LIBYA: Refugees pour into border crossings.
Libyan border crossings were overwhelmed Wednesday by tens of thousands of hungry, fearful people fleeing its burgeoning civil war. Egypt and a handful of European nations launched emergency airlifts and sent ships to handle the chaotic exodus.
U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said more than 180,000 refugees have reached the border. More than 77,300 people have crossed east from Libya into Egypt, most of them Egyptians, while a similar number have fled west from Libya into Tunisia, she said. Another 30,000 more were still waiting in Libya at the border, trying to get into Tunisia.
She said Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy’s forces appear to be targeting Egyptians and Tunisians, apparently thinking they are the main trigger of the uprising against Khadafy’s 42-year-old regime. Some Somali and Eritrean workers around Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city that is now under the control of opposition forces, are also feeling “hunted” as they are being mistaken for mercenaries hired by Khadafy, she said.
YEMEN: President given plan to peaceful change.
Yemen’s leader came under new pressure Wednesday as influential clerics, tribal leaders and some members of Yemen’s opposition presented a plan for a peaceful transition of power.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier pledged that he would not seek re-election in 2013. But some protesters who have taken to the streets here in recent weeks have demanded that he step down immediately, and the opposition’s proposal Wednesday marked an attempt to find a middle ground.
The precise details of the road map remained unclear, but an earlier version presented by the opposition coalition called for the president to agree by the end of the year to the terms of transition and for a full investigation into the recent deaths of protesters and compensation for their families.
Saleh, a close U.S. ally, called the White House on Wednesday to apologize for accusations he had made the day before. He had said that the United States and Israel were fomenting the wave of unrest spreading through the Middle East.
NETHERLANDS: Dutch queen decides to delay Oman visit.
Dutch Queen Beatrix has postponed a state visit to Oman amid ongoing unrest in the strategic gulf state. The monarch had been due to begin a three-day trade-boosting visit to Oman on Sunday, accompanied by heir to the throne Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife, Princess Maxima.
Oman, ruled by a powerful family dynasty, is the latest Arab nation to be swept up in a wave of regional unrest that already has brought down two leaders and threatened the rule of others.
Oil prices rise
