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Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century. The money will be invested by Italy over a 25-year period. For VOA, Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday signed a "friendship pact" with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Under the pact, Italy agreed to compensate Libya for abuses it committed during its colonial rule of the North African country. Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya in a deal that effectively turns the page on colonial-era disputes that have long...

Excerpt - Libya has taken "worryingly retaliatory measures" against Switzerland following the recent arrest of leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son in Geneva, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Col Gaddafi's government has recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, reduced flights between the countries, stopped processing visa requests from Swiss citizens, demanded the closure of Swiss firms in Libya and detained two Swiss citizens. Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has formally complained about the moves to her Libyan counterpart and has advised citizens not to travel to Libya. ~ snip ~

(AGI) - Geneva, 17 July - The detention of Hannibal Gheddafi, son of the Libyan President, and his wife lasted just one night. The Gheddafis, arrested yesterday evening accused of mistreating two staff of the hotel in Geneva where they were staying, were released after the payment of bail of 309,000 euro. The most serious charges were made against Colonel Gheddafi's daughter-in-law, 9 months' pregnant and admitted today to the University of Geneva hospital. The two employees of the Hotel Presidente Wilson, a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman showed the injuries to the judge but the Gheddafis' lawyers...

Excerpt - TRIPOLI, Libya -- Recently, Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi wrote a letter to President Bush, asking: Where are we going with our relationship? Five years ago, the Bush administration helped persuade Libya -- for decades one of the world's leading sponsors of terrorism -- to scrap its nuclear ambitions and dismantle its terror infrastructure. It ranks as one of the president's signature foreign-policy successes and was supposed to blaze a path for other rogue states, principally North Korea and Iran. Now, these ties are fraying. According to Libyan diplomats who have seen the letter, sent in early March,...

Excerpt - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi arrives in Paris Monday for a high-profile visit set to usher in multi-billion-euro nuclear and aviation contracts, even as critics lashed President Nicolas Sarkozy for welcoming the former pariah. Staying in a heated Bedouin tent pitched near the Elysee presidential palace, Kadhafi is expected during the five-day visit to approve the purchase of three billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) of Airbus planes, a nuclear reactor and possibly Rafale fighter jets. ~ snip ~

Jerusalem, 14 May (AKI) - The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was taken to hospital on Sunday after suffering a stroke, according to a report on the Palestinian news agency Maan, quoted by Israeli news site Ynet. The condition of the 65-year old leader is reported to be serious and family members have been arriving at the hospital, the report said.

TOKYO - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told a visiting Japanese official that his country has urged North Korea to give up efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, the Foreign Ministry said Friday. Iwao Matsuda, Japan's state minister for science and technology policy, held talks with Gadhafi in Sebha, about 375 miles south of Tripoli, on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement issued Friday. Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end his international isolation and economic hardships...

April 15, 2006 -- The American pop star Lionel Richie and the Spanish opera singer Jose Carreras have performed in a concert in Tripoli to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. About 40 people, including an adopted daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, were killed in the raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 2006. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the air strikes were launched in retaliation for Libyan complicity in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed an American soldier.

LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi called French President Jacques Chirac overnight to express his concern about rioting in Paris suburbs and other parts of France. The Libyan national news agency reported that Mr Chirac thanked Colonel Gaddafi for his interest and reassured him that the situation was under control. Colonel Gaddafi was reported saying Libya was "disposed to help France overcome these events," which he described as "regrettable." The report did not outline what kind of aid might have been forthcoming. French authorities have stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots, in...

Here are some excerpts from a report by the official news agency in Libya on Muammar al-Qathafi's statements: The Leader underscored the need to launch full freedom in Libya, the Jamahiri state " the state of men and women, a country which is all civilian society and is self- run." He called for lifting all restrictions that stand in the face of this, so that Libyans be fully free in selecting economic activities, including founding companies on partnership bases, or on the bases of wages " work with fees". The leader also underscored the freedom of faith, worship, and religion,...

LONDON, England (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying yesterday that the United Nations must scrap the Security Council and give its powers to the General Assembly, if it ever hopes to become a truly democratic organisation. In a full-page advertisement in The Guardian newspaper, Gadhafi called the UN Security Council "an ugly, forceful, and horrible instrument of dictatorship - an executioner's whip with no appeal against its judgment, even if its judgment is unfair, biased and harmful." The Security Council's five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have veto...

The parquet floor of Paris engages of the continuations against the son of Kadhafi The parquet floor of Paris will engage of the continuations against Hannibal Kadhafi, the son of president Libyen, for violences which he would have exerted on his partner at the time of a stay at the beginning of February in Paris, one learned Monday from legal source. Hannibal Kadhafi will be continued for "voluntary violence on anybody vulnerable, in the event his/her concubine pregnant, having involved a total disablement of work (ITT) of less than 8 days", one specified of the same source. Justice also...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal Gaddafi, who was allegedly embroiled recently in scuffles in France, has also been accused of a violent incident in Denmark. "We have been informed by the police of this case of violence. But no complaint has been lodged with the police," the head of protocol at the Danish foreign ministry, ambassador Christopher Bo Bramsen, said. "We are following the matter," he said, adding that Hannibal Gaddafi held a diplomatic passport and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity. According to the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, Danish police were called three weeks ago to a violent incident involving...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's politically influential son said on Thursday that armed resistance to U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq was legitimate but condemned the killing of innocent hostages. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had called the war in Iraq illegal, key members of the Security Council had opposed it and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction -- the main reason Washington gave for invading Iraq -- removed any moral justification for military action. "The result is clear -- that it's an illegal occupation and therefore people should resist it," Gaddafi...

Jana/1 The Leader of the Revolution/ statement Tripoli/ 5 Assaif/ Jana The Leader of the Revolution made a statement tonight to Jana news agency in which he said: "I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appears before justice to held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children. / Jamahiriya News Agency/

PARIS (AFP) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said he "absolutely does not regret the past", despite his country's former alleged support for terrorism. "We were in a phase of fighting for emancipation, liberation.... We were accused of being terrorists, but that is the price we had to pay. If that is terrorism, then we are proud to be terrorists because we helped the liberation of the (African) continent", Kadhafi told public Radio France Internationale. "I absolutely do not regret the past", he said in comments recorded in Brussels. The Libyan leader was speaking on the second and final day...