h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i think the U,S, has a lot of nerve asking theU.N. to go in and clean up their mess when the invasion was against the advice of the international community i don't see why other nations should put their soldiers life on the line for greedy american contractors to come in and plunder iraqc natural resources

"the lockerbie incident was regrettable"

Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable?????? Regrettable??????

I think the families of those men, women, children, and babies murdered, and the people of Lockerbie might think it was a tad more than "regrettable".....

"Khadafi has done libya a lot of good"...

Yes, and Hitler made the trains run on time.....

I think if you are under the impression that Khadafi is a "nice guy" you need to do some reading. He is no more a good politician than Pinochet, Saddam, or Idi Amin were.

Sure, he puts on a good show. He is known for welcoming reporters and delegations into the country to see what a "great leader" he is. Any man on the street will tell the reporters what a great leader he is (unitl the government "minder" is out of earshot).

The fact is, like any military regime, his has been one of police indimidation, "disappearances", and an expectation of complete and utter devotion to one thing, the great leader.

I would provide you with details, but that will have to wait until I get home where I have a computer that is working. Suffice it to say, Khadafi is NOT the exemplar of what a good leader should be.

And, in passing, dam projects may look great on the resume, but they not one single dam major project has done more than provide a little hydro-electric to the rich and deprived the poor of homes and livlihoods, not to mention ruined habitats and eventually caused irrepairable damage to the environment. Most of them, 25 years down the line have proven to do nothing more than line the pockets of construction companies and the politicians who promoted it.

The Aswan Dam is a case in point. Not only has it destroyed priceless antiquities. It has not provided the what it was designed to do, provide water. The Nile River had, for millenia, provided water, fertility, and more..... That was completely ruined by the dam. No more annual floods, no more natural habitats, over-salination of both the land and the waters....

And yet, such projects are foisted on the very people they will disenfranchise by politicians who want the temporary propaganda power that such projects provide, not to mention some dirty money.

you seem to have a great hatred of khadafi....i never said anything about a dam project and to be honest all i know about the scheme in lybia is that a lot af land has been made arable through a water distribution scheme

Excuse me?

I don't like Khadafi any more or less than any other crazed dictator.

Where, pray tell me did the water come from, if not from a dam?.... unless he personally carried it out to where it was needed. It came from a dam, which I very much doubt.

As I suggested, I think you need to do a little reading about Libya. I can assure you, it ain't no bed of roses there.

Environment - current issues: "desertification; very limited natural fresh water resources; the Great Manmade River Project, the largest water development scheme in the world, is being built to bring water from large aquifers under the Sahara to coastal cities" ie: a dam...: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ly.html

Amnest International: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE190041996?open&of=ENG-LBY
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE190042002?open&of=ENG-LBY
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE190081998?open&of=ENG-LBY
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE190061999?open&of=ENG-LBY

http://members.tripod.com/sijill/prison/

In their early 1970s, Qaddafi awarded Arafat $5 million in recognition of the massacre of Israel athletes carried out by Arafat’s men at the Munich Olympics.

funny that i once new a bloke who was on the team sent to seek out all the participants in that action he said they hunted them all down

"khadafi has done libya a lot of good his agricultural programs have rsulted in the largest ever project bringing water to otherwise dead areas."

I knew I was forgetting something. There was a news item earlier this year where Irael was throwing it's US backed weight around saying that any action by libya to divert water from that river that eventually reaches Israel (for irrigation) would be consicered an act of war.

Other than a few things. I don't really know much about Libya

Yes, I agree! Let them stew in it... I saw the most bizarre essay in Time by Charles Krauthammer, in which he gave reasons as to why 'god' (yes, he *did* claim the USA is the closest thing to God we will ever know) is owed some help by the rest of us!

Yes, Math, Nicol Williamson was fantastic! Nigel Terry was a bit of a young disappointment though - he was a bit Griff Rhys Jones-ish in places!

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/faq/Sabra.asp
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/11_07_03_b.asp

"Friday, 12 September, 2003: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has set off a ferocious political storm after saying that former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was a benevolent leader who had never killed anyone. One Mussolini biographer, Richard Bosworth, estimates at least one million people died as a result of his 20-year rule (1922-1943), with "atrocious massacres of Libyans, Ethiopians, inhabitants of the ex-Yugoslavia and thousands of Italian Jews". [Reuters]

"Tuesday, 2 September, 2003: Germany said on Monday it was waiting to hear the details of a Libyan offer to pay compensation to relatives of people killed in a 1986 nightclub bombing in Berlin. "The exact modalities must be still worked out," said foreign ministry spokesman Walter Lindner. But he said Germany welcomed the offer to pay compensation, made last week by the Qadhafi Foundation, which is headed by Qadhafi's son Saif al-Islam. Two US servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed when a bomb exploded at the La Belle nightclub in 1986." [AFP]

"....Amnesty International reports that freedom of expression is severely curtailed in Libya by laws banning political parties and any criticism of the regime. Amnesty International also points to the several hundred political prisoners who are held without being charged or tried, the mistreatment and torture of detainees, disappearances and "racist violence". http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20030803T000000-0500_47094_OBS_REPORTERS_WITHOUT_BORDERS_FLAYS_LIBYA__CUBA.asp

"One day the house of cards will collapse and Mr. Quaddafi will be hauled in front of judges, the massacres of Abu-Saleem Prison, the bombardment of Al-jabal Al-Akhadhar, and the brutality in Bani-Walid and the besiege of our beloved city of Benghazi will be just a few charges that he faces. For AL-Shwihdi, Dabob, and Al-Aihoury's families and for most of us, it will be a sharp reminder of what was done in those darkest days of Libyan history." http://www.libyanet.com/v02jul1c.htm

On the "April 7" arrest, torture, and murder of students at/from the University of Behghazi and University of Tripoli
http://members.tripod.com/~sijill/victims/
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dr_ibrahim_ighneiwa/student1.htm

Libya: Our Home Site http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dr_ibrahim_ighneiwa/student1.htm

"One Mussolini biographer, Richard Bosworth, estimates at least one million people died as a result of his 20-year rule (1922-1943), with "atrocious massacres of Libyans, Ethiopians, inhabitants of the ex-Yugoslavia and thousands of Italian Jews". "

If I remember my history then Mussolini started carrying out terrible act after his assioation with Hitler.

Interesting but I don't see where Mussolini fits in with Quaddafi.

Well, actually, it was the Italians under Mussolini who massacred thousands in North Africa, including Libya.... I just threw that is as I came across it.

I think it makes the point that the World Trade Centre is a mere prick on the finger compared to what much of North Africa and the Middle East has endured at the hands of a colonists and exploiters, from Germany, Portugal, Italy, and the Turks.... and that Saddam wasn't and isn't the only madman.

It is little wonder that the Arab world has a dislike of not just the Americans, but most non-Muslims and their countries.

From their having most of their lands carved up by Britian and France, being screwed out of the lands in Palestine, from being screwed by the Turks (literally and figuratively)... they have every right to carry a bit of a grudge.

Hi Apparition ,

I think you must mean Syria, not Libya. The River Jordan flows through Syria before entering Israel.

Libya is in North Africa, on the other side of Egypt from Israel. It would be geologically and geographically impossible for a river to flow from Libya to Israel.

OOOPs!

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

yes and i'd like to point out thgat pumping water from aquifers in the sahara is not the same thing as building a dam

Absotively! I get the impression most Americans are completely ignorant of that kind of thing, though...

yeah, that must have been the one. What I took from the news irem was Israel's attitude.

Their attitude is quite incomprehensible, unless one realises that they are assured of America being on their side.. otherwise they're being suicidally careless!

Whether or not a dam is involved, the project is yet another example of a temporary solution that will lead to an environmental disaster.

"Countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean expect their populations to grow by an average of 24 per cent during the 1990s.Libya and Israel already use up all their water resources (see Map). In a bid to resolve this problem, Libya is spending billions of dollars of its oil revenues on the Great Manmade River project, which is pumping ancient 'fossil' waters from beneath the Sahara and piping it hundreds of kilometres north to farms on the coast, where aquifers have become exhausted and salty. 'Overuse of groundwaters in Libya has already caused ecological disasters,' says Tony Allen from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, who is a specialist on Middle East water. 'It is economic madness to use water from the Great Manmade River project for agriculture. It is far too expensive and a nonrenewable source.'" http://www.science.plym.ac.uk/departments/geography/malta/res1.htm

"After spending more than $10bn on the project, work has begun on only two of the five branches and of those, one is running only 20% capacity and the other has begun to leak." http://www.science.plym.ac.uk/departments/geography/malta/res1.htm

they found an underground lake here. The water is a pure as possible because it was ice, it's 20,000 years old and will be used for horticulture. It won't run out any time soon as it's a few hundred kilometers across

while i appreciate your going to the trouble of digging up all those links ands news stories unfortunately i am unable to acces them from my digibox im not claiming the khadafi is some wonderful bloke only that he seems to have accomlished a great deal for his country and doesn't invade smaller weaker nations like some other countries do