Middle East
Libya vs Iraq :Comparing Contrasts
Jeff Emanuel posted a very interesting chart regarding the differences betweenPresident Bush’s War in Iraq and President Obama’s Kinetic Military Action in Libya. This is a great compilation .kudos to Jeff for the research and clarity in putting it together.
Oil Exports in Libya : The Future Ahead
Libya is an OPEC member and holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa (followed by Nigeria and Algeria), 41.5 Gbbl (6.60×109 m3) as of January 2007, up from 39.1 Gbbl (6.22×109 m3) in 2006. About 80% of Libya’s proven oil reserves are located in the Sirte Basin, which is responsible for 90% of the country’s oil output. The state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) dominates Libya’s oil industry, along with smaller subsidiaries, which combined account for around 50% of the country’s oil output. Among NOC’s subsidiaries, the largest oil producer is the Waha Oil Company (WOC), followed by the Agoco, Zueitina Oil Company (ZOC), and Sirte Oil Company (SOC)
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These oil revenues and a small population have given Libya the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa.Since 2000, Libya has recorded favourable growth rates with an estimated 10.6% growth of GDP in 2010.
Enormous oil wealth lies thousands of feet below Libya, but whether it will be claimed, and by whom, now that Moammar Gadhafi is gone is very much an open question.
Drilling and shipping equipment has been damaged in the Libyan civil war, land mines must be cleared around oil fields, and a legal framework for how oil money is collected and distributed must still be worked out.
Whatever government is formed could open vast regions of Libya for drilling at reasonable terms — or it could demand that foreign oil companies pay exorbitant royalties or require them to build infrastructure in exchange for access to oil.
Libya sits on the biggest reserves of oil in Africa. Those resources could help Libya recover from Gadhafi’s decades-long corruption and the civil war. Or the oil could be kept out of reach by political chaos, crumbling infrastructure or violence.
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Libya Liberated ,Mohammed Gaddafi Becomes History
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AS THE rebel insurgency flowed and ebbed across Libya this year, it passed through most of the staging posts in Muammar Qaddafi’s life. Sirte, where he was born in a Bedouin tent in the sand-wastes and died amid the crackle of sniper fire; Misrata, where he went to a private tutor to learn history; Benghazi, where at military college he began to plot revolution; and Tripoli, where in the sprawling half-bombed barracks at Bab el-Aziziya he pitched his tent again, the Brother-Leader, insisting he would never leave until he had fired the last bullet he possessed.
When death overtook him, he had ruled Libya for 42 years. The handsome, magnetic army captain who had overthrown King Idris in 1969 had become a robed buffoon, with a surgically smoothed face, a mop of dyed black hair and, until she scuttled home, a blonde Ukrainian nurse on his arm. Yet he was no less cunning. Behind the designer shades his eyes were those of a fox. By sheer imposition of the cult of himself, he had held his tribally fractious country together
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Yemen Uprising" How Long Can "Abdullah Saleh Hang On
At the heart of all these problems is Yemen’s looming economic collapse. Already the poorest country in the Arab world, Yemen is rapidly depleting its oil reserves and lacks any options for creating a sustainable post-oil economy. Unemployment is estimated at 35 percent, higher than what the U.S. faced during the Great Depression.
COMPARISON CHARTS 