The December 20th deadline for militias to leave Tripoli has come and gone with the militias remaining in place. The issue is revealing a split in the National Transitional Council (NTC) between the Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib and the Defence Minister and head of the Zintan Brigade militia Osama al-Juwali. As the man who set the December 20th deadline al-Keib obviously wants the militias to leave immediately in order to secure the city by bringing to an end the kidnappings and seemingly random gun battles. al-Juwali on the other hand wants to keep his militia - the Zintan Brigade - in place for as long as possible. He is doing this as leverage in order to fill the Defence Ministry and the Interior Ministry with as many of his people as possible. Given the undemocratic and aggressive way he is going about it I'm worried about what will happen should he be successful.
Elsewhere it looks as though the International Criminal Court (ICC) could be forced to close it's investigations into the death of Muammer Qaddafi and other alleged crimes committed by rebel forces as nations like Britain move to have it's budget slashed at the annual meeting that is currently going on in New York. The fact that this meeting is still ongoing also serves to explain why Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has today (21/12/11) decided to prosecute footballer John Terry for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand.
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