Fighting flared around the rebel-held city of Misrata and air strikes were reported elsewhere in Libya late on Friday, after Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s regime rejected a rebel offer of a ceasefire.
The US military was poised to withdraw its combat jets and Tomahawk cruise missiles from the air campaign against Libya’s regime starting this weekend, as NATO allies take the lead in bombing Qaddafi’s forces.
The move follows pledges by US President Barack Obama to quickly shift command of the operation to NATO, with the US military playing a supporting role — providing planes for mid-air refueling, jamming and surveillance.
Coalition forces, meanwhile, strafed positions held by loyalist forces in the al-Khums and al-Rojban regions east and southwest of Tripoli late on Friday, according to Libyan state television.
An al-Khums resident said he heard explosions coming from a local naval base, about 120km east of the capital, which had been bombed by coalition forces earlier.
Al-Rojban is southwest of Tripoli and several towns in the mountainous area are controlled by rebel forces.
Forces loyal to Qaddafi also attacked the rebel-held city of Misrata with tanks and rocket fire, a rebel spokesman said.
In the rebel bastion of Benghazi, Libyan Transitional National Council leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said the opposition was ready for a truce, provided Qaddafi’s forces end their assaults on rebel-held cities.
However, government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim rejected the offer, saying Qaddafi’s forces would not withdraw from towns they control.
“The rebels never offered peace. They don’t offer peace, they are making impossible demands,” Ibrahim told reporters, calling the truce offer a “trick.”
“We will not leave our cities. We are the government, not them,” he said, adding, however, that the government was always ready to negotiate and wanted peace.
Asked about the truce offer, White House spokesman Jay Carney appeared to indicate that the Obama administration did not want the conflict in Libya to end with Qaddafi still in power.
Abdul Jalil’s offer came two days after rebels were driven out of a string of key oil terminals in eastern Libya they had twice seized during the weeks-old revolt aimed at toppling Qaddafi’s 41-year-old regime.
“We agree on a ceasefire on the condition that our brothers in the western cities have freedom of expression and that the forces besieging the cities withdraw,” he told reporters after meeting UN special envoy Abdul Ilah Khatib.
He added, however, that the revolution still aimed to topple the regime.
Khatib said he had met top officials of Qaddafi’s government in Tripoli on Thursday to call for a ceasefire, lifting the siege of the western cities and access for humanitarian aid.
He called for a “real ceasefire” that must be “credible, effective and verifiable.”
After weeks of near anarchy, the Benghazi-based leaders of the insurrection appeared intent on cleaning up their act — keeping civilians and raw recruits away from the frontlines in an attempt to combat the better-organized Qaddafi loyalists.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique