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| Africa North |
| Libyan oil minister Shokri Ghanem 'defects' |
| 2011-05-18 |
| [Al Jazeera] Libya's oil minister has reportedly defected and decamped to Tunisia. Shokri Ghanem, who also chaired the National Oil Corporation, is said to be on his way to the Tunisian capital, Tunis. Hoda Abdel Hamid, one of Al Jizz's correspondents in Libya, said a border guard confirmed the defection. "He told us the minister had crossed into Tunisia two days ago and that he was alone, not with his family," she said. "He mentioned he had tried to cross before but was held in Libya. We cannot confirm this." Rebels fighting to end the 41-year-old rule of Muammar Qadaffy, Libya's embattled leader, also said they had information that Ghanem, 68, had defected. However, The obscurantist However... rebels and Arab media reported on a previous occasion that Ghanem had stepped down, but he later re-appeared and said he was in his office and working as usual. If confirmed, Ghanem would be the latest high profile Libyan official to leave the Qadaffy government. In March, Qadaffy's foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, defected. Ghanem has been in charge of the oil ministry since 2006 and was previously prime minister. His oil ministry is the biggest income generater for the country. Libya has Africa's largest oil reserves, at 41.5 billion barrels. Rebels have taken Benghazi and the oil-producing east of the North African country, their insurgency helped by a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... bombing campaign sanctioned by the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... to protect civilians. Russia talks Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a meeting. It was to be his last... Russia hosted a representative of Qadaffy's government in its capital, Moscow, on Tuesday when it called on the Libyan government to stop using force against civilians, comply fully with UN Security Council resolutions and withdraw gangs from cities. "The answer we heard cannot be called negative," Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said. He said that Libya was ready to look at peace proposals based on those suggested by the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... and to comply with Security Council resolutions. "The only things that our interlocutors from Tripoli noted today was the necessity of the Orcs and similar vermin accepting analogous steps and that NATO also stopped bombing," Lavrov said, adding that it remained to agree terms and a timeframe for a truce. The talks indicate Russia's desire to act as peace maker and preserve its influence in Libya, where it has billions of dollars of arms, energy and infrastructure deals. Russia is one of five permanent Security Council members. It abstained from voting on the resolution authorising military intervention in Libya and has accused NATO of going beyond the bounds of the resolution in its bombing. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 the NATO is a wonderful organisation but i fear we are tarnishing it with frivolous pursuits. do we really care how the libyan's run their affairs? there was a revolt and we tried to help. we dithered too long and now we are involved in a stalemate it seems we in the West are great at getting involved but terrible at getting ourselves uninvolved again it's bleeding our economies dry isn't it time to leave libya now? |
| Posted by: anon1 2011-05-18 09:35 |