“At the UN Security Council we are working closely with partners on a contingency basis on elements of a resolution on a no-fly zone, making clear the need for regional support, a clear trigger for such a resolution and an appropriate legal basis,” …[William Hague] told Parliament.

Diplomats at the UN said a resolution could be presented later this week at the earliest, but depended heavily on events on the ground in Libya. A resolution will not be submitted without solid support from the Arab League and the tacit approval of Russia and China, who as permanent members of the UN Security Council can veto resolutions.

“There should be a demonstrable need that the whole world can see, there must be a clear legal basis for such a no-fly zone and there must be clear support from the region, from the Middle East region, from the North African region as well as from the people of Libya themselves,” said Mr Hague.

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As in all such mind-bending crises, it is best that the UN Security Council validates whatever course is pursued by the world’s beefiest governments, still inevitably led by the West, which, in turn means the United States, backed by Britain and France, its hardiest allies with a modicum of military muscle. The Americans are fearful of becoming embroiled in yet another distant venture. Among the Europeans, only Britain and Italy seem readier for a more robust involvement…. China and Russia, though they voted for UN sanctions on Colonel Qaddafi in the Security Council, presently balk at a no-fly zone, let alone armed intervention by troops. Turkey, a key member of NATO in Mediterranean or Middle Eastern affairs, is so far dead against, too. So, for the time being, it seems, are the majority of Arab governments.

But if the Libyan regime starts killing people in their thousands””and especially if it uses helicopter gunships or aircraft””diplomatic reluctance should melt away. Too often the world has dithered open-mouthed as evil men have slaughtered Darfuris or Rwandans with impunity. Outsiders, led by the UN, must help Libya’s emerging transitional councils with humanitarian aid. The UN Security Council may yet have to be persuaded to restore peace by invoking the ample power of Chapter VII. And if that proves unattainable, the widest possible coalition of the willing, ideally including Libya’s Arab neighbours, must protect Libyan civilians by arming the opposition and defending them from aerial attack.

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For President Obama, who told Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last week that it was time to quit, the bloodshed and terror in Libya have posed a dilemma that sooner or later confronts every modern American president: whether, and how, to intervene with military force in a distant conflict.

This time, the choice has been made even tougher by history, geography and the peculiar circumstances of Libya’s upheaval: a famously ruthless and unpredictable leader willing to do anything to cling to power, in a conflict that seems as much an African civil war as an Internet-fueled youth revolt of the kind that forced out Arab dictators in Egypt and Tunisia.

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Despite skepticism from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, three influential United States senators from both political parties on Sunday called for the United States to consider carving out a no-flight zone in Libya to prevent Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from massacring the rebels trying to overthrow him.

But the Obama administration continued to resist such appeals.

“Lots of people throw around phrases like no-fly zone ”” they talk about it as though it’s just a video game,” William M. Daley, the new White House chief of staff, said in at appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television news program.

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The number of people who see Brazil as having a positive influence in the world is rising rapidly, according to a BBC World Service poll of 27 countries.

The country is now regarded positively by 49%, compared to 40% last year – the largest jump by any of the 16 nations respondents are asked to comment on.

South Africa, host of the 2010 World Cup, posted the second biggest rise.

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In a joint statement issued after a “Consultation of Bishops in Dialogue” meeting held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania the church leaders said they had shared testimonies about partnership mission work. Through this a common thread had emerged “our experience of finding ourselves in each other.”

“Across the globe, across the Communion, we actually really need one another,” the bishops’ statement said. “We are stronger in relationship than when we are apart. This, we believe, is a work of engaging in Communion building rather than Communion breaking. In the words of the Toronto Congress of 1963 we are engaged in living in ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence’ (Ephesians 2:13-22)”.

The bishops hailed from Sudan, Botswana, Malawi, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Canada, the United States and England. They met at the end of February as a group of partner pairs and triads and discussed a range of issues including human sexuality, slavery and tackling poverty.

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Update: An ENS article appears here also.

Past examples of state arsenals being looted by civilians ”” whether in Uganda in 1979, Albania in 1997 or Iraq in 2003 ”” have shown that once these weapons slip from state custody they can be sold through black markets, swiftly and quietly, to other countries and groups for use in wars where they can present long-lasting and destabilizing problems. Analysts are particularly concerned about the heat-seeking missiles, known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems, or Manpads.

“The danger of these missiles ending up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents outside of Libya is very real,” said Matthew Schroeder, the director of the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “Securing these missiles should be a top priority of the U.S. intelligence community and their counterparts overseas.”

The principal threat, the analysts said, is not necessarily that the rebels themselves, who want international sympathy and support, might use such weapons against airliners. Rather, the concern is that because these missiles can sell for at least several thousand dollars on black markets, opportunists will gather and offer them to third parties ”” pushing them into the underground trade.

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In retrospect, I’d say that Huntington committed the Fundamental Attribution Error. That is, he ascribed to traits qualities that are actually determined by context.

He argued that people in Arab lands are intrinsically not nationalistic. He argued that they do not hunger for pluralism and democracy in the way these things are understood in the West. But it now appears as though they were simply living in circumstances that did not allow that patriotism or those spiritual hungers to come to the surface.

It now appears that people in these nations, like people in all nations, have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated.

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(Hat Tip:Al Jazeera Libyan liveblog)

It is rare to find someone in public life who accepts responsibility for a mistake as frankly and cogently as Sir Howard Davies did in resigning as director of the London School of Economics over research money from the Gaddafi clan, and he deserves credit for that.

Here, at last, is someone who recognises where the buck stops and draws the appropriate conclusion.

Sir Howard’s departure, however, must not be used as a pretext for sweeping under the carpet awkward questions about foreign money in British academia….

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Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have encircled the western town of Zawiya after being pushed back by rebels earlier today, according to reports, while rebels captured the oil port of Ras Lanouf.

“Zawiya is encircled by Gaddafi’s forces, there are a lot of checkpoints. They are tightening their grip on the centre,” a Reuters journalist said, adding government forces were manning checkpoints some two miles from the centre of town.

“Access to central Zawiya is completely blocked,” she said.

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A divided nation will not lead to a divided church, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan said last month in a statement released at the close of their Feb 11-12 meeting in Juba.

Official results of Southern Sudan’s January independence referendum showed that 98.83 per cent of the South voted for secession from the Khartoum government. The vote means that Africa’s newest nation will receive its formal independence on July 9, 2011. However, key issues remain unresolved, and must be negotiated between the north’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

In their first meeting since the independence vote, the Sudanese Bishops outlined the challenges facing the two nations and their church. South Sudan risked becoming a “failed state,” the bishops said, unless reforms promoting free markets and open government were implemented, and the border disputes with the north were settled.

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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said he will investigate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his sons and senior aides for crimes against humanity.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said no-one had the right to massacre civilians.

Thousands of people are thought to have died after security forces targeted protesters in unrest which began in mid-February.

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The United States could, as my colleague Elliott Abrams points out, arm the rebels. But that policy has its own drawbacks. It may merely increase the carnage, rather than give the rebels the upper hand. Sophisticated weapons require training to use, but we aren’t going to send in trainers.

Equally troubling is the fact that the weapons we want Libyans to use against Qaddafi could wind up in the wrong hands and used against us. There’s a real risk that what succeeds Qaddafi’s regime is not a stable, broad-based government but something that looks more like Somalia.

Asking others to arm the rebels doesn’t solve the problem. Would the Saudis, for instance, be as careful to make sure that weapons don’t fall into the hands of Islamic extremists who are as mad with the West as they are with Qaddafi?

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Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand, managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab/Muslim world. We know the big causes ”” tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media. But since being in Egypt, I’ve been putting together my own back-of-the-envelope guess list of what I’d call the “not-so-obvious forces” that fed this mass revolt. Here it is….

THE BEIJING OLYMPICS China and Egypt were both great civilizations subjected to imperialism and were both dirt poor back in the 1950s, with China even poorer than Egypt, Edward Goldberg, who teaches business strategy, wrote in The Globalist. But, today, China has built the world’s second-largest economy, and Egypt is still living on foreign aid. What do you think young Egyptians thought when they watched the dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics? China’s Olympics were another wake-up call ”” “in a way that America or the West could never be” ”” telling young Egyptians that something was very wrong with their country, argued Goldberg….

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WHAT COULD TRIGGER U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION?

Possibly a major jump in the death toll. Analysts say massacres of civilians, aerial bombing of civilian targets or a concerted military offensive by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to retake rebel-held territory could be possible triggers.

While the Obama administration is sensitive to criticism that it has been slow to respond more forcefully to Gaddafi’s bloody crackdown on opponents, it has made clear it will not be rushed into making any hasty decisions.

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Bigger fuel bills are making this winter harsher for many households. The Energy Information Administration estimates the average household in the Northeast will spend $2,431 on heating oil this winter, up 23.8% from last winter’s total. Businesses from airlines to chemical makers are also facing higher costs.

Most economists think the rise in fuel costs will deter output growth rather than boost inflation. That is because higher energy costs leave less money available to spend on other goods. Given the slack in labor markets and capacity, higher fuel costs won’t translate much into higher wages or prices that would push up core inflation.

The oil-related drag on output, however, means fewer jobs. And faster job growth was a key support for housing in 2011….

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A ragtag army of opponents to Col. Moammar Gadhafi began moving west toward Tripoli from the east and the U.S. ordered two warships to the Mediterranean Sea, as the prospect of an extended war loomed over Libya.

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The Pentagon is repositioning warships and planes in the waters off Libya to be ready to enforce a no-fly zone or deliver humanitarian aid, military officials said Monday.

By shifting Naval and air forces in the Mediterranean, the U.S. is preparing the groundwork for possible intervention in the civil war that has engulfed Libya. In recent days, U.S. military leaders have been planning for a range of options, in the event the White House steps up the U.S. response.

“I think it’s safe to say as part of that we’re repositioning forces to be able to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made…to be able to provide options and flexibility,” Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday.

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Foreign powers accelerated efforts to help oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Monday as rebels fought government forces trying to take back strategic coastal cities on either side of the capital Tripoli.

Gaddafi’s forces have been trying for days to push back a revolt that has won over large parts of the military, ended his control over eastern Libya and is fending off government assaults in western cities near Tripoli.

It is difficult for reporters to move around western Libya and reports of fighting were hard to verify independently.

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Even as diplomats in Geneva have begun discussions on fresh measures to push Muammar Gaddafi out of power, rebels have overrun several of the Libyan strongman’s strongholds in the western part of the country.

Libyan rebels established a transitional national council to coordinate administration in several cities seized from the Gaddafi regime, and have called on the army to help them take Tripoli, the capital.

The cities now controlled by the opposition include al-Zawiyah, less than 30 miles west of Tripoli, where thousands have taken to the streets to welcome visiting journalists. There was no sign of Libyan security services, who had waged bitter battles with anti-government forces in the town last week, leading to at least 35 deaths.

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Rising oil prices could trample prospects for economic recovery in many states, three governors warned on Sunday, as a leading economist said they also threaten the country’s economic comeback.

“Oil prices — I hope don’t go any higher,” said Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. “But everywhere now one hears there’s more than a minor risk they’re going to go a lot higher.”

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Zawiya, Libya–In this city 30 miles west of Tripoli, hundreds of people rejoiced in a central square on Sunday, waving the red, black and green flag that has come to signify a free Libya and shouting the chants that foretold the downfall of governments in Tunisia and Egypt: “The people want to bring down the regime.”

Rebels, in control of the city, had reinforced its boundaries with informal barricades, and military units that had defected stood guard with rifles, six tanks and anti-aircraft guns mounted on the backs of trucks. In the central square here, a mosque was riddled with enormous holes, evidence of the government’s failed attempt to take back this city on Thursday. Nearby lay seven freshly dug graves belonging to protesters who had fallen in that siege, witnesses said.

“We are really suffering for 42 years, and people are asking here for the same things as other people of the world ”” they want the real democracy,” said Ahmed El-Hadi Remeh, an engineer standing in the square. He and other residents told how they had used stones to repel the government’s forces.

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When strongmen are vulnerable, as now, the priority is to push them towards reform and away from violence. Barack Obama, America’s president, was right to stand behind the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and now Libya. America’s army chiefs were right to use their influence to restrain Egypt’s armed forces from shooting into the crowds…. And if Mr Qaddafi uses his air force to kill large numbers of his own people, the world would be right to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.

But most of the time strongmen are not vulnerable, and then the judgment becomes more complicated. Libya, with all its cruelty and its tragic violence this week, shows why.

The ostracism of the 1990s failed to shift Mr Qaddafi from power, despite its moral clarity. But it did help persuade him that he stood to gain from engaging with the world. That opened the door to some shabby deals. The release of one of Mr Qaddafi’s terrorists from a British jail, the sale of weapons to Libya and the elevation of a dictator into a statesman at the G8 all looked unwise at the time. Today they look despicable.

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Libyan unrest is fueling a sharp boost in U.S. pump prices. But beyond that immediate cause for concern lies a far more extended — and ominous — trend: Oil costs appear likely to keep rising over the coming decades as demand outpaces supply across the planet.

Consider this recent alarming statistic from Exxon’s annual report: For every 100 barrels of oil it pumps above ground, it can now only find 95 to replenish the supply below ground.

Exxon’s not the only “Big Oil” enterprise sounding the alarm about this big problem. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week: “It’s a conundrum shared by most of the other large Western oil-producing companies, which are finding most accessible oil fields were tapped long ago, while promising new regions are proving technologically and politically challenging.”

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The Libyan ambassador to the UN, who is one of Colonel Gaddafi’s oldest friends, denounced the embattled leader on Friday night and urged the world to punish him.

Abdurrahman Shalgam, an ally of Gaddafi since the pair were teenage radicals in the late 1950s, compared the leader’s actions to those of Pol Pot and Hitler and backed the protesters in Tripoli.

In an emotional speech to the UN Security Council in New York, Mr Shalgam, who had previously remained loyal, said: “Muammar Gaddafi is telling the Libyans ‘either I rule you or I kill you’.” He told the 15 members of the council, who are considering an Anglo-French plan for sanctions against the Gaddafi regime: “We need a courageous resolution from you”.

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United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the global body’s Security Council to take “decisive action” over the Libya crisis.

He said violations of human rights had been carried out by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, and more than 1,000 had died.

Speaking at a meeting of the Security Council in New York, Mr Ban warned of a growing refugee and food crisis.

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Take the time to look at all the images.

The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said.

While it is far too soon to write the final chapter on the uprisings’ impact, Iran has already benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said. This week Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since its revolution in 1979, and Egypt’s new military leaders allowed them to pass.

Saudi Arabia, an American ally and a Sunni nation that jousts with Shiite Iran for regional influence, has been shaken. King Abdullah on Wednesday signaled his concern by announcing a $10 billion increase in welfare spending to help young people marry, buy homes and open businesses, a gesture seen as trying to head off the kind of unrest that fueled protests around the region.

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