Renegade Libyan group says parliament has been suspended after its Tripoli attack ADVERTISING Renegade Libyan group says parliament has been suspended after its Tripoli attack TRIPOLI, Libya — Forces apparently loyal to a renegade Libyan general said they suspended parliament
Renegade Libyan group says parliament has been suspended after its Tripoli attack
TRIPOLI, Libya — Forces apparently loyal to a renegade Libyan general said they suspended parliament Sunday after earlier leading a military assault against lawmakers, directly challenging the legitimacy of the country’s weak central government three years after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Libya’s leadership condemned the attack and vowed to carry on.
A commander in the military police in Libya read a statement announcing the suspension on behalf of a group led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a one-time rebel commander who said the U.S. backed his efforts to topple Gadhafi in the 1990s. Hours earlier, militia members backed by truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, mortars and rocket fire attacked parliament, sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives as gunmen ransacked the legislature.
Gen. Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on a Libyan television channel on behalf of Hifter’s group, said it assigned a 60-member constituent’s assembly to take over for parliament. Farnana said Libya’s current government would act on as an emergency Cabinet, without elaborating.
Farnana, who is in charge of prisons operated by the military police, said forces loyal to Hifter carried out Sunday’s attack on parliament. He also said Sunday’s attack on Libya’s parliament was not a coup, but “fighting by the people’s choice.”
“We announce to the world that the country can’t be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism,” said Farnana, who wore a military uniform and sat in front of Libya’s flag.
Building collapse leaves many dead; prompts rare North Korean apology
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean officials offered a rare public apology for the collapse of an apartment building under construction in Pyongyang, which a South Korean official said was believed to have caused considerable casualties that could mean hundreds might have died.
The word of the collapse in the secretive nation’s capital was reported Sunday morning by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, which gave no death toll but said that the accident was “serious” and upset North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.
The report said it occurred in the capital’s Phyongchon district on Tuesday “as the construction of an apartment house was not done properly and officials supervised and controlled it in an irresponsible manner.”
In Seoul, a South Korean government official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information said the 23-story apartment building that collapsed was presumed to have housed 92 families.
That could mean the casualties could be in the hundreds because a typical North Korean family has four members. However, it was not clear whether all the residents were inside at the time of the collapse, or that four people lived in each apartment.
Kerry jokes that Yale’s diverse graduating class is Clippers owner Sterling’s ‘nightmare’
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Secretary of State John Kerry took a poke at the NBA’s controversy surrounding Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling during a speech at Yale University’s Class Day.
Joking about college and pop culture at the start of his speech Sunday, Kerry told the Ivy League graduates: “You are … the most diverse class in Yale history. Or, as it’s called in the NBA, Donald Sterling’s worst nightmare.” The comment drew laughs from the audience.
The NBA commissioner has banned Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million following the release last month of a recording in which the Clippers’ owner makes racist remarks. The commissioner also called on owners to oust Sterling from the league.
According to a speaker at Class Day, students from 61 countries are graduating from Yale this weekend.
By wire sources
