Libyan rebels take new villages in Western Mountains

Rebel fighters are seen before a heavy fight against pro-Gadhafi forces at the frontline of Dafneya, some 40 km west Misrata, Libya, Sunday, June 12, 2011.



Libyan rebels have pushed deeper into government-held territory from their base in the Western Mountains, taking two villages from which forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi had been shelling rebel-held towns.

But the rebels are still a considerable way from Gaddafi's main stronghold in Tripoli, while their fellow fighters on the other two fronts -- in Misrata and in eastern Libya -- have made only halting progress against better-armed government troops.

The rebel advance some 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Tripoli on Wednesday, came as the White House insisted that President Barack Obama had the legal authority to press on with US military involvement in Libya.

Strains have begun to show in the Western alliance trying to topple Gaddafi. The US defense secretary rounded on European allies last week for failing to back the mission the alliance took over in late March.

The White House urged skeptical lawmakers not to send "mixed messages" about their commitment to the NATO-led air war that has helped the rebels push on from their bastion in the east.

"The revolutionaries (rebels) now control Zawiyat al-Babour and al-Awiniyah after pro-Gaddafi forces retreated this morning from the two villages," Abdulrahman, a rebel spokesman in the nearby town of Zintan.

In Gharyan, a Gaddafi-held town that forms the gateway from Tripoli to the mountains, there was an undercurrent of tension as the frontline moves closer to the capital.

Libyan government minders took a group of reporters to the town, which lies about 120 km southwest of Tripoli and about 20 km east of Kikla, which rebels seized from loyalists on Tuesday.

Despite an outward appearance of normality, walls around town on Wednesday had recently painted over graffiti. The windows of one government building were smashed, the sign for another was riddled with holes.

While many traders and people on the streets were reluctant to talk to reporters, one shop owner said the calm in the area during the day was replaced by fighting every night.

"Two thirds of the people here are for the rebels," he told Reuters, giving his name as Mohammed.

Those willing to talk in front of the minders were strongly pro-Gaddafi.

"Sarkozy is stupid, he is fighting this war for petrol," a man called Yunis said in French, referring to the French president, vilified by Gaddafi supporters as the driving force behind NATO bombing. "This is colonialism all over again."

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Special report: Australia's big dig for foreign workers

 Lucille Lievaux, a 25-year-old French geologist, commutes to work on a plane, a 1,300-km journey from Australia's Indian Ocean city of Perth to the mining town of Karratha, a smudge of suburbia on the continent's barren northwest coast. 


Slim, blonde and passionate about her job, she sits in Karratha's busy single-storey airport, waiting for a jet to take her home. She has swapped her hard-hat and orange-striped overalls for a short-sleeved cotton top, jeans and sneakers. Wearing her sunglasses like a hair-band, she looks out of place in a departure lounge crowded mostly with unshaven men. 



Only the dirt beneath her short fingernails and tanned, weathered hands would suggest she has something in common. 


"Australia is like an El Dorado," says Lievaux, who came a year ago on a holiday. She now nets $5,000 a month, working two weeks out of every three at the Whim Creek prospect, an old open-cut copper mine dug out of the red rocky plain. 


"It's so easy, so easy to find a job here as a geologist."

And it's so hard for Australia to find enough workers like Lievaux to sustain its mining boom. The tightening labor market is driving up wages, and combined with the resurgent Aussie dollar, is putting pressure on the entire manufacturing sector. 


Lievaux may earn about $60,000 a year after tax and be chauffeured to work in a jet, but she is not particularly well paid by the standards of Karratha, an Aboriginal word meaning "good country, and other remote boom towns. 



A mine supervisor can earn in excess of $200,000, more than the head of the Federal Reserve. A truck-driver's salary easily runs into six figures. A construction worker can make over $150,000, more than a doctor or lawyer. 


"You can get girls cleaning at the mine camps and they can easily earn $100,000 a year," says Tracy Reis, 42, a travel agent based in Karratha. 


The reason for this labor shortage, and the sky-high wages that come with it, is simple: Australia, with a population of 22 million, does not have the workforce to exploit its enormous natural bounty -- at least not at the pace required to satisfy Asia's hunger for resources. 


The mining and resources industry, including oil and gas, has roughly $400 billion in new projects on the drawing board in Australia and will need another roughly 70,000 workers over the next five years alone, according to government estimates. 


The construction industry is projected to need another 196,000 workers over the same period, many of them associated with new mining and energy projects. 


The boom is just beginning and, already, labor is short -- not just for skilled jobs like geologists but also for unskilled work, creating a situation where even building laborers, cleaners, cooks and drivers are earning stratospheric wages. 


But rather than flinging open the doors to foreign guest workers to fill these lower-level jobs, as countries such as Singapore and Dubai have done, Australia is taking measured and, some economists say, inadequate steps to import overseas labor.

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Filipino declared world's shortest man

A Filipino blacksmith's son who stopped growing when he was a toddler was declared the world's shortest man yesterday as he celebrated his 18th birthday.

Measuring just 59.93 centimetres, or 23.5 inches, Junrey Balawing is the oldest of four siblings -- the rest all of normal stature -- born in the rural town of Sindangan on southern Mindanao island.

"Officially he is the world's shortest man," said Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of the Guinness Book of World Records who measured Balawing in front of cheering relatives and villagers.

The previous record holder was Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal, who was measured in 2010 at just over 26 inches.

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Fighting in Zawiyah shuts Libya road to Tunisia

Libyan troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi fought gun battles with rebels in the town of Zawiyah Saturday, witnesses said, shutting the coastal highway that links the capital Tripoli with Tunisia.  the highway was deserted except for lots of soldiers, police and armed men in civilian clothes. One heard bursts of gunfire coming from the direction of the city. "The situation is very bad in Zawiyah. There's been fierce fighting since the morning," said the resident, who gave only his first name, Mohammed, fearing reprisals. Four months since Gaddafi's forces crushed a popular uprising against his four-decade rule that then morphed into an armed rebellion, Libya's civil war is in stalemate. Nearly three months of bombings by NATO war planes against Libyan military targets have failed to unseat Gaddafi or enable the rebels to launch an offensive on his territory in Tripoli. Several explosions were heard in Tripoli throughout the afternoon, as late as 8 p.m. (2 pm ET), suggesting NATO was ramping up attacks after a quiet morning. Rebel spokesman Ahmed Bani said a senior Gaddafi aide had been wounded in a NATO strike on a city close to Tripoli on Saturday evening and was in hospital. There was no independent confirmation and Libyan officials were not available to comment. ENCIRLE The rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of mountains near the border with Tunisia. They are seeking to encircle the capital and cut it off, an aim that would be advanced if they manage to capture Zawiyah. The highway has been used throughout the conflict by Gaddafi's officials -- including fleeing defectors -- to reach the outside world, and by trucks bringing in food and other supplies to territory under Gaddafi's control. After a lull in fighting in the western, rebel-held city of Misrata, pro-Gaddafi forces which have besieging it started shelling its port late Saturday, Al Jazeera TV reported. A doctor at the Hekma hospital said 31 people were killed and 110 wounded in shelling by Gaddafi forces Friday. Pro-Gaddafi troops encircled the city of Zlitan, 160 km east of Tripoli, Saturday, rebels said, after fighting broke out there that could also open up the coastal road to the capital. Some clashes between Gaddafi's forces and rebels continued in the city, rebel spokesman Bani said, after the rebels took some parts of it. The toll remained 22 rebels killed. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim played down the clashes. "There is no serious fighting going on in Zawiya or Zlitan. What has happened is that we've had small groups of rebels who have made their way from Zintan and the Western Mountains to cause trouble in these areas," Zlitan is one of three towns that are largely government controlled between the rebel-held Misrata and the capital. Were it to fall, it could allow the anti-Gaddafi uprising to spread from Misrata, the biggest rebel outpost in western Libya, to Gaddafi's stronghold in Tripoli. DIPLOMACY FALTERS, FIGHTING INCREASES World powers have given mixed signals on how the war might play out, with Russia trying to mediate reconciliation. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Friday he had offered a "guarantee" to Gaddafi if he left Libya, but received no reply. Gaddafi has refused to step down, describing the rebels as al Qaeda terrorists and Western intervention as an oil grab. As diplomacy falters, several new battle fronts have opened. Gaddafi's forces also shelled for the first time the UNESCO world heritage-listed city of Ghadames, 600 km (370 miles) southwest of Tripoli, on the Tunisia and Algeria borders, overnight, opening a new front in the war, rebels said. Rebels said the oasis town, with a population of about 7,000 people, mainly Berber, was under attack after an anti-government protest in the old Roman city Wednesday. "This is a retaliation for anti-regime protests," spokesman Juma Ibrahim said from the rebel-held town of Zintan. The report could not be independently verified. The old town was de-populated by Gaddafi in the 1990s and its inhabitants moved into modern buildings. It was not clear if the attack hit the old town, a labyrinth of narrow, underground passages and houses known as the "Pearl of the Desert." US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday some NATO allies of failing to pull their weight:

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