Saving migrant lives is 'first priority' : EU foreign policy chief

The EU's foreign policy chief has told the UN Security Council that the first priority in confronting the Mediterranean migrant crisis is to save lives. Some 5,000 refugees have died in the last 18 months.

Deutsche Welle, 11 May 2015

Speaking before the 15-member council in New York on Monday, Federica Mogherini said the migrant crisis "is not only a humanitarian emergency but also a security crisis since smuggling networks are linked to and finance terrorist activities."

"Our first priority is to save lives and prevent further loss of lives at sea," added.

Military action

Mogherini is currently in the US seeking support for a for a controversial EU plan which aims to stem the tide of refugees making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

The blueprint suggested by the EU involves military action to destroy boats used by migrant smugglers to transport the migrants, who have seized on the chaos in Libya to set up operations.

"We cannot work alone. We need a partnership if we want to end this tragedy," Mogherini said.

With more than 1,800 dead this year alone, Mogherini described the migrant flow on Monday as an "unprecedented situation."

"We need an exceptional response," she told the council.

Call for support within the EU

UN Security Council members Britain, France, Lithuania and Spain are currently working with Italy on a draft resolution that would endorse the EU migrant crisis plan.

For months, Italy and other southern European states have been demanding help from other EU nations, with pressure for action intensifying last month when 800 migrants drowned as a ship sunk off the coast of Libya.

The latest plans to take military action have been condemned by human rights and aid organizations, however, who argue that the focus should instead be broadening legal avenues for migrants to reach Europe.

ksb/kms (AFP, dpa)

EU Commission proposes 10-point migrant crisis action plan

Yahoo – AFP, 20 April 2015

The body of a person who died after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized 

off the Libyan coast is brought ashore, retreived by the Italian Coast Guard, in

Malta on April 20, 2015 (AFP Photo/Matthew Mirabelli)

Luxembourg (AFP) - The EU unveiled a 10-point action plan Monday to stem the tide of migrants crossing the Mediterranean after the latest disastrous loss of life, promising to step up both control and rescue operations.

The European Commission said the plan, approved by EU foreign and interior ministers at an emergency meeting in Luxembourg, will be submitted to a summit Thursday as the 28-member bloc tries to halt a growing death toll off its southern shores.

European Union foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said the plan reflected a determination to respond after the sinking Sunday of a boat carrying perhaps 700 migrants and reports of other vessels being in trouble.

EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini 

gives a joint press conference during an 

emergency meeting in Luxembourg on

April 20, 2015 (AFP Photo/John Thys)

"We need to show that same collective European sense of urgency we have consistently shown in reacting in times of crisis," Mogherini said.

"The dire situation in the Mediterranean is not a new nor a passing reality," she added.

The 10-point plan calls first for the current Triton maritime frontier mission to be stepped up, both in funding and resources so it can cover a wider issue.

Triton replaced Italy's own Mare Nostrum mission which Rome scrapped late last year in protest that its EU partners did not share the burden of the cost.

The EU will also try to capture or destroy people smuggler boats and increase cooperation across the board, the Commission said.

The bloc will offer too a "voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering a number of places to persons in need of protection," a key but small step forward in spreading out the problem.

Diplomats said this could cover 5,000 places but the Commission statement gave no figure.

Additionally, the EU will "establish a new return programme for rapid return of irregular migrants."

It will also step up cooperation efforts with neighbours of war-torn Libya, the epicentre of the problem, the statement said.

Related Articles:

Opinion: Legal migration to Europe is the only answer

MOAS: 'Migrants do not deserve to die out at sea'

Nicolas Sarkozy detained for questioning for alleged corruption

Unprecedented move against a former French president as investigators also question his lawyer and two magistrates

theguardian.com, AFP, Paris, Tuesday 1 July 2014

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been questioned by
anti-corruption investigators. Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

Nicolas Sarkozy has been detained for questioning as part of a widening corruption inquiry in an unprecedented move against a former French president.

Anti-corruption investigators can hold Sarkozy for questioning for up to 24 hours, with a possible extension of another day.

Sarkozy had turned himself in for questioning a day after investigators detained his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and two magistrates.

The investigators are seeking to establish if the former president, with the help of Herzog, tried to pervert the course of justice.

They suspect Sarkozy, 59, sought to obtain inside information from one of the magistrates about the progress of another inquiry and that he was tipped off that his mobile phone had been tapped by judges looking into the alleged financing of his 2007 election campaign by former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

The case could prove devastating for Sarkozy's hopes of a political comeback in time for the 2017 presidential campaign.

Related Article:

Nicolas Sarkozy faces criminal charge after being placed under investigation

'Lundin may have led Bildt to the heart of darkness'

The Local, by Leo Lagercrantz, Sweden, 22 Dec 2011

Swedish journalists (r) jailed in Ethiopia

After two Swedish journalists claiming they were investigating the presence of the Lundin Group in Ethiopia were found guilty of terror crimes on Wednesday, Swedish investigative journalist Leo Lagercrantz takes a closer look at the Swedish company and foreign minister Carl Bildt's involvement with it.

• Swedes convicted of terror crimes in Ethiopia (21 Dec 11)
• Swedish journalists 'must be freed': Reinfeldt (21 Dec 11)
• Bildt avoids Sudan war crimes probe (21 Oct 11)
• Bildt slams paper over 'amateur' reporting (17 Oct 11)

On July 1st of this year, Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye were arrested after having ventured into the disputed Ogaden Province in eastern Ethiopia in the company of soldiers from the ONLF guerrillas.

They were found guilty of terror crimes by an Ethiopian court on Wednesday.

The story of the Swedes is more than business as usual, for the Ethiopian regime and for the Swedish government.

The affair has once again put the spotlight on Carl Bildt's previous involvement in the mining and oil group, The Lundin Group - founded by the now deceased, controversial Adolf H. Lundin - and listed on the Stockholm and Toronto stock exchanges.

This time it's about Carl Bildt sitting on the board and being involved in negotiating the agreement between Lundin Petroleum and the Ethiopian regime in Addis Ababa.

And it was precisely the Lundin Group's presence and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in connection with the establishment of the deal that the Swedish journalists wanted to investigate.

When it became known that the Swedes had been arrested Carl Bildt commented: "It's an area we have been advised against traveling to because it is a dangerous area."

The foreign minister's statement has caused concern and anger among Schibbye and Persson's fellow journalists, and many Swedish publishers are today asking the question: Whose interests does Carl Bildt represent - the captured Swedish citizens’ or the Ethiopian regime?

Or perhaps his own?

And Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, is campaigning on its cultural pages for his resignation.

The suspicion has not exactly diminished after Göteborgs-Posten (GP) got an interview with the head of Africa Oil in Addis Abeba, James Phillips, where he claims that he had a close cooperation with the former Swedish ambassador to Ethiopia, Staffan Tillander, and that Africa Oil and the Swedish ambassador on a regular basis exchanged “security info” and travelled in Ogaden together.

This leads to the conclusion that it's OK for Swedish companies with questionable reputations to be in Ogaden, but for Swedish journalists investigating crimes against humanity, it is not.

But the Ethiopian affair is just one of several that are haunting the Swedish foreign minister after his seven years in the Lundin sphere.

Let us go back ten years to the year 2000. It was the year that the former prime minister (1991-1994) and EU envoy to the Balkans (1995) joined the Lundin Petroleum's board of directors.

The seven years with the Lundin Group that followed would make Carl Bildt a wealthy man. But at what price?

His time as a “Lundin man” follows him like a dark shadow that he can’t shake.

This is because The Lundin Group is not just any other listed company.

The founder, the Swedish rock engineer and oil and gas magnate Adolf H. Lundin, made a fortune back in the 1970s when he came across huge natural gas fields in Qatar.

However, the company attracted international attention the first time in 1984, when, despite the UN boycott, it mined gold in South Africa. Adolf H. Lundin, however, couldn’t be bothered with the criticism: "I do not understand the Swedish rage against this beautiful country," he told the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

The next storm of criticism came in 1996. This time, after The Lundin Group was blacklisted by the United Nations who believed that the company had plundered the Congo for its assets.

Today, the Lundin sphere is the second largest owner of the Tenke Fungurume facility (ownership amounts to 24.5 percent) but the mine continues to be the subject of criticism from NGOs.

Among other things, the Lundin sphere and the other owners have been criticized for having displaced people who today are forced to live under canvas, although they were promised decent housing.

After the deals in the Congo, the Lundin ravage there has been compared to the ruthless imperialism in Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" in the Swedish media.

So who then was Adolf H. Lundin (1938 - 2006)? A modern variant of the ivory collector Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's novel, or a charming Indiana Jones type?

Bildt, who wrote Lundin's obituary, described him like this:

"Adolf is a true global entrepreneur of a species that unfortunately we hardly have in Sweden."

The descriptions of Adolf H. Lundin as 100 percent contractor is substantiated by his own description of himself:

"We work without regard to political risks. (...) The only thing that is important to us is that what we are looking for can be something big.”

But for those who read the authorized biography written by journalist Robert Eriksson, now responsible at the company for Investor Relations in Europe, a different picture is presented of the tycoon who built up the Lundin empire: Adolf H. Lundin did indeed have political passion.

He was an ardent anti-Communist who was involved in the Washington, DC-based conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Adolf H. Lundin sponsored Ronald Reagan's election campaign; in return, he and his wife Eva were invited to the Reagent inauguration in 1981. The program included a show with Frank Sinatra that the couple watched from the front row.

So what was Adolf H. Lundin’s position towards doing business with communist countries?

He answered author Robert Eriksson like this:

"I would not have dreamed of doing business with Soviet Communist politicians."

When it came to the German Nazis, however, the answer is different:

"That I certainly would have done. There was no one who knew what really happened there until very late, at the end of World War II."

Among all of the controversial projects that Adolf H. Lundin initiated, there is one which even today - five years after Adolf H. Lundin's death – continues to drain the company and the Swedish foreign minister's trust capital: Sudan.

Since the summer of 2010 there has been an ongoing criminal investigation by the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm concerning Lundin Petroleum's operations in Sudan.

When Carl Bildt in 2000 agreed to become a member of the board of the Lundin Group, the company had already been active there for three years. Human rights groups were early to assert that the government bombed villages and killed and expelled the local population in the province of Unity State (also called the Western Upper Nile), so that Lundin Petroleum could prospect for oil undisturbed.

But as usual, when accused of unethical business, the company was unresponsive to criticism. When Carl Bildt was questioned in the Riksdag's Constitutional Committee in April 2007 (this time about his options in the Lundin company Vostok Nafta, all of whose assets were in Russian Gazprom) he rejected the criticism, countering that his commitment has contributed to peace in the region.

When after the hearing in the constitutional committee, reporters pressed Carl Bildt it ended as it often does with the Swedish foreign minister: he berated them, pushed on factual errors, often petty, in the questions - and got laughs and sympathy on his side.

After the hearing in the constitutional committee he appeared in the Swedish media more as a hero of peace in Sudan, rather than a dubious businessman.

And he has continued to be one of the Reinfeldt government’s most popular ministers. The criticism of him and his commitment to The Lundin Group has been brushed aside as "leftist propaganda.”

However, lately support for Carl Bildt has begun to fade.

His arrogant attitude to the case of the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been imprisoned for 10 years in Eritrea without trial, has created discontent among Swedish journalists. His unwillingness to criticize first Iran (where Lundin has been active through its subsidiary Lundin Munir) and then Qaddafi, whose regime the Lundin Group long had close relations with, has disappointed many of his former supporters.

While the majority of the world’s democratic leaders condemned Qhaddafi when he attacked demonstrators with fighter jets, Bildt took another position.

“It has nothing to do with supporting one or the other, it has to do with obtaining stability and a reasonable development,” he said.

Yet again the question needed to be raised: Did the Swedish foreign minister’s peculiar, tactful attitude towards crimes against humanity have any connection with his time as a Lundin board member?

His veto recently against EU-sanctions against Syria – called “The Ericsson factor” because of Swedish pundits' analysis that he voted against full sanctions to protect the Swedish telecom company’s interests – has also created amazement.

And now, on Wednesday, two Swedish journalists were found guilty of terror crimes by an Ethiopian court.

Lundin Petroleum first established itself in Ethiopia in 2006. The situation in Somali Ethiopia, as the area is also called, was difficult even before Lundin started looking for gas and oil there. Security consultants warned Lundin against establishing operations in the Ogaden - but in vain.

The company signed a contract with the Ethiopian regime.

And in connection with the establishment, the government took the opportunity to "clean up" so that no one or anything could interfere with the exploitation.

That they wanted to get rid of various rebel groups and warring tribes is not surprising, but the allegations of the methods used are familiar ones when it comes to how the Lundin Group does business in Africa: burned villages, people displacement, and systematic rape.

That is at least what human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and other experts claim. But the documentation of the regime's abuses in Somali Ethiopia is far from satisfactory.

The regime has effectively isolated the area, and to visit it unlawfully is considered a terrorist crime.

This means that the army can feel safe – it's not possible to produce any evidence that could lead to prosecution in The Hague.

But multinationals in place there, such as the Swedish Lundin Group (Lundin Petroleum's operations were taken over by African Oil, in which they still have a strong interest) have had little to fear.

The same applies to political socialites such as Carl Bildt.

The Lundin Group's business in Ethiopia has received little media exposure.

Until now.

And while the criticism of Bildt's handling of the Ethiopia-Swedes is growing in strength, there is also a preliminary investigation which should may also cause the foreign minister to lose sleep: the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm's investigation of crimes against humanity in Sudan 1997-2003.

No one yet has been informed they are under suspicion, and the prosecutor, Magnus Elving, has not even mentioned that it is Lundin Oil currently under investigation.

But he confirmed that the investigation started because of a report by a human rights organization that explicitly criticized this particular company.

When I talk with Magnus Elving he says:

"So far we have devoted ourselves to gathering documentation. Now we are beginning to approach the stage where it becomes necessary to call in [people] for questioning."

Prosecutor Elving is optimistic: "The investigation will take at least another year, but we will not give up so easily."

Adolf H. Lundin died in 2006 and today the group is led by sons Lukas and Ian Lundin.

 They have invested considerable resources in re-profiling the Group and making it more socially acceptable. They have started a philanthropic operation - Lundin for Africa, and have also donated $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.

In a business context, The Lundin Group has made headlines recently for having made a giant oil discovery in the North Sea that caused its shares to shoot up.

Despite happy charities and investors, questions about what really happened when Lundin Petroleum established itself in Somali Ethiopia have not disappeared.

Recently, when The Lundin Group was discussed at a conference on conflict minerals at Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts, a participant commented:

"Was it the Lundin family that Stieg Larsson had in mind when he drew his portrait of capitalists?"

Leo Lagercrantz is an award winning investigative journalist and former editor of the opinion pages at the Swedish tabloid Expressen.

Interview. Expressen's reporter Karl-Johan Karlsson 

interviewing Carl Bildt in Brussels on the oil business

with Libya. Photo: Erik Luntang

Related Articles:

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Protesters question Carl Bildt as foreign minister

Ethiopian court jails Swedish journalists

Academic linked to Gaddafi's fugitive son leaves LSE

David Held was adviser to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi at the university and director of a research programme funded by his charity

guardian.co.uk, Jeevan Vasagar, education editor, Monday 31 October 2011

Gaddafi's fugitive son, Saif al-Islam studied at LSE and his charity funded
 a research programme at the university. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

A British academic with close links to Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has left the London School of Economics before a report on the university's relationship with Libya is published.

David Held was an academic adviser to the toppled dictator's son when he studied at the LSE and was director of the research programme funded by his charity.

Held, who is currently Graham Wallas professor of political science at the LSE, has announced that he is leaving in January to take up a post at Durham University.

The LSE is expected to face sharp criticism over the academic independence of the North Africa Research Programme, which was funded with a £1.5m donation from the Gaddafi charitable foundation, and Held's departure is regarded internally as the latest aftershock from the donation. The LSE's links with Libya have already triggered the resignation of its director, Howard Davies.

Held has extensive ties to Saif al-Islam, now on the run after the violent collapse of his father's dictatorship. Held was on the board of the Gaddafi foundation, the charity run by Saif al-Islam.

He was appointed to the board of the charity on 28 June 2009, a few days after the gift was discussed and accepted by the LSE council, the university's governing body. He subsequently resigned from the charity on the LSE council's advice.

The donation – of which £300,000 was received – was paid to a research centre LSE Global Governance, of which Held was co-director.

Saif al-Islam was allowed to lay out "objectives and expectations" for the programme, according to leaked LSE documents.

Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, has completed an independent inquiry into the university's Libyan links. Its publication has been delayed pending the results of a separate inquiry into allegations of plagiarism in Saif al-Islam's PhD thesis.

Held is taking up a new position as master of University College and chair of politics and international relations at Durham University.

An LSE insider said that he expected the Woolf inquiry report to criticise the "close consultations" between LSE scholars and the Gaddafi regime. The funding was accepted despite internal protest. Fred Halliday, a distinguished Middle East expert at the LSE, criticised the donation in a letter that described the country's rulers as a "secretive, erratic and corrupt elite".

The letter calls Held "the leading proponent of our accepting this grant".

Held viewed Saif al-Islam as a potential reformer.

The academic introduced the dictator's son when Saif al-Islam delivered the Ralph Miliband memorial lecture at the LSE last May, telling the audience: "I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to democracy, civil society and deep liberal values as the core of his inspiration."

The North Africa Research Programme was suspended when the Libyan uprising began this year, while LSE Global Governance was closed at the end of July. The LSE has agreed to put £300,000 – equivalent to the cash it has received from the Gaddafi foundation to set up the research programme – into a scholarship for north African students.

Held said in a statement: "I will be taking up the positions of master of University College and chair of politics and international relations at the University of Durham from January.

"This move is being made for academic reasons and I look forward to the new avenues of research that this role will bring. I have many links to LSE which will be maintained in the years ahead."

An LSE spokesman said: "Prof Held was offered, and has taken up, a position at Durham University. This is a personal decision made by Prof Held for academic reasons."

Referring to the Woolf inquiry report, the university's spokesman added: "No donor can expect to influence the academic content of research. I don't know what the report says but that has always been our understanding and our strong expectation."

Council of Europe demands truth on CIA 'black sites'

CNN News, By the CNN Wire Staff, September 5, 2011

(file photo) Thomas Hammarberg, the human rights
 commissioner for the Council of Europe.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Poland, Romania and Lithuania hosted secret prisons for "enhanced interrogation," the body says
• Human Rights Commission's Thomas Hammarberg says "the full truth" must be established
• CIA officials have acknowledged the extraordinary rendition program but refused to disclose details
• Records emerging from Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya contain potential revelations

Paris (CNN) -- The human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe urged countries that have hosted secret CIA prisons to come clean Monday, as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches.

Thomas Hammarberg said Poland, Romania and Lithuania were among at least seven countries that hosted "black sites" for "enhanced interrogation" during the "war on terror."

"Darkness still enshrouds those who authorized and ran the black sites on European territories," he said. "The full truth must now be established and guarantees given that such forms of co-operation will never be repeated."

CIA officials have acknowledged the rendition program, but refused to discuss details and denied violating any laws. Efforts to challenge the agency and get details about it in U.S. courts have been turned aside.

Hammarberg's statement comes as documents seized from Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Libya shed light on the program of extraordinary rendition, or questioning of terror suspects in third-party countries where U.S. law does not apply.

RELATED TOPICS

• CIA Counterterrorism Center
• Council of Europe

CNN saw a March 6, 2004, CIA letter to Libyan officials about Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a former jihadist with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and now a senior commander in the anti-Gadhafi forces.

It concerned the Malaysian government's arrest of Abdullah al-Sadiq, Belhaj's nom de guerre for his rendition. A CIA officer said the man and his pregnant wife were being placed on a commercial flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to London via Bangkok and then onto Libya.

"We are planning to arrange to take control of the pair in Bangkok and place them on our aircraft for a flight to your country," the officer wrote.

Belhaj fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan, but left after their fall in 2001 and was arrested in Malaysia in 2004. After some questioning by the CIA, he was sent back to Libya and jailed.

The Council of Europe's Hammarberg said the CIA had held "high-value detainees," including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in Poland, between 2002 and 2003.

The Polish site closed and a new secret prison opened in Romania in 2003, Hammarberg charged, and existed for over two years. Lithuania also hosted two sites, he said.

Polish prosecutors and Lithuanian lawmakers have investigated the phenomenon, but Romania has shown "little genuine will to uncover the whole truth," Hammarberg charged.

"Effective investigations are imperative and long overdue," he said.

Neither the CIA nor the European countries named by Hammarberg immediately responded.

The Council of Europe is a 47-member group that promotes democracy and human rights on the continent.

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Libya rendition claims: David Cameron calls for inquiry

Secret files show UK, US 'ties' to Kadhafi regime

Secret files show UK, US 'ties' to Kadhafi regime

Jakarta Globe, September 03, 2011

One note said London was keen for Blair to meet Kadhafi in a Bedouin
tent as "the journalists would love it"

British and US intelligence cooperated closely with Libya, with prisoners being offered to Moamer Kadhafi's regime under the rendition programme, a report said Saturday citing files found in Tripoli.

British daily The Independent said the secret documents discovered in the office of former Libyan foreign minister Mussa Kussa also show that Britain passed details of exiled opponents to Kadhafi's spies.

The cache further shows that it was the office of former prime minister Tony Blair that requested that a 2004 meeting with Kadhafi in Tripoli should take place in a Bedouin tent, the daily said.

There was no immediate reaction from British or US authorities to the report.

The paper said the documents would raise questions about the ties that Britain, in particular, and the United States forged with Kussa and the regime as the western powers tried to bring Libya out of isolation.

Kussa flew to Britain in March and defected, but despite being accused of rights violations was allowed to fly to Qatar the following month.

The Independent said the papers include letters and faxes to Kussa headed "Greetings from MI6" (Britain's foreign intelligence service) and a personal Christmas greeting signed by a senior British spy with the epithet "Your friend".

It also cites a US administration document, marked secret, saying that it was "in a position" to deliver a man named as Shaykh Musa, a member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "to your physical custody."

"We respectfully request an expression of interest from your service regarding taking custody of Musa," it quotes the document as saying.

In a separate report the Wall Street Journal said files show strong cooperation between the CIA and Kadhafi's intelligence agencies, including shipping terror suspects to the North African country for interrogation.

The Central Intelligence Agency, under the administration of then-president George W. Bush, brought terror suspects to Libya and suggested questions that Libyan interrogators should ask them, it said, citing documents found at the headquarters of Libya's External Security agency.

The CIA also moved to set up in 2004 "a permanent presence" in the country, the Journal said, according to a note from CIA top operative Stephen Kappes.

Secret CIA rendition flights transported dozens of terror suspects around the world following the 9/11 attacks, often for interrogation in third countries.

Meanwhile British intelligence in a letter dated April 16, 2004 informs a Libyan security agency that a Libyan opposition actvist had been freed from British detention, the Independent said.

A further document purportedly from MI6 seeks information about a suspect travelling on a Libyan passport, adding that it is a "sensitive operation".

The cache also shows that a statement given by Kadhafi announcing that his regime was giving up weapons of mass destruction in a bid to shed its pariah status was put together with the help of British officials.

A letter addressed to a Libyan official from British intelligence attached a "tidied up version of the language we agreed...", it said.

Meanwhile the Independent said a sizeable amount of the correspondence was devoted to preparations for Blair's landmark Tripoli visit, and showed that Kussa played a role as conduit with the premier's 10 Downing Street office.

In one, it said an MI6 officer wrote to Kussa saying: "No.10 are keen that the Prime Minister meet the leader in his tent. I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it."

Blair was duly pictured shaking hands with Kadhafi in a Bedouin tent.

AFP

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Libya: Gaddafi regime's US-UK spy links revealed

Alleged CIA letter

Dear Musa

I am glad to propose that our services take an additional step in cooperation with the establishment of a permanent CIA presence in Libya. We have talked about this move for quite some time and Libya's cooperation on WMD and other issues, as well as our recent intelligence cooperation, mean that now is the right moment to move ahead. I am prepared to send [XXX] to Libya to introduce two of my officers to you and your service, arriving in Tripoli on 20 March. These two officers, both of whom are experienced and can speak Arabic, will initially staff our station in Libya. [XXX] will communicate the details via fax. I will call to confirm this with you.

We are also eager to work with you in the questioning of the terrorist we recently rendered to your country. I would like to send to Libya an additional two officers and I would appreciate if they could have direct access to question this individual. Should you agree I would like to send these two officers to Libya on 25 March. Again [XXX] will communicate the details to you.
Steve

CIA censors 9/11 book

SEC scans Goldman, other firms' Libya dealings: report

Reuters, Thu Jun 9, 2011

(Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc and some other financial companies violated bribery laws in dealings with Libya's sovereign-wealth fund, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Enforcement lawyers at SEC are reviewing documents that detail the firms' relationships with the Libyan Investment Authority controlled by the nation's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the paper said.

The regulators are interested in a $50 million fee that Goldman initially agreed to pay the fund, but the payment was never made as discussions were halted before violence erupted in Libya early this year, the paper said.

The absence of a transaction does not exempt the bank from the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans U.S. companies from offering or paying bribes to foreign government officials or employees of state-owned companies, the paper said.

The Journal added that Carlyle Group, Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, JPMorgan Chase and several other companies had significant dealings with the Libyan Investment Authority.

"We are confident that nothing we did or proposed was or could have been a breach of any rule or regulation," the Journal quoted Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag as saying. "We retained outside counsel, as is our normal practice for any transaction, to ensure that we were compliant with all applicable rules."

An SEC spokesman declined to comment to the paper.

Reuters was unable to reach Goldman, Och-Ziff, JPMorgan, Carlyle or the SEC outside normal U.S. business hours.

The Journal said last week that Goldman invested more than $1.3 billion from Libya's sovereign-wealth fund in currency bets and other trades in 2008 and the investment lost more than 98 percent of its value.

(Reporting by Vaishnavi Bala in Bangalore; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Obama, Cameron predict success in Libya

Associated Press, By JULIE PACE, May 25, 2011

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, and U.S. President Barack Obama during
a state banquet in Buckingham Palace, London, on Tuesday May 24, 2011.
President Barack Obama immersed himself in the grandeur of Britain's royal
family Tuesday, as Queen Elizabeth II welcomed him to Buckingham Palace
for the first day of a state visit. (AP Photo/Lewis Whyld, Pool)

Latest News

• Obama: Mideast peace takes 'wrenching compromise'
• Obama, Cameron predict success in Libya
• Michelle Obama to meet with London students
• Obama: No 'let up' against Libya's Gadhafi
• Cameron: No time to turn away from Pakistan

LONDON (AP) -- Predicting success in Libya, President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Moammar Gadhafi would ultimately be forced to step down if NATO keeps up its military campaign with the U.S. playing a key role.

"I believe that we have built enough momentum that as long as we sustain the course we're on, he will step down," the visiting president said at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we're able to wear down the regime forces," Obama said. He ruled out a deadline for ending the U.S. role in Libya, saying the mission would end in a timely fashion

Cameron rallied behind Obama's approach, saying what was needed in Libya was "patience and persistence."

The two leaders affirmed their joint resolve despite complaints among some NATO countries about the reduced U.S. role since NATO took the lead after the initial days of the two-month-old campaign against Gadhafi.

But the president also said, "David and I both agree that you can't put boots on the ground in Libya." He said "enormous sacrifices" made by the NATO allies have made a difference, but that ultimately "this is going to be a slow, steady process" that eventually will sap Gadhafi's resolve.

"We've been extraordinarily successful in avoiding civilian casualties," Obama added. "That means that sometimes we may have to be more patient than people would like."

Said Cameron: "I would agree that the two key things here are patience and persistence." He said "we're extremely strong together in wanting to see the same outcomes."

France among other NATO countries has pushed for a more aggressive military approach in Libya, but Obama gave no indication that increased firepower would be forthcoming from the U.S. even though officials in some allied nations would like to see that.

At the same time, the president said the U.S. is "strongly committed to seeing the job through, making sure that, at a minimum, Gadhafi doesn't have the capacity to send in a bunch of thugs to murder innocent civilians and to threaten them."

The international community has stepped up both the air campaign and diplomatic efforts against the regime in a bid to break a virtual stalemate between the rebels in the east and Gadhafi, who maintains a stranglehold on most of the west.

The military campaign in Libya began with what seemed a narrowly defined mission: to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians from attack. Two months later, the campaign has evolved into a ferocious pounding of the country's capital, Tripoli, in what appears an all-out effort to oust Gadhafi. But that goal remains elusive.

The Libyan opposition remains weak. NATO, the North Atlantic military alliance which took over command of the campaign from the U.S. on March 31, appears to have no clear exit strategy. Two of the allies, Britain and France, have descended into public squabbling over bringing the fight closer to Gadhafi with attack helicopters. And the French foreign minister said Tuesday his country's willingness to continue the campaign was not endless.

On another matter, Obama said the U.S. is increasing pressure on Syria's President Bashar Assad and his regime, which has been attacking protesters there.

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