... 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...
Tuesday after a tanker laden with crude oil from a rebel-held terminal broke through a naval blockade and escaped to sea.
The no-confidence motion was approved by 124 of the 194 members of the General National Congress, four more than the majority required, MPs said.
Zeidan, an independent elected with the support of liberals, has proved incapable of bringing to heel the myriad of former rebel militia that have carved out their own fiefdoms since the 2011 uprising that toppled the autocratic rule of Muammar Qadaffy
...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them...
.
The premier was himself briefly kidnapped by former rebel militia in the heart of the capital last October.
In a new humiliation for his government, a
North Korean-flagged tanker laden that had taken on a cargo of oil from a rebel-held terminal in the east slipped the warships deployed to intercept it and escaped to sea earlier Tuesday.The Morning Glory, which docked in al-Sidra Saturday and is reported to have taken on at least 234,000 barrels of crude, is the first vessel to have loaded oil from a rebel-held terminal since the challenge against the Tripoli
...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...
authorities erupted last July.
Zeidan's government had threatened armed action, even an air strike, to prevent the tanker getting away with the oil bought from the rebels' self-declared autonomous regional government without the authorization of the state-owned Libyan National Oil Corp.
But bad weather prevented the small naval vessels -- mostly fast patrol boats -- from following the huge ship out into the Mediterranean from al-Sidra, MPs said.
"The oil tanker took advantage of poor weather conditions to head for the open sea. The ships that were surrounding it were not in a position to follow," one MP told Agence La Belle France Presse.
MPs voiced anger at the failure of Zeidan's government to make good on its threat to stop the tanker by force if necessary.
"The situation in the country has become unacceptable. Even those MPs who used to support the prime minister no longer have any alternative," MP Suad Gannur told AFP.
