Explosions and gunfire rang out in Tripoli after dawn as opponents of Muammar Gaddafi rose up in the capital, declaring a final push to topple the Libyan leader after a six-month war reached the city's outskirts.
Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi has blamed rebel forces in the country for the recent uprising as the people celebrate the month of Ramadan.
China's buying of West African crude oil is set to rise about 15 percent in September from August, trade sources said on Friday, but overall Asian imports from West Africa will fall due to slower Indian demand.
Fears of U.S. slowdown dampen demand expectations.
Libyan rebels seized an oil refinery in Zawiyah Thursday and took control of Sabratha further west on the main highway from Tripoli to Tunisia as NATO aircraft struck targets in the capital.
The United States and European Union called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down Thursday, and U.S. President Barack Obama accused him of torturing and slaughtering his own people in what U.N. officials said could be crimes against humanity.
The United States for the first time Thursday explicitly called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down and imposed new economic sanctions likely to be followed up by the European Union.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that attacks on pro-democracy protesters have stopped, but activists reported more bloodshed overnight.
Rebels to the west and east of Tripoli battled Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's forces Wednesday night for control of oil facilities vital to the civil war's outcome. The United States also deployed two more Predator drones for surveillance operations.
Syrian troops raided houses in a Sunni district of the besieged port of Latakia on Wednesday, residents said, arresting hundreds of people and taking them to a stadium after a four-day tank assault to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
Libyan rebels launched an assault on Zawiyah's oil refinery on Wednesday to drive the last of the forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi out of the city west of Tripoli and tighten their noose around the capital.
Brent crude rose Wednesday, staying above $109 a barrel as a larger-than-expected drawdown in U.S. gasoline stocks and positive U.S. economic data trumped concerns over European debt
Benghazi Council Says Dictator's Departure Is Only Option
The group connected the unrest to the war in Afghanistan ? suggesting that the British government could no longer afford to pay for that military campaign.
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi fired a Scud missile for the first time in Libya's civil war, a U.S. defense official said, after rebel advances left the Libyan leader isolated in his capital.
Brent crude for September fell 26 cents to $109.65 by 3:57 a.m. GMT, after falling to as low as $109.23 earlier. U.S. crude was down 34 cents at $87.54 a barrel.
Libyan rebels said on Monday they had seized a second strategic town near Tripoli within 24 hours, completing the encirclement of the capital in the boldest advances of their six-month-old uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.
For 12 hours, Libyan rebel Ahmed Oraybee had been moving from one building to the next in the town of Zawiyah, trying to hunt down the pro-government snipers stalking its neighbourhoods.
Muammar Gaddafi urged Libyans Monday to free the country from "traitors," as rebels in the west began to strangle a major lifeline to his capital.
Libyan regime denies talking to insurgents about dictator's departure.
Rebels on the eastern front of Libya's civil war lost 11 men in the past 24 hours fighting to capture the strategic oil terminal and refinery at Brega on the Mediterranean coast, hospital sources said.
Prime Minister David Cameron blamed the worst riots in Britain for decades on street gang members and opportunistic looters and denied government austerity measures or poverty caused the violence in London and other major English cities.
