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Elections in Algeria and Tunisia, and Libya's opening to the West, will give familiar faces a new look. The Libyan regime watched Iraq like a hawk and President Saddam Hussein's overthrow must have encouraged Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi to offer a Christmas-box to United States President George W. Bush and, especially, to British Premier Tony Blair - renunciation of his plan to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This may at last complete the long process of rapprochement with the West, underlined by the US$2.7 billion settlement of the dispute over the Lockerbie bombing and reflects an upturn in the Gadaffi family's love-hate relationship with the West. It also gratifies the US oil companies whose Libyan concessions were never quite withdrawn throughout a US boycott, which was nevertheless renewed this week....

(This article contains approximately 1290 words)

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Keywords:

Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Moammar el Gadaffi, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Mike O'Brien, Jack Straw, Abdurrahman Shalgam, Mohamed el Baradei, Pakistani, Mohamed Seif el Islam, Anthony Layden, Shukri Ghanem, Sons and spooks, Egyptian, Hosni Mubarak, Gamal, Omar Sulieman, Peter Mandelson, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Ali Benflis, Said Barkat, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, Larbi Belkheir, Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, Mouloud Hamrouche, Abdallah Djaballah, Ahmed Ouyahia, Abbasi Madani, Ali Belhadj, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco, Colin Powell, Mohammed, Fouad Ali el Hima, Hamidou Laânigri, Ali Lemrabet, Driss Jettou, Mohamed el Yazghi, Abdessalam Yacine, Front de Libération Nationale, El Islah, Groupe Islamique Armé, Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat, Jihad, Front Islamique du Salut, crise multiforme, Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires, Al Adl wal Ihssane, Parti de la Justice et du Développement