Many of you will remember how effective the sports boycott of the 1970s and 1980s was in conveying to sport-crazy South Africans that our society had placed itself beyond the pale by continuing to organise its life on the basis of racial discrimination.

In September 2009, a delegation of three senior Libyan military officers visited the US military’s Africa Command headquarters as part of an orientation program.

See Africom’s report here.

The Libyan officers held meetings with senior US staff members to discuss Africom's programs and activities, met General William E. ward and his two deputies, and traveled to Ramstein Air Base to meet Major General Ron Ladnier, the US Air Force Africa commander, and his staff.

In an interview with CNN, President Obama makes clear that the US supports the removal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his replacement with a government formed by the rebels.

He pointedly refused to rule out military assistance for the rebels, but said the international air campaign was focused on “ensuring that the people of Libya are not assaulted by their own military.”

The permanent members of the Security Council have no problem with a second term for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Reuters quotes UN diplomats as saying.

Once criticised by Human Rights Watch for being "notably reluctant to put pressure on abusive governments," Ban has grown tougher and more self-confident in recent months, they say.

In 2008 Russia had threatened to block Ban’s second term for supporting Kosovo’s seccesion from Serbia, but Moscow “got over it,” Reuters quoted diplomats as saying.

Some observations on the UN-backed intervention in Libya from Bloomberg’s report (see it here):

“This is 21st century intervention, an extraordinary step that pushes the envelope for the UN.” Intervening in an internal conflict such as Libya “goes beyond previous non-aggression measures such the steps taken against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.”

“There is no contradiction in the White House position that the UN-sanctioned military mission is restricted to protecting civilians but that the longer-term, broader political aim is to remove Col Muammar Gaddafi. What is left unsaid is that presumably the man giving the orders to kill civilians is Col Gaddafi. Getting rid of him would protect civilians. QED.”

“In passing RtoP [relating to Libya], the Security Council helped bridge the gap between so-called legitimate (ethically justifiable) and legal (legally authorized) intervention.”

“RtoP, responding to the sense that these domestic harms warranted international response, solidified the Security Council’s claims to wider discretion. Yet it also restricted its ability to sanction intervention to the four situations listed in the RtoP document - genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

“President Obama’s decision to participate in the air campaign against … Gaddafi’s regime is a vast improvement over previous policy, a victory for human rights idealists within the administration, and the application of an important international standard known as “the responsibility to protect.”