BRITAIN: Former member of Gadhafi regime says Libya risks civil war.
The highest-profile insider to break with Moammar Gadhafi’s regime since Libya’s conflict began warned Monday that the country risked becoming engulfed in civil war like Somalia.
Ex-Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, making his first public statement since he fled Tripoli, quit his post and arrived in Britain on March 30, called on Gadhafi and the country’s opposition to show restraint.
“I ask everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war. This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia,” said Koussa, who has spent almost two weeks at an undisclosed location in interviews with British intelligence officers and diplomats.
Britain’s Foreign Office said Koussa is not being detained by authorities, but the office has repeatedly declined to discuss the details of his debriefings or comment on his whereabouts.
EGYPT: Secretary general of former ruling party detained.
Egypt’s Justice Ministry has ordered the 15-day detention of a former regime stalwart pending investigations into corruption charges.
The state news agency reported that Safwat el-Sherif, the secretary general of the ruling party and one of the most powerful men in the former regime, was remanded into custody after 12 hours of questioning.
Also Monday, a military tribunal sentenced a blogger to three years in prison for insulting the army in a blog posting publicizing the alleged abuses of the institution that took power in the country two months earlier. In a television interview, two generals justified the sentence because criticism of the military was allowed only if carried out in a respectful manner.
SYRIA: Europe decries deadly crackdown.
European countries condemned the deadly crackdown in Syria that has claimed at least 170 lives after three weeks of protests calling for reform. Hundreds even protested at Damascus University, in a rare demonstration in the capital that was dispersed by security forces, killing at least one person.
YEMEN: President welcomes mediation, rejects calls to resign.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has welcomed mediation efforts by the regional bloc of oil-rich Arab nations even as he rejected their calls for him to step down, in a blow to regional efforts to resolve the weeks of turmoil that have been wracking this impoverished Arab nation.
BAHRAIN: Editors face charges of fabricating reports.
Three top editors for the island kingdom’s biggest opposition daily, Al-Wasat, have been referred to trial on charges of allegedly publishing fabricated reports about the unrest wracking this Shiite-majority country dominated by a Sunni ruling family. The editors have denied the charges amid a widespread government crackdown in effort to quell the protests.
No date has been set for the beginning of the trial.
ITALY: Nation clashes with EU over wave of new immigrants.
Tensions rose between Italy and its EU partners Monday over how to handle an influx of immigrants from North Africa, prompting the Italian interior minister to question the utility of the EU.
At a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, EU interior ministers said they would not recognize the temporary permits that Italy had said it planned to issue to scores of immigrants who have arrived since January. The permits were intended to allow them free travel within Europe.
Italy had been calling on its fellow EU members to help share the burden of receiving the more than 22,000 immigrants who have arrived in Italy since January, the majority of them “economic migrants” from Tunisia seeking work in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Denver Post wire services
