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wmulnea

Provisional Government in Libyan Capital Forces Out Its Own Prime Minister - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • His departure removed a potential obstacle to unity talks organized by the United Nations to try to end the fighting that has divided the country.
  • His deputy, Khalifa Ghweil, will take over as interim prime minister
  • The other faction, based in the eastern cities of Tobruk and Bayda, includes the internationally recognized Parliament
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  • Mr. Hassi also dismissed recent footage released by the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, showing the beheading of a group of Egyptian Christians
  • He said it was “a fabricated Hollywood-like video” concocted by his opponents “to create divisions between us and the Egyptian people,”
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    The Tripoli based anti-Islamist militia government has fired its Prime Minister for incompetence.
csosa14

Iraq: Parts of Tikrit taken back from ISIS - CNN.com - 0 views

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    Iraqi forces battling to wrest Tikrit from ISIS are now in control of the city, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday on Iraqiya TV.
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    Iraqi forces battling to wrest Tikrit from ISIS are now in control of the city, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday on Iraqiya TV.
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    Iraqi forces battling to wrest Tikrit from ISIS are now in control of the city, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday on Iraqiya TV.
allieggg

Two rival Libyan governments claim to control oil policy | Top News | Reuters - 1 views

  • Oil traders are concerned about the uncertainty over who is in charge of Libya's vast oil reserves after the Misrata group appointed its own oil minister and took over the official website of state firm National Oil Corp (NOC).
  • ncertainty about the oil industry, which had just started to show signs of recovery after Thinni managed to end a blockage of major eastern ports by groups of rebels demanding autonomy.
  • the newly appointed oil minister, Mashallah al-Zawi,
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  • Thinni, whose government is recognised by the international community, responded from Bayda, a town east of Benghazi, where his government has relocated and is trying to stay in contact with ministries almost 1,000 km (620 miles) away in Tripoli.
  • He said oil revenues for the OPEC member state continued to enter a Libyan bank, which transferred them to the central bank.
  • "They are under the control of the state of Libya and the government approved by the Libyan parliament," he said, referring to the elected House of Representatives, which has moved to Tobruk, east of Bayda near the Egyptian border.
  • chairman of National Oil Corp, Mustafa Sanallah
  • Zawi said oil revenue, Libya's sole source of income, would be around only a fifth of last year's level due to the wave of protests at oilfields and ports.
  • Western powers worry that the conflict between the Bayda- and Tripoli-based governments will lead to civil war and that the elected government's nascent army is no match for former rebels of various factions who defy state authority.
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    As their sole source of income the control over oil policy and revenue proves to be a huge factor in which government will gain control over the greater Libya. Thinni, the prime minister recognized by the international community, has assured OPEC members that oil revenues are deposited into the Libyan Bank, which then transfers them to the central bank. While this may be true, OPEC members are worried that the continuation of Islamist militant aims for political autonomy through the occupation and attacks on oil ports. BPD have already become a fifth of what they maintained just one year ago. 
kbrisba

Tunisia: New Cabinet Excludes Islamists - 0 views

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    Prime Minister Habib Essid announced a new minority government that excludes most of the major figures on the political scene, including Islamist and leftist parties. The 24 ministers presented appear to come from two parties that may not have enough seats to survive a no-confidence vote. This means lacking seats in Parliament they may have difficulty carrying out the necessary reforms to fix Tunisia's economic problems.
atownen

Israel's torture method: Force-feeding - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

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    This article was posted from August 2015, but a shocking story I came across while looking at recent Middle East events. Israel's Minister of Culture and Sports and Israel's Prime Minister suppot force-feeding as a torture tactic against Palestinian inmates.
taylordillingham

untitled - 0 views

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    The Tunisian Prime Minister has promised a lot of economic growth and progress for the country.
wmulnea

Libya Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni resigns - BBC News - 2 views

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    Prime minister Thini resigns. Government control is difficult with resistance groups refusing to disarm after they ousted Qadafi. Islamist linked militia take Tripoli.
wmulnea

Libya Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni re-appointed | eNCA - 1 views

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    Thini is reinstated as prime minister of Libya, although the official government is in hiding and has lost control of vital parts of the country's infrastructure to Islamist militia..
irede123

Israel admits hitting Hezbollah-bound arms | News24 - 0 views

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    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly admitted on Monday for the first time that Israel had attacked dozens of convoys transporting weapons in Syria destined for the Jewish state's arch-enemy Hezbollah.
allieggg

Davutoglu: Failure to support democracy led to ISIL Anadolu Agency - 0 views

  • The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is caused by the world's failure to support democracy in the Middle East,
  • " ISIL now exists because we did not properly support the democratic transition processes in 2012, not becauseISIL is so strong or the Syrian and Iraqi people are aligned to ISIL-like radical acts."
  • "We welcomed the Arab Spring when it first began to flourish as we thought the EU and the U.S. would support and finance the Middle East just as they did for the wind of democracy in the Balkans,"
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  • Davutoglu said countries like Poland and Romania now enjoy democracy due to finance from the EU but, he added, "no state came up to finance democracy in the Middle East."
  • Syria faces a terrorist threat instead of  democracy is because the world abandonedSyria.
  • "Islamic communities that have a deep-rooted culture of politics have the capacity, like any other nation and religion, to both keep democracy alive and improve it,” he added. “Neither Islam nor the world of Islam can be correlated with entities like ISIL."
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    Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke at the World Economic Forum about the world's lack of assistance in the transition to democracy in the Middle East and how that ultimately facilitated the birth of ISIL. He explains how a number of EU states were able to maneuver into the democratic realm with the assistance and guidance of the EU, illuminating the idea that the Middle East should be no different. Davutoglu condemns the west for abandoning Middle Eastern states in their dire time of need. While countries around the world supported the Arab Spring, they did nothing to support or finance it to success. He says it would be wrong to correlate the birth of ISIL with Islam, explaining how Islamic communities are perfectly capable of embracing democratic systems. However, assistance in its implementation is vital.
kbrisba

US Backs Tunisia's Efforts to Improve Investment Appeal - ABC News - 0 views

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    Last month Tunisia installed a new government. The conference was a way of telling the world that Tunisia is back on track. The Prime Minister talked about how he promises for economic reform as well as hopes that the long delayed free trade agreement between the U.S. and Tunisia could be finally completed.
sheldonmer

Blair's doctrine in Egypt: the 'anti-terrorism' industry and counter-revolution | Middl... - 0 views

    • sheldonmer
       
      This article on Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the UK, talks about how he is now advising Sisi in Egypt on "economic reform". This article critiques Blair's message by saying that his "anti-terrorism" tactics are actually preventing Egypt from moving forward, it just promotes the status quo. This article goes on to talk about how to control state terrorism and non-state terrorism. The argument is that terrorism is a reaction, and when you have nothing to legitimize terrorism as a reaction to non-state issues, what can you do? Basically this article outlines what the UK thinks Egypt should do to regain stabilization after the uprisings.
allieggg

Bloody Proxy War in Libya: Qatar & Turkey vs. UAE & Egypt | Clarion Project - 0 views

  • Fresh clashes broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday, forcing the city's airport to close down. Mitiga airport has functioned as Tripoli's primary airport since Tripoli International Airport was damaged and ceased to operate in August.
  • On November 6 the Tobruk parliament was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Tripoli. However, parliamentarians in Tobruk immediately hit back, saying that because Tripoli is largely in the hands of Islamists, the Supreme Court's decision was made under duress.
  • Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said Qatar sent 3 loaded planes with weapons to Tripoli. This is in keeping with Qatar's actions throughout the region. One diplomat from an undisclosed MENA country spoke to Telegraph saying "They [Qatar] are partly responsible for Jabhat al-Nusra having money and weapons and everything they need." Jabhat al-Nusra is the official Al-Qaeda affiliate fighting in the Syrian Civil War.
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  • Qatar's involvement in Libya goes back to the revolution that overthrew former Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi. In 2012, then leader of the Libyan National Transitional Council Mustafa Abdul Jibril said at a Ramadan celebration event: "Doha [Qatar] has been supporting Islamic movements as part of its vision to help establish an Arab regime that adopts Islamic Shariah law as a main source of governance." He said that Qatar had contributed $2 billion to the revolution.
  • The bloodshed is greatly exacerbated by the relentless funding of Islamist militias across the region by Turkey and Qatar. 
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    Conflict broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli forcing Mitiga airport, primary airport since Tripoli International was closed due to damages, to close down worsening the bloody proxy war thus escalating the crisis. Egypt and UAE have been aiding the Islamic opposition, helping to fight against the Islamic militants backed by Turkey and Qatar. Apparently Qatar's involvement in Libya goes back to the revolution that ousted Gaddafi, contributing $2 billion in support of the Islamic movements as a part of its vision to establish an Arab regime ruling through Sharia Law. As of now, no players are willing to compromise in this "state of war." 
kbrisba

New Tunisian PM promises growth, reform and new hope - 0 views

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    Prime Minister Habib Essid of Tunisian promised to stimulate growth. Tunisians are worried about other issues; public spending, including cutting subsidies on basic foods and fuel. Jobs, high living costs, and economic opportunities. The government sees economic growth increasing to 3 percent in 2015 from an estimated 2.5 percent in 2014.
kbrisba

Tunisia Arrests 32 Militants, Says it Foiled 'Spectacular' Attacks - 0 views

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    Tunisia forces arrest 32 terrorists that were planning to attack targets in Tunis and other cities. Essid (prime minister) stated they are strengthening measures to combat extremism and strengthen security capabilities to confront terrorism and the protection of the democratic transition.
mharcour

King Bibi Says No State - 0 views

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    In this New York Times article, the author covers the final statements made by both front runners during the recent Prime Minister elections in Israel. Chief among the comments was Netanyahu's strong statement against a Palestinian state.
wmulnea

Is Libya on the brink of a new civil war? - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • former rebel fighters who helped to oust Gaddafi are now jostling among themselves for power
  • The country is flooded with weapons
  • In the past year alone, more than 80 people, many of them high-ranking military and police figures, have been killed in eastern Libya.
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  • Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan
  • The country's prime minister recently called on western powers to help him stop the spread of what he calls 'militancy' in his country.
  • There are more than 225,000 Libyans registered in militias. They receive state salaries but often act outisde of government control, taking orders from local or political commanders.
  • Groups in Libya's eastern Cyrenaica region and in the southern Fezzan region have called for independence
  • In Cyrenaica, former rebel leader Ibrahim al-Jathran and his 20,000 men strong militia say they now run local affairs, with Jathran and his men controlling facilities that account for 60 percent of Libya's oil wealth.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
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  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
kbrisba

US will triple military aid to Tunisia - 0 views

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    The United States will increase military aid to Tunisia and help train its troops. The U.S. government aimed to provide Tunisia with more equipment, weapons and technical support. Tunisian Prime Minister said he wants to enhance their ability to defeat those who threaten the freedom and safety of the nation.
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