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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Gaddafi making first Italy visit | Gaddafi making first Italy visit |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is due in Rome at the start of his first visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler and now its biggest trading partner. | Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is due in Rome at the start of his first visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler and now its biggest trading partner. |
| He will be accompanied by a delegation of Libyan businessmen looking to boost their investments in Italian industry. | He will be accompanied by a delegation of Libyan businessmen looking to boost their investments in Italian industry. |
| Colonel Gaddafi will, as usual, be staying in the tent he takes on foreign trips, and will meet Italy's president and prime minister. | |
| Talks are also expected to focus on the issue of illegal immigration. | Talks are also expected to focus on the issue of illegal immigration. |
| Security will be tight during the three-day visit, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome. | Security will be tight during the three-day visit, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome. |
| Demonstrations are planned by left-wing students who are against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's policy - with Libyan help - of intercepting and forcibly repatriating immigrants who try to reach Italy by sea. | Demonstrations are planned by left-wing students who are against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's policy - with Libyan help - of intercepting and forcibly repatriating immigrants who try to reach Italy by sea. |
| Special arrangements | Special arrangements |
| Col Gaddafi is expected to meet his visitors in his Bedouin-style tent which has been set up in the park of a 17th Century Roman villa where he is staying. | |
| A tent has been erected on the grounds of villa Pamphili in Rome | A tent has been erected on the grounds of villa Pamphili in Rome |
| He is also due to address a group of 700 women at Rome's concert hall, having requested a meeting with prominent Italian women from the fields of business, politics and culture. | He is also due to address a group of 700 women at Rome's concert hall, having requested a meeting with prominent Italian women from the fields of business, politics and culture. |
| He held a similar meeting on a visit to Paris in 2007 with 1,000 selected women guests, who were told he wanted to "save European women." | He held a similar meeting on a visit to Paris in 2007 with 1,000 selected women guests, who were told he wanted to "save European women." |
| Col Gaddafi, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the African Union, will return to Rome next month as a delegate to the Group of Eight (G8) summit. | |
| But this is his first visit to Italy since he took power in a coup in 1969, following Italy's 30-year occupation of Libya. | But this is his first visit to Italy since he took power in a coup in 1969, following Italy's 30-year occupation of Libya. |
| The BBC's correspondent in Tripoli, Rana Jawad, says the two countries have had a love-hate relationship. | |
| Since independence the Italian language has been effectively banned in Libya, she says, while Italian settlers were expelled soon after Col Gaddafi took power and barred from ever returning. | |
| Italy's brutal occupation of Libya, when tens of thousands of Libyans were forcibly moved to concentration camps, was not easily forgotten, she says. | |
| But in the past few years the relationship has flourished and even turned to friendship. | |
| Business deals have surged and expelled settlers are now allowed to visit. | |
| And last year Rome agreed to pay Libya $5bn (£3bn) in reparations for the misdeeds of colonial times. |