LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Libya
built 502 days ago
Libya's political system is in theory based on the political philosophy in Qadhafi's Green Book, which combines socialist and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. In reality, Qadhafi exercises near total control over major government decisions. For the first seven years following the revolution, Colonel Qadhafi and 12 fellow army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council, began a complete overhaul of Libya's political system, society and economy. In 1973, he announced the start of a "cultural revolution" in schools, businesses, industries, and public institutions to oversee administration of those organizations in the public interest. On March 2, 1977, Qadhafi convened a General People's Congress (GPC) to proclaim the establishment of "people's power," change the country's name to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and to vest, theoretically, primary authority in the GPC.
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Libya was until recent times the home of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, dating back to at least 300 BC. A series of pogroms beginning in November of 1945 lasted for almost three years, drastically reducing Libya's Jewish population. In 1948, about 38,000 Jews remained in the country. Upon Libya's independence in 1951, most of the Jewish community emigrated. After the Suez Crisis in 1956, all but about 100 Jews were forced to flee.
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In addition to its domestic refineries, Libya ... has operations in Europe through its overseas oil retail arm, Tamoil. Through Tamoil, Libya is a direct producer and distributor of refined products in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and (since early 1998) Egypt. Tamoil Italia, based in Milan, controls about 7.5 percent of Italy's retail market for oil products and lubricants, which are distributed through around over 2,000 Tamoil service stations. Libya's ability to increase the supply of oil products to European markets has been somewhat constrained by the fact that Libya's refineries are badly in need of upgrading, specifically in order to meet stricter E.U. environmental standards in place since 1996. During 2005, there were reports that Libya was considering the sale of 50-60 percent of Tamoil’s assets in order to raise cash, and that companies like Repsol and Total were interested.
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Libya has a significant landmine problem that raises petroleum exploration costs and affects the development of grazing and industrial projects. One such industrial project was the construction of the Great Man-Made River, which is a 3,380-kilometer (2,100-mile) network of pipes that transports water to the northern and southern regions. The Great Man-Made River was affected by the presence of landmines, whose removal significantly increased the construction cost for the project. In 1977, the Libyan Army emplaced two million landmines and in 2003, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that there were approximately 1.5 to 3 million landmines in the ground.3 In June 2005, Libya asked all the countries that had emplaced landmines in its territory to hand over maps of the minefields. Italy provided maps to Libya showing where the landmines were placed during World War II. Although there are landmine maps of the conflict along the borders of Libya and Egypt, there are no recorded maps for the mines along the Chadian border.
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On January 30, 2005, Libya held its first round of oil and gas exploration leases since the United States ended most sanctions against the country. Known as EPSA 4, the round – launched in August 2004 – offered 15 exploration areas for auction. Approximately 56 companies registered 104 bids, but only a handful of companies actually won acreage in the intensely competitive bidding. In the end, acreage in 9 areas (5 onshore oil blocks and 4 offshore, gas-prone blocks) went to U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum, while ChevronTexaco and Amerada Hess won acreage in 1 block each. Other companies with winning bids included the Indian Oil Corp., Liwa (UAE), Oil Search Ltd. (Australia), Petrobras (Brazil), Sonatrach (Algeria), Verenex (Canada), and Woodside (Australia). No European companies were awarded acreage in this round.
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Following suspension of the UN sanctions, Libya initiated an aggressive international campaign to end its commercial and diplomatic isolation. Initially focused on Africa, Qaddafi launched a series of bilateral and multilateral initiatives, beginning in February 1998 with the creation of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (COMESSA), which linked poor, land-locked African states with oil-rich Libya. In August 1999, he called for the creation of a United States of Africa, including an African central bank. He later added the goal of a pan-African parliament with lawmaking powers. A measure of Libya's improved standing in Africa was the support it received, in the face of determined opposition from the United States and human rights groups, for chairing the UN Human Rights Commission in 2002. In addition to regional initiatives, the Qaddafi regime ... aggressively pursued expanded bilateral ties with a number of African states.
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