Libya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya or Libya (Arabic: ليبيا) is a country in North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, located between Egypt on the east, Sudan on the southeast, Chad and Niger on the south and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. Its capital city is Tripoli.

(Note that in ancient Greece, Libya is used in a broader meaning, encompassing all of North Africa west of Egypt. Indeed, sometimes the name refers to the entire continent of Africa. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and the Cyrenaica.) In Greek mythology, Dido came from Libya.

الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الإشتراكية
al-Jamāhīrīyah al-‘Arabīya al-Lībīyah ash-Sha‘bīyah al-Ishtirākīyah


(In Detail)	(In Detail)

Official language

Arabic

Capital

Tripoli

Leader of the Revolution

Moammar Al Qadhafi

President

Zentani Muhammad az-Zentani

Prime Minister

Shukri Ghanem

Area
- Total

Ranked 16th
1,759,540 km²

Population
- Total (Year)
- Population density>Density

Ranked 103rd
5,499,074
3.1/km²

Currency

Libyan dinar

Time zone

UTC +3

Independence
- Declared

(From Italy)
December 24, 1951

National anthem

Allahu Akbar

Internet TLD

.ly

Calling Code

218

Table of contents

1 History
2 Politics
3 Municipalities
4 Geography
5 Economy
6 Demographics
7 Culture
8 Miscellaneous topics

History

Main article: History of Libya Tripoli and Cyrenaica were Roman colonies; and were conquered by Arab Muslims in the 7th century. By the 19th century it was an increasingly independent Ottoman province; and came under the control of Italy in 1911.

After the Second World War Libya was granted independence, as a condition of the Allied peace treaty with Italy. Since 1969 Libya has been ruled by Colonel Moammar Al Qadhafi, who came to power in a coup and deposed the Libyan monarchy.

Qadhafi rejected both Soviet Communism and Western capitalism and claimed that he was charting an independent course, portraying himself as a champion of "oppressed peoples" and Third World nations seeking to assert their independence on the international stage.

U.S-Libyan relations quickly deteriorated following the inauguration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in January 1981. The Reagan administration saw Libya as an unacceptable player on the international stage because of its uncompromising stance on Palestinian independence, its support for revolutionary Iran in its 1980-1988 war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq (see Iran-Iraq War), and its backing for "liberation movements" in the developing world. In March 1982 the U.S. declared a ban on the import of Libyan oil and the export to Libya of US oil industry technology; Europe did not follow suit.

The U.S. attacked Libyan patrol boats from January to March 1986 during clashes over over access to the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya claimed as territorial waters. Later, on April 14, 1986, Reagan ordered major bombing raids against Tripoli and Benghazi that killed approximately 60 people following U.S. accusations of Libyan involvement in a bomb explosion in a German nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen on April 5, which had killed 3. Among the victims of the April 14 attack was the adopted daughter of Qadhafi.

The United Nations imposed sanctions against Libya in 1992 following the Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie disaster. The sanctions were lifted on September 12, 2003, after Libya agreed to accept responsibility and make payment of US $2.7 billion to the families of those who died in the bombing. In the same vein, on February 26, 2004, the United States lifted their 23-year travel ban to Libya, although many other restrictions currently remain in place, such as economic sanctions and the ban on flights by U.S. airlines to Libya.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Libya The Libyan system of government is quite unusual. Qadhafi claims that Libya is a "pure socialist state", and as such the formal institutions of government are purposely quite vague. Qadhafi himself is not even technically the "President" or "Prime Minister" of the country, and instead describes himself as a sort of "guide" to help the Libyan people in socialism. Libya has no constitution, and the laws of the land come from Islamic law, and Qadhafi's "Green Book" of political philosophy. The government is called a "jamahiriya," a modification of the Arabic word "jumhuriya" (republic) that translates loosely as "people's state." In practice, however, Libya is essentially a dictatorship, with Qadhafi ruling by decree, assisted by a small clique of military and political officials. Libya has been accused of widespread human rights abuses, and state sponsored terrorism.

On December 19, 2003, Libya admitted having had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme and simultaneously announced its intention to end it and dismantle all existing WMD to be verified by unconditional inspections. Libya also agreed to limit its long range missiles to 300 km. The announcement came after clandestine diplomatic negotiations with the United Kingdom and United States since March 2003. On March 7, 2004, the White House confirmed that the last of Libya's nuclear weapons-related equipment had been sent to the United States.