Clinton to travel to Paris for Libyan contact group meeting

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Paris, to attend a top-level meeting on Libya which is due to open there on Thursday, the State Department said Monday. Clinton will be participating in the meeting of the Contact Group on Libya, following a meeting in Istanbul last week. “The meeting will provide the international community with an opportunity to further coordinate our financial and political support for the TNC,” the State Department said in a statement which also stated ,” “The days and weeks ahead will be critical for the Libyan people, and the United States and its partners will continue to move quickly and decisively to help the TNC and address the needs of the Libyan people.” Meanwhile State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland said that it is the Libyan Transnational National Council which has the decision to account gaddafi and his entourage and allies. Meanwhile the U.S. government has seen no indication that Muammar Gaddafi has left Libya, the White House said on Monday. “If we knew where he was, we would pass that on to the opposition forces,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when asked about the whereabouts of the fugitive Libyan leader, who has not been seen since rebels took over the Libyan capital Tripoli last week. In Istanbul on Thursday, the 28 countries and seven international bodies of the “Libya Contact Group” took measures to unblock around 2.5 billion dollars in funds. The Transnational National Council (TNC) say they need USD five billion urgently. Moammar Gaddafi’s wife and three children fled to Algeria, as rebels closed in on his hometown of Sirte and said the longtime strongman still posed a danger to Libya and the world. Gaddafi and his sons Saadi and Seif al-Islam — were reportedly holed-up in the town of Bani Walid, south of the capital Tripoli, Italian news agency ANSA said, citing “authoritative Libyan diplomatic sources”. “The wife of Moamer Gaddafi, Safiya, his daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Mohammed, accompanied by their children, entered Algeria at 8:45 am (0745 GMT) through the Algeria-Libyan border,” the Algerian foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state APS news agency, giving no information on the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself.