When Doc in the House had ‘AIDS’

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Along The Watchtower By M. Veera Pandiyan

Fascinating stories about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, from a man who was close to both of them.

IT’S amazing that when it comes to politics in Malaysia, things either revolve around the same old issues or the same old personalities.

Like these two who still continue to make the headlines – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Over the past few days, I have been trying unsuccessfully to get a copy of the former Prime Minister’s memoirs, A Doctor in the House, which has generated much interest since its launch more than two weeks ago.

Having missed out on the deadline for the collective buying discount offer at the office, the last hunt was at Borders in Tropicana City Mall in Petaling Jaya on Monday, only to find out that the latest batch of copies had just been sold out.

Love him or loathe him but this is one person whom Malaysians find hard to ignore. The PM for 22 years may have stepped down eight years ago but there’s no waning of his stature or influence among many, just as there seems no end to aversion and scorn from others.

The other character who seems to be forever making the news is of course Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a former blue-eyed boy of Dr Mahathir, who rose through his patronage to occupy the second most important position in the country before being unceremoniously sacked and jailed in 1998 on sodomy and corruption charges.

After a long hiatus, poster-size pictures of him made the front pages on Tuesday, next to headlines denying that he was the man in a shocker of a sex video with a hooker, unveiled to selected media representatives a day earlier.

Anwar has since lodged a police report citing criminal intimidation and defamation against Datuk T who exposed the video, and the police have begun probing the case under the law pertaining to possession and distribution of pornographic material.

(Datuk T stands for Datuk Trio or Three Datuks, who have been identified as Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Chik, Datuk Shazryl Eskay Abdullah and Datuk Shuib Lazim).



Datuk T, meanwhile, had said he would surrender the footage to an independent public commission and urged the media fraternity and non-government organisations to take the lead in setting one up.

As some of these developments were taking place on Tuesday, I was having a chat and coffee with Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, a man whose life has been intertwined with that of Dr Mahathir and Anwar and one who knows a lot about both of them.

The former youth leader, scholar, linguist and colourful politician who has had a chequered career spanning banking, politics from the grassroots to the Cabinet level and academia, is, of course, no stranger to controversy himself.

Political veterans would agree that this is one guy who has always been close to Dr Mahathir and was also once very chummy with Anwar, making him a veritable font of yarns about both of them.

Many of the stories are yet to be heard, and some like those dating back to when Anwar was a Form One schoolboy in the Malay College Kuala Kangsar and Sanusi was his senior in Form Five are unlikely to be told.

Sanusi, a founder vice-president of Abim, certainly is someone who knows the ins and outs of Anwar from the time he was 12 years old to his entry into politics.

Among the anecdotes told by Sanusi on Tuesday was about the time when Dr Mahathir threatened to quit as Prime Minister in 1985 as Umno nearly held an extraordinary general meeting to urge Tun Musa Hitam, who had resigned as Deputy Prime Minister in the wake of the Memali tragedy, to return.

He recalled his rather devious role, and that of a few others, in getting the delegates to oppose the motion for the EGM – by making them believe that the majority was against it, although the opposite was true – through persuasive but frantic last-minute phone calls.

Musa’s supporters later put up posters linking Dr Mahathir with ‘AIDS’ – an acronym for the closest people around him then: Anwar Ibrahim, Daim (Zainuddin) and Sanusi – and blamed them for the defeat.

According to Sanusi, among the ‘AIDS’, it was Anwar who was cosiest to Dr Mahathir.

“Besides his wife and children, Anwar was the nearest to Dr Mahathir’s heart,” he recalled, adding that unlike the others whom he only sought for views, Anwar benefited most from the former PM’s trust.

Sanusi also related another interesting tale about money politics in Umno, dating back to 1993 when former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Ghafar Baba was swept away in the contest for the deputy president’s post by Anwar, who was then leading the party’s Team Wawasan.

Sabah strongman the late Tun Datu Mustapha Harun, Ghafar and Sanusi were on their way to a divisional meeting in Sabah in a helicopter and during the journey, Mustapha kept telling Ghafar not to worry as he was about to get his first nomination from the state.

“But when we reached the place, the division chief, who was supposed to be a strong supporter of Mustapha, said: ‘Sorry Tun, I cannot nominate Ghafar today because that man over there (pointing to someone later only identified by the others as a Sarawakian and non-Malay) has just given me RM500,000.”

The meeting soon started with a short speech, after which the nomination was done in front of everyone. And as the division chief said, it was not Ghafar who was named.

Sanusi said during their journey back, Mustapha said he was not surprised at the turn of events.
He said he told the dejected Ghafar matter-of-factly: “I regret I did not bring RM1mil.”

Associate editor M. Veera Pandiyan likes this observation by American journalist Joseph Sobran who passed on last year: Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organised against the productive but unorganised.

Malaysia High Court to Admit DNA Evidence against Anwar's sodomy trial

Setback for Anwar in Malaysia sodomy trial -High Court decides to admit key DNA evidence against opposition leader, reversing earlier ruling.
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Anwar Ibrahim maintains there is a political conspiracy against him [AFP]

Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian opposition leader, has suffered a setback in his sodomy trial, as a court decided to accept the key DNA evidence that had been earlier rejected as inadmissible.

The country's High Court, on Wednesday, said it would let prosecutors use the evidence in their bid to link Anwar to traces of semen found on his accuser, a 25-year-old former aide.

The surprise reversal of the decision came after an appeal by the prosecution, and after the court had heard new testimony from police.

"It is clear that [Anwar's] arrest was lawful and the detention was for a lawful purpose," judge Zabidin Mohamed Diah told a packed courtroom.

"This court has no choice but to allow these items to be tendered [as evidence]. My earlier ruling in the matter is reversed," he said, but added that the court would not compel Anwar to provide a sample of his DNA.

The court had previously ruled that DNA from a bottle, toothbrush and hand towel in Anwar's detention cell -taken without his consent - was obtained illegally, and was therefore inadmissible.

Vital evidence

The evidence is a vital part of the prosecution's effort to prove that Anwar had sex with Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, his former aide. A chemist had testified that the DNA on those items matched that of semen discovered on Saiful.

Anwar faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of sodomy, which is considered a crime in the Muslim-majority country.

Yusof Zainal Abiden, the government prosecutor, had asked the High Court to review its earlier decision about the illegality of the DNA evidence.

He urged the court to compel Anwar to provide his DNA as tests would show whether there was a match with the semen found in an internal examination on Saiful, who claims he was coerced into having sex with the politician at a Kuala Lumpur condominium in June 2008.

Anwar has refused to voluntarily provide a DNA sample because he fears authorities will tamper with it.
The opposition politician criticised the court's decision, insisting to reporters that authorities got the three items through "trickery and deception".

'Political conspiracy'

Sankara Nair, Anwar's counsel, said the judge did not take all the facts into consideration.

"We disagree with the decision because the judge says the arrest was legal but it wasn't just the issue of the arrest alone, it was also the violation of lockup rules and many other issues," he told the AFP news agency.
Malaysia High Court to Admit DNA Evidence against Anwar's sodomy trial

Anwar maintains that the charges are part of a political conspiracy to remove him from politics.
He is also struggling with new allegations of sexual misconduct after a sex video depicting a man believed to resemble him was leaked under mysterious circumstances on Monday.

Anwar claims both the sodomy charge and the video were fabricated by the government to crush his political threat.

Authorities deny any conspiracy. And police said they were investigating the video, which has not been publicly circulated.

Source:

Agencies

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Safe nuclear does exists, China is leading the way with thorium

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A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.

Thorium could be a much safer option for China which has been unsettled by the nuclear crisis in Japan where fears over radiation levels are rising Photo: AP

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

This passed unnoticed –except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts – but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.

If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.

d chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Further evidence of Barack `Obama’s “Sputnik moment”, you could say.

Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.

“The reactor has an amazing safety feature,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.

“If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” he said.

Thorium reactor can't easily spin out of control

“They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don’t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we’ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.”

Thorium is a silvery metal named after the Norse god of thunder. The metal has its own “issues” but no thorium reactor could easily spin out of control in the manner of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or now Fukushima.

Professor Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University said thorium must be bombarded with neutrons to drive the fission process.

“There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment you switch off the photon beam. There are not enough neutrons for it continue of its own accord,” he said.

Dr Cywinski, who anchors a UK-wide thorium team, said the residual heat left behind in a crisis would be “orders of magnitude less” than in a uranium reactor.

The earth’s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country’s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilization for thousands of years.

I write before knowing the outcome of the Fukushima drama, but as yet none of 15,000 deaths are linked to nuclear failure. Indeed, there has never been a verified death from nuclear power in the West in half a century. Perspective is in order.

We cannot avoid the fact that two to three billion extra people now expect – and will obtain – a western lifestyle. China alone plans to produce 100m cars and buses every year by 2020.


The International Atomic Energy Agency said the world currently has 442 nuclear reactors. They generate 372 gigawatts of power, providing 14pc of global electricity. Nuclear output must double over twenty years just to keep pace with the rise of the China and India.

 Strain could shift onto gas, oil and coal

If a string of countries cancel or cut back future reactors, let alone follow Germany’s Angela Merkel in shutting some down, they shift the strain onto gas, oil, and coal. Since the West is also cutting solar subsidies, they can hardly expect the solar industry to plug the gap.

BP’s disaster at Macondo should teach us not to expect too much from oil reserves deep below the oceans, beneath layers of blinding salt. Meanwhile, we rely uneasily on Wahabi repression to crush dissent in the Gulf and keep Arabian crude flowing our way. So where can we turn, unless we revert to coal and give up on the ice caps altogether? That would be courting fate.

US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.

The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner.

Dr Cywinski is developing an accelerator driven sub-critical reactor for thorium, a cutting-edge project worldwide. It needs to £300m of public money for the next phase, and £1.5bn of commercial investment to produce the first working plant. Thereafter, economies of scale kick in fast. The idea is to make pint-size 600MW reactors.

Yet any hope of state support seems to have died with the Coalition budget cuts, and with it hopes that Britain could take a lead in the energy revolution. It is understandable, of course. Funds are scarce. The UK has already put its efforts into the next generation of uranium reactors. Yet critics say vested interests with sunk costs in uranium technology succeeded in chilling enthusiasm.

The same happened a decade ago to a parallel project by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). France’s nuclear industry killed proposals for funding from Brussels, though a French group is now working on thorium in Grenoble.

Norway’s Aker Solution has bought Professor Rubbia’s patent. It had hoped to build the first sub-critical reactor in the UK, but seems to be giving up on Britain and locking up a deal to build it in China instead, where minds and wallets are more open.

So the Chinese will soon lead on this thorium technology as well as molten-salts. Good luck to them. They are doing Mankind a favour. We may get through the century without tearing each other apart over scarce energy and wrecking the planet.

This is my last column for a while. I am withdrawing to the Mayan uplands.

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Missile hits Gaddafi compound in Tripoli

Building in military centre is destroyed as coalition forces target facilities used by Libyan leader.

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A three-storey building in a military command centre used by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been destroyed in an air strike by coalition forces.

The Sunday-night strike was the first reported attack on the Bab al-Azizia, a sprawling compound in Tripoli, the capital, that Gaddafi has used recently as a backdrop for televised addresses and which was bombed by the United States in 1986.

The regime invited journalists to visit the site of the attack early on Monday morning. Spokesman Mussa Ibrahim called it a "barbaric bombing" but said no one had been hurt. He declined to say whether Gaddafi himself was inside the compound.

Despite two separate cease fires declared by the Gaddafi regime, fighting continued throughout Libya on Monday. Loyalist troops were still present in the coastal city of Misurata, east of Tripoli and the site of a major oil refinery, stationing snipers on rooftops and bringing in residents of neighbouring towns to act as human shields, witnesses said. In Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, Gaddafi forces were on the attack for the second-straight day as they attempted to exert more control over towns in the Nafusa Mountain area.

Coalition forces from France, the United Kingdom, United States and other nations began striking the Gaddafi regime's military assets on Saturday as part of an effort to enforce a UN Security Council resolution aimed at protecting Libyan civilians.

That air campaign appeared to open some breathing room for rebels in the east, who pushed out of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi and neared Ajdabiya, 160km to the south, where regime troops and rebel fighters clashed. The situation there was fluid; fighting prevented journalists from entering the town itself, and there were reports that it was still mostly encircled by Gaddafi troops.

Tripoli hit for second day

Other loud explosions rocked Tripoli on Sunday night, as Britain''s ministry of defence said one of its submarines had again fired guided Tomahawk missiles on Libyan air defence systems.

"The principle firing happened around nine o''clock in the evening local time and that''s when we believe there was a strike in the region of Gaddafi''s compound," McNaught said.

"We saw a large plume of smoke coming from an explosion somewhere in that general direction. It is likely there were plenty of useful military targets there if you were a major international force looking to persuade Gaddafi to make peaceful noises."

The blasts came two days after the United Nations Security Council authorised international military action to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, as well as "all necessary measures" to prevent attacks by Gaddafi forces on civilians.

The uprising against Gaddafi broke out on February 15, and hundreds of civilians have died in the regime''s brutal crackdown.

''Gaddafi not a target''

The US military said the coalition campaign, called Operation Odyssey Dawn in the United States, had succeeded in "severely degrading" Gaddafi''s air defences.

US Navy Vice Admiral William E Gortney stressed in a press briefing on Sunday that the Libyan leader is not a target for the international military assault on the country.

Gortney, the US spokesman for the coalition, added that any of Gaddafi''s ground troops advancing on pro-democracy forces are open targets for US and allied attacks.

"If they are moving on opposition forces ... yes, we will take them under attack," he told reporters.
"There has been no new air activity by the regime and we have detected no radar emissions from any of the air defence sites targeted and there''s been a significant decrease in in the use of all Libyan air surveillance radars."

Gortney said the coalition acting against Gaddafi, which originally grouped the US, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, had broadened to include Belgium and Qatar.

Libyan ceasefire

His comments came shortly after the Libyan military announced its second ceasefire since the UN resolution authorising the no-fly zone was passed.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2011/03/2011320202616794816.html Residents of Benghazi celebrated after French jets prevented Gaddafi''s forces from reaching them

But the White House has said it will not recognise a ceasefire declaration.
"Our view at this point...is that it isn''t true, or has been immediately violated," White House National Security

Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters on Sunday.

Despite the strikes, the Libyan leader has vowed to fight on and in a televised address, a defiant Gaddafi promised a "long war" that his forces would win.

"We will fight for every square in our land," Gaddafi said. "We will die as martyrs."

He said the air attacks by foreign forces amounted to a "cold war" on Islam and threatened retribution against Libyans who sided with the foreign intervention.

"We will fight and we will target any traitor who is co-operating with the Americans or with the Christian Crusade," he said.

Conflicting casualty claims

The comments came as Tripoli''s official media said the air strikes were targeting civilian objectives and that there were "civilians casualties as a result of this aggression".

However, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, denied that any civilians had been killed in the bombardment, which saw some 110 cruise missiles being shot from American naval vessels in the Mediterranean sea.

Gaddafi "was attacking Benghazi and we are there to stop that ... we are ending his ability to attack us from the ground, so he will not continue to execute his own people," Mullen said.

"It was a significant point when the Arab League voted against this guy. This is a colleague [of theirs], and we''ve had a significant number of coalition countries who''ve come together to provide capability."

But Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Sunday condemned what he called the "bombardment of civilians" and called for an emergency meeting of the group of 22 states to discuss Libya.
He requested a report into the bombardment, which he said had "led to the deaths and injuries of many Libyan civilians".

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," Egypt''s state news agency quoted Moussa as saying.

Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

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Travel light, cut down the baggage

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin

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IN my years in the workforce, some of the most poignant moments have been that of people leaving the company, either to take on a new job or when they retire.

Do they get a big farewell party or do they just quietly slip away? What are the things they need to take along? Can they be placed in one box? Or do they require help to cart away cartons of stuff accumulated over the years?

What do we bring along when we start work at a new place? Do we bring with us stuff from our former job, or do we just come in with nothing but a family photo to place on our new desk?

I have had the privilege of hiring people in the various places I worked and one simple piece of advice I give them is that we should wipe our slates clean and start afresh.

 

File picture shows a migrant worker carrying his baggage on the way to the railway station in Qingdao city, in eastern China's Shandong province, on 19 January. China begins the annual passengers transport during the Spring Festival from 19 January. An expected 2.85 billion passenger trips are expected to be made the 40 days. Planes and trains have been added to cope with the passenger surge, which is 11.6 per cent up year on year, according to the Ministry of Transport. - EPA

I recall the time when one staff member came up to me to suggest that I should not hire someone because of his past history. I gently told her that if I had listened to others telling me about her, I might not even have hired her.
Give everyone a chance, I said. You may be amazed how people perform under different circumstances and different bosses. We need not view the world through tinted glasses. It is healthier to approach each new situation with unprejudiced eyes.

These thoughts come to mind as I reflect this week on why some journeys we take simply wear us down because of the baggage we bring along, be it emotional or physical.

I like to travel light. In my younger days, I backpacked for two months through Europe in winter with just one haversack. Even for family vacations now, we pack as little as we can, and we never bust our baggage limits when we fly.

It is quite a sight when travellers haggle with the airline stuff because they exceed the weight limit. I often wonder why there is a need to bring so much along, not to mention the additional load on the journey home.

The tragedy still unfolding in Japan reminds us that whatever we have can simply disappear in a moment. For the survivors, they have to live day by day, not even sure if there will be food on the table or water to drink. In moments like these, it is hard to even think of the things they have lost.

Japan is such a developed country but this tragedy has literally brought the nation to its knees. And at times like these, we realise that it is not the buildings destroyed, or the icons demolished, but the faces of people that reflect the real loss.

Are you, in your own journeys, travelling light or heaping burdens onto yourself with each step of the way? Are you working to forever pay the bills or coming to a realisation that to be happy with little is far better than to be miserable in much?

Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin thanks all readers who wrote him encouraging email after his previous column. The kind thoughts and prayers are giving wing to his feet on his new journey.

Military strikes against Libya: 20 targets, kill 64,Gaddafi's 'command and control capability' destroyed says official !

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Update March 21, 2011

Gaddafi's 'command and control capability' destroyed says official 

An air strike against an administrative building in a compound including Muammar Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli has destroyed the Libyan leader's "command and control capability", a coalition official says.

"The coalition is actively enforcing UNSCR [UN Security Council Resolution] 1973, and that in keeping with that mission, we continue to strike those targets which pose a direct threat to the Libyan people and to our ability to implement the no-fly zone," the official added.

 

Seen through night-vision lenses, guided missile destroyer USS Barry fires Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Mediterranean Sea. Photo: US Navy

The building, which was about 50 metres from the tent where Colonel Gaddafi generally meets guests, was flattened.

An AFP journalist on Sunday saw smoke billowing from the residence and barracks at Bab el-Aziziya in the south of the Libyan capital as anti-aircraft guns fired shots.
But the US denied targeting the residence or Gaddafi himself.

I can guarantee he’s not on the targeting list. We’re not targeting his residence,’’ vice admiral Bill Gortney told reporters at a Pentagon press conference. 

Civilian casualities a risk: Rudd

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd said people should be very sceptical of Colonel Gaddafi's claims that allied actions had already resulted in civilian casualties.

American, British and French forces would use the "absolute best" targeting strategies to avoid killing civilians, Mr Rudd said.

"I think it's realistic to assume, however, that that ongoing risk exists," Mr Rudd told the Seven Network.
Mr Rudd said it was important to see this week’s initial bombardment as "phase one" in a multi-phase operation.
"This will be a long process," he told ABC television today.

Asked just how long he envisioned the intervention would last, Mr Rudd said: "I’m not prepared to speculate on timelines here. The truth is, these operations are invariably very difficult, very complex, very time-consuming, very resource-intensive.’’

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said reports so far indicated there had been no civilian casualties from the allied air attacks.

"But of course in the fog of war we need to wait a bit of time to satisfy ourselves that that is absolutely the case," he told Sky News.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Colonel Gaddafi had been given the opportunity to stop the violence.
"He chose not to do that," she told reporters.

"He chose to continue the violence, to continue the bloodshed."

End Gaddafi's rule?

Ms Gillard dodged a question on whether the intervention should seek to end Colonel Gaddafi's rule.
"The motivator here is our responsibility to protect as human beings the people of Libya," she said.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said it would be "unwise" to have coalition forces go after Colonel Gaddafi.

Mr Gates said the intervention was backed by a diverse coalition but expanding its goals would complicate the consensus.

There are indications that the consensus is already on shaky ground.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa has reportedly criticised Western military strikes on Libya even though he pushed for a no-fly zone.

"What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians," Mr Mussa has been quoted as saying.

But Mr Rudd said Mr Mussa may have been misquoted or mistranslated. "There is now genuine uncertainty about what he has said," Mr Rudd said.

"Knowing how strongly Amr Moussa felt about this when I've been in contact with him, I'd be surprised if his views have been represented completely accurately."

But strategic specialist Hugh White warned the politics surrounding the intervention were going to get more complicated.

"The Arabs have woken up and discovered they have supported not just something which is meant to stop Gaddafi flying his jets but something which is going to involve air attacks on land targets," Professor White said.

UK fires cruise missile from sub


British forces fired Tomahawk missiles at air defence targets on Sunday night from a Trafalgar-class submarine stationed in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, the Ministry of Defence said.

Earlier, French fighters launched a second wave of operations against Libyan targets following Saturday's international operation to enforce a no-fly zone, the BBC reported.

The operation came as a  Libyan military spokesman  announced a new ceasefire in the campaign against a military uprising.

But US President Barack Obama's national security aide Tom Donilon said the ceasefire  "isn't true" or has been "immediately violated".

UK officials said Britain would consider the promise of a ceasefire on "actions not words", as more war planes left for the theatre from eastern England.

Libyan spokesman Milad Fokehi said the ceasefire, effective from 9pm local time on Sunday (0600 AEDT Monday), had been decided following an African Union call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

"In line with the statement published by the African Union panel at Nouakchott on Saturday and UN resolutions 1970 and 1973, the high command of the armed forces ordered a ceasefire from Sunday at 9pm," he said.

Colonel Gaddafi's regime had declared a ceasefire on Friday after UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorised any necessary measures, including a no-fly zone, to stop his forces harming civilians in the fight against the rebels.

But his troops continued an assault on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, prompting US, British and French forces to intervene with air strikes in line with the resolution.

Western coalition strikes stem from a "big misunderstanding" about the nature of Libya's rebellion, Colonel Gaddafi's son said, claiming the rebels were "gangsters" and "terrorists".

'Big misunderstanding'

Saif al-Islam, a key figure in the Gaddafi regime who had been tipped as a future Libyan leader, has defiantly denied there's any reason for his father to step aside.

"There is a big misunderstanding," he told ABC's This Week program on Sunday. "The whole country is united against the armed militia and the terrorists.

"Our people went to Benghazi to liberate Benghazi from the gangsters and the armed militia," he said, referring to the rebel bastion in eastern Libya.

"So if you, if the Americans want to help the Libyan people in Benghazi ... go to Benghazi and liberate Benghazi from the militia and the terrorists."

US, British and French forces have launched the West's biggest intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, firing more than 120 Tomahawk Cruise missiles and conducting bombing raids on key Libyan targets.

US military officials say the strikes have stopped Colonel Gaddafi's forces in their tracks.
Asked if the Gaddafi regime would retaliate by launching strikes on Western commercial aircraft, Saif al-Islam responded: "No, this is not our target.

"Our target is how to help our people in Libya, especially in Benghazi. Believe me, they are living a nightmare. A nightmare, really."

Click to play video

Gillard backs Libyan action, as strikes continue

Prime Minister Julia Gillard backs the US, British and French military action in Libya, while Gaddafi tells state television his forces will fight back.

• Over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired
• French carry out four air strikes
• US warships, British submarine involved
• Claims of 48 dead, 150 injured
• Gaddafi vows to retaliate in Mediterranean

Update: The US, Britain and France have pounded Libya with Tomahawk missiles and air strikes, sparking fury from Muammar Gaddafi who declared the Mediterranean to be a "battlefield".

In a dramatic show of force, US warships and a British submarine fired at least 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya on Saturday against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's anti-aircraft missiles and radar, the US military said.

Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn on Saturday. Photo: US Navy Visual News Service/AFP

Admiral William Gortley told reporters at the Pentagon that the cruise missiles "struck more than 20 integrated air defence systems and other air defence facilities ashore".

An AFP correspondent said bombs were dropped early on Sunday near Bab al-Aziziyah, Gaddafi's Tripoli headquarters, prompting barrages of anti-aircraft fire from Libyan forces.

There were earlier reports that hundreds of people had gathered to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the capital's international airport.

Smoke billows over the outskirts of Benghazi, eastern Libya, after a warplane was shot down Saturday. Photo: AP

Libyan state television said 48 people were killed and 150 injured in the assaults, which began with a strike at dawn on Saturday by a French warplane on a vehicle the French military said belonged to pro-Gaddafi forces.

Libyan state media said Western warplanes bombed civilian targets in Tripoli, causing casualties while an army spokesman said strikes also hit fuel tanks feeding the rebel-held city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.

Gaddafi, in a brief audio message broadcast on state television, fiercely denounced the attacks as a "barbaric, unjustified Crusaders' aggression".

A Libyan fighter plane takes a hit and crashes in Benghazi. Photo: AFP; AP

He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a "real battlefield".

"Now the arms depots have been opened and all the Libyan people are being armed," to fight against Western forces, the veteran leader warned.

Libya's foreign ministry said that in the wake of the attacks, it regarded as invalid a United Nations resolution ordering a ceasefire by its forces and demanded an urgent meeting of the Security Council.

How Gaddafi's forces stack up

The attacks on Libya "threatens international peace and security", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Libya demands an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after the French-American-British aggression against Libya, an independent state member of the United Nations," the statement said.

On Thursday, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorised the use of "all necessary means" to protect civilians and enforce a ceasefire and no-fly zone against Gaddafi's forces.

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Military strikes launched on Libya

Thousands of Libyans, including children, formed a human shield against possible air strikes by allied forces at Gaddafi's compound. Photo: Reuters

The following day, Libya declared a ceasefire in its battle to crush an armed revolt against Gaddafi's regime which began on February 15 and said it had grounded its warplanes.

As a result of the Western attacks, however, "the effect of resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone are over", the ministry statement said.

State television, quoting a security official, said Libya had also decided to suspend cooperation with Europe in the fight against illegal immigration due to the attacks.

Boats carrying thousands of undocumented migrants, mainly Tunisians, have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in recent weeks putting a heavy strain on Italy's immigration infrastructure.

US President Barack Obama, on a visit to Brazil, said he had given the green light for the operation.

"Today, I authorised the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya," Obama said in Brasilia, but stressed that operation "Odyssey Dawn" would not send US troops to Libya.

The first Tomahawk missile struck on Saturday evening following air strikes carried out earlier by French warplanes, Admiral Gortney, director of the US joint staff, said in Washington.

"It's a first phase of a multi-phase operation" to enforce the UN resolution and prevent the Libyan regime from using force "against its own people", he said.

One British submarine joined with other US ships and submarines in the missile attacks, he said.

The first strikes took place near Libya's coast, notably around Tripoli and Misrata, "because that's where the integrated missile defence systems are".

Russia's foreign ministry expressed regret over the attacks and said Security Council Resolution 1973 was "adopted in haste", while the African Union, which opposed military action, on Sunday called for an "immediate stop" to all attacks.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he held Gaddafi responsible for the situation in his country.
"Tonight, British forces are in action over Libya. They are part of an international coalition that has come together to enforce the will of the United Nations and to protect the Libyan people," Cameron said in London late on Saturday.

"We have all seen the appalling brutality that Colonel Gaddafi has meted out against his own people and far from introducing the ceasefire he spoke about he has actually stepped up the attacks and the brutality."

In the rebel camp, celebratory gunfire and honking of car horns broke out in Al-Marj, 100 kilometres from Benghazi, to welcome the start of military operations against Gaddafi, correspondents said.

Earlier on Saturday thousands fled Benghazi as Gaddafi loyalists pounded the eastern city, the rebels' stronghold, with shells and tank fire after two early-morning air strikes.
Since Friday, the Libyan government has insisted it was observing a self-declared ceasefire. It said its armed forces had come under attack on Saturday west of Benghazi, including by rebel aircraft, and had responded in self-defence.
But the rebels, who have been trying to overthrow the Libyan leader for more than a month, said government troops had continued to bombard cities, violating the ceasefire continuously.

In another Middle East hotspot, medics in Yemen on Saturday raised to 52 the death toll from a sniper attack on protesters in Sanaa the previous day, as thousands rallied despite a state of emergency.

And security forces in Syria fired tear gas on Saturday at mourners burying two men killed in a protest in the southern city of Daraa the previous day, wounding several, rights activists said.

AFP
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