Libyan officials lied about photojournalist Anton Hammerl to the South African government, international relations and cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has said. 'We kept getting reassured at the highest level that he was alive until his colleagues were released and shared the information yesterday [Wednesday],' she told reporters in Pretoria. It was revealed last week that Hammerl has been killed while covering the Libyan conflict.

Almost 4,000 Chadians who have returned home from strife-torn Libya via Niger are in a critical situation in the border town of Zouarke, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has warned. 'According to the Chadian government, more than 3,800 migrants including 310 women and children are in a very difficult situation in Zouarke with limited food, no water and transport to make their journey south,' the IOM said in a statement. Most of the migrants are Chadians, of whom 25,000 have already fled the Libyan conflict and made their way to the northern towns of Faya and Kalait, but the latest batch lacks the means.

In late March, 29-year-old Libyan student Eman Al-Obeidy caught the world’s attention when she burst into a Tripoli hotel to inform Western media of her alleged detention, torture, and rape at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces. Eman Al-Obeidy has subsequently fled Libya. In this Q&A on the website of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, 22-year-old Amany Mufta Ismail, a woman activist in rebel-controlled East Libya, describes her reactions to the story of Eman Al-Obeidy.

Amid growing concern about al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) acquiring weapons from Libya, the Algerian army launched a large-scale surveillance and security operation along the joint border. Algerian military leaders met in Djanet to discuss ANP preparedness for possible security problems along the border with Libya, El Khabar reported. The defence ministry tasked the Ouergla and Tamanrasset regional commanders with monitoring security and humanitarian issues related to the influx of refugees.

The request by chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that arrest warrants for war crimes be issued against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and the head of Libya’s intelligence service, Abdullah al-Senussi, only confirms the role of the International Criminal Court as a tool of the imperialist powers, says this article on the World Socialist Web Site. 'The warrants are, in effect, being issued on behalf of the United States, Britain and France—the chief architects of the ongoing bombardment of Libya. Moreno-Ocampo has gathered his evidence against the three accused with the aim of preventing any possibility of a negotiated end to the war, and to further isolate Gaddafi and pave the way for regime-change.'

Nato aircrafts have blasted an oil terminal in a key eastern city in a nightfall strike, Libyan TV reported, after Britain urged the alliance to widen its assault on areas controlled by ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The reported attack came as the Libyan conflict appeared largely stalemated, with each side claiming gains one day, only to be turned back the next.

Soon after the Libyan crisis broke, decision-makers and humanitarian workers faced a critical challenge: lack of information about events inside the country. Within hours, Andrej Verity, information management officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, called a meeting with volunteer-based and/or technically focused groups. OCHA activated the Standby task force, comprising more than 150 volunteers skilled in online crisis mapping. The idea was to map out social and traditional media reports from within Libya. That led to the creation of LibyaCrisisMap.net. There are more than 1,000 articles on the platform with some information extracted and placed on maps.

Global Civilians for Peace in Libya is embarking on its second fact-finding mission into the war-torn country. The delegation is comprised of academics, professionals, journalists and ex-military personnel from Europe, North America, England, Middle East and Africa. The delegates are independent and not allied to any government or official body. An Italian camera crew will be embedded with the group, a TV producer from Britain and a French journalist.

Since January 2011, over 1,000 migrants have drowned while attempting to reach the fortified coasts of the southern shores of the European Union. These figures must be added to the 15,000 victims of the 'war against migrants' which reaches these days new peaks of inhumanity. According to informations, a boat carrying over 600 people is lost in the high seas off the Libyan coast, amidst general indifference.

The New York Times has reported on a wave of execution-style murders of former Libyan government internal security personnel in Benghazi. The bodies of two men, Nasser al-Sirmany and Hussein Ghaith, were found within days of each other. Both men had reportedly worked as interrogators for Muammar Gaddafi’s brutal internal security agencies. At least four similar attacks are now under investigation by authorities in Benghazi, while it is unclear how many more killings have gone unreported. The so-called Transitional National Council (TNC) has denied that its security forces are responsible.

Yash Tandon explains the contradictions of ‘imperial finance capital’ in controlling neo-colonial states like Libya. While Gaddafi was being ‘accommodated’ by imperial powers, the ‘Arab Spring’ forced their hand, he says.

Almost everyone on an overcrowded ship carrying about 600 African migrants to Europe is believed to have died when the vessel broke apart within sight of the Libyan capital, the United Nations said. The UN accused the Libyan government of complicity in a rising number of deadly smuggling incidents, many involving workers from sub-Saharan Africa who had moved to Libya to find work before war broke out there in March.

Libyan regime forces laying siege on Misrata intensified their assault on the lifeline port on 8 May as smoke billowed from a fuel depot bombing, attacks a rights group said may amount to an atrocity. Two loud explosions were also heard in Tripoli, where the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has its headquarters, as jets flew overhead, witnesses said.

Minister Louis Farrakhan, in this video interview, discusses the role of the CIA in the conflict. He points to the contradiction of Western concern over the people of Libya, while the people of Palestine and Rwanda, for example, were ignored.

Medical supplies are running short in Benghazi, putting overwhelmed doctors under heavy strain. To address the challenges, professionals, hospital managers and health officials gathered last week to look for solutions. 'We held this meeting in order to identify the problems facing the health sector and try to find solutions for them,' Economic Support and Assistance Commission member Jamal Jabr said. 'After that, we shall send these solutions to the economic council. Our aim is to boost competency and performance in the health sector.'

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he has unearthed 'enough evidence' to pursue up to five warrants for crimes against humanity committed by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. Luis Moreno-Ocampo made the announcement a day before he was to brief the UN Security Council on his investigation into alleged crimes commited by Gaddafi's forces. 'We have security forces shooting civilians at demonstrations and evidence of security forces arresting people in different cities, including Tripoli, even today, because they think these people are not loyal,' the prosecutor said.

Switzerland says it has frozen nearly $1bn worth of assets linked to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and the deposed leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said some 830m Swiss francs (£580m; $960m) had been discovered. Of that, the largest proportion - 410m SFr - was linked to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his circle, the minister said.

Thousands of ethnic Berbers from Libya have fled into Tunisia after a brief hiatus in their exodus last week because of fighting between Libyan government troops and opposition forces for control of a border crossing point. 'This past weekend, more than 8,000 people, most of them ethnic Berbers, arrived in Dehiba in southern Tunisia. Most are women and children,' a UNHCR spokesperson said. The latest arrivals bring the number of people to have fled fighting in Libya's Western Mountains region to almost 40,000 in the past month.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, has issued a statement saying they are 'alarmed' by the implications of the situation in Libya for migrant workers and members of their families. 'The Committee is equally concerned about the difficulties encountered by migrant workers and members of their families trying to leave Libya, either to return to their countries of origin or to seek protection from the violations and threats facing them by claiming asylum in third countries. In this context, the Committee is concerned about the dangerous interception of migrants at sea and at inland borders.'

In the wake of NATO’s imposition of the ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya on 31 March, there is serious scepticism around the United States Pentagon’s denial of the use of depleted uranium (DU), writes Farouk James. With the US, the UK and France now calling for a full-scale invasion, James writes, the veto powers of the UN Security Council’s permanent members should be called into question once again.