Libya on the brink as protests hit Tripoli
Muammar Gaddafi will fight until "the last man standing".
Unrest spreads to capital Tripoli
South Korean-run construction site in Tripoli attacked
Death toll rises to over 230
9.39am: David Smith, our Africa correspondent, writes:
Zimbabwean police have arrested nearly 50 people who were attending a meeting to discuss the north African uprisings, according to Zimbabwe's NewsDay newspaper. Human rights activists, union leaders and students had been watching a video about events in Egypt and Tunisia when police raided the closed-door meeting in central Harare. It was also reported that at least one of those arrested was severely beaten.
Police spokesman James Sabau said: "The agenda of the meeting was the revolt in Egypt and Tunisia what lessons can be learnt for the working class in Zimbabwe and Africa. Videos of the uprising in Egypt and revolts in Tunisia were being shown to the guests who attended as a way to motivate the people to subvert a constitutionally-elected
government."President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has previously accused prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, of trying to incite violence by praising the actions of people in Tunisia and Egypt. There has been much debate in the media about why Zimbabweans do not follow others' example and rise up against
Mugabe, who turns 87 today.
9.22am: Sudan: The Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir has announced he will not stand at the next election, writes my colleague Adam Gabbatt. His pledge not to stand in the 2015 poll comes after been dozens of small protests have been staged throughout the north of the country since January, as an economic crisis began to bite and Sudanese people witnessed uprisings in other Arab countries.
"(Bashir) announced that he will not enter the coming elections to compete for the presidency," Rabie Abdelati, a senior National Congress Party official, told Reuters.
Bashir, th! e only s itting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court, for war crimes and genocide in the war-torn Darfur region, took power in a bloodless coup in 1989. In April 2010 he won presidential elections which many opposition parties boycotted, citing fraud.
9.14am: My colleague, Matthew Taylor, has been following developments in Tunisia, where it all began.
Tunisia, which set off the wave of protests that are sweeping the Arab world when they forced the country's president Ben Ali to flee, have called for his extradition so the 74-year-old, who faces allegations of involvement in "serious crimes", can face charges.
The former president fled to Saudi Arabia after widespread protests on January 14 and is reportedly in hospital in Jeddah. But the Tunisian foreign ministry has issued a statement calling for the Saudi authorities to hand him over.
"Following a further series of accusations levelled against the ousted president on charges related to his involvement in several serious crimes... Tunisia has requested his extradition," said a statement from the foreign ministry.
9.11am: While all eyes are on Libya, rumblings persist elsewhere in the Arab world. In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has rejected demands that he step down and described demonstrations against his regime were unacceptable acts of provocation, though he renewed calls for talks with the protesters. Meanwhile, a Yemeni teenager was killed and four people were wounded in a clash with soldiers in the southern port of Aden. The death brings to 12 the number of people killed in unrest in Yemen since Thursday.
9.03am: An eyewitness tells Reuters that Tripoli is calm after the protests in the Libyan capital last night. When I spoke to anti-Gaddafi protesters outside the Libyan embassy last week, one told me that the key would be if protests spread to the capital from the east, where anti-Gaddafi sentiment has never been far from the surface.
A Tripoli resi! dent, wh o did not want to be identified, told Reuters the streets of the capital were calm early on Monday morning but that there was no sign of police, which is unusual for the city. He said that late on Sunday night anti-Gaddafi protesters had been replaced by his supporters, who rallied in the centre of the city around Green Square until about 5 a.m. (0400 GMT).
"After Saif al-Islam's speech, the pro-Gaddafi people, especially the youth, were touring the streets, particularly in the centre, cheering Gaddafi. These people stayed up the whole night, they were marching all night, some driving in cars.
"They were in Green Square and along Omar al-Mokthar street. I would say there were hundreds," he said.
"I talked to someone near the square where the clashes were taking place and he told me it was quiet and they (anti-government demonstrators) have now departed.
"Last night during the rioting there were police around and they were shooting into the air. But after that there have been no police around," added the Tripoli resident.
The price of oil has climbed by more than $1, my colleague Julia Kollewe from our business desk writes.
The head of the Al-Suwayya tribe in eastern Libya threatened on Sunday to cut oil exports to western countries within 24 hours unless the authorities put an end to the "oppression of protesters". There are also fears that the unrest in northern Africa and the Middle East, which has already ousted the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents, could spread to Saudi Arabia.
"The oil market could easily jump another $10 in the short term if the violence continues," said David Cohen, director of Asian Economic Forecasting at Asian Economics.
8.44am: Human Rights Watch in New York puts the death toll in the Libyan unrest at 233.
From Benghazi, staff at Al Jalaa hospital said they recorded 50 dead on February 20, 2011, while the 7 October hospital reported another 10 dead the same day, giving a total of 60 killed in Benghazi on February 20. This raises the overall death toll from protests in five Libyan cities to 233 since February 17.
8.27am: Reuters has seen the draft from EU foreign ministers condemning Libya's crackdown on protesters. They are meeting in Brussels to discuss the uprisings in North Africa and the gulf.
"The council condemns the ongoing repression against peaceful demonstrators in Libya and deplores the violence and the death of civilians," the draft statement obtained by Reuters said. "Freedom of expression and the right to assemble peacefully are fundamental rights of every human being which must be respected and protected."
Libya has told the European Union it will stop cooperating on illegal migration if the EU continues to encourage pro-democracy protests in the country, the bloc's Hungarian presidency said on Sunday.
8.16am: Here is how the Associated Press reported Saif's 40-minute speech.
"We are not Tunisia and Egypt," he said. "Muammar Gaddafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him. The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet."
In his speech, the younger Gaddafi conceded the army made some mistakes during the protests because the troops were not trained to deal with demonstrators, but he added that the number of dead had been exaggerated, giving a death toll of 84.
He offered to put forward reforms within days that he described as a "historic national initiative" and said the regime was willing to remove some restrictions and begin discussions for a constitution. He offered to change a number of laws, including those covering the media and the penal code.
Dressed in a dark business su! it and t ie, Seif al-Islam wagged his finger frequently as he delivered his warnings. He said that if protests continued, Libya would slide back to "colonial" rule. "You will get Americans and European fleets coming your way and they will occupy you.
He threatened to "eradicate the pockets of sedition" and said the army will play a main role in restoring order.
"There has to be a firm stand," he said. "This is not the Tunisian or Egyptian army."
8.03am:This is the start of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's rambling nationwide address last night, when he said his father would fight "until the last bullet". Saif is supposed to be Libya's modern face, the man who wants the country to move into the 21st century. He has been assiduously courting the world's foreign media, inviting them to Libya to see how it is adapting to the modern world. But with the regime under threat as it never has been in his father's long rule, Saif was the man to appear on national TV to wield the regime's iron fist. To see the video in full, turn off auto refresh at the top of the page.
7.52am: Libya appears to be the latest domino under threat as the wave of popular unrest that began in Tunisia rips through the Arab world. Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya for 41 years, may soon be following in the footsteps of Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egypt's Mubarak, but he is not giving up without a fight. His son, Seif al-Islam, who is supposed to be Libya's moderniser, last night went on state television to declare that his father remained in charge with the army's backing and would "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet."
In his rambling and uncompromising comments, the regime's first on the six days of demonstrations, Seif warned the protesters that they risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned."
The Guardian's coverage of the unfolding crisis in Libya this morning.
Libya on brink as protests hit Tripoli: Muammar Gaddafi's son went on Libyan TV to defend his father's 41-year rule of Libya as protests spread to the capital Tripoli.
Libya protests: gunshots, screams and talk of revolution: Benghazi student says fear of Muammar Gaddafi's regime is ebbing away.
Libya protests: More than 100 killed as army fires on unarmed demonstrators: World leaders condemn Muammar Gaddafi after army launches violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Benghazi.
Gaddafi cruelly resists, but this Arab democratic revolution is far from over: The burning question is, where next? After Ben Ali and Mubarak, others may not fall so easily but most regimes are candidates.
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