But the threat of Libya is not well known - in part because Khadafy has tried hard to clean up his act. After being forced, by U.S.-led sanctions, to indirectly admit complicity in the Lockerbie airliner sabotage, the dictator in Tripoli denounced terrorism. He tried to hire a Washington lawyer to get Libya removed from the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring nations. He nearly succeeded - since the State Department during the Clinton administration conveyed discreet messages to then-Israeli-prime-minister Ehud Barak's government that Khadafy had "endorsed Yasser Arafat's peace process."
Khadafy tried so hard to convince the world he had stepped away from the axis of evil, 10 years ago, a Libyan chemical-weapons plant, operating with the illegal help of German firms and scientists, was shown blazing in flames. Intelligence reports indicated, however, that Khadafy removed the weapons and equipment before staging the fire. But in the last month, Western intelligence agencies gained details of Khadafy's latest adventure - his bid to join the Nuclear Club. At first, intelligence analysts suspected that Egypt was helping him in this project. But now it is certain that Iraqi scientists and engineers, who developed their expertise in the last 25 years under Khadafy, are leading the underground Libyan effort.
Sharon said a secret weapons effort "is taking place in Iraq, and a similar process is going on in Libya - which probably will turn out to be the first Arab state with weapons of mass destruction." Other countries are helping Khadafy, but the extent of the assistance is not clear, Sharon said. "It may be that there is assistance from Pakistan, as Iran had [in nuclear weapons development]," the prime minister warned. "But for sure, there is assistance from North Korea." [End]
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Many Gadaafy LINKS at this post.
Land Grab: Zimbabwe's Farm Policy Hits Whites and Blacks, But Blacks Suffer the Worst***A supporter of Zimbabwe's opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party, Mugagwa says he came to Harare for medical treatment after being arrested and tortured by local policemen. "It happened on July 14, when the police came to my house to fetch me because I supported the MDC," Mugagwa told ABCNEWS.com in a phone interview. "While we were on the way to the police station, they produced a pistol and told me to get out and fall on the ground and started to beat my buttocks and legs and feet with their batons and asked me for the names of MDC people."
Along with a group of other MDC supporters, Mugagwa says he was taken to the Buhera police station, where they were severely beaten over a period of three days. The police accused the men of torching a local official's hut, a charge the men deny and insist is politically trumped up. A court hearing is scheduled for October. But as reports of arrests and torture incidents in the area mounted, Mugagwa says he was forced to flee to Harare, where he is staying in a safe house run by the Amani Trust, a Zimbabwean-based aid agency. For the moment, he's safe. But his troubles are far from over. More than a month after his imprisonment, Mugagwa says he is unable to work or even sit since his buttocks and genitals are sore from the baton beatings he received.***