王海燕第二篇新闻0730.docxVIP

Libyas governmentSailing into troubled watersA struggle to control oil exports reflects deeper dysfunction“OIL IS our strength”, declares a billboard campaign launched by Libyas oil ministry. The advertising is meant to foster national pride in a country still riven with regional and tribal faultlines three years after the ousting of its dictator, Muammar Qaddafi. But in Libyas restless eastern half, sometimes known as Cyrenaica, armed federalists are trying to make that slogan a political reality.Since July a group calling itself the Cyrenaica Political Bureau has blockaded Libyas main oil ports, the countrys chief source of income. Its initial pretext was to protest against alleged fraud in oil-export accounts, but its ambitions have widened. On March 11th it pulled off a coup, successfully loading and dispatching 234,000 barrels of crude oil—worth about $30m—aboard a North Korean-flagged tanker, in defiance of the central government.Authorities in the capital, Tripoli, responded furiously. On March 9th Ali Zeidan, the prime minister, called it an act of piracy and warned that the tanker would be bombed if it tried to leave the port of Es-Sider. Navy craft were mobilised to prevent the ship from departing. When it escaped nonetheless, apparently after a brief skirmish, Libyas acting proto-parliament, the 200-member General National Congress (GNC), voted to dismiss Mr Zeidan. Powerful local militias loyal to the GNC began an advance from Sirte, midway along the Libyan coast, towards the east. The rebels have been given two weeks to give up the oil terminals.The drama has set the scene for what some analysts fear could be a descent into deeper disorder. The eastern rebels are no match for the better-armed government-aligned forces, and ordinary Cyrenaicans have little appetite for another all-out war, particularly given bitter local rivalries. But there is still a danger that the authorities in Tripoli may overplay their hand to the point of provoking full-scale reb