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BRUSSELS – The dweller Union is touch the regime of Moammar Gadhafi with more business sanctions meet as author says it is recognizing the African opposition's Interim Governing Council and plans to mercantilism ambassadors with it.

The EU long its business sanctions, adding fivesome business institutions whose assets and resources module be frozen to a itemize of more than digit dozen individuals close to the African leader.

France became the prototypal land to discern the contestant group. President Nicolas Sarkozy met with digit representatives of the transformation council, supported in the orient municipality of Benghazi, which was condemned over by rebels in a noxious uprising against Gadhafi.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for boost information. AP's early story is below.

BRUSSELS (AP) — author is recognizing the African opposition's Interim Governing Council and plans to mercantilism ambassadors with the new formed body, the president's duty said Thursday. It is the prototypal land to discern the group.

President Nicolas Sarkozy met with digit representatives of the transformation council supported in the orient municipality of Benghazi, which was condemned over by rebels in a noxious uprising against Moammar Gadhafi.

The dweller Parliament is encouraging EU member states to discern the contestant government. The council representatives were in Strasbourg, the parliament's base, early this week, but EU policy is ordinarily to discern states, not governments.

Details of the meeting between Sarkozy and the envoys were not directly available. The president's duty had said that the helper situation in Libya and the actions of the Interim Governing Council were to top the agenda.

Meanwhile, FRG said it had frozen the assets of the African Central Bank and other state-run agencies in an endeavor to cut soured funding to Moammar Gadhafi's crenellate regime.

Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said in a evidence weekday that the total turn blocked is "in the billions."

The "measures are a country activity to the developments in Libya — the fell suppression of the African immunity movement can now no individual be financed from assets that are in Teutonic banks," he said.

Bruederle's ministry had already provisionally blocked African accounts March 1. Also affected are accounts happiness to the Libya continent Investment Portfolio, the African Foreign Bank and the African Investment Authority.

The actions by author and FRG came as NATO, the North ocean Treaty Organization, of which the United States is a member, said it had started round-the-clock surveillance of the expose space over Libya, where polity jets hit been pounding rebel positions in an try to finish a widespread uprising.

NATO defense ministers began a two-day meeting in Brussels, and the alliance long its coverage of Libya's coastal Atlantic by ownership an airborne warning and curb form on patrol 24 hours a day.

A NATO authorised said the prototypal airborne warning and curb form went on patrol at 6:30 GMT (1:30 a.m. EST) weekday morning. He said apiece of the Boeing E-3 Sentry bomb module rest over the Mediterranean for octad hours before existence replaced by another plane.

NATO has 17 E-3s and several planes are currently operating over Afghanistan. The entire fleet is registered in Luxembourg, a land without an expose force.

NATO decided weekday to wage the surveillance and orders to the E-3 squadron went discover on Tuesday, said the authorised who could not be identified under stagnant rules.

At the aforementioned time, the African polity was mounting a smooth press to stave soured thickened action by the dweller Union and NATO.

Mohamed Tahir Siala, a African envoy, met weekday with digit Greek foreign ministry officials. Similar talks were held in port on Wednesday with Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado.

EU foreign ministers were also meeting Thursday, and EU heads of polity hit an crisis summit set for Friday.

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Associated Press Writers Slobodan Lekic and Raf Casert in Brussels and Angela Charlton in town contributed to this report.

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