South Africa P.I.G.: AU

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

<a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/rome" rel="tag" target="_blank">Rome</a> has had its fair share of triumphant parades by bizarre tyrants in its long history. And the ageing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's arrival on Monday ranked alongside any grotesque ceremony staged by Caligula or Nero. It is easy to see why <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/italy" rel="tag" target="_blank">Italy</a>'s Left-wing opposition denounced the dictator's reception by Italian premier <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/berlusconi_silvio" rel="tag" target="_blank">Silvio Berlusconi</a> as a 'rock star welcome'. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383838260879522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZxlfx38OU_drgUyPA8JDub-mqVHLg2rNehf-V4YZLCs5_G-GHqROaIx2nbxq5zniizslgKJNfN-ektRdiMeItOXc-X0QkYLLt6kxIMU2NtXiTJ64B5Z3SRpVRx0aUPWmOLDIxcSq9Tw/s400/Gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar1.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> When Muammar Gaddafi arrived in Italy on Wednesday with 300 delegates and 40 female bodyguards aboard three planes, he was accorded a royal welcome befitting the "king of kings of Africa."Gaddafi's arrived in Rome with a 300-strong retinue on three Airbuses. As ever, he brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a park in the centre of the city and where he was to stay and conduct business. There was no immediate sign of the camel he took on a visit to <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/paris" rel="tag" target="_blank">Paris</a> in 2007 when he pitched his tent in the grounds of a five-star hotel. With gelled and carefully dyed hair, the Colonel was made up to look like a cross between <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/jackson_michael" rel="tag" target="_blank">Michael Jackson</a> and the deranged music mogul murderer <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/spector_phil" rel="tag" target="_blank">Phil Spector</a>. Pinned to his chest was a large photograph of a Libyan resistance leader being hanged by Italian colonialists in 1931. Although with his peaked cap, red flashes, gold braid epaulettes and an array of military decorations that resembled a Dulux colour chart, he turned out in a uniform that Italy's last tyrant, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, would have killed for. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383832243197938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5g5MUfFLtvbPNjYXep13sHP-eBQlHKHNU_Rrv7QS8pzCb0wWKUOUkeRm0VtLurB8s_L1BeFwx_DhfL_Srk4tXAGy3CbwM7zxNFr7B_UV4T3P-2qNJgwSoHzwAismEtTxooyKfTm0HL0s/s400/gaddafi-mukhtar-2.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 236px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Bizarre: Gaddafi set the tone from the word go when he flew in adorned wearing a black and white picture depicting Libyan anti-colonial hero Omar Al-Mukhtar, whom the Italians executed in 1931. If Gaddafi wanted to remind his hosts of their repressive colonial past - Italy ruled Libya from 1911 to 1943 - then the picture of Omar al-Mukhtar in chains alongside his Italian captors was a particularly provocative way of doing it.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383842082192722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizS0ejIoKFCAmgB6XXf8gYZFPcllYeN-4aRujv5V8kcc3JpPq-DKpYp55RXT1rrkpTZh26rwrP-mFqr7m_TjPwKzycfqpcBVR5FepOc9ff-hu9v0prwK9hhauH8NqIspl6eiIGLeThhMo/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar3.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 275px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />He did not help matters in an overwhelmingly Catholic country when he remarked: "For us, that image [of Al-Mukhtar] is like the cross some of you wear," likening it to the Christian crucifix <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351385751801951538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hyphenhyphen0sB0S5Qg4GfX8woLBMqCjPdrj38TkYo8p8yxD5I2prNCpbx6hKBNxJg-PunPhiplmMTwvAeofhyqE8IO8P65AnOnWWJvObrsUvdNYwi9NqUxL1UsYjUMkCF4sMMRP6kaG4DPOh_oA/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar4.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 255px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />And just for good measure, Gaddafi brought along Al-Mukhtar's son, now an elderly man, who had to be helped off the plane by aides and who later sat in a wheelchair on the tarmac while national anthems were played.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383846800683554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzr7X20alIgokzYft4TS2i51Gzo79BnugBEw4cCyS7wafepY5hykVSfk0U6Wobgd7iapip0S2aeOc7IvVo4A9i0ZHaGuy9Hnyvjq2VRJXC4UDQu62k-QTg6pIAZ3YeIJU0FoTJD6kduM/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar2.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />The Italians even went further to allow the broadcasting on Italian TV, for the first time ever, of a documentary on Al-Mukhtar titled Lion of the Desert.But it was the gun-toting female bodyguards in their khaki uniforms and red berets in the 67-year old dictator's entourage, girls who wear Kalashnikovs like Gucci fashion accessories, who stole the show. Gaddafi is one of the maddest dictators on Earth and he doesn't like being upstaged - unless it's by this 40-strong troupe of well-equipped, allvirgin minders. He may have conducted his 1969 military coup against Lybia's last monarch, King Idris, under an Islamic revolutionary banner. He may have proclaimed himself a pioneer of 'Islamic socialism'. But Gaddafi's female security detail don't hide their charms under a burqa. Bizarrely, he claims them to be a symbol of his belief in female emancipation. 'Women should be trained for combat, so that they do not become easy prey for their enemies,' he says. All of his girls are said to swear an oath that they will give their lives for him and it is claimed they never leave his side, night or day, and he insists they remain virgins. There is no shortage of volunteers for what is seen as a prestigious job.A special training college puts recruits through a tough physical programme and girls who don't drop out emerge as trained killers, experts in firearms and martial arts. Gaddafi makes the final selection and, despite his insistence that his guards are chaste, rumours abound that he demands their sexual favours. The girls wear lipstick, jewellery, polished nails, even high heels - but their armed combat training has been tested more than once. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351392670186843970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7XMEbTcVCM_goD6U9_cbiGsK19finyw6I1JHtzGh2pjWmT5jxJJ6AgqN21C5WkVGkmDUjZNq0zHcic9ji2G0vLAppDevmbtzyff_G4CMZikQh5NGtDpgnbUicdoyNW0vYwSGv-9zwZc/s400/Gadaffi-bodyguards.bmp" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 335px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Prestigious job: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's 'all-female, all-virgin' bodyguards who must wear lipstick, nail varnish and be masters of combat and who some say he demands their sexual favoursIn 1998 one of them was killed and seven others wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed the Colonel's motorcade. The dead girl, Aisha, rumoured to be his favourite, threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets. But how is it that Gaddafi, once regarded by the West as the father of terrorism and the man behind the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, is now welcomed in Rome with open arms by Berlusconi - a leader famously equally bewitched by female charms? The truth is that, despite his often ludicrous appearance and behaviour, Gaddafi is one of the great survivors, a despot who has led his country for 40 years despite worldwide vilification - brutal in crushing domestic dissent and who changes his tune on the world stage as it suits him. Like other monstrous leaders, he has written works of literature to enlighten mankind - his Green Book which, over three rambling volumes, sets out his views on political and social theories. But another offering - Escape To Hell And Other Stories - predicts a German Fourth Reich lording it over Britain and <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/continents/america" rel="tag" target="_blank">America</a>, and which tells you of his loathing for cities, <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/thatcher_margaret" rel="tag" target="_blank">Margaret Thatcher</a> and humidity. (He loves the countryside and artichokes.) When he seized power in 1969 under a Marxist banner, few thought his regime would last. But he had a ruthless cunning and an instinct for when to strike his rivals. In the 1970s, Gaddafi personally ordered public executions. In 1977, he was present at hangings of students who had protested against his regime. He spat defiance against the West, proclaiming his belief in Arab nationalism - yet he loathed Islamic fundamentalism. So while he happily tortured fundamentalists at home, he became the No 1 state sponsor of terrorism against the West. In 1980, a Libyan journalist from the BBC's Arabic Service, Mohammed Ramadan, was shot outside the Regent's Park mosque. It was four years later that Britain and the world was stunned with horror by the cold-blooded murder of unarmed WPC Yvonne Fletcher in <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/london" rel="tag" target="_blank">London</a>, gunned down outside Libya's Embassy by a member of its staff. Gaddafi's oil wealth funded the IRA as well as Palestinian guerillas. This was one reason why Margaret Thatcher's government gave permission for U.S. bombers to use British airfields in April, 1986, to launch a surprise attack on his home in Tripoli. They missed Gaddafi but killed his infant daughter, Hannah. Gaddafi has always been able to parade this loss as proof that he is a victim of 'U.S. terrorism' . But despite sounding defiant, that U.S. raid marked a shift in Gaddafi's behaviour. Although he remained vocally as radical as ever, he began to drop support for foreign terrorists - although, as the downing of Pan-Am flight 303 over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives in showed, Gaddafi's secret service could still be deadly. Now Gaddafi has put up billions of dollars in compensation for the relatives of his victims. But it is his loathing of Muslim fundamentalists that has brought him into alliance with the West. After all, back in the 1970s, Gadaffi was hanging members of the fundamentalist Hizb-ut Tahrir organisation, since banned in many European countries. So he had no difficulty backing the Bush-Blair war against Al Qaeda types threatening his regime. Ever since, relations have thawed. In 2004, <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/blair_tony" rel="tag" target="_blank">Tony Blair</a> lifted lifted the West's fatwa on him for sponsoring outrages. Then, as oil prices soared after the George W Bush's invasion of <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/iraq" rel="tag" target="_blank">Iraq</a>, Gaddafi's untold billions of energy reserves in the Libyan desert gave his regime an ace card. Years of UN sanctions for his regime's sponsorship of terrorism mean that Gaddafi's oil and gas had not been exploited nearly as much as other Mid-East states. Libya's old colonial master, Italy, sits across the <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/regions/mediterranean" rel="tag" target="_blank">Mediterranean</a> without any energy resources of its own. Which is why Silvio Berlusconi has been more than happy to deal with Gaddafi. Anyone thinking that Colonel Gaddafi is becoming a cosy ally should think again. Only a few weeks ago, Gaddafi stormed out of an Arab League conference, calling the King of Saudi Arabia a 'liar' and a 'British product and American ally'. Gaddafi remains mercurial, menacing and murderous. Getting wobbly on his pins and wearing almost more makeup and hair dye than his 40 virgin bodyguards put together, Colonel Gaddafi looks set to carry on wrong-footing friend and foe alike. Mellow with age he won't.

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

Rome has had its fair share of triumphant parades by bizarre tyrants in its long history. And the ageing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadd...

1:32 PM

Outrage as Manto lands top health job

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl4FOrHpU5vSIrR8v0MIrZye2JqYD-Z34w8zbrW9GaJAJlzkjePMvjyAyCop_rTQlm1w4ShQDn45rvV8p1xl5FjhkVB605chVY3s6PssgpAW9AwYKEX8RitHeE9gPBBjMsLfBvAQvSMNML/s1600-h/manto%2520Incapable%2520Idiot.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336430048971228930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl4FOrHpU5vSIrR8v0MIrZye2JqYD-Z34w8zbrW9GaJAJlzkjePMvjyAyCop_rTQlm1w4ShQDn45rvV8p1xl5FjhkVB605chVY3s6PssgpAW9AwYKEX8RitHeE9gPBBjMsLfBvAQvSMNML/s400/manto%2520Incapable%2520Idiot.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 191px" /></a>Controversial former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been rescued from life in the backbenches of parliament to serve instead as the guardian of mother and child health in Africa. Health experts and lobby groups reacted with shock on Friday at the news that Tshabalala-Msimang is now African Union Goodwill Ambassador and Champion for the Improvement of Maternal and Child Health in Africa beyond 2015. Many were reduced to tears, others warned that Tshabalala-Msimang would now endanger the health of the entire continent rather than just South Africa. After serving in the health portfolio for almost a decade, to which she was controversially re-appointed in 2004 by former president Thabo Mbeki, she was moved to Minister in the Presidency last year, when Mbeki was sacked. She was replaced by Barbara Hogan, now Minister of Public Enterprises - a move that earned the ANC great praise from health pressure groups at the time. Treatment Action Campaign General Secretary Vuyiseka Dubula on Friday said she was "shocked" by Tshabalala-Msimang's latest appointment. "She has done very badly in this country (with respect to improving mother and child health), and now she is going to destroy the whole continent," Dubula said. She said 400 out of every 100 000 mothers die each year in South Africa because they do not get proper after-birth care, and this had got worse under Tshabalala-Msimang's watch. "Women are dying in our hospitals because of poor health care," she said. She said she could not understand why African Union leaders would want to appoint her to such a position. Another expert who works in the field said "I just feel like crying" upon hearing the news of Tshabalala-Msimang's recent appointment, adding that although she cannot do much damage in her new position, a more competent person could have done a lot of good. She said the African Union probably had certain political reasons for appointing South Africa's former health minister, who pushed very strongly for a women and child agenda while in the Presidency. President of the Pan-African Parliament Gertrude Mongella is in a similar position, being Goodwill Ambassador for the World Health Organisation's Africa region, but because she is a competent operator, she gets things done, the expert said. Tshabalala-Msimang would in this capacity also be involved in the finalisation of AU documents about reproductive health care, women's rights and nutrition. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyEgIND6gInjWF4x5AFN6qKSGS9eGYlFMBSiAgDn2vErlXj7_i3RM8QkDbnKYtVICrfksbQ3pyRMeymhdn3oBs-mdI4ZyrbMJtGGAUQdTOmfli3QfRVKtzOgaKJlAucmqixVkh4VgRrFm/s1600-h/mbeki-farmer.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336430257347205650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyEgIND6gInjWF4x5AFN6qKSGS9eGYlFMBSiAgDn2vErlXj7_i3RM8QkDbnKYtVICrfksbQ3pyRMeymhdn3oBs-mdI4ZyrbMJtGGAUQdTOmfli3QfRVKtzOgaKJlAucmqixVkh4VgRrFm/s400/mbeki-farmer.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 216px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" /></a>Her former spokesperson, Charity Bhengu, could not be contacted on Friday, but it is understood that Tshabalala-Msimang will continue in the AU position, even though she is not a minister anymore. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtzr93WIpPW5o3vns7PPsO_UeHJsjnJX_dopEAYWKUVwGQROJZWx_Ll6exmkzdKxEf6_MzvRhGZ6BTaiemz8hmG6CGI4AQDknQUPL-ZtPAT_IQahETh52ScyWCG7tzssbHmOj-beepacj/s1600-h/mantoprotest.bmp"></a>Tshabalala-Msimang, championing beetroot and garlic as a cure for Aids, was seen as the ambassador of Mbeki's denialist stance on the disease, which, according to experts, contributed to the high rate of mother and child deaths. According to Health e-News the rate of mothers and children dying have increased under Tshabalala-Msimang to exceed figures for before 1994. South Africa is one of only a few countries that will not meet the United Nations Millennium Development goal for reducing these rates by three-quarters by 2015. Another expert said South Africa was one of only 10 out of 190 countries where the rate for mother and child mortality was actually getting worse.

Outrage as Manto lands top health job

Controversial former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been rescued from life in the backbenches of parliament to serve instead a...

7:01 AM

AU elects Gadaffi as head, gives him ceremonial flywhisk, aviator sunglasses

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6vBFbuIg2RBCtT1uL_0wvw1q9IPhdh7z1h3IW1BTgklml1Wc4hhSBsvU8Iscx3ns2kWzD26Y69jK9NrTc_x8bZWfscskZi2_gN97ikLa9gcur-rhpmpQq3vwynpNxpnuka-EmyH7y1g/s1600-h/gadaffi-pop.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298594092667346130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo6vBFbuIg2RBCtT1uL_0wvw1q9IPhdh7z1h3IW1BTgklml1Wc4hhSBsvU8Iscx3ns2kWzD26Y69jK9NrTc_x8bZWfscskZi2_gN97ikLa9gcur-rhpmpQq3vwynpNxpnuka-EmyH7y1g/s400/gadaffi-pop.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 288px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>Libya's Muammar Gadaffi has been elected head of the African Union and has vowed to create a single unified political entity called "Libya", stretching from Tripoli on the Nile to Tripoli at the Cape. Amid rapturous applause from AU heads of state, Gadaffi was handed his ceremonial flywhisk and aviator sunglasses, both symbols of African power. ADDIS ABABA. Libya's Muammar Gadaffi has been elected head of the African Union and has vowed to create a single unified political entity called "Libya", stretching from Tripoli on the Nile to Tripoli at the Cape. Amid rapturous applause from AU heads of state, Gadaffi was handed his ceremonial flywhisk and aviator sunglasses, both symbols of African power. The African Union elected the controversial Libyan colonel at its latest session in Addis Ababa, where it has gathered to discussed the outcome of a previous meeting where it had been decided to meet again to discuss whether the official buffet should include sausage rolls as well as spicy chicken wings. If consensus is reached it will be the latest in a series of bold decisions taken by the AU. "The AU is about action," said spokesman Prester John Mawiri. "For example, just last month we decided to install a suggestion box inside Harare's central prison where MDC members can rate the torture they are receiving and suggest alternative methods." He added that the AU had also recently reaffirmed its stance on the lowland gorillas of central Africa, and had agreed that the animals needed to be moved to a place of safety such as a Las Vegas zoo "which could be arranged for a small cash payment to the AU". However he said that Gadaffi's leadership would probably shift the AU's priorities away from its humanitarian and environmental work and "more towards science". "I know the Colonel is very keen for Africa to develop a space programme," said Mawiri, alluding to Libya's space programme that reportedly involves a man stapled to a weather balloon. "The Colonel tells me that his Afronaut has not yet been able to see space but expects it any day now, once he disentangles himself from the palm trees in front of the space centre." Asked if the AU has a plan to alleviate Africa's crippling poverty, Mawiri said that this was at the top of the agenda and that a plan was in place. "Europe and America must give us money," he said. "In unmarked dollar bills. In Samsonite luggage. They can just leave it at reception and we'll make sure the needy get it." Meanwhile Gadaffi told AU members he was humbled to accept the flywhisk and aviator shades of leadership, and vowed to get to work at once, starting by sitting for a sculpture of himself wrestling a pair of lions to death.

AU elects Gadaffi as head, gives him ceremonial flywhisk, aviator sunglasses

Libya's Muammar Gadaffi has been elected head of the African Union and has vowed to create a single unified political entity called ...

12:47 PM

South Africa P.I.G.

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

Outrage as Manto lands top health job

AU elects Gadaffi as head, gives him ceremonial flywhisk, aviator sunglasses

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