Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts

Libya vows to disband Islamist militias - live updates

That's it for today. Here's a summary of the main events:

• The head of parliament, Muhammed Magarief, has announced that all unauthorised militias will be disbanded. As part of the crackdown the army issued a 48-hour deadline for militia to leave government property. The army is to assume control of all militias in Benghazi, according to the Libya Herald.

• Five jihadi groups in Derna have announced they are disbanding after Islamist militia were driven out of Benghazi on Friday night in violent clashes. Eleven people were killed in the violence in Benghazi, including up to six who appeared to have been executed.

• One of the organisers of the protests against militia hailed the success of the protest despite the violence. Bilal Bettamer, told the Guardian, that he was more optimistic than ever about Libya's future after the disbanding of the militia, but he also praised the bravery of the groups for recognising the will of the people. There were breaking reports that some of the protesters have been arrested.

• The officially tolerated opposition has held a rare meeting in Damascus. It heard calls dialogue as a way of ending the violence, from both the organisers of the meeting and the Russian ambassador.

• Syrian rebels have moved their headquarters from Turkey to areas they control in Syria, according to one of their leaders. Brigadier General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who heads the Free Syrian Army's military council, said the group moved headquarters to an undisclosed location in Syria in order to hasten the fall of the president, Bashar al-Assad. The move is being seen as a way of silencing critics of the exiled leadership of the FSA.

• UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi have met to discuss the Syria crisis ahead of this week's UN general assembly meeting in New York. They discussed how to end "the appalling levels of violence in Syria," Lebanon's Daily Star reports.

• On the eve of a visit to the US, Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi insisted that Iran could play an "active and supportive role in solving the Syrian problem". His comments come after a western intelligence report claimed Iran was sending weapons and soldiers to Syria via Iraq.

• President Morsi also urged the US to change its approach to the Arab world, but he insisted that Egypt wanted to remain "friends" with America. In an interview with the New York Times, he , said: “Successive American administrations essentially purchased with American taxpayer money the dislike, if not the hatred, of the peoples of the region."

• The Pakistani government has "disassociated" itself from a bounty offered by a minister for the killing of the maker of the anti-Islam video that provoked days of violence in the Muslim world, the BBC reports. The prime minister's spokesman condemned the railways minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour after he offered to $100,000 to anyone who kills the film maker or the maker of any subsequent blasphemous videos.


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Tropical storm Isaac prepares to make landfall in Gulf Coast – live updates

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is delivering a statement on Hurricane Isaac.

He says the storm is slow-moving – an hour ago it was moving at 10mph – and that some locations could see effects of the storm for up to 36 hours.

Jindal said it was possible that areas of New Orleans would experience 6-10 hours of hurricane force winds.

The storm's slow movement means more rain, 10-16 inches, Jindal says. Storm surges could top 10 feet, and the surges could come after the storm has passed.

"This is a slow-moving storm, so there are going to be many communities that face many hours of heightened wind strength" and rainfall, the governor says.

Localized flooding is expected.

Jindal says 41 parishes have declared emergencies. Seven parishes are at least partially evacuated.

This detail is in sharp contrast to Katrina: pods containing food and water to be used in an emergency already are being distributed around the city and state. Each pod can feed 5,000 people.

"Our plans are to have 40 pods available for southeast Louisiana," Jindal says.

The Dept. of Corrections has moved more than 2,000 inmates out of prisons and jails in vulnerable areas, Jindal says.

In addition, Inmate crews have assembled 98 kennels on five different trucks to help with pet evacuations.


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