Briefs: LIBYA | Spain hosts conference on deepening crisis

Spain’s foreign minister has warned an international conference focusing on Libya that the country could slide into a civil war situation similar to what is happening in Syria. Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said yesterday there is still time to prevent extremists from controlling the country. He is among those at a Madrid conference on the political crisis in Libya attended by officials from 16 nations, the United Nations and the Arab League. U.N. special representative for Libya Bernadino Leon stressed the country needs an immediate cease-fire. Libya has rival governments. One is recently elected and based in Tobruk, where it moved after Islamist militias took control of Tripoli and Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi. The previous Islamist-led parliament remains in Tripoli and is backed by the militias.

UKRAINE | Shelling in east continues despite rebel deal

Shelling in the rebel-held eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk killed two people yesterday and wounded three others, municipal authorities said. The city council of Donetsk confirmed that shells had hit a neighborhood in the north of the city, where fighting centered on the government-controlled airport has caught many residential neighborhoods in the crossfire. Despite the cease-fire and a law passed by the Ukrainian parliament Tuesday granting greater autonomy to rebel-held parts of the east, civilian casualties have continued to rise, adding to the estimated 3,000 people killed. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament passed two laws that would grant temporary self-rule to the rebellious regions as well as amnesty for many rebel fighters. But while the rebels’ preliminary response to those bills was unusually positive, top rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko was quoted by Interfax news agency yesterday as saying that he would not accept key aspects of them. “We will not have any elections organized by Ukraine,” he told Interfax.