Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Amid uncertainty, allies prepare for no-fly zone

LONDON – The United States, France and Britain told Libya's leader Moammar Gadhafi to withdraw his troops from formerly rebel-held areas and halt any attacks on civilians there, as warplanes that could strike this north African country moved into the Mediterranean region.
President Barack Obama went even further, saying that if the Libyan leader did not stand down the United States would join other nations in launching military action against him.
Libya, meanwhile, said it stopped its military advance on rebel forces and invited monitors to observe the cease-fire.
The United States, Britain and France — backed by unspecified Arab countries — told Gadhafi in a statement late Friday that a cease-fire must begin "immediately," the French presidential palace said.
The statement called on Gadhafi to end his troops' advance toward the eastern city of Benghazi, and pull them out of Misrata, Adjadbiya and Zawiya. It also called for the restoration of water, electricity and gas services in all areas, saying Libya's population must be able to receive humanitarian aid.
"This is not negotiable," the statement said.
Officials announced that the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and the chiefs of the United Nations and Arab League would join other world leaders for an emergency summit on Libya in Paris Saturday.
France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told BBC Newsnight that he expected military action to begin in Libya within hours of the Paris meeting.
In Tripoli, Libya's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, invited Germany, China, Turkey and Malta to send observers to monitor the cease-fire, which he said was holding. "The cease-fire for us means no military operations whatsoever, big or small," he told reporters.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, one of the most enthusiastic backers of a no-fly zone, said Britain would send Typhoon and Tornado fighter jets to air bases "in the coming hours" so they would be in position to stop Moammar Gadhafi's forces mounting air strikes against rebels based in the eastern city of Benghazi.
"The clock is ticking and we must be ready to act quickly," Cameron said, adding that Gadhafi must prove he was serious about a cease-fire to avoid military strikes.
The United States has a host of forces and ships in the region, including submarines, destroyers, amphibious assault and landing ships with some 400 Marines, but U.S. officials have not said what role American participation will take.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States must see "action on the ground," not just words, on a cease-fire.
British defense analyst Charles Heyman said the Americans will have the bulk of the military responsibility.
"It's easy for the British and the French to talk a lot about it when they actually don't have all the right equipment to maintain a no-fly zone on their own," Heyman said.
Britain, France and NATO held emergency meetings Friday on using military force to enforce the no-fly zone, which was approved by U.N. Security Council on Thursday.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said "everything is ready" for action, but added that "we have to analyze the conditions of the cease-fire."
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO was "completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the U.N. resolution as part of the broad international effort."
French government spokesman Francois Baroin would not comment on "where, how, what target, or in what form" air strikes against Libyan installations would come.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said "it is imperative that the international community continues to speak with one voice" on Libya.
As well as Britain and France, Denmark and Canada said they would supply fighter jets for the mission. Italy and Spain said they would make their air bases available.
Diplomats have said Arab countries likely to participate in possible strikes include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
NATO surveillance AWACS planes flying off the Libyan coast are already providing 24-hour coverage of the situation in the air and on the battlefields. Analysts said no-fly zone aircraft would be flying from NATO bases such as in Sigonella, Sicily, Aviano in northern Italy, Istres in southern France, and Ventiseri-Solenzara in Corsica.
The North Atlantic Council, NATO's top decision-making body, decided Friday to speed up planning and will meet again in the next few days when plans are complete, an alliance spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation.
Envoys said there was no discussion at the NATO meeting of any air strikes against targets in Libya.
Even as allies made plans for military intervention, Libya's cease-fire was forcing a reassessment of the situation.
"Along with our colleagues we're looking at the details of that," the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, said of the cease-fire, adding that it was unclear what Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa's announcements in Tripoli meant in practice.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — which abstained from the Security Council vote — said the international community would monitor closely to make sure the cease-fire announcement is not a ruse.
"The international community stands together and there are already encouraging reports that Gadhafi is reacting to the resolution," Merkel told reporters in Berlin.
There are also mixed messages about the ultimate ambition of a no-fly zone. Cameron insisted the aim is saving lives, not regime change, but Clinton said the goal remained to get rid of Gadhafi.
Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, said getting rid of Gadhafi left "the question of what takes his place."
"What they (the Libyans) lack is any structures — Gadhafi has deliberately destroyed them," he said. "There is no civil society, there are no parties. "

Source: Yahoo

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship

Cobra Starship have made their second visit to Australia as part of a super-tour with labelmates The Academy Is... and Panic at the Disco. The band is a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a purple hoodie -- there's no telling what you might learn about yourself and the world when you set out to interview any of them. 

It's comforting to know that somebody, at least, is benefiting from the recent rash of disasters befalling Qantas Airways. "You wanna hear something fucking awesome?" Gabe Saporta asks me. "We came over in this jumbo jet designed for four hundred people, and there were seriously only forty of us on it - just us and The Academy Is... We tried to work out how much each of our tickets would have been worth, considering we could each have a row of our own to stretch out in. I just took a Xanax and slept the whole way. No, that's a lie. I gave all my Xanax to Victoria."

Gabe is Cobra Starship's lead singer; Victoria handles backup vocals and the keytar. Along with bandmates Ryland, Nate, and Alex, they're one of the sassiest acts in modern music, bringing a mix of biting wit, seductive tease, and energetic joy to their shows and albums.

Apart from the plane ride from the USA to Australia, Gabe's not had much luck with sleep lately, though you'd never know it to watch him bounce and dance across the stage throughout Cobra's performances.
"I'm pretty much just running off the energy of the kids in the crowd. They put out so much and I feed off of that. I've had hotel beds for the last two nights but my body doesn't know what to do with a real bed, because we were on Warped tour for months and caught our plane here straight from the last night of that, and so I'm used to sleeping in the little coffin-beds of the bus. Not that I'm complaining about any of that! I don't want it to come across like I'm pulling one of those 'acting is hard!' whines."

The possibility of Gabe projecting any such entitlement is laughably unlikely. Cobra Starship, despite international popularity, are accommodating and generous with their fans above and beyond the levels most other bands could even imagine.


"We wouldn't be anything without these kids; I know that," Gabe explains. "We aren't superstars. I didn't expect anybody in Australia to even know who we are, because we don't sell many records here." I suggest that this might be partly due to the fact that most of the people I know who own Cobra Starship's two albums bought them directly from their record label's website. Last year the band ran a promotion in which each copy of 'Viva la Cobra!' came with a Polaroid photo taken by the band. Lots of the Cobra fans I know got their copy of the CD in that deal, meaning that many of the Polaroids are now down under.

"That is *crazy*," Gabe says, apparently unable to fathom the scope of the band's fanbase across the world. "And look, I know albums are hard to find here a lot of the time -- they get released later, or not at all, and so kids download the songs instead. I don't give a shit about the downloading stuff, because when an Australian crowd sings along with me at a show, that's fucking mindblowing. I don't care how they got the songs."

Because both Panic at the Disco and The Academy Is... are already running pre-show meet and greets on the tour, there isn't the time or logistics for Cobra Starship to do a formal signing session. So, on the first night of the tour, they could be found at the merch counter in the foyer after the set, giving out autographs and attention to all who asked for them.


Source: mtv.com, flickr.com, maryborsellino.com, wkimedia.org