Wikileaks

Will Freedom From Qaddafi Make Libyans Better Drivers?

Thomas Lane | September 20, 2011, 11:07PM

A rebel drives through Tripoli, Libya, 24 August 2011.

The blessings of freedom are many; but could one of them be making people better drivers? The people of Libya may soon find out.

A recently released Wikileaks cable, originally classified in November 2009, details the various the horrors of driving in Libya, where road accidents are the third leading cause of death. The cable's anonymous U.S. diplomat author quotes a local as wondering why many Libyans exhibit "criminal behavior" as soon as they get behind the wheel.

The cable's author twice quotes one rather interesting theory: that a lack of political freedom is basically turning people into carbon copies of Nick Cage from Drive Angry 3D.

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Muammar Qaddafi

Docs: Bush Official, Kucinich Offered To Help Qaddafi Regime On Ending U.S. Involvement In Libya

Ryan J. Reilly | August 31, 2011, 3:10PM

former Asst. Sec. of State David Welch and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

Former Bush administration official David Welch and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) worked with the now-deposed Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi as he attempted to stay in power, according to documents found in the building that used to house Libya's intelligence headquarters, Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reports.

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LIbya

Qaddafi Hearts Condi? Condoleezza Rice Photo Album Found In Libyan Leader's Compound

David Taintor | August 25, 2011, 9:08AM

A photo album of Condoleeza Rice found in Qaddafi's Tripoli compound.

The first images to come from the Libyan rebels' ransacking of deposed leader Muammar Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli were fun but fairly benign: fighters brandishing their spoils including his cherished cap, gold chain and a golf cart.

But also discovered in the compound is a photo album of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. As MSNBC reports, Rice visited Tripoli in 2008. She and Qaddafi ate dinner during a brief time where Qaddafi was being welcomed back into the international community.

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Muammar Qaddafi

Consulting Firm Admits Errors In Work For Libya

Eric Lach | May 6, 2011, 12:53PM

Muammar el-Qaddafi

A Cambridge, Massachusetts consulting firm acknowledged Friday that some of its work on behalf of Muammar Qaddafi and Libya from 2006 to 2008 should have been registered with the U.S. Department of Justice in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In a statement, Monitor Group said it will now register "some of its past work in Libya, as well as recent work with Jordan" and "take all appropriate measures to remediate these errors."

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Ali Aujali

Former Libyan Ambassador Registers To Lobby For Transitional Council

Ryan J. Reilly | April 26, 2011, 11:55AM

Ali Suleiman Aujali, the former Libyan ambassador to the U.S. who publicly broke with the Qaddafi regime in February, has registered to lobby on behalf of the Transitional National Council Office of the Representative to the United States.

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Ali Aujali

Ex-Libyan Ambassador Labels Regime 'Criminal' As Pre-Qaddafi Era Flag Raised Over Home (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | February 25, 2011, 4:25PM

It was quite a scene at the former Libyan ambassador's residence in Northwest Washington, D.C. Friday afternoon, where a group of protestors raised the pre-Qaddafi era flag outside of the home of Ambassador Ali Aujali, who resigned his post earlier this week.

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LIbya

Livingston Group Lobbied for Libya, Qaddafi Charity

Susan Crabtree | February 22, 2011, 6:43PM

Saif al-Islam Kadhafi

The Livingston Group, one of the main lobbying firms working on behalf of Egypt and former President Hosni Mubarak, also was paid $2.5 million in 2008 and 2009 to influence Washington on behalf of the government of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and a charity run by his son Saif Al Islam Al Qaddafi.

"In 2008, the lobbyists held several meetings with members of Congress and their staff 'concerning the legislative status of amending a statutory provision against U.S. trade with Libya,' in an effort to boost foreign investment in the country," reports the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to government transparency. "Around the same time as the meetings the Senate lifted the sanctions on the nation imposed after U.S declared Libya a terrorist state in the 1980s."

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Bahrain

Does The Administration Have A Bahrain Problem?

Eric Lach | February 16, 2011, 3:24PM

The spirit of popular uprising that in a matter of weeks has toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt has now spread to several other countries in the region. Iran, Libya and Yemen have all seen protests this week. But the trickiest situation for the American government to react to could be the one in tiny Bahrain.

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Wikileaks

Bomb, Bomb Iran: The Top 5 Most Shocking Things About The Wikileaks

Megan Carpentier | November 29, 2010, 8:43AM

Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

Yesterday, Wikileaks released a selection of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables dating from the mid-sixties to the present day -- widely presumed to have been provided to them by the currently-incarcerated Private Bradley Manning -- accessed through the military's SPIRNET system that was intended to reduce the bureaucratic "siloing" on information deemed partially responsible for the intelligence failures in a pre-9/11 world. Those cables were provided earlier under embargo to five international media outlets: the New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, La Monde and Der Spiegel. For most readers, it made for a dizzying array of information: the cables themselves incorporated both banal gossip and important intelligence, and each media outlet attempted to give as much context to their release (and the reactions to their release) as to the nuggets of information found therein.

But for all the Administration's condemnations and the muted international response to date, there were five astonishing revelations uncovered by the 120 reporters given early access to the documents.

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Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney Ditches Mitt.ly After Libya Shuts Down Sex-Positive .ly Site

Rachel Slajda | October 6, 2010, 2:56PM

Mitt Romney

After the Libyan government shut down a "sex-positive" .ly site, probable presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R) says he is switching his PAC web site to more friendly domains.

"We're learning about this for the first time and taking steps to change the domain for our site," a spokesman told Politico's Ben Smith.

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Sharia

Sharia Law BEATDOWN? Libya Nixes 'Sex Positive' Bit.ly Competitor

Rachel Slajda | October 6, 2010, 1:27PM

The photo that appeared on vb.ly. Inset: Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Two bloggers who co-owned a "sex-positive" URL shortener at vb.ly say the Libyan domain authority, which registers ".ly" domains, has shut them down for violating "Islamic morality."

Violet Blue and Ben Metcalfe founded vb.ly last year to offer a URL shortening service that wouldn't screen out sexual, adult, and generally NSFW links. Other shorteners, such as bit.ly, do.

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