> A desperate plea - from Hana El-Gallal, law professor from Benghazi: 'The global community must act to stop Gaddafi and his forces reaching Benghazi. If he gets here, he will kill everyone. We in Benghazi, in what is left of Free Libya, have a very simple message for the Security Council. Please, do something. We are desperate for your help and you must do it now.'
> El-Gallal also features briefly in this report on life in Benghazi from a week or so ago. (Text here.)
> The Times this morning condemns Barack Obama (£) for his passivity over Libya: 'The Arab world has been roiled by political dissent and violent attempts to suppress it. And when freedom was at stake, the leader of the free world was nowhere to be seen... Mr Obama is proving to be a brutal disappointment.'
> That echoes Lebanon's Daily Star from a couple of days ago; except that here the target is broader than just the Obama administration: '... the inertia of the U.S. and Europe is... only further tearing down their reputations. By tolerating Gadhafi's massacre of his own people, they are giving the impression that their mouthfuls of freedom, human rights and democracy are nothing but a sham...' (The rights and wrongs of Western intervention then [Iraq] and now [Libya] are of course debatable, but this does bring out how non-intervention can also be the cause of accusations of democratic hypocrisy.)
> The Guardian (who could have guessed?) is against intervention, but that there might at any point be a responsibility to protect Libyan lives doesn't come up for discussion by it.
> Hugh White, professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, discusses the perils of a no-fly zone: he thinks it 'probably won't work, and if it goes ahead the West will be drawn in much deeper when it fails'.
> Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, says the measures now being considered by the US at the UN should include but perhaps also go beyond a no-fly zone. (Via.)
> Further to that last item, this from the New York Times registers the change in US thinking: 'The prospect of a deadly siege of the rebel stronghold in Benghazi, Libya, has produced a striking shift in tone from the Obama administration, which is now pushing for the United Nations to authorize aerial bombing of Libyan tanks and heavy artillery to try to halt the advance of forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.' (See also here.)
> German opposition to intervention: 'In every international body, the German government has opposed British and French proposals for military action... He [German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle] described a no-fly zone as a slippery slope, saying that no country wanted to be drug [sic] into a war.'
> In the FT Roula Khalaf considers how the Iraq example could twist against the West: '[T]he shadow of Iraq does loom large over Libya. But in a profound irony, Libya could, if the US and its allies fail to act, end up reminding us of the western attitude to Iraq in 1991, when the US abandoned the fast-advancing rebels in the wake of the first Gulf war... Tragically, the ceasefire agreement reached with Baghdad allowed the dictator the use of his helicopters, which proved crucial in the brutal crackdown that followed.'
> Iman Bughaigis, spokeswoman for the opposition, 'who broke down as she struggled to appear defiant. "How many must die before the rest of the world acts?" she asked. "We are asking for our freedom, that is all. The international community must stand with what they say they believe in or history will never forgive them..."'
> Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, professor of political science at the University of New England, says that Gaddafi and his supporters 'might win on the battlefield, but they will lose in the end'. This is because demographic changes have urbanized Libya and created a modern economy and high literacy rate. 'No matter how much blood is shed today,' he concludes, 'the uprising will not be stopped.' (OK, but the prospect of a victory for the Libyan people in the end does not render it less urgent to try to save them from being killed in large numbers now.)
> The Danish prime minister says that 'Denmark wishes to be in the vanguard of the battle for its own values, and is therefore at the forefront of efforts to curb Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.' The Danish Socialist People's Party, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, also supports intervention. (Via.)
> The UN Security Council moves closer to adopting a resolution.
> Australia's foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, urges the UN Security Council 'not to let the crisis in Libya become another failure of the international community to save innocent people'.
> 'The UN Security Council has backed a no-fly zone over Libya and "all necessary measures" short of an invasion "to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas".
> 'In Benghazi, the main rebel stronghold, a large crowd watching the vote on an outdoor TV projection burst into celebration as green and red fireworks filled the air, as broadcast live on the Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel.'
> 'Egypt's military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington's knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said.'
> UK Explanation of Vote delivered by Sir Mark Lyall Grant: 'The situation in Libya is clear. A violent, discredited regime which has lost all legitimacy is using weapons of war against civilians... The central purpose of this resolution is clear: to end the violence, to protect civilians, and to allow the people of Libya to determine their own future, free from the tyranny of the Qadhafi regime.'
> The text of today's UN Security Council resolution on Libya - here - explicitly invokes the doctrine of a responsibility to protect: 'Reiterating the responsibility of the Libyan authorities to protect the Libyan population and reaffirming that parties to armed conflicts bear the primary responsibility to take all feasible steps to ensure the protection of civilians... Expressing its determination to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian populated areas...'