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Che Guevara

Libyans take over major oil terminals


Press TV
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 07:01 UTC
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Pro-democracy demonstrators make victory signs as they stand on an army tank near a square where people are protesting in Benghazi city, Libya, February 23, 2011.
Libyan demonstrators have now taken control of key oil terminals in northern Libya as pro-democracy protests gain momentum across the North African country.

Oil terminals in the northern port cities of Ras Lanuf and Marsa El Brega are now controlled by pro-democracy protesters, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, ten protesters were killed after government troops attacked the western city of Zuwarah, located 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the capital Tripoli.

Several eastern cities have now fallen in the hands of demonstrators during 10 days of a revolution that has so far claimed the lives of 1,000 people.

Meanwhile, protesters have torn down Muammar Gaddafi's "Green Book" monument in the northwestern city of Misrata. The book contained the main tenets of political philosophy developed by the embattled 68-year-old Libyan ruler.
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Arrow Down

57 Somalis drown in Gulf of Aden


Press TV
Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:57 UTC
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Nearly 57 Somali immigrants have drowned after their boat overturned during a wind storm off the coast of Bir Ali in southern Yemen.

Fifty-four of those who died were Somali refugees, while the remaining three were smugglers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed on Thursday.

The only survivor of the Sunday incident swam for 23 hours before reaching Yemeni coast near the port town of Bir Ali, some 400 kilometers east of Aden.

As of late Wednesday, twenty-three bodies have been recovered. It is not clear yet how many of the migrants have survived.

It has been the largest loss of life in the seas between Somalia and Yemen in a single incident since January 2008.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Africans flee to Yemen in search of a better life due to poverty and violence back home.
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Light Saber

'Gaddafi's youngest son joins Libyan protesters'


Press TV
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:53 UTC
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The youngest son of the embattled ruler Muammar Gaddafi has joined the pro-democracy protesters in Libya amid an unabated outpouring of rage against Gaddafi, reports say.

According to the reports, Saif al-Arab, Gaddafi's youngest son, who was sent by his father to cooperate with Libyan security forces in the massive crackdown on pro-democracy protesters joined forces with the demonstrators in the eastern city of Benghazi on Thursday.

Saif al-Arab, who is widely regarded as the most low-profile of Gaddafi's sons have also hinted that his father would commit suicide or flee to Latin America in the face of rising public outcry over his tyrannical rule.

Saif al-Arab is said to have had the backing of combat troops and had military equipment that was dispatched to the eastern parts of turmoil-hit Libya.

The move comes as several intelligence and military officials in the third largest city, al-Bayda have stepped down , while a major general in the eastern city of Tobruk has castigated Gaddafi's regime for its heavy-handed assault on protesters.

Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, has stated that he has resigned and now has sided with protesters, adding that soldiers and civilians are under fire from aircraft, and this was an important reason for him to join the people.
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Handcuffs

US: Ex-Taylor Bean Treasurer Desiree Brown Pleads Guilty to Fraud Conspiracy

Tom Schoenberg
Bloomberg
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:07 UTC
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© Marion County Sheriff's Office via Bloomberg
Under an agreement with prosecutors, Brown must, if asked, cooperate in the case against Lee Farkas, former chairman of Taylor Bean, seen here.
The former treasurer of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., once the 12th largest mortgage lender in the U.S., admitted helping run a $1.9 billion fraud scheme that targeted the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program and contributed to the failure of Colonial Bank.

Desiree Brown, 45, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to conspiring to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and bank fraud, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors bringing Lee Farkas, former chairman of Taylor, Bean, to trial on April 4. Brown also settled civil charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC said.

Until today, Farkas, 58, was the only person charged in what the government said was a massive scheme to deceive financial firms and TARP by covering up shortfalls at Taylor, Bean, once the largest non-depository mortgage lender in the U.S., according to the SEC's statement on the case. Farkas was indicted on 16 counts in June and faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, according to a Justice Department statement.

"Were there other people besides Mr. Farkas who were involved in this scheme," U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema asked Brown at the plea hearing?

"Yes ma'am," Brown answered.

Brown, of Hernando, Florida, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and an order to pay restitution to more than 250 victims. Brown, who is to be sentenced on June 10, was released on a $50,000 unsecured bond.
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Wolf

Disney World Employee 'Tried to Rape Single Mother After Luring Her There With Discount Offers'


The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:59 UTC
Disney World is billed as the theme park that 'captures the enchantment of fairy tales'.

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© Orange County Sheriff's Department
Charged: Walt Disney World reservations clerk Wilbert Brookins, 31, is alleged to have attempted to rape a single mother uring her to the Florida park

But that seems far from a single mother's experience, after an employee allegedly tried to rape her after she was lured with offers of free passes and hotel discounts.

Reservations clerk Wilbert Brookins, 31, was at her hotel room in Orlando, Florida, and she awoke to find him removing her pants and trying to penetrate her, she told police.

Brookins has been charged with sexual battery and is being held on $10,000 bail.
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Wall Street

Banks just too big to fail? Iceland shows otherwise

Yalman Onaran
nzherald.co.nz
Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:04 UTC
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© AP
Demonstrators took to Reykjavik's streets in late 2008, demanding the resignations of those blamed for the financial collapse.

Decision to let banks go under looks smarter by the day, in contrast to Ireland's costly bailout.

On his second day as head of Iceland's third-largest bank, Arni Tomasson faced a crisis: the firm that regulators had asked him to run was out of cash.

It was October 8, 2008, at the height of the global financial meltdown and Iceland's bank assets in Britain had been frozen. Customers flocked to branches of Tomasson's Glitnir Banki to withdraw money, even though the Government had guaranteed their deposits. By the end of the day, the vaults were empty, says Tomasson, recalling the drama.

The only way Glitnir and other lenders could avoid a panic the next morning was to get more cash, which they were having trouble doing. A container of crisp kronur sat on the tarmac at Reykjavik's airport awaiting payment.
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Eye 1

America's revolution grows, but where is Obama?

RT America
YouTube
Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:57 UTC
As thousands of outraged protesters are taking over Congress is Wisconsin in a fight to keep workers' rights -- why is the American President not stepping up and getting involved? RT's Anastasia Churkina brings the latest from inside the stormed Capitol Building.

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Bad Guys

Paul Krugman: Shock Doctine, U.S.A.

Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:48 UTC
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Here's a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn't Cairo after all. Maybe it's Baghdad - specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.

As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular - in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to "corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises" - Mr. Bremer's words, not the reporter's - and to "wean people from the idea the state supports everything."
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Smoking

Now in Brooklyn, Homegrown Tobacco: Local, Rebellious and Tax Free

Manny Fernandez
The New York Times
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:36 UTC
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© Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Audrey Silk, with Bingo, estimates she will save thousands of dollars by processing her own cigarettes.
The cigarettes Audrey Silk used to smoke - Parliament Lights - are made at a factory in Richmond, Va. The cigarettes she smokes these days are made and grown in Brooklyn, at her house.

Ms. Silk's backyard is home to raspberry and rose bushes, geraniums, impatiens and 100 tobacco plants in gardening buckets near her wooden deck. Inside her house, around the corner from Flatbush Avenue, in Marine Park, she has to be careful stepping into her basement - one wrong move could ruin her cigarettes. Dozens of tobacco leaves hang there, drying on wires she has strung across the room, where they turn a crisp light brown as they age above a stack of her old Springsteen records.

She talks about cartons and packs in relation to crops and seeds. Planted in 2009, her first crop - 25 plants of Golden Seal Special Burley tobacco - produced nine cartons of cigarettes. Ms. Silk would have spent more than $1,000 had she bought nine cartons in parts of New York City. Instead, she spent $240, mostly for the trays, the buckets and plant food.
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Better Earth

In Search of an African Revolution

Azad Essa
Inter-Press Service
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:19 UTC
africa globe
© geographicguide.com
Demonstrations are continuing across the Middle East, interrupted only by the call for prayer when protesters fall to their knees on cheap carpets and straw mats and the riot police take a tea break. Meanwhile, in 'darkest Africa', far away from the cameras of international mainstream media, reports have surfaced of political unrest in a host of sub- Saharan nations.

As international audiences watched 18 days of nonviolent protests topple longstanding president Hosni Mubarak this month, Egypt suddenly became a sexy topic. But, despite the fact that the rich banks of the Nile are sourced from Central Africa, the world looked upon the Egyptian uprising solely as a Middle Eastern issue.

Few seemed to care that Egypt was also part of Africa, a continent with a billion people, most of whom are living under despotic regimes and suffering economic strife and political suppression just like their Egyptian neighbours.

"Egypt is in Africa. We should not fool about with the attempts of the North to segregate the countries of North Africa from the rest of the continent," says Firoze Manji, the editor of Pambazuka Online, an advocacy website for social justice in Africa.
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