Six In The Morning

US says Gaddafi is 'delusional' and unfit to lead

A senior US diplomat says Gaddafi's behaviour 'underscores how unfit he is to lead and how disconnected he is from reality'
Ben Quinn and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 March 2011
Muammar Gaddafi is "delusional", "unfit to lead" and "disconnected from reality", according to the US ambassador to the UN.
Susan Rice made the comments following an interview Gaddafi gave in which he insisted the people of Libya love him and denied that there have been any demonstrations against his regime.
"All my people love me. They would die to protect me," the Libyan leader said, speaking to news organisations including the BBC, laughing off international pressure to step down.
"As if anyone would leave their homeland," he replied, accusing western leaders of betrayal and of having "no morals."

Sarkozy keen to repair France's image

The Irish Times - Tuesday, March 1, 2011
RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC in Paris
FRANCE HAS said it will send two flights of medical aid to the opposition-held city of Benghazi to help ease the pressure on hospitals in eastern Libya.
With President Nicolas Sarkozy keen to repair France’s image in the Arab world after his government’s clumsy handling of the Tunisian revolt, Paris has sought to position itself as a leading western voice in support of the Libyan rebels.
Prime Minister François Fillon said the decision to dispatch two aircraft carrying doctors, nurses, medicine and medical equipment was “the beginning of a massive operation of humanitarian support for the population of the liberated territories”.

The EU Has Failed the Arab World

Europe's Favorite Dictators

By SPIEGEL Staff.
It was supposed to be a pleasant dinner without the usual formalities and time pressure. On Sunday, Feb. 20, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton had invited the foreign ministers of EU member countries to the European Council building in Brussels to have a detailed conversation about the revolution in North Africa and the bloody scenes in Libya.
But, as is typical in the European Union, the meeting turned into a heated dispute. Right after Lady Ashton finished reporting on recent talks she had had in Cairo and Tunis, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini piped up. He spoke about the unrest in Libya, a country he claimed to know particularly well. He claimed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was the only person who could guarantee the country's stability. The most important thing for now, he said, was preserving the country's territorial integrity. His colleagues from Greece and Malta seconded his opinion.

Ivory Coast's Gbagbo turns forces on UN


March 1, 2011 - 5:44PM
Forces loyal to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo have opened fire on UN sanctions experts who tried to check on a suspected breach of the international arms embargo of the country, a UN source has said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon accused Belarus of breaking the embargo by sending three attack helicopters and other equipment to Gbagbo, who refuses to hand over power to internationally-recognized president Alassane Ouattara. Belarus denied the charges.

How to draft a constitution: six steps for the Middle East


Egypt’s military has suspended the country’s Constitution and tasked experts Other countries in the region may also soon be in line for such a make-over – redesigning government institutions, enshrining individual liberties, entrenching guarantees of democratic accountability. But not all constitutions are created equal. Here are a list of six big issues to consider when creating a Constitution from scratch:with overhauling its fundamental law.

1. How quickly should countries write a new constitution?

Russia, a country that’s had five constitutions in the past century, has plenty of advice to offer on the wrong ways to go about writing a basic charter, experts say. “Egypt probably shouldn’t be trying to change its Constitution just now,” says Sergei Alexeyev, an author of Russia’s 1993 Constitution and a professor at the Yekaterinburg Institute of Private Law. “Better to concentrate on restoring human rights and freedoms in practical ways and then, after the storm has passed, turn to writing the constitution with a cool head.”

We're all aliens... how humans began life in outer space


The mystery of how the building blocks of biology came to be on Earth may finally have been solved
By Steve Connor Tuesday, 1 March 2011
As scientific mysteries go, this is the big one. How did life on Earth begin? Not how did life evolve, but how did it start in the first place? What was the initial spark that lit the fire of evolution?
Charles Darwin solved the mystery of life's wondrous diversity with his theory of natural selection. But even he was flummoxed by the ultimate mystery of mysteries: what led to the origin of life itself?
In trying to answer the problem, scientists have turned to the stars, or at least the "builders' rubble" of meteorites and comets left over from the formation of our solar system some five billion years ago. These space rocks, they believe, could help to explain why life began here on Earth.