Word: gaddafis
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...tempting to dismiss Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi's call this week for a jihad against Switzerland as just another round in the feud between the two countries. But it would be a mistake to treat Gaddafi's rhetoric as mere theater. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's second-eldest son, who many suspect is Gaddafi's likely successor, tells TIME that Libya's row with Switzerland is evidence of a far more serious and urgent issue within Libya, which is grappling with how democratic and Westernized the country should become after decades of isolation...
...That's an understatement. The senior Gaddafi's call on Friday for holy war against Switzerland has injected a new, more menacing tone into a dispute that has dragged on for the past 18 months. Gaddafi told an audience of diplomats and officials in the city of Benghazi that Muslims should bar Swiss planes and ships from their countries, and embargo Swiss goods. "Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression," he told the crowd. "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran...
...firms have good reason to rush to Libya. The oil-rich nation is sitting atop a giant cash surplus, with foreign reserves of nearly $140 billion. Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya for four decades and was once described by Ronald Reagan as "the mad dog of the Middle East," has said he intends to spend a lot of that money overhauling his country's creaking infrastructure, which was barely updated through more than two decades of international embargoes. (U.S. sanctions were lifted in 2004 following Libya's abandonment of its nuclear weapons program.) (See pictures of Colonel Gaddafi...
...American business delegates arrived just as most Europeans were banned from visiting. On Feb. 16, Gaddafi canceled all Libyan visas for citizens of the 25 Shengen countries in Europe, which share common immigration procedures. The decree was the latest round in a long and personal disagreement with Switzerland, which began in July 2008, when Swiss police arrested Gaddafi's son Hannibal and his wife for allegedly assaulting two of their servants in Geneva. Libyan and European officials are working frantically to resolve the conflict, but the European visa ban meant the U.S. execs arrived to a nearly empty hotel. (Among...
...disconnect is deep. When the U.S. declared its embargo against Libya in the '80s, Gaddafi banned all teaching of English in schools, as well as English-language books and movies. Libyan children have long been taught that the U.S. is their enemy. "Only 10 years ago, we were in outright confrontation with the West," says Youssef Sawani, executive director of the Gaddafi Development Foundation, a hugely powerful body headed by Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam. "It will take some time to change...