Tuesday
Feb222011

Gaddafi's Next Move: Sabotage Oil and Sow Chaos?

There's been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya's rebellious tribes: It's either me or chaos.

Two weeks ago this same man had told me the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt would never touch Libya. Gaddafi, he said, had a tight lock on all of the major tribes, the same ones that have kept him in power for the past 41 years. The man of course turned out to be wrong, and everything he now has to say about Gaddafi's intentions needs to be taken in that context. (See TIME's exclusive interview with Gaddafi.)

The source went on and told me that Gaddafi's desperation has a lot to with the fact that he now can only count on the loyalty of his tribe, the Qadhadhfa. And as for the army, as of Monday he only has the loyalty of approximately 5,000 troops. They are his elite forces, the officers all handpicked. Among them is the unit commanded by his second youngest son Khamis, the 32nd Brigade. (The total strength of the regular Libyan army is 45,000.)

My Libyan source said that Gaddafi has told people around him that he knows he cannot retake Libya with the forces he has. But what he can do is make the rebellious tribes and army officers regret their disloyalty, turning Libya into another Somalia. "I have the money and arms to fight for a long time," Gaddafi reportedly said.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2052961,00.html#ixzz1EjVjkaKY
Tuesday
Feb222011

Israel Silent as Iranian Ships Transit Suez Canal

NY TIMES

 Israeli leaders maintained a tense silence on Tuesday over reports that two Iranian Navy ships had passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean en route to Syria, a move described by officials here as a provocation.

An Israeli government official said Tuesday that the development constituted a “new footprint in the region” for Iran. He added that given the Iranian-backed presence to Israel’s north, in the form of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to the south, with Hamas in Gaza, the episode is of great concern to Israel. The official was not authorized to speak about the issue publicly.

The Iranian vessels were not expected to enter Israeli territorial waters, but their journey from the exit of the Suez Canal to Syria would still take them closer to Israel than such warships have been before. Israel has said that it will carefully monitor the ships’ movements.

In a message that was unlikely to placate the Israelis, the Islamic Republic News Agency, IRNA, reported Tuesday that the vessels were to dock in a Syrian port “within the framework of brotherly meetings between the two countries.” Citing an unidentified “informed source,” it said that such visits of navies to friendly countries were “quite usual” and aimed at promoting “bilateral cooperation.”

This was the first time that Iranian naval ships have traversed the Suez Canal since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the Iranian news agency said.

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Tuesday
Feb222011

California teachers' pension system headed toward insolvency

As California school districts anticipate possibly the worst budget crisis in a generation, many will try to lighten their burden by enticing older teachers into retirement. But as more and more teachers retire -- with a pension averaging 55 percent to 60 percent of salary -- they will be straining a system that already can't meet its obligations.

The California State Teachers' Retirement System is sliding down a steep slope toward insolvency. The threat isn't to teachers who have retired or plan to, but to the people of California. Taxpayers, who already pick up 23 percent of CalSTRS expenses, will be increasingly burdened as the giant pension system fails to meet its obligations.

"We're on a path of destruction," said Marcia Fritz, president of pension-reform group California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

And merely rejiggering formulas for new employees won't rescue the system, she said. Simply put: "We overpromised."

Among those promises, "Californians have typically given their public employees richer retirement benefits" than have other states, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

Despite the looming disaster, CalSTRS is like an ocean liner that's slow and complicated to change course. Gov. Jerry Brown hasn't mentioned overhauling the system that benefits one of his major supporters, the teachers union. Nor has the Legislature taken up the issue.

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Tuesday
Feb222011

China blackmailing US over debt holdings

Leaked diplomatic cables vividly show China's willingness to translate its massive holdings of US debt into political influence on issues ranging from Taiwan's sovereignty to Washington's financial policy.

China's clout -- gleaned from its nearly $900 billion stack of US debt -- has been widely commented on in the United States, but sensitive cables show just how much influence Beijing has and how keen Washington is to address its rival's concerns.

An October 2008 cable, released by WikiLeaks, showed a senior Chinese official linking questions about much-needed Chinese investment to sensitive military sales to Taiwan.

Amid the panic of Lehman Brothers' collapse and the ensuing liquidity crunch, Liu Jiahua, an official who then helped manage China's foreign reserves, was "non-committal on the possible resumption of lending."

Instead, "Liu -- citing an Internet discussion forum -- said that as in the United States, the Chinese leadership must pay close attention to public opinion in forming policies," according to the memo.

"In that regard, the recent announcement that the United States intends to sell another arms package to Taiwan increases the difficulty the Chinese government faces in explaining any supporting policies to the Chinese public."

His comments came days after the Pentagon notified Congress it was poised to sell $6.5 billion worth of arms to China's arch rival Taiwan.

The much-delayed package was eventually sold, but did not include requested F-16 jets.

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Tuesday
Feb222011

Dead Children: The Foundation of the NWO

The karmic residue from the murder of innocent children will haunt the US and those responsible for all eternity! The killers will not be able to use the term "collateral damage" to escape justice on that sacred day! "Collateral damage" is nowhere recognized, or even mentioned, in humanitarian international law. In fact, intentional attacks of any sort on civilians are prohibited under "Common Article 3," which applies to all 4 Geneva Conventions. The US has signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions(although it never ratified two supplemental protocols of 1977 that spelled out the international rules of war in greater detail). Common Article 3 prohibits "at anytime and in any place whatsoever" violence, including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, torture, and outrages to human dignity against protected persons - that is, "persons taking no active part in hostilities," such as civilians, the wounded, and prisoners of war.

Among the gravest contemporary instances of "collateral damage" were the sanctions enforced against Iraq between 1991 and 2003 and the slaughter of Afghan and Iraqi civilians in the wars waged by the US after 9/11.

On 5-11-96, the CBS TV program 60 minutes made famous one of the more notorious statistics in the history of Iraqi-American relations. In an interview with then secretary of state Madeleine Albright, correspondent Leslie Stahl said,"We have heard that a half million children have died as a result of the sanctions[in Iraq]. That's more than died in Hiroshima!" Then Stahl asked, "Is the price worth it?" Albright replied,"I think this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it."

In Afghanistan, officials alleged Sunday that a U.S. military operation in the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan killed 65 innocent people, including 22 women and more than 30 children, the most serious allegation of civilian casualties in months.

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Tuesday
Feb222011

Qaddafi Defies Rebels Amid Reports of Bodies on Tripoli Streets 

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi told state television he hasn’t fled the country as rebel flags flew over the second-biggest city and corpses lay on the streets of the capital after a security crackdown on protests.

“I am here in Tripoli and not in Venezuela,” the Libyan leader said in comments broadcast early today. “Don’t believe the dog news agencies,” he said, leaning out of a car to speak into a microphone while holding a white umbrella to shelter from the rain.

In Tripoli, bodies are lying outside a day after protesters were attacked by pro-Qaddafi gunmen, the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya said. In Benghazi, the independence flag of the constitutional monarchy overthrown by Qaddafi in 1969 flew on streets and over several buildings and there were no security forces in evidence except traffic police, witnesses said. Oil prices rose almost 10 percent.

Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, is the latest nation to be rocked by protests ignited by last month’s ouster of Tunisia’s president and fanned by the Feb. 11 fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent unrest has also spread to Bahrain, Iran and Yemen. The risk for Libya is that an end to Qaddafi’s rule may not be enough to stabilize a country lacking state institutions or a succession mechanism.

‘No Return’

“It’s gone beyond the point of no return in Libya and Qaddafi will go,” Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association in Washington, told Bloomberg Television by telephone today. “There will be fighting, there will be some bloodshed but I think we are looking at a matter of a day, two days, three days.”

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Tuesday
Feb222011

Libya immersed in chaos; U.N. Security Council calls emergency meeting

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting as Libya descended into further chaos Tuesday amid reports that Moammar Kadafi's regime used warplanes, helicopter gunships and foreign mercenaries against mounting anti-government protests, witnesses and diplomats said.

The Security Council was to meet in closed-door session in New York to discuss the crackdown against mostly unarmed opposition forces in and around Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

Libyan state TV said the mercurial strongman, who has ruled since 1969, would address his nation later Tuesday.

Condemnation poured in from around the world, including from many of Libya's own top diplomats. Libya's ambassadors to the U.S., China, India and Malaysia resigned. The deputy ambassador to the U.N. denounced the attacks as genocide.

"Tripoli is burning," Ali Aujali, who stepped down as Libya's ambassador to Washington, told ABC News. He said he no longer wanted to serve a "dictatorship."

"We have never seen a government bomb its own people like this," Ali Essawi, who quit as envoy to India, told Al Jazeera television. The envoy said Kadafi "lost his legitimacy" and called for him to step down.

A defiant Kadafi appeared briefly on state TV in the early-morning hours to deny reports that he had fled the country. He did not refer to the protests.

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Monday
Feb212011

Qaddafi’s Forces Strike With Fury as Unrest Grow

NY TIMES

The faltering government of the Libyan strongman, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule as security forces and militiamen backed by helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital on Monday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.

By Monday night, witnesses said, the streets of Tripoli were thick with special forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi as well as mercenaries. Roving the streets in trucks, they shot freely as planes dropped what witnesses described as “small bombs” and helicopters fired on protesters.

Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters took over the central Green Square in the capital after truckloads of militiamen arrived and opened fire on protesters, scattering them. Residents said they now feared even emerging from their houses.

“It was an obscene amount of gunfire,” said one 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 death toll could not be determined.

The escalation of the conflict came after six days of revolt that began in Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi, where hundreds of people were killed in clashes with security forces, according to witnesses.

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Monday
Feb212011

Report: Libya air force bombs protesters heading for army base

Libyan military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of anti-government protesters in Tripoli, Al Jazeera television reported on Monday, quoting witnesses for its information.

"What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead," Adel Mohamed Saleh said.

Saleh, who called himself a political activist, said the bombings had initially targeted a funeral procession.

"Our people are dying. It is the policy of scorched earth." he said. "Every 20 minutes they are bombing."

Asked if the attacks were still happening he said: "It is continuing, it is continuing. Anyone who moves, even if they are in their car they will hit you."

No independent verification of the report was immediately available.

The protesters were reportedly heading to the army base to obtain ammunition of their own, but witnesses said the air force bombed the demonstrators before they could get there.

Clashes between protesters and security forces escalated on Monday and have spread to Tripoli, after Muammar Gadhafi's son went on state television to proclaim that his father remained in charge with the army's backing and would fight until "the last man, the last woman, the last bullet."

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Monday
Feb212011

Muammar Gaddafi lashes out as power slips away

GUARDIAN

Libyan security forces fired on crowds of protesters in Tripoli as Muammar Gaddafi struggled desperately to hold on to power in what has become the bloodiest crackdown yet on pro-democracy protesters in the Arab world.

With diplomats resigning en masse and two senior fighter pilots defecting to Malta after refusing to attack demonstrators, the Libyan leader looked beleaguered at home and unwelcome anywhere abroad.

"What's going on in Libya is a real genocide," said the country's deputy UN ambassador, Ibrahim al-Dabashi.

One Tripoli resident told al-Jazeera TV: "Death is everywhere," as he described air attacks on the terrified city. "Why is the world silent?"

Gaddafi appeared briefly on Libyan state TV to deny reports that he had fled the country. "I want to show that I'm in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs," he said, reported by the station as speaking outside his house. He was holding an umbrella in the rain and leaning out of a vehicle.

"I wanted to say something to the youths at the Green Square [in Tripoli] and stay up late with them but it started raining. Thank God, it's a good thing," Gaddafi said in a 22-second appearance.

Libyan state TV earlier said military operations were under way against "terrorist nests" and there were predictions of a bloodbath by a desperate regime which feels the end approaching.

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Monday
Feb212011

American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy

The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time.

Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January.

Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity.

Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. The revelation may complicate American efforts to free Davis, who insists he was acting in self-defence against a pair of suspected robbers, who were both carrying guns.

Pakistani prosecutors accuse the spy of excessive force, saying he fired 10 shots and got out of his car to shoot one man twice in the back as he fled. The man's body was found 30 feet from his motorbike.

"It went way beyond what we define as self-defence. It was not commensurate with the threat," a senior police official involved in the case told the Guardian.

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Monday
Feb212011

Qaddafi Says He Hasn’t Fled Libya as Regime Starts to Unwind

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said he hadn’t fled the country as diplomats resigned and soldiers deserted in protest over a crackdown on anti-government protesters that has left hundreds dead.

“I am here in Tripoli and not in Venezuela,” the Libyan leader said in comments broadcast on state TV early this morning. “Don’t believe the dog news agencies,” he said, leaning out of his car to speak into a microphone, while holding a white umbrella over his head.

Qaddafi’s remarks came after his son threatened “rivers of blood” amid an eruption of violence that the International Federation for Human Rights says has killed more than 300 people. As oil prices surged to the highest in more than two years, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations accused his government of “genocide.”

Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, is the latest Arab nation to be rocked by protests ignited by last month’s ouster of Tunisia’s president and fanned by the Feb. 11 fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The risk for Libya is that any end of Qaddafi’s four-decade rule may not be enough to stabilize a country that has no succession procedure.

“The regime is exceptionally vulnerable right now,” said Daniel Byman, director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University in Washington. “You’ve seen defections among the elite. That’s a good sign the regime has problems.”

Oil Prices

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Monday
Feb212011

Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead

Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor.

That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012.

At a science conference in Washington Saturday, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't.

"There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. Her research and those of her colleagues contrasts with other studies that show a more optimistic outlook about the health of the gulf, saying microbes did great work munching the oil.

"Magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don't know," Joye said, later adding: "there's a lot of it out there."

The head of the agency in charge of the health of the Gulf said Saturday that she thought that "most of the oil is gone." And a Department of Energy scientist, doing research with a grant from BP from before the spill, said his examination of oil plumes in the water column show that microbes have done a "fairly fast" job of eating the oil. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist Terry Hazen said his research differs from Joye's because they looked at different places at different times.

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Sunday
Feb202011

China tries to stamp out 'Jasmine Revolution'

BEIJING – Jittery Chinese authorities wary of any domestic dissent staged a concerted show of force Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a "Jasmine Revolution" apparently modeled after pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Middle East.

Authorities detained activists, increased the number of police on the streets, disconnected some mobile phone text messaging services and censored Internet postings about the call to stage protests at 2 p.m. in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other major cities.

The campaign did not gain much traction among ordinary citizens and the chances of overthrowing the Communist government are slim, considering Beijing's tight controls over the media and Internet. A student-led, pro-democracy movement in 1989 was crushed by the military and hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.

On Sunday, police took at least three people away in Beijing, one of whom tried to lay down white jasmine flowers while hundreds of people milled about the protest gathering spot, outside a McDonald's on the capital's busiest shopping street. In Shanghai, police led away three people near the planned protest spot after they scuffled in an apparent bid to grab the attention of passers-by.

Many activists said they didn't know who was behind the campaign and weren't sure what to make of the call to protest, which first circulated Saturday on the U.S.-based, Chinese-language news website Boxun.com.

The unsigned notice called for a "Jasmine revolution" — the name given to the Tunisian protest movement — and urged people "to take responsibility for the future." Participants were urged to shout, "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness" — a slogan that highlights common complaints among Chinese.

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Sunday
Feb202011

Libyan Forces Again Fire on Residents at Funerals

NY TIMES

 Libyan security forces opened fire once again on Benghazi residents Benghazi as they attended a funeral procession for the dozens killed the day before by the same government forces.

It was the fifth day of protests and violence in what has become the epicenter of the most serious challenge to four decades of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule.

Residents of Tripoli reported in telephone interviews Sunday that there had been smaller uprisings in three working class suburbs of the capitol, all quickly crushed by security forces. By Sunday morning, the number of confirmed deaths around the country had risen to at least 173 people, most of them in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, Human Rights Watch reported.

The escalating violence in Benghazi — Libyans spoke of a “massacre,” though details could not be confirmed — appeared to mark a decisive turn in days of protests that have shaken Libya, a North African nation rich in oil. By nightfall, a deadly cycle had clearly emerged in a city where thousands have gathered in antigovernment demonstrations: Security forces fired on funeral marches, killing more protesters, creating more funerals.

The scope of the crackdown was almost impossible to verify in an isolated country that remains largely off limits to foreign journalists and, as part of the government’s efforts to squelch the protests, has been periodically cut off from the Internet.

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Sunday
Feb202011

Leaders of Libya and Yemen meet protests with deadly force

Two of the Arab world's most ruthless leaders have moved to crush revolts threatening their power in Libya and Yemen as security forces and thugs intensified attacks on dissidents and protesters dug scores of fresh graves amid the rattle of gunfire.

The unrest convulsing the region has swept through the two police states, where deaths have climbed past 100 and demonstrators have grown fearless against tear gas and bullets. But even if the scenario is similar to the narrative played out in the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, it is far from certain whether demonstrations can dislodge Libyan President Moammar Kadafi and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Unlike Egypt, Libya and Yemen are tribal nations, and the two leaders have skillfully manipulated clan loyalties for decades.

With his eccentric, often inscrutable personality, Kadafi has ruled Libya, one of the world's largest oil producers, for 41 years through a mix of repression, patronage and shrewd tribal alliances. Saleh, who once described ruling Yemen as "dancing on the heads of snakes," has stayed in power for 32 years in much the same manner.

The heart of the revolt in Libya is in the eastern city of Benghazi, where dozens of people have died in recent days and tens of thousands of protesters have taken control of many neighborhoods. The army moved to crush dissent Friday, but by Saturday afternoon one witness said soldiers had abandoned two tanks in front of the courthouse and security forces had fallen back to bases.

"Kadafi is not in control of Benghazi," said the son of a former diplomat and military officer who asked not to be named.

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Sunday
Feb202011

Libya protests: 'foreign mercenaries using heavy weapons against demonstrators'

As the violence in the Arab dictatorship continued, a regional medical coordinator in the eastern city of Benghazi said bodies were piling up in hospitals.

"We must be talking at least 150 dead since the start of the demonstrations last week, with many more seriously injured," he said.

"Tanks and helicopter gunships full of foreign mercenaries are fighting gangs of demonstrators. At least one dead man had been hit by an anti-aircraft missile, while other bodies are riddled with heavy machine gun fire."

Fighting has also broken out in the cities of Al-Bayda, Ajdabiya, Zawiya, and Darnah, with eye-witnesses reporting Molotov cocktails, rifles and even antique Arabic sabres being used by demonstrators.

Protestors in Ajdabiya even claimed that it was now a "a Free City" after the HQ of Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committee was burned down on Friday, along with 14 other buildings.

There were also reports of bystanders, including women and children, leaping to their deaths from high bridges as they tried to escape battle-hardened mercenaries from neighbouring countries like Chad.

Meanwhile, the government in Tripoli has shut down a range of media, including internet providers, social networking sites and the signals of western news channels.

Facebook and the website of Al-Jazeera, the international Arab TV network, were among the first to go, with journalists were also being refused entry into the country.

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Sunday
Feb202011

More than 200 feared dead in Libya protest crackdown

Saturday
Feb192011

Months Before Brutal Attacks in Bahrain, U.S. Praised Ally’s Progress ‘On All Fronts’

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the tiny island nation of Bahrain for the first time in December, she made headlines here in the U.S. for one thing [1]: An attendee at one of the events asked whether she’d run for president again. She said no [2].

At that same event, Clinton also got another question [3] that received far less attention. A member of Bahrain’s parliament asked whether the country’s decline in the areas of human rights, democracy, and civil society should prompt the U.S. to review its alliance with the country:

My question is related to the declines in many areas. When Bahrain was chosen as a strategic ally to United States, we were in the thick in term of many areas, in term of civil society, in term of human rights, in term of democracy. A lot of declines happened in the last period, and you are aware about all these things. Many people are arrested, lawyers and human rights activists.

Sometime we feel that there is no, let’s say, red lines or constraints between United States and their allies. The situation was perfect, but now it is changed. So my question is: Do you review the policies of your allies from time to time, and how can we see our relation with United States as an opportunity for, let’s say, a growth for the democracy?

Clinton’s answer? The U.S. is “constantly reviewing” its allies, she said. “Nothing is perfect, nothing is done, there’s a lot of work that still lies ahead.” She continued:

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Saturday
Feb192011

Libyan forces fire on mourners at funeral for protesters

Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired on mourners in the eastern city of Benghazi, wiped out a protest encampment and clamped down on Internet service throughout Libya Saturday as the regime tried to squelch calls for an end to the ruler's 42-year grip on power.

Libyan protesters were back on the street for the fifth straight day, but Gadhafi has taken a hard line toward the dissent that has ripped through the Middle East and swept him up with it.

Snipers fired on thousands of people gathered in Benghazi, a focal point of the unrest, to mourn 35 protesters who were shot on Friday, a hospital official said. At least one person was killed Saturday and a dozen more shot in the head and chest, he said.

"Now we have youth coming to the hospital to donate blood," he said. "We are running out of supplies."

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