10,000 Filipinos safe, sound, homebound

10,000 Filipinos safe, sound, homebound

By Philip Tubeza, DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Nearly 10,000 Filipinos are on their way home from Libya, with more than 3,500 of them already out of the strife-torn North African country, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Tuesday.
The DOLE’s Middle East Crisis Monitoring Center has identified 3,544 Filipinos who have already left Libya while 4,097 more are still inside waiting to be evacuated, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said.
Baldoz said 1,546 Filipinos in Benghazi were expected to start boarding the chartered ferry Ionian Queen, which will bring them to Crete in Greece.
Some 26,000 to 30,000 Filipinos, mostly workers, were in Libya before the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi began on Feb. 17 in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city.
Large parts of Libya have fallen to protesters but Tripoli and a few cities have remained under the control of Gadhafi’s forces.
“Reports collated by the DOLE Middle East Crisis Monitoring Center place the number of Filipinos already out of Libya at 3,544,” she said at a press conference.
“Arrangement for their onward transportation to the Philippines is in various stages,” she added.
As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, 440 Filipinos had already arrived in Manila with up to 172 more expected to arrive in seven flights up to Tuesday night. On Wednesday, 36 Filipinos are scheduled to arrive home.
“This excludes the 180 OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) whose arrival on board a MidEastern Airlines flight chartered by the government was delayed,” Baldoz said.
Tripoli airport closed
She said the airport in the Libyan capital was closed again so there was a delay.
The Philippine Embassy in Tripoli transported 534 workers to Djerba in Tunisia, but Manila has yet to receive the list of their names.
“We are negotiating (with foreign airlines for) chartered flights from Djerba and from Crete. Hopefully, the negotiations will be finalized today,” Baldoz said.
Chartered ferry
Baldoz said the ferry Ionian Queen was expected at the port of Gulani in Benghazi at around 2 p.m. Manila time and would take its passengers to Crete and then to Athens. The vessel can carry more than 1,720 passengers.
“We hope nothing will delay the boarding of all the passengers on that ship going to Crete, and then to Athens, and then back here in the Philippines,” she said.
The chartered ferry could be asked to make a second trip back to Banghazi if Filipino officials in Libya deemed it necessary, she added.
Staying put
Baldoz said there were still many Filipinos in Libya who had decided to stay put in the country.
“I know for a fact a nurse who had her husband return home while she decided to stay. We will just have to tell them there is this repatriation program but the matter of forcibly, bodily bringing them from residence, I don’t think that is fair,” Baldoz said.
“As long as [the situation] is clear to them, the freedom to decide is still with the individual,” Baldoz added.
Waiting for evacuation
At the Ghadames work site near the Libyan border with Tunisia, 109 Filipino workers have been waiting for evacuation, according to Migrante International.
“They asked to be fetched by Philippine officials but the [DFA officials] refuse to meet with them,” the group said in a statement.
It said that there were also 150 Filipinos from the Daewoo-Misurata Combine Cycle Project who “are still trapped in Misurata.”
“Their employer promised to evacuate them last week but they are still waiting as of this posting,” Migrante said.
Priest’s proposal rebuffed
The group also pointed out that Fr. Allan Arcebuche, of the San Francisco Catholic Church-Caritas in Tripoli, had suggested an alternative evacuation site that was relatively peaceful and more accessible.
“Arcebuche proposed that OFWs be evacuated also to a site in Sirte City where there is an airport and a seaport,” Migrante said.
“He said that the site is more accessible to OFWs from Jalo, Jufrah, Zellah Sebha and is also nearer Misurata, Sletin and Al Khoms than Tripoli and Benghazi,” it added.
The group said Arcebuche tried to forward his proposal to the Office of the Undersecretary for Overseas Workers Affairs-DFA but he was “met with hostility.”
Filipinos still lucky
For all the flak the Philippine government has gotten over its response to the Libyan crisis, there are some who count themselves lucky to be Filipino, like Nicomedes Cunanan, who returned home on Tuesday with several dozen others.
“We Filipinos are still fortunate because we have people taking care of our compatriots at the Egyptian border,” Cunanan said upon arriving at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport with 60 other Filipino workers who escaped the hostilities in Tripoli.
Unlike other nationalities, Filipinos who fled to the countries around Libya, such as Egypt and Tunisia, could turn to Philippine Embassy workers at border outposts for assistance, he said.
“[As for] other nationals like the Bangladeshis and Indians, nobody was helping them. They had to sleep out in the desert where it was so cold” at night, said Cunanan, a construction worker at Al Marj, a town about 700 kilometers from the capital, Tripoli.
Cunanan flew aboard Gulf Air Flight 154, one of seven flights carrying batches of Filipinos evacuated by either the Philippine government or, as in most of the cases, their own employers.
“The situation is bad at Al Marj,” Cunanan said. He recalled how the protesters against Gadhafi’s rule had set fire to several camps, particularly those owned by government.
Camped out at school
Nineteen of Cunanan’s fellow workers were able to escape but 33 others were left in Tripoli, at camps surrounded by protesters.
“Now they’re camped out at a school,” he said, as he urged the government to help rescue them.
But not everybody had faith in the Philippine government.
Henry Malit, a painter and sand blaster who worked in Wafa, a desert town about six hours from Tripoli, said he and 49 of his fellow workers were transported to the Algerian border by their employers on board two buses and a pickup truck.
Malit said his group had made calls to the Philippine Embassy in Tripoli at the height of the crisis, but was told to stay put until embassy personnel could reach them.
“In the end, we received no help from them. Our employers took care of everything,” Malit said.
Isla Ibarra said an unarmed Libyan national had escorted them to the Algerian border, taking care to avoid conflict areas.
“Fortunately, we never got close to the fighting,” he said.
Wife, sons left
But Ibarra said he now feared for his wife and two sons who were left behind, stranded at the Philippine Community School in Janzour, about 50 km away from Zawiya, one of the centers of conflict.
He said his wife Aida, who formerly worked as a staffer at the Philippine Embassy in Tripoli, told him by phone that the embassy had made arrangements to take them out on buses, but they were hampered by various delays.
“There are probably about 300 of them there in the school, mostly women and their children,” Ibarra said.
“My wife told me they’ve been subsisting on bread and water because supplies are quickly running out,” he added. With reports from Jerry E. Esplanada and Michelle V. Remo

Gov't shutdown averted as House votes $4B cuts

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 32 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The House passed emergency short-term legislation Tuesday to cut federal spending by $4 billion and avert a government shutdown. Senate Democrats agreed to follow suit, handing Republicans an early victory in their drive to rein in government.
The bill that cleared the House on a bipartisan vote of 335-91 eliminates the threat of a shutdown on March 4, when existing funding authority expires. At the same time, it creates a compressed two-week timeframe for the White House and lawmakers to engage in what looms as a highly contentious negotiation on a follow-up bill to set spending levels through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
The Senate set a vote on the short-term measure for Wednesday morning, the final step before it goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. "We'll pass this and then look at funding the government on a long-term basis," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The White House, which earlier in the day called publicly for an interim measure of up to five weeks, stopped short of saying the president would sign the legislation.
"The President is encouraged by the progress Congress is making towards a short-term agreement," the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, said. "Moving forward, the focus needs to be on both sides finding common ground in order to reach a long-term solution that removes the kind of uncertainty that can hurt the economy and job creation."
House Republicans were more eager to draw attention to the bill that was passing with the acquiescence of the White House and Democrats than to the challenge yet ahead.
"Now that congressional Democrats and the administration have expressed an openness for spending cuts, the momentum is there for a long-term measure that starts to finally get our fiscal house in order," said Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
"Changing the culture of borrowing and spending in Washington is no small feat, but I am heartened by today's action and it shows that Republicans have started to make the meaningful changes that voters called for in the last election."
The GOP won control of the House and gained seats in the Senate last fall with the backing of tea party activists demanding deep cuts in spending and other steps to reduce the federal government.
On the House floor, Democrats sharply attacked Republicans in the run-up to the vote, but much of their criticism was aimed at an earlier $61 billion package of spending cuts that had cleared on a party-line vote.
"The sooner we can agree on a long-term package of smart cuts — not reckless, arbitrary, job-destroying cuts — the sooner we can stop funding the government in disruptive two-week increments that undermine efficiency and spread economic uncertainty," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, second-ranking in the Democratic leadership.
When it came time to vote, Democrats split, 104 in favor and 85 against. The leadership was similarly divided, Hoyer supporting the legislation and the party's leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, opposed.
Republicans voted 231-6 in favor.
Hoyer's reference to reckless cuts was a reach back to the earlier measure, written to satisfy 87 first-term conservative Republicans. It called for $61 billion in cuts while funding the government through Sept. 30, and would also have blocked enactment of proposed federal regulations on an array of private industries and prohibited the use of funds to implement the year-old health care law.
Confronted with a veto threat by Obama and strong opposition in the Senate, House Republicans announced quickly they would follow up with the interim two-week bill to avoid a shutdown while buying more time for compromise talks.
As such, the two-week measure is loaded with symbolism, although the $4 billion in cuts are not particularly controversial. About $2.7 billion was ticketed for earmarked projects, and the balance for education and other programs that Obama had proposed terminating or reducing next year.
The day's events marked the culmination of a slow-motion retreat on the part of Senate Democrats, who had hoped to use the past few weeks to make the case that House Republicans are radicals bent on closing down the government.
As recently as 10 days ago, Senate Democrats supported a spending freeze at current levels through the end of the fiscal year, while making it known some members of the rank and file wanted to make cuts.
Last Thursday, as House Republicans made known their plan for the short-term bill with $4 billion in relatively noncontroversial cuts, the Senate Democrats said they were opposed. They said they would agree to reductions only in a bill that carried the government through Sept. 30.
They switched signals again on Monday, as the White House expressed general support for immediate cuts as part of a bill to prevent any shutdown. Reid met privately with Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio during the day, and several officials said later Democrats floated a proposal for a five-week bill with $8 billion in cuts — less than the $2 billion-per-week level House Republicans want.
Privately, Senate Democratic officials expressed displeasure with the White House, saying the administration had remained above the fray in recent days.
Reid gave no hint of any unhappiness, though, telling reporters he expects Obama — who spoke with Boehner by telephone on Tuesday — to become more involved in the next round of negotiations.
"The president's going to take this to the American people because the only message that we have from the Republicans is to wipe out programs that are so important to people, especially people who can't help themselves, the middle class and other programs."
"So, no, we feel we're in a good position. I'm hopeful that we can work something out with the Republicans to get this done," Reid said.
Boehner countered later in the day with a statement that said, "The Washington spending binge that has left us with fewer jobs and more debt must come to an end, and the onus is on leader Reid and Senate Democrats now to follow our lead and help make that happen."

Gov't shutdown averted as House votes $4B cuts

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 32 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The House passed emergency short-term legislation Tuesday to cut federal spending by $4 billion and avert a government shutdown. Senate Democrats agreed to follow suit, handing Republicans an early victory in their drive to rein in government.
The bill that cleared the House on a bipartisan vote of 335-91 eliminates the threat of a shutdown on March 4, when existing funding authority expires. At the same time, it creates a compressed two-week timeframe for the White House and lawmakers to engage in what looms as a highly contentious negotiation on a follow-up bill to set spending levels through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
The Senate set a vote on the short-term measure for Wednesday morning, the final step before it goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. "We'll pass this and then look at funding the government on a long-term basis," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The White House, which earlier in the day called publicly for an interim measure of up to five weeks, stopped short of saying the president would sign the legislation.
"The President is encouraged by the progress Congress is making towards a short-term agreement," the president's spokesman, Jay Carney, said. "Moving forward, the focus needs to be on both sides finding common ground in order to reach a long-term solution that removes the kind of uncertainty that can hurt the economy and job creation."
House Republicans were more eager to draw attention to the bill that was passing with the acquiescence of the White House and Democrats than to the challenge yet ahead.
"Now that congressional Democrats and the administration have expressed an openness for spending cuts, the momentum is there for a long-term measure that starts to finally get our fiscal house in order," said Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.
"Changing the culture of borrowing and spending in Washington is no small feat, but I am heartened by today's action and it shows that Republicans have started to make the meaningful changes that voters called for in the last election."
The GOP won control of the House and gained seats in the Senate last fall with the backing of tea party activists demanding deep cuts in spending and other steps to reduce the federal government.
On the House floor, Democrats sharply attacked Republicans in the run-up to the vote, but much of their criticism was aimed at an earlier $61 billion package of spending cuts that had cleared on a party-line vote.
"The sooner we can agree on a long-term package of smart cuts — not reckless, arbitrary, job-destroying cuts — the sooner we can stop funding the government in disruptive two-week increments that undermine efficiency and spread economic uncertainty," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, second-ranking in the Democratic leadership.
When it came time to vote, Democrats split, 104 in favor and 85 against. The leadership was similarly divided, Hoyer supporting the legislation and the party's leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, opposed.
Republicans voted 231-6 in favor.
Hoyer's reference to reckless cuts was a reach back to the earlier measure, written to satisfy 87 first-term conservative Republicans. It called for $61 billion in cuts while funding the government through Sept. 30, and would also have blocked enactment of proposed federal regulations on an array of private industries and prohibited the use of funds to implement the year-old health care law.
Confronted with a veto threat by Obama and strong opposition in the Senate, House Republicans announced quickly they would follow up with the interim two-week bill to avoid a shutdown while buying more time for compromise talks.
As such, the two-week measure is loaded with symbolism, although the $4 billion in cuts are not particularly controversial. About $2.7 billion was ticketed for earmarked projects, and the balance for education and other programs that Obama had proposed terminating or reducing next year.
The day's events marked the culmination of a slow-motion retreat on the part of Senate Democrats, who had hoped to use the past few weeks to make the case that House Republicans are radicals bent on closing down the government.
As recently as 10 days ago, Senate Democrats supported a spending freeze at current levels through the end of the fiscal year, while making it known some members of the rank and file wanted to make cuts.
Last Thursday, as House Republicans made known their plan for the short-term bill with $4 billion in relatively noncontroversial cuts, the Senate Democrats said they were opposed. They said they would agree to reductions only in a bill that carried the government through Sept. 30.
They switched signals again on Monday, as the White House expressed general support for immediate cuts as part of a bill to prevent any shutdown. Reid met privately with Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio during the day, and several officials said later Democrats floated a proposal for a five-week bill with $8 billion in cuts — less than the $2 billion-per-week level House Republicans want.
Privately, Senate Democratic officials expressed displeasure with the White House, saying the administration had remained above the fray in recent days.
Reid gave no hint of any unhappiness, though, telling reporters he expects Obama — who spoke with Boehner by telephone on Tuesday — to become more involved in the next round of negotiations.
"The president's going to take this to the American people because the only message that we have from the Republicans is to wipe out programs that are so important to people, especially people who can't help themselves, the middle class and other programs."
"So, no, we feel we're in a good position. I'm hopeful that we can work something out with the Republicans to get this done," Reid said.
Boehner countered later in the day with a statement that said, "The Washington spending binge that has left us with fewer jobs and more debt must come to an end, and the onus is on leader Reid and Senate Democrats now to follow our lead and help make that happen."

Baptist Church on RH

In Bacolod, The Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches, Inc., through its Committee on Social Issues and Environmental Concerns, has issued favorable support to the Reproductive Health Bill.

They said that the issue of reproduction is of utmost importance to the community of faith because it is about God’s gift of life, and life to be lived in its fullness. The Reproductive Health Bill is a way by which these women’s rights are protected and promoted, and the conditions within which women can exercise these rights freely, responsibly, and in an informed manner, are ensured.

They call on our Legislators to speed up the passage of RH Bill. They call on the government to always put the interest of our people high in priorities, and to never sacrifice it by bowing down to demands and pressures from those who see it an opportunity to selfish gains, especially the multinational drug companies.

Brgy execs craft dev’t plan

BY PILAR S. MABAQUIAO

SAN JOSE, Antique — Officials from the 28 barangays of this capital town created a three-year development plan for their respective villages.
These plans — containing programs, projects and overall directions of the barangays — will be their guide toward attaining maximum sustainable development.
Marilou Llavan, executive director of the Antique Human Development Program (AHDP), said the planning process was well-participated by community residents.
The plan itself, she said, speaks of the aspirations of the people in the barangays.
Mayor Rony Molina said the priority programs of his administration will be based on the expressed needs of his constituents through these Barangay Development Plans.
“We will share the responsibility of realizing the projects you stated in your development plans by providing some funds or accessing some resources from other agencies or nongovernment organizations,” he said.
For his part, Vice Mayor Elmer Untaran assured the Sangguniang Bayan’s support to the various undertakings of the barangays as long as they are for the good of San Josenhons.
“The best way to achieve our goals is to work together as best described by our festival that we celebrate every month of May that is ‘Tiringbanay,’” he added.
AHDP is among the nongovernment organizations supporting the project through the Participatory Governance Program, in partnership with this municipal government and the Institute of Politics and Governance.
Noli Valenzuela and Jasper Bungay of AHDP facilitated the development planning, together with the One World Action. (PIA/PN)

PWDs gather to clarify rights

BY MARGIE L. GADIAN

SAN JOSE, Antique — Persons with disability (PWDs) in the province recently gathered in a one-day forum to seek for their rights.
PWDs from the towns of Laua-an, Bugasong, Barbaza, Tobias Fornier, Tibiao and San Jose, sought to clarify their rights under Republic Act (RA) 9442, which amended RA 7277 known as the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.
They inquired, among others, about the discounts they were entitled to, especially the 20-percent on medicines and other goods. It has been reported that some drugstores are not giving the discounts due the PWDs.
The group also asked about their access to government and private buildings. They said most buildings in the province, especially in this capital town, lack the necessary access for PWDs.
There are about 3,000 registered PWDs in the province.
Gov. Exequiel Javier, in his message, said, “The PWDS are entitled to their rights just like normal persons.”
Javier has also set aside P1.2 million from the provincial government coffers to build a center for PWDs.
Meanwhile, Laua-an Mayor Aser Baladjay said he will lobby with the provincial government to give clout to LGUs to exercise their mandated duty to support the cause of the disabled.
PWDs should be empowered and capacitated so they can become useful members of society, Baladjay added.
In addition to the earlier rights mentioned, PWDs are also entitled to discounts on transportation. They also have the right to seek employment whether in government or private establishments.
Panelists from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Commission on Human Rights, Department of Trade and Industry, Provincial Health Office, Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) and the business sector answered the participants’ queries.
The oath-taking of officers and members of the Provincial Council on Disability Affairs and launching of the PDAO capped the event. (PIA/PN)

Gadhafi forces retake towns near Libyan capital

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Maggie Michael And Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press – 49 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's forces battled poorly armed rebels Tuesday for control of towns near the capital trying to create a buffer zone around his seat of power. The increasingly violent clashes threatened to transform the 15-day popular rebellion in Libya into a drawn-out civil war.
Amid the intensified fighting, the international community stepped up moves to isolate the longtime Libyan leader.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he ordered two ships into the Mediterranean, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, and he is sending 400 Marines to the vessel to replace some troops that left recently for Afghanistan.
Military leaders weighing a no-fly zone over Libya said it would be a complex task that would require taking out Gadhafi's air defenses, and Russia's top diplomat dismissed the idea as "superfluous" and said world powers should focus on sanctions.
Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, warned Western forces not to take military action against Libya and said the country is prepared to defend itself against foreign intervention.
"If they attack us, we are ready," he told Sky News, adding that the Gadhafis are ready to implement reforms.
Facing an unprecedented challenge to his 41-year rule, Gadhafi's regime has launched the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of uprising against authoritarian rulers in the Middle East. Gadhafi has already lost control of the eastern half of the country but still holds Tripoli and other nearby cities.
An exact death toll has been difficult to obtain in the chaos, but a medical committee in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising began on Feb. 15, said at least 228 people had been killed, including 30 unidentified bodies, and 1,932 wounded.

AFP/Patrick Baz

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has cited reports that perhaps 1,000 have died in Libya.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Congress that the U.S. must lead an international response to the crisis, including expanding already tough financial and travel sanctions against Gadhafi, his family and confidants and possibly imposing a no-fly zone over Libya.
"In the years ahead, Libya could become a peaceful democracy, or it could face protracted civil war. The stakes are high," she said.
Gadhafi's regime has retaken at least two towns and threatened a third, while rebels repulsed attacks on three other key areas — Misrata to the east, Zawiya to the west, and the mountain town of Zintan to the south of the capital.
One of those retaken was the strategic mountain town of Gharyan, the largest in the Nafusa Mountains, which overlooks Tripoli, a resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. The town fell after dark Friday in a surprise attack, and the government troops detained officers who defected to the rebels and drew up lists of wanted protesters and started searching for them, the resident added.
Gadhafi supporters also have said they were in control of the city of Sabratha, west of Tripoli, which has seemed to go back and forth between the two camps in the past week.
But witnesses in Zawiya, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of the capital, said rebels shouted "Allahu akbar (God is great) for our victory," and carried an air force colonel who had just defected after six hours of overnight gunbattles failed to dislodge anti-Gadhafi forces who control the city.
"We were worried about air raids but that did not happen," said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The Zawiya rebels have tanks, machine guns and anti-aircraft guns. They beat back pro-Gadhafi troops, armed with the same weapons, who attacked from six directions. There was no word on casualties.
In Misrata, 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Tripoli, pro-Gadhafi troops who control part of an air base on the city's outskirts tried to advance Monday. But they were repulsed by opposition forces, who included residents with automatic weapons and defected army units allied with them, one of the opposition fighters said.
No casualties were reported and the fighter claimed that his side had captured eight soldiers, including a senior officer.
The opposition controls most of the air base, and the fighter said dozens of anti-Gadhafi gunmen have arrived from farther east in recent days as reinforcements.
In Zintan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Tripoli, residents said an attack by pro-Gadhafi forces Monday night was the second since the city fell in rebel hands late last month. But, they added, Gadhafi's loyalists were bringing in reinforcements.
One person in Zwara, which fell to anti-government forces days ago, said guards were posted at every sensitive building and all the entrances to the town.
"We are threatened every day by pro-Gadhafi forces," the nervous Zwara resident said, adding that a pro-Gadhafi figure met with the town's leaders a few days ago and told them they had "a choice" to go back in to orbit "and he will forget what happened, or else he is going to attack us with military force. He even offered us money."
One sergeant in the Libyan army who is of Tuareg ethnicity and is fighting on Gadhafi's side said the military is divided.
"Us foreigners, we don't have much choice. We have to support Gaddafi," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in Mali. "It because of him we are here."
He added that everyone who supports Gadhafi has not been watching any foreign news.
"There is nothing that's going to convince Gaddafi to quit," the soldier said. "The only way Gaddafi is going to go is if someone puts a bullet in his head, and I can't imagine that. The soldiers who are close to him would never let it happen."
Many young citizens of Mali and Niger who flocked to Libya in the 1970s and 1980s were ethnic Tuaregs and were recruited into an "Islamic Legion" modeled on the French Foreign Legion.
With fears high that Gadhafi could wage airstrikes against his own people, the European Union and the United States have raised the possibility of a no-fly zone over Libya — a tactic used successfully in northern Iraq and Bosnia.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the idea "superfluous" and said world powers must instead focus on fully using the sanctions the U.N. Security Council approved over the weekend. Russia is a veto-wielding member of the Security Council.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, meanwhile, urged Gadhafi to consider exile, saying she's worried the African nation could plummet into a "humanitarian disaster."
"It's important that he get off the stage," Rice said told CBS on "The Early Show."
More than 140,000 people have streamed into Tunisia and Egypt, and the situation at the Tunisian border has reached a "crisis point," with up to 75,000 people gathering in just nine days said U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. Many have returned to their homes in Tunisia and Egypt.
But thousands of Vietnamese and Bangladeshis at the Libyan side of border with Tunisia are "in urgent need of food, water and shelter," said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for International Organization for Migration. Nepalese, Ghanaians and Nigerians are also sleeping unprotected at the borders, she added.
Thousands of foreigners — many of them Egyptians — have been stranded for at least a week at Tripoli's airport, where they have little food, no shelter and face mistreatment by Libyan authorities.
The workers were willing to stay in their homes across in various cities, including Tripoli, but said they were attacked by locals who stole their money, cell phones and threatened to shoot them unless they left. They said they came to the airport, thinking it would be safe, but have endured harsh conditions since arriving, unable to enter the terminal or even a bathroom at a mosque, without paying.
The grass in front of the airport terminal were littered with clothes, shoes, sheets, cans and garbage.
Mohammed Shahat, 26, who works in a ceramics company in Zawiya, said he has camped at the airport for a week.
"I was told that I can enter the terminal but first I have to pay 200 dinars (about $160). I paid, but then they took my passport and kicked us out," he said.
On Tuesday, Gadhafi's regime sought to show that it was the country's only legitimate authority and that it continued to feel compassion for areas in the east that fell under the control of its opponents.
A total of 18 trucks loaded with rice, flour, sugar and eggs left Tripoli for Benghazi, the country's second-largest city 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of the capital. Also in the convoy were two refrigerated cars carrying medical supplies.
People in opposition-controlled areas were running low on medical supplies.
Dr. Abdullah Gleissa, head of surgery at Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi said that while it had enough basic medical supplies, it was short of some instruments, narcotics and personnel skilled in certain types of surgery.
"We are still clearing up cases that have been waiting for operations," he said.
The battles were not limited to Libyan cities and towns.
Libyan state television channel Jamahiriya-2 said on a news ticker that jamming of unknown origin had temporarily affected broadcasts of the main state-controlled channel, Jamahirya 1. The main channel was back on the air Tuesday night.
The news website Quryna, which has ties to Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, has been down for days. On Tuesday morning, it bore a monarchist flag of the pre-Gahdafi era and a statement saying the site had been hacked by the rebels. Later, it opened to a mostly blank page that read: "This Account Has Been Suspended."
___
Associated Press correspondents Paul Schemm in Benghazi, Bassem Mroue in Cairo, John Heilprin in Geneva, Matthew Lee in Washington and Martin Vogl in Bamako, Mali, contributed to this report.