a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

shit is serious

Just found out the Libyan government owns about $400m of shares in the company i work for. It'll be interesting to see how sanctions can be imposed / accounts frozen when their network of financial interests runs so deep.

this was news to me. e.g. why is libyan currency being manufactured in northern europe? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/27/gaddafi-family-assets-frozen-queen

Lots of countries have their currency printed elsewhere - the paper mill here (at least until it closed a few years ago) used to make paper for lots of east european currencies. It takes a fair amount of equipment to make currency, and it's just more economical to have someone else do it rather than build the infrastructure. Leaves you in a vulnerable position, I suppose, in these kinds of circumstances.

NPR summary of their Libya story this morning:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has lost control of many cities along the country's Mediterranean coast. But he's still clinging to power in the capital Tripoli, and he's holding on to at least one other city that he considers crucial. That would be Sirt, his hometown.

Pop singer Nelly Furtado says she will donate $1 million she received from the Gaddafi family to perform a 2007 concert. Furtado is just one of many stars who accepted large sums of money to perform for the Libyan dictator. Mariah Carey, Usher and Beyonce were among other stars who performed at the request of Gaddafi's family.

If the terrorists network’s leaders hope to seize the moment, they have been slow off the mark. Mr. bin Laden has been silent. His Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, has issued three rambling statements from his presumed hide-out in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region that seemed oddly out of sync with the news, not noting the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose government detained and tortured Mr. Zawahri in the 1980s.

huh. this was news to me. I was wondering what Zwahiri would have to say about this

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytskaya, described in a U.S. diplomatic cable as an important aide, and a "voluptuous blonde," has apparently fled Libya.

As my colleague Andrew Kramer reported, a Ukrainian newspaper said that Ms. Kolotnytskaya had arrived in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, after an evacuation flight from Libya on Sunday.

nothing is going right for this poor guy

If you go into a mosque, you have to take your shoes off, but you can't have them soles-down on the floor. You have to put the two soles together and leave them like that.

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, February 26, 2011 9:46 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

maybe in some places but, really, no

― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Saturday, February 26, 2011 5:11 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha otm

Pentagon repositioning Navy warships in the Mediterranean in advance of possible military intervention o_0

France announced today they are gonna send massive humanitarian aid to Benghazi.

Pentagon repositioning Navy warships in the Mediterranean in advance of possible military intervention o_0

That headline surprised me too, but apparently the thinking is military for humanitarian aid distribution and maybe a no-fly zone.

x-post Why was Qaddafi blood money palatable to Nelly Furtado 4-years ago but not now?

i'd image because she's too ignorant to know anything about the man before.
anyways - why you picking on the one celeb that has, belatedly, given the money away?

I've picked on the rest of them upthread. Mariah, Beyonce, Usher ... step up!

yeah i mean i feel like for most people who don't follow world affairs--to say nothing of celebrities already inside of their own weird cultural bubble--being given a bunch of money by THE KING OF EGYPT, AMERICAN ALLY to perform would be like 'yeah alright' and not 'well hm let me make sure he is not a torturing dbag first'

It was Qaddafi's son, not Mubarak.

Yeah, we're talking the, er, Col. of Libya, iconic villain since for decades. I mean, haven't these singers seen "The Naked Gun?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMMPQaimco&feature=player_embedded

c'mon guys Mariah really needed the money after Glitter bombed

I wonder when Bieber will get his first mass-murderer concert

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/28/egypt.mubarak.assets/index.html?hpt=T2">git that money

um yeah

It was Qaddafi's son, not Mubarak.

― banjee trillness (The Reverend), Tuesday, March 1, 2011 12:42 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

lmao misread that soz

'elsewhere in ''the region'''

haven't these singers seen "The Naked Gun?"

first time i ever heard the word libya would have been in 'back to the future'.

Guys, where are the cameras? Has every camera in Libya been destroyed?

The opposition says helicopters and MiGs are firing on them. Has anyone ever seen an image of this?

There are like 2000 dead in Benghazi (and 6000 wounded) over the last few days. Where are the photos?

not very recent but

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/02/libya_unrest_and_uncertainty.html

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/pictures-of-the-day-libya-and-elsewhere-3/

Cheers dayo - still, the latter half of that Big Picture series is of refugees in Tunisia

I'm guessing that the photojournalists who did venture into Libya were not of the hardcore war photog type - they were probably expecting something more akin to egypt. also, I imagine qadafi forces probably have a shoot-on-sight command w/r/t people walking around carrying cameras with big honking lenses.

i've read that even mobile phones are being smashed upon entry to libya (cause they have cameras in them)

not surprising, two birds w one stone

lol

wikileaks WikiLeaks
Nelly Furtado To Donate $1 Million Received From Gadhafi. Hint: http://wikileaks.ch/support.html
1 minute ago

lol

So apparently the rebels held three cities last night against serious attacks from Qaddafi's forces. One city, Zawiya, being a mere 30 miles from Tripoli. Armored forces, tanks, anti-aircraft jeeps, the whole bit, and they held them off.

Qaddafi supposedly has warned a tribal leader in Zawiya that if they don't gtfo he will hit them with warplanes. Maybe it's getting closer to no-fly zone time.

sneaky sneaky!

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/dating-site-is-the-new-hotspot-for-libyan-protest/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-arab-protests-20110302,0,1504010.story

fuckin guy

this is genuine civil war now, isn't it. with all the conflicting info that implies. i feel like i'm living in 1890, when news of distant battles filters in weeks after the fact.

the guardian says Brega "retaken" by Gaddafi (updated: 1 minute ago); twitter says Brega "re-retaken" by Libyan Youth Revolutionaries (23 minutes ago)

photois of the opposition, and more:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/africa/2011-libya-slide-show.html

those are amazing. that is, as u say, an 'irregular army'

it is crazy how my western mind keep coming back, irresistibly, to the Spanish civil war and the POUM - it's the only template i have for this stuff i guess (and probably incredibly misleading)

i started thinking about the minutemen, but sure, think of spain, you commie.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/and-the-award-for-best-dictator-goes-to/#more-6566

that is stats geekery at its finest

Looks like the lovely Lukachenko is still Gaddafi's pal...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599205642000

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/libya0302/s_l34_27038152.jpg

everything about that is awesome

v-sign, turban, mustache, break shotgun, string, biblical get-up, cig, hatchet, empty bandolier, phat camo pants, sneakers

we should have an election just so nate silver doesn't have to write articles like that anymore

fuckin A yeah that pic!