LONDON/TRIPOLI (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama warned Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday there would be ‘no let-up’ in pressure on him to go, following a second successive night of heavy NATO bombing in Tripoli.

Six loud explosions rocked Tripoli late on Tuesday within 10 minutes, following powerful strikes 24 hours earlier, including one on Gaddafi’s complex in which Libyan officials said 19 died.

Obama told a London news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron he could not predict when Gaddafi, who is fighting a three-month-old insurgency, might be forced to go.

“I absolutely agree that, given the progress that has been made over the last several weeks, Gaddafi and his regime need to understand that there will not be a let-up in the pressure that we are applying.”

“We have built enough momentum that, as long as we sustain the course that we are on, that he is ultimately going to step down,” he said. “Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we are able to wear down the regime.”

Fighting between Gaddafi’s forces and rebels has reached a stalemate, despite two months of NATO aerial support under a U.N. mandate intended to protect civilians. Gaddafi denies that his troops target civilians and says the rebels are criminals, religious extremists and members of al Qaeda.

Strikes drove back Gaddafi’s forces shortly after he pledged “no pity, no mercy” to rebels in their stronghold of Benghazi. But since then, the rebels have been unable to achieve any breakthrough against better-trained and -equipped forces.

“TURNING UP PRESSURE”

Cameron echoed Obama’s calls for Gaddafi to go.

“I believe we should be turning up that pressure and on Britain’s part we will be looking at all the options of turning up that pressure,” he said.

But Obama reiterated that NATO ground troops were not an option, saying: “We cannot put boots in the ground in Libya.”

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday the NATO bombing should achieve its objectives within months.

France plans to deploy attack helicopters for more precise attacks on pro-Gaddafi forces embedded among civilians. Britain said on Tuesday it was considering doing the same.

The rebel-held town of Zintan, 150 km southwest of Tripoli in the Western Mountains, was hit by shelling on Wednesday, a witness there said. Rebel spokesman Abdulrahman said Gaddafi’s forces were firing from Zawiyat al Baghoul, 18 km to the east.

Rebel fighters say Gaddafi’s forces fire salvos into Zintan, then drive their truck-mounted rocket batteries into abandoned structures in Zawiyat al Baghoul to evade detection by NATO.

They also say the troops are using new types of Grad rockets, including Chinese-made Grads that spread flechettes when they explode to kill as many as possible.

Doctor Anja Wolz of Doctors Without Borders said a relocation of the hospital in Zintan was being considered.

“For three days now we’ve had rockets landing near the hospital,” she told Reuters by satellite phone from Zintan. “We’re looking for a back-up place for the hospital. My feeling is it’s becoming a target.”

Libyan television quoted a military source as saying civilian and military sites in the Western Mountains town of Nalut had been hit by NATO.

TRIPOLI BOMBED

In the second night of heavy NATO bombing of Tripoli, the alliance hit a vehicle storage bunker, a missile storage and maintenance site and a command-and-control site on the outskirts of Tripoli, a NATO official said. Government targets around the besieged rebel-held city of Misrata had also been hit.

The Group of Eight world powers were to discuss ways to break the impasse at their summit in France on Thursday and Friday. Some expect Russia to propose a mediation plan.

The Libya government says NATO air strikes on a Gaddafi compound on April 30 killed his son Saif al-Arab, 29, and three young grandchildren. Thousands attended Saif al-Arab’s funeral.

But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a television interview the story appeared to have been fabricated.

“To the coalition … it appears that this is propaganda and that Gaddafi’s youngest son is not in Libya but lives in another country, and also the story of the three grandchildren is unfounded. This is the information we are getting from our services,” Berlusconi said in the interview, which was recorded on Wednesday and aired in Italy on Thursday.

South African President Jacob Zuma said he would meet Gaddafi in Tripoli next week on behalf of the African Union.

Zuma led an African Union mission to Tripoli in April but the bid to halt the civil war collapsed within hours.

Jordan followed France, Italy and Qatar on Tuesday by recognising the rebel National Transitional Council in Benghazi as a legitimate representative of Libya’s people, and said it would open an office in the city.

The United States bolstered the credentials of the council as a potential government-in-waiting on Tuesday when a U.S. envoy invited it to set up an office in Washington.

(Reporting by Joseph Logan in Tripoli, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Mohammed Abbas in Misrata, Sherine El Madany in Benghazi, Nick Vinocur in Paris, Matt Robinson in Tataouine, Tunisia, Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Ralph Boulton and Jan Harvey; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) ? Tens of thousands of people fled Sudan’s contested Abyei region as northern militias accused of helping seize the area over the weekend moved further south, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Armed groups, thought to be northern militias, also opened fire on four U.N. helicopters in Abyei on Tuesday, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

North Sudan sent tanks into Abyei, a central, oil-producing region claimed by both north and south Sudan, on Saturday, sparking an international outcry.

The move came at a highly sensitive time for Sudan, less than seven weeks before the country’s south is expected to declare independence from the north, as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

Abyei was a key battleground in Sudan’s last civil war and a symbolic emblem for both sides. The region is used all year round by the south-linked Dinka Ngok people and for part of the year by northern Arab Misseriya nomads.

Analysts fear further north-south fighting over the region could spark a return to full-blown conflict, a development that could have a devastating impact on the surrounding region.

Thousands of Abyei residents initially fled to the town of Agok, just over the border into south Sudan, said aid groups.

U.N. and aid agencies said up to 40,000 had now been forced to leave their homes and were moving deeper into south Sudan.

“There are enormous numbers of people now on the road from Agok to Turalei, on muddy roads. Many kids need to be treated for dehydration,” said Gustavo Fernandez, program manager with aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Most refugees in Agok were living under trees, while 2,800 had found shelter in a local school, said the Anglican Alliance aid group.

“Civilians are down on streets and in bushes, no food, no shelter, no water and no medical assistance,” the Anglican church umbrella group said in a report.

Misseriya militias started pushing further south after people left the region’s main settlement Abyei town, said U.N. spokeswoman Hua Jiang.

“There are reports that they are moving south,” she said.

Southern army spokesman Philip Aguer accused the north of using the Misseriya to carry out a land-grab ahead of the separation of the south.

“Misseriya are being transported by SAF (the northern army) to Abyei. They want to claim the land,” he told Reuters.

NORTH DEFIANT

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir defied U.S., U.N. and other calls to pull back, saying Abyei belonged to the north. “We will not withdraw from it,” he said in Khartoum on Tuesday.

The north’s show of force could shake a fragile political balance that has held in Africa’s largest country since the 2005 deal ended the civil war that left millions dead.

It could also delay the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between north Sudan and the outside world.

The United States on Monday ruled out dropping it from a terrorism list and restoring Washington’s ambassador to Khartoum if it continues to occupy Abyei.

A total of 14 rounds were fired when the United Nations helicopters took off from a U.N. compound in Abyei town on Tuesday but they landed safely, U.N. spokeswoman Jiang said.

Jiang said Misseriya militias supported by Khartoum were probably responsible for the attack.

Fighting and looting — some of which targeted supply bases of U.N. agencies — had died down, she added.

Northern forces had deployed military aircraft at a northern airbase in El Obeid within striking distance to Abyei, said the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), a monitoring group.

“The presence of these attack-capable planes in close proximity to Abyei is consistent with reports of SAF (northern) bombing attacks in Abyei within the past five days,” said SSP.

No reliable casualty figure have emerged yet as aid agencies struggle to reach Abyei. Britain’s ambassador in Khartoum, Nicholas Kay, wrote on his blog that two embassy staff had lost relatives in the disputed region.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Jeremy Clarke; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer in Cairo; Editing by Matthew Jones)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? India is talking with other emerging countries to build support behind a common candidate from a developing market to head the International Monetary Fund, with Mexico’s central bank chief a possibility, two Indian government sources said on Wednesday.

A joint emerging markets candidate could be announced this week, the sources said.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known as the BRICS, sharply criticised European officials on Tuesday for suggesting the next IMF head should automatically be a European.

“We are open to support a strong candidate from emerging economies. He or she could either be Mexican, Brazilian or South African,” an Indian government source, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

“We expect a common candidate of BRICS/emerging economies may be announced in two to three days,” the source added.

In the first joint statement issued by their directors at the IMF, the BRICS said the choice should be based on competence, not nationality, and called for “abandoning the obsolete unwritten convention that requires that the head of the IMF be necessarily from Europe.”

On Monday, Mexico nominated its central bank chief, Agustin Carstens, for the top IMF job.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde announced her candidacy on Wednesday, and has been seen to be the front-runner to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week after he was charged with attempted rape of a hotel maid in New York. Strauss-Kahn denies the charges.

One source said India was not planning to put up its own candidate, adding that Montek Singh Ahluwalia, India’s most likely contender for the post, had been ruled out as he is 67 years old. As per the IMF rules, the head of the global lender should not be over 65.

The source said India would have preferred Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s former finance minister, as the joint emerging markets candidate. But Manuel is not finding favour from a few emerging countries, the source added.

(Editing by Tony Munroe)

LONDON (AFP) ? The British economy expanded by 0.5 percent in the first three months of 2011, unrevised official data showed on Wednesday, leaving economic activity broadly flat over the past six months.

“Gross domestic product increased by 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2011, unrevised from the 0.5 percent increase published in April,” the Office for National Statistics said in a statement giving its second estimates.

Growth in the first quarter followed a contraction of 0.5 percent in the final three quarter of 2010, when the economy was hit hard by heavy snowfall and freezing wintry weather.

The British economy had pulled out of a record-length recession in late 2009 but the recovery has faltered, amid concern over the impact of deep state spending cuts, taxation hikes and soaring inflation.

“The recovery has been underway for the last six quarters, though it suffered something of a setback in 2010 Q4 when the adverse weather is estimated to have reduced growth by 0.5 percentage points,” the ONS added.

“However, underlying growth was estimated to be flat during 2010 Q4 and 2011 Q1, based on the latest estimates of GDP growth and the ‘snow effect’.

“Growth during a recovery tends to be, by its nature, somewhat erratic, with some quarters experiencing strong growth and others less robust growth.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Tiger Woods plummeted depths he has not reached in 14 years when he dropped four spots to 12th in the world rankings issued on Monday.

The former world number one has not triumphed anywhere since the 2009 Australian Masters and has been steadily losing ranking points because of his recent struggles on and off the course.

In Monday’s rankings, Woods is sandwiched by fellow Americans Bubba Watson (in 11th) and Dustin Johnson (13th), the first time he has been out of the top 10 since he was 13th on April 6, 1997.

Ever since his private life unravelled in sensational fashion at the end of 2009 and he tried to repair his crumbling marriage, Woods has been a shadow of the player he once was.

It has been almost three years since he clinched the last of his 14 major titles and the prospect of adding any more in the near future receded after he withdrew from this month’s Players Championship because of injury.

Aged only 35, Woods has already had four surgeries on his troublesome left knee and his latest injury setback comes at an inconvenient time with the second major of the year, the U.S. Open, fast approaching.

Woods is a three-times winner of his national open and had initially planned to compete in the Quail Hollow Championship, the Players and then the June 2-5 Memorial tournament to complete his U.S. Open build-up.

However, he was forced to pull out of Quail Hollow because of mild strains to his left knee and left Achilles’ tendon and those same injuries led to his withdrawal from the Players the following week.

Woods is rapidly running out of time in his preparations for the June 16-19 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.

He has repeatedly said he would quit the game whenever he felt he was unable to compete at the highest level.

“For me it is very simple, it (the time to quit) is when my best isn’t good enough any more,” Woods told Reuters shortly before he won his most recent major at the 2008 U.S. Open.

“I could not live with myself going out and practising and preparing as hard as I do and knowing that if I go out and play my best someone is just going to beat me.”

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

EDINBURGH, Scotland ? Rescue workers say 60 pilot whales that risked becoming beached on a Scottish island may have been accompanying a sick member of their pod.

The charity British Divers Marine Life Rescue said Sunday that one of the animals had died, and the others had disappeared from view.

A post mortem indicated the dead whale may have died of an infection.

The whales arrived at Loch Carnan in Scotland’s Western Isles Thursday and came close to beaching Friday morning, but were driven back into deeper water.

The rescue group’s Dave Jarvis said that is appears that these “extremely social creatures” have been accompanying an ill member of their pod whose “infection may have caused this animal to strand.”

He said rescuers would be alert in case the pod reappeared.

JUBA, Sudan (AFP) ? The United Nations demanded on Sunday that Khartoum withdraw its troops from Sudan’s Abyei district after what the south branded an “invasion” by northern troops of the flashpoint border region.

A visiting delegation of the UN Security Council said they were “very, very concerned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei” and formally called on Khartoum to withdraw its troops.

“The members of the Security Council call upon the government of Sudan to halt its military operation and to withdraw immediately from Abyei town and its environs,” the French ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told a joint news conference in Khartoum with his Russian and US counterparts.

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon urged both sides to pull out of Abyei.

“The secretary-general calls on both parties to immediately cease their military operations, withdraw all forces and armed elements from Abyei and desist from further acts of antagonism,” said a statement from his office.

Britain joined the growing chorus of condemnation over the seizure as a threat to peace between Sudan’s north and south in the run-up to international recognition of the south’s independence in July.

Abyei was granted special status under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended 22 years of devastating civil war between north and south, and it requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote on its future.

“We are in control of Abyei and all the (Bahr al-Arab) area north of the bank of the river,” Khartoum’s minister of state for the presidency, Amin Hassan Omer, told a news conference in Khartoum.

“This is because there is still elements from SPLA (the south?s Sudan People?s Liberation Army) trying to enforce its presence in Abyei, and this is not acceptable according to the Abyei protocol and the CPA.”

South Sudan’s government dismissed the allegation as an “absolute lie” and warned the north’s “illegal occupation” of Abyei risked tipping the country back to a conflict that would threaten the lives of thousands.

“This is an illegal invasion and breaks all the peace agreements, endangering the lives of thousands of civilians,” said south Sudan’s information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin.

“This event is a long-term plan of the government of Khartoum,” he said, accusing the northern troops of “burning houses on a rampage of looting,” as he appealed for UN peacekeepers to “come out of their bunkers.”

“Women and children are suffering at the hands of an invading army that doesn?t care,” he said. “They are hungry, in need of medication and out in the heavy rains without shelter.”

SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said earlier: “People have fled the area, because the bombardment was indiscriminate — bombs from the air and from tanks on the ground.”

Troops loyal to the SPLA had all retreated into the south from the disputed district on the border with the north, he added.

Britain on Sunday joined the United States and France in condemning the north’s move into the contested district.

“I condemn recent military actions in and around Abyei, including the attack on Abyei town by the Sudanese armed forces on 21 May and the attack on a joint Sudanese armed forces and UN convoy on 19 May,” said Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Fighting came to a halt later Sunday, a joint UN-AU peacekeeping force said.

“This morning there was still some ground fighting and gunfire exchanged but it appears calm returned in the afternoon,” said Kouider Zerrouk.

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, which runs health clinics in Abyei town and 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said in a statement the “entire population of Abyei town fled the city.”

Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.

Fighting in Abyei has pitted the former civil war enemies against each other since January when the district was due to vote on its future alongside a referendum on independence for the south which delivered a landslide for secession.

But the plebiscite was postponed indefinitely as the north and south disagreed on who should be eligible to vote in an area where conflicted loyalties and land disputes keep tensions high.

The UN Security Council delegation met Sunday with representatives of the government in Khartoum but neither Foreign Minister Ali Karti, who was expected to lead discussions, nor Vice President Ali Osman Taha were present.

WASHINGTON (AFP) ? Peace cannot be ‘imposed’ on Israel and its neighbors, and a United Nations vote will never create a Palestinian state, US President Barack Obama told America’s pro-Israel lobby on Sunday.

BENGHAZI, Libya (AFP) ? EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Sunday vowed to offer the European Union’s long term support to Libyan rebels, hours after NATO bombed the port of Tripoli and Moamer Kadhafi’s compound near the capital.

Ashton, on a visit to the rebel-held eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, is to open a European Union mission office in a city hotel later Sunday and she will also address a news conference.

She said she saw the “vision of the Libyan people today all around. I saw the posters as I came from the airport with the words ‘we have a dream’.”

“I am here today to explain and be clear about he depth and breadth of our support in the European Union for the people of Libya,” in the fields of economy, health and education namely, Ashton said, .

“This support is not just for now, but long into the future, as long as people from the country wishes us to be there,” she said after meeting Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the rebels’ National Transitional Council.

“The people of Libya have spoken about the future they want. I am here on behalf of all the 27 countries of the European Union to offer our support to that future,” she added.

In an earlier statement issued by her office Ashton said it was an “honour to meet the people who have been fighting for democracy and a better future for Libya.”

Ashton will also tour central Benghazi, the epicentre of the protests against Kadhafi, and where pro-democracy demonstrations continue to occur regularly.

Her visit is a new boost for the rebels who have been lobbying world powers to formally recognise their interim council.

The European parliament has long argued for recognising the NTC, which so has been recognised only by France, Italy, Qatar and Gambia.

Just hours ahead of Ashton’s visit NATO-led warplanes struck the Tripoli port and Kadhafi’s immense compound of Bab al-Aziziya near the capital.

“There were two raids on the port and Bab Al-Aziziya”, the residence of Kadhafi which has already been targeted several times, a Libyan regime official said about the early Sunday NATO strikes.

An AFP journalist heard two explosions just past midnight and a fighter plane flying over Tripoli at low altitude, indicating NATO’s sustained air campaign against Kadhafi forces.

International correspondents were taken to Kadhafi’s residence in a regime-chartered bus but were unable to access the compound.

“They’re expecting new raids, we don’t have permission to go in,” an official said after speaking to guards outside the compound.

On Saturday Nato struck one “naval asset in Sirte” — Kadhafi’s hometown — apart from some other military targets, an alliance statement said.

NATO took command of the air campaign on March 30 from French, US and British forces, who under a UN mandate launched air strikes on Kadhafi forces after they began crushing a rebellion against the strongman’s more than 40-year authoritarian rule.

Late Thursday NATO also struck eight vessels of Kadhafi’s navy, prompting the Libyan authorities to accuse the military alliance of seeking to place the country under “siege.”

NATO said it carried out “precision strikes” on vessels in the ports of Tripoli, Al-Khums and in Sirte.

“Given the escalating use of naval assets, NATO had no choice but to take decisive action to protect the civilian population of Libya and NATO forces at sea,” said Rear Admiral Russell Harding, deputy head of the NATO-led air war after the strikes.

NATO said its airstrikes have restricted Kadhafi’s movements.

“This has limited Kadhafi’s ability to give orders to his forces. It has also constrained his freedom of movement; effectively he’s gone into hiding,” NATO’s Wing Commander Mike Bracken said in Brussels.

Meanwhile US President Barack Obama sent a letter to Congress on Friday, asking for political support of US action in the NATO assault, as he hit a technical 60-day deadline to get official congressional approval for use of his war powers.

The White House maintains that its support role to allies does not merit a formal declaration of war as is required by the US Constitution.

Also, African Union leaders will gather for an extraordinary summit in Addis Ababa on Wednesday-Thursday to discuss the Libyan conflict, the organisation announced.

Last month, pan-African body proposed a truce but it was rejected by rebels, who insisted on Kadhafi’s departure.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? A suicide bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 10 more, mostly Iraqi policemen, as they were investigating a car bombing north of Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry source said on Sunday.

The police were attacked after the car bomb exploded in Taji, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital.

Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the height of sectarian conflict four years ago, but bombings and other attacks are carried out daily by a weakened but stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency and Shi’ite militias.

Iraqi security forces and police are often targeted by insurgents. Three bombs near a police station killed 27 people in the disputed oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday.

(Reporting by Baghdad newsroom)