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The UK’s Minister of State for International Development (DFID), Alan Duncan, has arrived in Tripoli.
The Ministry is a major financial supporter of new social and economic projects around the world. The UK is one of the few countries that has not cut its aid budget during the recession.
At an event this evening, Duncan said the visit to Libya was his first, but that his previous career as an oil broker meant that he had traded in Libyan oil in the past.
His connection with Libya goes further than that. During the revolution, Duncan is credited with running the British government’s secret “Libyan Oil Cell” which was operated to block the Qaddafi regime getting hold of fuel supplies while enabling it to go to the revolutionaries. Vitol, for whom Duncan had worked, was one of the oil trading companies that is said to have supplied petrol and diesel to the NTC on generous credit terms. [/restrict]
