Word: mergers
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Libya and Syria agree to tie the knot in the latest merger...
Rarely has a marriage between nations been arranged so quickly. On Sept. 1, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi sounded out Syrian President Hafez Assad on the question of merger. A week later, Assad flew off to Tripoli to discuss details; two days after that the deal was struck. According to a 13-point proclamation issued in Tripoli and Damascus, the two leaders had agreed to form a "political, economic, military and cultural union" that would become "the base for confronting the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland and the liberation of Palestine...
Outsiders could be forgiven a certain skepticism. No merger of Arab states has yet worked for long. Enough have been attempted: Syria alone has tried to unite, at one time or another, with Egypt, Libya and Iraq, and all such efforts have ended in failure. Moreover, few details of the new merger have been agreed upon. So far the new partnership has no name, no head of state, no constitution, no joint institutions, no capital city. Nonetheless, Syria's Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam was dispatched to Saudi Arabia and five other Arab states to seek their blessing...
...some ways, merger could be useful to both countries. As usual, Syria is having trouble with neighboring Iraq, and could use some of Libya's oil riches for its ailing economy and for modernizing its Soviet-equipped army. Libya is at loggerheads with Egypt and Morocco and is viewed with suspicion by a number of other Arab states. There are also some problems at home. Gaddafi has vowed to go to Upper Galilee to fight the Israelis. Apparent meaning: he would not mind sending to Syria some of those Libyan military units, now based in Tobruk near the Egyptian...
Earlier this year Iceland's government gave the company a $5 million loan in the hope that the vacation season would get Icelandair aloft again. But the tourists did not return. The company also attempted a merger with Lux-air, Luxembourg's airline. That also failed to take off. Now Icelandair is negotiating to sell its elderly Boeing 727s to Yugoslavia, and it has leased its DC-10 to Air Florida. Like the flower children it once served, Icelandair is left mostly with memories...