RIA NOVOSTI– Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday called for war with Italy, citing Italy’s ‘colonization’ attempts.

In a speech delivered at the Libyan state TV, Gaddafi said that he could not prevent war with Italy since Libyans wanted it.

“We are already in a war with Italy since Italians kill our children in 2011 as they did in 1911, that is why I cannot forbid Libyans to defend their lives and carry the military actions on the enemy’s territory,” Gaddafi said.

Libya was Italian colony from 1911 to 1941. In 2008 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a so-called Friendship Treaty with Gaddafi. Under this pact Italy paid 5 billion euro reparations to Libya for its colonial rule.

In late February Italy suspended the Friendship Treaty.

“Italy insists on repeating the crimes of 1911, in keeping with the same colonialist policy. This is the violent face of Italy. My friend Berlusconi and the Italian parliament are committing a crime,” Gaddafi said.

Italy is one of the 14 NATO countries, taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes airstrikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.

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© 2011 RIA Novosti

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EXAMINER– In the two years since Barack Obama took office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ramped up its Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking sting operations, drug war homicides in Mexico nearly tripled, according to an article published over the weekend by Global Research.

This revelation comes coincidentally to the publication of the transcript of an interview on Univision, made available today by independent blogger Mike Vanderboegh, one of two men responsible for uncovering the Project Gunrunner controversy.

Figures quoted by the Global Research article come from the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. They appear in a report titled Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010, and show that the body count has risen sharply at the same time that the Obama State Department has allowed private arms sales to Mexico exceed those to Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

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© 2011 Examiner

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DAILY MAIL– Colonel Gaddafi’s forces today blasted an oil terminal to smithereens as Libya’s bloody civil war entered its blackest day.

Rebels retaliated by firing back with rockets as a fireball exploded from one of the oil tanks and the sky above the Es Sider terminal, in the east of the country, filled with hideous smoke.

A witness said one of the smoke plumes was the biggest he had seen in the conflict so far.

The fresh onslaught came as Gaddafi deployed tanks and snipers to ‘shoot anything that moves’.

Forces loyal to the Libyan dictator poured into the city of Zawiyah in a desperate bid to oust the hardcore band of protesters and army defectors who have taken control.

Witnesses said dead bodies were lying in the ruins of many buildings destroyed in air raids earlier in the week and there was no one in the streets of the centre of the city of 290,000.

‘We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,’ one rebel fighter said by telephone.

Eye witnesses said that the city had been almost flattened after a 13-and-a-half hour barrage from rockets, tanks and war planes

The hellish scenes unfolded as senior officials in the U.S. spoke of their fears that the country had reached a painful stalemate.

Senior officials believe that Gaddafi has solidified his control over some cities but ant-government protesters have a strong enough hold on other regions to remain locked in the stand off.

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© Copyright DAILY MAIL 2011

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SALON.COM– Violence escalates in Libya. Unconfirmed reports say Gadhafi has fled as protesters march on compound.

UPDATE (2:10 P.M. EST)
Libyan fighter pilots who defected to Malta earlier this morning told Maltese that they’d been ordered to drop bombs on protesters, the Guardian reports.

UPDATE (1:10 P.M. EST)
A number of sources are reporting that Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi may have fled the country as protesters take hold in the capital city of Tripoli. Reuters reported that a British foreign minister had seen information suggesting that Gadhafi was headed to Venuzuela. The government of Hugo Chavez has denied those reports. 

Meanwhile, as violence mounts, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the Libyan deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has reportedly said that the Libyan dictator “has declared war on the Libyan people and is committing genocide.”

EARLIER
Al Jazeera reports that security forces using fighter jets have opened fire on protesters maching on Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli. As phone lines have been cut throughout the country, incoming reports are largely unconfirmed, and foreign embassies are evacuating their personnel.

Al Jazeera summed up the events in Libya with an inside report about the regime’s efforts to crush the uprising:

DISTURBING FOOTAGE- Peaceful, unarmed protesters get gunned down by the Libyan army in broad daylight.

Adam Clark Estes blogs the news for Salon. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @adamclarkestes More: Adam Clark Estes

© Copyright SALON.COM, 2011

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WASHINGTON POST– Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was “unexplainable” that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.

“Mubarak’s mantra to his own people was that he was the guarantor of the nation’s stability. It would make sense that he would want to send the message that without him, there is no safety,” Bouckaert said.

Over the past three days, state television has been reporting alarmist news about violence and criminals among the demonstrations in an attempt to discredit the democratic movement.

The rights group’s findings came as pro-democracy demonstrators converged on Tahrir Square in Cairo, vowing to bring 1 million people to the streets of Egypt.

© WASHINGTON POST 2011

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