U.S. sends attack Drones on the Libya as fighting enters day 67

April 22, 2011, 4: 13 am EDT by Benjamin Harvey, Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

(Updates with McCain visit to the second paragraph)

April 22 (Bloomberg)--The U.S. sent armed Predator drones on missions in the course of the Libya and European allies sent military advisors to redouble its efforts to help the rebel fighters oust Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi regime without sending soldiers in combat.Senator John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran and the former candidate in the presidential election which has supported the military intervention in Libya, arrived in the rebel-held city of Benghazi to meet veterans, he called the hero, the Associated Press reported today."During this time, France, Italy and the United Kingdom sent military to help with communications and training advisors.""We need to intensify the pressure on all fronts" to run from the sending of ground troops, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday on the BBC Scotland radio. "The troops are prohibited by the resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations authorizing the no-fly zone"."We are not allowed, quite rightly, an invading army or an army of occupation," said Cameron. "This is what the Libyans want not, which is not what we want, is not the world wants."President Barack Obama has approved the use of drones armed with Hellfire missiles, against the forces of the Libyan Government, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in a Pentagon in briefing yesterday. The plane without a pilot, previously used for recognition, providing better visibility of targets. This is important, when Muammar Gaddafi forces are fighting in and around cities, said Marine General James Cartwright, vice President of the pilotless aircraft Joint Chiefs of Staff.Bad WeatherThe were unable to complete missions on their first release yesterday because of bad conditions météorologiquesCartwright said. The predator is closed General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego.The use of predators is a "very limited additional role" in the US, Gates said. "I believe that none of us see as mission creep."There was "no room for maneuver" the rejection of the President to place "boots on the ground" in Libya, he said.The European military advisors, who will total less than 50, be the first armed forces Western official in Libya since the Western intervention began a month ago. The NATO mission, role is a zone of non-overview of the police, to protect civilians and implement an arms embargo on the regime Qathafi. uplift HaltThe of oil to end rule of Qathafi 42 years, which started in mid-February, a of the soil in a military stalemate near the central town of Brega oil port. Fighting halted most of the oil exports of Libya, which has the largest reserves of oil in Africa, as regional instability has sent more than 30 per cent of the price of oil a year. Crude oil for June delivery rose 84 cents to settle at $112.29 US per barrel on the Exchange.Residents New York of the Western City of Misrata rebels held Mercantile, besieged for more than six weeks, suffer daily bombardment by the Qaddafi.Pilotes forces in NATO aircraft have had difficulty identifying Qathafi forces once that they will move to the cities and had to be extra careful to avoid civilian casualties. The predator allows NATO closer to possible targets, to examine the scene and strike with precision.Earlier this week, the United States said to provide $ 25 million in non-lethal aid such as radios and body armor, the rebels of the Libye.Aucun rapid ResolutionU.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday called for "a certain patience" on the outcome of the conflict. She mentioned the fact that the United States and their NATO allies bombed the Serbia for 78 days in 1999, during the Presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton, to cease its attacks on Kosovo. "The air campaign on the Libya begins a little more than a month ago".It is always a temptation in conflict expect to y resolution quickly, "she told journalists after the meeting with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Uri Rosenthal in Washington.Cameron said he discussed"new steps and assets we can take advantage of"against the regime Qathafi talks April 20 with ObamaPremier phone Italian Minister Silvio" Berlusconi and Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani.Those actions, Cameron said, include increasing airstrikes, providing "advice and mentoring" to Libyan opposition and application of sanctions to block further "Qathafi oil money is always get".A ship chartered by the International Organization for migration to evacuate more than 1,000 nationals Misrata foreign for the Eastern port of Benghazi and also transported the body of a Ukrainian physician and two Western photojournalists killed in the city, the group said yesterday.Two photojournalists - Tim Hetherington, an Oscar - appointed producer who produced the film "restrepo", and Chris Hondros, photographer based in New York for Getty Images - were killed by a rocket grenade explosion April 20. Hetherington, 40 and Hondros, 41, had accompanied by rebels to a position on the streets of Tripoli central Misrata when they were captured in an attack.

-With the help of Helene Fouquet in Paris and David Lerman in Washington. Editors: Leslie Hoffecker, Anne Swardson

To contact the reporters on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul to bharvey11@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli of Benghazi at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew j. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

View the original article here

U.S. sends attack Drones on the Libya as fighting enters day 67

April 22, 2011, 4: 13 am EDT by Benjamin Harvey, Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

(Updates with McCain visit to the second paragraph)

April 22 (Bloomberg)--The U.S. sent armed Predator drones on missions in the course of the Libya and European allies sent military advisors to redouble its efforts to help the rebel fighters oust Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi regime without sending soldiers in combat.Senator John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran and the former candidate in the presidential election which has supported the military intervention in Libya, arrived in the rebel-held city of Benghazi to meet veterans, he called the hero, the Associated Press reported today."During this time, France, Italy and the United Kingdom sent military to help with communications and training advisors.""We need to intensify the pressure on all fronts" to run from the sending of ground troops, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday on the BBC Scotland radio. "The troops are prohibited by the resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations authorizing the no-fly zone"."We are not allowed, quite rightly, an invading army or an army of occupation," said Cameron. "This is what the Libyans want not, which is not what we want, is not the world wants."President Barack Obama has approved the use of drones armed with Hellfire missiles, against the forces of the Libyan Government, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in a Pentagon in briefing yesterday. The plane without a pilot, previously used for recognition, providing better visibility of targets. This is important, when Muammar Gaddafi forces are fighting in and around cities, said Marine General James Cartwright, vice President of the pilotless aircraft Joint Chiefs of Staff.Bad WeatherThe were unable to complete missions on their first release yesterday because of bad conditions météorologiquesCartwright said. The predator is closed General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego.The use of predators is a "very limited additional role" in the US, Gates said. "I believe that none of us see as mission creep."There was "no room for maneuver" the rejection of the President to place "boots on the ground" in Libya, he said.The European military advisors, who will total less than 50, be the first armed forces Western official in Libya since the Western intervention began a month ago. The NATO mission, role is a zone of non-overview of the police, to protect civilians and implement an arms embargo on the regime Qathafi. uplift HaltThe of oil to end rule of Qathafi 42 years, which started in mid-February, a of the soil in a military stalemate near the central town of Brega oil port. Fighting halted most of the oil exports of Libya, which has the largest reserves of oil in Africa, as regional instability has sent more than 30 per cent of the price of oil a year. Crude oil for June delivery rose 84 cents to settle at $112.29 US per barrel on the Exchange.Residents New York of the Western City of Misrata rebels held Mercantile, besieged for more than six weeks, suffer daily bombardment by the Qaddafi.Pilotes forces in NATO aircraft have had difficulty identifying Qathafi forces once that they will move to the cities and had to be extra careful to avoid civilian casualties. The predator allows NATO closer to possible targets, to examine the scene and strike with precision.Earlier this week, the United States said to provide $ 25 million in non-lethal aid such as radios and body armor, the rebels of the Libye.Aucun rapid ResolutionU.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday called for "a certain patience" on the outcome of the conflict. She mentioned the fact that the United States and their NATO allies bombed the Serbia for 78 days in 1999, during the Presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton, to cease its attacks on Kosovo. "The air campaign on the Libya begins a little more than a month ago".It is always a temptation in conflict expect to y resolution quickly, "she told journalists after the meeting with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Uri Rosenthal in Washington.Cameron said he discussed"new steps and assets we can take advantage of"against the regime Qathafi talks April 20 with ObamaPremier phone Italian Minister Silvio" Berlusconi and Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani.Those actions, Cameron said, include increasing airstrikes, providing "advice and mentoring" to Libyan opposition and application of sanctions to block further "Qathafi oil money is always get".A ship chartered by the International Organization for migration to evacuate more than 1,000 nationals Misrata foreign for the Eastern port of Benghazi and also transported the body of a Ukrainian physician and two Western photojournalists killed in the city, the group said yesterday.Two photojournalists - Tim Hetherington, an Oscar - appointed producer who produced the film "restrepo", and Chris Hondros, photographer based in New York for Getty Images - were killed by a rocket grenade explosion April 20. Hetherington, 40 and Hondros, 41, had accompanied by rebels to a position on the streets of Tripoli central Misrata when they were captured in an attack.

-With the help of Helene Fouquet in Paris and David Lerman in Washington. Editors: Leslie Hoffecker, Anne Swardson

To contact the reporters on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul to bharvey11@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli of Benghazi at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew j. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

View the original article here

Allies sent military advisers, equipment to reinforce the rebel Libya

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April 20, 2011, 8:31 PM EDT By Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

(See EXTRA and MET for more on Middle East turmoil.)

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and its allies, a month into their air campaign in Libya, are being drawn more deeply into a conflict they expected would quickly topple leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Italy, France and the U.K. said they are sending military advisers and trainers to help Libya’s disorganized and poorly equipped rebels, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for intensifying airstrikes. The U.S. announced yesterday that it would provide $25 million in non-lethal aid from Pentagon stockpiles, including radios, body armor, boots, medicine, and prepared halal meals. Qatar, which has helped the rebels sell oil valued at more than $100 million, is supplying light weapons, Suleiman Fortia, a member of the opposition group, said April 19 in Benghazi.

The uprising, which began Feb. 17, has settled into a military stalemate near the central oil-port city of Brega. Residents in the rebels’ western outpost of Misrata, besieged for more than six weeks, suffer daily shelling by Qaddafi’s forces that a United Nations official said yesterday may constitute war crimes.

Photographers Killed

Two Western photographers covering the fighting in Misrata -- Tim Hetherington, an Oscar-nominated film director and war photographer who produced the film “Restrepo,” and Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images -- were killed yesterday, the Associated Press reported. Two other photographers nearby were wounded.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Western leaders underestimated Qaddafi’s staying power as the Libyan uprising seemed to have the momentum for a quick outcome.

“It has become all too clear that gambling on Qaddafi caving in has created a far more serious humanitarian crisis for the Libyan people than would ever have occurred if the coalition had acted decisively from the start and had directly attacked Qaddafi, his centers of power, and the military forces loyal to him,” he wrote yesterday on the CSIS website.

The U.S. and its allies should have started out directly targeting the regime leadership, including Qaddafi, rather than narrowly trying to protect civilian population centers, he wrote.

“The humanitarian cost of humanitarian restraint is all too clear: Hundreds of Libyan and foreign workers have been killed, thousands injured, thousands more arrested and sometimes tortured, and hundreds of thousands lack jobs, security, and safe conditions of life,” Cordesman wrote.

Oil Fields Damaged

Forces loyal to Qaddafi have shelled and caused damage to three oil fields since the fighting started in mid-February, rebel spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga said yesterday at a press briefing. Crude oil for June delivery climbed $3.30, or 3.05 percent, to settle at $111.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil exports from Libya, which has Africa’s biggest oil reserves, dropped by about 1.3 million barrels a day to a “trickle,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency said last month.

The shelling caused damage to the Messla field, operated by Arabian Gulf Oil Co., oil well 59 in the Waha field operated by Waha Oil Co., and field 103 A/D operated by Zueitina Oil Co, Ghoga said.

Elsewhere in the Region

In other developments in the region, the Syrian cabinet’s backing for a draft decree ending a 48-year-old state of emergency failed to persuade anti-government protesters to end their challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

In Yemen, clashes between pro-government forces and protesters calling for an end to the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh have left at least five people dead since April 19. Saleh, who has refused to yield to demands that he quit, said a power transfer must occur through elections, the state news agency reported.

The ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, wrote in the Washington Times newspaper that Bahrainis’ “legitimate” grievances about civil and political rights had been “hijacked by extremist elements with ties to foreign governments,” threatening the country’s security and “economic viability.”

Libyan opposition forces have failed to take and hold territory along the Mediterranean coast, or to capitalize on air strikes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization says have destroyed more than 30 percent of Qaddafi’s military. Rebels were pushed back this month from Brega under a barrage of artillery fire east to Ajdabiya, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Al Arabiya television reported yesterday that rebels re-entered Brega.

European Advisers

The European advisers, likely to total fewer than 50, will be the first Western military boots on the ground in an outside intervention that has been limited to airpower and sea power to police a no-fly zone, to protect civilians and to enforce an arms embargo on the Qaddafi regime. U.S. President Barack Obama has ruled out sending U.S. ground forces to Libya.

The rebels are open to having additional foreign intervention -- namely UN-designated ground troops -- help protect aid deliveries, Ghoga, spokesman for the Interim National Transitional Council, told reporters in Benghazi.

The UN hopes to get humanitarian aid into Misrata by road, under an agreement earlier this week with the Libyan government, without the need to consider European or NATO military help, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said at a briefing in New York.

Airstrikes’ Limits

The attacks in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, and the rebels’ failure to advance from their eastern positions have forced NATO officials to concede the limits to what airpower alone can accomplish. The UN Security Council’s resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians bars “a foreign occupation force of any kind.”

NATO warplanes flew 62 strike missions April 19, up from 53 the day before, the alliance said in an e-mailed statement. Jets hit three tanks and three rocket-launcher vehicles near Misrata, two ammunition depots near Tripoli and a surface-to-surface missile site near Sirte, the statement said.

Sarkozy, who met yesterday with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the Interim Transitional National Council, said France will “intensify the strikes,” the Associated Press reported, citing a presidential aide.

Additionally, France will send a “very small group” of officers to Libya, government spokesman Francois Baroin said yesterday. Italy plans to send 10 military instructors, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said. About 20 British army members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are being deployed to advise rebels, a U.K. Ministry of Defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Obama and Cameron

Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron discussed increasing diplomatic and economic pressure’’ on Qaddafi’s government in a telephone conversation yesterday, according to a statement issued by the White House.

The U.S. is working with a number of opposition groups, not just the Interim Transitional National Council, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. The U.S. has “some confidence” that the rebels “can work cohesively as a group,” he said. Toner said the aid that the U.S. is providing rebels is “not a blank check; this is goods and services that would be drawn down from U.S. stocks.”

The rebels do need training, Toner acknowledged. “We’re all well aware they’ve had trouble with some of the equipment,” he said. “These are doctors, lawyers, people from civil society who’ve taken up arms to protect their homes.”

‘Step Backwards’

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi said the military presence by foreign powers in Libya would be a “step backwards.” In a BBC interview, he called for a cease-fire along the lines of an African Union plan and a period to establish a dialogue on revamping the Libyan political system.

The rebels will not accept a political deal to remove Qaddafi that would enable him to safely go into exile, Ghoga said. Libyans want him judged for his “crimes,” he said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the government’s use of cluster bombs and heavy weaponry, reported by the New York Times and Human Rights Watch, could amount to war crimes because of the substantial toll on civilians.

“Reportedly, one cluster bomb exploded just a few hundred meters from Misrata hospital, and other reports suggest at least two medical clinics have been hit by mortars or sniper fire,” Pillay said in a statement on the UN group’s website.

‘Substantial’ Numbers

“Since the city is largely cut off,” she said, “it is not known precisely how many civilians have died or been injured during two months of fighting there, but it is clear that the numbers are now substantial, and that the dead include women and children.”

She said that the “pro-government forces besieging the city, including their commanders and all other personnel, should be aware that -- with the International Criminal Court investigating possible crimes -- their orders and actions will be subject to intense scrutiny. Under international law, the deliberate targeting of medical facilities is a war crime, and the deliberate targeting or reckless endangerment of civilians may also amount to serious violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law.”

A vessel carrying 500 tons of food, medical supplies and other equipment was bound for Misrata yesterday and plans to rescue some of the estimated 5,000 migrants from the besieged city, the International Organization for Migration said on its website.

--With assistance from Mark Shenk in New York, Helene Fouquet in Paris, Nicole Gaouette in Washington, Mariam Fam in London and Jeffrey Donovan and Andrew Davis in Rome. Editors: Terry Atlas, Leslie Hoffecker

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli in Dubai at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

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2 famous photojournalists killed in Libya

Two acclaimed photojournalists were killed Wednesday while covering the fighting in Misrata in Libya.

Director appointed to the Oscar and photojournalist Tim Hetherington die during a mortar attack, in the centre of Misrata a rebel-held city in the West of the Libya which was besieged by forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi for weeks.

Tim Hetherington, shown here attend a projection of the city of New York of Restrepo in February, was killed by an attack Wednesday in Misrata in Libya mortar. (Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images)

Photojournalist Chris Hondros, Getty photo agency was seriously wounded in the same attack and later succumbed to his injuries, according to the Director of Photography Getty, Pancho Bernasconi.

Two other photojournalists suffered less serious injuries.

In 2011, Hetherington has been appointed for an Oscar for co-director of Airborne Combat film Restrepo, the history of the 2nd platoon of the company of battle in the 173rd team on its deployment to Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. The title refers to the outpost of platoon, which was named after a popular soldier, Juan Restrepo, who was killed at the beginning of the battle.

The British origin Hetherington was also winner of the World Press Photo of the honour of the year 2007.

A tweet under the name of TimHetherington dated 19 April read: "in the besieged Libyan city Misrata." Blind bombardment by the forces of [Gadhafi]. No sign of NATO. ?

Chris Hondros, Getty photo agency died of his injuries after an attack by the forces of the Libyan Government in Misrata. (ChrisHondros.com)

"Tim was in Libya to continue its ongoing multimedia project to highlight humanitarian issues in time of war and conflict," family of the Hetherington said in a statement. "It will be never regretted."

Hondros is an award-winning war photographer covering many conflicts in Africa and the Middle East for magazines and newspapers around the world. Prize of the American, including World Press Photo top honors and Robert Capa Gold Medal, one of the higher prices in the photography of the war. He was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The four photographers are the latest victims of a situation more desperate in Misrata. Aid groups that the city is facing a serious humanitarian crisis as food and medicine be missed.

A Libyan rebel runs up to an engraving of the stairwell in Misrata on Wednesday. This photo was taken by Chris Hondros, who was killed shortly after sending the image. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

NATO aircraft overflew Misrata Wednesday, but have not carried out air strikes, Associated Press reported.

Rebels control the area of the port of Misrata, while Gaddafi forces are deployed along the streets of Tripoli, a downtown thoroughfare. This street was the site of the mortar attack that struck the journalists.

Misrata was besieged for almost two months, but Gaddafi forces have intensified their assault on the city in the last days. Civilian casualties are indicated to be "serious", according to the UN Human Rights Commissioner.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday to give the Libyan opposition 25 million in aid. This is the first direct us aid to the rebels.

The assistance will be non-lethal, which means step of weapons or ammunition will be involved.

The White House said Congress rebel opposition, led by the National Council of transition from Benghazi, will be offered up to $ 25 million in American surplus property to help protect civilians in rebel areas threatened by the forces of Gaddafi.

The list of products includes elements such as supplies medical, uniforms, boots, tents, personal protection equipment, radios, and meals.

Earlier Wednesday, Italy and France announced that they will join Britain by sending military advisers to help organize the poorly trained opposition forces. France has also pledged to intensify airstrikes on the forces of Gaddafi.

The Associated Back press folders of accessibility links

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Allies sent military advisers, equipment to reinforce the rebel Libya

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April 20, 2011, 8:31 PM EDT By Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

(See EXTRA and MET for more on Middle East turmoil.)

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and its allies, a month into their air campaign in Libya, are being drawn more deeply into a conflict they expected would quickly topple leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Italy, France and the U.K. said they are sending military advisers and trainers to help Libya’s disorganized and poorly equipped rebels, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for intensifying airstrikes. The U.S. announced yesterday that it would provide $25 million in non-lethal aid from Pentagon stockpiles, including radios, body armor, boots, medicine, and prepared halal meals. Qatar, which has helped the rebels sell oil valued at more than $100 million, is supplying light weapons, Suleiman Fortia, a member of the opposition group, said April 19 in Benghazi.

The uprising, which began Feb. 17, has settled into a military stalemate near the central oil-port city of Brega. Residents in the rebels’ western outpost of Misrata, besieged for more than six weeks, suffer daily shelling by Qaddafi’s forces that a United Nations official said yesterday may constitute war crimes.

Photographers Killed

Two Western photographers covering the fighting in Misrata -- Tim Hetherington, an Oscar-nominated film director and war photographer who produced the film “Restrepo,” and Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images -- were killed yesterday, the Associated Press reported. Two other photographers nearby were wounded.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Western leaders underestimated Qaddafi’s staying power as the Libyan uprising seemed to have the momentum for a quick outcome.

“It has become all too clear that gambling on Qaddafi caving in has created a far more serious humanitarian crisis for the Libyan people than would ever have occurred if the coalition had acted decisively from the start and had directly attacked Qaddafi, his centers of power, and the military forces loyal to him,” he wrote yesterday on the CSIS website.

The U.S. and its allies should have started out directly targeting the regime leadership, including Qaddafi, rather than narrowly trying to protect civilian population centers, he wrote.

“The humanitarian cost of humanitarian restraint is all too clear: Hundreds of Libyan and foreign workers have been killed, thousands injured, thousands more arrested and sometimes tortured, and hundreds of thousands lack jobs, security, and safe conditions of life,” Cordesman wrote.

Oil Fields Damaged

Forces loyal to Qaddafi have shelled and caused damage to three oil fields since the fighting started in mid-February, rebel spokesman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga said yesterday at a press briefing. Crude oil for June delivery climbed $3.30, or 3.05 percent, to settle at $111.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil exports from Libya, which has Africa’s biggest oil reserves, dropped by about 1.3 million barrels a day to a “trickle,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency said last month.

The shelling caused damage to the Messla field, operated by Arabian Gulf Oil Co., oil well 59 in the Waha field operated by Waha Oil Co., and field 103 A/D operated by Zueitina Oil Co, Ghoga said.

Elsewhere in the Region

In other developments in the region, the Syrian cabinet’s backing for a draft decree ending a 48-year-old state of emergency failed to persuade anti-government protesters to end their challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

In Yemen, clashes between pro-government forces and protesters calling for an end to the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh have left at least five people dead since April 19. Saleh, who has refused to yield to demands that he quit, said a power transfer must occur through elections, the state news agency reported.

The ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, wrote in the Washington Times newspaper that Bahrainis’ “legitimate” grievances about civil and political rights had been “hijacked by extremist elements with ties to foreign governments,” threatening the country’s security and “economic viability.”

Libyan opposition forces have failed to take and hold territory along the Mediterranean coast, or to capitalize on air strikes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization says have destroyed more than 30 percent of Qaddafi’s military. Rebels were pushed back this month from Brega under a barrage of artillery fire east to Ajdabiya, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Al Arabiya television reported yesterday that rebels re-entered Brega.

European Advisers

The European advisers, likely to total fewer than 50, will be the first Western military boots on the ground in an outside intervention that has been limited to airpower and sea power to police a no-fly zone, to protect civilians and to enforce an arms embargo on the Qaddafi regime. U.S. President Barack Obama has ruled out sending U.S. ground forces to Libya.

The rebels are open to having additional foreign intervention -- namely UN-designated ground troops -- help protect aid deliveries, Ghoga, spokesman for the Interim National Transitional Council, told reporters in Benghazi.

The UN hopes to get humanitarian aid into Misrata by road, under an agreement earlier this week with the Libyan government, without the need to consider European or NATO military help, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said at a briefing in New York.

Airstrikes’ Limits

The attacks in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, and the rebels’ failure to advance from their eastern positions have forced NATO officials to concede the limits to what airpower alone can accomplish. The UN Security Council’s resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians bars “a foreign occupation force of any kind.”

NATO warplanes flew 62 strike missions April 19, up from 53 the day before, the alliance said in an e-mailed statement. Jets hit three tanks and three rocket-launcher vehicles near Misrata, two ammunition depots near Tripoli and a surface-to-surface missile site near Sirte, the statement said.

Sarkozy, who met yesterday with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the Interim Transitional National Council, said France will “intensify the strikes,” the Associated Press reported, citing a presidential aide.

Additionally, France will send a “very small group” of officers to Libya, government spokesman Francois Baroin said yesterday. Italy plans to send 10 military instructors, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said. About 20 British army members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are being deployed to advise rebels, a U.K. Ministry of Defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Obama and Cameron

Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron discussed increasing diplomatic and economic pressure’’ on Qaddafi’s government in a telephone conversation yesterday, according to a statement issued by the White House.

The U.S. is working with a number of opposition groups, not just the Interim Transitional National Council, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. The U.S. has “some confidence” that the rebels “can work cohesively as a group,” he said. Toner said the aid that the U.S. is providing rebels is “not a blank check; this is goods and services that would be drawn down from U.S. stocks.”

The rebels do need training, Toner acknowledged. “We’re all well aware they’ve had trouble with some of the equipment,” he said. “These are doctors, lawyers, people from civil society who’ve taken up arms to protect their homes.”

‘Step Backwards’

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi said the military presence by foreign powers in Libya would be a “step backwards.” In a BBC interview, he called for a cease-fire along the lines of an African Union plan and a period to establish a dialogue on revamping the Libyan political system.

The rebels will not accept a political deal to remove Qaddafi that would enable him to safely go into exile, Ghoga said. Libyans want him judged for his “crimes,” he said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the government’s use of cluster bombs and heavy weaponry, reported by the New York Times and Human Rights Watch, could amount to war crimes because of the substantial toll on civilians.

“Reportedly, one cluster bomb exploded just a few hundred meters from Misrata hospital, and other reports suggest at least two medical clinics have been hit by mortars or sniper fire,” Pillay said in a statement on the UN group’s website.

‘Substantial’ Numbers

“Since the city is largely cut off,” she said, “it is not known precisely how many civilians have died or been injured during two months of fighting there, but it is clear that the numbers are now substantial, and that the dead include women and children.”

She said that the “pro-government forces besieging the city, including their commanders and all other personnel, should be aware that -- with the International Criminal Court investigating possible crimes -- their orders and actions will be subject to intense scrutiny. Under international law, the deliberate targeting of medical facilities is a war crime, and the deliberate targeting or reckless endangerment of civilians may also amount to serious violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law.”

A vessel carrying 500 tons of food, medical supplies and other equipment was bound for Misrata yesterday and plans to rescue some of the estimated 5,000 migrants from the besieged city, the International Organization for Migration said on its website.

--With assistance from Mark Shenk in New York, Helene Fouquet in Paris, Nicole Gaouette in Washington, Mariam Fam in London and Jeffrey Donovan and Andrew Davis in Rome. Editors: Terry Atlas, Leslie Hoffecker

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli in Dubai at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

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Where the Libya oil spent?

By Stanley Reed

For the OMV Austrian petroleum company, the Libya has long been its territory of overseas prices. 33,000 Barrels daily production represents 10% of the production company - until now. With the conflict that raged, stopped oil arising out of the important Shateira area of OMV in the East and other areas. OMV has no idea when he will return. "We have no precise information at all." We have no official contact at all; We are dependent on random contact, "Director General Gerhard Roiss said to journalists on March 31.

Other companies with a large Libyan presence are trying to save their operations on a thin line between the regime and the rebels. ENI (E Italian) has spent years working with the Government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and has supported charities headed by son of Qathafi Saif. Yet, in March, Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said that it does not work with Qathafi: it is in business with the national oil company of the Libya and will continue to negotiate with them that everyone is in charge.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Italian, Franco Frattini, has stated publicly that Eni is also talking to the rebels. "Eni is keen to engage and get early, said Guma El-Gamaty, a Libyan opposition spokesman in London." The Government of the Italy, the country which is the largest market for Libyan gas of Eni, publicly disavowed the Qathafi regime. Although Eni has closed most of the production, continues to provide gas to the capital of Tripoli, perhaps to cover its Paris while Qathafi hangs on.

At this time, prolonged conflict seems likely with power divided between regime weakened Qathafi to Tripoli in the West and eastern rebels. Unlike most foreign companies whose fields are located in the Centre of the country or the East, a large part of the production of Eni is fields in the West, where Qathafi still has power. ENI has built a factory for $ 9 billion of State-of-the-art at Mellitah, on the West coast of Tripoli. It deals with natural gas and pumps under the Mediterranean through the Greenstream pipeline in Italy of, which gets 10 percent of its gas from Libya. The company has paid the Libyan regime 1 billion in 2008 for an extension of 25 years of its contracts, with as 28 billion dollars in additional investment envisaged. ENI "risks angering both not sides no suppression of ma what they do," said Nicolo Sartori, an analyst at Rome IAI Institute of International Affairs.

Most foreign companies are not taking sides. This seems to be particularly true of the United States companies, among them Marathon Oil (MRO), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Hess (HES). These three times operated in common in the Oasis, a joint venture group which agreed to pay the Libyans 1.8 billion in 2005 to retrieve the properties they had left because of the sanctions and political pressure in 1986. Together the three would produce about 90,000 barrels a day of their $ 13 million acres this year. They maintain their plans and their views on the conflict in themselves. In a typical comment, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, which loses about 45,000 barrels per day in production, said, "we are not anyone is available to discuss the Libya.".

The absence of Libyan crude put pressure on refineries around the Mediterranean. He is known as the best gross for the manufacture of gasoline, and only a few crude in Nigeria, Algeria and Angola are suitable substitutes. Libya sells only now the occasional cargo of crude. El-Gamaty, the rebel spokesman, said one was recently sold to the Qatar, which acts as an intermediary.

Since the beginning of the shooting, multinational corporations have been personal shipping non-Libyan production to a handful of slowdown. Shell (RDS).(A), which has been explored in Libya, stolen his people out on a Chartered Airbus Egypt. Schlumberger (SLB), giant oil field services, took more than 300 people, including about 30 employees of other companies, on a fast ferry to Malta. Schlumberger employees at a desert camp were protected by the local community of indeterminate loyalty looters, according to Andrew Gould, CEO of Schlumberger.

David l. Goldwyn, a former Assistant Secretary of energy for International Affairs and a specialist in Libya, tick off a long list of conditions, ranging from the lifting of the sanctions to the restoration of security, which must be met prior to foreign companies to return and begin to produce again. "Currently, the uncertainties are so numerous it is difficult to predict the relaunch of the Jamahiriya production in the short term," says Goldwyn, who leads the global strategies Goldwyn in Washington.

The bottom line: Oil companies face a challenge: to resume production as they try to keep the channels open to the Qathafi and the rebels.

With Zoe Schneeweiss, Alessandra Migliaccio and Maher Chmaytelli. Reed is a reporter-at-large for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek.

View the original article here

Not more Canadian jets to the mission of the Libya: Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruled we had sent more to participate in the NATO mission on the Libya, saying at one such a commitment requires consultation in Parliament.

His comment Friday came that NATO has failed for a second day find new aircraft to attack the ground for the fight against the forces of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya, but Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expected soon additional aircraft.

Harper, speaking Friday on the campaign trail, said Canada performs a "significant contribution" and believes that the leadership of Gaddafi must "end" to fully protect the civilian population.

But Harper reiterated that his Government has been clear that it will not put the troops on the ground in Libya.

Will "of any request for additional participation, we not make this kind of commitments during an election campaign." To make any any additional commitment would require the Parliament of the Canada to be seated and to discuss these issues, "he told reporters in Richmond Hill, have."

Top commander NATO military, U.S. navy Admiral James Stavridis, said there is a growing need for attack aircraft of precision to avoid civilian as casualties Gaddafi forces camouflage themselves and hide in populated areas to avoid the Western air strikes.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the details, said that the Commander is looking for approximately 8 to 10 additional aircraft.

The alliance is struggling to overcome differences over the mission of the Libya, with Britain and the France seek several strikes by other nations of NATO, particularly from United States.

In the United States, said he sees no need to change what he called an important role in the campaign - even if she still fly one-third of missions - and many other NATO countries have developed rules to prevent substitution of Gaddafi force except in self-defence.

Fogh Rasmussen said Friday that Berlin meetings had ended with no specific commitments of the allies for additional aircraft, but he received the "indications that the nations will be what is necessary."

"I hope that we will have the necessary assets, in the very near future," he said.

NATO air strikes began three weeks ago, aimed at protecting Libyan civilians attacks by forces loyal to Qadhafi.

Friday, a letter stating that there can be no peace in Libya as long as Qadhafi remains in power was published by the leaders of in United States, Britain and the France.

The letter appeared in three major newspapers such as the battle for the control of major cities Libyan grinds on with little progress seen by opposition rebels and forces loyal to the dictator.

Said Derek Stoffel CBC journalist, the stronghold of the rebels in Benghazi, which is regarded the letter as good news. Libyan, that he has spoken in recent days many want to see NATO to move simply to protect civilians to help remove them Gaddafi to power.

About 10,000 people rallied after the Friday prayer in Benghazi. They thanked France for his part in the NATO strikes, asked the Americans to do more, and said that they stand in solidarity with the people of Tripoli and Misrata. Tripoli is the capital and a stronghold of the Government, while Misrata was fiercely fought by the two parties.

Neil Macdonald the CBC, also in Libya, tweeted Friday, "the General message people here has for the anti-war left to the Canada and the United States: you have another solution?" Would you like that rather we die? ?

Letter leaders - published in the International Herald Tribune, the Times of London and Le Figaro the France - attempts to show a United front, even as members of NATO as the Germany are openly critical of the mission.

"Our duty and our mandate under 1973 of the UN Security Council resolution United is to protect civilians, and what we do," the US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron British and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in the letter. "It is not step to remove Gaddafi by force." "But it is impossible to imagine a future for the Libya with Gaddafi in power."

Members of the Alliance agreed Thursday that Gaddafi must leave power, but he insisted on the military mission remain focused on its goals declared to apply an arms embargo, for the protection of civilians and to force the withdrawal of the forces of the dictator of citiesthey are entered.

The field Friday, Government unleashed intense shelling on Misrata, pushing forces and troops of tanks on rebel held city. A helicopter circled overhead for several hours, apparently spots targets of artillery in the third largest city of the Libya, despite the no-fly zone applied to NATO. Forces bombarded the city with tanks, artillery and rocket fire.

Gaddafi forces are drawing of cluster munitions on the ground - ground rockets in the residential neighbourhoods of Misrata, according to witnesses cited in a report by the New York Times. Weapons cannot be targeted precisely and put civilians in danger.

It is the heaviest assault in the seat of aged 50 days of Misrata.

Meanwhile, NATO planes hit hometown of Sirte Qaddafi in the East, said the Libyan TV. Explosions were heard also of what appeared to be that NATO strikes against the forces of the Gadhafi near the coastal town of Brega.

In Tripoli, reported increased security measures in the apparent attempt to prevent anti-Government protests.

The Associated Back press folders of accessibility links

View the original article here

Where the Libya oil spent?

By Stanley Reed

For the OMV Austrian petroleum company, the Libya has long been its territory of overseas prices. 33,000 Barrels daily production represents 10% of the production company - until now. With the conflict that raged, stopped oil arising out of the important Shateira area of OMV in the East and other areas. OMV has no idea when he will return. "We have no precise information at all." We have no official contact at all; We are dependent on random contact, "Director General Gerhard Roiss said to journalists on March 31.

Other companies with a large Libyan presence are trying to save their operations on a thin line between the regime and the rebels. ENI e Italian Government spent Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and submitted Yet, in March, Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said that it does not work with Qathafi: it is in business with the national oil company of the Libya and will continue to negotiate with them that everyone is in charge.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Italian, Franco Frattini, has stated publicly that Eni is also talking to the rebels. "Eni is keen to engage and get early, said Guma El-Gamaty, a Libyan opposition spokesman in London." The Government of the Italy, the country which is the largest market for Libyan gas of Eni, publicly disavowed the Qathafi regime. Although Eni has closed most of the production, continues to provide gas to the capital of Tripoli, perhaps to cover its Paris while Qathafi hangs on.

At this time, prolonged conflict seems likely with power divided between regime weakened Qathafi to Tripoli in the West and eastern rebels. Unlike most foreign companies whose fields are located in the Centre of the country or the East, a large part of the production of Eni is fields in the West, where Qathafi still has power. ENI has built a factory for $ 9 billion of State-of-the-art at Mellitah, on the West coast of Tripoli. It deals with natural gas and pumps under the Mediterranean through the Greenstream pipeline in Italy of, which gets 10 percent of its gas from Libya. The company has paid the Libyan regime 1 billion in 2008 for an extension of 25 years of its contracts, with as 28 billion dollars in additional investment envisaged. ENI "risks angering both not sides no suppression of ma what they do," said Nicolo Sartori, an analyst at Rome IAI Institute of International Affairs.

Most foreign companies are not taking sides. This seems to be particularly true of the United States companies, among them Marathon Oil (MRO), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Hess (HES). These three times operated in common in the Oasis, a joint venture group which agreed to pay the Libyans 1.8 billion in 2005 to retrieve the properties they had left because of the sanctions and political pressure in 1986. Together the three would produce about 90,000 barrels a day of their $ 13 million acres this year. They maintain their plans and their views on the conflict in themselves. In a typical comment, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, which loses about 45,000 barrels per day in production, said, "we are not anyone is available to discuss the Libya.".

The absence of Libyan crude put pressure on refineries around the Mediterranean. He is known as the best gross for the manufacture of gasoline, and only a few crude in Nigeria, Algeria and Angola are suitable substitutes. Libya sells only now the occasional cargo of crude. El-Gamaty, the rebel spokesman, said one was recently sold to the Qatar, which acts as an intermediary.

Since the beginning of the shooting, multinational corporations have been personal shipping non-Libyan production to a handful of slowdown. Shell (RDS).(A), which has been explored in Libya, stolen his people out on a Chartered Airbus Egypt. Schlumberger (SLB), giant oil field services, took more than 300 people, including about 30 employees of other companies, on a fast ferry to Malta. Schlumberger employees at a desert camp were protected by the local community of indeterminate loyalty looters, according to Andrew Gould, CEO of Schlumberger.

David l. Goldwyn, a former Assistant Secretary of energy for International Affairs and a specialist in Libya, tick off a long list of conditions, ranging from the lifting of the sanctions to the restoration of security, which must be met prior to foreign companies to return and begin to produce again. "Currently, the uncertainties are so numerous it is difficult to predict the relaunch of the Jamahiriya production in the short term," says Goldwyn, who leads the global strategies Goldwyn in Washington.

The bottom line: Oil companies face a challenge: to resume production as they try to keep the channels open to the Qathafi and the rebels.

With Zoe Schneeweiss, Alessandra Migliaccio and Maher Chmaytelli. Reed is a reporter-at-large for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek.

View the original article here

Refugees head for Europe from Tunisia and Libya - Telegraph.co.uk

  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi speaks upon his arrival in the Italian island of Lampedusa?Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Most of the 18,000 migrants who have landed on Lampedusa since the beginning of the year are Tunisian, but Italy fears a far bigger exodus if the situation in Libya deteriorates further.

An Italian assault ship and five ferries will remove the migrants from the island, a speck of land which lies closer to Tunisia than Italy, within the next two days.

They will be taken to tented camps and converted barracks on the Italian mainland but it is expected that most will escape and head for other countries, including France.

Migrants who were transferred to the camps in the past few days were filmed and photographed vaulting wire fences, evading security guards.

Italy faced a diplomatic confrontation with France after an estimated 3,500 Tunisians, most of whom had arrived in Europe via Lampedusa and then escaped from detention centres in recent weeks, massed at the Franco-Italian border yesterday, demanding to be allowed in.

Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, accused Paris of showing "a grave lack of solidarity" in refusing to permit the Tunisians to enter French territory from the border town of Ventimiglia.

Just this week, a group of Eritreans, Somalis and Ethiopians who had been living and working in Libya reached the wind-swept island, which in summer is a popular holiday destination for Italians.

Ministers have warned of a "biblical exodus", saying Italy cannot handle the crisis alone and calling for urgent EU assistance.

"These are not just economic migrants and we continue to ask Europe to take action," Mr Frattini said, adding that promises for "very limited European funds" were not enough.

But the EU said it had already done a great deal to help. "We have made around 18 million euros (25 million dollars) available to Italy in 2010-2011 for repatriations, on top of 25 million euros allocated to all member states for emergency measures," a spokesman said.

Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, visited Lampedusa yesterday for the first time since the immigration crisis started in January, vowing that Italian ships would evacuate the migrants "within 48 to 60 hours".

He was cheered by islanders, who were initially welcoming and sympathetic but have grown increasingly hostile to the North African arrivals.

Mr Berlusconi joked that he would propose Lampedusa as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Peace.

He also said he had bought on the internet a villa on Lampedusa in order to show solidarity with its 5,500 inhabitants and boost the island's flagging tourism sector.

"I asked myself how to assure the people of Lampedusa that all the promises that I've made will be kept. And I thought to myself, OK, I need to become an islander too. Last night I went on the internet and I found a villa, called Two Palms, and I bought it."

The immigrants are mainly young men, many of whom have been sleeping in the open air on the dock for days, cooped up in pens marked with ropes or dustbins.

"I left Tunisia because I didn't have any work. I don't know what will happen today and I'm afraid, very afraid. No one knows anything and they are not telling us anything," Bechir, a 21-year old Tunisian, said. "I just want to join my family in France." With only three chemical lavatories, little access to water for washing and growing tensions between locals and immigrants, aid organisations and charities have denounced the government for poor management of the crisis.

"It's not possible in the long term to leave 5,000 inhabitants living alongside 6,000 immigrants in such conditions," Laura Boldrini from the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR said.