She's gone

Gaddaffi's once inseparable blonde Nurse has legged it back to the Ukraine. Which is a sign that there's not much life left in the old dictator.

No matter the powerless posturing of the current set of Western 'leaders', I've got a feeling whatever new bunch of governments arising in the wake of the protests may be tougher to buy than the batch of Middle Eastern dictators currently on the way out. Not that the big finance houses could afford them any more. I think the Saudi's are fairly safe for the moment as they've bought off their populace with a new batch of 'benefits'. However, the Middle Eastern domino's are toppling, and who knows what knock on effects will follow.

In a way it's rather like watching volcanoes and earthquakes. You can never quite be sure what's going to happen next.

The best thing the western powers can do so as not to stir up the anti western factions, is to stay well out of it. Not that they will of course.

One Ceausescu moment coming right up

Quoted from this Al-Jazeera article.

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end," he said.

"Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of the revolution, I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post."

"I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."

Statement 1 and 2 I would say are true. Statement 3 is a lie because there have already been incidents where Libya's armed forces have fired on civilians.

My money is on it all ending like this;


Of course this is pure conjecture, but I'll back my conjecture, which is based upon observation and historical precedent, against any other prophesies.

Another one bites the dust?

According to the UK Daily Telegraph Libyan Dictator Gadaffi has legged it to Venezuela. That's something I never thought I'd see, rather like Morris Dancing Star Wars Stormtroopers.

Reuters has the Venezuelans denying the report. No confirmation by the most reliable news source in the region, Al-Jazeera as yet, but I hope that there is some sort of belated justice against Gadaffi's regime for people like those murdered at Lockerbie, and Yvonne Fletcher. Not to mention all those Libyans tortured and killed by the diktats of a socialist dictator.

Should Gaddaffi truly be an ex dictator, one can also only hope that the Libyans don't get another government which is just as bad. Good luck guys, you're going to need all you can get.

Mubarak gone

President Hosni Mubarak has waived the office of president

From Al-Jazeera Live blog.

I thought he was going to hold out until September. How much of a difference will his going make to the ordinary Egyptian on the street?

Hot spots

Having had a look at what Al Jazeera have been covering, it's interesting to see an overall pattern of effective revolts going on throughout the Middle East. Egypt of course is the biggie in the news, but Tunisia hasn't gone away, Jordan has a similar situation to Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen. Iran has been hanging political activists, and recent upheaval has left the Algerians considering a reshuffle and cutting food prices. A political ripple effect looks to be shaking up the entire region. Red underlined countries on the map indicate significant social and political unrest pushed by food shortages. The major riot flashpoints in the region appear to be driven more by hunger than politics. Although Iraq looks like an undeclared war between Sunni and Shia.

Re Egypt; Mubarak's wife and his two sons have jumped ship for London. The odds are that he will follow shortly. The people he has announced in his new government appear to be US-Friendly not because the USA needs stability to preserve the regions oil, but probably because the region needs US food exports. Certain nations have already begun stockpiling.

The riots don't surprise me. Poor grain harvests from Russia, Australia and Canada this year. Food production is being sidelined for so called 'eco-friendly' (although not really) biofuels. Agricultural runoff from the intensive agriculture to produce biofuels damages coral reefs and increases toxic plankton blooms amongst other things. Yet we in the developed west are constantly being urged to become more 'sustainable', based on the fantasy that by reducing our output of food and energy we would somehow be doing the Earth a favour.

Looks like a lot of these 'Green' policies are actually unsustainable, as the current problems amply demonstrate.