notice the last sentence here

1131: Flash from Reuters: Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has said it seems that Col Gaddafi is no longer in control of Libya. Mr Berlusconi has been one of the colonel’s few friends among European leaders.

As Žižek described Berlusconi: “This man may look a corrupt idiot, and act like a corrupt idiot. But don’t let that fool you: he is a corrupt idiot.”

Egyptian Army apologizes on Facebook for last night’s use of (non-lethal) force

It’s surreal that it’s on Facebook, surreal that they even have a Facebook page, and surreal (though understandable) that they feel the need to apologize to the public for such things now:

“The military has posted an apology on its official Facebook page stating that harassments practiced against activists by military police was unintentional and that no orders were given to attack any Egyptian national. The military also confirmed the release of all those detained during those incidents.”

However, there has been no apology for the sorts of things that still bother the protestors, and those issues are not going to vanish.

Tahrir as tourist site

This would have sounded absurd just over a month ago:

“So far, Tahrir is my favorite place,” said Mr. Blijdorp, who had visited the Pyramids the day before.

If you have some time on your hands, this is actually the perfect time to visit Egypt if you do it immediately. There are almost no tourists here, and the sandstorms are probably a couple of weeks away. We’re still in the midst of the always beautifully bright and cool January/February period in Cairo.

tensions in Egypt increase slightly

“Egyptian soldiers fired in the air and used batons in the early hours of Saturday to disperse activists demanding the cabinet appointed by Hosni Mubarak be purged by the country’s new military leaders, protesters said.”

A few protestors are even angrier than the title of this post suggests.

The grievances are legitimate. A total Cabinet firing should have happened a long time ago, but too much of Mubarak’s late January “stunt” Cabinet remains in place.

And that’s just one of several grievances. Read it for yourself.

an eyewitness to the atrocities

“A man CNN will identify only as Reda to protect his identity said in a telephone interview that armed men dressed in plainclothes fatally shot his two brothers Friday as they were demonstrating against the government. Also killed were his two neighbors, he said.

‘The bodies have been kidnapped from the street,’ Reda said. ‘My other neighbors told me they kidnapped the injured people in the hospital to somewhere, nobody knows (where). This is the perfect crime. He’s hiding all evidence for every crime he has. This is the horrible situation that nobody knows.'”

UN issues

As you’ve probably all heard by now, Libyan Ambassador to the UN Mohammed Shalgham has denounced his former friend Qaddafi as “Pol Pot” and “Hitler,” which is the most definitive end to a friendship I’ve ever seen. Hard to make up after that, though I doubt Qaddafi will be around much longer anyway.

What I really don’t get from the UN are these statements from the French Ambassador:

2240: The BBC’s UN correspondent Barbara Plett tweets: “#UN French ambo waxing lyrical: says Libyan ambo emotional speech “historical moment,” shows [Security Council] must meet its “rendevous with history”.

2243: Another tweet from the BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN: “#French UN ambo: no chance of military intervention in #Libya; also no talk of a no fly zone: bad memories from Bosnia”

This puzzles me in several ways.

First, if you’re going to make a dramatic speech about the Security Council needing to meet its rendezvous with history, and then rule out military action, in the present case that doesn’t leave much room for a rendezvous with history.

Second, what do the bad memories of Bosnia have to do with a no-fly zone? My understanding of Europe’s bad memories of Bosnia is that it had bad memories of sitting around doing nothing for a very long time, allowing Srebrenica to happen, and so forth.

Third, other than the number of atrocities I don’t really see the parallels between Bosnia and Libya. Bosnia is part of Europe and was being attacked by superior forces and wanted help. Libya is outside Europe, in an area of the world particularly sensitive to European colonialism, and it’s not even clear that the Libyan rebellion wants Western military assistance. In fact, the opposite seems closer to the truth. A no-fly zone enforced by the West doesn’t seem like it would taint the grass-roots Arab authenticity of the rebellion very much, but we’re also several days past the point when it would have been helpful: I haven’t read any reports of aerial attacks since around the middle of the week. Maybe I’m missing some stories, but it now sounds like nothing but bloody street battles. Even Qaddafi probably won’t launch airstrikes on Tripoli itself; his own forces are too mixed in with everyone else there.

Tim Morton’s lecture

You can go to Tim Morton’s website and hear THIS RECORDING OF HIS LECTURE, which I assume was the one yesterday at Rutgers listed on his schedule. (I just woke up and haven’t had time to listen yet.)

I don’t like it when

I don’t like it when people add soundtracks to YouTube videos. It’s almost always awful work. Just give us the raw footage. Much more powerful. I don’t need your choice of soundtrack telling me how I should feel about what I’m seeing.

It seems to be an American disease, I’m afraid. Once I knew a European, a great hockey fan, who was living in the USA. At one point, mildly outraged, he gave up watching hockey highlights on ESPN, because “they add heavy metal music to all of it.” What a terrible idea.

a final wave of news for the night

For me, at least. It’s past midnight and has been a long day.

2135: Reuters also has details of the French-British draft UN resolution against Libya. It says that “the widespread and systematic attacks currently taking place in Libya against the civilian population may amount to crimes against humanity.”

2148: White House spokesman Jay Carney says Col Gaddafi’s legitimacy has been “reduced to zero”. The US has shuttered its embassy in Tripoli and the Associated Press says the last US citizens are now out of Libya.

If the last US citizens are out of Libya, that removes the excuse that was given for not speaking out more forcibly.

2159: More details have emerged about the violence in Tripoli today. A witness in the city’s eastern Tajoura district told AP news agency: “In the first wave of fire, seven people within 10 meters (yards) of me were killed. Many people were shot in the head… It was really like we are dogs.”

this measure is a bit more sensible

Just because it’s not so time-sensitive, and will be useful after the fall of the regime:

2101: That draft UN resolution calling for sanctions on Libya is also calling for the violence against the opposition to be referred to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Qaddafi is unlikely to survive, but many of the guilty will, and can be put on trial. We’ll learn a lot from that, too.

And now a dramatic, even sentimental scene is reported from the UN:

2104: The BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN tweets: “Ban Ki-moon hugs Libyan ambo after the personal speech, deputy ambo seen weeping by his side.”