Gaddafi revives offer of vote to end Libya conflict (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The Libyan government on Sunday renewed its offer to hold a vote on whether Muammar Gaddafi should stay in power, a proposal unlikely to interest Gaddafi's opponents but which could widen differences inside NATO.

Pressure is growing from some quarters within the alliance to find a political solution, three months into a military campaign which is costing NATO members billions of dollars, has killed civilians, and has so far failed to topple Gaddafi.

Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for Gaddafi's administration, told reporters in Tripoli the government was proposing a period of national dialogue and an election overseen by the United Nations and the African Union.

"If the Libyan people decide Gaddafi should leave he will leave. If the people decide he should stay he will stay," Ibrahim said.

But he said Gaddafi -- who has run the oil-producing country since taking over in a military coup in 1969 -- would not go into exile whatever happened. "Gaddafi is not leaving anywhere, he is staying in this country," Ibrahim said.

The idea of holding an election was first raised earlier this month by one of Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam.

The proposal lost momentum when Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi appeared to dismiss it. At the time, it was also rejected by anti-Gaddafi rebels in the east of Libya, and by Washington.

Many analysts say Gaddafi and his family have no intention of relinquishing power. Instead, they say, the Libyan leader is holding out the possibility of a deal to try to widen cracks that have been emerging in the alliance ranged against him.

The election proposal could find a more receptive audience this time around, especially after a NATO bomb landed on a house in Tripoli on June 19, killing several civilians.

After that incident, alliance-member Italy said it wanted a political settlement, and also said that the civilian casualties threaten NATO's credibility.

SOCCER DEFECTIONS

Libyan government forces have been fighting rebels, backed by NATO air power, since February 17, when thousands of people rose up in a rebellion against his rule.

The revolt has turned into the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the Middle East.

Rebels now control the eastern third of the country, and some enclaves in the West. They have been unable though to break through to the capital, leaving Western powers banking on an uprising in Tripoli to overthrow Gaddafi.

The Libyan leader suffered a propaganda defeat when four members of the national soccer team and 13 other football figures defected to the rebels, the rebel council said.

Libyans are passionate about the sport and the national team was closely aligned with Gaddafi's rule. At one point his son, Saadi, played in the side.

Asked about the defections, government spokesman Ibrahim said: "The Libyan football team is full and functioning and performing all of its duties inside and outside Libya."

HUMANITARIAN SWAP

A momentary thaw in the fighting allowed the Red Cross to reunite people caught on the wrong side of the conflict with their families.

A ship, the Ionis, arrived in Tripoli's port on Sunday carrying 106 people from the main rebel stronghold in Benghazi. Many of the passengers were elderly, and families with small children.

A crowd of a few dozen people waited for the ship to dock, among them Mohammed Al-Gimzi. "I love Muammar Gaddafi very much," he said.

When Al-Gimzi's sister disembarked from the ship, he rushed to greet her and the two stood weeping with their heads on each other's shoulders. "I am very happy to see my sister again," he said, tears running down his face.

As part of the same exchange, a ship carried around 300 people from Tripoli to Benghazi on Friday. They included dozens of rebel supporters who had been detained.

"This is purely humanitarian, for families to meet with their loved ones and to be able to travel," Robin Waudo, a spokesman in Tripoli for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli and Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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UN reinforcements head to Sudan conflict state (AFP)

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The United Nations is sending peacekeeper reinforcements to the strife-torn Sudanese state of South Kordofan and has turned its main base there into a safe haven for refugees, UN officials said.

More than 120 Bangladeshi troops will lead reinforcements sent to the state's main city, Kadugli, where Khartoum government troops are battling forces loyal to southern Sudan which is on the verge of forming a breakaway nation.

Heavy fighting in the state on the border between north and south Sudan has raged since June 5. Khartoum forces are battling militia aligned to the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud said a Security Council meeting had been told how Kadugli Cathedral had been razed and other churches burned during fighting and that the area around the main base of the UN mission, UNMIS, has become a "focus" of the fighting.

"It's important that the compound of UNMIS can become a sort of safe area where civilians are effectively protected. We have been reassured that instructions have been sent to UNMIS to do their job," Araud told reporters after the meeting.

A UN peacekeeping spokesman said the company of Bangladesh troops had been sent to Kadugli and that the area around the UN compound had become a safe haven to protect civilians.

UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told the Security Council that up to 6,000 people were camped out around the base. The United Nations estimates that 60,000 have been displaced by the fighting in South Kordofan alone, including about 70 percent of the population of Kadugli.

Le Roy said tensions have been heightened by "an overall escalation of political rhetoric by both parties."

The Security Council is to get a briefing on Monday from former South African president Thabo Mbeki and UN envoy Haile Menkerios on attempts to seal a peace deal between the north and south governments.

Araud said that if there was no agreement by Monday the Security Council would have to "express itself in very strong terms to call for an end to the violence."

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AU urges political solution for Libyan conflict (AFP)

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – The African Union on Wednesday called for a political solution to Libya's protracted conflict, weighing in once more on the crisis though its proposals have largely been ignored.

The pan-African bloc has called for a ceasefire and set up a high-level mediation team, but its efforts have had little effect on the ground as Western powers continue with air raids against Moamer Kadhafi's regime.

"I am convinced that only a political solution can lead to a lasting peace and satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people," said Jean Ping, head of the AU Commission, the pan-African bloc's executive body.

"The situation in Libya remains a serious concern for us, for the future of Libya itself as well as for regional countries," Ping said at a special summit Wednesday in Addis Ababa.

"Unfortunately the current situation on the ground and the lack of coordination of international efforts do not favour the search for a solution."

The AU is opposed to the international military action against the Libyan regime and last month proposed a ceasefire plan, which was rejected by the Libyan rebels who insisted on Kadhafi's departure first.

Kadhafi himself however readily accepted the plan.

The AU also proposed a transition period for negotiations to organise elections.

But the AU's proposals for resolving the north African country's months-long crisis, including the mediation team made up of African heads of state, have largely been snubbed, most recently even by South Africa.

Before the talks even opened in Addis Ababa, the office of South African President Jacob Zuma said he would visit Tripoli for talks with Kadhafi on Monday.

Presidency sources said the talks would focus on Kadhafi's "exit strategy."

Libyan rebels have not warmed to the AU's overtures either, wary of the ties between the continental body and Kadhafi, who is one of the bloc's main financiers.

However Ping insisted that "the roadmap proposed by the AU has all the elements for a solution. We need to be given the opportunity to effect it."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, also attending the special summit, renewed his call for a ceasefire.

"Last night, I spoke at length once again with the Libyan prime minister (Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi) to listen to his concerns over the recent intensified bombing campaign," Ban said.

"I reiterated the urgent need for a real ceasefire and serious negotiations on a transition to a government that fully meets the aspiration of the Libyan people."

Libya has been mired in a bloody conflict pitting Kadhafi's forces against opposition rebels since the eruption of massive anti-government protests in mid-February.

An international coalition intervened on March 19, launching air raids and missile strikes under a UN mandate aimed at protecting civilians from Kadhafi's forces. NATO took command of the air campaign on March 31.

The alliance this week intensified bombardments against the Libyan regime, seeking to deliver a decisive blow to Kadhafi's government.

"Despite some speculation about differences, all of us, without equivocation, condemned the violent events," Ban said. "All of us recognise the legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people for freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, dignity and justice."

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Photographing the horrors of conflict

By Tom Cohen, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTS "The Bang Bang Club" film debuts in the U.S. this week at the Tribeca film festival
It's based on a book about the humanity of four journalists who chronicle inhumanity
The four photographers covered the bloody political violence as apartheid ended in South Africa
Today, only two are alive, including Joao Silva, who was injured last year in Afghanistan
Editor's note: CNN's Tom Cohen was based in South Africa from 1990 to 1998 for The Associated Press and worked with Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. He covered many of the events depicted in the book and film. Note, this story contains graphic photos and some profanity.

(CNN) -- More than 20 years later, the image remains both horrifying and riveting.

An attacker slams a machete into the skull of a kneeling man engulfed in flames as a boy runs past in celebration.

"As I focused, I noted that the early sun was right behind the burning man," photographer Greg Marinovich wrote of how he captured the moment to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. "The camera's light meter did not work, and so I twisted the aperture wide open: f5.6 should be right."

That instant of emotional detachment -- setting his aperture as a man gets brutally murdered a few feet away -- is at the heart of the book "The Bang-Bang Club" by Marinovich and Joao Silva on covering South Africa's chaotic township violence in the final years of white rule.

Published in 2000, the book is considered a must-read by many journalists who report on human conflict for a living.

It is a gritty and honest account of how Marinovich, Silva and two other acclaimed photographers -- Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter -- confronted tragedy, risk and their own compassion in recording the fallout of a secret war waged by the last white South African government and its Zulu nationalist allies against Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

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