UN Announces Aid Deal With Qaddafi for Embattled Libyan Port City Misrata

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

By Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations reached an agreement with Muammar Qaddafi’s regime that would permit aid workers and supplies into the embattled Libyan port city of Misrata, as almost 1,000 stranded migrant workers, mostly Ghanaians, were evacuated by ship.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the Libyan government agreed that it would also allow greater access of aid workers and supplies to Qaddafi’s capital, Tripoli, and areas of western Libya under government control. Ban, speaking in Budapest, said the UN already has a humanitarian presence in Benghazi, the rebel capital.

Britain announced plans to fund evacuation of 5,000 migrants, and to send medical teams and supplies to Libya.

“Thousands of foreign workers have managed to reach the port but find themselves at terrible risk from incoming fire,” Britain’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said in a statement in New York, where he is meeting UN officials on how to coordinate aid efforts. “These evacuations will take them to safety and help reduce the demand in Misrata for the very limited supplies of food, water and medical supplies.”

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Read more: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4UGau2.9fQ8&pos=8

[Baclava]

1. UN humanitarian aid convoys...protected by NATO boots on the ground?

Is that the new mantra?

The next stage in the mission creep?

[AllTooEasy]

2. That murderer can't be trusted with any agreement. Ban is...

...a fool.

[DetlefK]

3. Ban has to follow each possible peaceful solution or he will lose his moral authority.

[Baclava]

4. U.S. defends role in Libya

Washington (CNN) -- U.S officials defended America's role in the NATO-led mission in Libya Monday, amid criticism that Washington is not doing enough as the coalition struggles.

White House spokesman Jay Carney downplayed reports that NATO is running out of munitions to fight the war.

Carney told reporters that "a dramatic increase" in NATO sorties Sunday and Monday "demonstrates the capacity of NATO to fulfill its mission" in securing a no-fly zone over Libya. "We have no plans to change our posture," he said.

At the State Department, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said if NATO commanders need assets that can only be provided by the United States, they can ask for them, and the U.S. would consider those requests.

"The U.S. has other assets in theater," Gordon said, and "at this time those commanders have not asked the United States to do so."


http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/18/libya.role/
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...to the shores of Tripoli