It's different than that in Egypt, plus lots on Benghazi's free zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
As usual, Democracy Now has exemplary reports on both issues of the
day. "Organizers expect 100,000+ in tomorrow's protest." JOIN THEM.
Ed
Robert Fisk with the first dispatch from Tripoli - a city in the shadow of
death
Gunfire in the suburbs - and hunger and rumour in the capital as thousands
race for last tickets out of a city sinking into anarchy
Independent/uk: Thursday, 24 February 2011
Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli's international
airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners
still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi's rump state, paying Libyan police
bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry,
desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat
those who pushed their way to the front.
Among them were Gaddafi's fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of
whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation.
The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the
city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to
see Gaddafi's capital if you are a "dog" of the international press.
There was little sign of opposition to the Great Leader. Squads of young men
with Kalashnikov rifles stood on the side roads next to barricades of
upturned chairs and wooden doors. But these were pro-Gaddafi vigilantes - a
faint echo of the armed Egyptian "neighbourhood guard" I saw in Cairo a
month ago - and had pinned photographs of their leader's infamous Green Book
to their checkpoint signs.
There is little food in Tripoli, and over the city there fell a blanket of
drab, sullen rain. It guttered onto an empty Green Square and down the
Italianate streets of the old capital of Tripolitania. But there were no
tanks, no armoured personnel carriers, no soldiers, not a fighter plane in
the air; just a few police and elderly men and women walking the pavements -
a numbed populace. Sadly for the West and for the people of the free city of
Benghazi, Libya's capital appeared as quiet as any dictator would wish.
But this is an illusion. Petrol and food prices have trebled; entire towns
outside Tripoli have been torn apart by fighting between pro- and
anti-Gaddafi forces. In the suburbs of the city, especially in the Noufreen
district, militias fought for 24 hours on Sunday with machine guns and
pistols, a battle the Gadaffi forces won. In the end, the exodus of
expatriates will do far more than street warfare to bring down the regime.
I was told that at least 30,000 Turks, who make up the bulk of the Libyan
construction and engineering industry, have now fled the capital, along with
tens of thousands of other foreign workers. On my own aircraft out of
Tripoli, an evacuation flight to Europe, there were Polish, German, Japanese
and Italian businessmen, all of whom told me they had closed down major
companies in the past week. Worse still for Gaddafi, the oil, chemical and
uranium fields of Libya lie to the south of "liberated" Benghazi. Gaddafi's
hungry capital controls only water resources, so a temporary division of
Libya, which may have entered Gaddafi's mind, would not be sustainable.
Libyans and expatriates I spoke to yesterday said they thought he was
clinically insane, but they expressed more anger at his son, Saif al-Islam.
"We thought Saif was the new light, the 'liberal'", a Libyan businessman sad
to me. "Now we realise he is crazier and more cruel than his father."
The panic that has now taken hold in what is left of Gaddafi's Libya was all
too evident at the airport. In the crush of people fighting for tickets, one
man, witnessed by an evacuated Tokyo car-dealer, was beaten so viciously on
the head that "his face fell apart".
Talking to Libyans in Tripoli and expatriates at the airport, it is clear
that neither tanks nor armour were used in the streets of Tripoli. Air
attacks targeted Benghazi and other towns, but not the capital. Yet all
spoke of a wave of looting and arson by Libyans who believed that with the
fall of Benghazi, Gaddafi was finished and the country open to anarchy.
The centre of the city was largely closed up. All foreign offices have been
shut including overseas airlines, and every bakery I saw was shuttered.
Rumours abound that members of Gaddafi's family are trying to flee abroad.
Although William Hague's ramblings about Gaddafi's flight to Venezuela have
been disproved, I spoke to a number of Libyans who believed that Burkina
Faso might be his only viable retreat. Two nights ago, a Libyan private jet
approached Beirut airport with a request to land but was refused permission
when the crew declined to identify their eight passengers. And last night, a
Libyan Arab Airlines flight reported by Al Jazeera to be carrying Gaddafi's
daughter, Aisha, was refused permission to land in Malta.
Gaddafi is blamed by Shia Muslims in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran for the murder
of Imam Moussa Sadr, a supposedly charismatic divine who unwisely accepted
an invitation to visit Gaddafi in 1978 and, after an apparent argument about
money, was never seen again. Nor was a Lebanese journalist accompanying him
on the trip.
While dark humour has never been a strong quality in Libyans, there was one
moment at Tripoli airport yesterday which proved it does exist. An incoming
passenger from a Libyan Arab Airlines flight at the front of an immigration
queue bellowed out: "And long life to our great leader Muammar Gaddafi."
Then he burst into laughter - and the immigration officers did the same.
***
Rally to Save the American Dream
When: Saturday, February 26th, 12:00 PM
Where: Southwest side of LA City Hall, on 1st Street, between
Spring and Main Street, 200 N. Spring Street )
Los Angeles, CA 90012
- - -
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/17-9
Glorious Rallies in Madison, Ground Zero of the Fight Back
by Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive: February 20, 2011
What glory it is to be in Madison, Wisconsin, this week, where the people of
this state have risen up in revolt against the Neanderthal Republicans who
are trying to bust public sector unions and inflict massive harm on their
workers.
It's not about balancing a budget. It's about destroying unions as a
political and economic force. That's why the bill says every public sector
union would have to recertify every year, and why it says that no employer
could deduct union dues from paychecks. Neither of those things has anything
to do with saving a dime of Wisconsin taxpayer money.
This is ground zero in the fight back, and Wisconsinites are engaging in the
closest thing to a general strike that I've ever seen in my lifetime.
This is what democracy looks like. One sign said, "This Is Our Tahrir
Square."
I interviewed protestors on Wednesday when the crowd swelled to 30,000. One
woman was wearing a "Kick Me, I'm a State Worker" sign. But she declined to
give her name. "I'm afraid I'd get fired," she said.
Another woman named Mary Batt, who works for the Department of Justice,
said, "I'm here for people who can't be for fear they'd be retaliated
against."
I spoke with Allie Riefke, 17, of Mt. Horeb High School, who took off school
to come to the rally. She held a sign that read, "Save Our teachers. And My
Mom." Her mom works as a guidance counselor at another school, and she
couldn't come to the rally "because she'd get into trouble."
Allie said her mom is "going to lose $5,000 if they pass this bill." She
added: "That's braces for my little brother. It's not fair."
She's right. It isn't fair.
And that's why so many Wisconsinites are out in the street nonviolently but
militantly fighting for their rights this week.
Copyright 2010, The Progressive Magazine
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