Global Stories to Watch Today: Libya's rebels and the search for Qaddafi

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Today’s big story will be the ongoing search for Muammar Qaddafi, whose regime toppled this week as Libyan rebels entered and took effective control of the city.

Rebel fighters supporting the National Transitional Council are currently pressing toward the hometown of the former Libyan “Brother Leader” in Sirte, and have offered a $1.7 million reward for his capture. If captured, Qaddafi may face trial at home, Bloomberg reports, or could be sent off to face human rights charges at International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands.

The Guardian has maintained a nice live blog offering regular updates to news events on the ground, and there is a strong piece today showing that the fight for Libya, and even just for Tripoli itself, is not over. The New York Times reminds readers today of the difficulty of rebuilding a government in Libya, when the previous leader largely ruled by personal fiat.

The Monitor's Robert Marquand writes that NATO's mission in Libya may be its last hurrah, because of fatigue by an alliance whose mission has crept from defense of Europe to wars much farther afield. From Benghazi, Monitor correspondent Kristen Chick reports from the rebel headquarters that the NTC would be just as happy to see Qaddafi leave Libya for exile, as long as he gives up his claim to power.

But behind the kinetic TV-friendly story of rebel soldiers conducting a house-to-house manhunt (and then randomly shooting into the air in front of TV cameras) will be a more nuanced story of how this apparently successful internal rebellion (supported by the most powerful military alliance in the world, NATO) is affecting the fragile relations between the world’s richer and poorer nations. It will also affect like-minded rebellions in other authoritarian countries, from Bahrain to Yemen.

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