Nato announced that it has taken over all air operations over Libya from the US, which had led the international force till now.
Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance assumed sole command of all air operations over Libya at 6am.
The operation - codenamed Unified Protector - now includes enforcement of the no-fly zone, maintaining the arms embargo on Libya, and the protection of civilians from attacks by Gaddafi's military.
Mr Fogh Rasmussen said that, in line with the UN Security Council mandate, Nato's operational focus would be "on protecting civilians and civilian-populated areas against the threat of attack."
Unemployment rates are reasonable so far but as illegal immigrants increase their presence on the island, they of course attempt to get some income. Slowly an increasing illegal workforce is replacing Maltese workers especially in manual labour and in the construction industry.
But the major impact is the cultural, social and religious divergences that there influx is bringing and the effect that will have on our society.
While most have interpreted media reports that the US may have already passed on armaments if not also personnel to the rebel opposition forces of Benghazi, I would say that these are just speculations at this point.
From sources that I have it appears that any direct foreign involvement so far has been limited to some officials in direct contact with the Benghazi council and a few special ground forces which have been involved in isolated missions. Known amongst these are the recovery of the ejected airman of last week by US special forces and the British sas team who sought out ground targets.
Beyond that, at best coalition forces may have sent some military advisors. If there was anything more substantial, surely Gaddafi would not waste time to raise a massive anti-western propaganda out of it.
Following Moussa Koussa's defection from Gaddafi's regime in London, Libyan state TV has reportedly explained his absence by saying he is on holiday.
Mr. Koussa is not new to Britain as he was actually expelled from the country while he was serving as Libya's ambassador for alleged threats to Libya's enemies. Considered also as an ex-spy, he is thus not necessarily being trusted and accepted in the country.
In the meantime Anita McNaught reporting from Tripoli says we should be expecting other high profile defections soon which may include the oil minister, the head of intelligence, and the secretary of the people's congress amongst others.
I was too busy posting about the illegal immigrant these last days that I never got to update you on the HMS Westminster.
Well the British navy frigate left the island the day before yesterday. But it seems the vessel is not heading back to Libyan waters but is instead heading back home to the UK.
Replacing it is the HMS Ocean which should already be in the region. Also still in the area is the HMS Cumberland which has been in action since the start of this crisis and has also participated in various evacuation missions between Benghazi and Malta.
Outgunned and retreating Libyan opposition fighters called on coalition forces to launch fresh air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists after fleeing the key oil town of Ras Lanuf under heavy fire this morning.
AFP quotes rebel fighter Yunes Abdelghaim saying, "We want two things: that the planes drop bombs on Gaddafi's tanks and heavy artillery; and that they give us weapons so we can fight". The 27-year-old was holding a Russian AK-47 assault rifle and French flag.
"Where is Sarkozy?" others exclaimed as coalition warplanes seem to have withdrawn for the past 2 days. The rebel fighters associate this with the London conference on the Libyan crisis. Coalition sources however quote a desert sandstorm yesterday as the main reason.
"We are facing a big problem. We are pulling back," said one fighter, Salama Dadida, "Gaddafi's troops are firing rockets and tank shells."
Yes Venere, you're right both about the numbers and about the situation in Italy. Actually its a bit more in Lampedusa right now as there's over 6000 refugees there. In fact Prime Minister Berlusconi is visiting the tiny island today to 'address' the crisis.
But at least Lampedusa has some hope of transferring these immigrants to mainland Italy. In Malta we have no such luxury - those who come here, we're quite simply stuck with. People from the outside view Malta and Italy are just 2 countries affected by this and people like Giletti start to compare numbers and think we're getting off lightly. Thing is one has to keep in mind that Malta has a population of approx 400,000 to Italy's 59 million and a land mass of only 122 square miles (about twice the size of Washington, D.C.) as compared to Italy's 116,343 square miles (slightly larger than the state of Arizona). That makes Malta less than 1% of Italy's population and an even lessor percentage in land mass so the impact of every immigrant arriving here is felt 100 times more than our neighbour.
The irony of the matter is as some of the immigrants themselves state, they leave their countries for a better life and more freedom in Europe and often find themselves in guarded immigrant centres living in worse conditions than they left back home. These people never planned to live in Malta or in Lampedusa, they want to head to mainland Europe but beaurocracy and selfish countries close their doors and let us deal with it.
The real solution here is not just to care and feed these immigrants but to improve conditions in their countries that they would no longer more need to escape their homeland.
The city of Tripoli is really feeling the pinch of this crisis. Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught says major services which mainly depended on foreign workers are now largely at a standstill as the latter abandoned the country. Bread and basic necessities are hard to come by, fish is inexistent as the fishermen are blocked in their harbours, fuel has become a scarce commodity. No one's starving she says, but life hasn't been 'normal' for more than a month in the city.
Add the nightly raids to that report as coalition jets fly overhead and missiles explode in hopefully distant neighborhoods, a state TV which tells you civilians are being killed, armed militia roaming the streets, and government spies amongst your neighbors watching your every step. Picture a family with kids living in fear and not knowing if there will be a tomorrow.
Situation in Misurata and other rebel-controlled cities and areas is worse. They have the same shortages as in the government-controlled capital and on top of that electricity and water have been cut for days. Maybe no spies around but they do not need the state TV to show them dead and wounded... If you were there, you would only need to take a peek out of covered windows to see them, and God-forbid that you or one of your family needs any medical attention as a visit to a local hospital could only worsen your nightmare.
Here missiles aren't controlled by hopefully correctly set GPS coodinates but indiscriminatory shelling by powerful artillery pound your neighborhood. The local bus stopped passing by your home as a massive tank blocks the end of the road and the life of you and your family are at the mercy of a nervous soldier that sits inside.
This is the unfortunate reality of a country split over a dictator hanging on to power and where an international coalition struggles to take the right steps.
I know the country got some EU funds to help out but I haven't heard anything about international voluntary organisations or Red Cross.
The thing is this is not just a financial problem. Malta is a small island with one of the highest population densities in the world and once these people come here we're basically stuck with them. Few or no countries offer to re-home any and if so they just take a handful while immigrants arrive in boatloads. If we send them back to their homeland the international community is quick to accuse us of breaking human rights and immigrant asylum norms but when it comes to shoulder the burden...
The finincial cost is a burden but the real problem is to give these persons a new life not to dump them in a refugee camp and feed them.
A further 151 evacuees arrived in Malta yesterday from Libya on the Greek vessel Ionian King. The vessel came from Misurata where it had transported humanitarian aid.
The evacuees are of several nationalities and include Bangladeshis, Peruvians and South Koreans.
Following yesterday's encouraging westward push, opposition forces where checked drastically today and even pushed back. Troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, have shelled pro-democracy forces heading west on the main coastal highway, and pushed them out of Bin Jawad, a small town around 150km east of Sirte.
Not just, but according to Al Jazeera's Hoda-Abdel Hamid who describes the day's events as follows:
"So certainly what we can say at this stage is that Bin Jawad is not any more in the hands of the rebels, actually the Gaddafi forces now are managing to pound Ras Lanuf and are getting closer and closer to them, pushing the opposition fighters eastwards more and more."
She also added that this is basically an exact repeat of what happened about three weeks ago.
You mean the island? Well it's about a 113km (70 miles) east of Tunisia and west of Malta, kind of midway between Malta and Tunisia and is actually further south to Sicily than is Malta. That explains why they're getting most landings there...
The situation in Misurata main hospital is said to be desperate as it has become inundated with wounded people while the city has been over a week without energy and water after supplies had been cut by government forces.
"The humanitarian situation has become catastrophic", said Sami, an opposition spokesman, via telephone.
More illegal immigrants continue to arrive in Malta today as two more trips brought around another 300 persons to the island. This brings the total to over 800 immigrants since just yesterday.
Maltese Foreign Minister Tonio Borg made an appeal today in the London Libya-conference to the international community in general and to the European Union in particular about the illegal migration problem caused by the conflict. Needless to say there weren't too many countries volunteering to help out.
Obviously the Italian island of Lampedusa is in a much more serious crisis but since Italy has chosen to criticize Malta in regard to illegal immigrants I shall be selfish about this and only give details about what's happening here.
Libya's state-run Al-Libiyah TV quotes Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim calling on nations gathering for today’s conference on Libya in London not to push Libyans towards civil war.
The international conference, which would include the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers, will focus on coordinating assistance and building a unified international front in condemnation of the Gaddafi regime and in support of a Nato-led military action in Libya.
Seems like yesterday's post about Sarko meeting a few select countries wasn't about the conference itself but re a tele-conference with the intent of getting Germany's support for today in London.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and David Cameron, the British prime minister have issued this joint statement on Libya earlier in preparation of a meeting in London tomorrow about the crisis.
According to Sarkozy, France, the United States, Britain and Germany will meet tomorrow to discuss a Franco-British proposal which aims to pave the way for a political transition in Libya.
I'm not sure if these are the only countries to meet and frankly the choice of Germany stands glaringly out considering the country was all against any action as is the non-inclusion of Italy? Perhaps Sarko just mentioned a few of the countries to participate...
Anyhow, amongst a lot of typically expected hype the proposal declares:
"Military action is not an objective as such. A lasting solution can only be a political one that belongs to the Libyan people. That is why the political process that will begin tomorrow in London is so important. The London conference will bring the international community together to support Libya’s transition from violent dictatorship and to help create the conditions where the people of Libya can choose their own future."
This clearly indicates a new initiative by 2 of the main drivers within the coalition to perhaps try a different approach of a political or diplomatic solution to what could otherwise end-up as a stalemate.
Al Jazeera's James Bays reported absolute panic within the opposition forces on the frontline earlier near to Nawfaliya. Following artillery attacks between sides, apparently different rebel troops mistakenly shelled each other and panic ensued as the opposition forces pulled backwards fearing a reprisal by Gaddafi forces.
As Malta receives the first immigrants after the Libyan crisis, the Italian inhabitants of the island of Lampedusa have attempted to blockade their harbour to stop Italian coastguard and navy bringing in more immigrants. The islanders have declared to Italian media that they have had enough and that the situation there is simply impossible.
Authorities had to force the residents away from the main quay in order to allow further disembarkations. In the meantime Italy is sending a number of ships to the island to move a considerable number of illegal immigrants to centres on the mainland.
A boat with some 300 Somali and Eritrean immigrants arrived in Malta today. The boat arriving from Libya, entered a bay in the northern island and was later accompanied to the Grand Harbour.
Some 50 women and children are among the immigrants on this boat who said they had spent two nights and three days at sea.
In the meantime following a report by a French naval vessel, the Maltese armed forces sent both a rescue helicopter and a coastguard boat some 12 nautical miles from Malta. In a statement the armed forces declared finding another vessel carrying a number of migrants onboard, who reported not feeling well after resorting to drinking seawater. Onboard are some 200 Somalis, including 100 women and children. The vessel will be accompanied to the island later.
Reuters correspondents confirm its earlier report that rebel opposition forces are still far off from Sirte.
A correspondent reports their position as about 15km west of Bin Jawad on the road which leads to Nawfaliya and onwards to Sirte. He reports hearing sustained bombardment on ahead and describes the area as the current frontline.
Meantime Sadoun, a spokesperson for the opposition, tells Al Jazeera that clashes between pro and anti-government forces in the city of Misurata have been sporadic today, while he reports pro-Gaddafi forces have once again begun bombarding the city.
The Italian ambassador to Malta, Luigi Marras has declared that he was "astonished" by Italian well known media personality Massimo Giletti’s claims about Malta's handling of illegal immigrants.
In a statement Mr. Marras said, "The allegations are completely out of the picture and just made by one journalist," as he explained that while Lampedusa and Sicily are geographically found on the migratory route from Tunisia, Malta is not.
He also added that he is glad that the Maltese Ambassador Walter Balzan had the opportunity to intervene in the live transmission but showed disappointment that the ambassador only objected to the outragous claim while failing to clarify the geographical reason.
In the meantime however, few if any Italians will get to hear Mr. Marras statements while Giletti's live transmission on Italian primary state media channel was viewed by millions of viewers and ironically by several tens of thousands of Maltese who habitually watch Italian TV.
The Maltese people reknowned for their hospitality have been highly offended by these futile accusations and this ridiculous incident has caused general anti-Italian sentiments right across the population.
This incident follows another political gaffe from our northern neighbor just last week when the Italian Foreign Office advised its citizens that Malta is an "unsafe" location to travel to. Perhaps they issued that warning a week too early...
In a ground-breaking move, Qatar has become the second country, after France, to recognise the Libyan opposition's National Council as the legitimate government of Libya, the QNA state news agency reports.
Reuters has countered earlier reports by other news media and says that there is "no indication" that Sirte is under opposition control.
In fact AFP reports that opposition fighters have been halted about 140km east of Sirte. Al Jazeera also report opposition forces at Nofilia advancing towards an area called the Red Valley, but having found it to be full of mines, have now retreated and will attempt to clean the area.
zeus911 Forum Posts (1,000)
Libya - Latest Updates Part III
Libyan authorities officially acknowledged Moussa Koussa's defection butt shrugged it off saying Libya 'does not depend on individuals'.The ex minister was said to be one of Gaddafi's top trusted aides.