What a difference 10 months makes

[Dave2002]

I was looking through newspapers to throw out, and I came across a relatively old copy of the Times, inside which there was a supplement "Libya: The last untapped investment frontier" - dated Tuesday 14th December, 2010. Did anyone see trouble on the horizon then?

There really was no sign that things were going to change so rapidly then, or at least not in the press as it was at the time.

I suppose there will be investment again, as in other countries, when things eventually settle down. Great opportunities to reconstruct the country, no doubt. We've seen it elsewhere before.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i understood the bombing to be an investment ....

but an interesting point dave2002, i wonder at the incomprehension of and criticism by the establishment minded hacks in the USA and here at the Occupy movement and what it might entail ...in 10 months or more .... [in fairness some Wall St types are pretty astonished that it has taken so long to arrive so mildly]

[Bryn]

And what a difference a day (the 20th) can make. Muammar Gaddafi today reported wounded and captured (said to have been hiding in a hole, Saddam style).

[Dave2002]

Now reported dead, i hear.

[Petrushka]

It's always enlightening and faintly comforting to read old newspapers and see that what exercised us at the time wasn't much to worry about after all.

[Bryn]

Indeed, though at the time I posted he was still said to be alive but wounded. It has just been claimed on Newsnight that he was later shot by an unknown combatant in cross-fire which hit the ambulance while on his way to hospital, and that was the cause of his death.

[Norfolk Born]

I guess it makes a change from 'shot while trying to escape'!

[Dave2002]

I don't suppose anyone is going to do forensic tests to check any of the details out!

[Bryn]

Well hopefully they have at least done DNA checks to make sure it was not one of his many doubles.

[Dave2002]

The Enquirer will no doubt report him broadcasting from the International Space Station in a year or so!

[amcluesent]

Did anyone see trouble on the horizon then?

I understand that the Colonel's undoing was demanding that Libyan oil was purchased using gold bullion rather in "quantitatively eased" £ or $. As we couldn't pay up, we suddenly noticed his 'uman rights record.

[vinteuil]

I understand that the Colonel's undoing was demanding that Libyan oil was purchased using gold bullion rather in "quantitatively eased" £ or $. As we couldn't pay up, we suddenly noticed his 'uman rights record.

... some would say that 'the Colonel's undoing' was his ordering his soldiers to shoot on the Libyan citizens who were protesting against him - 'to shoot them like rats'....