Libya Live Blog - March 9

Libya Live Blog - March 9

• Timestamp: 

  10:28pm

  Libyan oil output is down by more than two-thirds from 1.6 million barrels per day to just 500,000 amid the uprising, National Oil Corporation head, Shukri Ghanem, said on Wednesday.

• Timestamp: 

  9:31pm

  Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado has met an envoy from Tripoli in Lisbon, according to a statement emailed to reporters.

  The meeting was arranged in agreement with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and was part of preparations for a meeting of EU foreign ministers later this week to discuss the situation in Libya, the
  ministry said.

• Timestamp: 

  8:00pm

  A group calling themselves Topple The Tyrants have occupied the £10m London Mansion of Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, in solidarity with the Libyan people and their struggle to overthrow Gaddafi's government.

  A spokesman for the group said "We didn't trust the British government to properly seize the Gaddafi regime's corrupt assets, so we took matters into our own hands."

  The spokesman said "Gaddafi, Mubarak, the House of Saud and numerous other tyrants use front companies in British protectorates to avoid paying tax and above all to protect their anonymity.

  "Britain actively assists tyrants, corporations and the super rich to rob their people blind. Our aim is to make sure that the assets stolen by Gaddafi are returned to the Libyan people and don't disappear into the pockets of governments or corporations."

• Timestamp: 

  7:40pm

  The Libyan regime has offered a nearly $500,000 bounty for the capture of the chairman of the opposition National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, according to state TV.

  "The General Administration for Criminal Investigations is offering a reward of 500,000 Libyan dinars for any person who captures and hands over the spy named Abdel Jalil and a reward of 200,000 Libyan dinars
  for anyone who provides information leading to his capture," the report said.

• Timestamp: 

  7:39pm

  An engineer working at a major east Libyan oil terminal said air strikes had hit the Sidrah port and destroyed storage tanks as well as facilities such as the power and water plants.
• Timestamp: 

  7.00pm

  AFP reports: Red Crescent officials said they believed it was possible refugees fleeing Libya were being held back due to a sudden drop in the number trying to cross the border into Tunisia.

• Timestamp: 

  6:08pm

  Confirmed to Al Jazeera: Libyan envoys are meeting with European Union officials in Brussels.

• Timestamp: 

  5:53pm

  Reuters reports: Forces loyal to Gaddafi launch a bombardment near rebel positions around the east Libyan oil terminal of Sidrah, blowing up storage tanks at the facility.

• Timestamp: 

  5:05pm

  Watch our report on the latest developments in Libya, including footage of fighting near Ras Lanuf.

• Timestamp: 

  4:55pm

  Abdelrahman al-Zawi, the Libyan deputy defence minister, has arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, flying on a private jet. Reports say he is carrying a message from Gaddafi but we cannot confirm which officials he's going to meet. Newspaper Al-Ahram suggests he's to meet the military council while other sources say he'll meet Amr Moussa, head of the Arab league.

• Timestamp: 

  4:42pm

  Scores of Libyan rebels, packed into dozens of vehicles, retreated east into the oil town of Ras Lanuf after sustained artillery and air strikes, AFP reports.

• Timestamp: 

  3:25pm

  NATO Secretary-Gerneral Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the alliance is not looking to intervene in Libya but is ready to respond to any developments.

  "NATO is not looking to intervene in Libya, but we have asked our military to conduct prudent planning for all eventualities," he told Sky News.

• Timestamp: 

  1:59pm

  A convoy of trucks from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has entered Libya and is due to arrive in the eastern port city of Benghazi today.

  WFP is mobilising food for the hungry as part of a US$39.2 million emergency operation designed to provide food assistance to more than one million people in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia over a three-month period.

• Timestamp: 

  1:37pm

  Al Jazeera is getting reports that three of Liyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's private planes have taken off from a military airstrip near Tripoli.

  Karl Stango-Navarra, a journalist based in Valletta, Malta, told Al Jazeera that the three jets are flying in three different directions.

  "One is suggested to be Vienna, the other is supposed to be Athens in Greece, and the other is Cairo, Egypt," Stango-Navarra said.

• Timestamp: 

  11:42am

  Heavy fighting has forced a shutdown of one of Libya's biggest refineries in the flashpoint town of Az Zawiyah, located 50 km west of the capital, Tripoli.

  "Heavy weapons have been fired nearby and we can't run the refinery under these conditions," the official told Reuters.
  
  

• Timestamp: 

  11:15am

  Gaddafi said Libyans will fight if a no-fly zone is imposed by Western nations and how imposing one would show their real intention is to seize the country's oil.

  Gaddafi made his remarks during an interview that was conducted on Tuesday night but aired on Wednesday by Turkey's state-run TRT Turk television.

  The Libyan leader was responding to US and British plans for a response to Libya and claimed that such a move would lead Libyans to understand the foreigners' aims to seize oil and take their freedoms away.

  He said if that happens "Libyans will take up arms and fight.''

• Timestamp: 

  10:30am

  Rashid Khalikov has been appointed UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Libyan crisis.

  Khalikov is currently the Director of the Geneva branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but will work closely with the UN Resident Coordinator for Libya and also with the UN Resident Coordinators for Tunisia, Egypt and Niger on humanitarian response along Libya’s border

  For other UN related-highlights on Libya, follow this link http://aje.me/hcoYJM

• Timestamp: 

  10:14am

  President Barack Obama's senior advisers are meeting today to outline possible steps that could be used to pressure Gaddafi to halt the violence against his people and give up power. Obama is facing the sternest test yet of his philosophy of humanitarian intervention, which he has described as an imperative to prevent atrocities against civilians. But Gaddafi's brutal suppression of protests and crackdown on opponents to his 42-year rule may fall short of Obama's criteria for military action. [AP]
• Timestamp: 

  9:01am

  Libya Watch is closely monitoring the continuous human rights abuses against the people of Libya. These abuses have been well documented and will be presented to the appropriate authorities, including the ICC and the world media in due course.

  The human rights group also confirmed in a press release that Mohammed Allakey who is the assistant secretary general of the Union of Arab Lawyers and the chairman of assembly of Libyan Human Rights of the Gaddafi Foundation has resigned from his post and has joined the revolution,

• Timestamp: 

  5:00am

  Gaddafi speaks in the capital Tripoli, after the opposition National Council gives him 72 hours to step down. He says that the rebels fighting government forces have been brainwashed by al-Qaeda. 

• Timestamp: 

  4:46am

  Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state television, saying that "misguided and mad groups" are responsible for the continued violence in the country.

• Timestamp: 

  4:40am

  Nic Robertson of CNN tweeted that Libya’s deputy foreign minister said a no-fly zone would be a declaration of war against Libya. The Libyan official also demanded that the UN accept Libya’s new ambassador to United Nations.

• Timestamp: 

  3:20am

  Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, made another fleeting appearance around at a hotel where more than 100 foreign journalists had waited for hours. Just when they thought he would speak to them, his handlers took him to a private room in the hotel for an interview with a Turkish television.

  The journalists thought he would make a statement, or, as Al Arabiya television predicted, make one of his long, rumbling speeches. Yet when Gaddafi sneaked out of a side door, many, including NBC’s Richard Engel, took to the social networking site Twitter to express their disappointment.

  "Another reporter said:"We waited all day to watch Gaddafi walk through a lobby. Who's crazy? Him or us?"

• Timestamp: 

  1:18am

  Libyan state television releases video footage of what they say is a captured member of the country's rebel forces.
  
  He says there are no mercenaries among pro-Gaddafi forces, and that Libya is targeted by Western countries in a bid to control its oil.
  
  Experssing remorse for his alleged membership of the opposition, he also denies that air raids on eastern cities have occurred, and that "fanatic groups from outside Libya" are fighting in the country's east.

• Timestamp: 

  12:40am

  AFP - Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that any decision to impose a no-fly zone over Libya should be taken by the United Nations and "not the United States".

  "I think it's very important that it is not a US-led effort because this comes from the people of Libya themselves," she said.
  
  "We think it is  important that the United Nations make that decision. This doesn't come from the outside. This doesn't come from some Western power or some Gulf country saying: 'This is what you should do.'"