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Libya rebels step up efforts for parallel govt
Egypt puts ex-interior minister on trial |
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Nepal’s ex-PM Bhattarai dead Nepal’s former Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, the last surviving founding leader of the Nepali Congress, has died. Bhattarai, 87, who played a key role in drafting the Constitution of Nepal in 1990 that guaranteed constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, died due to multiple organ failure. Bhattarai had spent 13 years in jail fighting to restore democracy in the country.
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Libya rebels step up efforts for parallel govt Libya asks UN to suspend
sanctions
United Nations: Libya’s Gaddafi regime has asked the UNSC to suspend sanctions imposed on it over the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, as it sacked two of its diplomats at the world body who had renounced its leadership and appointed an ex-foreign minister as its new envoy here. The Libyan government sent a letter to the United Nations, informing it that it had sacked its top two diplomats to the world body — Ambassador Mohamed Shalgham and Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim
Dabbashi, who had publicly defected after people revolted against Muammar
Gaddafi.
Cairo, March 5 The efforts to form a self-declared national council comes as the US and western countries as well as world bodies have virtually derecognised the Gaddafi regime and Interpol has issued warrants against him and his family for genocide. Rebels say that they have formed local councils in cities they control in the eastern region with an aim to lead the nation into election, local media reports said. As ding-dong heavy battles and explosions continue across the country, the US and NATO forces warships and fighters were positioned of the strife torn country’s coast. US President Barack Obama has said the primary mission of the task force is to undertake humanitarian evacuation, “but all options were on the table.” While Gaddafi’s forces using tanks and heavy artillery tried to retake towns in the country’s oil-rich east, where the rebellion has left them without space, the rebels beat back attacks on the key town of al-Zawiyah, close to the capital Tripoli and overran oil town of Ras Lanuf. At least 10 persons have been killed and 20 injured in Ras Lanuf, where Libyan rebels are locked in intense fighting with the forces loyal to 68-year-old-Gaddafi. Media reports said rebels were witnessed manning the oil-compounds, police stations and army-barracks in the oil-rich town. More than 20 people were injured in Ajdabiya where fresh fighting between the rebels and Gaddafi forces have erupted. In another development, explosions at a military arms depot outside the rebel-held city of Benghazi, which took place minutes apart, left at least 34 persons dead and dozens injured, reports reaching here said. Residence living up to 10 km from the main weapons depot said windows shook and an inferno lit up the sky. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, but rebels said it could have been caused by air-raids or enemy agents. Eyewitnesses quoted by al-Jazeera said Gaddafi’s forces in their desperate bid to widen the security belt around Tripoli made three advances to capture al-Zawiyah, even training tanks on residential buildings. Conflicting reports were coming in about the battle, with the town reported changing hands twice. BBC said more than 30 persons were killed when 15 tanks and lorry loads of Gaddafi loyalists swarmed into the town, getting into street fighting with the rebels. “They came from the east and west and occupied high rise buildings,” BBC quoted a rebel fighter as saying, who claimed that Gaddafi’s forces have been repelled. “There tanks almost reached the city-square before they were bombed off,” the fighter said. The rebellion in al Zawiyah - the closest rebel-held territory to Gaddafi’s bastion of Tripoli and also the site of an oil refinery - has been an embarrassment to the Libyan authorities who are trying hard to demonstrate that they control at least the west of the country. — PTI
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Egypt puts ex-interior minister on trial
Cairo, March 5 Habib al-Adly was arrested last month as part of sweeping corruption investigations launched by the new military regime. He is charged along with several other former ministers of the Mubarak era, Al-Jazeera reported. The former minister’s secret service had clamped down hard in the early stages of the peoples uprising in the country which erupted on January 23. The violent clashes between protesters and ISS personnel left at least 384 people dead and 6000 injured. Habib al-Adly has also been accused by protesters of hiring hoodlums who unleashed a terror campaign on demonstrators at Tahrir Square. He is also been investigated for ordering fire on protesters and creating a security vacuum. His arrest in the capital Cairo came as thousands of protesters stormed the ISS headquarters in the port city of Alexandria in an outpouring of anger at the agency charged with large scale human rights violation during toppled President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Al-Jazeera said the mob, stormed the building last night after they noticed the ISS men setting fire to documents inside. A smaller mob also marched to the internal security headquarters in the capital Cairo demanding purge of all key Mubarak protegees. A key demand of the protesters who led the uprising against Mubarak is disbanding of the secret service as well as Egypt’s NDP which has ruled the country for more than thirty years. The secret security servicemen opened fire despite being ordered not to use firearms by the army personnel guarding some of the key floors of the building. Egypt’s internal security service and police forces, which wielded enormous power under emergency declared by Mubarak, were some of the most powerful symbols of his regime. — PTI
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Nepal’s ex-PM Bhattarai dead Nepal’s former Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, the last surviving founding leader of the Nepali Congress, has died.
Bhattarai, 87, who played a key role in drafting the Constitution of Nepal in 1990 that guaranteed constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy, died due to multiple organ failure. Bhattarai had spent 13 years in jail fighting to restore democracy in the country. A doctors’ team led by India’s noted cardiologist Dr Bharat Rawat was involved in his treatment ever since he was admitted to the hospital three weeks ago. “The doctors pronounced him dead at 11.26 pm. He died of cardiac arrest,” executive director and consultant cardiologist at the hospital, Dr Rawat said. Bhattarai’s body has been kept at his government residence in Badegaon. His body will be moved to the Nepali Congress headquarters, Sanepa, and then to Dasharath Stadium for final tributes before the funeral and last rites on Sunday. The government has decided to hold the last rites with state honours at Pashupati Aryaghat. Bhattarai had served as the Prime Minister twice, in 1990 and 1999. Issuing a condolence message, Nepal President
Dr Ram Baran Yadav described Bhattarai as a guardian of democracy, who embodied the ideology of non-violence and sacrifice throughout his seven-decade political career.
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Former interior minister Habib al-Adly, the most hated and feared figure in Egypt’s toppled regime of Hosni Mubarak was put on trial today on money laundering charges, as thousands of protesters stormed the headquarters of his dreaded internal security service (ISS) in the country’s second largest city of Alexandria.
