Metro sizzles at 36.1°C

MANILA, Philippines - Metro Manila sizzled Tuesday afternoon with the highest temperature reading for the year at 36.1 degrees Celsius, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) reported.

The highest temperature in Metro Manila was recorded at the PAGASA Science Garden in Quezon City at 3:55 p.m. Tuesday, making it the hottest day of the year so far this year.

PAGASA said the prevailing easterly wave, a warm and moist wind from the Pacific Ocean, affects Southern Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Last year, May 26, Metro Manila recorded the hottest day of 2010 with 38 degrees Celsius.

In its 5 a.m. bulletin Tuesday, PAGASA said the weather system will bring mostly cloudy skies with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms in Southern Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Eastern and Southern Mindanao will experience cloudy skies with widespread rains, which may trigger flashfloods and landslides in these areas.

Based on PAGASA data, the hottest temperature in Philippine history was 42.2 degrees Celsius, recorded in Tuguegarao, Cagayan, on May 11, 1969.

The hottest weather in Metro Manila was 38.5 recorded on May 14, 1987.

Other O'Neal key in Celtics victory

BOSTON

With Shaq relegated to cheerleader duty down at the end of the bench in a black suit, andKendrick Perkins out in Oklahoma City preparing for a playoff game, Boston Celtics fans had resigned themselves to the fact that this postseason run may be brief without a true big man in the middle.


Danny Ainge had done it. He ruined the chances of hanging another banner, No. 18, in Boston, when he rolled the dice and traded Perkins to the Thunder just prior to the trade deadline.

Jermaine O’Neal was an afterthought. No, he wasn’t even quite that relevant.

But lost among the sweet stroke of Ray Allen’s game-winning 3-pointer, the last of his 24 points on Sunday night, were the "other" O’Neal’s invaluable contributions.

It wasn’t just that the broken-down 32-year-old made all six of his shots. It was how he sacrificed his body to take charges, how he battled in the paint with Amar'e Stoudemire (28 points, 11 rebounds), and that he gave the Celtics a much-needed defensive presence in the paint.

"We won this game because of Jermaine O’Neal," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said following the 87-85 victory in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series. "That’s it."


O’Neal was signed by Ainge in the offseason almost as an insurance policy for Shaq. He wasn’t the same player who established himself as a force with the Indiana Pacers in the early 2000s — one who averaged a double-double in three consecutive seasons.

Boston had clear evidence: a playoff series exactly one year ago while O’Neal was with the Miami Heat.

"Sometimes people focus on what they last see," O’Neal said. "And what they last saw was a horrific shooting performance."

O’Neal looked more inept on the offensive end than Perkins. He shot a miserable 9 of 44 from the field in five games and mustered just 21 points.

And this was the guy Ainge was spending $12 million on over the next two years. O’Neal hadn’t logged more than 70 games in a season since 2003-04 and had battled endless ailments, the latest a nagging injury to his swollen left knee that finally resulted in surgery on Feb. 5.

O’Neal said he doesn’t listen to the critics, but he was well aware of what they were saying: This O’Neal had even less of a chance than the other one, seven years his elder, of coming back.

"When I had surgery, I wasn’t sure because you never know," O’Neal said. "You don’t know what they’ll find when they go in."

But when he was able to walk just a few days following the procedure, he knew he’d return.

"Then I never had any doubts," O’Neal said.

O’Neal did three weeks of intense rehab in Chicago with Michael Jordan’s famed trainer, Tim Grover, which helped allow him to rejoin the Celtics.

"It was the most difficult thing I’ve gone through in my 15 years in this league," O’Neal said.

With Shaq on the mend and virtually all of New England criticizing Ainge for unloading Perkins, a fan favorite due to his defense and toughness, O’Neal may have rescued Boston from a disastrous series-opening loss.

"He saved us," Ainge said.

There was no resemblance to the explosive O’Neal who was once one of the most feared frontcourt players in the league, but he gutted out 22 minutes, finished with 12 points, grabbed four rebounds, swatted four shots and altered several more.

"He was huge for them," Knicks forward Bill Walkeracknowledged. "I think they were resting him for the playoffs."

The Celtics needed something. In the first half, they looked old. They couldn’t stop the Knicks — despiteCarmelo Anthony sitting nearly the entire first quarter with foul trouble — and the offense was stagnant.

But then the team that was able to flip the switch a year ago did just that after the break, ramping up the defensive intensity, which resulted in more precise offensive execution, especially in the fourth quarter.


In crunch time, the plan is for Glen “Big Baby” Davis to finish the game in the middle along with three future Hall of Famers — Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Allen — and All-Star point guardRajon Rondo.

"It’s not how I planned it," Rivers said. "But J.O. played so well and we needed stops. … It was more of a gut."

And it resulted in the Celtics dodging a significant bullet.

Perkins has taken his toughness and scowl to the Midwest. Shaq’s return is still uncertain as Rivers said he’s day-to-day with his latest injury.

However, the Celtics still have that “other” O’Neal, the one who is no longer a forgotten man.

Shutdown looming, leaders scramble

Obama says progress made, but still no deal; frustration, confusion rife in capital, beyond

WASHINGTON — President Obama and congressional leaders worked into the night yesterday to forge a last-minute consensus on budget cuts that would keep the government running through September and avert a threatened partial shutdown at midnight tomorrow.

The president invited Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner to join him at the White House last night in yet another attempt to surmount contentious and politically fraught issues over just how deep the budget cuts should be. Emerging more than an hour later, Obama said the meeting helped to narrow the issues, but there was no deal yet.

As the principals met, frustration and confusion mounted — on Capitol Hill and along Main Streets across the country — over just how disruptive a partial government shutdown could be.

Information on which services would be halted or curtailed, and which workers would face furloughs, has been too scant and too vague, federal unions and officials in Massachusetts say.

The government did divulge that about 800,000 federal workers — about 28 percent of the nonmilitary work force — would be furloughed. But many employees are still waiting for their agencies to determine which workers are considered “essential’’ workers and thus exempt.

As their senators and representatives swap accusations over which side is to blame for the impasse, private contractors working on federal programs are bracing to be locked out of their work sites. And state and local officials were peppering their federal counterparts with questions on the shutdown’s effects on specific federal grants, research programs, and monitoring of environmental hazards, such as radioactivity from the nuclear disaster in Japan.

“This is no way to run a country,’’ said David Borer, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing about 600,000 federal workers. The union is suing Obama’s administration to get access to shutdown plans for federal agencies.

For those responsible for helping the poor and senior citizens in communities across the Commonwealth, a sense of anxiety has set in. John J. Drew, president of Action for Boston Community Development, called it reprehensible that the social service agency may lose federal funding for many programs. The agency could be forced to close homeless shelters and send home toddlers from Head Start if a shutdown lasted longer than a couple of days, he said.

“We have no instructions from anybody — nobody’s sending us a thing that says you’ve got to be prepared to do this or that; we just don’t have any instructions,’’ Drew said. “We’re left on our own out here.’’

New Bedford’s mayor, Scott W. Lang, said the lack of information was unsettling and predicted that a federal shutdown could have ripples that could eventually stall major construction projects, such as road and airport projects. Federal workers whom city agencies depend upon won’t be able to answer questions and provide approvals, slowing or halting everything that has a federal component, he said.
Governor Deval Patrick, in a brief interview yesterday, also expressed frustration.

“We are a mature, serious democracy, a world power,’’ he said. “We ought to look that way and come to an agreement that keeps government open.’’

Though other Massachusetts officials said the state would be able to keep some social service programs afloat, Patrick cast doubt on the ability to do so for a prolonged period. “We don’t have a lot of cash lying around as you know, so the best thing for us is to have the government stay open and continue to function and to fund the programs, particularly that are most important to vulnerable people,’’ said Patrick, who has been stepping up his public statements in support of Obama as the president’s reelection campaign begins.

Still, the state will be able to use its own cash to cover expenses for Medicaid recipients, families who qualify for cash assistance, and other federal social safety net programs, said Alex Zaroulis, spokeswoman for the executive office for administration and finance. Zaroulis said the federal government has told the state it would be reimbursed for expenses related to programs for those with the “most dire need,’’ she said.

The last shutdown, dating back to budget fights between President Clinton and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, closed the federal government for three weeks in the winter of 1995-96.

There were some signs of progress yesterday on Capitol Hill over an attempt to avoid a shutdown. Reid, in a floor speech, reported that the negotiators “had a lot of success.’’

But there were also the usual political barbs. Boehner accused the president of failing to lead in the budget negotiations. And Reid said Republicans were stalling and procrastinating by proposing another short-term stopgap to fund the government.

“It’s time for my friends in the House of Representatives to stop campaigning and start governing,’’ Reid said.

At issue are competing visions over how much to cut in discretionary domestic spending in the next few months. Republicans, prodded by freshman representatives who won their seats with help from Tea Party activists, seek $61 billion in cuts. They had also attached provisions to their House bill that separately sought the end of federal funding of Planned Parenthood clinics and public broadcasting and banned the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Democrats have agreed to about $10 billion in cuts. Entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Medicare would not be affected in this round of cuts.

The Obama administration warned yesterday that a shutdown would threaten the recovery of the nation’s economy.

Small businesses would not be able to get federal loans, and the Federal Housing Administration would be unable to provide loan guarantees for new loans at the start of the spring home-buying season. That would hurt the housing market, according to senior administration officials who declined to be identified.

The Internal Revenue Service would still collect checks owed to the US Treasury, but they won’t have enough staff to process refunds for taxpayers filing returns on paper, officials said.

Members of the US military would continue to earn their salaries during a shutdown, but won’t receive paychecks until the Congress appropriates the money to pay the troops. A shutdown would also shutter 394 national parks covering 84 million acres of public land, including the Lowell National Historical Park, the John F. Kennedy birthplace in Brookline, and the Longfellow House in Cambridge.

Nationally, the loss of about 800,000 daily park visitors would cost parks and neighboring communities $32 million in lost revenue each day of a shutdown, said David Barna, National Parks spokesman, in an interview.

To help cities and towns prepare, US Senator John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, has scheduled a conference call today with Bay State mayors. State and local governments may have to do more to help constituents while the federal government is operating with a greatly reduced staff, according to a statement from Kerry’s office.

Globe reporters Noah Bierman and Stephen Smith contributed to this report.

Japan nuke plant dumps radioactive water into sea

Workers were pumping more than 3 million gallons of contaminated water from Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear powercomplex into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, freeing storage space for even more highly radioactive water that has hampered efforts to stabilize the plant's reactors.

The government has also asked Russia for a ship that is used to dispose of liquid nuclear waste as it tries to decontaminate the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, whose cooling systems were knocked out by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The plant also plans to bring in a floating storage facility.

But these other storage options have been slow to materialize, so the pumping began late Monday. It was expected to take about two days to get most of the less-radioactive water out.

"It was inevitable," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference Tuesday. "The measure was to prevent highly radioactive water from spreading. But we are dumping radioactive water, and we feel very sorry about this."

Radioactivity is quickly diluted in the ocean, and government officials said the dump should not affect the safety of seafood in the area.

But the stress of announcing more bad news appears to wearing on officials with the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Co. One official teared up and his voice began shaking as he gave details at a news conference near the plant.

The crisis has unfolded as Japan deals with the aftermath of twin natural disasters that devastated much of its northeastern coast. Up to 25,000 people are believed to have died and tens of thousands lost their homes.

Since the disaster, water with different levels of radioactivity has been pooling throughout the plant. People who live within 12 miles (20 kilometers) have been evacuated and have not been allowed to return.

The pooling water has damaged systems and the radiation hazard has prevented workers from getting close enough to power up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.

On Saturday, they discovered a leak where radioactive water was pouring into the ocean.

Radiation exceeding the legal limit has been measured in seawater over the past few weeks, though calculating the exact contamination has vexed TEPCO. Japan's nuclear safety agency ordered the utility last week to reanalyze samples; new results released Monday showed unchanged or lower levels of radiation than previously reported.

The less-radioactive water that officials are purposely dumping into the sea is up to 500 times the legal limit for radiation.

"We think releasing water with low levels of radiation is preferable to allowing water with high levels of radiation to be released into the environment," said Junichi Matsumoto, a TEPCO official.

The need to make room for the highly radioactive water became more urgent when TEPCO discovered the extent to which it was leaking into the ocean, Matsumoto said.

Workers need to get rid of the highly radioactive water, but first they need somewhere safe to put it. Much of the less-radioactive water being dumped into the sea is from the tsunami and had accumulated in a nuclear waste storage building.

The building is not meant to hold water, but it's also not leaking, so engineers decided to empty it so they can pump in the more-radioactive water. The rest of the water going into the sea is coming from a trench beneath two of the plant's six reactors.

Also Monday, a spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, Sergei Novikov, told reporters that Japan had requested Russia send it a vessel used to dispose of liquid nuclear waste from decommissioned submarines.

Novikov said Moscow was awaiting the answers to some questions before granting the request.

More water keeps pooling because TEPCO has been forced to rely on makeshift methods of bringing down temperatures and pressure by pumping water into the reactors and allowing it to gush out wherever it can. It is a messy process, but it is preventing a full meltdown of the fuel rods that would release even more radioactivity into the environment.

"We must keep putting water into the reactors to cool to prevent further fuel damage, even though we know that there is a side effect, which is the leakage," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency. "We want to get rid of the stagnant water and decontaminate the place so that we can return to our primary task to restore the sustainable cooling capacity as quickly as possible."

Engineers have been using unusual methods to try to stop the more highly radioactive water from leaking into the sea.

An attempt to seal a crack in a maintenance pit discovered Saturday with concrete failed, and clogging it with a special polymer mixed with sawdust and shredded newspapers didn't work, either.

They dumped milky white bath salts into the system around the pit Monday to try to figure out the source of the leak, but it never splashed out into the ocean.

In the meantime, workers plan to install screens made of polyester fabric to try to stop some of the contamination in the ocean from spreading.

Although the government eventually authorized the dumping of the less-radioactive water, Edano said officials were growing concerned about the sheer volume of radioactive materials spilling into the Pacific and would be investigating its effects. It is not clear how much water has leaked in addition to what is being dumped purposely.

Experts said Monday that at this point, they don't expect the discharges to pose widespread danger to sea animals or people who might eat them.

"It's a very large ocean" with considerable powers of dilution, noted William Burnett of Florida State University.

Very close to the nuclear plant — less than half a mile (800 meters) or so — sea creatures might be in danger of problems like genetic mutations if the dumping goes on a long time, he said. But there shouldn't be any serious hazard farther away "unless this escalates into something much, much larger than it has so far," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Nakashima, Noriko Kitano and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jim Heintz in Moscow, and AP science writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

Gadhafi's forces adapt to airstrikes, pound rebels

AJDABIYA, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces recaptured a strategic oil town Wednesday and moved within striking distance of another major eastern city, nearly reversing the gains rebels made since international airstrikes began. Rebels pleaded for more help, while a U.S. official said government forces are making themselves harder to target by using civilian "battle wagons" with makeshift armaments instead of tanks.

Western powers kept up the pressure to force Gadhafi out with new airstrikes in other parts of Libya, hints that they may arm the opposition and intense negotiations behind the scenes to find a country to give haven to Libya's leader of more than 40 years.

Also on Wednesday, an American official and former U.S. intelligence officer told The Associated Press that CIA operatives were sent to Libya this month after the agency's station in the capital was forced to close. CIA officers also assisted in rescuing one of two crew members of an F-15E Strike Eagle that crashed, they said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Even as it advanced militarily, Gadhafi's regime suffered a blow to its inner circle with the apparent defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa. Koussa flew from Tunisia to an airport outside London and announced he was resigning from his post, according to a statement from the British government.

Moussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government spokesman in Tripoli, denied that the foreign minister has defected saying he was in London on a "diplomatic mission."

It was not immediately possible to confirm either statement with Moussa or people close to him.

Gadhafi's justice and interior ministers resigned shortly after the uprising began last month, but Koussa would be the first high-profile resignation since the international air campaign began.

Airstrikes have neutralized Gadhafi's air force and pounded his army, but his ground forces remain far better armed, trained and organized than the opposition.

The shift in momentum back to the government's side is hardening a U.S. view that the poorly equipped opposition is probably incapable of prevailing without decisive Western intervention — either an all-out U.S.-led military assault on regime forces or a decision to arm the rebels.

In Washington, congressional Republicans and Democrats peppered senior administration officials with questions about how long the U.S. will be involved in Libya, the operation's costs and whether foreign countries will arm the rebels.

NATO is taking over control of the airstrikes, which began as a U.S.-led operation. Diplomats said they have given approval for the NATO operation's commander, Canadian Gen. Charles Bouchard, to announce a handover Thursday.

Intelligence experts said the CIA operatives that were sent to Libya would have made contact with the opposition and assessed the rebel forces' strength and needs if Obama decided to arm them.

The New York Times first reported that the CIA had sent in operatives and that British operatives were directing airstrikes.

Gadhafi's forces have adopted a new tactic in light of the pounding that airstrikes have given their tanks and armored vehicles, a senior U.S. intelligence official said. They've left some of those weapons behind in favor of a "gaggle" of "battle wagons": minivans, sedans and SUVs fitted with weapons, said the official, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss sensitive U.S. intelligence on the condition and capabilities of rebel and regime forces. Rebel fighters also said Gadhafi's troops were increasingly using civilian vehicles in battle.

The change not only makes it harder to distinguish Gadhafi's forces from the rebels, it also requires less logistical support, the official said.

The official said airstrikes have degraded Gadhafi's forces since they were launched March 19, but the regime forces still outmatch those of the opposition "by far," and few members of Gadhafi's military have defected lately.

The disparity was obvious as government forces pushed back rebels about 100 miles (160 kilometers) in just two days. The rebels had been closing in on the strategic city of Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown and a bastion of support for the longtime leader, but under heavy shelling they retreated from Bin Jawwad on Tuesday and from the oil port of Ras Lanouf on Wednesday.

Gadhafi's forces were shelling Brega, another important oil city east of Ras Lanouf. East of the city in Ajdabiya, where many rebels had regrouped, Col. Abdullah Hadi said he expected the loyalists to enter Brega by Wednesday night.

"I ask NATO for just one aircraft to push them back. All we need is air cover and we could do this. They should be helping us," Hadi said.

The battlefield setbacks are hardening a U.S. view that the opposition is probably incapable of prevailing without decisive Western intervention, a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, compared the rebel forces to a "pick-up basketball team."

Gadhafi's forces also have laid land mines in the eastern outskirts of Adjabiya, an area they held from March 17 until Saturday, when airstrikes drove them west, according to Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based group cited the electricity director for eastern Libya, Abdal Minam al-Shanti, who said two anti-personnel mines detonated when a truck ran over them, but no one was hurt. Al-Shanti said a civil defense team found and disarmed more than 50 mines in what Human Rights Watch described as a heavily traveled area.

NATO planes flew over the zone where the heaviest fighting was under way earlier Wednesday and an Associated Press reporter at the scene heard explosions, but it was unclear whether any airstrikes hit the area. U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke, a spokesman for the NATO operation aboard the USS Mount Whitney, said he could not confirm any specific strikes but that Western aircraft were engaging pro-Gadhafi forces in areas including Sirte and Misrata, the rebels' last significant holdout in western Libya.

The retreat Wednesday looked like a mad scramble: Pickup trucks, with mattresses and boxes tied on, driving east at 100 mph (160 kilometers per hour).

And as the fighting approached Ajdabiya, residents there made an exodus of their own. The road to the rebels' de-facto capital, Benghazi, was packed with vehicles, most of them full of families and their belongings. Streets on the western side of Ajdabiya were deserted and silent.

Rebel military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani said the rebels had made a "tactical retreat" to Ajdabiya and will set up defensive positions there. "Even with courage and determination, the forces need power to be able to fight back," he said.

Bani said he heard from three sources, including one in Chad, that 3,200 to 3,600 heavily armed members of the Chadian presidential guard were marching from Sirte toward Ajdabiya. The report could not be independently confirmed.

As Gadhafi's forces push rebels toward Benghazi, some 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Brega, pressure is growing for NATO members and other supporters of the air campaign to do more.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain believes a legal loophole could allow nations to supply weapons to Libya's rebels — but stressed the U.K. has not decided whether it will offer assistance to the rebels.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that Washington also believes it would be legal to give the rebels weapons.

"No decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any groups in Libya," said White House press secretary Jay Carney. "We're not ruling it out or ruling it in."

NATO officials and diplomats said the alliance had not considered arming the rebels. Any alliance involvement would require support from all 28 members, a difficult task, and an alliance official who could not be named under standing regulations said NATO "wouldn't even consider doing anything else" without a new U.N. resolution.

China, Russia and Germany oppose supplying weapons to the rebels.

Under the U.N. resolution authorizing necessary measures to protect civilians, nations supplying weapons would need to be satisfied they would be used only to defend civilians — not to take the offensive to Gadhafi's forces.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said the operation already had gone too far. He called for an immediate cease-fire and admonished French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a diplomatic meeting in Beijing. Hu called for peaceful efforts to restore stability, expressed China's concern that Libya may end up divided and said force would complicate a negotiated settlement.

Diplomats were attempting to persuade Gadhafi to leave without military force.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said negotiations on securing Gadhafi's exit were being conducted with "absolute discretion" and that there were options on the table that hadn't yet been formalized.

"What is indispensable is that there be countries that are willing to welcome Gadhafi and his family, obviously to end this situation which otherwise could go on for some time," he said. But the Italian diplomat insisted immunity for Gadhafi was not an option.

Uganda became the first country to publicly offer Gadhafi refuge. The spokesman for Uganda's president, Tamale Mirundi, told the AP on Wednesday that he would be welcome there.

Gadhafi has shown no public sign he might leave power, vowing to fight until the end. His forces were continuing to besiege Misrata, the rebels' main western holdout.

An activist in Misrata said there have been power outages, and water service was cut off so residents must rely on wells, but the biggest problem was a lack of medical supplies such as anesthesia and sterilizers, along with diapers and baby formula. Four people in the town were killed Tuesday, the activist said.

Libyan officials took journalists to the home of a family who said their 18-month-old son was killed in an airstrike Tuesday morning against an ammunition dump in the mountain village of Khorum, 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Tripoli. They say their home was hit by a stray missile when the dump was hit. Their account could not be independently confirmed.

British and other diplomats were involved in negotiations with the rebel leadership in Benghazi. Cameron's spokesman Steve Field said it was partly to gauge if the opposition would be trustworthy allies — "learning more about their intentions."

NATO's top commander, U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, has said officials have seen "flickers" of possible al-Qaida and Hezbollah involvement with the rebel forces. Bani, the rebel military spokesman, dismissed accusations that al-Qaida elements are fighting with the rebels.

"If there are elements that were with al-Qaida in the past and they are now in Libya, they are now fighting for Libya, not for al-Qaida," he said, emphasizing the word "if."

___

Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard in Benghazi, Hadeel al-Shalchi in Tripoli, Robert Burns in Washington, David Stringer in London, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Angela Charlton in Paris, Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda, and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defects to Britain

Libya's foreign minister defected from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's government last night in a significant blow to the dictator.

Moussa Koussa flew into Britain and told Foreign Office staff he was "no longer willing" to serve the regime.

The move was welcomed in Whitehall where fears have been growing that poorly organised Libyan rebels cannot defeat Gaddafi without being given arms or training on the ground.

"We encourage those around Gaddafi to abandon him and embrace a better future for Libya that allows political transition and real reform that meets the aspirations of the Libyan people," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

David Cameron had earlier admitted that the Government was considering arming the rebels following talks in London with Libyan opposition leaders.

Rebel forces were forced to retreat again and surrendered several towns in the face of heavy resistance from troops loyal to the regime.

However, there are fears that any move to provide arms could lead to "mission creep", dragging Western ground forces into the civil war. It also emerged that:

Five Libyan diplomats were expelled from Britain amid concern they could pose a threat to national security;


Senior defence sources disclosed that British and American forces had destroyed more than 40 Libyan arms dumps and "chopped the legs off" Gaddafi's supply route;


Uganda announced that it was prepared to offer the Libyan leader exile under an Italian plan to remove him;


The UN or EU may ultimately have to send a humanitarian force to help civilians in rebel–held areas.


The British and other governments are increasingly worried that rebel troops will not be able to advance on Tripoli or other Libyan cities without external help.

Arming them is thought to have been discussed by Britain's National Security Council and Mr Cameron, President Barack Obama and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy have begun openly considering the idea. Last night it was reported that Mr Obama had signed a secret order authorising covert US support for the rebels within the past two or three weeks and that CIA and MI6 operatives had been in the country for some time.

It is understood that Libyan opposition leaders have requested anti–tank weapons and other equipment, which could be provided by a Middle Eastern country, such as Qatar, in return for oil.

Yesterday, Mr Cameron said that Britain was not "ruling out" arming the rebels, despite having previously indicated that this may not be possible under the terms of sanctions imposed on Libya. The Prime Minister told MPs: "It is an extremely fluid situation but there is no doubt in anyone's mind the ceasefire is still being breached and it is absolutely right for us to keep up our pressure under UN Security Council 1973. As I've told the House, the legal position is clear that the arms embargo applies to the whole territory of Libya.

"But at the same time, UNSCR 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian–populated areas. Our view is that this would not necessarily rule out the provision of assistance to those protecting civilians in certain circumstances. We do not rule it out but we have not taken the decision to do so."

Mr Cameron's statement echoed comments by Mr Obama in a television interview on Tuesday night.

Russia and other countries have strongly condemned any such provision. It would be highly controversial and may be blocked by MPs in Britain.

However, Mr Koussa's defection holds out hope that the regime might still crack from the inside, relieving the pressure for further military measures.

Mr Koussa flew from Tunisia, where he had been on a diplomatic mission, to Farnborough airport before being shuttled to London for immediate talks with high–ranking Foreign Office officials.

A close confidant of Gaddafi for 30 years, he was linked by intelligence sources to the Lockerbie bombing and played a lead role in securing the release of the bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al–Megrahi.

Yesterday, senior defence officials said there was "more to do" to prevent further loss of civilian lives but reiterated that no British ground troops would be used. A chaotic picture emerged on the ground where the Gaddafi regime ambushed rebels outside the leader's home town of Sirte, precipitating a disorderly retreat as far as Ajdabiyah.

Profile Regime's chief fingernail puller'

Moussa Koussa, 61, took a sociology degree at Michigan State University. He was appointed ambassador to Britain in 1980 but expelled for threatening to kill opponents.

He was accused of organising terrorism on his return to Libya where he headed the Libyan spy agency from 1994 and was described by a senior figure in George W Bush's administration as "chief fingernail puller".

He has been named as the possible architect of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, but brokered Libya's promise to give up weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and was made foreign minister in 2009.

Bronx Zoo closes Reptile House until missing cobra shows up

The Bronx Zoo has closed its Reptile House indefinitely while it looks for a highly venomous cobra that has gone missing.

Here, according to The New York Times, is the sign explaining the problem:

The World of Reptiles is closed today. Staff observed an adolescent Egyptian cobra missing from an off-exhibit enclosure on Friday.

The 20-inch-long cobra vanished from its enclosure outside public view sometime Friday, but zoo officials say they are confident it is hiding in an isolated area away from the public.


Zoo dirctor Jim Breheny tells the Associated Press in an email that reptiles seek out confined spaces and that the cobra is undoubtedly hiding in a place it feels safe.

Zoo officials are now waiting for its to get hungry or thirsty and slither out into the open.

The AP, quoting from a fact sheet on the San Diego Zoo's website, says cobra bites can t be deadly if not treated, but that cobras aren't likely to attack people unless they feel threatened.