Was there any "bid" by Libya to chair this group? As I understood it from BBC's reporting of it, the chairmanship of this committee is held on a rotating basis. It was the turn of an African country to provide a chairman and Libya was nominated and seconded for the post. This was objected to by the US and a wide variety of Human Rights Groups and then went to a vote by the countries involved (33 voted for Libya, 3 voted against and there were 17 abstentions if memory serves me correctly) - the result of the vote was that the Libyan nomination was confirmed - no other candidate was proposed by the African member states participating.

Libya was nominated to run the UN Human Rights Commission by African nations. This nomination being widely seen as part of the unofficial quid pro quo Libya had negotiated in return for financing the newly-created African Union, the successor to the Organisation of African Unity, which was formed last year.

GregF, from your posting above are you of the opinion that Libya's offer of help against Al-Qaeda should have been rejected???