Will Libya’s rebels hold out long enough to see international support?

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» With expected urgency: Reports out of Libya have suggested that rebel forces are significantly over-matched against the military forces still loyal to dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and this article suggests that by the time the international community makes its move, he may already have reasserted control. It’s hard to topple a strongman who, for all his incoherence, viciousness and bombast, still has enough military willing to shoot and bomb their fellow countrymen. France has lauded the Arab League’s request of the U.N Security Council in support of a no-fly zone, and hopes it will lead to expedient action.

Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2011 11:30

What exactly goes on in Obama’s mind? He’s a smart and supposedly idealistic guy who came of age during the Reagan years, who surely — those first times he dared to dream about the Oval Office — saw himself taking all the obvious hypocrisy. Instead, he is taking presidential hypocrisy to new levels. What switch got turned off, or on, that stops him from ordering a halt to the mistreatment of Bradley Manning?
Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch • Offering a very harsh and sobering viewpoint on the whole Obama/P.J. Crowley/Bradley Manning thing we posted about yesterday. This is what Obama’s going to have to deal with from the left now that his administration forced Crowley out. See, Obama banked his career on being not that guy. And you know what? He’s kinda acting like that guy now. Who twisted his arm so tightly that he no longer seems to be actively pushing that human rights thing he used to push? source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

It said we had to go to the town hall to evacuate because there was trouble at reactor No. 1. I left with just my purse and the clothes I was wearing.
Fukushima nuclear plant employee Yoshiko Watanabe • Describing what happened when she found out the plant was first having trouble on Saturday. Since then, she and others have been sleeping on the floor at a school in the city of Iwaki. She and other residents of Narahama are among the 200,000 people who have been forced from their homes by the situation at Fukushima. The town had no plan for anything like this and was caught off-guard. That’s because the reactor was made to withstand a quake, but not a tsunami. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

The situation here is just beyond belief, almost everything has been flattened. The government is saying that 9,500 people, more than half of the population, could have died and I do fear the worst.
International Red Cross Federation official Patrick Fuller • Describing the situation in Otsuchi, just one of the many towns hit by the earthquake in Japan. Death toll estimates are expected to far exceed 10,000 people, and thousands of bodies have already been found. Remember how we gave that warning about early death toll estimates? This was why. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink