Items on Libya - you know , the last and forgotten kinetic action.....

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/delays-to-libya-elections-spark-concern/263045-70.html

Cairo: Little in Libya ever gets done in a timely manner. In commerce and government, bureaucratic inertia and a lack of accountability delay even the most mundane of administrative tasks.

Which is why it was so telling these last few weeks that Libyans defied the pessimists, shrugged off security worries and quickly registered the populace ahead of a historic June 19 parliamentary vote. And why it is so alarming that the unelected interim National Transitional Council is now making noises about possibly delaying the vote, fuelling public suspicions it is trying to entrench itself.

The Libyan elections follow less-than-perfect votes for new parliaments in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt, which also underwent popular uprisings. In Libya as in the other two, similar configurations of Islamists and liberals have emerged from the wreckage of the previous regimes.

As the west contemplates possible action in Syria, Libya's bumpy transition, which follows a months-long, Nato-backed war that unseated Col Muammar Gaddafi, also shows the need for concrete post-regime planning.

Few thought Libya's voter registration process would even get off the ground, given the country's sometimes-dire security situation and lack of experience in electoral politics, which the late leader, Col Gaddafi, believed were anathema to democracy.

But for weeks, Libyans patiently queued up outside 1,500 voter registration centres, showed their national identification cards and filled out the forms to take part in the country's first-ever chance to choose its own leaders. By the time the process ended last week, 80 per cent of eligible voters had been registered.

Then this week, Mostafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, told the Reuters news agency that, despite the valiant efforts of election workers and ordinary people, the elections couldn't possibly go ahead on time. Not because the voters and election workers weren't ready, but because some candidates were challenging their disqualifications by authorities and their appeals could not be heard in time for the vote.

Many Libyans scoffed at the argument. Even NTC officials began to speak against it, insisting no one but the election commission could take the decision to delay the vote. But the commission's officials, too, have also hinted in recent days of a possible delay because of unspecified bureaucratic matters. Some of the political parties have also said they could benefit from more time to compete.

The problem is that delaying the vote places the interests of the political elite above those of the voters.

Libyans won't be voting for a king to rule for life or even a president who would serve the next few years but for a parliament that will help oversee the country's affairs and draw up a constitution in preparation for another election in 2013. Any further delay would only serve to deepen the security vacuum in which violence regularly breaks out between rival armed groups. (At least seven people were killed in a recent flare-up in the Algerian border town of Ghadames.)

A delay might also scare off international and local companies eager to invest in the oil-rich country. Many companies have been holding off on deals until a new government is sworn in. The NTC, which has been overseeing the country's affairs since the end of Col Gaddafi's rule, had long promised to exit politics for five years once a permanent government was in place. But many have doubted it from the beginning and any delay is likely to feed conspiracy theories.

Delaying the vote for the National General Congress won't necessarily plunge the country into chaos. However, tinkering with the election date adds to a long list of what critics describe as over-reach by the NTC. It moved recently to regulate the media and has floated a rule to bar foreign funding of non-government organisations that would bar civil society groups from applying for overseas grants.

Many Libyans would prefer the NTC to stick to managing the country's day-to-day affairs and leave tackling the bigger ethical issues to an elected body. The NTC may have international recognition but, without a popular mandate, it is steadily losing domestic legitimacy.

http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=756777&vId=

Libya can hold on to Gaddafi's son

Updated: 15:10, Saturday June 2, 2012

Libya doesn't have to hand over Muammar Gaddafi's son, the International Criminal Court at The Hague says.

The ruling ends months of pressure on Libyan authorities to surrender Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is wanted by the court on charges of crimes against humanity allegedly committed early in his father's crackdown on dissent last year.

He was arrested in November in Libya's remote south, and is being held by a militia which refuses to surrender him to Libya's new rulers.

Libyan authorities say they want to put Seif al-Islam on trial in Libya. The ICC is a tribunal of last resort, intended to try suspects from countries that cannot or will not prosecute them.

The U.N. Security Council ordered the court to launch an investigation in Libya in February 2011.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo indicted Seif al-Islam along with his father and Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senoussi, who was arrested in March in Mauritania and is still being held there. The case against Muammar Gaddafi was dropped after he was captured and killed by rebels.

and......

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/06/02/244216/no-libyalike-scenario-in-syria/

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against any Libya-style plan to bring down the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Why are we thinking that if we push the current leadership from power, then tomorrow general wellbeing will begin there?” Putin said after talks with his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Paris on Friday.

“What is happening in Libya? What is happening in Iraq? Has it become safer there?” he said. “We propose to act in an accurate, balanced manner at least in Syria.”

The Russian president also warned the situation in Syria was "extremely dangerous" and that he saw emerging signs of a civil war.

"As for sanctions, such questions must be discussed first at the UN Security Council. I think that, as you know, sanctions are still not effective. What we must do is [to] prevent the situation [from] evolving into the worst case scenario and fight against the possibility of civil war in Syria,” he said.

Putin noted that his country is pursuing a policy to reduce the violence in Syria to “the minimum.”

“We are not for Bashar Assad or for his opponents. We want to arrive at a situation where the violence is ended and the possibility of a civil war is completely avoided. That is the objective of our policy about Syria," he said.

The Russian president also accused Syrian armed gangs of killing hundreds of civilians. 

For his part, the French president said that the ouster of the Syrian president must be the precondition for any political solution to the unrest. Hollande also called for the imposition of sanctions as a tool for pressuring Syria.

This comes as the recent killing of civilians in the Syrian village of Houla has fueled calls by some countries for more economic and diplomatic pressure on Damascus.

A Syrian government investigation into the massacre showed that anti-Damascus armed groups were responsible for the killings of over a hundred people, including dozens of women and children.

The head of the inquiry, Brigadier General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, said on Thursday that between 600 and 800 armed terrorists used heavy machinery to carry out the attacks.

This is while, about 280 UN observers are currently monitoring a ceasefire, which was part of a six-point peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan in March. 

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