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Global Spin

A blog about the world, its people and its politics

Despite Rebel Surge, Gaddafi's Vindictive Resolve Endures

Posted by Bruce Crumley

August 23, 2011 at 8:02 am

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is surrounded by supporters and journalists at his father's residential complex in the Libyan capital of Tripoli in the early hours of Aug. 23, 2011 (Photo: Imed Lamloum / AFP / Getty Images)

No one thought Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his hard-core supporters would go away easily, and more than 48 hours after rebel forces stormed the capital of Tripoli, that determination to dig in was still evident. But if few observers believe Gaddafi's renewed efforts to prove his regime remains a force to reckon with can turn back what appears to be a looming victory for the rebels, some warn his penchant for creating serious trouble for his foes won't disappear with his defeat. If one thing seems sure about the Gaddafi clan members, it's their zeal for dishing out payback, even when that seems to be all they have left.

That gritty resolve and spitefulness was apparent even amid the rebel surge that gave anti-regime forces control of what some accounts say is 90% of Tripoli. Early Tuesday morning, Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, once the heir apparent to power, turned up in a Tripoli neighborhood still held by regime supporters vowing to defeat their enemies yet. The younger Gaddafi's combative re-emergence came after officials from the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced his arrest by their forces in Tripoli — as was the case for another Gaddafi son, who also resurfaced after escaping his captors. Meanwhile, later in the day, rebel forces struggled to cut off troops loyal to Gaddafi from advancing on the colonel's oil-producing hometown of Sirte — one of the few Libyan cities the regime still nominally controls, and the site from which at least two Scud missiles have been fired toward rebel-held towns. That new evidence of the regime's resolve to continue battling against seemingly impossible odds led leaders from around the world to renew calls to Gaddafi to cease fighting, spare the Libyan people further bloodshed and give himself up for what remains still undefined treatment by a postwar government.

China's Security Chief Goes on Tour—How Is Asia Reacting?

Posted by Hannah Beech

August 23, 2011 at 5:30 am

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China's Politburo Standing Committee Member Zhou Yongkang arrives for a meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal, August 17, 2011. (Photo: Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters)

Over the past week, as I've traveled across Asia, I've discovered an unlikely partner in my continental peregrinations: China's security chief Zhou Yongkang. The senior Chinese envoy's travels have taken him to Nepal, Laos, Cambodia and Tajikistan. The final stop is Mongolia, where Zhou is expected to head on Tuesday.

In Zhou's wake, the narrative has tended to follow the same plot-line: first, China's state media proclaims “mutually beneficial cooperation” and “longstanding friendship” between Beijing and the local government. Then a raft of trade deals or bequeathing of military goodies is announced. Finally, an undercurrent of unease follows, with regional analysts wondering about China's growing economic and security might.

Fighting Gaddafi: How NATO and the Rebels Dovetailed Toward Tripoli

Posted by Jay Newton-Small

August 22, 2011 at 5:10 pm

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Libyan rebel fighters embrace at the former female military base in Tripoli, Libya, August 22, 2011. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev / AP)

The first time the NATO allies had an inkling that Muammar Gaddafi's regime might be on its last legs was two weeks ago when Libyan rebel forces opened up a third front in the western half of Libya. Eastern Libya, of course, had the most publicized front, one that the rebels never really got to push past the oil facility town of Brega. But western Libya, the general area around Gaddafi's capital Tripoli, had two fiery points of rebellion that refused to be extinguished: the region around and including Zawiyah just east of Tripoli; and the port of Misratah to its west. And then came the threat to Gaddafi from the south. Just as August began, fighters from the mountain region of Nefusa pushed north towards the capital, meeting little resistance as they raced to the Mediterranean. It was then that the allies felt they had finally broken Gaddafi's army after five months of continuous bombardment.

Libya NATO , arab spring, Gaddafi, Libya, NATO, tripoli, zawiyah

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Abbas Postpones Palestinian Local Elections Yet Again

Posted by Karl Vick

August 22, 2011 at 11:23 am

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas listens to a question during a news conference in Sarajevo, August 16, 2011. (Photo: Dado Ruvic / Reuters)

Not for the first time, the Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is postponing local elections in the West Bank. He made the announcement on Monday by decree -- the form that laws have taken on the West Bank since the 2007 split with Hamas left the Palestinian legislature unable to meet, many its members marooned in the Gaza Strip or sitting in Israeli jails.

The local elections were first supposed to happen in July 2010, then were postponed til this coming Oct. 22. Abbas, whose own term expired in 2009, named no new date, but signaled that it made more sense to wait until Gaza and the West Bank were functioning in tandem again, which is supposed to happen in the coming year now that Hamas and Fatah, the political faction Abbas heads, having agreed in Cairo earlier this summer to reconcile. Skeptics point out that the reconciliation has stalled since being announced in June, under pressure from a nascent Palestinian youth movement empowered by the Arab Spring. A temporary government of technocrats, which is supposed to govern until new national elections take place, has yet to be named.

Looming End of Gaddafi Regime Brings New Challenges

Posted by Bruce Crumley

August 22, 2011 at 7:41 am

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Libyan rebel fighters step on a picture of Muammar Gaddafi at a checkpoint in Tripoli's Qarqarsh district on Aug. 22, 2011 (Photo: Bob Strong / Reuters)

If the dramatic advances in recent days that have taken opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi toward — then into — Tripoli have thus far elicited only the most careful responses from tight-lipped Western leaders, there's a good chance those officials are showing more emotion over the conflict, which is apparently nearing an end, in private. For as long as such relief and glee will last, anyway. Because if the fall of the Gaddafi regime will mute the criticism about the wisdom of the NATO-led intervention in Libya's grinding civil war, the transition from the brutal regime to a post-dictatorial government will inevitably raise questions about how the international community handled the Libyan challenge — and whether the outcome was worth that effort.

South Sudan? Where? Don't ask Google Maps.

Posted by Alex Perry

August 22, 2011 at 3:43 am

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An excellent guest blog on how technology can struggle to keep up with giant human events, from TIME's East Africa correspondent and Sudan specialist, Alan Boswell.

If a new country is born, and no one sees it online, does it really exist? More than a month after South Sudan's independence, the new African nation is still not on the world's map, literally. Google, Bing and Yahoo are all yet to update their cartography of Africa to include the United Nation's newest member. Instead of the crooked contours that should mark the new international border, there instead lies only the uninterrupted sprawl of old, defunct Sudan.

Querying Google Maps on South Sudan yields the response: “Did you mean: Sudan?” Yahoo Maps zooms in on Sudan Road on the outskirts of Augusta, Georgia. Bing Maps used to take the reader to southern Niger – which, to Microsoft's credit, is at least on the right continent - although, after an inquiry by TIME last Friday, it now simply says it cannot find South Sudan. “We are constantly updating Bing Maps to reflect the most accurate list of countries, and will make the change in the coming months,” was a Bing spokesman's arrestingly oxymoronic explanation.

Conflict, Democracy, Dictatorships, Human rights , africa, Bing, google, independence, maps, South Sudan, Sudan, yahoo

Dilma Goes After Brazil's Corruptos – Is the Rest of Latin America Following?

Posted by Tim Padgett

August 19, 2011 at 7:57 pm

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Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in Brasilia August 16, 2011. (Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters)

Brazilians sardonically refer to their often corrupt public bureaucracy as O Trem de Alegria, or The Joy Train. I've written about a number of the train's happy passengers over the years, including the mayor of a small working-class town near Rio de Janeiro who jobbed the system so brazenly that he earned a $264,000 annual salary – twice that of the President of Brazil at the time. But with Brazil's economy beginning to cool down after running Amazon hot for the past decade, and with the country about to host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016, President Dilma Rousseff knows the Joy Train is a guilty (make that felonious) pleasure the South American giant can no longer afford.

Latin America , brazil, Dilma Rousseff, Transparency International

Couch Potato Briefing: From Brecht to Jackie Chan, Via 'Game of Thrones'

Posted by Tony Karon

August 19, 2011 at 4:25 pm

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Global Spin's weekly list of five rental movies to bring you up to speed with the past week's world events

Game of Thrones

Let's start with the big picture, shall we? Things are falling apart, everywhere you look: Both the U.S. economy and Europe are crumbling, and with them the global power structures that rested upon them. Whether it's President Obama or Sarkozy, Prime Minister Cameron or Chancellor Merkel, the leaders of the Western world seem paralyzed in the face of the crisis. Turmoil on the streets grows as ordinary people realize that their leaders are doing nothing to help them, while violence escalates unchecked along the imperial periphery as new power clusters emerge and old alliances are broken. No single power center today has the ability to set things back on track. A perfect time to get familiar with George R.R. Martin's Songs of Ice and Fire series, the first of which was presented earlier this year by HBO in the form of the miniseries Game of Thrones. Winter is coming, people. Best acquaint yourself with the grim realities of power and its limits.

The Karate Kid

Yep, you guessed it. Basketbrawl diplomacy this week in Beijing may have left some Americans with a sense that they were being victimized by Chinese bullies and referees. Fear not, America, Jackie Chan has your back. In The Karate Kid (as opposed to its '80s forebears), 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada) moves to Beijing with his mom and finds himself set upon by a neighborhood bully. Mr. Han, Jackie Chan's aging maintenance man in his apartment building teaches him the philosophies of Kung-fu, and the moves to best his opponents. But Chinese basketball fans who may be prone to seeing themselves as the victims of American bullying, the Karate Kid narrative is not going to cut it. They're more likely to be renting fare of the ilk of Valley of the Wolves this weekend, a Turkish movie that paints a demonic portrait of U.S. troops in Iraq. Calm down, people...

Couch Potato Briefing

How European Leaders Are in the Same Boat as Obama When it Comes to Debt

Posted by Jay Newton-Small

August 19, 2011 at 10:08 am

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France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a joint press conference at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris, France, August 16, 2011. (Photo: Gao Jing / Xinhua / Corbis)

A few of you, or at least your 401(k)s, may have noticed that financial markets plummeted again on Thursday. European markets closed at or near two-year lows across the board and the Dow closed down more than 400 points.
Asian markets Friday morning opened in the tank: the Nikkei index tumbling more than 2.5%, Sydney down 3.5%, Seoul a whopping 6.2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down more than 600 points, or just over 3%.

What caused this? With President Obama on vacation and the U.S. Congress in
recess, this week's unjoyful ride was prompted by fears out of Europe, which
is struggling with many of the same issues as the U.S.: a debt crisis
that needs to be fixed lest it overflow into full blown inflation and
currency crises, mixed with an unhealthy dose of double dip recession.
Austerity, as they call it on this side of the pond, doesn't come easily
when you have no central government to bail out the states as the U.S. did
a year ago.

Suicide Attacks in Kabul: a Sign of Things to Come?

Posted by Aryn Baker

August 19, 2011 at 5:34 am

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Afghan special police forces arrive at the site of a suicide attack outside The British Council in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 19, 2011. (Photo: Dar Yasin / AP)

When suicide bombers attack, the knee jerk response from officials in NATO and the U.S. Military is that the tactic is a sign of desperation and weakness, and that insurgents would only use it because they have exhausted all other alternatives. Well, it looks like the Taliban are getting pretty good at desperation. Friday morning's complex attack on the British Council in Kabul, a nondescript building in a residential area of the capital, followed a familiar pattern—according to the city's criminal investigation department, one attacker detonated himself at the gate with a carload of explosives at a nearby roundabout, breaching the compound wall and allowing the other attackers access inside. A second suicide bomber detonated inside, and according to police a third and possibly fourth continued to exchange gunfire with security personnel several hours after the initial explosion. It's not clear what exactly they were after. The British council is an educational institution that offers cultural and linguistic courses to Afghan nationals. And so early in the morning, it is unlikely that any British citizens would have been present. (According to the AP, Afghan officials said at least 10 people have been killed, including all the insurgents. Afghan authorities said at least eight Afghan policemen and a foreign security official - reportedly a New Zealand special services soldier - were killed.). August 19th marks the anniversary of Afghan independence from the British in 1919, though so far the Taliban, while taking credit for the attack, have not said that they chose the site for its symbolic resonance.

ADD TIME NEWS

Despite Rebel Surge, Gaddafi's Vindictive Resolve Endures

China's Security Chief Goes on Tour—How Is Asia Reacting?

Fighting Gaddafi: How NATO and the Rebels Dovetailed Toward Tripoli

Most Popular

Abbas Postpones Palestinian Local Elections Yet Again

Looming End of Gaddafi Regime Brings New Challenges

South Sudan? Where? Don't ask Google Maps.

Dilma Goes After Brazil's Corruptos – Is the Rest of Latin America Following?

Couch Potato Briefing: From Brecht to Jackie Chan, Via 'Game of Thrones'

How European Leaders Are in the Same Boat as Obama When it Comes to Debt

Suicide Attacks in Kabul: a Sign of Things to Come?

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