Libya

Few can be in any doubt that British and French airstrikes in particular have done their utmost to expedite Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's passage to the hereafter.

Turkey cut its diplomatic ties with Muammar Gadhafi's Libyan government and recalled its ambassador, the Turkish Official Gazette reported over the weekend.

Libya is involved in direct and indirect talks with rebels trying to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's daughter said, although the Benghazi-based opposition maintain they have ruled out further contact with Tripoli.

After years of repression, intimidation and exploitation, regimes in the Middle East and North Africa became aware they risked being forced out by the people they oppressed.

Just a day after its limited release, China swiftly decided to block Google+, highlighting once again the country's strict censorship practices.

France provided weapons, munitions and food to Libyan rebels in the Western Mountains in early June to prevent troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from overrunning the region, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

Brooks Newmark, the Conservative MP for Braintree and a government whip, held talks on Monday with the controversial Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, whose brutal repression of protests has been condemned by the UK. As the press and activists were outraged by the MP's meeting with Assad, the Foreign Office has insisted that Newmark's trip does not have government backing.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Colonel Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi for crimes against humanity. The court says there is evidences he ordered attacks on civilians during the recent uprising, in which more than 20,000 Libyans are thought to have died so far.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has today issued an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi over crimes against humanity committed against opponents of his regime.

An investigation by Amnesty International has failed to find evidence for these human rights violations and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.

A spokesman says the opposition insists that the strongman cannot be involved in any future government, but it may allow him to live out his last years in Libya at an isolated location.

Last month, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization declared it would extend the campaign for 90 days, it became clear that an important part of NATO's strategy is based on the hope that Colonel Gaddafi will see the error of his ways and capitulate before his surroundings and his supporters are worn down by the bombings and turn against him.

As Nato insisted there would be no let-up in its air war despite Italian calls for a cessation, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, said he did not fear death and defiantly vowed to fight "to the beyond,""We will resist and the battle will continue to the beyond, until you're wiped out. But we will not be finished," Gaddafi said in an audio message broadcast on Libyan television late on Wednesday.

Nato warplanes resumed daytime strikes on targets in the Libyan capital Wednesday despite alliance member Italy calling for the "immediate suspension" of hostilities in the North African nation.

Two years after Neda Agha-Soltan was killed governments in the Middle East are still using brutality, lies and live ammunition to suppress street protests.

Over the last month the Nato-led operation in Libya has been attacked from all parts. While the rebel fighters have reproached the Alliance lack of support on the ground coupled with weak organizational and operational skills and abilities, political figures have also come out and directly attacked the organisation.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan said publicly for the first time on Saturday that the United States and the Nato-led coalition have been actively negotiating with the Taliban, an assertion that was yesterday confirmed by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to make his third major speech since protests against his government began in mid-March, the state news agency SANA reported.

Nato has admitted "a weapons systems failure" may have led to civilian casualties in Sunday morning's air strike in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

The Mavi Marmara, the Turkish aid ship that clashed with Israeli soldiers on the way to Gaza last year triggering a diplomatic storm, has pulled out of a repeat voyage later this month, the Turkish charity that owns the ship said Friday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday pressed all African states to demand the Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi step down and take tougher action against his regime.

In the latest development of the conflict in Libya, it has been reported that rebels pushed deeper into government-held territory south of the capital on Wednesday. Their advance came as good news for the Alliance who suffered a series of political and diplomatic setbacks last week when both the US Defence secretary and the UK Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope attacked its military capabilities and operational skills.

Three months into an airstrikes campaign that has mainly targeted Gaddafi's stronghold, Tripoli, and it seems that the military operation has started to take its toll on Nato and its members countries. .

The coalition has placed the United Kingdom on a road to austerity. The vaccination debate is sensitive. Primarily the government's first priority should be to keep their people safe and healthy. With defence and health care cuts can they really justify spending extra on international aid? The government may be heading down a thoroughly noble path but is the timing all wrong?

The Russian head of the World Chess Federation said on Tuesday that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is open to talks with NATO and the country's rebels.

Despite efforts from the Italian government to delay the referendum, the results of the vote that was held on 12-13 June constituted yet another major setback for Silvio Berlusconi's regime , proving that the Italian people are more than fed up with their leader.

The head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, has warned that the UK fleet will not be able to continue the current scale of operations around Libya beyond the summer unless ministers take tough decisions about what they want to prioritise.

Could the situation in Libya become any more complicated? The conflict which opposes Col Gaddafi to the rebel fighters and Nato is now threatening to turn into a real legal quagmire as all parties are accused to trespassing the law in a way or another

According to the BBC, Libyan rebels are now smuggling weapons through Tunisia to fight Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces in western Libya.

Just as leaders from Nato members countries maintain that following the operation in Libya, Gaddafi's days in power are numbered, and as Nato officials this week insisted the operation was a success, US defence secretary, Robert Gates, today delivered a blistering attack on European defence complacency, declaring that organisation has "become a "two-tiered" alliance of those willing to wage war and those only interested in "talking" and peacekeeping".