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Five of Gaddafi's generals are among latest defectors to rebels as South African president seeks to broker ceasefire
Armed westerners have been filmed on the front line with rebels near Misrata in the first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict.
A group of six westerners are clearly visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves.
The sixth, apparently the most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving on being spotted by the television crew.
© UnknownA Human rights investigation in Libya has found that it was the US and its Western allies who cluster bombed the troubled city of Misratah back in April.
The report says at the time of the attack, Human Rights Watch and a reporter working for US media immediately blamed forces loyal to Libya's embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi for the cluster bombing that threatened civilian lives.
According to the report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay and the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were quick to condemn the act.
Clinton called the cluster bombing of urban areas an act that posed a lot of challenges to both NATO and the opposition.
© demand-design
Human rights groups furious over Riyadh link
Britain is training Saudi Arabia's national guard - the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain - in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is "a major concern".
In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.
The MoD response, obtained yesterday by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for "all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transport".
© ReutersHaydar Moslehi, Iran's intelligence minister, said that the diplomat, not pictured, was released
Egypt is expelling an Iranian diplomat who was briefly detained and questioned on charges of illegally gathering intelligence for Tehran, security officials said.
Qassem al Husseini, the diplomat, was arrested on Saturday in his Cairo home, after the Egyptian intelligence tracked his movements, Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reported.
Husseini was charged with attempting to set up spy rings in Egypt and other Arab countries.
He was released after a two-hour detention, Haydar Moslehi, Iran's intelligence minister, said on Sunday, according to Iranian state television's website. Moslehi also said that Egyptian authorities apologised for the incident - though he did not elaborate.
The diplomat, who was working for Iran's Interest Section in the Egyptian capital, was accused of being an agent for Tehran's intelligence services, gathering information and spying on Egypt since the end of its January 25 revolution, our correspondent, reporting from Cairo, said.
He was also accused of attempting to gather information on Gulf Arab countries by recruiting agents and informants in Egypt, Mohyeldin said.
Egyptian security officers found documents, a computer and spying devices banned in Egypt at Husseini's apartment, a security official told the Associated Press news agency on Sunday.
The diplomat will be deported within 48 hours, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to share details.
© The Canadian Press / Adrian WyldPress releases issued by federal government departments are shown in Ottawa, Thursday March 3, 2011. One of the ironies of the election that finally delivered Stephen Harper's Conservatives a majority government on May 2 is that it appears to have vanquished the "Harper Government."The controversial term has almost disappeared from official Government of Canada news releases after suddenly blanketing departmental communications in the months leading up to the fall of the Conservative minority March 25.
The controversial term has almost disappeared from official Government of Canada news releases after suddenly blanketing departmental communications in the months leading up to the fall of the Conservative minority March 25.
Now, internal government documents obtained by The Canadian Press show that civil servants were being ordered by minister's offices to use the term, and that they were "obligated to do so if asked."
"Just curious when we changed from Government of Canada to Harper Government? Is this a new direction?" a regional communications director in Fisheries and Oceans asked her director general in an email on Feb. 16.
"I've been asked by several folks internally and now am getting calls (from) Comms colleagues in other federal departments. ..."
The inquiry came more than two weeks before The Canadian Press publicly exposed the new nomenclature.
Her superior, Susan Garner-Barklay, director general of communications for DFO, responded: "Long story. Will fill you in over the phone," before adding, "This is not a change in practice."
© US NavyThe USS New Hampshire was built at a Groton, Connecticut, facility that could benefit from a fund set aside by Congress.
This is happening despite a congressional ban on earmarks -- special, discretionary spending that has funded Congress' pet projects back home in years past, but now has fallen out of favor among budget-conscious deficit hawks.
© unknownDominique Strauss-Kahn
Once again, there was no mincing of words: a "rich, powerful, famous man, bloated with arrogance and vanity" had been accused of raping a Muslim African immigrant of unblemished character striving to make ends meet in New York.
This was hard-hitting enough, and was naturally written before defence lawyers dropped dark hints about having evidence that could "gravely undermine" the woman's credibility. But stronger stuff was to come.
Because Mr Strauss-Kahn had his eyes on the French presidency and was the Socialist Party's favourite for the 2012 elections, Ribbe argued, a chunk of France's establishment had rushed to his support, exposing its "racism, sexism, Islamophobia and total disregard for the most humble". The accused had become the victim while the woman was made to seem guilty as part of a plot to bring down Mr Strauss-Kahn.
But the two words that shocked me most among those chosen by Ribbe, a tireless campaigner for racial equality, appeared in the title of the support committee he was inviting me to join: the first and last names of the woman concerned.
© Unknown
Mr Putin said that he finds it hard to believe that the sex charges against the Frenchman are true and that he may have fallen victim to a shadowy plot to discredit him.
"It is hard for me to evaluate the real political underlying reasons and I do not even want to get into that subject, but I cannot believe that everything is as it seems and how it was initially presented," he said. "It does not sit right in my head."
Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested at JFK airport in New York on May 14 for allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid.
Mr Putin's public support for Mr Strauss-Kahn comes days after a French politician alleged that the former IMF chief had said before his arrest that he thought Mr Putin was actively plotting his downfall.
Ayad Mejid of Brampton, Ont. is suing the Canadian government, alleging the country's spy agency waged a smear campaign against him.
The recently filed $10-million lawsuit comes after child pornography charges against Ayad Mejid, 48, were dropped when a Superior Court judge ruled his Charter rights were violated by agents with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
In October, Justice Jane Kelly ruled Mejid was threatened and intimidated into handing over his laptop to CSIS to prove he wasn't the online jihadist they suspected. Instead, the agency says it found images of child pornography - evidence deemed inadmissible because it was obtained under the guise of national security, which constituted a "flagrant abuse" of his Charter rights.
© Associated Press
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved Sunday a series of amendments and new regulations aimed at stepping up efforts to curb smoking in the country, in honor of the upcoming international no-smoking day.
The government rejected, however, a proposal to increase taxes on cigarettes by up to 10 percent.
The Health Ministry is expected to bring the approved legislation changes to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation next month.
