Think Libya News Today

So state-run tv, of course, not covering the uprising. you see fireworks there and anything other than the unrest that the rest of the world has been watching on the streets of benghazi and tripoli. >> you certainly wouldnt know that there was unrest there by looking at those pictures. lets bring back in a libyan-american living in this country 30 years. i asked you about a direct connection, a direct link between egypt and tunisia and other unrest in that area of the world. people were saying b...

[ thunder crashing ] and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last. but with their raymond james financial advisor, they had prepared for even the unthinkable. ♪ and they danced. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. in recent weeks, libyas moammar gadhafi has seen governments topple to his east and west in egypt and tunisia. >> and now trying to stop it from spreading across his own country. fionnuala sweeney rejoins us live from cairo. fionnuala, weve ...

Cultivated this image of being kind of an outlier and essentially he doesnt care what anybody in the outside world thinks about him. and a u.s. official we spoke with this evening said gadhafi has been in power, as you know, for 42 years. he is still in power. at least that is what they still believe and that he is not losing his grip on power at all. so the united states at this point, about all it can do is to make very strong urgings to the government of libya to stop violence. and theres gra...

Appeared gadhafis place as public enemy number one was secured for eternity but it proved to be a short time before the century was out. gadhafi gave up the two libyan suspects behind the bombing of pan am 103. in 2003 libya agreed to compensate the victims and taken off as a country of weapons of mass destruction. within a few years the u.s. had restored full diplomatic relations, just 22 years after ronald reagan tried to kill gadhafi. u.s. secretary of state condoleezza rice visited tripoli a...

Is a tribal nation. youre saying, i believe, correct me if i am wrong, youve never seen all the tribes unified like this before but hes saying that the tribes would separate and that it would cause chaos and civil war. >> i dont think -- what hes saying is not true because i dont think even his tribe, his own tribemen will follow him because his tribe is part of libya and they want to be part of libya and part of the big family of libya. the only problem we have in libya is him and his family. t...

Those countries abandoned their regimes and ultimately the regimes fell. in cases where the military and security forces support these oppressive regime, think algeria, think libya, think bahrain, the regimes seem to be able to withstand the opposition. >> and, fran, im just curious. if we look at libya, what were hearing from the son of gadhafi is that this could actually fall into some kind of civil war because you have benghazi in the east. tripoli in the west and benghazi we understand is no...

There. >> reporter: well, the primary one between egypt and libya is, of course, that here in cairo, it was a peaceful demonstration essentially apart from the attacks on the protesters by the military or the police earlier on in the demonstrations, but essentially it was a peaceful revolution. this is not what is taking place in libya. secondly, there was a strong opposition movement that had been building and building over the last eight years, and then the revolt was led by the young and it g...

Saif al islam says the protesters must stop or blood will flow, rivers of blood in all the cities of libya. >> its very interesting. we havent seen anything like this, you know, in the mideast and north africa where were sitting here two weeks ago and it was egypt and now its happening in egypt. >> two weeks ago we were saying hosni mubarak probably wont fall. hes a strong man. now were saying gadhafi, a strong man, probably wont fall. we just dont know. why should anyone care whats taking place...

As security forces try to quiet the streets, libya has banned journalists in the region. but information and video is leaking out from social media sites. these shots from tripoli were uploaded today on youtube, scenes of chaos in the streets, people setting fires. cnn can confirm the uprising in benghazi. although cnn doesnt confirm post, we cannot -- >> moammar gadhafi has spoken since these protests erupted and did appear on state run tv but we dont know when this was taped. a few hours ago, ...

This is cnn special coverage of "unrest in libya." the question is, what do you know about libya? about the size of alaska and population of 6.5 million people. >> its pretty small. more than 90% is desert or semi desert. oil exports make up 80% of the governments revenue. the median age of libyans, young country, 24 years old. it shares borders with algeria, chad, egypt, nigeria and tunisia. lets bring in an author and journalist covering libya extensi extensively. >> he wrote lockerbie and lib...