August 2011

Reuters reports: Four Italian journalists were abducted by gunmen near Zawiyah in western Libya as they traveled toward Tripoli on Wednesday, Italian officials said. The four, who worked for Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera, La Stampa and Avvenire, are being held in an apartment in Tripoli, said Guido de Sanctis, the Italian consul in Benghazi, [...]

The Guardian reports: Conditions have deteriorated sharply at the Rixos hotel in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where more than 30 foreign journalists are trapped by fighting in the surrounding streets. The BBC’s Matthew Price gave a graphic account of life inside the five-star hotel close to Muammar Gaddafi’s compound of Bab al-Aziziya taken by rebels [...]

With the fall of the mighty comes the dispersal of the baubles of power. And just as Gaddafi was clownish in his rule, we witness another Libyan comedy as his golf cart gets unceremoniously towed away by one group of rebels while another rebel claims the trophies of Gaddafi’s hat, gold chain and fly-whisk. At [...]

The New York Times reports: With rebels on the verge of ending Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s long reign, the character of their movement is facing its first real test: Can they build a new government of unity and reconciliation, or will their own internal rivalries mean divisions in the new Libya? Six months after their revolt [...]