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Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century. The money will be invested by Italy over a 25-year period. For VOA, Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday signed a "friendship pact" with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Under the pact, Italy agreed to compensate Libya for abuses it committed during its colonial rule of the North African country. Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya in a deal that effectively turns the page on colonial-era disputes that have long...

TUNIS, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Iran risks going the same way as Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its confrontation with the West and is too weak to meet the challenges it faces alone, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Tuesday. "What Iran is doing is pure vanity," said Gaddafi. "If a decision is taken against Iran, it will suffer the same fate as Iraq... Iran is no stronger than Iraq and will be unable to resist."

Excerpt - Libya has taken "worryingly retaliatory measures" against Switzerland following the recent arrest of leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son in Geneva, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Col Gaddafi's government has recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, reduced flights between the countries, stopped processing visa requests from Swiss citizens, demanded the closure of Swiss firms in Libya and detained two Swiss citizens. Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has formally complained about the moves to her Libyan counterpart and has advised citizens not to travel to Libya. ~ snip ~

(AGI) - Geneva, 17 July - The detention of Hannibal Gheddafi, son of the Libyan President, and his wife lasted just one night. The Gheddafis, arrested yesterday evening accused of mistreating two staff of the hotel in Geneva where they were staying, were released after the payment of bail of 309,000 euro. The most serious charges were made against Colonel Gheddafi's daughter-in-law, 9 months' pregnant and admitted today to the University of Geneva hospital. The two employees of the Hotel Presidente Wilson, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman showed the injuries to the judge but the Gheddafis' lawyers...

Excerpt - TRIPOLI, Libya -- Recently, Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi wrote a letter to President Bush, asking: Where are we going with our relationship? Five years ago, the Bush administration helped persuade Libya -- for decades one of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism -- to scrap its nuclear ambitions and dismantle its terror infrastructure. It ranks as one of the president's signature foreign-policy successes and was supposed to blaze a path for other rogue states, principally North Korea and Iran. Now, these ties are fraying. According to Libyan diplomats who have seen the letter, sent in early March,...

Madrid (18 December) - At the close of a five-day visit to Spain, Libyan leader Muammar Khadafi has said that his country wants to cooperate with Europe in the fight against terrorism. Until recently many European countries accused Libya of funding terrorism. However, the extradition of Libyan suspects in the 1988 bomb attack on a PanAm passenger plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie and the scrapping of the Libyan nuclear programme have led to international rehabilitation. Last week, mr Khadafi was received with all honours by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, while this week Libya and Spain have concluded various...

Excerpt - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi arrives in Paris Monday for a high-profile visit set to usher in multi-billion-euro nuclear and aviation contracts, even as critics lashed President Nicolas Sarkozy for welcoming the former pariah. Staying in a heated Bedouin tent pitched near the Elysee presidential palace, Kadhafi is expected during the five-day visit to approve the purchase of three billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) of Airbus planes, a nuclear reactor and possibly Rafale fighter jets. ~ snip ~

Jerusalem, 14 May (AKI) - The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was taken to hospital on Sunday after suffering a stroke, according to a report on the Palestinian news agency Maan, quoted by Israeli news site Ynet. The condition of the 65-year old leader is reported to be serious and family members have been arriving at the hospital, the report said.

TOKYO - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told a visiting Japanese official that his country has urged North Korea to give up efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Iwao Matsuda, Japan's state minister for science and technology policy, held talks with Gadhafi in Sebha, about 375 miles south of Tripoli, on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement issued Friday. Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end his international isolation and economic hardships...

April 15, 2006 -- The American pop star Lionel Richie and the Spanish opera singer Jose Carreras have performed in a concert in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. About 40 people, including an adopted daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, were killed in the raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 2006. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the air strikes were launched in retaliation for Libyan complicity in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed an American soldier.

In the Iraq war so far, the U.S. military has deposed a dictator who had already used weapons of mass destruction and would have used them again. As we now know, Saddam Hussein was working with al-Qaida and was trying to acquire long-range missiles from North Korea and enriched uranium from Niger. Saddam is on trial. His psychopath sons are dead. We've captured or killed scores of foreign terrorists in Baghdad. Rape rooms and torture chambers are back in R. Kelly's Miami Beach mansion where they belong.

LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France. The Libyan national news agency reported that Mr Chirac thanked Colonel Gaddafi for his interest and reassured him that the situation was under control. Colonel Gaddafi was reported saying Libya was "disposed to help France overcome these events," which he described as "regrettable." The report did not outline what kind of aid might have been forthcoming. French authorities have stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots, in...

Here are some excerpts from a report by the official news agency in Libya on Muammar al-Qathafi's statements: The Leader underscored the need to launch full freedom in Libya, the Jamahiri state " the state of men and women, a country which is all civilian society and is self- run." He called for lifting all restrictions that stand in the face of this, so that Libyans be fully free in selecting economic activities, including founding companies on partnership bases, or on the bases of wages " work with fees". The leader also underscored the freedom of faith, worship, and religion,...

LONDON, England (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying yesterday that the United Nations must scrap the Security Council and give its powers to the General Assembly, if it ever hopes to become a truly democratic organisation. In a full-page advertisement in The Guardian newspaper, Gadhafi called the UN Security Council "an ugly, forceful, and horrible instrument of dictatorship - an executioner's whip with no appeal against its judgment, even if its judgment is unfair, biased and harmful." The Security Council's five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have veto...

The parquet floor of Paris engages of the continuations against the son of Kadhafi The parquet floor of Paris will engage of the continuations against Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of president Libyen, for violences which he would have exerted on his partner at the time of a stay at the beginning of February in Paris, one learned Monday from legal source. Hannibal Kadhafi will be continued for "voluntary violence on anybody vulnerable, in the event his/her concubine pregnant, having involved a total disablement of work (ITT) of less than 8 days", one specified of the same source. Justice also...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal Gaddafi, who was allegedly embroiled recently in scuffles in France, has also been accused of a violent incident in Denmark. "We have been informed by the police of this case of violence. But no complaint has been lodged with the police," the head of protocol at the Danish foreign ministry, ambassador Christopher Bo Bramsen, said. "We are following the matter," he said, adding that Hannibal Gaddafi held a diplomatic passport and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity. According to the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, Danish police were called three weeks ago to a violent incident involving...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's politically influential son said on Thursday that armed resistance to U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq was legitimate but condemned the killing of innocent hostages. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had called the war in Iraq illegal, key members of the Security Council had opposed it and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction -- the main reason Washington gave for invading Iraq -- removed any moral justification for military action. "The result is clear -- that it's an illegal occupation and therefore people should resist it," Gaddafi...

Schroeder, Gadhafi clash over Iraq in landmark meeting Chancellor says Libya offers 'great opportunities' for Germany Libyan leader asks for assistance in removing landmines laid by Nazi forces during World War II By By Benno Koenig, Agence France Presse (AFP) Saturday, October 16, 2004 TRIPOLI: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi clashed over Iraq during their first-ever meeting in Tripoli, while German business leaders on Friday touted for business in the oil-rich former pariah state. In the latest visit by a Western leader since Libya returned to the international fold last year, Schroeder held two hours of...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 29 (AFP) - Libya on Wednesday offered some colourful ideas for reforming the United Nations, including moving the General Assembly to Geneva and letting Bill Clinton resolve the world's conflicts and wars. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, never shy about putting forward visionary proposals, also wants his nation to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalghem said. "The past 59 years have proven that the General Assembly is merely a decorative body without a soul," Shalghem said as Libya took the podium at the annual United Nations debate of...

BERLIN (AP) -- Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million in compensation for victims of a 1986 bombing in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman and injured 229 others, the Libyan ambassador to Germany said. The deal applies to Germans who were wounded in the April 5, 1986 attack on the LaBelle disco and the family of the slain Turkish woman, but not the families of two Americans, Ambassador Said Abdulaati told The Associated Press. It is the latest step in an effort by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to end his country's pariah status, following...

LONDON (Reuters) - Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could buy promoted premier league soccer club Crystal Palace, The Guardian says. It said Gaddafi, who owns a 7.5 percent stake in Italian club Juventus, has not made an offer yet but has shown interest in the small south London club that surprisingly won the promotion playoffs in May. "I've been told that Gaddafi and his son (Al-Saadi) are interested in acquiring Palace," the Guardian quoted the club's chairman Simon Jordan as saying. Jordan said there had been no formal approach but if there was "I'd consider it ... If it's...

Jana/1 The Leader of the Revolution/ statement Tripoli/ 5 Assaif/ Jana The Leader of the Revolution made a statement tonight to Jana news agency in which he said: "I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appears before justice to held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children. / Jamahiriya News Agency/

PARIS (AFP) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said he "absolutely does not regret the past", despite his country's former alleged support for terrorism. "We were in a phase of fighting for emancipation, liberation.... We were accused of being terrorists, but that is the price we had to pay. If that is terrorism, then we are proud to be terrorists because we helped the liberation of the (African) continent", Kadhafi told public Radio France Internationale. "I absolutely do not regret the past", he said in comments recorded in Brussels. The Libyan leader was speaking on the second and final day...

So "brave" Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the "war on terror". The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien,...

TRIPOLI, Libya - U.S. congressmen flew into Tripoli on Sunday aboard a U.S. Navy plane they said was the first plane flying an American flag to land in Tripoli since Col. Moammar Gadhafi took power in 1969. "I'm here to reinforce the positive steps that have been taken by the leader of Libya," Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said. Led by Weldon, the bipartisan delegation arrived as U.S. and British experts were preparing to start dismantling Libya's weapons programs with Gadhafi's blessing. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., arrived in Tripoli earlier Saturday, but he wasn't on a U.S. military plane. The...

Excerpt - The United States is preparing to dispatch up to a dozen diplomats and intelligence officers to Libya to establish a U.S. mission that will help oversee the dismantling of the North African nation's programs for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials said yesterday. The move would create the first U.S. diplomatic presence in Libya since May 1980, when a dozen American staff members closed the embassy and slipped out shortly before the building was sacked and burned. Several months before, angry mobs attacked the American mission in sympathy with the Iranian takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran...

The foreign minister's political adviser Ron Prossor reportedly met in Paris with a representative of Libya's Gaddafi regime. The meeting was brokered by the government of Katar, reports a Kuwait newspaper. Sides reportedly scheduled an Israeli mission to Tripoli late January to discuss diplomatic relations The paper also reports that Israeli and Libyan senior officials met in Vienna last Friday at the US embassy there. Ministerial sources claim that this is no more than a small step on a very long road, and stressed that without concrete actions on the part of Libya, there will be no advance beyond...

The crisis between the United States and Libya that led to the declaration of a national emergency on January 7, 1986, has not been fully resolved, although there have been some positive developments. On September 12, 2003, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1506 (UNSCR 1506), ending the United Nations sanctions against Libya. These U.N. sanctions were imposed in 1992 and 1993 as a result of Libyan involvement in the terrorist bombings of Pan Am 103 in 1988 and UTA 772 in 1989, and included travel restrictions, an arms embargo, and financial sanctions. The UNSCR 1506 lifted these...

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- It was surprise enough that one formerly revolutionary leader should have decided that President George W. Bush and Britain's Tony Blair were right, and that it was time to abandon dreams of acquiring weapons of mass destruction as an equalizer against Western power influence. It was stunning that the first convert should have been Libya's Muammar Qadaffi, who since the 1968 coup, remained an enigma to most outside observers. His official biography is remarkably devoid of details about his early years -- but it always begins with "born in a desert tent near Surt." I've always...

The moment the meek and disheveled image of the Iraqi tyrant appeared on TV screens around the world, an old friend of mine announced that he got the message and said he would disclose his weapons of mass destruction. As chief of Romanian foreign intelligence, I worked closely with Libya's Muammar Khaddafi before I became, in 1978, the highest-ranking spy from the Soviet bloc to defect to America. I was Khaddafi's handler as he was gearing up these same weapons programs. Moscow had decided in 1972 to use three leftist Arab governments — Libya, Iraq, and Syria — plus Arafat's...

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction before changing heart and agreeing to destroy his arms program, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin has learned. Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kussa told U.S. and UK spy agencies that tens of thousands of weapons had been produced at 10 secret sites in the country. Kussa has named hundreds of what he termed "sleeper" al-Qaida agents in Britain and the U.S. Gadhafi's dramatic turnaround has earned him a future meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush. He was welcomed back on to the world stage...

Canadian intelligence suggests al-Qaida-backed militants in Libya want to assassinate Col. Moammar Gadhafi, possibly shedding light on the dictator's sudden efforts to cozy up to the West. Libyan President Col. Moammar Gadhafi (Courtesy: Sky News) Citing a Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, report, The National Post reports the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, is waging holy war against Gadhafi in an effort to establish an Islamic state in Libya. "In order to achieve their goals, the LIFG has made numerous attempts to kill Col. Gadhafi," said the "Unclassified: For Official Use Only" report, dated September 2002 and recently...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - During secret visits to Libya, US intelligence officials found a more advanced uranium enrichment program than publicly disclosed but no evidence of actual production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, officials said Saturday. They were given extraordinary access during two-week-long visits in October and December with the help and encouragement of Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Khadafy who met personally with them, senior intelligence officials said. The secret dealings culminated Friday with the stunning annoucement in London and Washington and Tripoli that Libya has agreed to fully disclose and dismantle its programs to build unconventional weapons under...

The AIDS is a "peaceful virus", affirms Kadhafi VIH/sida is a "peaceful virus", affirmed Saturday the Libyan leader Mouammar Kadhafi with his counterparts joined together for the top closure of the African Union (UA) with Maputo. "AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. We do not understand anything other. It is terrorism. It is a psychological warfare. The AIDS is a peaceful virus. If you remain clean, it there does not have a problem ", declared Mr. Kadhafi, during a speech impromptu 45 minutes, supposed to be short and agreed short speech of thanks for the end of the top. The AIDS and...

TRIPOLI, March 1 (AFP) - Thousands of protestors gathered near the Saudi embassy here Saturday to protest a live TV spat between Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at an Arab summit in Egypt. Several demonstrators were injured in clashes with riot police who prevented the crowd from approaching the embassy compound in the Libyan capital, an AFP correspondent witnessed. The state JANA news agency also accused Gulf countries of being behind US-led plans to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Television viewers across the Arab world were able to see Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi...