Tag: libya

Laptops for Lybians

57B1Ded4Fcde4185A8879B7946C9Eaf3After the green book, Qadhafi launches the green laptop:

With the project scheduled to be completed by June 2008, Libya could become the first nation in which all school-age children are connected to the internet through educational computers, Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop per Child project, told the The New York Times on Wednesday.

The $250 million deal, reached on Tuesday, would provide the nation with 1.2 million computers, a server in each school, a team of technical advisers, satellite internet service and other infrastructure.

The One Laptop per Child project, which has the support of the United Nations Development Programme, aims to provide laptops to school-aged children worldwide for about $100 each. It has reached tentative purchase agreements with Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and Thailand.

I like anything with cranks. I wish my Powerbook had a crank for those long flights. But, while this idea sounds just fine, perhaps Muammar Qadhafi will then, I don’t know, allow freedom of speech in his country so that people can use those laptops to start blogs? Just a thought.

(I have been thinking of starting a sub-blog to follow Middle East related technology and science news. Especially focused on technology that’s especially helpful in this region, for whatever reason. Is anyone interested? And yes, I’m a geek.)

“In Libya, you can criticise Allah but not Gaddafi�

Reading about the state of human rights and freedom of press in Libya sometimes makes Mubarak’s Egypt look like a paradise…
Here’s the recently released Reporters Without Borders report about its fact-finding visit to Libya in September. An Arabic version is also available here.
When you get the chance, also check out reports by Human Rights on the Jamahiriya. The NYC-based rights watchdog did some good investigations there.

Ten years ago: the Abu Salim massacre

HRW, which has recently gotten unprecedented access into Libya, is calling for full disclosure on the 1996 massacre that took place at the Abu Salim prison:

In the summer of 1996, stories began to filter out of Libya about a mass killing in Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison. The details remained scarce, and the government initially denied that an incident had taken place. Libyan groups outside the country said up to 1,200 prisoners had died.

In 2001 and 2002, Libyan authorities began to inform some families with a relative in Abu Salim that their family-member had died, although they did not provide the body or details on the cause of death. In April 2004 Libyan leader Mu`ammar al-Qadhafi publicly acknowledged that killings had taken place in Abu Salim, and said that prisoners’ families have the right to know what took place.

Read the rest for an account of HRW’s investigation and links to Libyan opposition groups.

From revenge to friendship

Qadhafi is canceling Libya’s “day of revenge,” when the country
celebrates its independence from the its former colonial master, Italy,
and replacing it with a “day of friendship.” And he’s also agreed to
allow former Italian pieds-noir who were exiled to href=”http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=570384″>come back:

Giovanna Ortu, born in Libya in 1939 and head of the
association of exiles, said: “For six years we’ve been told it would be
possible, since the Italy-Libya agreement of 1998. In April 1999 Libya
opened up to tourists, but we were specifically barred. I was very much
against Mr Berlusconi’s latest visit to Gaddafi. Successive governments
of left and right have made oil more of a priority than our problems,
and in the process we lost honour.”

The group, the Italian Association for Repatriation to
Libya, still wants Libya to pay €250m (£170m)for expropriated property,
but that is not the principal issue. “None of us wants to go back to
live,” Ms Ortu said. “We no longer cherish hatred and we are ready to
forget. But we want the right to return for holidays. It’s a matter of
honour.”

The $6.6 billion natural gas pipeline that will be going to Italy and
bringing $20 billion over the next 20 years will also help bury those
bad old memories, I’m sure.
Qadhafi
Still, I have a weird feeling that you can never quite know what’s going
to happen next with Qadhafi. After all, he still looks crazy.

While on the subject of the mad bedouin, Abu Aardvark writes of accusations that Libya is supporting remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and reminds us that

Most experts on Libya, both academic and governmental, argued something quite different: Libya took the opportunity to cash in its non-existent nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and restoration of diplomatic relations, which Qadaffi had been trying to get through negotiations for many years. Qadaffi got what he wanted – the sanctions lifted and normal diplomatic status – and gave up very little.

One day someone will write a history of Qadhafi’s Libya, and I think it will be a most entertaining book.