...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
government in a major escalation of their blockade to demand a greater share of the nation's petroleum wealth.
A
North Korean-flagged tanker docked earlier at the Es Sider port, which is controlled by protesters who want more regional autonomy, officials at state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) confirmed.The oil standoff is one part of deepening turmoil in the North African OPEC producer, where the government is struggling to control militias who helped topple Muammar Qadaffy
...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later...
in 2011 but kept their weapons and are challenging state authority.
Any independent shipment would be a blow to Libya's government. Tripoli had said it would destroy tankers trying to buy oil from Ibrahim Jathran, a former anti-Qadaffy rebel who seized the port and two others with thousands of his men in August.
"We started exporting oil. This is our first shipment," said a front man for the protesters based in the eastern town of Ajdabiyah.
Jathran had commanded a brigade of former rebels paid by the state to protect petroleum facilities. He defected with his troops, however, to take over the ports.
There was no immediate word from the Libyan government and navy about the shipment, but Prime Minister Ali Zeidan
... served as a diplomat for Libya during the 1970s, serving in India under Ambassador Mohammed Magariaf. Both men defected in 1980 and went on to form the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. Zeidan spent nearly three decades in exile in Geneva after the defection. During the revolution Zeidan served as the National Transitional Council's Europe envoy, and is credited as having played a key role in persuading French President Nicolas Sarkozy to support the anti-Qadaffy forces...
and the justice minister scheduled news conferences in the afternoon.
In January, the Libyan navy fired on a Maltese-flagged tanker which it said had tried to load oil from the protesters in the Es Sider port.
The tanker Morning Glory, which was previously flagged in Liberia and can load around 35,000 tonnes (about 250,000 barrels) of oil, had been circling off the Libyan coast for days.
The vessel had tried to dock at Es Sider on Tuesday, when port workers still loyal to the central government had told the crew to turn back.
Workers confirmed they could see the ship docked at the port, but it was not immediately clear whether it had started loading crude. Tanks at Es Sider and other seized ports are full, according to oil sources.
"We have informed the government and the defense ministry so they can take action," a senior NOC official said, adding that the tanker's crew "are trying to buy oil illegally."
It is extremely unusual for an oil tanker flagged in secretive North Korea to operate in the Mediterranean region, shipping sources said.
A front man for NOC said the Morning Glory was owned by a Saudi company. It had changed ownership in the past few weeks and previously been called Gulf Glory, according to a shipping source.