TRIPOLI, LIBYA — Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi welcomed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to his high-security personal compound Friday, in symbolic recognition that after nearly three decades of animosity, the U.S.-Libyan relationship is now officially normal, if not entirely friendly.
Kadafi, once called a “mad dog” by President Reagan, shared a Ramadan meal with Rice in his private kitchen and inquired politely about her health and recent U.S. hurricanes. “We have a lot to talk about,” Rice told the longtime pariah as they met in a plush reception room of the Azizia military complex, which U.S. warplanes bombed in 1986.
U.S. officials portrayed the meeting as the reward for a five-year rehabilitation that has seen Kadafi dismantle his unconventional weapons program and begin settling claims for acts of Libyan terrorism, including the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The government-controlled news media put a different spin on it, reporting that the meeting was proof “of how much the Americans need Libya,” a U.S. official said.
The Bush administration considers Libya’s transformation as one of its top foreign policy achievements and a model for other adversary states, such as Iran.
The Rice appearance was the highest-level U.S. visit since then-Vice President Richard Nixon stopped in Libya in 1957.
But Kadafi, who has called Rice “my darling black African woman,” seemed to have a more casual attitude toward the encounter. He left Rice and the U.S. contingent waiting in their hotel for about an hour past the scheduled meeting time, until she ordered her motorcade to head toward the complex anyway. They circled it for about 15 minutes before the Libyan leader was ready to receive them.
Kadafi had them ushered into a reception room with a crush of reporters and TV crews in a scene of pandemonium.
When Rice’s aides got momentarily lost in the scrum, she told “brother leader” that she couldn’t understand what had happened to the retinue.
“They were right here behind me,” she said with a shrug.
Rice’s aides grinned at the chaotic scene and at Kadafi, an imposing figure in a sweeping white traditional robe and trademark round black cap. Kadafi shook the hands of Rice’s male aides, but, in the habit of some Arab men, laid his right hand above his heart as a greeting to her.
Rice told Kadafi that President Bush was “so excited” by the prospect of an improvement in U.S.-Libyan relations.
Even so, Rice and Kadafi have been making it clear that mistrust still hangs over the relationship like a dusty Saharan haze.
Talking to reporters en route from Lisbon, Rice said the visit was not a sign that “everything has been resolved between us.”
“There’s a long way to go,” she said.
In a TV address to the nation Monday, Kadafi said it was “not necessary for us to be friends with America,” and classified the two countries as “neither friends nor enemies.”
He said Reagan and his ally British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were “almost insane” in their attitude about Libya in the 1980s.
The meeting was arranged only after Libyan officials finally signed a deal, which could be worth billions, to settle all claims against the government for the Lockerbie bombing and the 1986 bombing of a German disco that killed three and wounded dozens.
But Libyan officials have yet to deposit any money in a settlement fund, a subject Rice said she would take up with Kadafi. Some members of Congress and victims’ families contend that Rice should not have met with him until the claims were settled.
She said she also planned to take up the subject of Libya’s human rights record, which U.S. officials consider atrocious. Among those in jail is Fathi Jahmi, who has been held since 2002 and charged with, among other things, unauthorized contacts with American officials.
Some U.S. critics have raised questions about the Libyans’ sincerity.
Kadafi’s son and possible heir, Seif , told the BBC in an interview broadcast Sunday that although Libya had accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, it did so only to end international sanctions on the country.
“We played with words. . . . It doesn’t mean we did it in fact,” he said.
Meseret Defar and Sileshi Sihine compete at the IAAF Golden League meets in Brussels, Belgium, Friday, September 5, 2008. Watch their exciting races in the video below.
After 17 years of ruling Ethiopia, and the Tigray region unchallenged, Meles Zenawi’s Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne) has nothing to show for other than their own enormous wealth they amassed. Meles and his crime family, with their insatiable appetite and extreme greed, have become among the richest people in Africa, while the people they claim to represent, Tigreans, remain dirt poor and hungry as this video by France 24 shows.
ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) — It’s odd to present yourself as a maverick to the most partisan audience imaginable, as John McCain did Thursday night.
But the real audience wasn’t sitting in the Xcel Center this evening to watch the Arizona senator accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination; it was the independents at home looking for a reason to vote for him.
It wasn’t that long ago that McCain was the Republican most admired among Democrats. He retains some residual popularity with Democrats and particularly independents.
But some of that glow has faded. iReport.com: Do you think McCain hit the mark?
He’s certainly doing his best to regain some of that luster. He didn’t talk much at all about divisive social issues: a brief reference to his support for life, no talk of gay issues, a brief reference to judges that don’t legislate from the bench but no extended focus on social issues. That’s not the core of his agenda.
But in a moment sure to be featured in campaign ads from now to November, he paid tribute to the sitting Republican president, George W. Bush. A risky move.
The most important thing McCain had to do tonight was to demonstrate that he knows the pain and anxiety Americans are going through right now and that he has a plan to address that. Nobody doubts he’s a hero, as the many tributes throughout the convention were meant to highlight, but what they want to know is what he’s going to do to fix the economy. VideoWatch McCain lay out his platform »
He used the issue to try to criticize Barack Obama, who holds the advantage on the issue. Obama wants to raise your taxes, he said. He wants to wish away the global economy. Is there any basis for these critiques? I’m not so sure. But it’s a case he has to make to have a chance this November.
So far, at least, the essence of his economic plan is to stop government spending, an arguable proposition for economic growth, but it’s the most concrete economic plan he’s provided: stop government overspending and rescue the economy. Democrats will try to pick that apart. But frankly, a lot of people believe it
The second element of his economic plan is to cut taxes. Cutting taxes and keeping government spending low are the foundation of Republican economics: Reaganomics.
Is that an economic rescue program?
To put it another way: Do people feel that their economic problems are caused by government spending and high taxes? They certainly did in 1980, but it’s 28 years later.
It’s always been an article of belief among Republicans that they lost the 2006 congressional elections because of their abandonment of one of these core Republican principles and their embrace of federal overspending.
That’s simply not true; they lost because of Iraq. But they refuse to believe it.
The Iraq issue has really receded in importance in this campaign. It was the central issue in 2006 but not 2008. And one of the ironies is that more Americans think we’re winning in Iraq, but more Americans believe that Obama will handle the issue better than McCain.
Iraq did take center stage in one respect Thursday night as anti-war protesters from Code Pink who managed to make it into the arena interrupted McCain at several points.
As these protesters continued to grab the crowd’s attention — and the crowd, coming to his defense, unintentionally stepped on McCain’s speech with their chants — he recognized that he really faced a serious problem and did his best to short-circuit it. Ignore the “static,” he told the audience; “Americans want us to stop shouting at each other.”
He’s right.
The danger in incidents like this is that people will see him as a president who will divide the country. That’s the danger for him. His initial response was the right one: Maintain calm in the situation, the crowd and himself.
Still, McCain ended with his biggest themes: sacrifice and patriotism. It was intended to be stirring, but I wonder whether the call to “fight” turns off a lot of voters.
People really are tired of fighting.
My view is: It was a simple and sincere speech that gave testimony to his character, avoiding most divisive social issues. But it did not seem to answer the question, “What are you going to do about the nation’s terrible economic problems?”
His answers seemed very much part of the past: cut spending, cut taxes. He really needs to find a new and bolder economic plan.
He tried to claim some of Obama’s major campaign themes Thursday: unity and change. But when McCain talks about change, he talks about changing Washington. When the Democrats talk about change, they’re talking about changing the way things are going in the country.
If voters are choosing between two men, they will probably choose McCain. If they’re choosing between two policies, I think Obama has the edge: His are newer, smarter and fresher.
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Bill Schneider has covered political conventions for more than 30 years and has covered them for CNN since the 1992 election.
TAIZ, Yemen — The Yemeni government is holding 35 Ethiopian refugees and is planning on returning them to their homeland, security sources allege.
The unidentified sources alleged that the refugees entered the Middle Eastern country from the Horn of Africa in an attempt to flee their country but were captured and face extradition by the Immigration and Passport Service, the Yemeni government news agency Saba said Friday.
Meanwhile in the region of Hadramout, a Somali fisherman was arrested by security forces for allegedly attempting to smuggle Somali refugees across the border.
Saba said the arrest comes as more than 500 African refugees have been found in Yemen. The news agency said the majority of those discovered refugees were from Somalia.
The following is an update (see the previous post here) on the ongoing labor crisis at the St. George Brewery in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the workers complain about unfair treatment by the management and chairman of the labor union, Dr Berhanu Kassa. St. George Brewery, Ethiopia’s oldest beer producer, founded in 1922, was sold to Castel Winery of France by Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency for 10 million dollars in 1998.
