Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be a member of an outgoing cabinet, but she's gonna get in at least one more big trip before someone else takes over the White House. She's starting a tour of Northern Africa on Friday with a stop in Libya, making her the first high-ranking diplomat to visit the country since John Foster Dulles dropped by in 1953.
Now that Muammar al-Gaddafi has taken responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and dismantled his country's chemical and nuclear weapons programs, Secretary Rice is hoping to expand relations with the North African nation--despite its repressive form of government. If all continues to go smoothly, a tourism boom could soon follow.
Morocco and Tunisia, two other countries on Rice's Southern Mediterranean itinerary, already enjoy plenty of tourists from both the US and Europe. And with Libya's green travel initiatives underway, maybe we'll be checking out Tripoli sooner than we thought.
Fresh off his visit to Paris, the ruler of Libya moved his Bedouin tent and band of lackeys to Spain, where he signed big-Euro business deals for his newly open nation. He met with both Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and King Juan Carlos on his first official visit to the country that included stops in Madrid and Seville.
Muammar al-Gaddafi set up his tent in the gardens of El Pardo, the palace outside Madrid that Francisco Franco occupied after the Spanish Civil War. (Must be classic dictator chic!) The Libyan leader also visited Andalusia, where he probably felt at home: The region takes its name from Arabic and everything from the architecture to the food is still heavily influenced by centuries of Moorish control.
Libyan ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi is in Paris this week, meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy and seeing the city for the first time in more than three decades. The newly diplomatic dictator is sealing arms deals and taking care of other business while in town, and is also making time for visits to Paris' banlieues and Versailles.
The most interesting part of the visit, at least to us, is the Bedouin tent that Gaddafi's had set up on the lawn of the Hotel de Marigny, across the street from the Elysee Palace. The heated shelter is a far cry from the grubby tent you have stashed in the garage, and the Libyan leader takes it everywhere. It's unclear whether he'll actually sleep in the tent, though it's probably warmer than most Parisian hotel rooms.
If the visit goes well, we can imagine Sarko returning the favor with a trip down to Libya. The country is on top of the travel trends (it's going green!) and we'd guess it has fewer paparazzi than New Hampshire.
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