Gaddafi on a mission...

Armed with a few Kodak Zi8 cameras, 6 HTC Wildfire mobile phones, energy, expertise in training citizen journalists, Small World News is working to share stories from Libya with the larger world. Small World News is on the ground in Benghazi training Libyans to capture and tell video stories of events in this volatile region. Along the way, the team has also captured footage that no other main stream media outlet has been able to get.

Loud explosions have rocked the Libyan capital, Tripoli, for a third night as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi attempt to stop any new attack from an international military coalition enforcing a no-fly zone over the country. Gunfire and anti-aircraft fire lit up the sky late on Monday in and around the capital, where two large explosions could be heard about 10 minutes apart shortly after 9pm, said Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli.

With the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) imposing a no-fly zone in the airspace of Libya by a predicted 10-0, no one stopped to ask what ends the means of military force hoped to achieve. As the United States and its allies, notably France and Britain, enter their third consecutive day of ferocious air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s ground controls Monday, this vital question remains unanswered, a vacuum that is swiftly filling up with fears that the UNSCR may have left too much wiggle room for powerful Western states with a notorious track record of invasion and occupation.

The African Union's panel on Libya Sunday called for an 'immediate stop' to all attacks after the United States, France and Britain launched military action against Muammar Gaddafi's forces. The situation in Libya 'demands urgent action so that an African solution can be found to the very serious crisis which this sister nation is going through', said Mauritanian President Ould Abdel Aziz, who is one of the AU panel members.

In this week’s round-up of social media activity around Africa, Sokari Ekine highlights reasons to oppose military intervention in Libya, the politics of a ‘no-fly zone’ and reports of torture of Egyptian activists at the hands of a military previously heralded as a champion of the people’s cause. She also focuses on the Cameroonian government’s Twitter crackdown, planned protests against Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Côte d’Ivoire’s ongoing post-election crisis.

…is not as easy as you think!

The West sees the Libyan uprising from a neocolonial and Eurocentric point of view, argues Jenn Jagire, and that is why it underestimates how much support Gaddafi still has.

Italy has prevented a ferry carrying 1,800 people, mainly Moroccans fleeing the fighting in Libya, from docking in Sicily. The ship had sailed from Tripoli and asked for permission to refuel on the island after being refused entry to Malta, Italian media said. Meanwhile, 41 people are feared drowned after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Tunisia, UN officials say.

Visit this multimedia page on for the latest videos on the situation in Libya.

Gaddafi remains firing on all cylinders, says Gado.

Libyan security forces have launched a wave of 'arbitary arrests and forced disappearances' in the capital to stamp out protests against Muammar Gaddafi's rule, Human Rights Watch has said. The New York-based group said it compiled evidence from Tripoli residents of scores of people being detained if they helped organise or took part in anti-government protests, or if they were suspected of speaking to foreign media.

The UN estimates that some 60,000 people could come into Niger from Libya in the coming weeks. As of 10 March, 2,205 had arrived - 1,865 of them Nigeriens and the rest from other West African countries - according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Italy, which did more than any other country to legitimise Libya and its mercurial leader, is going through a foreign policy nightmare as civil strife in its former colony threatens its energy supplies, international image and the stability of some of its blue chip companies. Italy imports about 80 per cent of its energy needs. About 32 per cent of Libya's oil output goes to Italy - making up about 25 per cent of Italy's imports - and about 12 per cent of Italy's gas comes from Libya.

Libya said on Sunday it welcomed an African Union panel formed to try to end the Libyan crisis and said it would facilitate its work, while condemning an Arab League resolution calling for a no-fly zone over the country. The African Union announced on Friday the leaders of South Africa, Uganda, Mauritania, Congo and Mali would form a panel that will travel to Libya shortly.

Unidentified gunmen killed an Al-Jazeera cameraman and wounded his colleague near the eastern rebel-held city of Benghazi in an ambush on Saturday, according to the Qatar-based satellite station. This is the first confirmed death reported in the Libyan conflict, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said.

Libyan armed forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have cleared 'armed gangs' from the oil-rich town of Brega in the east, an army source told state television on Sunday. 'Brega has been cleansed of armed gangs,' the military source was quoted as saying. The report could not immediately be verified. State television has in the past issued false reports claiming territory. But the claim comes amid a string of setbacks for the rebels who have lost several cities in the east to pro-Gaddafi forces. Brega's fall into the hands of Gaddafi loyalists would deal a further blow to the opposition's morale and momentum.

Up to one million foreign workers and others trapped in Libya are expected to need emergency aid because of fighting in the North African nation, aid officials said as they sought $160 million to deal with the crisis. UN officials say that amount is only for the next three months - and they expect the crisis to go on longer than that. The UN is also effectively frozen out of sections controlled by leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces and is only seeking humanitarian aid for opposition-controlled areas.

The United Nations refugee agency has voiced alarm at increasing accounts of violence and discrimination in Libya against sub-Saharan Africans in both the rebel-held east and the Government-controlled west, including the reported rape of a 12-year-old girl. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 'reiterates its call on all parties to recognize the vulnerability of both refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and to take measures to ensure their protection,' spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing in Geneva.

When violent unrest erupted in Libya recently, Ahmed al-Agouz, 25, was doing casual work in the Libyan city of Sabha. Realizing he had to flee, he managed to reach the Tunisian border, where he eventually boarded a plane to Cairo. But returning to his home village in the Egyptian Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqia, north of Cairo, has made one thing abundantly clear to al-Agouz and tens of thousands of other returnees: There simply are no jobs back home.