• UN team due in Tripoli to investigate human rights violations
• US rejects claims that it wants to assassinate Gaddafi
• France and Italy call to close EU borders in wake of unrest
• EU discuss sanctions against Syria amid crackdown
A rebel fighter runs for cover in Misrata Photograph: Andre Liohn/EPA
8.30am - Libya: Foreign secretary William Hague again suggested that Gaddafi could be targeted by Nato. "People are targets depending on the way they behave," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He added: "We are not going to specify who is and who is not a target... It depends on their behaviour not on who they are. It depends whether providing all necessary measures to protect civilians requires them to be a target."
His remarks contrast with an insistence yesterday by US defence secretary Robert Gates who explicitly stated that individuals are not being targeted.
Hague added: "Time is not on Gaddafi's side, because diplomatic, economic and military pressure will intensify in the coming weeks."
By contrast on Syria, Hague said the international community was prepared to be more patient. "It is not too late" for President Assad to implement reforms he has promised, Hague said.
He said Syria was "at a different stage" from Libya, and could yet choose the fork of reform. He said a "major diplomatic effort" was under way to try to persuade the regime to end the violence against its people.
Discussing a meeting he had with Assad in January, Hague said: "You can imagine him as a reformer." But he said Assad maybe hampered by others in the regime. "I'm not sure how far he is able to reform," Hague said.
8.20am: Welcome to another day of our continuing coverage of the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. Libya and Syria remain the focal points.
Today a UN team is due to arrive in Tripoli to investigate accusations of human rights violations by all sides, in Libya.
These were the main developments overnight:
• The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon condemned Syria's use of force against protesters and called for an inquiry. He said: "I condemn, utterly, the continuing violence against peaceful demonstrators, most particularly the use of tanks and live fire that have killed and injured hundreds of people."
• EU countries are discussing imposing sanctions on Syria if the regime continues its violent suppression of pro-democracy protests. The foreign secretary, William Hague, said Damascus faced "a fork in the road" as opposition activists reported continuing government attacks in the southern town of Deraa and mass arrests and tanks in areas including Douma near the capital and Baniyas on the coast.
• France and Italy want passport-free travel within the EU suspended in the wake of Arab unrest. Prompted by the influx to Italy of almost 30,000 immigrants, mainly from Tunisia, in recent months, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi warned that the upheavals in north Africa "could swiftly become an out-and-out crisis capable of undermining the trust our fellow citizens place in the free circulation within the Schengen area".
• US defence secretary Robert Gates rejected a claim by Vladimir Putin that Nato is trying to assassinate the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Russia's prime minister, said: "They said they didn't want to kill Gaddafi. Now some officials say: 'Yes, we are trying to kill Gaddafi'. Who permitted this, was there any trial? Who took on the right to execute this man, no matter who he is?" Speaking after a meeting with the British defence secretary Liam Fox, Gates insisted: "We are not targeting him [Gaddafi] specifically."
• Libyan rebels secured their first day of relative calm for more than a month, in their only western base of Misrata. But they told the Guardian's Xan Rice that they need more weapons and ammunition.
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