By Ghaith Shennib and Jessica Donati TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's parliament voted on Sunday to ban anyone who held a senior position during Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule from government, a move which could unseat the prime minister and other top officials regardless of their part in toppling the dictator. Politicians debated the draft law for months, but the issue came to a head this week when heavily armed groups took control of two ministries and stormed other institutions including the state broadcaster.

OTTAWA - The 2011 Arab Spring uprising in the Middle East came as a surprise to the Canadian government, which risks getting caught off-guard again without a new approach to gathering intelligence, an internal government report says. Among other developments, analysts underestimated the repercussions of regime change in Tunisia, the Egyptian military's efforts to control dissent and the duration of the civil war in Libya, says the assessment of how well the Privy Council Office did in keeping an eye on the Middle East two years ago.

Libyan gunmen besieging two ministries have rejected government demands to disband saying they are determined to stay put until authorities agree to their demand and sack former regime officials, one of them said on Thursday. "A delegation representing the government of (Prime Minister) Ali Zeidan came to meet us on Wednesday and asked us to lift the sieges but we refused," the militiaman told AFP outside the encircled foreign ministry. "We will continue blocking (access to) the ministries of foreign affairs and justice until our demands are completely satisfied," he added.

Seif al-Islam, son of Libya's late dictator Moamer Kadhafi, appeared in court on Thursday charged with illegally trying to communicate with the outside world in June last year, an AFP journalist reported. The man once assumed to be his father's heir appeared in good health, wearing blue clothes, at the hearing in the western town of Zintan. Seated behind a grille and with two masked policemen at his sides, the defendant was relaxed and smiling. Two lawyers, including one named by the court, represented him.