Western-Arab talks to focus on Libya after Gaddafi
Libya crisis: Clinton tells allies to step up pressure
(about 2 hours later)
Western and Arab nations are to meet in the United Arab Emirates to discuss how events in Libya might develop if Col Gaddafi were no longer in power.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged a group of Western and Arab powers to step up pressure to remove Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The so-called Contact Group is also expected to firm up its pledge to set up a fund to help the Libyan rebels.
"Time is on our side," she told a meeting of the Contact Group on Libya. "Gaddafi's days are numbered."
The meeting comes as Nato intensified its air strikes on government targets in Tripoli.
The meeting in the United Arab Emirates is expected to firm up plans to set up a fund to help the Libyan rebels.
Meanwhile, 14 rebels were reportedly killed in the city of Misrata as they tried to push back government troops.
Meanwhile Tripoli has denied allegations of war crimes made at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
Health officials and a rebel spokesman said more than 20 others were wounded when government forces responded with heavy artillery fire.
Top officials from the Contact Group - which includes Britain, France and the US, as well as Arab allies Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar - are meeting in Abu Dhabi to prepare for the post-Gaddafi era in Libya.
At the start of the talks, Mrs Clinton said: "As time passes, maintaining our resolve and unity only grows more important.
"Alongside our military mission to protect the Libyan people, we must continue to escalate the political, diplomatic and financial pressure on Gaddafi and his regime.
"Time is on our side - but we know we must sustain the pressure. Gaddafi's isolation is growing, as evidenced by the increasing number of calls for his departure."
Libyan diplomat Mustafa Shaban told members that his government was "the victim of a widespread aggression" and blamed the media, opposition and foreign mercenaries for human rights abuses, including "acts of cannibalism".
In a separate development, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) said there was evidence that Col Gaddafi had ordered the rape of hundreds of women as a weapon of war against rebel forces.
In a separate development, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) said there was evidence that Col Gaddafi had ordered the rape of hundreds of women as a weapon of war against rebel forces.
Top government officials from the Contact Group - which includes Britain, France and the US, as well as Arab allies Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar - will be meeting in Abu Dhabi later on Thursday.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already arrived in the UAE.
Ahead of the talks, a senior US official was quoted by Reuters as saying that "the international community is beginning to talk about what could constitute [an] end game" to the Libyan conflict.
"That would obviously include some kind of ceasefire arrangement and some kind of political process... and of course the question of Gaddafi and perhaps his family is also a key part of that," added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
At least two powerful explosions rocked Tripoli late on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear what was targeted in the air strike, but it reportedly happened close to Col Gaddafi's residence.
In other developments:
Italy is to provide Libyan rebels with up to 400m euros ($586m; £360m) of cash and fuel aid backed by frozen Libyan assets, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini is quoted as saying by Reuters
The rebel transitional council says it wants to restart oil production at fields under its control, at the rate of around 100,000 barrels a day, but has given no time-frame
The report the UN Human Rights Council is debating in Geneva on Thursday contains what the authors say is evidence of war crimes - including murder, torture, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians - committed by the Libyan regime, and of serious violations by rebel forces too.
Col Gaddafi is sending government representatives from Tripoli to answer the charges in this report after his usual diplomatic team to the UN in Geneva defected en masse in February.
On Wednesday, the ICC's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he was looking into allegations that hundreds of women had been raped on Col Gaddafi's orders, including possible evidence that pro-Gaddafi security forces had been given medication such as Viagra to enhance their sex drive.
In March, a Libyan woman, Eman al-Obeidi, made headlines around the world after she burst into a Tripoli hotel and said she had been raped by Col Gaddafi's troops. She is recovering at a refugee centre in Romania.
There has so far been no comment on the allegations by the Libyan authorities.
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