I was puzzled to see that the Guardian has an article today on Libya, Switzerland, the European Union and the ban on travel by top Libyan officials. I read nearly to the end before I found the news peg – normally higher up in a story, but when the news is old and editors are looking for an excuse to run it late, the peg gets hidden a bit further down in the story. Here it is:

The problem was sufficiently worrying for Libya’s man in London, Omar Jelban, to convene a rare press conference at the Knightsbridge offices of the people’s bureau (embassy) to “clarify” Tripoli’s position. “It is now difficult for any EU citizen to come to Libya,” he said on Tuesday, insisting that Libya had been forced to take reciprocal action because of Swiss bad faith. “We are ready to resolve this problem with the Swiss. This is a bilateral issue that has nothing to do with other European countries.”

That doesn’t tell me why the Guardian wanted to bother running this, since there is nothing new in the story, just rehashing. I think the clue is the last sentence. My guess is that the editor couldn’t resist running this sentence, a good decision:

Gaddafi-watchers say the key to understanding these rows with the Swiss and the Americans is his acute sense of personal honour – the slight to his son, his family and to himself. In reflective moments, Libya’s diplomats must sometimes hark back to simpler times before their leader abandoned terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and came in from the cold.

Link to story in the Guardian, UK

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