Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Breakthrough?

1825 GMT: More from a confused situation in Libya....

The city of Misurata, 210 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, is reportedly divided between the regime and the opposition. The regime took some journalists to the city but quickly took them away again, as CNN's Nic Robertson reported, "After half hour on the ground here, government minders making us get back on the bus and leave. "Leaving Misurata to sound of heavy machine gun fire, govt minders anxious to turn us around back to Tripoli."

Libya Audio Snapshot: The Latest from Regime Stronghold Sirte
Libya, Syria, and Yemen: Scott Lucas on BBC Radio Wales
Libya Poster: Dude, Where's My Country?
Syria Video: Claimed Footage of Saturday-Sunday Protests
Iraq Feature: Protests Transform Kurdistan
Sunday's Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Urban Battles

1820 GMT: The Egyptian stock market has risen for a second day in a row, after almost two months of suspension and then a sharp fall on re-opening last week.

The EGX 30 Index rose 0.8% to 5,251.3 at the close. It has fallen 26% this year amidst the uprising against the Mubarak regime.

1715 GMT: British Tornado jets attacked and destroyed regime ammunition bunkers in the Sabha area of the southern desert early Monday.

1543 GMT: Clarification of the earlier report (see 1210 GMT) that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family are under "house arrest"....

The ruling Supreme Military Council said Mubarak and his family are not allowed to leave the country, deny reports that Mubarak had left for Saudi Arabia: "He and his family are subject to forced residency in Egypt."

1538 GMT: Al Jazeera English footage of hundreds of armed men, in military vehicles and carrying weapons looted from a nearby arms factory, taking control of Jaar and several nearby areas in southern Yemen.

1535 GMT: According to Libyan State TV, the Foreign Ministry has announced a cease-fire against “terrorist groups” in Misurata, where fighting for control had been ongoing for more than a week.

1530 GMT: The Syrian news agency SANA reports that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called President Bashar al-Assad to express Saudi support to Syria "in the face of conspiracy which targets its security and stability". Abdullah "expressed Saudi Arabia's stand by the Syrian leadership and people to foil this conspiracy".

1525 GMT: Reuters says two of its journalists, television producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji, have been released after a two-day detention by Syrian security.

A Syrian official said the journalists, who travelled from their base in Beirut to Syria on Thursday, were detained and questioned because they did not have a permit to work and had filmed "in an area where filming is not permitted".

1515 GMT: Back from an academic break to find that the Bahraini military has banned the publishing of any news about prosecutions by the military or about the "State of National Safety".

1210 GMT: Egypt's ruling Supreme Military Council has said, on its Facebook page, former President Hosni Mubarak and family are under house arrest.

The Council has also announced that Parliamentary elections will be held in September, with emergency laws lifted before the vote.

1200 GMT: Hakim Almasmari and Margaret Coker, writing in The Wall Street Journal summarise, "Yemen Talks Stall", with President Ali Abdullah Saleh --- now apparently bolstered by the US (see 0740 GMT) --- moving away from a deal to step down in talks with General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the leading military figure who broke from the regime earlier this month:

Gen. Ahmar said the opposition had worked out a five-point plan early Saturday with the president that would have both him and Mr. Saleh resign from their posts, put a caretaker government led by the current prime minister in charge, but keep Mr. Saleh's son and nephews in their roles leading U.S.-trained and -financed counterterrorism units.

Eldest son Ahmed and nephew Yahya are among a handful of Saleh family members who are key liaisons with U.S. military and intelligence officials in the hunt for al Qaeda members in Yemen, including radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi.

The deal stalled, however, when Gen. Ahmar on Saturday delivered a fresh demand from the opposition—that Mr. Saleh go into exile after he resigns—sparking a backlash from the president, according to people familiar with the situation.

Gen. Ahmar said the president responded by calling him and threatening him with reprisals if he didn't surrender himself to forces still loyal to the president.

1150 GMT: A witness has said that Syrian security forces have opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators, chanting against emergency laws, in Daraa in southern Syria.

Daraa has been a flashpoint for conflict since rolling protests began there 10 days ago.

1035 GMT: Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem reports that coalition planes have struck regime forces in Al-Wadi Al-Ahmar, 90 km (50 miles) east of Sirte.

1020 GMT: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip has declared that the Syrian regime is working on reforms, including the lifting of emergency rule and removal of restrictions on political parties.

Erdogan said he had spoken to President Bashar Assad twice in the past three days and advised the Syrian leader to "answer the people's calls with a reformist, positive approach.".

Erdogan continued, "I did not get a 'No' answer."

1005 GMT: The latest in the situation of Sirte, the key regime stronghold in Libya, 230 km (140 miles) east of Tripoli....

Al Jazeera, which carried the dramatic report early this morning (see 0415 GMT) that the opposition had unexpectedly taken the town without challenge, is now saying this was probably based on scouts for the insurgents being able to get into Sirte without facing armed forces.

The front-line of the battle still appears to be near Nofilia, 180 km (110 miles) east of Sirte, with regime troops shelling the opposition and preventing their advance.

The area, called the Red Valley, also presents the challenge of mines.

Meanwhile, an opposition spokesman says clashes between the regime and opposition forces in Misurata have been sporadic today.

1000 GMT: Qatar has become the first Arab state, and the second country after France, to recognise the opposition's National Transitional Council as the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

An aid Ship from Europe has arrived at the port of the embattled city Misurata, 210 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, with medical aid, equipment, and food collected by Libyans abroad.

0955 GMT: Footage, via ITN and AP, of women's rallies in Benghazi and Tobruk in Libya, specifically in support of Iman al-Obeidi, who was taken away after alleging she was abused by regime forces (see 0755 GMT), and generally against the use of rape as a weapon by Qaddafi's troops:

0935 GMT: Middle Eastern financier Roger Tamraz, speaking to Reuters, has claimed that senior figures close to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi are keen to agree a cease-fire and peace deal with the opposition: "They know they will lose in the end."

Tamraz claimed that the senior figures are willing to discuss changes to Libya's constitution and the creation of an interim government bringing in some of the opposition. He said that Qaddafi and his entourage recognise that, as part of the peace deal, the Libyan leader will have to step down.

0805 GMT: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to act as a mediator for a cease-fire in Libya, warning that a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a "second Iraq" or "another Afghanistan".

Erdogan said that talks were still under way with the Qaddafi regime and the opposition National Transitional Council. He also asserted that Turkey is about to take over the operations of the opposition-held Benghazi harbour and airport to bring in humanitarian aid.

0800 GMT: An opposition spokesman says regime forces have bombarded the northwestern Libyan town of Zintan with rockets.

0755 GMT: Libya's deputy foreign minister Khalid Kaim has told Britain's Sky TV that five men have been detained as part of a criminal investigation into rape allegations after a weekend incident in which a Libyan woman, Iman al-Obeidi, tried to tell foreign journalists of her abuse by regime forces.

The son of a Libyan colonel is reportedly among the five suspects.

On Saturday morning, Al-Obeidi went into Tripoli's Rixos Hotel, where most foreign reporters stay, and tried to offer her story. She was seized and taken away by security guards, as plainclothes agents scuffled with journalists (see Sunday's updates and video).

0740 GMT: A striking statement from US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates yesterday, pointing to Washington's interpretation of "regime adjustment" --- the approach it has reportedly adopted for the Middle East and North Africa, apart from Libya --- as applied to Yemen....

Gates said in a nationally-televised interview that the downfall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh or his replacement by a weaker leader would pose "a real problem" for America's counter-terrorism policy and operations

Gates said, "I think it is a real concern because the most active and at this point perhaps the most aggressive branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, operates out of Yemen. And we've had counter-terrorism cooperation with President Saleh and the Yemeni security services. So if that government collapses, or is replaced by one who is dramatically more weak, then I think we'd face some additional challenges out of Yemen, there's no question about it. It's a real problem."

0630 GMT: Mixed reports on the situation in Sirte after the opposition claim that it has taken the key town without challenge....

AFP says nine explosions, presumably from coalition airstrikes, were heard between 6:20 and 6:35 a.m. local time (0320-0335 GMT). Other than this, the town is "quiet".

Reuters reports, from a foreign journalist, that Sirte is still in regime hands.

0420 GMT: An Al Jazeera reporter confirms that Sirte has fallen to the opposition and says residents are celebrating. Abdul Rahman Shalgam, the former Libyan Ambassador to the United Nations, also gives the news and says, "The dictatorship is over, this is Libya's new dawn."

0415 GMT: We wake to the claim from the the opposition's National Transitional Council in Libya that the town of Sirte, 230 km (140 miles) east of Tripoli, was taken late last night by insurgents. Shamsi Abdul Mullah, a spokesman for the council, said that the city was found to be "unarmed" and opposition fighters did not encounter much resistance. A column of military vehicles was reportedly seen leaving for Tripoli.

If true, the news is a significant shift in the military situation. Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Qaddafi, was thought to be a regime stronghold where a stand would be made against the recent opposition advance across north-central Libya. Now there is the prospect that the regime is falling back on Tripoli and leaving parts of the west to the opposition.

Meanwhile, in Syria the political chatter is that President Bashar al-Assad will replace the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I am not what impact, if any, this will have upon the growing challenge to his rule.

The report follows the declaration by an Assad advisor on Sunday that the 1963 Emergency Law would be lifted, although she did not say when.

Another clip of Sunday protest, complementing our collection in a separate entry --- this footage is from Lattakia, the coastal city where a number of people were killed by gunfire on Saturday:

And in Egypt, a reminder that demonstrations continue during the post-Mubarak transition --- this gathering of about 2000 people moved through Tahrir Square, the Cairo focus of the uprising, to the Council of Ministries: