Libyan oil minister defects
Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem, a veteran of Muammar Gaddafi's regime, has left his country and is in neighbouring Tunisia, a Tunisian government source told AFP today.
Ghanem, also the chairman of Libya's powerful national oil company, crossed the border by car on Saturday and is staying in a hotel in the southern tourist island of Djerba, the official said on condition of anonymity.
"Shukri Ghanem has left Libya. He entered Tunisia by car on May 14 across the Ras Jedir border post," the source said.
"Shukri Ghanem is currently in a hotel at Djerba and he has not tried to contact the Tunisian authorities."
If it is confirmed the minister has left his post, he would be among the most senior officials to abandon Kadhafi's government amid an uprising that erupted in mid-February.
Former foreign minister Mussa Kussa defected to Britain in March, leaving Libya via Tunisia.
The US Treasury Department in April froze the assets of five senior Kadhafi aides, including Ghanem, in a bid to fracture the veteran ruler's inner circle.
Libya is a key crude-exporting nation but its output has been slashed since the revolt began.
According to the International Energy Agency, Libya's exports averaged 1.49 million bpd before the uprising, with 85 percent of that going to Europe.
The European Union last month added to its Libya sanctions list 26 energy firms accused of financing Kadhafi's regime, a move that Germany said amounted to a de facto oil and gas embargo.
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Ms D Galea
May 17th 2011, 14:53
More rats abandoning the sinking Gheddafi ship........ I mean, canoe.
Isnt he the one who appeared on television a month of so ago, promising lucrative deals with China and India so long as they sent their citizens back to work in Libja?
Maybe he had KMB as an advisor at the time..
Mr deo cassar
May 18th 2011, 12:46
The western powers are threathening all those who remain with the Libyan Governemnt with prosectution and are offereing rewards and immunity for those who leave the Libyan People's Government. But ministers in Libya have no real power because it is the whole libyan people who propose laws and vote for or against laws in referenda and they are the ones who appoint ministers who are basically civil servants with no executive power. So the Libyan Gemahiriya, or People's Congresses will apoint a new oil minister. The peblem for NATO and co and their army in Benghazi (the so called rebels) is to convince the overwhelming majority of the Libyan people to abondon their system where they are the ones in charge, where they are the real power, and to delegate their power to corrupt leaders who spaek in their name but who only think about their (the minister's) own and of their foreign masters' interests. That is why this stalemate on the battlefield in the face of overwhelming superiority by NATO and its terror squads Bebnghazi and this onslaught of NATO on the civilian population of western Libya and of the brutal attacks, murders and raoes of civilians by these terror squads who feel immune from prosecution protected as they are by the cover of our corporate media. The plan is the same as that when Israel was created: Force the whole population of western Libya (3/4 of the libyan population) into exile and bring in your western educated and bred British, US, French, Canadian, Maltese etc families of Libyan origin who during the tyrranical reign of King Idris formed the inner circle of that western backed tyrannical and corrupt regime and possessed all the oil wealth while ther whole of the Libyan people lived in dire poverty and mysery.