ATF chief reassigned after botched sting (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the agency that oversaw a botched attempt to track arms flowing to drug cartels in Mexico is being reassigned to Justice Department headquarters, the Obama administration said on Tuesday.

Kenneth Melson, who has been acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has been under fire and admitted mistakes in the sting operation meant to try to crack down on the flow of weapons to violent drug gangs.

He will be reassigned to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy as an adviser on forensic science, the Justice Department said. The attorney for Minnesota, Todd Jones, will serve as acting ATF director.

In further fallout from the operation, the attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, has resigned and the lead prosecutor on that case in the office has been reassigned, according to an administration official.

Another administration official said this is a chance for a "fresh start given everything they've gone through lately" at ATF.

The operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious," has spawned congressional and internal Justice Department probes and put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether dangerous weapons were knowingly allowed to cross the border.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress have been demanding the Obama administration explain who knew what and when about the ATF program, which was conceived of and run out of the agency's Phoenix division.

Authorities had hoped they would be able to follow the guns to cartel leaders, but ATF agents did not track the weapons after they were transferred from the initial buyer to others. Some agents have said they were not allowed to continue the pursuit.

Instead, numerous weapons from the operation, which began in late 2009 and ran through 2010, have shown up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry died in a December 2010 shootout on the American side of the border and two guns found there have been traced to the sting. It is not yet known if those guns were used to fire the fatal shots.

Mexican authorities have complained bitterly about the thousands of guns that cross the border from the United States each year and want Washington to do more to stem the flow.

President Barack Obama has nominated a permanent director for ATF, Andrew Traver of the agency's Chicago office, but the gun industry has opposed him. Melson is a career federal employee.

Melson took the unusual step of being interviewed on the July 4 holiday by congressional investigators. During those discussions he acknowledged mistakes had been made and other law enforcement agencies had had critical information that they did not share about their targets.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and Steve Holland, editing by Deborah Charles and Eric Beech)

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Security chief: Norway attacks work of lone man (AP)

By KARL RITTER and DON MELVIN, Associated Press Karl Ritter And Don Melvin, Associated Press – 1?hr?5?mins?ago

OSLO, Norway – The man who admitted killing 76 people in a bombing and youth camp massacre last week is a sociopath who acted without accomplices or a network of like-minded right-wing extremists, and kept his plans to himself for more than a decade, Norway's top police official said Thursday.

Levels of right-wing violence across Europe have been generally low and there are no clear indications of imminent danger from networks of extremists, security officials said. But they expressed concern that Norway attacker Anders Behring Breivik could inspire imitators among the continent's extremist, anti-immigrant fringe. Particularly worrying are similar loners who give no clues of their intentions to others before acting, officials said.

European Union counterterrorism officials held a special meeting with Norwegian representatives Thursday dedicated to preventing future extreme-right attacks, saying they would try to share information faster and better understand what triggers the rare radical to turn to violence.

"Clearly, one major risk is that somebody may actually try to mount a similar attack as a copycat attack or as a way of showing support," said Tim Jones, principal adviser to the EU's counterterrorism coordinator.

Police were on high alert across Europe: Finnish officers said they had arrested an 18-year-old man who ordered 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of fertilizer from Poland to build make explosives. Police said the case appeared to have no connections to the massacre; the national broadcaster YLE cited police as saying the man told them he wanted to make fireworks.

Breivik claims he carried out the July 22 attacks as part of a network of modern-day crusaders plotting a revolution against a multicultural Europe, and that there are other cells ready to strike.

But investigators have found no signs — before or after the attacks — of a larger conspiracy, Janne Kristiansen, the director of the Norwegian Police Security Service told The Associated Press.

"It's a unique case. It's a unique person. He is total evil," she said. "On the information we have so far, and I emphasize so far, we have no indication that he was part of a network or had any accomplices, or that there are other cells."

Kristiansen told AP Breivik doesn't appear to have shared his plot with anyone, and lived an outwardly lawful and moderate life before carrying out the attacks with "total precision."

Europol, the European police agency said it had agreed with police chiefs from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Poland, Sweden and Britain that its operations center in The Hague, Netherlands, would be expanded to include their senior experts.

The agency said that team would "urgently assess the wider implications of the incidents in terms of the threat from right-wing extremism across Europe."

The new network held its first meeting Wednesday, Europol said.

Europol's 2010 report, which covers the calendar year 2009, says there were four failed, foiled or successful right-wing attacks in 2009, all of them in Hungary.

Two security officials said there didn't appear to be any imminent threats associated with Breivik to countries around Europe, but that didn't mean a regional investigation would be ended. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Experts said Breivek was successful in his attacks partially because he did act alone.

"The Norwegians have his computer," said Bob Ayers, a London-based former U.S. intelligence officer. "If there was significant dialogue, there would have been a footprint. Acting alone gave him the advantage of not being watched by security personnel.

Breivik has admitted that he set off a car bomb in the government district of Oslo, killing at least eight people, then drove several miles (kilometers) northwest of the Norwegian capital to an island where the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party was holding its annual summer camp. He arrived at Utoya island posing as a police officer, then opened fire on scores of unsuspecting youth, executing them one after the other as they tried to flee into the water. Sixty-eight people died, many of them teenagers.

There has been no large-scale violence by the right-wing in Germany in years, but the Office for the Protection of the Constitution said it considered some 9,500 of the far-right in Germany as potentially violent, "with the readiness to use violence to achieve their political goals on the rise," the Office for the Protection of the Constitution said.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told the Rheinische Post newspaper after the attacks that Germany's intelligence agencies had the far-right groups under "intensive" surveillance, but that they were still a danger.

"Among the right extremists we know of some who could be dangerous, but they're not the problem — those who we have an eye on — but rather those who radicalize in secret."

Investigators will interview Breivik again on Friday and will focus on whether there is "any more danger," police attorney Paal-Fredrick Hjort Kraby told reporters.

Police have not turned up any signs that copycat attacks might be committed, Kraby said.

But they are clearly concerned. Kraby said Brevik's next hearing will be closed "just in case he's able to send messages by code" to associates.

Police have so far only interviewed the Norwegian suspect once, in a seven-hour session the day after the attack. Kraby said Breivik is in contact only with his lawyer and investigators. He also said the Norwegian police have been in touch with the FBI regarding the attacks, but he did not elaborate.

The national sense of heartbreak is being renewed daily as police slowly release names of the dead. Later Thursday, 24 names were added to the list, including 23-year old Tamta Lipartelliani from Georgia who died at the camp, setting the confirmed total by police at 41.

___

Melvin reported from Brussels. Paisley Dodds in London, David Rising in Berlin, Jim Heintz and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm and Ian MacDougall and Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo contributed to this report.

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IMF chief warns of global dangers of US default (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned Tuesday the clock was ticking on a US debt deal, as the dollar slid to new lows amid concerns of a looming and unprecedented default by the world's top economy.

With a week to go before the United States hits an August 2 deadline when the government runs out of funds to pay its bills, Congress remained deeply divided on raising the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

In a solemn late night address to the nation on Monday, Democratic President Barack Obama hit out at what he called a "dangerous game" being played by rival Republicans.

"We can't allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington's political warfare," Obama said, warning of a "deep economic crisis" if the United States, still emerging from recession, defaults.

But Republican House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday insisted: "We have a bill that is a reasonable approach -- we've negotiated with the Senate leadership -- that really is common sense."

Republicans have said they will only agree to raising the debt limit if there are accompanying measures to rein in the ballooning US deficit.

Obama has agreed to a raft of deep spending cuts, but Republicans emboldened by newly elected arch-conservative Tea Party lawmakers have refused his demand for matching revenue increases to be imposed on the rich and big corporations.

Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund, waded into the debate Tuesday urging the two sides to find a compromise.

"The clock is irremediably ticking, and people really have to find a solution," she said in New York.

She warned a default "would be a very, very, very serious event. Not for the United States alone, but for the global economy at large."

According to the IMF, US public debt will reach 99 percent of its GDP in 2011 and 103 percent in 2012.

World markets wobbled again as global fears spread of no end to the stalemate before next Tuesday's deadline.

US stocks fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 64 points (0.52 percent) at midday.

European equities also dropped while the dollar slid against the euro and yen, hitting an all-time low against the safe-haven Swiss franc.

"The foreign exchange market seems to be losing faith that the US Congress will reach an agreement... This has caused a sell-off in the dollar across the board," said Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at trading group Forex.com.

Boehner has proposed a two-step plan with debt increases first to February or March 2012, and later to 2013.

And Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on the party "to stop grumbling and whining and to come together as conservatives and rally behind the speaker and call the president's bluff," a Republican source said.

But Obama has rejected the idea of a temporary debt limit increase, arguing it would leave the underlying problem unresolved and risk repeating the current crisis in six months' time.

Obama has warned of "Armageddon" if the United States defaults on its debt repayments for the first time in history, which could see the US lose its coveted AAA debt rating status and plunge the global economy back into turmoil.

Washington hit its debt ceiling on May 16 but has used spending and accounting adjustments, as well as higher-than-expected tax receipts, to continue operating normally.

The United States, still recovering from the 2008 recession with unemployment hovering around 9.2 percent, would be faced with tough choices -- meeting either its debt obligations, or reneging on government checks to the poorest, most vulnerable Americans.

The political stakes are also high ahead of the November 2012 elections, and Obama appealed to Americans to "make your voice heard" to members of Congress.

Reports suggested many had heeded the call and that some congressional websites had crashed and the Congress switchboard was flooded with calls.

There are signs the standoff is exacting a political toll on both the president and Republicans ahead of next year's White House race.

Washington Post/ABC television poll showed weakening support for Obama's economic agenda, and found the percentage of people who said he has made the economy worse has jumped six points since October to 37 percent.

But about as many people blamed Republican policies with 65 percent disapproving of the GOP's handling of jobs compared to 52 percent for the president.

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Second police chief quits as scandal pressures Cameron (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – A second senior British policeman resigned Monday over the corruption scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's global media empire and forced Prime Minister David Cameron to defend his own position.

Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism chief, John Yates, quit a day after the head of the Metropolitan Police. The force faces a storm of questions from parliament and voters over officers' relationships with the Murdoch press and their failure to probe allegations of phone-hacking by the News of the World.

With events accelerating in an affair that has electrified public life and strained ties among Britain's press, police and politicians, Cameron curtailed a visit to Africa and defended himself from police criticism over his choice of the tabloid's former editor as government spokesman.

Though he faces no challenge yet to his leadership, some of his Conservative supporters began to raise the possibility, albeit remote, that Cameron might face pressure to go himself. He will return from Africa late Tuesday, rather than early Wednesday, to face a new parliamentary debate on the scandal.

Following the arrest Sunday of Murdoch's British newspaper chief Rebekah Brooks, a personal friend of Cameron and one of two top News Corp executives to resign on Friday, the Murdoch family's management of its global business interests was also being questioned by investors.

The company said it was setting up an independent ethics committee under Anthony Grabiner, a commercial lawyer and member of the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords.

Rupert Murdoch, 80, and his son and heir apparent James, 38, along with the 43-year-old Brooks, a former editor of the News of the World, will be quizzed by the media committee of the lower house Tuesday in what promises to be a fiery showdown.

News Corp shares were 3.7 percent down in New York. That was over 16 percent lower than when news broke on July 4 that police were investigating whether journalists in 2002 had hacked voicemail for a missing teen-ager who was later found murdered.

That has reignited a five-year-old scandal that once had seemed limited to spying on the rich, famous and powerful. Ten journalists have been arrested and released on bail.

POLICE CRITICIZE CAMERON

Police, under pressure for failing to probe more widely after the jailing of a News of the World reporter in 2007, have since said an inquiry they relaunched in January has the names of some 4,000 people who may have been spied on, including child crime victims and the parents of soldiers killed in war.

Yates, who was savaged by a parliamentary committee at a public hearing last week, had been the focus of complaints that in 2009 he reviewed evidence of phone-hacking by the News of the World and ruled that it did not merit reopening inquiries. The mayor of London said Yates, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had resigned rather than be suspended.

In stepping down as Britain's top policeman Sunday, Yates's boss Paul Stephenson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said he could not carry on while investigations continue into the appointment by his force of a former deputy editor of the News of the World as a public relations consultant.

Stephenson also made an unusual, if veiled, personal attack on the prime minister by contrasting Cameron's defiant reaction to revelations about his spokesman Andy Coulson with the police chief tendering his resignation in response to the hiring of Neil Wallis, Coulson's former deputy, as an adviser.

Stephenson noted that Cameron had appointed Coulson in 2007, shortly after Coulson resigned as the paper's editor following the jailing of a reporter for hacking. And he said Wallis had, until this month, not been linked to the scandal at all.

"Unlike Mr. Coulson, Mr. Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge, been in any way associated with the original phone-hacking investigation," Stephenson said.

Picking up on that, opposition Labor leader Ed Miliband highlighted the "sharp contrast" between Cameron and the police response, but he stopped short of calling outright for the prime minister, in office for only 14 months, to resign.

Cameron, beginning a two-day trip to Africa which had already been curtailed by the need to deal with the scandal, said the case of the government and police was not comparable.

"I don't believe the two situations are the same in any shape or form," he told a news conference in Pretoria.

"There is a contrast with the situation at the Metropolitan Police, where clearly the issues have been around whether or not the investigation is being pursued properly."

Cameron also said parliament would delay its summer recess by a day to let him address lawmakers again Wednesday.

POLITICAL FALLOUT

Cameron, a 44-year-old former public relations executive, revived Conservative fortunes after taking the leadership in 2005, winning power last year after 13 years of Labor rule.

Many see the scandal as his biggest test to date.

His deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, leader of coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, rubbished any suggestion of Cameron's resignation Monday -- analysts note that Clegg's party's own dismal poll ratings after its first taste of power in 70 years ensures they will not provoke an early election.

Asked whether Cameron might be forced out over the scandal, Clegg replied: "Of course not. Let's keep some perspective."

However, some commentators said his troubles were not over.

"This crisis has understandably shaken the Cameron circle. Some dared to hope the storm had passed," wrote Andrew Grice, political editor of the Independent newspaper. "Yesterday they realized the storm is still gathering pace. It could last for years. No one knows where it will end, least of all Mr Cameron."

Iain Dale, a prominent Conservative commentator, wrote on his blog: "I can't believe I am even writing this, but it is no longer an impossibility to imagine this scandal bringing down the prime minister, or even the government."

Yet, he said, that remained far-fetched, as did Toby Young, a commentator blogging at the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph, who cited Cameron's assured demeanor in public and efforts to highlight Labor's own long relationship with the Murdoch press as reasons for expecting the crisis to blow over.

"I don't rule out the prime minister being toppled by this scandal," Young wrote. "I just don't think any of the details that have emerged so far, or his handling of the crisis, put him in serious jeopardy."

MURDOCHS UNDER FIRE

The affair has prompted Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old News of the World, Britain's top-selling Sunday paper, and to drop a bid for highly profitable BSkyB that was a key part of News Corp's global expansion in television. That in turn has raised questions from investors over the family's management.

"People would rather be cautious and mark it down rather than find a reason to defend it," said Jackson Leung at News Corp shareholder Invesco of the multinational's share price.

James Murdoch is the executive most in the firing line, many analysts believe, following the resignations Friday of Brooks and of her former colleague in London Les Hinton, head of Murdoch's Dow Jones & Co, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

Shares in British pay-TV network BSkyB, in which News Corp owns 39 percent, were little changed Monday, still 15 percent down on their July 4 level after political uproar forced Murdoch last week to drop the $12-billion buyout bid.

Some minority shareholders said James Murdoch may have to step aside as chairman of the broadcaster.

Labor leader Miliband, who wants to block any future takeover of BSkyB by Murdoch, called for new rules to curb how much of Britain's media could be controlled by one proprietor: "Concentrations of power damage our culture," he said.

Murdoch, who some media commentators say at first misjudged the strength of public anger against a man who has influenced British politics for decades, published apologies in several rival newspapers at the weekend. He also apologized in person to the parents of the murdered schoolgirl whose phone was hacked.

His company, and Cameron's government, are likely to face many uncomfortable moments over the coming months as the police investigation and public inquiry more ahead. However, interest among voters may wane, with an election not likely before 2014.

"If the story continues and starts affecting the government it will obviously be huge. But phone-hacking has been going on for years so why has it gone so big all of a sudden?" said London teacher Robert Rogers, 26.

"It's terrible the victims have had their privacy invaded. But after tomorrow it will all blow over and will be forgotten in a week."

(Additional reporting by Jodie Ginsberg in Pretoria and Stephen Mangan, Christina Fincher, Sven Egenter, Ralph Gowling and Michael Roddy in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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London police chief quits over hacking ties (AP)

LONDON – London's police chief has quit over his links to a former News of the World editor caught up in the phone hacking scandal.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Stephenson denies any wrongdoing.

Stephenson has been criticized for hiring Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor arrested last week in the scandal, as a part-time PR consultant for a year until September 2010.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LONDON (AP) — London's police chief has quit over his links to a former News of the World editor caught up in the phone hacking scandal.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Paul Stephenson denies any wrongdoing.

Stephenson has been criticized for hiring Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor arrested last week in the scandal, as a part-time PR consultant for a year until September 2010.

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New defense chief Panetta in Iraq, to press on drawdown (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Leon Panetta arrived in Iraq on Sunday on his first trip there as defense secretary, saying he would press Baghdad on the future U.S. military presence and go after militants attacking U.S. forces with Iranian rockets.

The United States is scheduled to withdraw all of its remaining 46,000 troops from Iraq by the end of this year, under the terms of a bilateral security pact -- despite U.S. and Iraqi military concerns about expected gaps in security.

Panetta, who is fresh from a trip to Afghanistan, made hopeful remarks to Congress last month that Iraq's government might eventually ask some U.S. forces to remain beyond 2011. But he was cautious in his comments to reporters in Afghanistan, just before departing for Iraq.

Asked whether he would encourage Iraq to ask some U.S. forces to stay, Panetta said: "I'll encourage them to make a decision so that we'll know where we're going."

U.S. officials say that the clock is ticking and that the longer the Iraqis wait, the more difficult it becomes for Washington to say "yes."

"Nothing is actually completely impossible. But things do become costlier and riskier" the later in the year it gets, said one senior U.S. defense official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.

"They could conceivably ask General Austin as the last guy in Iraq at midnight on December 31st but it would be pretty difficult for us to say 'yes'," the official said, referring to Army General Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

The question is a tricky one for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led coalition government. At least one key group in Maliki's fragile cross-sectarian coalition -- the political bloc of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- openly opposes a continuing U.S. military presence.

Sadr's bloc has threatened to escalate protests and even "military resistance" if U.S. troops stay on.

Another political hiccup that is worrying Washington is Baghdad's failure so far to name a defense minister -- an issue Panetta said he would raise in his talks with Maliki on Monday.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart)

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Gaddafi can stay in Libya if he quits: rebel chief (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi is welcome to live out his retirement inside Libya as long as he gives up all power, Libya's rebel chief told Reuters on Sunday in the clearest concession the rebels have so far offered.

Gaddafi has fiercely resisted all international calls for him to go and vowed to fight to the end, but members of his inner circle have given indications they are ready to negotiate with the rebels, including on the Libyan leader's future.

Gaddafi is still holding on to power, five months into a rebellion against his 41-year rule and despite a NATO bombardment and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.

"As a peaceful solution, we offered that he can resign and order his soldiers to withdraw from their barracks and positions, and then he can decide either to stay in Libya or abroad," rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in an interview.

"If he desires to stay in Libya, we will determine the place and it will be under international supervision. And there will be international supervision of all his movements," said Jalil, who heads the rebels' National Transitional Council.

Speaking to Reuters in his eastern Libyan stronghold of Benghazi, Abdel Jalil, Gaddafi's former justice minister, said he made the proposal about a month ago through the United Nations but had yet to receive any response from Tripoli.

He said one suggestion was that Gaddafi could spend his retirement under guard in a military barracks.

The conflict in Libya is close to deadlock, with rebels on three fronts unable to make a decisive advance toward the Libyan capital and growing strains inside NATO about the cost of the operation and the lack of a military breakthrough.

Previous attempts to negotiate a peace deal have foundered, but some analysts say Gaddafi's entourage -- if perhaps not the Libyan leader himself -- may look for a way out as air strikes and sanctions narrow their options.

Gaddafi's daughter Aisha said last week her father would be prepared to cut a deal with the rebels though he would not leave the country, and his son, Saif al-Islam, has said Gaddafi would step down if that is what the people of Libya want.

GADDAFI THREATS

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday stepped up Western calls on Gaddafi to quit, brushing off his threat to attack Europeans in their homes and offices.

"Instead of issuing threats, Gaddafi should put the well-being and the interests of his own people first and he should step down from power and help facilitate a democratic transition," Clinton told reporters on a trip to Spain.

In an address relayed to some 100,000 supporters in Tripoli's Green Square on Friday, Gaddafi urged NATO to halt its bombing campaign or risk seeing Libyan fighters descend on Europe "like a swarm of locusts or bees."

"Retreat, you have no chance of beating this brave people," Gaddafi said.

"They can attack your homes, your offices and your families, which will become military targets just as you have transformed our offices, headquarters, houses and children into what you regard as legitimate military targets," he said.

A rebel spokesman in Misrata, about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, said two rebel fighters had been killed on the outskirts of the city, where they are struggling to push back government forces and advance on the capital.

"The (pro-Gaddafi) brigades heavily bombarded Dafniyah and Bourouia last night. Two revolutionaries were martyred and 12 others wounded," the spokesman, who identified himself as Oussama, said from Misrata.

OIL FACILITIES

In Tripoli, a senior source in Gaddafi's government said there was reliable intelligence indicating the rebels were planning to attack oil export terminals in the eastern towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf.

"The Libyan government will do whatever (possible) to prevent such attacks," the source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.

"It urges international oil companies as well as international insurance companies to put pressure on their governments to force the rebels, who are supported by NATO, to stop their destructive operations," said the source.

The conflict has already halted oil exports from Libya, helping push up world oil prices to over $110 per barrel. Most oil facilities have escaped major damage in the fighting.

A document seen by Reuters showed African Union leaders had agreed on Friday that member states would not execute the international arrest warrant for Gaddafi.

The decision left open the possibility that he could go into exile in one of the African Union's 53 nations.

The grouping also offered to host talks on a ceasefire and a transition to democratic government, but did not call on Gaddafi to step down and left open whether he had a future role.

That is likely to disappoint Western powers, which had been urging African states to send an unequivocal message to the Libyan leader to quit.

Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the Benghazi-based rebel council, told Reuters he rejected the African Union ceasefire proposal.

"It includes nothing concerning our demands. We are only demanding one thing: Gaddafi's resignation ... We can gain freedom and democracy only if Gaddafi steps down.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Lamine Chikhi and Lutfi Abu-Aun in Tripoli, Tarek Amara in Tunis and David Lewis in Malabo; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by David Stamp)

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