Last week, Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi told the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that he had recruited 25 Islamic fighters in Dernaa and gave his view that al Qaeda members were “good Muslims.”Click title of post for the full article.
Like Mr. Benotman, Mr. al-Hasidi is a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) that in the 1990s was affiliated with al Qaeda but moved away from Osama bin Laden’s organization a decade later.
Mr. Benotman said he knew Mr. al-Hasidi and had seen the interview.
“What I do care about is not this commander’s opinions, but his actions,” Mr. Benotman said. “If he thinks al Qaeda members are good Muslims, it’s his opinion. But we should say out loud, ‘We do not allow for al Qaeda tactics, al Qaeda agenda and al Qaeda strategy in Libya.’ These are not welcome.”
"She was just sitting on the stand during her show taping and she started saying things that didn't make any sense," a source close to the situation told RadarOnline.com, exclusively.She was rushed to the hospital and it is being reported that they were keeping her overnight.
"She said, 'I need to stop, I'm not feeling well.'"
After forces to Saleh opened fire on demonstrators last week, killing over 40, the protesters' ranks were bolstered by a series of high-level officials from the country's military, diplomatic corps and civil servants, including the president's former chief adviser, Ali Mohsen.Click title of post for full article.
Today, President Saleh, convened a meeting of his ruling General People's Congress party to discuss the situation.
They recommended forming a new government to draft a new constitution based on a parliamentary system in line with reform offers by President Saleh.
'Members of the central committee of the People's Congress stress the quick need to form a government tasked with drafting a new constitution for the country on the basis of a parliamentary system,' a report said.
A party source said the its central committee, which contains thousands of members, had asked Saleh to stay in power until 2013, when his presidential term expires.
One of Saleh's first concessions when protests began in February was to say he would not seek another period in office beyond that date.
In an interview aired by Al Arabiya television on Sunday, Saleh said he was prepared for a dignified departure at any stage but that opposition parties were hijacking the protests to demand he quit without organising a democratic handover.
'I could leave power ... even in a few hours, on condition of maintaining respect and prestige,' he said.
'I have to take the country to safe shores ... I'm holding on to power in order to hand it over peaceably.''
But Saleh refuses to step down immediately, saying it would draw the country into a long civil war. He has offered to resign at the end of the year after setting new elections.
Eight workers at Madonna's Malawi charity are suing the pop star for unfair dismissal and non-payment of their benefits, their lawyer said on Sunday.
The board of the charity, Raising Malawi, was sacked after abandoning plans to build a state of the art girls' school just outside the capital Lilongwe due to mismanagement, the New York Times newspaper reported on Saturday.
Madonna, who has adopted two children from Malawi, lent $11 million to the organization and is now on the board.
The workers' lawyer, Mzondi Chirambo, said Madonna had 14 days to respond to their concerns.
"Their employment was terminated by the trustees of Raising Malawi Academy for Girls ostensibly following the change of plan not to build the school as planned," Chirambo said.
"My clients are also being forced to sign a discriminatory termination agreement before they are paid their benefits."
President Obama defended his Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, saying that Americans “don’t see any contradiction” in him ordering an attack on Libya to make sure “people aren’t butchered because of a dictator who wants to cling to power.”Click title of this post to read the full article.
“When I received that award, I specifically said there was an irony because I was already dealing with two wars,” Obama said in an interview with CNN from El Salvador. “So I am accustomed to this contradiction of being both a commander-in-chief but also someone who aspires to peace.”
Saying he is focused on ensuring that Libyans can “live out their own aspirations,” Obama defended America’s involvement in Libya, saying, “we’re not invading a country, we’re not acting alone – we’re acting under a mandate issued by the United Nations Security Council in an unprecedented fashion and with unprecedented speed.”
Gorelick served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise began bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997.
But Gorelick is perhaps best known for her 1995 memo, written when she was deputy attorney general, that later became known as “Gorelick’s Wall,” a policy prescription limiting the flow of information between intelligence gatherers and criminal investigators that some believe helped allow the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center to go unchallenged.
After being denied a kiss yesterday by a neighbor 39 years her junior, a 92-year-old Florida woman allegedly returned to her home, retrieved a .380 semi-automatic handgun, and fired several shots into the man’s residence.Moral of the story? Pucker up for granny!
Aged pistolero Helen Staudinger was arrested last night and charged with aggravated assault and firing into an occupied dwelling, according to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office report. Staudinger is pictured in the mug shot at right.
Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.
Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world's problems, warned that water supplies on Earth were drying up.
"Careful! Here on planet Earth where hundreds of years ago or less there were great forests, now there are deserts. Where there were rivers, there are deserts," Chavez said, sipping from a glass of water.
He added that the West's attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves.
President Barack Obama should be impeached for approving air strikes against Libya, Rep. Dennis Kucinich said in an interview Monday.
“President Obama moved forward without Congress approving,” the liberal Ohio Democrat told Raw Story. “He didn’t have congressional authorization, he has gone against the Constitution, and that’s got to be said.” Several other members of Congress have also chastised the Obama administration for not doing enough to sell the intervention to Congress, let alone to the American people.
Bill Maher uttered a female vulgarism when referring to former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin on his HBO show Friday night.Not sure how surprising this is. In fact, it's not surprising to me at all. Of course NOW only cares about women who are democrat or liberal. They do not support ALL women and never have.
“Did you hear this – Sarah Palin finally heard what happened in Japan and she’s demanding that we invade ‘Tsunami,’” Maher said. “I mean she said, ‘These ‘Tsunamians’ will not get away with this.’ Oh speaking of dumb tw**s, did you…”
Maher was offering an imagined Palin response in an apparent attempt at humor, as Palin had made no such statement.
Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.
Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.
They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
His "What, me worry?" presidency has given both Americans and our allies plenty to worry about. But in the process of making nice with Brazil, Obama made a mind-boggling announcement that should make even his most loyal supporter cringe:Talk about some crazy double talking.
We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it.
Now, with a seven-year offshore drilling ban in effect off of both coasts, on Alaska's continental shelf and in much of the Gulf of Mexico — and a de facto moratorium covering the rest — Obama tells the Brazilians:
"We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers."
The Arizona Senate on Thursday rejected five immigration bills, placing a major stumbling block in the way of state conservatives' hopes to pass more laws cracking down on illegal immigrants.
The Senate voted down bills that sought to provoke a reevaluation by the U.S. Supreme Court of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, Senate officials said.
Other defeated measures sought to ban undocumented students from studying at state universities, as well as requiring hospitals and schools to check the legal status of patients and students respectively.
The votes came despite the Senate having a majority of Republicans, generally more sympathetic to such measures than Democrats.
"This was a clear statement that Arizona needs to focus on its priorities, not try to solve the immigration problem," Democratic State Senator Steve Gallardo told Reuters.
