Libya Live Blog

Al Jazeera staff and correspondents update you on important developments in the Libya uprising.

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AJE Live Stream - Special Coverage: Libya Uprising - Tweeting revolutions

Libya urged Niger on Saturday to extradite Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi, saying his call for Libyans to prepare for a "coming uprising" threatened bilateral ties.

Niger responded that it could not hand over Saadi, who fled south to the West African state in September as Libyan forces gain the upper hand over his father's forces, because he would face execution in Libya.

But officials in Libya and Niger told Reuters that the Niger authorities had placed tighter restrictions on Saadi's movements and agreed that the Libyan foreign minister, Ashour Bin Hayal, would meet his Niger counterpart to discuss the issue.

In another sign of the tenisons between supporters of political Islam and Arab nationalists, this photo from Benghazi shows the destruction of a monument to the former Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, by a group of men using construction equipment [AFP]

Syria has told Libya and Tunisia to close their embassies in Damascus within 72 hours, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday, after the two North African countries announced similar measures against Syria.

Libya said on Thursday it had given Syria's charge d'affaires and his staff in Tripoli three days to leave the country, and last week Tunisia said it had started procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and withdraw recognition of the Syrian leadership under President Bashar al-Assad. [Reuters]

Libya is expelling Syria's top envoy and his staff from the country to protest Damascus' crackdown on dissent.

Libyan Foreign Ministry spokesman Saad Elshlmani says the Syrian charge d'affaires and the embassy staff on Thursday were given 72 hours to leave the country.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the "Libyan people, who triumphed in their revolution over tyranny and dictatorship, can only stand by the oppressed people ... who are fighting for their freedom.'' [AP]

Libya's National Transitional Council will scrap a plan to set a 10 per cent quota for women in its new parliament, a Western diplomat told Reuters on Friday.

In December, the NTC proposed an electoral draft law including plans for the quota and asked for comments. Around 14,000 emails came in, 80 per cent of which opposed the quota, including some from women's rights groups, the diplomat said.

A rule barring voting for people with multiple nationalities will also go, but the NTC will relax a ban on its own members running for office. Libyans with ties to Gaddafi will still be banned, as will academics who wrote about Gaddafi's political manifesto, his "Green Book".

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the chief of Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has arrived in Libya on his first official diplomatic visit to any country since ex-President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11. 

Tantawi was accompanied by Egypt's economic, electricity and foreign ministers and was met with a protest by Libyans demanding Egypt seize and return Libyan assets and hand over former Libyan regime officials.

Egyptian businessmen have launched a small campaign urging Tantawi to run for president, though the military has denied ambitions for political power.  

Here's Tantawi meeting with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of Libya's National Transitional Council, as he arrived today in Tripoli:

File 57756 

A new force of border guards in Libya was deployed at the key crossing with Tunisia, marking the first time an interior ministry force from the transitional government has taken responsibility since the ouster of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Former rebels had been in control of the Libyan side of Ras Ajdir crossing for at least two months. It is the primary crossing between Tunisia and Libya, and is on a major trade route to the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

"The revolutionaries helped secure the border crossing over the previous period, and now they have handed it over to the interior ministry which will supervise it from now on," Omar Al-Khadrawy, interior ministry secretary, said on Thursday.

More than 6,000 Syrians escaping the violence at home have fled to Libya.

They are discovering how difficult it is to settle into a country struggling to fulfil the promise of its own revolution.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan reports from the Libyan city of Benghazi where he met some of those who have fled.

The chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council has called on Syria's president to step down, saying the Syrian people have the right to determine their own destiny.
 
Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Friday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should quit.
 
He said Assad can always put himself up for election in a democratic vote to see if his people really want him.
 
He says "if the Syrian people are willing to choose Assad, then let it be.''
 
Abdul-Jalil spoke at a development conference in Warsaw, Poland.

The European Parliament has awarded five "Arab Spring" activists the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Among the winners, which include both men and women, is Mohamed Bouazizi - a Tunisian fruit seller who set himself on fire in a sign of protest that set the region ablaze with historic revolutionary movements.

Other winners included Egypt's Asmaa Mahfouz and Libyan dissident Ahmed al-Zubair Ahmed al-Sanusi. Syrian winners, lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and cartoonist Ali Farzat, were unable to attend the award ceremony due to ongoing strife in their homeland.

In addition to the honour of being named, the winners will share a prize of $65,000.

Past winners of the Sakharov Prize include anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela and former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba reports.

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