Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Eight Protests

2100 GMT: We are going to close early tonight to recharge. We will be back early on Sunday --- in meantime, coverage continues on the Live Feed from Al Jazeera.

2055 GMT: Three tribes in Libya's Oases region have issued a statement that they have joined the opposition and will defend the oil wells near the area

A leader of one of the tribes threatened last week to cut off oil exports to Western countries if Libyan authorities continued to violently crush anti-Gaddafi protests.

The tribes --- al-Zuwayya from Jikharra oasis, El-Mjabra from Jalu's oasis and al-Awajila from Awjila oasis --- wrote, "We hereby announce...that we have joined the victorious revolution from its first day and we confirm that the Oases region as a whole backs the February 17 revolution against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. The region's youths stand defiant to defend and protect the oil wells that surround the region."

2045 GMT: A source tells Al Jazeera English says that "security officials were at Tripoli medical centre all day today....The injured did not go in for help." He estimates that 70 were killed in the capital last night.

2030 GMT: Reuters reports that the the former Libyan Minister of Justice minister is leading the formation of interim government in Benghazi in the east. The revolutionaries emphasise that Libya is not divided and Tripoli is still the capital.

1815 GMT: The opening paragraphs of David Kirkpatrick's article in The New York Times offer a striking portrait:

A bold effort by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to prove that he was firmly in control of Libya appeared to backfire Saturday as foreign journalists he invited to the capital discovered blocks of the city in open revolt.

Witnesses described snipers and antiaircraft guns firing at unarmed civilians, and security forces were removing the dead and wounded from streets and hospitals, apparently in an effort to hide the mounting toll.

When government-picked drivers escorted journalists on tours of the city on Saturday morning, the evidence of the extent of the unrest was unmistakable. Workers were still hastily painting over graffiti calling Colonel Qaddafi a “bloodsucker” or demanding his ouster. Just off the tour route were long bread lines where residents said they were afraid to be seen talking to journalists.

And though heavily armed checkpoints dominated some precincts of the city, in other neighborhoods the streets were blocked by makeshift barricades of broken televisions, charred tree trunks and cinder blocks left over from protests and street fights the night before.

1802 GMT: In Egypt, the committee studying constitutional reform is proposing that the President be limited to two four-year terms.

The committee also suggested amendments making it easier to stand for the Presidency.

1800 GMT: Lots of surreal goodies in Saif Al Islam Qaddafi's interview (see 1735 GMT), but this is probably the best: "The Libyan regime is not Mickey Mouse."

1750 GMT: Gulf News reports that peaceful protests, demanding higher wages, more jobs, and an end to corruption, are spreading through Oman.

1735 GMT: Said Al Islam Qaddafi, the son of the leader, is now holding forth on Al Arabiya. He insists that "3/4 of the country is normal" but then points to "the citizens of Tripoli creating check-points for security, these are citizens, they are in control of Libya now".

He instead that the threat from those who have stolen weapons "will all end soon. They will give their weapons up soon."

And then there is this curiosity: "Misurata has 550,000 people, only 50 people are the ones who created all this. These people have no future."

Misurata is now in the hands of the opposition.

1720 GMT: The New York Times adds information on the defection of major tribes in Yemen to the opposition (see 1025 and 1343 GMT), dealing a blow to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A leader in the most influential tribe, the Hashids, Sheikh Hussein Al Ahmar, told a large gathering in northern Amran province, “The Yemeni people would not keep silent on the blood of martyrs shed in Aden and will avenge it." He called for the overthrow the Saleh regime, as the gathering broke out in antigovernment chants.

Sheikh Hussein Al Ahmar;s brother is the chief Hashid leader. President Saleh is a member of the Hashid confederation and has been meeting with tribal leaders over the past two weeks.

Four days ago, Mohammad Abdel Illah al-Qadi, a key leader of the Sanhan tribe, a Hashid affiliate and the President’s home tribe, resigned because of violence used against protesters. Mr. Qadi was one of 10 members of Parliament who resigned from the ruling party.

1715 GMT: Lines of the day from Saif Al Islam Qaddafi, son of the Libyan leader, at a press conference, "Soon you will discover that what you have heard about Libya is only a joke. A big joke. Here we laugh about the news speaking of hundreds or thousands of victims, bombings in Tripoli, Benghazi, Zawiya or any other place, and of mercenaries."

1700 GMT: Back from a break to find Reuters' summary of the day in Bahrain, with these additional points to note....

The march of thousands from Pearl Roundabout ended at a former office of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the King's uncle and a target for protesters' demands for a change in government and political reform. It was the first time that demonstrators had entered the government and commercial district of the capital.

Opposition leader Hassan Mushaimaa, returning from exile in Britain (see 1415 GMT), told reporters at the airport, "We want a real constitution. They've promised us (one) before and then did whatever they wanted to. I'm here to see what are the demands of the people at the square and sit with them and talk to them."

1415 GMT: Opposition leader Hassan Mushaimaa has arrived in Bahrain from exile in Britain.

Mushaimaa, the leader of the Haqq Party, was one of 308 political prisoners pardoned this week by the King. His return to Bahrain was delayed when he was detained during a stopover in the Lebanon. It was claimed that a warrant from Interpol had been issued against him; Mushaimaa denied this.

1410 GMT: CNN's footage of Friday's demonstrations in Baghdad in Iraq:

1400 GMT: Thousands of demonstrators have marched in Manama in Bahrain, calling on the regime to step down.

Referring to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, they shouted, "Leave Hamad, leave Hamad" and "Down Hamad, down Hamad," as they left Pearl Roundabout, the centre of the protests which began on 14 February. "The people want to topple the regime."

1345 GMT: In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Libya's former Minister of Interior, General Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi, explained his break with Muammar Qaddafi, with whom he had worked closely for 47 years.

Younes, who was rumoured to have been kidnapped after his resignation, turned up safe and sound to say Qaddafi will not surrender: "Either he will commit suicide or he will resist till he falls." He continued, "He takes very dangerous decisions in a state of anger. It is impossible to think he is completely sane."

Younes was sent to Benghazi at the end of last week to oversee the suppression of protests in the eastern Libyan city, but he says he rang Col Gaddafi and persuaded him not to use warplanes to crush the protesters. After this, he claims there was an attempt to assassinate him, killing a bodyguard.

Despite his doubts that Qaddafi would concede, Younis appealed to the leader, "My dear brother, when Benghazi fell you should have realised that the end had come. I hoped you would leave for Venezuela or somewhere else. May God show you the righteous way, and stop the annihilation of our people."

1343 GMT: More on the difficulties for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh (see 1025 GMT) from the apparent defection of two of Yemen's most important tribes to the anti-regime movement.

Powerful tribal leaders, including those of the Hashid and Baqil, pledged at a gathering north of the capital Sanaa to join protests against Saleh.

"I have announced my resignation from the General People's Congress in protest at the repression of peaceful demonstrators in Sanaa, Taez and Aden," Hashid tribal chief Sheikh Hussein bin Abdullah al-Ahmar was quoted as saying.

The Hashids are considered Yemen's most powerful tribal confederation and include nine clans, among them the Sanhan, long a bulwark of Saleh's regime.

1340 GMT: Video from Friday which appears to show the opposition in control of the city of Kufra:

1330 GMT: The Libyan Ambassador in South Africa has condemned regime violence and said the Embassy represents only the Libyan people.

1305 GMT: The Los Angeles Times reports on Mohamed Albuflasa, a Sunni activist for government reform who disappeared 11 days ago, just after he spoke at a rally at Pearl Roundabout promoting unity among Shi'a and Sunnis.

1300 GMT: Friday's anti-regime demonstration in Taiz in Yemen:

Photo: tomwfinn

1150 GMT: Brigadier Adam Saqer Al Qabayli, chief of the Gamal Abdul Nasser Military Airbase in Tobruk in Libya, has joined the opposition, according to Al Arabiya.

The Libyan Ambassador to Somalia has reportedly broken with the regime as well.

1145 GMT: Hajime Nakano points us to his photographs this morning of a rally for Free Libya in Tokyo, Japan:

1125 GMT: Opposition celebrations on Friday in the "liberated" city of Misurata in the west of Libya:

1055 GMT: As more than 100,000 people demonstrated in Tunis, Tunisia's interim Government said Friday that elections will be held by mid-July.

Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi's Government also announced that it had seized financial and real estate assets belonging to 110 more members of the entourage of former President Ben Ali. Similar action had already been taken against 46 people, and arrest warrants had been issued for Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi.

1045 GMT: The claim is circulating that Muammar Gaddafi secretly deposited £3 billion ($4.8 billion) with a private wealth managers in London last week as he sought to protect his family's fortunes.

The deal has allegedly been brokered by a Swiss-based intermediary.

1025 GMT: Al Jazeera English is reporting that five people were killed in clashes between anti-regime protesters and security forces in Aden in Yemen on Friday.

The Government of Ali Abdullah Saleh has taken a harder line on protest in Aden than elsewhere because of calls for independence in the south of Yemen.

Al Jazeera English adds that some influential tribes may soon join the opposition to Saleh.

1010 GMT: The New York Times has a lengthy summary on Friday's march in Bahrain, pressing for the dissolution of the Government and political reforms. The newspaper estimates that up to 200,000 people --- almost 1 in 6 of Bahrain's population --- may have come out.

1000 GMT: Protesters have again tried to gather in the centre of the Algerian capital Algiers, with riot police barricading the Place of Martyrs and the Place of 1 May. The chairman of the opposition Rally for Constitutional Democracy, Said Sadi, was accosted twice by police as he tried to speak.

Demonstrators, protesting for political and economic reforms, have attempted on the last two Saturdays in Algiers but have been stymied by security forces. This week, the Government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika tried to check the opposition by agreeing to lift the 1992 State of Emergency.

0945 GMT: The Egyptian military has apologised on its Facebook page for the apparent beating of protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo early this morning.

Military police moved in about 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) to disperse about 200 demonstrators who had set up camp on the small patch of grass in the centre of the famous square, the symbolic centre of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. According to activists, the military police used sticks to beat up the protestors and several were injured. Several protesters were detained but soon released.

A call has spread or another gathering at Tahrir Square today at 2 p.m. (1200 GMT).

0935 GMT: The opposition in Tajoura, outside Libya's capitol Tripoli, on Friday:

0930 GMT: Al Jazeera reports that Brigadier General Abdul Salam Mahmoud Al Hasi, the head of Libya's Private Forces Operations, has joined the opposition.

0810 GMT: The Washington Post is reporting that "at least 23" people were killed as "tens of thousands" protested in Iraq on Friday.

0700 GMT: Al Jazeera is reporting that the Libyan regime's planes are firing on protesters in Tripoli.

The channel also says there are ongoing clashes in Misurata in western Libya, but pro-Qaddafi forces have largely lost control except for the airport.

0655 GMT: The Governor of Saleheddin Province says four people were killed in this morning's explosion (see 0600 GMT) that closed a major oil refinery in northern Iraq.

The Baiji refinery, 180km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, normally produces 11 million litres of petroleum, seven million litres of benzene, and 4.5 million litres of kerosene a day.

0640 GMT: Video of Egyptian military police scattering protesters who tried to remain in Tahrir Square in Cairo overnight:

0605 GMT: An Egyptian military policeman early this morning, as security forces cleared protesters from Tahrir Square in Cairo:

0600 GMT: In Iraq, attackers have bombed and set on fire the Baiji refinery in Saleheddin Province in the north. Production has stopped.

0550 GMT: At one point on Friday, we were watching six protests --- Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Yemen --- at the same time. (Al Jazeera impressively put up a four-way split-screen shot, from the tens of thousands in Tahrir Square in Cairo to the thousands in Baghdad, but even that was not sufficient for the day.) Later, a demonstration in Jordan would come to light and this morning we read of 300 Shiites maintaining their protests in eastern Saudi Arabia. 

For all the talk of a wave across the Arab world, each case is different. Libya is violently edging towards the endgame for Muammar Qaddafi, who made another dramatic entry with an address high above Green Square in Tripoli to the supporters below. Al Jazeera, which is now skilled in its framing of the politics, juxtaposed the youths waving Qaddafi's Green Flag with the hundreds of thousands celebrating in "Free Libya" in the east.

Other situations are on the rise. There are growing demonstrations in Bahrain and Yemen, both of which are in the background until there is a death, and the protests in Iraq --- while jumbled, limited by a massive security presence, and marked by the slaying of 12 protesters --- are beginning to put the post-occupation politics of that country into view.

And in Tunisia and Egypt, which got all of this rolling, the phase is now one of a tension which is not about the man at the top --- Ben Ali now no more than a rumour in Saudi Arabia; Hosni Mubarak waiting for the end in Sharm El Shiekh --- but about the even more difficult issues of the Governments and economics to come.