Libya's UN delegation has broken with dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi over his "crimes against humanity and crimes of war" and "genocide" against Libyan protesters, whom he has been carpet-bombing all day. Good call, Libya's UN delegation.

There's not exactly a surplus of news cameras in Libya right now, so plenty of reports are flying around and it's not clear which of them are true. But we can say with enough confidence that it's absolute hell over there. Muammar Qaddafi is pulling out every nasty little trick to protect his regime, assuming he's even in the country. It could always be that smarmy kid of his doing the unconscionable.

Muammar el-Qaddafi seems to being going with a scorched earth-lite policy of dealing with protesters in Libya — he's allegedly hired African mercenaries to bolster his troops, who have been wantonly killing civilians and shooting people at funerals.

After killing protesters in their sleep, Bahrain's ruling monarchy says demonstrators can stay in Pearl roundabout and they've offered to hold talks with all opposition members. Yemen is still going off, and Human Rights Watch says 84 people have been killed in Libya over the last three days. Here's a look at what's happening across the Middle East and North Africa.

Bahrain's U.S.-backed King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa sent riot police in to attack sleeping protesters early this morning in Manama's Pearl Square, killing at least five people.

Following the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, countries all across the Middle East and North Africa are seeing small but growing anti-government protests, proving that the status quo is no longer sustainable. Here's a quick look at what's happening today in the region:

The story in Egypt has taken another hairpin turn—but for the better this time. The protesters have finally kicked out their old man, (ex-)President Hosni Mubarak. He's stepped down and retreated to his estate at Sharm el-Sheik, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak just finished his long-delayed speech to the country and, to everyone's surprise, he had no change of plans to announce. He's not stepping down tonight, or tomorrow.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo and Suez, protesting the administration of President Hosni Mubarak late into the night. The protestors were gassed and beaten.

The turmoil in Tunisia can be traced to an unemployed man who set himself on fire last month in protest, and now more people across North Africa are doing the same. Today, two men set themselves on fire in Egypt.

Events in Tunisia are changing by the minute, but one thing is clear: This is the first popular uprising to bring down a leader in the Arab world in recent history. Who — or what — is responsible for it?

Lebanon's government has collapsed after enough Hezbollah ministers and allies withdrew from the prime minister's cabinet. The prime minister has been cooperating with a U.N. investigation into former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination, which is expected to indict Hezbollah officials.

Some of the cables in Wikileaks' latest document dump showed Middle Eastern allies — Saudi Arabia, for example — pushing for an American military attack on Iran. And that's all Iran needs to spin this leak into a U.S. "plot."

Can you spot the difference between these photos of world leaders at the Middle East peace talks? That's right! One was photoshopped by Egypt's state-run newspaper to put Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in front of the group instead of behind.

Children in the Gaza Strip yesterday appeared to have broken their own previous Guinness World Record for the most kites flown, when 7,200 took to the skies over a beach in Gaza City. Image via AP

Hilarious RNC chair Michael Steele apparently doesn't know his party's position on the Afghanistan war. Yesterday, Steele called the war one of Obama's choice that's unnecessary and not winnable. Agreed! Steele's flacks have now taken to mop duty.

Ceding to international pressure, Israel will revise its blockade of Gaza to prohibit only weapons and things that could be used to make weapons. Presumably, formerly-banned goods like chickens and nutmeg will be allowed, barring advances in weapon-making technology. [Haaretz]

[Demonstrators dressed up as Avatar's Ferngully People and protested on behalf of evicted Palestinians yesterday in the West Bank. Image via AP Photo/Dan Balilty.]

[Palestinian men performing Muslim early morning prayers after crossing from the West Bank town of Qalqilya to work in Israel this morning at an Army Checkpoint. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech today calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images.]

So. Chris Hitchens got beat up in Beirut by a bunch of thugs because he defaced a billboard of a maybe-Syrian nationalist political party. He is really, really proud of this fact.