The kidnapping of two Libyan journalists as they covered elections in the town of Bani Walid, a last bastion of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, has raised tensions in the North African nation.

The country's interim authorities have called for their release but so far without any result.

Fifty-four migrants trying to reach Italy died of thirst when their inflatable boat ruptured in the Mediterranean, according to testimony from the sole survivor, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The rescued man, who drank sea water to survive, was spotted clinging to a jerry can and the remains of the stricken boat off the Tunisian coast on Monday night by fishermen who alerted the coast guard, the UNHCR said.

The Libya trial of ex-intelligence chief Bouzid Dorda, the first of Moammar Gadhafi’s top officials to face justice, was postponed again on Tuesday after the defense team asked for more time to review his case.

"The trial was postponed until August 28 to allow the defense to study the case," defense lawyer Saleh al-Faituri said.

Electoral authorities were finalizing the vote count on Monday from Libya's first free polls in decades as an architect of the revolt that toppled Moamer Kadhafi called for national unity talks.

Mahmud Jibril of the National Forces Alliances, which is said to be trending well based on preliminary unofficial figures from the weekend election for a national assembly, called for all parties to come together.

Italy hailed Libya's first free national election in decades as a "watershed" moment for its former colony and crucial energy source on Sunday, and said it was a decisive step forward towards democracy.

The General National Congress election on Saturday "marks a key watershed in the history of the country, constituting a decisive step forward in strengthening the democratic process," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in a statement.

Liberals claimed an early lead on Sunday in vote counting across the country after Libya held its first free elections following Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster, winning plaudits from the international community.

If the trend is confirmed, Libya, unlike neighboring Tunisia and Egypt whose strongmen were also toppled in last year's Arab Spring, will buck the trend of electoral success for Islamist movements.

One person was killed on Saturday and another was wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire near a polling station in Libya's restive east, an official told Agence France Presse.

The attack took place in the city of Ajdabiya, where unrest had already disrupted voting in the country's first free national ballot in decades, after the ouster of Dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year.

Hundreds of protesters in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday burned ballots to demand greater representation as Libyans went to the polls in historic nationwide elections.

But reflecting the large support in the Mediterranean city for the country's first free ballot in decades, voters flocked to the main road along the seafront by early evening, waving Libyan flags and chanting pro-election slogans.

Moammar Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam has no chance of a fair trial in Libya, his international lawyer said Friday following her release from almost four weeks' detention there.

"Irrespective of any issues concerning my own personal conduct, the rights of my client, Mr. Seif al-Islam -- were irrevocably prejudiced during my visit to Zintan," said Melinda Taylor, who was freed this week after being held in Libya while visiting Seif on behalf of the International Criminal Court.

A round of gunfire struck a helicopter transporting electoral material for Libya's vote on Friday, killing an election commission worker, officials said.

"A helicopter carrying ballots and flying over the region of Hawari (south of Benghazi) was struck by small arms fire," army spokesman Colonel Ali al-Sheikhi said. "One person on board was killed."