Iman al-Obeidi is overcome by security officials

It was just another breakfast time at Tripoli's smart Rixos Al Nasr hotel, sleepy foreign journalists helping themselves to cereals, rolls and terrible coffee in the restaurant, looking out over a neat garden unusual in the dour capital city.

But the Groundhog Day conversations - more overnight coalition air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, rebel advances in the east, how to escape the minders - were suddenly interrupted when a distraught woman burst in to describe how she had been repeatedly raped by government militiamen.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says the US is plotting to topple Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to prepare the ground for looting the resources of the Arab state.

Syria has been hit with a fresh wave of anti-government protests during the past week that left scores of people dead.

"The attack on Syria has begun, there have been some supposed peaceful protests and some deaths (...) and they are accusing the president [Assad] of killing his people," AFP quoted Chavez as saying on Saturday at a political event.

"And then the Yankees come in to bomb the people in order to save them. What cynicism on the empire's part," he noted.

The southern Syrian city of Daraa -- located close to Jordan's border -- has emerged as the center of Syria's unrest and the scene of demonstrations for the past week.

Unrest in the area was reportedly triggered by the arrest of young students for spraying graffiti last week.

Amnesty International reported that at least 55 people have been killed in and around Daraa during the protests in the past two weeks.

At least two Palestinians have been killed during a fresh Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics say.

"Two Palestinians were killed and another wounded Sunday morning in an Israeli air raid on targets east of Jabaliya," Adham Abu Senmya, a spokesman for the Gaza emergency services, told AFP.

The attack came a day after several Palestinian factions, including the Hamas resistance movement, expressed commitment to a national agreement to restore calm with Tel Aviv.

After a week of deadly bombardments of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tel Aviv was ready to act with "great force" against Palestinians.

Hamas announced on Saturday that it was committed like other factions to calm and that it would not give Israel "any pretext to launch another war against Gaza."

"Palestinian factions have discussed the recent surge in Israeli attacks on Gaza. They are all committed to remaining calm in order to prevent the occupation [Israeli] forces from committing any more crimes against humanity," said Ismail Radwan, a senior Hamas official.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Defence Secretary Robert Gates Friday that Israel is ready to act with "great force" in response to a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants and a deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem.

Israel had been "subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks," Netanyahu told reporters before going into a meeting with Gates.

"We stand ready to act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it," he added, with officials saying Israel had not been hit by any projectiles Friday morning.

"Any civilised society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians," he said.

However, as Netanyahu spoke, Defence Minister Ehud Barak toured the Gaza border with army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, saying that the situation seemed to be calming down.

"In the last 24 hours there has been no fire into our territory, but we continue to monitor the situation," Barak said, according to a statement from his office.

And Barak indicated that if the rocket attacks stopped, Israel would also halt its strikes into the Gaza Strip.

"We don't intend to let the terror organizations again disturb the order but we will do all we need to to return the (military) activity to the border line itself," he said.

Syria should follow Egypt's lead and the Syrian army should "empower a revolution", Robert Gates, US secretary of defence, argued as thousands marched in a southern city.

Mr Gates made his comments - some of the toughest remarks to date by a US official about the rule of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president - on a day of further upheaval in the Middle East and beyond.

The White House signalled it was preparing for a change in power in Yemen, where it has been allied with the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, president. Nato allies reached a deal in which the alliance will take over command of the Libyan no-fly zone, although responsibility for strikes on forces loyal to Col Muammer Gaddafi will not immediately come under the Nato umbrella.

The Bombing of Civilian Targets

The objective is not to come to the rescue of civilians.

Quite the opposite. Both military as well as civilian targets have been pre-selected.

Civilian casualties are intentional. They are not the result of "collateral damage".

Early reports confirm that hospitals, civilian airports and government buildings have been bombed.

Within hours of the air attacks, a Libyan government health official "said the death toll from the Western air strikes had risen to 64 on Sunday after some of the wounded died." The number of wounded was of the order of 150. (Montreal Gazette, Gadhafi hurls defiance as allied forces strike Libya, March 19, 2011).

The death toll resulting from aerial bombings and missile attacks (March 24) is of the order of 100 civilians, according to Libyan government sources ( UN Chief Expects Int'l Community to Avoid Civilian Casualties in Libya, March 25, 2011)

Media Disinformation

These deaths resulting from US-NATO missiles and aerial bombings are either denied or casually dismissed as 'collateral damage'. According to British Foreign Secretary William Hague modern humanitarian warfare does result in civilian deaths, a totally absurd proposition:

"This operation has been doing what it was meant to do, protect the civilian population of Libya, and there is no confirmed evidence of any casualties at all, civilian casualties, caused by the coalition strikes on the Gaddafi regime," (British Foreign Secretary William Hague, No evidence of civilian casualties in Libya strikes: UK | Reuters, March 25, 2011)

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirms that "The coalition is going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and most of the targets are air defence targets isolated from populated areas." (West trying to avoid Libyan civilian deaths: Robert Gates - World - DNA, March 22, 2011)

The objective of the media disinformation campaign is to blatantly obfuscate the loss of life of civilians. Western media reports on casualties are heavily convoluted. Tomahawk missiles and aerial bombings are upheld as instruments of peace and democracy. They do not result in civilian deaths.

Without media disinformation, the legitimacy of the military operation under R2P would collapse like a deck of card.

A sixth police officer has been unmasked as an undercover spy in the protest movement as it emerged that Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, is considering suing Scotland Yard.

In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine, Kennedy, who went "rogue" and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police.


The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder.

Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station.

Battered by a week of air strikes, forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi still remain a potent threat to civilians, according to Pentagon officials, who are considering more firepower and airborne surveillance systems to find and attack the enemy troops.

As the military eyes other tools in its arsenal, the White House announced late Friday that President Barack Obama will give a speech to the nation Monday evening explaining his decision-making on Libya to a public weary of a decade of war.

The timing comes as Republicans and Democrats have complained that the president has not sought their input about the U.S. role in the war or explained with enough clarity about the U.S. goals and exit strategy.

Among the weapons being eyed for use in Libya is the Air Force's AC-130 gunship, an imposing aircraft armed with cannons that shoot from the side doors with precision. Other possibilities are helicopters and drones that fly lower and slower and can spot more than fast-moving jet fighters.

With the U.S. pressing to shift full command of the Libya air campaign to the NATO alliance, the discussion of adding weapons to step up the assault on Gadhafi's ground troops reflects the challenges in hitting the right targets.

U.S.-led forces began launching missile strikes last Saturday against the defenses of embattled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi to establish a no-fly zone and prevent him from attacking his own people.

Former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn will visit Cuba next week to meet with President Raul Castro and discuss ways to improve U.S.-Cuba relations, a Carter spokeswoman said on Friday.

The visit, made at the invitation of the Cuban government, raised the possibility that Carter would get involved in the case of U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, recently sentenced to 15 years in prison for providing illegal Internet access to Cuban groups.

The case has strained U.S.-Cuba relations after a brief warming under President Barack Obama.

Carter, 86, was to arrive in Havana on Monday for a three-day trip "to learn about new economic policies and the upcoming (Communist) Party congress and to discuss ways to improve U.S.-Cuba relations," said a statement from Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo.

He was to meet with President Castro and "other Cuban officials and citizens," the statement said.

It said the trip was a follow-up to the Carters' May 2002 visit to the island 90 miles from Florida and was a "private, non-governmental mission under the auspices of the not-for-profit Carter Center."

Carter is set to go to North Korea soon, where last year he went to secure the release of a jailed American.

During his time in the White House, Carter took significant steps to improve relations with Cuba, including lifting all restrictions on U.S. travel to the island, which has been generally banned during most of a 49-year-long U.S. trade embargo.

Canadian general Charles Bouchard is taking over command of NATO's military operations in Libya.

Bouchard, a native of Chicoutimi, Que., has been designated by NATO as head of the alliance's campaign in Libya. He will work with "his naval and air component commands" to enforce the no-fly zone and the so-called civilian-protection mission in Libya, a senior White House official said Friday.

Bouchard, a lieutenant-general whose rank is equivalent to a three-star U.S. general, is currently stationed in Naples, Italy, at the Allied Joint Force Command.

His appointment did not come without considerable debate among the allies. "There were a lot of egos involved," a Canadian government source said.

The source said a British general was touted for the job at one point, but the United States wanted to see a face that nervous allies _ particularly the Turks _ trusted. The tipping point came when the French got behind the appointment, senior Canadian officials said.

There was some political hesitation in Ottawa about the appointment as it represents an escalation of Canada's engagement in Libya just as politicians are about to hit the hustings, the source said.