In an interview with CNN, President Obama makes clear that the US supports the removal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his replacement with a government formed by the rebels.

He pointedly refused to rule out military assistance for the rebels, but said the international air campaign was focused on “ensuring that the people of Libya are not assaulted by their own military.”

The permanent members of the Security Council have no problem with a second term for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Reuters quotes UN diplomats as saying.

Once criticised by Human Rights Watch for being "notably reluctant to put pressure on abusive governments," Ban has grown tougher and more self-confident in recent months, they say.

In 2008 Russia had threatened to block Ban’s second term for supporting Kosovo’s seccesion from Serbia, but Moscow “got over it,” Reuters quoted diplomats as saying.

Some observations on the UN-backed intervention in Libya from Bloomberg’s report (see it here):

“This is 21st century intervention, an extraordinary step that pushes the envelope for the UN.” Intervening in an internal conflict such as Libya “goes beyond previous non-aggression measures such the steps taken against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.”

“There is no contradiction in the White House position that the UN-sanctioned military mission is restricted to protecting civilians but that the longer-term, broader political aim is to remove Col Muammar Gaddafi. What is left unsaid is that presumably the man giving the orders to kill civilians is Col Gaddafi. Getting rid of him would protect civilians. QED.”

“In passing RtoP [relating to Libya], the Security Council helped bridge the gap between so-called legitimate (ethically justifiable) and legal (legally authorized) intervention.”

“RtoP, responding to the sense that these domestic harms warranted international response, solidified the Security Council’s claims to wider discretion. Yet it also restricted its ability to sanction intervention to the four situations listed in the RtoP document - genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

“President Obama’s decision to participate in the air campaign against … Gaddafi’s regime is a vast improvement over previous policy, a victory for human rights idealists within the administration, and the application of an important international standard known as “the responsibility to protect.”

US President Obama has delivered a tough warning to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. (See full text here).

These are extracts:

As the European Union gets stronger, and national governments get weaker, ethnic groups are demanding more self-determination within a Europe of regions, argues Walter Mayr in the Der Spiegel online.

See his feature here.

“Reports of abuse, maltreatment and violence are rife in Immigration detention centres where newborns, children and the elderly languish for months, sometimes years, without any avenue for release.

“In recent years, Immigration Enforcement has taken to moving undocumented arrestees into provincial maximum security holding centres. Many of those held are refugee claimants that have just arrived, whose detention is actually illegal under the Geneva Convention on Refugee Rights.”

Egypt's military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington's knowledge, US and Libyan rebel officials told the Wall Street Journal.

The Egyptian shipments are the strongest indication to date that some Arab countries are heeding Western calls to take a lead in efforts to intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebels in their fight against Mummar Gaddafi, the paper said.