IS SEIF AL-ISLAM THE MOST IMPORTANT WORLD LEADER NO ONE RECOGNIZES?:

Libya's Berber minority begins to come in from the cold (AFP, Aug 24, 2007)

After decades of even denying the existence of a Berber minority, Libya has been lavishing new attention on a community that makes up around a tenth of the mainly Arab country's population.

A regime that since it took power in 1969 had derided Berber demands for recognition as a colonial plot to divide the Arab nation, this month allowed Berber activists to hold a congress in a Tripoli hotel for the first time.

Both Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam and Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi have also made high-profile visits to the Berber heartland in the Jebel Nefusa mountains southwest of the capital to launch major projects to boost the local economy.

The sharp relaxation in official policy in a matter of months has impressed activists from the wider Berber community which stretches across north Africa from Egypt to Morocco and totals more than 25 million people.