LIBYA BLOCKS U.N. CENSURE OF MISSILE STRIKE ON ISRAEL

Libya Thwarts Security Council Censure of Missile Strike from Lebanon - Shlomo Shamir and Barak Ravid

Libya, which last week took over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council, is hindering diplomatic efforts spearheaded by Israel to issue a resolution condemning Tuesday's Katyusha strike on the Galilee, Ha'aretz has learned. Libya also seeks to include language condemning the Israel Air Force flights over southern Lebanon in any resolution. (Ha'aretz)

Palestinian Rocket Hits Sderot Home, Wounds Four - Shmulik Hadad

Palestinians in Gaza fired five Kassam rockets at Israel Wednesday afternoon, including one that hit a house in Sderot. Four people sustained injuries, including a 17-year-old girl who suffered shrapnel wounds and a boy who was hurt while attempting to take cover. (Ynet News)

LIBYA ASSUMES PRESIDENCY OF SECURITY COUNCIL

Former pariah Libya becomes UN Security Council President (Haaretz)
Libya took over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday in a major step back to global respectability after decades as a pariah of the West.

As president, Libya's ambassador to the UN is obliged to maintain contacts with all of the world body's member states, including Israel - with which it currently has no diplomatic relations. Diplomatic sources, however, doubted on Tuesday whether Libya would act so with reference to Israel.

The North African country was elected in October, as were Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia and Vietnam, to sit on the council in 2008-09 after the United States, which foiled two earlier bids by Tripoli, decided not to block it this time.

By an alphabetical accident, Libya becomes president of the 15-nation body from its very first day as a member, succeeding Italy. Each country is president for a month, the rotation going in English alphabetical order of names.

... AN ISRAEL IS STILL INELIGIBLE.

LIBYA GETS SEAT ON U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL

Libya gets seat on U.N. Security Council (MSNBC)
U.S. did not try to prevent move, angering mother of Pan Am victim

UNITED NATIONS - Libya won a seat on the powerful U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Libya was virtually assured of election because it has been endorsed by the African group along with Burkina Faso and faced no opposition. Vietnam, which was endorsed by the Asian group, also ran unopposed.

All three countries won in the first round of voting, but the battle for seats from Latin America and Eastern Europe went to a second round.

Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J., who lost her 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, said the United States should oppose Libya's candidacy for a seat because Libyan leader Moamar Gadhafi was responsible for the attack.

"I feel that the U.S. has totally lost its moral compass," she told The Associated Press. "Gadhafi blew up an American plane."

In 2000 the United States successfully blocked Sudan's bid for a council seat, and Washington's candidate, Mauritius, won. But in 2005, the U.S. backed Nicaragua and Peru won. This year, Washington did not back a candidate against Libya.

FRANCE HELPING ARAB STATES WITH NUKE PROGRAMS

France helping Arab states with nuke programs (JPost)
France is acting to provide several Arab countries with peaceful nuclear programs, in order to wean the region off oil and boost Franco-Arab relations, a senior French Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

France has forged a nuclear cooperation deal with Libya and has discussed the possibility with Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.

The French have made sure that the programs would be only for "peaceful civil programs," the official said - mainly to supply drinking water by desalination.

"To move away from dependency on oil, an alternative must be introduced. That alternative is a civilian nuclear program," the French Foreign Ministry official said. "The position of the French government is clear - that we are in favor of a civilian nuclear buildup, but in a controlled framework."

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

MOSSAD HELPED FREE MEDICS FROM LIBYA

Mossad helped free medics from Libya (JTA)
The Mossad helped free the medical team sentenced to death in Libya, Bulgaria's intelligence chief said Monday.

Gen. Kirtcho Kirov told the 24-Tchassa daily that Israel's intelligence agency was one of 20 countries whose security services were active in trying to release a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses convicted in Libya for infecting children with AIDS. The six were allowed to return to their countries last week.

Kirov said the fate of the medics was nothing more than "a grain of sand in the eye of an enormous hurricane bringing together major interests" in Libya, including arms sales and oil concessions, according to the AFP news agency.

Besides the Mossad and Western intelligence agencies, some Arab countries, including Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, provided helpful information, Kirov said.

SARKOZY: TRUST THE ARABS WITH NUKES

Sarkozy: Trust Arabs with nukes (CNN)
TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) — After agreeing to nuclear cooperation with Libya, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the West should trust Arab states to develop such technology for peaceful purposes or risk a war of civilizations. [ED. TRUST THEIR PEACEFUL INTENTIONS OR THEY'LL MAKE WAR ON US????] Sarkozy said preventing Arab states from developing nuclear power risked stoking a “war of civilizations.”

France agreed on Wednesday to help Libya develop a nuclear reactor to supply drinking water from desalinated sea water. The reactor might be supplied by French atomic energy firm Areva. Sarkozy told reporters in Libya that to consider the Arab world “is not sensible enough to use civilian nuclear power” would, in the long run, risk a “war of civilizations”.

“Nuclear power is the energy of the future,” he said. “If we don’t give the energy of the future to the countries of the southern Mediterranean, how will they develop themselves? And if they don’t develop, how will we fight terrorism and fanaticism?”

LIBYA THREATENS TO DEPORT PALESTINIANS TO GAZA

Libya threatens to deport Palestinian refugees to Gaza (YNET)
Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi has decided to boycott the Arab League's summit, set to be held in Riyadh at the end of March, in response to what he considers as the Arab leaders' plan to "sacrifice" the refugee issue in order to please Israel.

Gaddafi is worried that in the framework of the Saudi peace initiative, Arab leaders would concede the refugees' right of return, and agree to have them naturalized in their countries of residence, in a bid to encourage Israel's cooperation with the peace plan.

Libyan newspaper al-Jamahiriya reported this week that Libya may begin deporting Palestinian refugees soon, in protest of the Arab plan.

"Libya will never cooperate with a concession of the refugees' right of return, and will not allow for the settling of refugees far away from their homeland," the paper stated.

"Libya is in negotiations to allow thousands of Palestinians who reside within its territory to move to the Gaza Strip through Egypt, before the plot to settle them in the Arab countries materializes," it added.

In September, 1995, Libya deported thousands of Palestinians in protest of the signing of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

Hundreds of those refugees remained stranded in a refugee camp on the Libyan-Egyptian border, while hundreds others spent weeks aboard ships in the Mediterranean Sea, after both Syria and Lebanon refused to give them shelter.

IT SEEMS ISRAEL IS THE ONLY COUNTRY WILLING TO ACCEPT PALESTINIANS AND GIVE THEM CITIZENSHIP. SEVERAL SERVE IN THE KNESSET AND ONE WAS RECENTLY ACTING PRESIDENT. IF ONLY THE PALESTINIANS' ARAB ALLIES WERE SO OPEN MINDED.