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The Toyota War is the name commonly given to the last phase of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Libyan-Chadian border. It takes its name from the Toyota pickup trucks used as technicals to provide mobility for the Chadian troops as they fought against the Libyans. The 1987 war resulted in a heavy defeat for Libya, which, according to American sources, lost one tenth of its army, with 7,500 troops killed and 1.5 billion dollars worth of military equipment destroyed or captured. Chadian losses were 1,000 troops killed.

The war began with the Libyan occupation of northern Chad in 1983, when Libya's leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Chadian President Hissène Habré, militarily supported the attempt by the opposition Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) to overthrow Habré. The plan was foiled by the intervention of France that, first with Operation Manta and later with Operation Epervier, limited Libyan expansion to north of the 16th parallel, in the most desertic and sparsely inhabited part of Chad. (Read more...)
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The Chadian–Libyan conflict was a state of sporadic warfare events in Chad between 1978 and 1987 between Libyan and Chadian forces. Libya had been involved in Chad's internal affairs prior to 1978 and before Muammar al-Gaddafi's rise to power in Libya in 1969, beginning with the extension of the Chadian Civil War to northern Chad in 1968. The conflict was marked by a series of four separate Libyan interventions in Chad, taking place in 1978, 1979, 1980–1981 and 1983–1987. In all of these occasions Gaddafi had the support of a number of factions participating in the civil war, while Libya's opponents found the support of the French government, which intervened militarily to save the Chadian government in 1978, 1983 and 1986.

The military pattern of the war delineated itself in 1978, with the Libyans providing armour, artillery and air support and their Chadian allies the infantry, that assumed the bulk of the scouting and fighting. This pattern was radically to change in 1986, towards the end of the war, when all Chadian forces united in opposing the Libyan occupation of northern Chad with a degree of unity that had never been seen before in Chad. This deprived the Libyan forces of their habitual infantry, exactly when they found themselves confronting a mobile army, well provided now with anti-tank and anti-air missiles, thus cancelling the Libyan superiority in fire-power. What followed was the Toyota War, in which the Libyan forces were routed and expelled from Chad, putting an end to the conflict. (Read more...)
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Tripoli (Arabic: 'طرابلس Ṭarābulus , also طرابلس الغرب Ṭarā-bu-lus al-Gharb (meaning Western Tripoli to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon), Libyan vernacular: Ṭrābləs ; derived from "Τρίπολη"; the Greek word for "three cities" in Greek: Τρίπολις Tripolis) is the largest and capital city of Libya.

Tripoli has a population of 1.69 million. The city is located in the northwest of the country on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean Sea and forming a bay. Tripoli was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who named it Oea.

Tripoli is the largest city, the principal sea port, and the largest commercial and manufacturing centre in Libya. It is also the site of Al-Fateh University. Due to the city's long history, there are many sites of archaeological significance in Tripoli. The climate is typical Mediterranean, with hot, dry summers, cool winters and some modest rainfall.

"Tripoli" may also refer to the shabiyah (top-level administrative division in the current Libyan system), Tripoli District. (Read more...)
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Italian settlers in Libya (even called Italian Libyans) typically refers to Italians, and their descendants, who resided or were born in Libya.

Italian heritage in Libya can be dated back to Ancient Rome, when the Romans controlled and colonized Libya for a period of five centuries prior to the fall of the Roman Empire and its takeover by Arab and Turkish civilizations. But predominantly Italian heritage in Libya refers to modern-day Italians. In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy waged war on the Ottoman Empire and captured Libya as a colony. Italian settlers were encouraged to come to Libya and did so from 1911 to the outbreak of World War II.

In Libya, the Italians in less than thirty years (1911-1940) built significant amount of public works (roads, railways, buildings, ports, etc.) and the Libyan economy flourished. Italian farmers cultivated lands that were lost to the desert for centuries and improved Italian Libya's agriculture to international standards. Libya was considered the new "America" for the Italian emigrants in the thirties, substituting the United States.

The governor Italo Balbo is attributed with the creation of modern Libya in 1934, when he convinced Mussolini to unite the Italian colonies of Tripolitania, Cirenaica and the Italian Libyan Sahara in one single country named "Libia" in Italian.

The Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 (12.37% of the total population) at the time of the 1939 census. They were concentrated in the coast around the city of Tripoli (they constituted 37% of the city's population) and Bengasi (31%). (Read more...)
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The National Oil Corporation (NOC) is the national oil company of Libya. It dominates Libya's oil industry, along with a number of smaller subsidiaries, which combined account for around half of the country's oil output. Of NOC's subsidiaries, the largest oil producer is the Waha Oil Company (WOC), followed by the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco), Zueitina Oil Company (ZOC), and Sirte Oil Company (SOC).

Libya is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa (followed by Nigeria and Algeria), 41.5 Gbbl (6.60×10⁹ m³) as of January 2007, up from 39.1 Gbbl (6.22×10^⁹ m³) in 2006. About 80% of Libya’s proven oil reserves are located in the Sirte Basin Province, which accounts for 90% of the country’s oil output. The province ranks 13th among the world’s petroleum provinces, having known reserves of 43.1 billion barrels (6.85×10^⁹ m³) of oil equivalent (36.7 Gbbl (5.83×10⁹ m³) of oil, 37.7×10^¹² cu ft (1,070 km³) of gas, 0.1 Gbbl (16,000,000 m³) of natural gas liquids). The government dominates Libya's economy through control of oil resources, which account for approximately 95% of export earnings, 75% of government receipts, and over 50% of GDP, which was USD $50.2 billion in 2006. (Read more...)
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The HIV trial in Libya (or Bulgarian nurses affair) concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi. The defendants were a Palestinian medical intern and five Bulgarian nurses (often termed "medics"). They were first sentenced to death, then had their case remanded by Libya's highest court, and were sentenced to death again, a penalty which was upheld by Libya's highest court in early July, 2007. The Six then had their sentences commuted to life in prison by a Libyan government panel. They were released following a deal reached with European Union representatives on humanitarian issues (the EU did not condone the guilty verdict in Libya against the Six). On July 24, 2007, the five medics and the doctor were extradited to Bulgaria, where their sentences were commuted by the Bulgarian President and they were freed. Libya has since complained about the releases (although, as of July 31, not to the EU), and the issue remains ongoing. Furthermore, a controversy has arisen concerning the terms of release, which allegedly include an arms trade as well as a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in July 2007. Both the French president and the Bulgarian president have denied that the two deals were related to the liberation of the Six, although this has been alleged by a variety of sources, including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the leader of Libya.

The epidemic at El-Fatih and the subsequent trials were highly politicized and controversial. The medics say that they were forced to confess under torture and that they are innocent. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi later confirmed that Libyan investigators tortured the medics with electric shocks and threatened to target their families in order to extract the confessions, and confirmed that some of the children had been infected with HIV before the medics arrived in Libya. He said that the guilty verdict of the Libyan courts had been based on "conflicting reports", and said that "There is negligence, there is a disaster that took place, there is a tragedy, but it was not deliberate." (Read more...)
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