More details on military deals :
http://euobserver.com/9/31853/?rk=1

With Gaddafi having diminished control over his forces and possibly eliminated sooner or later, were will all this arsenal end and in whose hands ? Are we any safer without Gaddafi ?

Contrary to Egypt and Tunisia there is no military structure to oversee and coordinate democratic governance in Libya. Therefore the prospects of a Libyan civil war are very realistic notwithstanding the best wishes from the genuine Libyan men on the street. If anarchy will prevail in Libya they could actually ignite North Africa with a second round but far more deadlier.

As for WMD why the silence from the key EU and US players about this massive nightmare ? The bulge under the EU carpet is so huge that they can’t fathom what to do about it.
BTW Malta is approx 360Km away from Tripoli and those F1 figher jets took approx 8 minutes to get here. Not even enough time for a coffee and a cigarette.

I do see your point, however on the other hand one can also say that the big players’ statements can be viewed as sheer hypocrisy. To add insult to injury their chorus was a condemnation of the sin and not the sinner.

[Daphne – It wasn’t a condemnation of the sin but not the sinner, at all. True, there were no Ronald Reagan ‘This is the mad dog of the Middle East’ statements, but don’t forget that Reagan’s statement was followed by sending US to bomb Gaddafi’s compound. And it looks like nobody’s planning anything like that now, more’s the pity, though I’ve no doubt that there’s a massive intelligence-gathering operation working out where he is, because they might have to do just that. As for hypocrisy: would you rather they said nothing?]

Quote
“Germany was third in the list, with 53 million euros of licences, mostly for electronic jamming equipment used to disrupt mobile phone, internet and GPS communication.”

BBC and other international media :
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Col Gaddafi’s speech was “very, very appalling” and “amounted to him declaring war on his own people”.

I guess Merkel better shut up.

Let’s see what else we can find about each other European country.

[Daphne – As I wrote in my column in The Malta Independent today, the fact that the USA, Britain and Germany have vested commercial interests in Gaddafi’s regime makes their condemnation of him more effective and certainly braver, not less. Compare their attitude to that of Malta, with its relatively minuscule commercial interests and total reluctance to speak out.]

Right. But for those who see/think short term only. In the long run (ie as long as there is oil for sale), it does not really matter if Gaddafi stays in power and produces oil because irrelevant of who or what replaces him, the oil would end up on the market anyway.

And this without making reference to the fact the Libya produces only 2% of the total world yearly production. This applies as well to all foreign businesses in Libya. Those investors panicking about an ousting of Gaddafi seem to forget that their services would continue to be needed.

This of course, unless they had really close ties to the family.

My main question still remains, ie why has Malta not really gotten down to the business fo drilling for oil? And another springs to mind: why does it seem that our leading politicians make it a point to visit Gaddafi personally, even if they are in opposition? And another, what can explain the very close relationship between Gaddafi, Mintoff and KMB?

Another John, another way of expressing what you say is that it is not only the Libyan people who are terrorised by, and held in the grip of, Gaddafi, but all of oil-hungry Europe and the developed world, including Malta.

And this is this thanks to Libya’s oil resources which he controls closely and violently. He knows that this gives him and his regime a lot of power regionally and globally. This means that any action intended to oust him must include his people but it has to be supported by us, Europeans, and the rest of the world.

The point is that the Americans, Europeans, and us – we all have vested interests in the system created by his regime, and therefore we are all compromised. We are now not in a position to decide whether we want him there or out of there.

Let us be realistic and careful. Corinthia has substantial investments in hotels in Europe and in Malta. So the amounts quoted above are not necessarily related to Libya.

Maybe we (Malta) obtained ‘oil at a preferential price’, but some would say that it would have been even cheaper if we drilled up our oil ourselves. Who knows why we never got down to doing it. There used to be so many secret visits and meetings in the past.

Well, now that Gaddafi can’t come to the rescue, some other dictator will have to be found to subsidise those investments. I do feel sorry for the unfortunate Maltese punters although on reflection, they should have seen this coming, if not sooner then later.