Libyan rebels consolidate gains
Top news: Libya's anti-Qaddafi rebels continue to hold the refinery town of Zawiyah despite sustained government attack and claim to have shot down a military aircraft. Rebels says that 2,000 pro-Qaddafi troops have surrounded the city and that an attack is imminent. The rebels also now hold Libya's third city, Misrata.
The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on Qaddafi and other senior Libyan leaders, imposed an arms embargo and frozen assets. U.S. Secretary of of state Hillary Clinton is meeting with her European counterparts in Geneva to discuss further action. Among the proposals on the table is a no-fly zone over Libya. A senior administration official said on Sunday that no decision had been reached on the idea.
More than 100,000 people have fled the fighting, which has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
It remains somewhat unclear who is leading the anti-Qaddafi movement, though rebels in the city of Benghazi have formed a National Libyan Council to be the "face" of the revolution. Qaddafi's goverment continued to insist that the opposition movement was controlled by Islamic radicals in a meeting with a delegation of foreign journalists brought in to show that the regime had nothing to hide. The plan evidently backfired as the journalists discovered parts of the capital city, Tripoli, in open defiance of the government.
Population: China's population has hit 1.34 billion.
| Middle East - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki proposed holding early elections following a wave of anti-government protests.
- Anti-government protesters have blockaded Bahrain's parliament.
- Tunisia's interim prime minister, a holdover from the Ben Ali regime, has resigned.
- Protesters have gathered for a third day of demonstrations in Oman.
- Egypt's public prosecutor issued a travel ban against former President Hosni Mubarak.
Asia - Chinese authorities cracked down hard on planned protests throughout the country over the weekend.
- A veteran pro-democracy activist was arrested after calling for a Middle East-style uprising in Vietnam.
- The U.S. is repositioning its troops in Eastern Afghanistan to carry out more counterterrorism missions.
Europe - France announced that it is sending two planes to aid the Libyan opposition.
- Ireland's Fine Gael party is in talks to form a coalition government after its victory in national elections on Friday.
- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was back on trial on Monday for tax fraud.
Africa Americas -By Joshua Keating |  |
PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images
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