Libya's Gadhafi clings as regime crumbles
TRIPOLI, Libya, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi clung to control of his country Tuesday as witnesses in Tripoli reported food shortages and violence by security forces.
Reports from Libya also indicated officials were defecting while calling for Gadhafi's ouster and the U.N. Security Council planned to meet to discuss the situation.
"I am here in Tripoli and not in Venezuela," Gadhafi said on state TV Tuesday, quashing rumors he had fled. "Don't believe the dog news agencies."
Security forces blocked the Fashloom area of Tripoli and were shooting anyone on the streets, including people trying to retrieve bodies, Mohamed Abdallah, a spokesman for the National Front for the Salvation of Libya opposition group, told CNN. Abdallah said he receive the information from witnesses in the area.
Meanwhile, another person in Tripoli told CNN firefighters weren't able to douse a fire at the government building and he and others "heard a lot of gun shots, explosions, demonstrations and the sound of sirens."
Gadhafi's comments, meanwhile, followed a day of raging violence, with state TV reporting security forces stormed "dens of terror and sabotage" in Tripoli and United Arab Emirates' al-Arabiya TV showing planes and helicopters firing live rounds at protesters.
The unrest has gone on for nearly a week, driven by protesters demanding freedom and denouncing high unemployment under more than four decades of Gadhafi rule.
Witnesses said some of the warplanes dropped "small bombs," The New York Times reported.
"It was an obscene amount of gunfire," a witness told the Times. "They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction."
Other witnesses reported massacres in two Tripoli neighborhoods and ground troops shooting live rounds and tear gas to regain control of the city's main square.
Special-forces troops and mercenaries patrolled the streets in trucks, shooting freely as police stood by and watched, witness said.
A human rights organization said at least 233 people have died, citing healthcare personnel. Another rights organization put the death toll closer to 500. The full scope of the turmoil was impossible to verify because authorities denied access to foreign journalists. Internet and phone access was mostly cut off, although some protesters said they used satellite connections and other countries' phone services to communicate.
Iranian warships enter Suez Canal
CAIRO, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Israel is not happy with reports two Iranian warships heading for Syria had entered the Suez Canal, an Israeli defense official said.
Responding to reports that the ships entered the Suez Canal early Tuesday, an Israeli defense official told The New York Times Israel is not happy with the development.
An Egyptian official from the Suez Canal Authority was quoted by media outlets saying "two ships entered the Canal on Tuesday at around 5:45."
Passage through the Canal can take 14 hours.
The two ships are the frigate Alvand, reportedly armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, and the supply vessel Kharg that has 250 personnel aboard.
Iranian Navy Lt. Cmdr. Rear Adm. Gholam-Reza Khadem Biqam told Iran's Fars news agency the warships will be dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea and will remain in the area for a year for training exercises.
The canal's northern mouth, Port Said, is approximately 60 miles from Israel. The warships' intended destination means they will be sailing parallel to the coast of Israel, al-Arabiya said.
At Sunday's cabinet meeting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel views the passage of Iranian warships in the canal gravely, saying it was part of Iran's effort to expand its influence in the region.
"We can see what an unstable region we live in, an area in which Iran is trying to take advantage of the situation that has arisen and broaden its influence by transferring two warships via the Suez Canal," Netanyahu said.
New Zealand quake kills at least 65.
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A powerful earthquake Tuesday ravaged Christchurch, New Zealand's second largest city, leaving at least 65 dead and buildings in ruins, officials said.
The 6.3-magnitude offshore quake hit the city of 400,000 on New Zealand's South Island minutes before 1 p.m., bringing down buildings, knocking out essential services, rupturing sewer and water lines, twisting and tearing out roads, trapping people in the rubble and causing massive traffic jams.
The New Zealand Herald quoted Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker as saying more than 100 people were trapped in the rubble of structures at six locations as night fell on the city, which was severely damaged by a 7.1-magnitude quake last September.
The mayor warned more may be trapped in individual homes, the Herald reported.
The death toll of 65 was announced by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who said rescuers were looking for survivors. The prime minister, who flew into Christchurch, said the city was "utterly wrecked."
"We may well be witnessing New Zealand's darkest day," he said.
Radio New Zealand reported hospitals throughout South Island were discharging patients and canceling non-emergency surgeries to accommodate those injured in the quake.
Ambulance services faced a shortage of vehicles. Police used squad cars to transport the injured.
Residents told the Herald bodies littered the streets.
CNN reported dazed and injured people wandering the streets amid debris, including a woman on top of rubble pleading for help.
The report quoted the prime minister as saying police, military and rescue crews had been summoned from around the country to render assistance.
One television station said the death toll could reach 200 to 300.
The Herald said the toll of 65 is already the second highest in the country after the 1931 Hawke's Bay quake that killed 256.
Those killed Tuesday included passengers on two buses destroyed by falling buildings or other debris, police said.
The quake's epicenter was about 6.5 miles southeast of the city, off the Lyttelton harbor at a depth of about 3.1 miles. Damage to the town of Lyttelton also was severe, the Herald reported.
Wis. governor: Vote or I may lay off 1,500
MADISON, Wis., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he might lay off 1,500 employees if his bill ending public-employee union collective bargaining is not passed this week.
The layoffs would happen if the state misses a chance to refinance bonds and save more than $100 million, the Republican said.
This could happen, he said, because Democratic state senators fled to Illinois last week to block passage of his controversial collective-bargaining bill.
To make up the gap, 1,500 state workers would have to be laid off, Walker said at Monday news conference.
"For those 14 Senate Democrats, you've had your time," Walker said. "Now it's time to come home."
But Democratic lawmakers vowed to stay away until Walker dropped his bill, which he said was needed to close a projected $3.6 billion shortfall and they said would essentially dissolve most public-sector unions.
"After four days, we're still very united," Democratic state Sen. Fred Risser of Madison told the Los Angeles Times. "I think more united than when we started."
The Senate needs a quorum of 20 or more members to decide spending issues, including Walker's budget bill. This means the Senate's 19 Republicans need one Democrat to be present before they can act.
Other measures need only a majority of the chamber's 33 members, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau said his colleagues would take up those matters starting Tuesday, including a measure Democrats strongly oppose -- a bill requiring people to provide photo identification at the polls.
The Senate could act on that bill as early as Wednesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Emanuel poised to capture Chicago mayor
CHICAGO, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- For the first time in Chicago election history, the choice isn't between Republican and Democrat, or even black and white.
When voters cast their ballots Tuesday, it will be in the first at-large election for mayor and if one of the candidates gets 50 percent plus one vote, the bickering and backbiting will be over -- or maybe just getting started if past elections are anything to go by.
The election is the first wide-open contest in more than two decades following the surprise announcement late last year by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley that he would not seek re-election.
Daley is the city's longest-serving mayor, surpassing the tenure of his father, Richard J. Daley, who died in 1976.
The last time the race was wide open was after the death of Mayor Harold Washington, whose tenure was marked with infighting so brutal in the City Council, Chicago earned the moniker Beirut by the Lake. Washington's first mayoral election run was a race-based slugfest that produced a squeaker over Republican Bernie Epton -- the closest a Republican had come to capturing Chicago's biggest political prize in decades.
The smart money Tuesday is on former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, but whether he can take it all in one fell swoop is still a question. His closest competitor is former Daley Chief of Staff Gery Chico, who has been chiding Emanuel for his suburban Wilmette upbringing and his success as an investment banker. Chico, who grew up in Chicago's gritty Back of the Yards neighborhood, parlayed his city experience into a successful law practice.
A Chicago Tribune poll published Feb. 10 gave Emanuel 49 percent of the vote to Chico's 19 percent while a WLS-TV poll released two days earlier put Emanuel's tally at 54 percent to Chico's 14 percent. The other four candidates, including former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, were even less of a factor.
