AU inajaribu kupatanisha Libya
Ujumbe wa Umoja wa Afrika, AU, unawasili Libya leo kujaribu kusitisha vita huku mapigano yanaendelea nchini.
Ma-rais wa Afrika Kusini, Mauritania, Mali na Congo wanakwenda Tripoli ambako wanatarajiwa kukutana na kiongozi wa Libya, Colonel Gaddafi.
Tena watakwenda Benghazi kuzungumza na waakilishi wa vuguvugu la wapiganaji.
Ujumbe huo wa AU umetoa wito kuwa uhasama umalizwe haraka, na umependekeza kipindi cha mpito ambapo mabadiliko ya kisiasa yanaweza kutekelezwa nchini Libya.
Msemaji wa wapiganaji alisema mapendekezo yoyote yale ni lazima yamtake Kanali Gaddafi na watoto wake kuondoka madarakani.
KUMBUKUMBU YA AU KWA KUMUAMINI GHADAFFI
Viongozi wa AU waupa nguvu umoja huo
Kiongozi wa Libya, Muammar Ghaddafi, ambaye ndiye mwenyekiti wa Umoja wa Afrika (AU), akiwa mbele ya bendera za nchi wanachama wa AU.Viongozi wakuu wa AU, wameidhinisha mpango wa kuimarisha zaidi mamlaka ya umoja huo na kuratibu sera za ulinzi na biashara
Mwenyekiti wa mkutano huo, Muammar Ghaddafi, kiongozi wa Libya, amekuwa akiutaka umoja huo kuwa jumuia moja kama ulivyo Umoja wa Ulaya na kushinikiza kupitishwa kwa mipango kadhaa iliyokuwa katika ajenda kuu za mkutano huo.
Waziri wa Mambo ya Nje wa Benin, Jean-Marie Ehouzou, amewaambia waandishi habari kuwa waraka huo unaoipa bodi ya umoja huo mamlaka zaidi umepitishwa baada ya majadiliano ya muda mrefu. Amesema kwa pamoja wamekubaliana kuratibu masuala ya kigeni na ulinzi.
Amesema waraka huo ulitakiwa kuridhiwa na mabunge ya nchi wanachama kabla ya kuidhinishwa. Amebainisha kuwa mataifa ya Afrika yako tayari kutoa japo kidogo rasilimali zake kwa ajili ya faida ya umoja huo.
Kwa mujibu wa waraka huo, Umoja wa Afrika (AU) utaratibu nafasi za nchi wanachama wakati wa majadiliano ya kimataifa, kutekeleza sera ya pamoja ya Afrika ya ulinzi na usalama pamoja na kuhamasisha uwepo wa mikakati ya maliasili muhimu kwa ulinzi wa bara la Afrika.
Umoja huo ulioanzishwa mwaka 1999 katika mji wa Sirte, Libya, ukiwa na wanachama 53, ulikuwa na lengo la kupiga vita umasikini na udhaifu kwa kuondoa vikwazo vya kibiashara na kuruhusu mataifa ya Afrika kuzungumza lugha moja.
Umoja huo pia unajadili maazimio ya kisiasa na kuangalia vikosi vyake vya kulinda amani vilivyopo nchini Somalia na katika jimbo la Darfur, Sudan.
Hadi sasa umoja huo unakabiliwa na matatizo kadhaa yakiwemo ushuru wa forodha, vizuizi vya mipaka na miundombinu mibovu ya usafiri inayosababisha mataifa ya Afrika kutosonga mbele katika sekta ya biashara.
Mataifa mengi ya Afrika yanaunga mkono kuwa na uchumi wa aina moja, lakini baadhi ya mataifa yana wasiwasi juu ya jukumu la kisiasa iliyopewa Umoja wa Afrika, kwa sababu hakuna nchi yoyote iliyo tayari kupoteza madaraka katika sera za kigeni na ulinzi.
Mwanadiplomasia mmoja anayehudhuria mkutano huo unaomalizika hii leo, amesema anautilia shaka waraka huo kutokana na kutotambua hasa mamlaka mapya ya umoja huo.
Kwa mujibu wa mwanadiplomasia huyo, bodi hiyo ya Umoja wa Afrika itaratibu masuala muhimu ya umoja huo, lakini haitakuwa na mamlaka ya kufanya maamuzi bila kuzishirikisha nchi wanachama.
Mwezi Februari mwaka huu, viongozi wa nchi 53 za Umoja wa Afrika walikubaliana kuunda mamlaka ya AU, kutoka Kamisheni ya AU, lakini Ghaddafi alishinikiza iundwe bodi itakayotazama namna ya kuunganisha ulinzi, biashara na uhusiano wa kigeni.
Vyama vya upinzani vinang'ara Nigeria
Ishara za awali kutoka uchaguzi wa wabunge wa Nigeria, zinaonesha kuwa chama tawala cha PDP kimepoteza viti kadha katika maeneo ambako kilikuwa na nguvu.
Huku kura zinahesabiwa, vyama vipya vya Congress for Progressive Change, na Action Congress of Nigeria, vimepata kura.
Wakati wa upigaji kura Jumamosi, kulizuka ghasia, ambapo mabomu mawili yaliripuka kwenye vituo vya kupigia kura katika jimbo la Borno, kaskazini mashariki mwa nchi, ambako piya mawanasiasa mmoja wa huko alipigwa risasi na kuuwawa.
Matokeo yote ya uchaguzi yanatarajiwa kuwa tayari saa 48 baada ya upigaji kura.
Kura ya maoni ya Iceland
Matokeo ya kura ya maoni ya Iceland yanaonesha watu wamekataa (kwa asili mia 60) pendekezo la kuzilipa serikali za Uingereza na Uholanzi, dola bilioni tano, zilizopotea wakati benki moja ya Iceland ilipofilisika.
Uholanzi na Ungereza zinasema, zimevunjika moyo na matokeo hayo.
Kura hiyo ya maoni ikionekana ni hatua muhimu ya kuibua tena nchi baada ya pigo la kuporomoka kwa uchumi mwaka 2008.
Mabenki matatu ya Iceland yalifilisika kwa uzito wa madeni, mojawapo ni Landsbanki, ambayo ilipoteza dola bilioni tano za Wangereza na Waholanzi walioweka akiba zao humo, wakivutiwa na kiwango kikubwa cha riba cha benki hiyo.
Serikali zao ziliwalipa, nazo serikali zikitaraji serikali ya Iceland hatimaye itawalipa fidia.
Sasa raia wa Iceland wamelikataa pendekezo hilo katika kura ya maoni.
Wamekerwa kuwa wao walipe deni linalotokana na makosa ya maafisa wa mabenki wazembe.
Hii ni mara ya pili kulikataa pendekezo hilo.
Sasa swala hilo la fidia itabidi lipelekwe mbele ya mahakama.
Waliohudhuria maziko wameuwawa Syria
Mashirika ya kupigania haki za kibinaadamu ya Syria yanasema askari wa usalama mjini Deraa, kusini mwa nchi, wameuwa watu 26 waliokuwa kwenye maziko ya waandamanaji waliouwawa katika mapambano mengine.
Mashirika hayo yanasema askari walitumia nguvu zisizostahiki, walipovunja maandamano ya amani.
Wakuu wa Syria hawakusema kitu.
Mazishi yamefanywa ya watu karibu 30 waliouwawa katika ghasia za karibuni katika mji wa Deraa na vitongoje vyake.
Hatimaye uchaguzi waanza Nigeria
Uchaguzi wa wabunge umeanza nchini Nigeria, huku ukizongwa na mashambulio na ucheleweshwaji mkubwa.
Nigeria
Upigaji kura uliahirishwa Jumamosi iliyopita baada ya vifaa vya uchaguzi kuchelewa kuwasili katika maeneo mengi.
Kuna ulinzi mkali katika miji mingi kufuatia ghasia za hapa na pale wakati wa kampeni, na pia kutokana na shambulio la bomu katika mji wa Suleja siku ya Ijumaa.
Takriban watu milioni 70 wamejiandikisha kupiga kura, huku chama cha PDP cha Goodluck Jonathan kikipigania kuendeleza wingi wa viti.
Mwandishi wa BBC Caroline Duffield mjini Lagos anasema ulinzi ni mkali nchini kote, huku miji mingi ikisalia kuwa mitupu, mipaka imefungwa na ndege zimeacha kupaa.
Shughuli ya uchaguzi ilianza saa mbili asubuhi siku ya Jumamosi kwa kuandikisha wapiga kura ili kuepuka ukiukwaji wa kanuni. Upigaji kura ulianza mchana. Hali ya awali imeonesha kwamba licha ya kuwa baadhi ya maafisa walichelewa kufika kwenye vituo, utaratibu ulikuwa nafuu zaidi kuliko wiki iliyopita.
Israel na Hamas kusitisha mashambulio
Israel na kikundi cha Wapalestina cha Hamas, wanasema wako tayari kusitisha mashambulio ikiwa na upande wa pili utafanya vivyo.
Waziri wa Ulinzi wa Israel, Ehud Barak, alisema nchi yake iko tayari kukubali mapigano kusita endapo wapiganaji wa Gaza watamaliza mashambulio.
Jeshi la Gbagbo Bado Limevinjari
Mkuu wa kikosi cha amani cha Umoja wa Mataifa,Alain Leroy akizungumza kutoka makao makuu mjini New York,
amesema majeshi ya Laurant Gbagbo yamesonga mbele, na yanadhibiti kabisa mitaa ya Cocody, kati-kati ya Abidjan.
Mwandishi wa BBC, Mark Doyle, yuko Cocody na anasema mapigano makali yanaendelea huko, ambayo yanaonesha, pengine hakuna upande unaodhibiti eneo hilo kikamilifu.
Mwandishi huyo wa BBC anasema mapigano yanaendelea karibu na hapo alipo, ambapo ni kama kilomita moja au mbili kutoka nyumba ya Laurent Ghabgbo, kiongozi wa sasa wa Ivory Coast, ambaye anakataa kuondoka madarakani.
Anasema ni wazi kuwa mapambano yanaendelea, na wanajeshi wa Ufaransa wako kati ya mapigano hayo.
Na Shirika la Kupigania haki za Kibinaadamu, Human Rights Watch, limewashutumu wafuasi wa ma-rais wawili wa Ivory Coast wanaozozana, kwamba wamekiuka haki za kibinaadamu.
Linasema, wapiganaji wa Alassane Ouattara wameuwa mamia ya raia, na kuwanajisi wafuasi wengi wa Laurent Gbagbo.
Piya shirika hilo linasema, majeshi ya Bwana Ouattara yalichoma moto vijiji kama kumi katika eneo la magharibi.
Wakati huo-huo, Human Rights Watch inaeleza kuwa wanajeshi wa Laurent Gbagbo wamewauwa wapinzaani wao mia moja, kaskazini mwa Ivory Coast.
Shirika hilo limetoa wito kwa Bwana Ouattara kufanya uchunguzi unaoaminika na ulio huru, juu ya tuhuma hizo
Mauaji Uholanzi
Mtu aliyekuwa na bunduki alifyatua risasi kati ya umati wa watu kwenye eneo la maduka nchini Uholanzi, na kuuwa watu wasiopungua 6, akiwamo yeye mwenyewe.
Meya wa kitongoje cha Alphen aan den Rijn, karibu na Amsterdam, Bas Eenhoorn,
alisema wateja wane walijeruhiwa vibaya, na wengine saba waliumia kidogo, katika kile alichoeleza kuwa machinjo.
Meya huyo alisema mshambuliaji alitumia bunduki ya rashasha na kisha akajipiga risasi mwenyewe.
Wakuu wanasema inaelekea kuwa mtu huyo hakuwa na mshirika.
Haijulikani sababu ya kufanya hayo.
Mahakama yanataka Musharraf akamatwe
Mahakama ya Pakistan, inayohusika na kupambana na ugaidi, imeiamrisha serikali kufuatilia hatua za kumkamata rais wa zamani, Pervez Musharraf.
Maafisa wa mashtaka wanamshutumu Bwana Musharraf kuwa hakumpa ulinzi wa kutosha kiongozi wa kisiasa, Benazir Bhutto, alipouwawa zaidi ya miaka mitatu iliyopita.
Mahakama hiyo maalumu ilitoa waranti mwezi wa Februari, kuidhinisha Bwana Musharraf kukamatwa.
Kiongozi huyo wa zamani wa Pakistan anaishi London, na haijulikani msimamo wa Uingereza utakuwaje.
Hakuna makubaliano ya kurejesheana wahalifu au washtakiwa.
Arsenal yauzwa
Mfanyabiashara wa Marekani Stan Kroenke ameongeza hisa zake katika klabu ya Arsenal na kufikia asilimia 62.89, na pia kukubali kutaka kununua hisa zote zilizosalia za klabu hiyo.
Hamu ya kununua hisa zote ilikuja baada ya kampuni ya Kroenke (KSE)
kununua hisa za Danny Fiszman
asilimia 16.1 na za Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith asilimia 15.9.
Makubaliano yamefikiwa pia na kununua mtaji wa hisa uliosalia, huku Arsenal ikikadiriwa kuwa na thamani ya Pauni milioni 731.
Kroenke alinunua asilimia 9.9 za hisa za Arsenal kwa mara ya kwanza mwaka 2007.
"Tumefurahia nafasi hii na kujihusisha zaidi na kuonesha nia na Arsenal," amesema Kroenke mwenye umri wa miaka 63, ambaye kampuni yake pia inamiliki timu ya mpira wa kikapu ya Denver Nuggets inayocheza ligi ya NBA, na pia timu ya Colorado Avalance ya ligi ya NHL, na St Louis Rams ya ligi ya NFL, na Colorado Rapids inayocheza ligi kuu ya soka Marekani.
Hisa nyingi zilizosalia ambazo Kroenke huenda akazinunua zinamilikiwa na bilionea wa Urusi Alisher Usmanov.
New Woodward Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.
The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.
As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq.
The book, bought by a reporter for The New York Times at retail price in advance of its official release, is the third that Mr. Woodward has written chronicling the inner debates in the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq. Like Mr. Woodward’s previous works, the book includes lengthy verbatim quotations from conversations and describes what senior officials are thinking at various times, without identifying the sources for the information.
Mr. Woodward writes that his book is based on “interviews with President Bush’s national security team, their deputies, and other senior and key players in the administration responsible for the military, the diplomacy, and the intelligence on Iraq.” Some of those interviewed, including Mr. Rumsfeld, are identified by name, but neither Mr. Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to be interviewed, the book says.
Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed.
It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response.
The book describes a deep fissure between Colin L. Powell, Mr. Bush’s first secretary of state, and Mr. Rumsfeld: When Mr. Powell was eased out after the 2004 elections, he told Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, that “if I go, Don should go,” referring to Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mr. Card then made a concerted effort to oust Mr. Rumsfeld at the end of 2005, according to the book, but was overruled by President Bush, who feared that it would disrupt the coming Iraqi elections and operations at the Pentagon.
Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds.
Two members of Mr. Bush’s inner circle, Mr. Powell and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, are described as ambivalent about the decision to invade Iraq. When Mr. Powell assented, reluctantly, in January 2003, Mr. Bush told him in an Oval Office meeting that it was “time to put your war uniform on,” a reference to his many years in the Army.
Mr. Tenet, the man who once told Mr. Bush that it was a “slam-dunk” that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq, apparently did not share his qualms about invading Iraq directly with Mr. Bush, according to Mr. Woodward’s account.
Mr. Woodward’s first two books about the Bush administration, “Bush at War” and “Plan of Attack,” portrayed a president firmly in command and a loyal, well-run team responding to a surprise attack and the retaliation that followed. As its title indicates, “State of Denial” follows a very different storyline, of an administration that seemed to have only a foggy notion that early military success in Iraq had given way to resentment of the occupiers.
The 537-page book describes tensions among senior officials from the very beginning of the administration. Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.
On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.
In the weeks before the Iraq war began, President Bush’s parents did not share his confidence that the invasion of Iraq was the right step, the book recounts. Mr. Woodward writes about a private exchange in January 2003 between Mr. Bush’s mother, Barbara Bush, the former first lady, and David L. Boren, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a Bush family friend.
The book says Mrs. Bush asked Mr. Boren whether it was right to be worried about a possible invasion of Iraq, and then to have confided that the president’s father, former President George H. W. Bush, “is certainly worried and is losing sleep over it; he’s up at night worried.”
The book describes an exchange in early 2003 between Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the retired officer Mr. Bush appointed to administer postwar Iraq, and President Bush and others in the White House situation room. It describes senior war planners as having been thoroughly uninterested in the details of the postwar mission.
After General Garner finished his PowerPoint presentation — which included his plan to use up to 300,000 troops of the Iraqi Army to help secure postwar Iraq, the book says — there were no questions from anyone in the situation room, and the president gave him a rousing sendoff.
But it was General Garner who was soon removed, in favor of Mr. Bremer, whose actions in dismantling the Iraqi army and removing Baathists from office were eventually disparaged within the government.
The book suggests that senior intelligence officials were caught off guard in the opening days of the war when Iraqi civilian fighters engaged in suicide attacks against armored American forces, the first hint of the deadly insurgent attacks to come.
In a meeting with Mr. Tenet of the Central Intelligence Agency, several Pentagon officials talked about the attacks, the book says. It says that Mr. Tenet acknowledged that he did not know what to make of them.
Mr. Rumsfeld reached into political matters at the periphery of his responsibilities, according to the book. At one point, Mr. Bush traveled to Ohio, where the Abrams battle tank was manufactured. Mr. Rumsfeld phoned Mr. Card to complain that Mr. Bush should not have made the visit because Mr. Rumsfeld thought the heavy tank was incompatible with his vision of a light and fast military of the future. Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Card believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was “out of control.”
The fruitless search for unconventional weapons caused tension between Vice President Cheney’s office, the C.I.A. and officials in Iraq. Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Kay, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq, e-mailed top C.I.A. officials directly in the summer of 2003 with his most important early findings.
At one point, when Mr. Kay warned that it was possible the Iraqis might have had the capability to make such weapons but did not actually produce them, waiting instead until they were needed, the book says he was told by John McLaughlin, the C.I.A.’s deputy director: “Don’t tell anyone this. This could be upsetting. Be very careful. We can’t let this out until we’re sure.”
Mr. Cheney was involved in the details of the hunt for illicit weapons, the book says. One night, Mr. Woodward wrote, Mr. Kay was awakened at 3 a.m. by an aide who told him Mr. Cheney’s office was on the phone. It says Mr. Kay was told that Mr. Cheney wanted to make sure he had read a highly classified communications intercept picked up from Syria indicating a possible location for chemical weapons.
Mr. Woodward and a colleague, Carl Bernstein, led The Post’s reporting during Watergate, and Mr. Woodward has since written a string of best sellers about Washington. More recently, the identity of Mr. Woodward’s Watergate source known as Deep Throat was disclosed as having been W. Mark Felt, a senior F.B.I. official.
In late 2005, Mr. Woodward was subpoenaed by the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case. He also apologized to The Post’s executive editor for concealing for more than two years that he had been drawn into the scandal.
Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston contributed reporting from Washington, and Julie Bosman from New York.
Correction: Sept. 30, 2006
A front-page article yesterday about a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, which describes divisions in the Bush administration over the Iraq war, gave an incorrect title in some copies for Donald H. Rumsfeld. He is the secretary of defense, not state
Chavez calls Bush 'The Devil'
United Nations.– Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said that President Bush is "the Devil" during his address to the United Nations in New York.
Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has long been a thorn in the side of US policy. Speaking a day after the American leader addressed the UN's General Assembly, Chavez said: "The devil came here yesterday. He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world."
Chavez noted that Mr Bush had addressed the people of countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iran, praising democracy and inisisting that the USA was not "at war" with Islam.
But the Venezuelan leader said that if the people of those countries could talk back, they would say: "Yankee, Go Home!"
Repeating Venezuela's previous demand for reform of the UN Security Council, Chavez said that the "immoral" Security Council veto by the US had allowed Israel to destroy Lebanon
AJDABIYA, Libya — A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart Moammar Gadhafi accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire with rebels
AJDABIYA, Libya — A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart Moammar Gadhafi accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire with rebels, whom they will meet with Monday. They met hours after NATO airstrikes battered Gadhafi's tanks, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops that had been advancing quickly toward the opposition's eastern stronghold.
The terms of the African Union's road map were unclear -- such as whether it would require Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.
"We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader's delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us," said South African President Jacob Zuma. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gadhafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.
"We will be proceeding tomorrow to meet the other party to talk to everybody and present a political solution," Zuma said. He called on NATO to end airstrikes to "give the cease-fire a chance."
Gadhafi has ignored the cease-fire he announced after international airstrikes were authorized last month, and he rejects demands from the rebels, the U.S. and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.
Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth. So it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker.
Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya's nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.
An official from the African bloc, Khellaf Brahan, said previously that its proposals call for an immediate cease-fire, opening channels for humanitarian aid and talks between the rebels and the government.
Through the rebels have improved discipline and organization, they remain a far less powerful force than Gadhafi's troops. Members of the international community have grown doubtful that the opposition can overthrow Gadhafi even with air support, and some are weighing options such as arming the fighters even while attempting diplomatic solutions.
Rebels: NATO airstrikes stop shelling
A rebel battlefield commander said four airstrikes Sunday largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya -- a critical gateway to the opposition's de facto capital of Benghazi. NATO's leader of the operation said the airstrikes destroyed 11 tanks near Ajdabiya and another 14 near Misrata, the only city rebels still hold in the western half of Libya.
Rebel fighter Sami Kabdi said the young man had been firing out a window of a school. When rebels told him to surrender, he put the muzzle of his AK-47 under his chin and fired, Kabdi and Rafathi said.
Rebels had been growing critical of NATO, which accidentally hit opposition fighters in deadly airstrikes twice this month. They have complained that the alliance was too slow and imprecise, but Hassy, the rebel commander, said it is getting better.
"To tell you the truth, at first NATO was paralyzed but now they have better movement and are improving," he said.
The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, stressed in a NATO statement that the point of the airstrikes was to protect civilians, not to work hand-in-hand with the rebels.
"The situation in Ajdabiya, and Misrata in particular, is desperate for those Libyans who are being brutally shelled by the regime. To help protect these civilians we continued to strike these forces hard," Bouchard said.
NATO noted that it is enforcing the no-fly zone on both sides, having intercepted a rebel MiG-23 fighter jet that it
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