The changing face of Libya

With the Republican administration in the USA so keen to label and classify states in the Middle East as sponsors of terror and axes of evil, it's a curious thing that they have afforded Libya a reprieve in the last few years, and taken them off the list. Gaddafi, for so long a bogeyman to the West, is now 'on our side' in the 'war on terror', and there have been cautious murmerings to the effect that Gaddafi is at last reforming the North African country and opening up to the free market.

In the first of a couple of posts I'm going to write for Hii Dunia, I've tried to provide an overview to Libya's new role as friend and ally of the West. An extract follows:

"The country has accepted (partial) responsibility for Lockerbie, it has renounced its rusting nuclear weapons programme, and Gaddafi, that most virulent of anti-Westerners, has even travelled as far as Brussels to preach from his 'little green book'. Accordingly, the world has reacted with cautious - and not so cautious - optimism. The US, Libya's most violent detractor, has reopened diplomatic ties and removed Libya from its list of states which sponsor terrorism. Gaddafi has intimated that it is time to open up economic freedoms in a state where private property was once all but outlawed. Libya is slowly re-entering the international community".

Go to Hii Dunia to read the full article; Libya is a fasinating country, so I hope my post gets that across to some extent.