| Students, Activists Arrested in Zimbabwe for Watching Al Jazeera Posted: 21 Feb 2011 08:13 PM PST In a preemptive move to prevent a democratic uprising in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has cracked down on those watching the BBC or Al Jazeera. The mere act of watching such videos might land someone in prison for 20 years. Please consider Arrests in Zimbabwe for Seeing VideosDozens of students, trade unionists and political activists who gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC news reports on the uprisings that brought down autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to oust President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
James Sabau, a spokesman for the police force, which is part of the security services controlled by Mr. Mugabe's party, was quoted in Monday's state-controlled newspaper as saying that the 46 people in custody were accused of participating in an illegal political meeting where they watched videos "as a way of motivating them to subvert a constitutionally elected government."
The evidence seized by the police included a video projector, two DVD discs and a laptop.
Lawyers for the men and women in custody said they had not yet been formally charged but had been advised that they might be accused of "attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means," a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Mr. Mugabe, who turned 87 on Monday, and his party ruled Zimbabwe single-handedly from 1980 until 2009, when regional leaders pressured him into forming a power-sharing government with his longtime political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, after a discredited 2008 election. Mr. Tsvangirai withdrew from a June runoff that year to protest state-sponsored beatings of thousands of his supporters. An estimated 350 people died in the violence.
And while the army in Egypt did not side with Mr. Mubarak when his people rose up against him, most analysts assume that the leadership of Zimbabwe's military would try to crush any such movement — though such an effort would also severely test the loyalty of impoverished soldiers to their military commanders.
"Indeed, the single most important lesson from Tunisia and Egypt is that we as Zimbabweans are our own liberators," Trevor Ncube, owner of three independent newspapers in Zimbabwe and The Mail & Guardian in South Africa, wrote this week in The Mail & Guardian. Mr. Ncube added later, "The world will only help us when we stand up and fight for our freedom and reclaim our country from Mugabe and the arrogant clique around him." Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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| Gallup Economic Confidence Index Stuck at -26 Since February 2009 Posted: 21 Feb 2011 07:37 PM PST After a quick jump from -60 in February 2009 to -26 in June 2009, the Gallup Weekly Confidence Index has been range-bound between -20 and -30 ever since. The confidence index now sits at -26, where it was two years ago.  Gallup's Economic Confidence Index is based on the combined responses to two questions, the first asking Americans to rate economic conditions in this country today, and second, whether they think economic conditions in the country as a whole are getting better or getting worse. Results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,500 national adults; margin of error is ±2 percentage points.This is just further evidence of what most know. There was a recovery in financial assets but no recovery in the real world. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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| Warplanes, Militia Fire on Libyan Protesters; Libya’s U.N. Diplomats Break With Qaddafi, Call Leader "Genocidal War Criminal"; Gaddafi Flees Libya? Posted: 21 Feb 2011 12:40 PM PST In what may be best described as the start of a civil war, Warplanes and Militia Fire on Protesters in Libyan CapitalThe faltering government of the Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule, as helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital Monday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.
By Monday afternoon, a witness saw armed militiamen firing on protesters who were clashing with riot police. As a group of protesters and the police faced off in a neighborhood near Green Square, in the center of the capital, ten or so Toyota pickup trucks carrying more than 20 men — many of them apparently from other African countries in mismatched fatigues — arrived at the scene.
Holding small automatic weapons, they started firing in the air, and then started firing at protesters, who scattered, the witness said. "It was an obscene amount of gunfire," said the witness. "They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction." The police stood by and watched, the witness said, as the militiamen, still shooting, chased after the protesters.
The escalation of the conflict came after Colonel Qaddafi's security forces had earlier in the day retreated to a few buildings in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, fires burned unchecked, and senior government officials and diplomats announced defections. The country's second-largest city remained under the control of rebels.
Security forces loyal to Mr. Qaddafi defended a handful of strategic locations, including the state television headquarters and the presidential palace, witnesses reported from Tripoli. Fires from the previous night's rioting burned at many intersections, most stores were shuttered, and long lines were forming for a chance to buy bread or gas. Libya's U.N. Diplomats Call Qaddafi "Genocidal War Criminal"The New York Times reports Libya's U.N. Diplomats Break With QaddafiMembers of Libya's mission to the United Nations publicly repudiated Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Monday, calling him a genocidal war criminal responsible for mass shootings of demonstrators protesting against his four decades in power. They called upon him to resign.
The repudiation, led by Libya's deputy permanent representative at a news conference at the mission's headquarters in New York, amounted to the most high-profile defection of Libyan diplomats in the anti-Qaddafi uprising that has convulsed Libya over the past week.
"We are sure that what is going on now in Libya is crimes against humanity and crimes of war," the deputy permanent representative, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told reporters in the ground-floor lobby of the Libyan mission on Manhattan's East Side, adorned by a large portrait of Colonel Qaddafi in tribal dress atop a white horse.
About a dozen of Mr. Dabbashi's colleagues stood behind him as he spoke, looking tense and nervous.
"We state clearly that the Libyan mission is a mission for the Libyan people," he said. "It is not for the regime. The regime of Qaddafi has already started the genocide against the Libyan people."
He called upon Colonel Qaddafi to step down and leave the country "as soon as possible." British Foreign Secretary says Gaddafi Heads for VenezuelaBritish Foreign Secretary William Hague claims Information Gaddafi on way to VenezuelaForeign Secretary William Hague said on Monday he had seen some information to suggest Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi had fled the country and was on his way to Venezuela.
"You asked me earlier about whether Colonel Gaddafi is in Venezuela," he told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. "I have no information that says he is, but I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there at the moment."
Diplomats said Hague was not referring to rumours circulating in the media about Gaddafi's whereabouts, but to separate sources for the information. Venezuela denies reports Gaddafi's on his way The first casualty of war is the truth, so it's hard to know what to believe. However, Venezuela denies reports Gaddafi's on his wayVenezuela's Communications and Information Minister Andres Izarra told the Latin American television network Telesur denied reports that Gaddafi's may be headed for Venezuela. Other government sources rejected his imminent arrival as well, following suggestions by British Foreign Secretary William Hague that Gaddafi could be on his way to Venezuela.
'I have no information that says he is (already there), although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there at the moment,' Hague said in Brussels earlier Monday.
The Venezuela of left-wing populist President Hugo Chavez has held friendly ties with Gaddafi's fellow-oil producing Libya. Gaddafi visited the South American country in September 2009, while Chavez reciprocated in October 2010. One has to wonder if calls by the Libyan delegates for Qaddafi to leave someone got twisted into "Qaddafi has already fled". Given numerous intelligence failures in the past several weeks, there is no reason to give strong credence to much of anything except live coverage or actual eyewitness accounts from reputable sources. Al Jazeera Live BlogInquiring minds may be interested in the Al Jazeera Libya Live BlogHere are some items of note ... Leading Sunni Cleric issues fatwa encouraging the assassination of Gaddafi. 10:40pm: Yusuf Al Qardawi, a leading Sunni cleric, has just issued a fatwa on Al Jazeera Arabic, encouraging the assassination of Gaddafi.
10:25pm: More on the resignation of the two diplomats from the embassy in Washington DC. Counsels Saleh Ali Al Majbari and Jumaa Faris denounced Gaddafi, saying he "bears responsibility for genocide against the Libyan people in which he has used mercenaries". They said they had nothing to do with the events and they no longer represent Gaddafi's regime - but that they represent the Libyan people. The pair also called on Barack Obama to "work urgently with the international community to press for an immediate cessation of the massacres of the Libyan people", and they are asking the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone imposed on Libya to prevent the arrival of mercenaries to Libya. 9:41pm: Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hosam Zaki says the Egyptian army has been ordered to facilitate the evacuation of all Egyptians from Libya. Some 100 buses, full of Egyptians, are on their way to the Libya-Egypt border - where the army has set up relief tents. The ministry is "deeply concerned" by Saif Gaddafi's speech last night, which they say accused Egyptians of being behind Libya's violence Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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| Libya Faces Civil War; Qaddafi's Son Says Rivers of Blood Will Flow; Chaos in Morocco; Oil Spikes Posted: 21 Feb 2011 03:58 AM PST The playbook in Libya looks nothing like what recently transpired in Tunisia and Egypt. As Libyan protests escalate, Qaddafi's Son Warns of Civil War. A five-day-old uprising in Libya took control of its second-largest city of Benghazi and spread for the first time to the capital of Tripoli late on Sunday as the heir-apparent son of its strongman, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, warned Libyans in a televised speech that their oil-rich country would fall into civil war and even renewed Western "colonization" if they threw off his father's 40-year-long rule.
Witnesses in Tripoli interviewed by telephone on Sunday night said protesters were converging on the capital's central Green Square and clashing with the heavily armed riot police. Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes and machetes. The police had retreated from some neighborhoods, and protesters were seen armed with police batons, helmets and rifles commandeered from riot squads.
"The state has disappeared from the streets," said Mansour Abu Shenaf, a writer living in Tripoli, "and the people, the youth, have practically taken over."
The younger Mr. Qaddafi blamed Islamic radicals and Libyans in exile for the uprising. He offered a vague package of reforms in his televised speech, potentially including a new flag, national anthem and confederate structure. But his main theme was to threaten Libyans with the prospect of civil war over its oil resources that would break up the country, deprive residents of food and education, and even invite a Western takeover.
"Libya is made up of tribes and clans and loyalties," he said. "There will be civil war."
The whereabouts of Colonel Qaddafi himself remained unclear on Sunday. Over the last three days his security forces have killed at least 173 people, according to a tally by the group Human Rights Watch. Several people in Benghazi hospitals, reached by telephone, said they believed that as many as 200 had been killed and more than 800 wounded there on Saturday alone, with many of the deaths from machine gun fire. And after protesters marched in a funeral procession on Sunday morning, the security forces opened fire again, killing at least 50 more, Human Rights Watch said.
Under Colonel Qaddafi's idiosyncratic rule, tribal bonds remain primary even within the ranks of the military, and both protesters and the security forces have reason to believe that backing down will likely mean their ultimate death or imprisonment.
But in a break with the Qaddafi government, the powerful al-Warfalla and al-Zuwayya tribes came out against Colonel Qaddafi on Sunday. "We tell him to leave the country," a spokesman for the al-Warfalla told the pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera.
The Libyan government has tried to impose a blackout on the country. Foreign journalists cannot enter. Internet access has been almost totally severed, with only occasional access, though some protesters appear to be using satellite connections or phoning information to services outside the country. Qaddafi's Son Says Rivers of Blood Will FlowBloomberg has some interesting details in Qaddafi's Son Warns of Libyan Civil War, Offers Dialogue"Instead of weeping over 84 dead people, we will weep over hundreds of thousands of dead," Saif al-Islam Qaddafi said on state television. "Rivers of blood will flow."
Qaddafi said some demonstrators had captured military equipment, and warned that the conflict may halt the flow of oil. BP Plc halted exploration work in the Libyan desert.
Libya, holder of Africa's largest oil reserves, is the latest country in the region to be rocked by protests ignited by the ouster of Tunisia's president last month and energized by the fall of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. Violence has flared in Yemen, Djibouti and Bahrain as governments sought to crack down on demands for change.
"The speed of the whole thing in Libya has surprised most of the specialists because Colonel Qaddafi established a very special repressive system of his own," Amin Saikal, director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at Australian National University, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "Probably the casualties will be extremely high and therefore Qaddafi will be left with very little credibility to really go on and govern the country for much longer."
In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh held a press conference in the capital, Sanaa, to rule out meeting all the demands of protesters demanding his ouster. Demonstrators took to the streets for an 11th day as Saleh said their calls for regime change are "not logical."
In Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, seven opposition groups were drawing up demands to put to the government as they discussed the government's call for dialogue, said Ebrahim Sharif, head of the National Democratic Action Society. Protests have been led by the Shiite Muslim majority, which says it is discriminated against by Sunni rulers.
Thousands of Bahrainis yesterday poured back into the central square that has become the focus of protest in the Bahraini capital, Manama, after tanks, armored personnel carriers and riot police withdrew on the orders of Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Unions called off a general strike planned for today in response.
Demonstrations also were reported yesterday in Iran and Morocco. One protester was shot dead in Tehran as thousands gathered in main squares in the Iranian capital and clashed with government supporters, Dubai-based Al Arabiya television said. Security forces also clashed with demonstrators in the city of Shiraz, it reported. There were clashes last week between protesters and security forces in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa nation that hosts the only U.S. military base on the continent. Chaos in MoroccoPlease consider Fears of Chaos Temper Calls for Change in MoroccoFor Morocco, a kingdom on the western edge of North Africa, the calls for change sweeping the region are muted by a fear of chaos, a prevalent security apparatus and genuine respect for the king, Mohammed VI. Since he took the throne in 1999, the king, who is only 47, has done much to soften the harsh and often brutal rule of his father, Hassan II.
On Sunday, in response to a "February 20 Movement for Change" that began on Facebook, more than 10,000 people turned out in cities across the country to call for democratic change, lower food prices, freedom for Islamist prisoners, rights for Berbers and a variety of causes, including pan-Arab nationalism.
"This is a start," said Imane Safi, 18, who was at the demonstration in Casablanca. "The Arab world is changing and the Moroccan people need a change in the Constitution for more democracy. We want a country like Britain, with a constitutional monarchy and a strong Parliament that is not corrupt." Oil Rises as Libya Violence Prompts Middle East Supply ConcernBloomberg reports Oil Rises as Libya Violence Prompts Middle East Supply ConcernOil for April delivery rose for a fourth day in New York as violence escalated in Libya, bolstering concern supplies will be disrupted as turmoil spreads through the Middle East and North Africa.
"Libya is producing 1.5 million to 1.6 million barrels a day, so any unrest is concerning," Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital, said by phone from London. "Until things settle there, prices are underpinned."
Libya, the eighth-largest oil producer among those with quotas in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has become the focal point of region-wide protests ignited by the ouster of Tunisia's president last month and energized by the fall of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak last week. Violence has flared in Yemen, Djibouti and Bahrain as governments sought to crack down on calls for reform. Demonstrations also were reported yesterday in Iran and Morocco.
"There is also the continued risk that this contagion will spread into Iran or another country in the region that is more important to the global oil market," Ben Westmore, a minerals and energy economist at National Australia Bank Ltd., said by phone from Melbourne. Contagion List- Libya
- Yemen
- Djibouti
- Bahrain
- Iran
- Morocco
Tunisia, and Egypt were relatively peaceful, what will the rest bring? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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