Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Muammar Gaddafi Associated Press Photo
Libya
Could Gaddafi step down from power but remain in Libya?
France has suggested it may be possible.
1.15pm, 20 Jul 2011
335
6
LIBYA’S CIVIL WAR could be ended by allowing Muammar Gaddafi to stay in the country if he relinquishes power, according to France’s foreign minister.
Gaddafi, the embattled leader who has been in power for over 40-years, insists he will neither step down nor flee the country. With the NATO-led air campaign against Gaddafi’s forces entering its fifth month and the fighting in a stalemate, the international community is seeking exit strategies.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met in Paris on Wednesday with three rebel leaders from the western port city of Misrata who are seeking aid and arms to move toward Tripoli. Sarkozy announced no specific measures in response.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France wants to keep “a very close link” with the rebels “to see how we can help.”
Asked whether Gaddafi could stay in Libya under house arrest, for example, Juppe said on LCI television Wednesday:
One of the hypotheses that is envisaged is that he stays in Libya, on one condition … that he clearly steps aside from Libya’s political life. This is what we are waiting for before launching a political process.
Juppe said last week that Gaddafi was “prepared to leave” power according to some reports but it has been difficult to establish how credible such reports may be.
The rebels initially insisted that Gaddafi leave the country, but some are not ruling out the possibility that he could stay in Libya if he gives up power. The two sides have been locked in a stalemate with the rebels unable to advance beyond pockets in the west despite a NATO air campaign against Gaddafi’s forces.
Advertisement
Rebel forces hold most of the east but have been unable to wrest the strategic oil town of Brega from Gaddafi’s forces.
Mohammed Idris, a doctor at the Ajdabiya hospital where the casualties were taken, said 27 rebels were killed and 83 others were wounded Tuesday in fighting for Brega. That raised the six day death toll to 53.
Libya’s government spokesman has put the rebel death toll closer to 500.
Rebel military leaders Ramadan Zarmouh and Ahmed Hachem and the Misrata representative of the opposition government, Souleiman Fortia, met with Sarkozy on Wednesday.
“Their message was the following: what we did to liberate our city, we can do it to move forward towards Tripoli,” said French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who helped organize the meeting and has championed the Libyan rebel cause.
If they (the rebels) have the means, they just need a few days to reach the doors of Tripoli. They are expected in the three cities before Tripoli by experienced fighters who are just waiting for them. So a few days will be enough.
He said Sarkozy listened to them but did not say whether any aid or arms were pledged.
France has played a driving role in the NATO-led campaign of airstrikes, mandated by the UN to protect civilians from a crackdown by Gaddafi’s forces on an uprising against his rule, amid revolts this year around the Arab world.
Last week, more than 30 nations including the United States gave the Libyan rebels a boost by recognising their National Transitional Council as the country’s legitimate government, potentially freeing up billions of dollars in urgently needed cash.
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Seems a nice guy but after the whole Gilmartin interview on the Late Late last night, on top of everything else of course…how could anyone consider voting FF!??
Regardless of this mans apparent popularity,
Ff destroyed this country and our children’s future,
Ff people are only motivated by what’s best for the party and by personal enrichment,
Ff are like a cancer on this country they are in remission now,
But slowly and silently they will come back,
And continue to squeeze the life out of Ireland at your expense!
Why are Irish people so easily fooled by these chancers?
Remember party first!
This guy is more of a celebrity than a politician. What has he done for his constituents? Apart from being the nice FF guy, cutting ribbons, and presenting awards, and grabbing photo ops, what has he really contributed to to the betterment of his constituency, and the country.
Strange,
Other commenters are popular when they criticise him for “parish pump” politics, while the “what has he done for his constituents” question is equally popular.
Brian Crowley has done excellent work for the country, not just his constituents, through his active participation in EU business. He has a record that shows independence from party politics while working for all of us. Framework 7 is one hell of an achievement, and we are seeing benefit from it, although it’s sad that you don’t.
We need a lot more people like him in Europe.
Afraid of not knowing his euro parliament so wouldn’t take part in quiz & still got his rehearsed lines wrong still a Fianna failure as far as I’m concerned & 36% of Fianna FAILZHEIMERS will vote for him have they learnt nothing from recent times ?
So Fianna Fáil trash the country and yet polls indicate that the voters of Ireland South are going to vote for this guy in their thousands. We get what we deserve!
Extremely petty actually ,Brian is the best politician in this country able to speak and debate on any issue at any time.all I see here is the usual rubbish about ff which by what I hear ff caused all the trouble in every bank in the world, yes there was issues but lots of parties have issues like Sinn Fein who appear to bbquite able to forget its criminal past time and time again
@Dan Cronin…you obviously think we are all fools when it comes to FF and you must not have seen the Gilmartin interview last night in the Late Late either!? Your party was and is rotten to the core
Mr O’neill I believe a man was on talking about people who were willing to throw money around trying to curry favours as wrong surely as the man who took it.i noticed you missed the bit of my post on the shinners and your post is also very disingenuous to the thousands of ordinary decent people who are members of our party.
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.
They will never lose, we don’t see any of the good times they had, but when they are losing money we have to pay.
Brian Crowley is the son of a FF TD Flor Crowley who was famous because he never spoke in the dail in his entire career. Brian is the exact same never speaks for anyone but himself at election time. Its horrible to think that he has won the lotto twice being elected rarely showed and his greed brings him back to the trough. Its horrible to think that the people of Cork could re-elect him. He can’t do the quiz as he definitely doesn’t know the answers.
Most ineffective MEP we have, I believe this guy is part of the reason why the south has been left behind regarding generating good jobs, or replacing the shrinking pharma and medical devices industries with a viable alternative.
Millions return home as Pacific tsunami warnings lifted
16 mins ago
164
Fighting Addiction
Number of people seeing help to cut alcohol use is at its highest in over a decade
27 mins ago
401
Courts
'Disturbing, cruel and sadistic': Five men jailed for imprisoning and torturing woman in Dublin
13 hrs ago
38.0k
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 214 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage . Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework. The choices you make regarding the purposes and vendors listed in this notice are saved and stored locally on your device for a maximum duration of 1 year.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Social Media Cookies
These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 149 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 195 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 158 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 119 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 120 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 51 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 48 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 177 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 78 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 111 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 116 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 51 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 65 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 36 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 122 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 126 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 94 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 67 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 116 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 103 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say