beach full of happy, paddling children.

Today, seafront visitors encounter the near-ubiquitous smell of sewage and rusting carcasses of broken-down cars.

POINT OF NO RETURN

It may be hard for Libya’s new rulers to ignore Benghazi’s demands, given the role the city played in initiating the revolt against Gaddafi in February and spearheading a NATO-backed military campaign that has pushed his troops back to Sirte.

Eastern Libya’s many former revolutionary brigades will not want to see their region lose out in the post-Gaddafi era — although fighters from the Western Mountains and Misrata may be just as keen to turn their military exploits into political power.

Benghazi’s trump card, however, is oil.

“When armed local stakeholders, and perhaps militias, start saying this oil is on our territory, it becomes an emerging political risk,” said Henry Smith, Libya analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks.

Besides the city’s well-documented political and military roles, the Benghazi-based Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) played a vital role for Libya in selling oil and buying fuel when international sanctions had incapacitated the NOC.

This inverted the relationship between the parent company and its subsidiary, perhaps irreversibly.

A senior NOC source said plans were in place to wrest control back from Agoco by mid-October, but added that the relationship between the two firms would likely have to alter.

“There will be a struggle for power. The NOC wants to go back to its old role and Agoco is saying that it supported the revolution so it wants a bigger say,” he said.

“It wants a commercial basis. Agoco wants to get some profits from the operations.”

In an indication of the simmering tensions, a source within Agoco referred to the NOC as “Bab al-Aziziya for the oil sector” — the name of Gaddafi’s fortified compound in Tripoli.

OLD AND NEW RIVALRIES

Healing the historical east-west rifts, and new ones that have emerged during the revolution, will be a key test for interim rulers in the factionalised and heavily-armed country.

Cultural divisions between Tripoli and Benghazi pre-date Roman times when Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were separate provinces. Libya’s Senussi kings were from the east and Benghazi was seen as Tripoli’s equal before army officers led by Gaddafi toppled King Idris in 1969.

Months of conflict have reinforced a sense of distance between Tripoli and Benghazi, 1,000 km apart.

Poor telephone links mean Libyans must dial internationally between the two cities. Gaddafi forces are still holding out in the coastal city of Sirte, impeding traffic on the main east-west highway and forcing travellers to fly via a NATO air corridor in the Mediterranean or to go by ship.

Benghazi’s ambitions for economic power in the new Libya may sound aspirational, but some politicians may be listening.
All three foreign leaders who visited Libya last month — French, British and Turkish — chose to visit the city.

“(French President Nicolas) Sarkozy has given a message by coming to speak in Benghazi. He is saying that Benghazi should not be ignored,” said Nasser Ahdash, head of the National Forum, a political group which has helped organise marches to back demands that Benghazi should be Libya’s economic capital.

In another nod to the eastern city, NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, from eastern Libya himself, has not yet moved to Tripoli from Benghazi. Initially, his foot-dragging was seen as linked to security concerns. Now it looks more political.

The NTC’s vice-chairman and spokesman, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, said the move would not happen until Libya is fully “liberated” from Gaddafi and that the NTC would not abandon Benghazi.

“We will keep a base for the NTC. Benghazi is necessary.”

Georgia Continues Military Build-Up On Abkhaz, South Ossetian Borders

Georgia ‘continues military build-up’ on Abkhaz, South Ossetia borders

Georgia is boosting its military potential at its borders with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Tuesday.

Speaking after a regular round of Geneva Discussions on security in Transcaucasia, Karasin said there was “continuing activity of sabotage and reconnaissance groups” in the breakaway republics, aimed at “destabilizing the situation” in border areas.

Such activities, he said, undermine the confidence building process between Georgia and its former republics.

He also added that the time had come for Georgia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries and develop proper relations with them.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, following a five-day war with Georgia. The war began when Georgia attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.

October 4, 2011 | Russian Information Agency Novosti

Libya/War for oil: Life inside besieged Libyan city of Sirte is "unimaginable"

By Tim Gaynor

SIRTE | Tue Oct 4, 2011 2:36pm EDT

Oct 4 (Reuters) - Fleeing besieged Sirte, Ali Durgham couldn't stop the tears as he described how his father had been killed by a stray shell as he walked to the mosque with his brother.

"He died in my arms," Durgham said. "I buried him yesterday."

The young man's uncle is now in Sirte's Ibn Sina hospital -- but it, too, has been hit in the fighting, residents said.

"The hospital is being attacked with shells," Durgham said, echoing other people leaving the city. "It's filled with dirt. There's only three doctors who are working with patients."

Despite the shelling and a deeper push into the city by interim government forces ahead of what may be a final battle, he said he was determined to go back into Sirte on Wednesday to bring his uncle out.

The stories told by the people streaming out of Muammar Gaddafi's hometown, mostly recounted at checkpoints manned by anti-Gaddafi forces, provide a grim snapshot of life inside.

"It is unimaginable back there," Masoud Awidat, who had just driven out of the town in a car with a bullet-riddled windscreen and door, told Reuters.

"It gets worse every day. There's no food. There are fires, apartments are destroyed."

Terrified residents are sleeping in the streets and under stairs for fear that their roofs will fall in overnight.

People talked of two families whose cars had been hit by rocket propelled grenades as they tried to flee the city.

One man showed a piece of string holding up his trousers because he had not eaten for so long.

"These used to fit me," he said.

A Red Cross team who managed to deliver medical supplies to Sirte's hospital has reported that the city of about 100,000 people has no power. Civilians say many streets are flooded.

Sirte has been under attack for about three weeks, the target of a couple of all-out assaults and near-constant shelling by interim government forces and NATO air strikes.

"IT WILL BE LIKE GADDAFI SAID"

Pro-Gaddafi fighters inside are putting up fierce resistance and, NATO and some civilians say, forcibly recruiting locals to fight alongside them and preventing people from getting out.

"We reached the outskirts of the city but the militia stopped us from leaving," Awidat said of a previous attempt he made to leave. He managed to slip out on Tuesday morning.

"Where we live there are still families trapped," he said.

Sirte presents a conundrum for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) and for NATO, whose mandate in Libya is to protect of civilians.

The NTC must strike a balance between a prolonged fight that would delay their efforts to govern and a quicker but bloody victory that would worsen regional divisions and embarrass the fledgling government and its foreign backers.

Some civilians say pro-Gaddafi fighters are hiding in residential areas, raising fears of vicious street battles ahead.

"Sirte is not going to be like Tripoli," said NTC medic Mashallah Al-Zoy, referring to the relatively easy manner in which anti-Gaddafi fighters swept into the capital.

"It will be street-to-street, house-to-house, like (Gaddafi) said."

Some residents now cannot afford the scarce fuel they need to drive out to safety, the United Nations and aid groups say.

Residents said pasta and flour had become precious commodities.

NTC fighters, viewed with suspicion by many people leaving Sirte, have been handing out food and drinks at makeshift kiosks along the route.

"I haven't eaten bread in weeks," said Fathi al-Naji as he crammed a tuna sandwich into his mouth.

Some people leaving on Tuesday looked lost.

Three women and two men from Chad, who said they had lived in Sirte for years, wandered along a roadside not far from the town, with nine bewildered children but no belongings.

When asked how much longer he estimated food supplies in Sirte could last, one of the men answered: "what food?". (Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal in Sirte; Writing by Barry Malone; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Libya/Neo-colonization: New Libyan NTC regime torturing prisoners

A US human rights watchdog has called on Libya's new regime to stop its loyalists from rounding up suspected opposition forces and torturing and enslaving them.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Friday that militiamen loyal to the Nato-backed National Transitional Council have locked up thousands of people on suspicion of supporting former leader Muammar Gadaffi, including women and children - and none have been brought before a judge.

It said that some detainees reporting beatings and electric shocks had the scars to prove it.

HRW staff recently visited 20 detention camps in Tripoli and interviewed 53 inmates, including 37 Libyan citizens and 16 sub-Saharan Africans.

The investigators discovered that NTC-aligned gunmen had forced some dark-skinned Libyan people and migrants to do manual labour, including carrying heavy materials, cleaning and renovating buildings around Tripoli or on military bases.

Detainees who reported abuse said guards beat them, sometimes daily.

HRW did not to release the names of detainees and facilities for fear of reprisals against those interviewed.

A sub-Saharan African man identified only as Mohammed wept as he showed HRW investigators welts on his arms, back and neck from beatings by guards at a small detention camp.

And seven prisoners in two facilities, including women, said guards had subjected them to electric shocks.

HRW regional director Joe Stork said: "After all that Libyans suffered in Muammar Gadaffi's jails, it's disheartening that some of the new authorities are subjecting detainees to arbitrary arrest and beatings today.

"The NTC owes it to the people of Libya to show that they will institute the rule of law from the start."

The NTC is struggling to form a new government amid infighting over government posts and continued resistance to its rule in several towns.

• Italian energy giant Eni has signed a deal to restart oil and natural gas plants under Italian management.

  The firm hopes to get natural gas, another mainstay of Libya's economy, flowing to Italy again through the Greenstream pipeline by October.

by Tom Mellen

Florêncio da Conceição de Almeida, Ambassador to Italy presents credentials

 

Luanda/Angop – The Angolan extraordinary and Plenipotentiary ambassador to Italy, Florêncio da Conceição de Almeida, delivered his figured letters Thursday in Rome, to the Diplomatic Ceremonial chief of Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Stefano Ronca.

The ambassador Stefano Ronca said he is willing to help the “new” diplomat, and transmitted well-come greetings from the head of Italian diplomacy, Franco Frattini.

Stefano Ronca stressed also Italian interest in continuing “to supply” Italian companies working in Angola.

While congratulating his interlocutor by the reception, ambassador Florêncio de Almeida said that his mission will be based on “reinforcing political and economic cooperation between both nations”, as well as intensifying the contacts with the Italian private entrepreneur sector.

Florêncio da Conceição de Almeida, who was appointed last June, as ambassador to Italy is the ninth Angolan representative at that European nation.