When the Arab Spring protests began 10 years ago, I was covering the Pakistani army’s war against the Pakistan Taliban. It seemed a world away from what I knew as the peaceful streets of Cairo and Tripoli.
In fact, when the protests began, my colleagues and I watched the news unfold on Al Jazeera in disbelief that it was happening at all.
The day of February 17 – now remembered as the Day of Revolt in Libya – began small. A few gathered in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Then, more people started to arrive. Within a few hours, there were thousands.
taken at gun point from his hotel overnight. elisabeth: leeland vittert live in jerusalem with the live and breaking details. what do you have for us? good morning. been a busy morning for the prime minister of libya. taken at gun point out of his hotel. his bodyguards beaten up. his picture posted all over the internet in captivity and now he s back in the office for afternoon meetings. still don t know why he was kidnapped. it really shows you how unstable libya is as a country right now, how weak the central government is. at one point, libyan state television was reporting the kidnappers were basically subcontractors of the department of the interior called the anticrime brigade who may have taken the prime minister either in an attempt to arrest him or perhaps in an attempt to hold him out in some kind of kidnapping extortion plot. we still don t know how all that plays into the fact that just in the past week, the delta force
chats. the house speaker continue. reporter: thank you. john boehner came out and said that house republicans, they oppose the two-month extension over the weekend because it doesn t provide the certainly that americans need, the kind of stimulate the economy in the way that the payroll tax extension they would hope would do. so he made it very clear that they are not ready to budge from their decision. he says they have acted and now it s time for the president and senate democrats to do the same. i think we have a sound bite from speaker boehner. now it s up to the president to show real leadership. he said that he won t leave town for the holidays until this bill is done. and the next step is clear. i think president obama needs to call on senate democrats to go back into session, move to go to conference, and to sit down and resolve this bill as quickly as possible. reporter: in the absolute immediate term, we know that the senators are not here right now and th
hello everyone, it is 1:00 on the east coast. let s get straight to the news. your paycheck and benefits may be cut and your taxes may go up all because congress can t agree on another very important issue, that is payroll tax cuts. congress is in a political standoff right now. the senate passed a two-month extension a moment ago. house republicans rejected that in a procedural vote and are pushing a one year extension. keep in mind payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits expire in less than two weeks. our members do not want to just punt and do a two-month short term fix where we have to come back and do this again. we re here, we re willing to work. it s just a radical tea party republicans who are holding up this tax cut for the american people and jeopardizing our economic growth. but what s the real problem? we ll talk to republican strategist ron christy to get answers. if you re heading west, check the forecast. people in a number of states are d
three days later, president obama told americans the u.s. will take action. we struck regime forces approaching ben gaza to save the city and the people within it. we hit gadhafi s troops in neighboring allowing the opposition to drive them out. we hit gadhafiy s air defenses which paved the way for a no-fly zone. just over a month later, a nato missile strisz kills gadhafi s youngest son while key figures condition to defect. in august with the rebels closing in on tripoli, he calls libyan state television and is barely audible in telling followers to liberate the country from his opponents claiming the blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield. rebel forces enter tripoli with little or no resistance. since then it s a steady combination of nato air strikes and a better-organized and more