Italy and Libya share close investment ties

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has attracted criticism for failing to condemn violence in Libya, which in recent years has deepened business and political ties with Rome.

Flush with petrodollars, Libya has been buying stakes in Italian companies, while Italian companies have nabbed contracts for energy and infrastructure projects in the North African state.

Following is a list of Libya's main Italian investments and Italian companies with investments in Libya:

ENI

Italy's biggest oil and gas company has extensive operations in Libya, including long-term take-or-pay contracts. The company has said it plans to invest as much as $25 billion there.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/20/us-italy-libya-factbox-idUSTRE71J1NN20110220

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There is another reason for the west's support of the Arab regimes developing. It's called MONEY!

[JDPriestly]

1. Duh! This is historical fact. and not at all surprising.

The Italian colonization of the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was initially not successful and only in the early 1930s did the Kingdom of Italy take full control of the area. <1>

On October 3, 1911, the Italians attacked Tripoli, claiming to be liberating the Ottoman Wilayats from Constantinopole's rule.

Despite a major revolt by the Arabs, the Ottoman sultan ceded Libya to the Italians by signing the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne (not to be confused with a more famous treaty of the same name made in 1923). Tripoli was largely under Italian control by 1914, but both Cyrenaica and the Fezzan were home to rebellions led by the Senussi.

On 25 October 1920, the Italian government recognized Sheikh Sidi Idris as the hereditary head of the nomadic Senussi, with wide authority in Kufra and other oases, as Emir of Cyrenaica, a new title extended by the British at the close of World War I. The emir would eventually become King of the free Libyan state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya_as_Italian_colony

[dipsydoodle]

2. The petrodollars recycling scheme is a scam which props up the US economy

Petrodollars can only be reinvested back inside the US.