Libyan Airspace ‘Under Control’ As Two Sides Meet
Huffpost- First Posted: 03/25/11 08:48 AM Updated: 03/25/11 08:48 AM
BENGHAZI, Libya — France declared Libya’s airspace “under control” on Friday, after NATO agreed to take command of the no-fly zone in a compromise that appeared to set up dual command centers and possibly new confusion. Coalition warplanes struck Moammar Gadhafi’s forces outside the strategic eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya.
Representatives for the regime and the rebels were expected to meet formally for the first time Friday, in Ethiopia, in what the U.N. described as a part of an effort to reach a cease-fire and political solution.
The overnight French and British strikes on an artillery battery and armored vehicles were intended to give a measure of relief to Ajdabiya, where residents have fled or cowered under more than a week of shelling and fighting between rebels and government troops. Explosions also could be heard in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before daybreak Friday, apparently from airstrikes.
“Libyan airspace is under control, and we proved it yesterday, because a Libyan plane in the hands of pro-Gadhafi forces, which had just taken off from Misrata in order to bomb Misrata, was destroyed by a French Rafale,” Adm. Edouard Guillaud said on France-Info radio.
But the compromise that puts NATO in charge of clearing the skies still leaves the U.S. responsible for the more difficult task of planning attacks on Gadhafi’s ground forces and other targets.
Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center and scattered checkpoints but facing relentless shelling from government troops on the outskirts. Residents are without electicity or drinking water, and many have fled.
The U.S. military said coalition jets flew about 150 on Thursday, about 70 of them with American planes.
“The operation is still focusing on tanks, combat vehicles, air defense targets – really whatever equipment and personnel are threatening the no-fly zone or civilians on the ground in such locations as Ajdabiya and along some other areas on the coast,” Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke told reporters from aboard the USS Mount Whitney.
The U.S. has been trying to give up the lead role in the operation against Gadhafi’s forces, and NATO agreed late Thursday to assume one element of it – control of the no-fly zone.
Nicolas Sarkozy says the burqa is ‘not welcome’ in France
Posted in Commentary, tagged Burqa, France, Sarkozy on June 23, 2009| 1 Comment »
President Nicolas Sarkozy has used a major policy speech to declare the burqa was “not welcome” in France and should be banned
A woman wearing a traditional burqa Photo: REUTERS
Peter Allen in Paris | Telegraph.com | 22 June 2009
In comments which will reignite the debate about religious clothing in the country, he said the full-body garment was “not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience”.
Mr Sarkozy used the first presidential address to a joint session of France’s two houses of parliament in 136 years to declare his support for a ban, even before hearing from a parliamentary commission set up to study the issue.
“We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,” Mr Sarkozy told the special session in Versailles.
“That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity.
“The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic,” the French president said.
A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right has called on Parliament to take action against women adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that “breaches individual freedoms”.
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