Manner at Tripoli International Airport

Arriving at Tripoli International Airport is a rather disappointing experience. No wonder, the airport was supposed to be out of service already, and a new building, with a capacity of 20million passengers should be in service. But, like with almost all other projects, no decision has been taken which project shall be restarted first. In addition, some projects are considered to be politically induced, so it might happen that they might be cancelled.
This means it will still be some years that visitors to Libya arrive at the old airport. However, at least the arrival hall is a provisional building, meant so serve 2-3 years, as the old arrival hall was completely unacceptable.
But this time I saw a nice surprise: On (Libyan) passenger had a "Manner" bag as his handluggage. Luckily Manner is widely available in Libya, so the publicity and demand for Manner by this bag can be fulfilled. 

Der Krampus kommt nach Tripolis

Da erzähle ich meinen Kindern immer, wenn sie schlimm sind, kommt der Krampus, und dann kommt der tatsächlich zu mir nach Tripolis.
Im Tag hat er sich nicht geirrt, und er wird schon wissen wo seine "Pappenheimer" zu Hause sind. Also darf ich mich nicht weiter wundern wenn er es dann auch über das Mittelmeer schafft, denn ursprünglich kommt er ja aus den alpinen Ländern Mitteleuropas.
Heisst das jetzt, dass morgen der Nikolo nicht mehr kommt? Das erinnere ich mich nicht mehr so genau. Aber das werde ich ja auch in wenigen Stunden wissen...

What REALLY happened

Three weeks ago I tweeted I would leave the country due to a security incident. Many of you asked what had happened. However, it was not the right time to give the full version in order not to make the story bigger than it was.

Since then I have heard many stories through many different channels. Some of them seem to come back with amendments. In order to keep the truth, I decided to write the sort version on my blog:

"I was kidnapped, held hostage for three days, tortured, beaten"

WRONG

"I had a rave party with loads of alcohol. In the morning, my Libyan friends who I invited, got very annoyed as there was no alcohol left. So they beat me."

WRONG

"I was abducted, questioned and tortured for the role that Austrian companies played during Gadaffi time"

WRONG

RIGHT:

I went running in the early afternoon in an area I use to run regularily and that I consider "safe" (no, not Regatta).  People there know me already. After approx. half an hour a car approached me in high speed, honking and shouting towards me. After stopping and getting out they immediately slapped me in the face. I decided to run away. They followed (chased) me in their car and managed to catch me after a couple of minutes.

They drove me away, towards their house, where we got out of the car again. One of the guys was very drunk and did not stop shouting at me that I was an Israeli spy. 

After some time and after I could have a closer look at some weapons, I was delivered at a nearby militia, where  I was handed over as an Israeli spy. The militia (Kateiba) treated me very nicely, sent the guys that brought me there away, and brought me home. The whole thing took about 2 hours.

At the end everybody apologized and said the usual "Mafish Mushkila"....

New Libyan Government

Better late than never...

The new Libyan government, however changes are under way

Presentation and discussion at "Kremser Nahost Forum"

For the Libyans in Austria among you, my dear readers, meaning those who have a Libyan way of live and decide on a rather short notice how the daily schedule looks like, there might be something in for you today:
Tomorrow at 5 PM there will be a "Kremser Nahost Forum" lecture and discussion on Libya "Libya, the richest economy in Africa in transformation"
Details to be found on:
http://www.nahost-forum.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=9&Itemid=12

Libyan Railways and Intergeo´s bankruptcy

What a nice train ! It started in the nowhere of Tripoli and lead into nowhere. Fabricated by the Italian Finemccanica group´s company "Ansaldo". It was actually a present from Ansaldo to Libya. Well kind of - actually it was handed over to Muammar Gadaffi around the 40th anniversary of the revolution. Well, and as there were no rail tracks at that moment, Ansaldo also build about 1.000 meters of them. Italy´president, Silvio Berlusconi handed over the train to his friend Muammar Gadaffi and together they inaugurated the masterpiece of italian civil engineering.
At the same time a tender was opened fo the delivery of rolling stock (trains & wagons) for Libya´s new railway that should start at the Tunisian border and run all the way to Egypt. A special line was also leading to Sebha.
Too bad that Ansaldo did not comply with the specifications set forth in the tender. The technicians at Libyan Railroads did not know what to do: The whole railway industry had its focus on Libya, as it had at that moment the biggest railroad project in the world. And they were all very curious how Libya would solve the project, because the leader wanted by any means the Italian train. Even though it did not meet the tender criteria. And even though it had a different track size than the one built by the Chinese and Russian general contractors.
However, whenever I met an Italian diplomat, they were smashing it into my face: "The train is ours!"
Luckily for the employees of Libyan Railroads the revolution came...

The railway project did not end that luckily for some other companies. The Austrian company "Intergeo", for instance,  had to file for bankruptcy earlier this week: The company entered Libya in 2010, providing engineering works for the Russian part of the railway project, with its headquarters at Ras Lanuf. Unfortunately they did not receive a single cent for their works in Libya so far. The company said the outstanding debt amounted to approximately 1 Mio Euros.
12 employees and about 80 creditors are affected by the liquidation of the company. If you know german, you can read up the whole article here:
http://salzburg.orf.at/news/stories/2559701/

Deutsche Schule Tripolis

 Das waren eben noch Zeiten: Schuljahr 2009/2010 in Tripolis. Mit ca. 55 Schülern in der Deutschen Schule, und das auf alle Alterstufen verteilt. Manche Klassen waren dann nur 3-4 Kinder groß, aber das haben einige Kinder dann auch als sehr angenehm empfunden.
2009/10 soll dann auch das letzte Schuljahr gewesen sein, denn im Februar 2011 reisten ja bekanntlich nahezu alle Ausländer aus. Die Schule hat die Revolution gut und unbeschadet überstanden und wäre wieder bereit für neue Schüler.

Deswegen gab es dann auch einen Informationsabend für deutschssprachige Botschaften, Firmen und sonstige Einrichtungen. Es stellte sich wieder die Henne/Ei Frage. Denn war es jetzt, dass keine Kinder in der deutschen Schule sind, weil die Lage nicht so rosig ist und keine Firmen vor Ort sind, oder kommen keine Familien weil die Deutsche Schule nicht geöffnet hat ?

Mein Empfinden ist eindeutig ersteres.

Ein kurzer Gegensatz bei der Beurteilung der Sicherheitslage konnte zwischen zwei Diplomaten von deutschsprachigen Ländern festgestellt werden: Vertrat der eine die Ansicht, dass man noch weit von einer normalen Lage entfernt sei, so propagierte der andere eine "Mafish Mushkila" (no proplem) Stimung.

Als Österreicher verhält man sich in so einer Situation am besten ruhig,und schliesst sich nach erfolgtem Meinungsbildungsprozess der Mehrheit an. Zu blöd, dass es in diesem Fall keine Mehrheit gab, aber mein Erlebnis der letzten Woche lässt mich eher zum "es ist nicht alles in Ordnung" Lager tendieren.

Aber zurueck zur Deutschen Schule: Man hat alles parat, Gewehr bei Fuss und ist bereit bei entsprechender Nachfrage sofort den Schulbetrieb wieder aufzunehmen.

Die Direktorin der Schule, Christel Ostermann-Latif präsentierte entsprechende Pläne und hoffte (wie wir alle) auf eine baldige Rückkehr der Firmen.

Die Deutsche Schule ist übrigens im Internet unter 

http://www.deutsche-schule-tripolis.com/ zu finden.