BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libya’s interim government is drafting a proposal that would shrink the responsibilities of the National Oil Corp (NOC) to make it a purely commercial organisation, a member of the interim government has told Reuters.

The North African country is trying to restore oil production after more than six months of fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi which have caused foreign oil companies to flee and led to infrastructure damage to oilfields and export terminals.

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Libya’s new leaders sent envoys to neighbouring Niger on Wednesday to try to prevent Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage evading justice by fleeing across a desert frontier toward friendly African states.

“The NTC has sent a delegation to Niger to discuss the possible arrival of Gaddafi,” Fathi Baja, the head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council, told Reuters in Benghazi, saying the ousted strongman may be close to the Niger or Algerian borders, waiting for an opportunity to slip across.

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi was last tracked heading for Libya’s southern border, the man leading the hunt for the deposed leader told Reuters, and French and Niger military sources said scores of vehicles carrying pro-Gaddafi forces had crossed into Niger.

Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to find Gaddafi, said reports indicated he may have been in the region of the southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Muammar
Gaddafi was last tracked heading for Libya’s southern border,
the man leading the hunt for the deposed leader told Reuters,
and French and Niger military sources said scores of vehicles
carrying pro-Gaddafi forces had crossed into Niger.

Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to find
Gaddafi, said reports indicated he may have been in the region
of the southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km north of the
border with Niger, three days ago.

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Scores of
Libyan army vehicles have crossed the desert frontier into Niger
in what may be a dramatic, secretly negotiated bid by Muammar
Gaddafi to seek refuge in a friendly African state, military
sources from France and Niger told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Libyan rebels who overthrew Gaddafi two weeks ago said
they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the
remote border were carrying gold and cash apparently looted from
a branch of Libya’s central bank in Gaddafi’s home town.

BENGHAZI, Sept 5 (Reuters) – Commodities trader Glencore
has signed its first contract to deliver fuels to
Libya’s interim council, industry sources said, in a further
sign that rival Vitol is losing its position as top supplier to
rebels that are now interim leaders.

“They are supplying products,” said an industry source in
Libya familiar with the transaction.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – A Libyan Islamist military commander who helped defend Benghazi against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces has called on the interim cabinet to resign because they are “remnants of the old regime.”

In an early sign of divisions among the victors in Libya’s six-month civil war, Ismail al-Salabi also took a swipe at secular groups he said were trying to give Islamists a bad name and create political strife that would only benefit Gaddafi.

BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Britain will ship the remainder of $1.5 billion (924.7 million pounds) in frozen Libyan funds to Benghazi within a week, a senior official in the rebel government said on Friday, helping its new rulers to pay public workers and restore order in the war-torn country.

A portion of the funds amounting to around 280 million Libyan dinars, or around $234 million, reached Benghazi this week already by airplane.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan schools will reopen in mid-September despite bombed-out facilities, scarce transport and a curriculum until recently laden with Muammar Gaddafi’s eccentric philosophies, a rebel official said.

Libya’s de facto rulers have been under increasing pressure to impose order and restore basic state services like education across the war-battered North African country after ousting forces loyal to Gaddafi from the capital Tripoli last month. > “We’ve finished erasing all Gaddafi’s items from the curriculum – the Green Book, al-Mujtama al-Jamahiri,” rebel education chief Soliman el-Sahli said in an interview, listing some of the ousted leader’s works.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Benghazi’s hotel lobbies are filled with bustling reporters and diplomats — but there is no sign of the blackberry-wielding oil executives that big oil cities attract.

Posh restaurants are few and far between and trash is piling up on the streets of the city, Libya’s de-facto oil capital while violence and shortages still plague Tripoli.