Libya’s government said yesterday it was ready to negotiate reforms, but only as long as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was not forced out. Loyalist troops, meanwhile, pushed rebel fighters back from the key oil port of Brega.
Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, meanwhile, dismissed former Libyan foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who defected to the West last week, as just a “sick and old” man who had succumbed to the psychological pressures of war.
Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists in Tripoli that everything except the departure of Qaddafi was negotiable, saying he was a unifying figure after ruling the nation for four decades.
“What kind of political system is implemented in the country? This is negotiable, we can talk about it,” Ibrahim said. “We can have anything, elections, referendums.”
However, Qaddafi’s future was sacrosanct, he said, only hours after opposition rebels flatly rejected a reported peace deal that could see the embattled leader’s son take charge of the north African nation.
Qaddafi was “the safety valve” for the unity of the country’s tribes and people, Ibrahim said.
“We think he is very important to lead any transition to a democratic and transparent model,” he said.
In a show of defiance, Qaddafi greeted supporters late on Monday in his first public appearance since March 22 at his Bab el-Aziziya residence in Tripoli, bombed by coalition forces two days earlier, national television said.
Seif, long seen as the successor to his father before the wave of protests shook the country, briefly showed up at a Tripoli hotel to record an interview with the BBC in which he made dismissive comments about Kussa, once a pillar of the regime.
Seif, who had not been seen in public since coalition air strikes began on March 19, said Kussa had been allowed to leave the country for medical treatment.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
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