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As a fellow traveler, Barack Obama, who has managed to impress the Bolivian dictator President as the Bolivian slammed capitalism at the UN, has also made his mark on Lybia's dictator. In a speech with as much substance as many of Obama's, Qadaffi said in his meandering and disconnected hour and a half rant that Obama is "Our Son," and "His son." This raises the proverbial question, does the fruit fall far from the tree? He apparently was unaware when he said that he wished that Obama could be President "forever" that unlike himself as head of the Lybian government,...

In listening to Qadaffi's speech at the UN, I was surprised to hear him refer to Obama as 'my son'. Supposedly, it is because they share 'African blood' (explanation given on Fox News).

Is anyone else catching this? Qadaffi is raving like a mad man while addressing the UN. I cannot even transcribe what he is saying, it is utterly incoherent. I hope someone posts the transcription.

Italy: Gaddafi fails to show up at top-level meeting in Rome Rome, 12 June (AKI) - The speaker of Italy's lower house cancelled a top-level conference in honour of Muammar Gaddafi in Rome on Friday after the Libyan leader failed to arrive. "The conference with Gaddafi has not been held due to the delay by Libyan (leader) Gaddafi," said Gianfranco Fini, a senior ally of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. "The two-hour delay is not justified." Gaddafi was scheduled to meet Fini late Friday and take part in a conference with the speaker and former Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema....

Libya’s sudden decision to end its years in the international wilderness and embrace the West has abruptly transformed one of the world’s most isolated countries. Iason Athanasiadis reports from a nation in flux There is something of the pasha in Khalifa Mahdaoui, a descendant of one of Libya’s most influential tribes. It is not just the red fez perched on his head as he ambles in his suit and tie from his ground-floor office to the trellised porch outside, lights a menthol cigarette and takes a sip from the dainty cup of Turkish coffee delivered by an aide.The impression is...

Gaddafi, addressing a meeting on ways to expand cooperation between the United Nations and African Union, urged the Court to stop its proceedings against Bashir: "Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv [Israel], for example, is behind the Darfur crisis?"

Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century. The money will be invested by Italy over a 25-year period. For VOA, Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday signed a "friendship pact" with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Under the pact, Italy agreed to compensate Libya for abuses it committed during its colonial rule of the North African country. Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya in a deal that effectively turns the page on colonial-era disputes that have long...

Excerpt - Libya has taken "worryingly retaliatory measures" against Switzerland following the recent arrest of leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son in Geneva, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Col Gaddafi's government has recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, reduced flights between the countries, stopped processing visa requests from Swiss citizens, demanded the closure of Swiss firms in Libya and detained two Swiss citizens. Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has formally complained about the moves to her Libyan counterpart and has advised citizens not to travel to Libya. ~ snip ~

(AGI) - Geneva, 17 July - The detention of Hannibal Gheddafi, son of the Libyan President, and his wife lasted just one night. The Gheddafis, arrested yesterday evening accused of mistreating two staff of the hotel in Geneva where they were staying, were released after the payment of bail of 309,000 euro. The most serious charges were made against Colonel Gheddafi's daughter-in-law, 9 months' pregnant and admitted today to the University of Geneva hospital. The two employees of the Hotel Presidente Wilson, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman showed the injuries to the judge but the Gheddafis' lawyers...

Excerpt - TRIPOLI, Libya -- Recently, Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi wrote a letter to President Bush, asking: Where are we going with our relationship? Five years ago, the Bush administration helped persuade Libya -- for decades one of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism -- to scrap its nuclear ambitions and dismantle its terror infrastructure. It ranks as one of the president's signature foreign-policy successes and was supposed to blaze a path for other rogue states, principally North Korea and Iran. Now, these ties are fraying. According to Libyan diplomats who have seen the letter, sent in early March,...

Excerpt - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi arrives in Paris Monday for a high-profile visit set to usher in multi-billion-euro nuclear and aviation contracts, even as critics lashed President Nicolas Sarkozy for welcoming the former pariah. Staying in a heated Bedouin tent pitched near the Elysee presidential palace, Kadhafi is expected during the five-day visit to approve the purchase of three billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) of Airbus planes, a nuclear reactor and possibly Rafale fighter jets. ~ snip ~

Jerusalem, 14 May (AKI) - The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was taken to hospital on Sunday after suffering a stroke, according to a report on the Palestinian news agency Maan, quoted by Israeli news site Ynet. The condition of the 65-year old leader is reported to be serious and family members have been arriving at the hospital, the report said.

TOKYO - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told a visiting Japanese official that his country has urged North Korea to give up efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Iwao Matsuda, Japan's state minister for science and technology policy, held talks with Gadhafi in Sebha, about 375 miles south of Tripoli, on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement issued Friday. Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end his international isolation and economic hardships...

April 15, 2006 -- The American pop star Lionel Richie and the Spanish opera singer Jose Carreras have performed in a concert in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. About 40 people, including an adopted daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, were killed in the raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 2006. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the air strikes were launched in retaliation for Libyan complicity in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed an American soldier.

Take a close look and there is something downright suspicious about former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, now the darling of certain sectors of the radical left. His journey has taken him from the heights of federal power to outer orbits of the political fringe. In the process, he has seemingly transformed from a shill for the most corrupt elements of the US elites to a shill for any foreign despot who claims to oppose the US elites. Who is Ramsey Clark really working for? Dynasty of Mediocrity Ramsey Clark was born to power. In 1945, the Clark family made its...

LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France. The Libyan national news agency reported that Mr Chirac thanked Colonel Gaddafi for his interest and reassured him that the situation was under control. Colonel Gaddafi was reported saying Libya was "disposed to help France overcome these events," which he described as "regrettable." The report did not outline what kind of aid might have been forthcoming. French authorities have stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots, in...

On the surface there would seem to be little to unite the Aryan racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with the terrorists of radical Islam. To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all members of ``inferior`` races; and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis are almost without exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian sects. But the reality is that there has been close cooperation between Muslim extremists and Fascists ever since the founding of the Nazi movement in the 1920`s. For all of their differences, Muslim extremists and Nazis have always been united by a common group of beliefs and...

Italian intelligence officials who secured the release of two hostages in Iraq are working with their British counterparts to try to free Kenneth Bigley, the captive Briton. They believe that Sunni Muslim insurgents who kidnapped Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, the aid workers freed last week, have links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Tawhid wal Jihad, the group holding Mr Bigley. The engineer, 62, was captured 16 days ago with two American colleagues, who have been beheaded. An Italian diplomat said: "Italy's intelligence is working very closely with Britain's to lend every assistance to free the hostage. It has...

Here are some excerpts from a report by the official news agency in Libya on Muammar al-Qathafi's statements: The Leader underscored the need to launch full freedom in Libya, the Jamahiri state " the state of men and women, a country which is all civilian society and is self- run." He called for lifting all restrictions that stand in the face of this, so that Libyans be fully free in selecting economic activities, including founding companies on partnership bases, or on the bases of wages " work with fees". The leader also underscored the freedom of faith, worship, and religion,...

LONDON, England (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying yesterday that the United Nations must scrap the Security Council and give its powers to the General Assembly, if it ever hopes to become a truly democratic organisation. In a full-page advertisement in The Guardian newspaper, Gadhafi called the UN Security Council "an ugly, forceful, and horrible instrument of dictatorship - an executioner's whip with no appeal against its judgment, even if its judgment is unfair, biased and harmful." The Security Council's five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have veto...

The parquet floor of Paris engages of the continuations against the son of Kadhafi The parquet floor of Paris will engage of the continuations against Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of president Libyen, for violences which he would have exerted on his partner at the time of a stay at the beginning of February in Paris, one learned Monday from legal source. Hannibal Kadhafi will be continued for "voluntary violence on anybody vulnerable, in the event his/her concubine pregnant, having involved a total disablement of work (ITT) of less than 8 days", one specified of the same source. Justice also...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal Gaddafi, who was allegedly embroiled recently in scuffles in France, has also been accused of a violent incident in Denmark. "We have been informed by the police of this case of violence. But no complaint has been lodged with the police," the head of protocol at the Danish foreign ministry, ambassador Christopher Bo Bramsen, said. "We are following the matter," he said, adding that Hannibal Gaddafi held a diplomatic passport and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity. According to the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, Danish police were called three weeks ago to a violent incident involving...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's politically influential son said on Thursday that armed resistance to U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq was legitimate but condemned the killing of innocent hostages. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had called the war in Iraq illegal, key members of the Security Council had opposed it and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction -- the main reason Washington gave for invading Iraq -- removed any moral justification for military action. "The result is clear -- that it's an illegal occupation and therefore people should resist it," Gaddafi...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 29 (AFP) - Libya on Wednesday offered some colourful ideas for reforming the United Nations, including moving the General Assembly to Geneva and letting Bill Clinton resolve the world's conflicts and wars. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, never shy about putting forward visionary proposals, also wants his nation to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalghem said. "The past 59 years have proven that the General Assembly is merely a decorative body without a soul," Shalghem said as Libya took the podium at the annual United Nations debate of...

BERLIN (AP) -- Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million in compensation for victims of a 1986 bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman and injured 229 others, the Libyan ambassador to Germany said. The deal applies to Germans who were wounded in the April 5, 1986 attack on the LaBelle disco and the family of the slain Turkish woman, but not the families of two Americans, Ambassador Said Abdulaati told The Associated Press. It is the latest step in an effort by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to end his country's pariah status, following...

The Iraq War did not Force Gadaffi's HandThe Financial Times, March 9, 2004Martin S. Indyk, Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy Martin S. Indyk Embarrassed by the failure to find Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush is trying to find another WMD-related justification for his pre-emptive war on Iraq. Bush administration spokesmen have been quick to portray Libya's December decision to abandon WMD programmes as the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq or, as Mr. Bush himself put it in his State of the Union address: "Nine months of intense negotiations succeeded with...

LONDON (Reuters) - Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could buy promoted premier league soccer club Crystal Palace, The Guardian says. It said Gaddafi, who owns a 7.5 percent stake in Italian club Juventus, has not made an offer yet but has shown interest in the small south London club that surprisingly won the promotion playoffs in May. "I've been told that Gaddafi and his son (Al-Saadi) are interested in acquiring Palace," the Guardian quoted the club's chairman Simon Jordan as saying. Jordan said there had been no formal approach but if there was "I'd consider it ... If it's...

Jana/1 The Leader of the Revolution/ statement Tripoli/ 5 Assaif/ Jana The Leader of the Revolution made a statement tonight to Jana news agency in which he said: "I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appears before justice to held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children. / Jamahiriya News Agency/

PARIS (AFP) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said he "absolutely does not regret the past", despite his country's former alleged support for terrorism. "We were in a phase of fighting for emancipation, liberation.... We were accused of being terrorists, but that is the price we had to pay. If that is terrorism, then we are proud to be terrorists because we helped the liberation of the (African) continent", Kadhafi told public Radio France Internationale. "I absolutely do not regret the past", he said in comments recorded in Brussels. The Libyan leader was speaking on the second and final day...

Palestinian medical sources announced the martydom of Abdulaziz al-Rantesi, leader of Hamas in Gaza strip and two of his companions in an attack launched by a helicopter of the terrorist Zionist army organization, Saturday evening on a car they were using in Gaza city.

(AP) - Once again, President Bush misspoke on a weapons issue, telling the nation that 50 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya - twice the amount actually uncovered. The White House moved quickly Wednesday to correct the record, with press secretary Scott McClellan seeking out reporters to point out the mistake. The president should have said in his Tuesday night address and press conference that 23.6 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya, instead of 50 tons, McClellan said.Bush used the 50-ton figure twice.The first time, he was making the case that his decision to go to...

Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, sent a message of greetings to Moammer el Gaddafi, leader of the Great September First Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, on Mar. 1 on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the proclamation of Jamahiriya in Libya. Expressing the belief that the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries would steadily grow stronger, the message wished him greater success in his work for the prosperity of the country.

Full diplomatic relations between Libya and the United States could be restored by the end of the year, U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon said Monday on arriving in Tripoli for his second visit in a month as the two nations work toward putting decades of animosity behind them. Weldon, leading a seven-member congressional delegation, planned to meet Tuesday with Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and the nation's prime minister Shokri Ghanem, whose recent remarks suggesting Libya hadn't taken responsibility for a 1988 passenger plane bombing briefly shook up the fresh start. "The steps he is taking are positive," Weldon said of Gadhafi....

An Arab diplomat in the Jordanian capital is quoted as saying Thursday by al Siyasah newspaper that Palestinian and Islamist groups have decided in a meeting earlier this month to launch huge attacks within Israel and against its interests in Asia, Africa and Mideast countries. According to the Kuwaiti newspaper, the scope of the attacks will resemble the latest attacks in Iraq that claimed the lives of hundreds of US soldiers and Iraqis. It added that the new decision was taken in order to stop growing criticism on the Arab street about their "silence" towards Israeli activities. The diplomat told...

Colonel Muammar Gadafy of Libya has been buying complete sets of uranium enrichment centrifuges on the international black market as the central element in his secret nuclear bomb programme, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors. The ease with which the complex bomb-making equipment was acquired has stunned experienced international inspectors. The scale and the sophistication of the networks supplying so-called rogue states seeking nuclear weapons are considerably more extensive than previously believed. The purchase of full centrifuges, either assembled or in parts, marks a radical departure in what is on offer on the black market, sources said. While it is...

NASHUA, N.H. -- Democrat Howard Dean said that the events of the last few weeks have shown he was right to conclude that Saddam Hussein’s capture didn’t make America safer. Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, faced criticism from his party’s rivals for his comments following the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam. Since then, the national terrorism alert has been raised to orange and more troops have been killed in Iraq, he said at a town hall meeting in Nashua. "They got all excited, but here we are," the former Vermont governor said. "We’ve lost 10 more troops...

<p>CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (CNN) -- Several dozen jailhouse sketches by accused sniper Lee Boyd Malvo -- some depicting police in rifle crosshairs and others containing references to a holy war -- have been entered as evidence by defense attorneys, who say they are evidence of his indoctrination by an accomplice.</p>

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told a conference of African leaders Saturday that Africans who are "straight" need not fear AIDS, which is ravaging many countries on the continent. Speaking through a translator, Gadhafi drew some laughter with his reference to AIDS only affected homosexuals. He told the closing session of the eight-day annual African Union conference, "All you have to do is observe the rules. If you are straight, you have nothing to fear from AIDS." He also described HIV, the virus that causes AIDS as "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus." Of the 42 million people worldwide infected...

Sat Mar 1, 6:37 AM ET Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi laughs before the start of an Arab League summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, March 1, 2003. Arab foreign ministers dismissed on Friday U.S. pressure to urge President Saddam Hussein to resign, as Arab leaders meet for talks on bridging long-standing rifts and averting war. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby

The UN continues to stand watch against the violation of civil rights around the world, and voted today for none other than Libya to head its Commission on Human Rights. Three countries, including the United States, objected, and 17 abstained, but a full 33 voted in favor, paving the way for Col. Muammar Gadaffi's nation to lead the world's struggle on behalf of the politically oppressed and battered. "Over the past three decades," Human Rights Watch announced this week, "Libya’s human rights record has been appalling. It has included the abduction, forced disappearance or assassination of political opponents; torture and...

Iraqi dictator plans escape route in face of US and British offensive SADDAM HUSSEIN has made secret plans for his family and leading members of his regime to be given political asylum in Libya in the event of a war with America or a successful internal coup in Baghdad. The extraordinary steps taken by the Iraqi leader to provide an exit strategy for key relatives and associates, which includes paying $3.5 billion (£2.3 billion) into Libyan banks, provide the first evidence that Saddam is now facing up to the prospect of being toppled from power. Even as he makes public...

Libya cuts links with world Libya has closed its airports and severed phone links with the outside world in the latest demand for compensation from former colonial power, Italy. People who phoned Libya received a recorded message: "As part of the mourning over the victims of the savage crimes committed by the Italian fascists against the Libyan people, all international telecommunications are to be halted today." Gaddafi's protests continue despite apology Libyans wore black to mark the Day of Mourning and black banners fluttered over homes, government buildings, buses and cars said the official Libyan news agency, JANA. Airports were...