Rachel Donadio | Rome | November 16

NYT - The 200 women who answered a Rome modeling agency’s advertisement for tall, attractive party guests thought they would be attending an elegant soirée on Sunday. They were — only the host turned out to be the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and instead of hors d’oeuvres he offered them copies of the Koran and urged them to convert to Islam, the Italian news media reported Monday.

The women, all between the ages of 18 and 35, assembled in a Rome hotel before being screened by both metal detectors and the fashion police, who turned away anyone in a miniskirt or provocative clothing, according to Paola Lo Mele, a journalist for the ANSA news agency, who answered the modeling agency’s request and went undercover to the event. The women were each paid $75 to attend.

John Lichfield | Oct 11

The Independent - The scientist suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on nuclear sites in France is a brilliant, internationally known physicist who has worked on research projects in Britain and the US, it emerged yesterday.

Adlène Hicheur, 32, who currently works on the "Big Bang" Large Hadron Collider experiment on the Swiss-French border, was once a research fellow at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire. His name is attached to dozens of research papers presented at universities and nuclear research centres all over the world.

Mr Hicheur, and his brother, Zitouni, or Halim, also a highly qualified scientist, were arrested at their parents' home on a suburban council estate at Vienne, south of Lyons, on Thursday. French investigators say that advanced, internet "bugging" equipment allowed them to read, in "real time", emails exchanged between the brothers and the North African branch of al-Qa'ida. The messages are alleged to have contained, in recent days, suggested targets for attacks on nuclear sites in France and other countries "allied with the United States".

Robert Verkaik | Oct 5

The Independent - The deal, worth £500m today, was part of a package of compensation measures to appease the Libyan leader and help open up trade with the North African state during the late 1970s.

Discovery of the secret offer, detailed in a letter sent by the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, raises fresh questions about whether Britain has ever paid Gaddafi compensation.

Jason McCue, the lawyer currently negotiating with the Libyans on behalf of victims of IRA bombings, said he was astonished that Britain was prepared to agree to such a pay off. "This all goes to support why our peace and reconciliation delegation is keen to meet and discuss matters in Tripoli. We believe that Anglo-Libyan relations should be flourishing but that certain human tragedies in the past have been overlooked and never reconciled."

Daniel Kawczynski MP, the chairman of the Libyan all-party group, accused the former Labour government of breaching the trust of the British people. "We should never entice other states away from terrorism by offering them taxpayers' money," said the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury.

Michael Slackman | Cairo | Sept 20

NYT - It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling with a garbage problem so severe it has managed to incite its weary residents and command the attention of the president.

“The problem is clear in the streets,” said Haitham Kamal, a spokesman for the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs. “There is a strict and intensive effort now from the state to address this issue.”

But the crisis should not have come as a surprise.

When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring — in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu — it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash.

The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba.

Thomas harding | Sept 11

The Telegraph - The SAS has been ordered by the Government to train Libyan special forces despite the country having armed the IRA, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

For the past six months Britain’s elite troops have been schooling soldiers working for Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which for years provided Republican terrorists with the Semtex explosive, machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles used against British troops during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sources within the SAS have expressed distaste at the agreement, which they believe could be connected to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Britain’s relationship with Libya has been under the spotlight since Abdelbaset al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month after being diagnosed as suffering from terminal prostate cancer and given three months to live.

Gordon Brown has faced claims that his Government helped engineer Megrahi’s release to promote Britain’s commercial interests, particularly energy, in Libya.

Downing Street has denied the allegations, but Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, has admitted that trade was a factor in deciding to include Megrahi in an earlier prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Megrahi was the only person convicted for the murder of 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am flight 103.

The disclosure that members of the SAS are training their Libyan counterparts will further raise suspicions about exactly what has been agreed behind the scenes between Tripoli and Britain.

** Government has sold its soul to the devil over SAS deal with Libya

Sept 5

BBC -

French oil firm Total has evacuated its expatriate staff from Gabon's second city as clashes continue following the release of poll results on Thursday.

Two people have died in the violence, much of which has been aimed at French interests in Port Gentil.

Protesters accuse the former colonial power of helping fix the election of Ali Bongo as president - allegations denied by the French government.

His father died in June after ruling the oil-rich nation for 41 years.

Reports from the industrial city of Port Gentil say demonstrators have attacked public buildings, and sports and social clubs belonging to Total.

Looting continued in the city through Friday night, despite a curfew.

France has about 1,000 troops in the country.

** Gabon troops outside stadium as unrest continues
** Gabon hit by new clashes, football fails to bring relief
** Ali Bongo: Like father, like son?

Daniel Howden | Tripoli | Sept 5

The Independent - Tripoli's makeover is really only one street deep. Behind the white-washed avenues and carnival lights lie the same jumbled streets of shattered pavements where pedestrians vie for space with cars and street-hawkers.

All this under a warm, stale drizzle that falls from the city's relentless air conditioners.

In the absence of shopping malls, neighbourhoods are still defined by trade. On Kanady Street the business is car accessories and business is good. "For a Libyan, 70 per cent of the money you spend on a car goes on buying the car," Khaled explains. "The rest is to pimp it up," he says with a smile, pleased with his up-to-the-minute English.

Tripoli | Aug 21

AFP - Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz apologised to the Libyan people on Thursday over the arrest in Geneva a year ago of a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"I express to the Libyan people my apologies for the unjust arrest of a Libyan diplomat by Geneva police," Merz said at a joint news conference in Tripoli with Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi.

Hannibal Gaddafi and his pregnant wife were arrested in a luxury Geneva hotel on July 15, 2008 after two servants claimed they had been mistreated.

The couple were freed after two days in custody on bail of 500,000 Swiss francs (312,500 euros, 444,000 dollars).

In October, Libya responded by suspending oil deliveries to Switzerland, withdrawing assets worth an estimated five billion euros from Swiss banks, ending bilateral cooperation programmes and placing restrictions on Swiss companies.

Well I guess it is just Gaddafi's day. Hannibal, what a son to be proud of..

Aug 21

BBC - Britain and the US have strongly condemned the jubilant welcome given in Libya to the man convicted of the bombing of a US plane over Lockerbie.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the scenes as "deeply distressing".

Crowds greeted Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi off the plane in Tripoli after he was freed from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

Many relatives of the victims of the 1988 bombing are angry at his release.

Most of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie were Americans.

US President Barack Obama said Megrahi's release, eight years into his life sentence, was "a mistake".

He said his administration had told the Libyan government that Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, should not receive a hero's welcome and should be placed under house arrest.

Aug 6

BBC - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns the US will "take action" if Eritrea continues to back militants in Somalia.

What the hell does that mean?

July 20

BBC -

The main group of Tuareg ex-rebels in Mali has agreed to help the army tackle al-Qaeda's North African branch.

Both groups roam across the Sahara Desert and so correspondents say the deal could prove significant.

The agreement was brokered by Algeria's ambassador to Mali. Algeria is where al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb stages most of its attacks.

Last month, the group killed a British hostage who was being held in Mali after being seized in Niger.

Two weeks later, the army said it had seized an al-Qaeda base near the border with Algeria.

However, the group remains active in the region and has also staged attacks in Niger and Mauritania.

Christine Schultze | Munich | July 9

DPA - An ambitious plan to harness the sun's energy in the Sahara desert and turn it into electricity for European households has raised eyebrows among experts.

Some see it as publicity stunt, others call it unrealistic, while many wonder where the 400 billion euros (552 billion dollars) needed to finance the mammoth venture will come from.

On Monday, the Desertec project is set to be launched by leading German companies, among them utilities giants RWE and E.ON, Deutsche Bank and electro-engineering group Siemens.

'Of course it is still a long way off, but the enormous interest in the scheme shows we are on the right path,' said a spokesman for another member of the consortium, insurer Munich Re.

The Desertec Foundation has long been obsessed with the idea of using the inexhaustible power of desert sun to solve the world's growing energy problems.

'Within six hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year,' says Gerhard Knies, chairman of the Desertec supervisory board.

John Lichfield | Paris | July 9

The Independent - One of the most troubling and mysterious episodes in recent French history – the brutal death of six French monks in Algeria in 1996 – is to be re-investigated with the co-operation of the French state.

Rumours have swirled for years around the kidnapping and decapitation of the Cistercian monks, which was blamed by authorities in Algiers and Paris on Islamist radical terrorists. New evidence presented to an investigating judge in France by a French general suggests that the kidnapped monks may have been killed by accident by airborne Algerian soldiers who were trying to rescue them.

Their bodies were then decapitated by the Algerian soldiers to make their deaths look like an act of terrorism, according to General François Buchwalter, who was French military attaché in Algeria at the time. In a leaked interview with a French judge, the general also suggests that it may have been the Algerian authorities, not Islamist terrorists, who assassinated the French bishop of Oran, three months later, because he had embarrassing information on the monks' fate.

Lamine Chikhi | July 8

Reuters -

After using police raids, arrests and gun battles in its fight against Islamist insurgents, Algeria is now deploying a new, more subtle weapon: a branch of Islam associated with contemplation, not combat.

The government of this North African oil and gas producer is promoting Sufism, an Islamic movement that it sees as a gentler alternative to the ultra-conservative Salafism espoused by many of the militants behind Algeria's insurgency.

The authorities have created a television and radio station to promote Sufism and the "zaouias" or religious confraternities that preach and practise it, in addition to regular appearances by Sufi sheikhs on other stations. All are tightly controlled by the state.

** Sahara gas pipeline gets go-ahead
** EU, Russia struggle for stake in trans-Saharan gas pipeline
** Nigerian militants threaten proposed Trans-Sahara gas line
** Niger Delta Militants Threaten Trans-Saharan Pipeline
** Nigeria: Trans-Saharan Gas Project 'Not For Sale' - Ministers

Magdi Abdelhadi | Cairo | June 23

BBC -

Nearly 60 years since the Egyptian army overthrew the monarchy, some Egyptians may be looking to the army again for a successor to 80-year-old head of state and former air force chief Hosni Mubarak.

Not far from the podium where President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 while watching a military parade stands a huge frieze.

The gilded triptych glorifies the military and places it at the heart of Egyptian society from the time of the Pharaohs.

The central scene portrays soldiers, together with farmers, workers and students, carrying a plaque inscribed with 1952 - the year a group of army officers overthrew King Farouk and declared Egypt a republic.

The message is clear: the military injects dignity and pride into Egypt and deserves its privileged status - a status the officers have enjoyed since 1952.

The military has also been transformed into a veritable business empire, whose exact size, turnover and profit no-one is allowed to know. Not even parliament can scrutinise its affairs.

Cairo | June 16

Reuters -
Libyan authorities have reported an outbreak of bubonic plague in the Mediterranean coastal town of Tubruq(Tobruk), and the World Health Organisation was sending a team to investigate, a WHO official said Tuesday.

The cases -- approximately 16 to 18 have been reported -- would be the first in more than two decades in Libya of the disease known in medieval times as the Black Death, according to John Jabbour, a Cairo-based emerging diseases specialist at WHO.

"It is reported as bubonic plague," Jabbour said, adding WHO still didn't have "a full picture" of the situation.

"It is officially reported by Libya... Tomorrow, WHO is deploying a mission to Libya to investigate the whole situation, to see how many of the cases are confirmed, or not confirmed."

He said preliminary information from Libyan authorities showed 16 to 18 reported cases including one death, and that Tripoli had asked for assistance from the global health body.

Bubonic plague, noticeable by black bumps that sometimes develop on victims' bodies, causes severe vomiting and fever and still kills around 100 to 200 people annually worldwide. It can kill within days if not treated with antibiotics.

A plague epidemic of 1347 to 1351 was one of the deadliest recorded in human history, killing about 75 million people, according to some estimates, including more than a third of Europe's population.

That pandemic was thought to have begun in Asia, then spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Michael Day | Milan | June 10

The Independent -

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi flies into Rome today on his first visit to Italy, celebrating the end of decades of animosity between his country and its former colonial power.

Since the countries signed a treaty in August last year, in which Italy agreed to pay £4.5bn over 20 years as compensation for Italy's colonisation of the North African country, business ties have flourished. Successive Italian governments have bent over backwards to accommodate the mercurial Col Gaddafi, who for decades was seen as a terrorist-sponsoring international pariah.

Roman authorities are making plans for the unexpected this week as he prepares to pitch his Bedouin tent, together with a possible planeload of camels and stallions, in the grounds of the Eternal City's sumptuous 17th-century Villa Doria Pamphili palace. As ever, his female bodyguards in green fatigues and red berets are expected to guard him round the clock.

During his visit, Col Gaddafi will meet the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the President, Giorgio Napolitano, and the heads of both houses of parliament. He has also asked for a meeting with 700 Italian women achievers. The encounter will take place in a city concert hall on 12 June.

If you didn't watch Obama's speech in Cairo yet--and if, like me, you sort of feel like you "should," but omg it's so long and it'll probably be dry and can't I just catch someone's 200-word summary somewhere, please?--well, no. You really want to see this speech. Not just read it, either.

Seriously, it's that good.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

MIchael Slackman | Cairo | May 26

NYT - The garbage collectors of Cairo live in neighborhoods spilling over with trash. The children play with the trash and in the trash, when they are not helping to sort or collect the trash. The women sit right in the trash, picking out rotten food with their hands and tossing it to their pigs, which live right there in the neighborhood with them.

Slideshow

Really interesting article about the zabaleen and the slaughtering of pigs in Eygpt

Maggie Michael | May 21

The Independent - A prominent Egyptian real state mogul and lawmaker was found guilty and sentenced to death today by an Egyptian court for ordering the slaying of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim, a case that sparked a media frenzy in a country where the elite is often perceived as above the law.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, who is close to President Hosni Mubarak's eldest son, Gamal, was accused of paying a former Egyptian police officer $2 million to kill Tamim in Dubai. Authorities say Moustafa and Tamim were lovers.

The former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also sentenced to death Thursday in a court session that quickly descended into chaos. Police and Moustafa's relatives clashed with reporters after the verdict was read, smashing cameras to prevent photographers from capturing the former Talaat Moustafo Group chairman's reaction.

Dione Nissenbaum | El Arish, Egypt | May 16

McClatchy Newspapers - When Egyptian police pounded on the door before dawn and took her husband Nimr away, Sahar Zibawi had no idea that her partner was about to become a pivotal player in a convoluted political plot involving gun running to Gaza, a notorious African smuggling route once used by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, an Iranian-backed Hezbollah cell and an attempt by Egypt's aging president to reclaim his waning regional influence.

"We've been put in a whirlwind and we don't know why," Zibawi said nervously while she met surreptitiously with a McClatchy reporter in this Mediterranean coast town that's a gateway for smuggling to Palestinian-controlled Gaza.

Cam McGrath | Cairo | May 5

IPA - It is a health crisis of alarming proportions. Up to nine million Egyptians have been exposed to hepatitis C, and tens of thousands will die each year unless they receive a liver transplant.

Health authorities are taking steps to stop the spread of the blood-borne virus, but must also contend with higher liver failure mortality rates as the disease advances in those infected decades ago.

"The prevalence of hepatitis C is not growing, but the impact of an outbreak in the 1960s and 70s is appearing now as a clinical outcome," says Dr. Mostafa Kamal Mohamed, professor of community medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo. "Liver disease has become the number one healthcare priority for the country and will continue to be so for the next decade. About 70 percent of all liver deaths here are due to hepatitis C."

Xan Rice/Nairobi & Robert Booth | Apr 27

The Guardian - • Deadline of 20 days issued for release of radical cleric
• Briton seized in Africa by group linked to Bin Laden

Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days.

The kidnapped man was among four Europeans seized in January after their convoy was ambushed near the border of Niger and Mali, where they had been after attending a Tuareg festival. The Foreign Office has not released the man's name.

Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's righthand man in Europe", is being held in Britain pending deportation to his native Jordan, where in 1999 he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges related to bombings at the American school and the Jerusalem hotel in Jordan. He was convicted a second time in 2000 over a plot to bomb tourists.

"We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly [held], for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement," the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a posting on an Islamist website yesterday. "When this period expires, the mujahideen will kill the British hostage."