<p>For most of that time he held a prominent position in the West’s international rogues’ gallery, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to annoint a successor. <br /><br />As his oil-producing nation feels the wind of change gusting across the Arab world, his security forces have responded with the deadly force that human rights groups say has characterised the Gadhafi era. <br /><br />Protesters have been gunned down in their hundreds in Tripoli, Benghazi and other cities in the past few days. <br /><br />One of the world’s longest serving national leaders, Gadhafi has no official government function and is known as the “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution”. Visionary or dictator, Gadhafi’s quirky style is unique. His love of grand gestures is most on display on foreign visits when he sleeps in a bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards. <br /><br />During a visit to Italy in August last year, Gadhafi’s invitation to hundreds of young women to convert to Islam overshadowed the two-day trip, which was intended to cement the growing ties between Tripoli and Rome. <br /><br />US diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website have shed further light on the Libyan leader’s tastes. <br /><br />One cable posted by The New York Times describes Gadhafi’s insistence on staying on the first floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the UN and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps. Gadhafi is also said to rely heavily on his staff of four Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a “voluptuous blonde”. <br />The cable speculated about a romantic relationship. Gadhafi was born in 1942, the son of a bedouin herdsman, in a tent near Sirte on the Mediterranean coast. <br /><br />He abandoned a geography course at university for a military career that included a short spell at a British army signals school. <br /><br />Gadhafi took power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 when he toppled King Idriss, and in the 1970s he formulated his “Third Universal Theory”, a middle road between communism and capitalism. <br /><br />Last month Gadhafi said he feared the change of power in neighbouring Tunisia was being exploited by foreign intervention. <br /><br />Gadhafi said he was “pained” by the violent events in Tunisia and that people there had been too hasty in pushing out President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. <br /><br />On Monday night, with the death toll in Libya’s revolution rising, Gadhafi made a characteristically eccentric television appearance, sheltering under an umbrella and denouncing rumours that he had fled to Venezuela</p>
<p>For most of that time he held a prominent position in the West’s international rogues’ gallery, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to annoint a successor. <br /><br />As his oil-producing nation feels the wind of change gusting across the Arab world, his security forces have responded with the deadly force that human rights groups say has characterised the Gadhafi era. <br /><br />Protesters have been gunned down in their hundreds in Tripoli, Benghazi and other cities in the past few days. <br /><br />One of the world’s longest serving national leaders, Gadhafi has no official government function and is known as the “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution”. Visionary or dictator, Gadhafi’s quirky style is unique. His love of grand gestures is most on display on foreign visits when he sleeps in a bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards. <br /><br />During a visit to Italy in August last year, Gadhafi’s invitation to hundreds of young women to convert to Islam overshadowed the two-day trip, which was intended to cement the growing ties between Tripoli and Rome. <br /><br />US diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website have shed further light on the Libyan leader’s tastes. <br /><br />One cable posted by The New York Times describes Gadhafi’s insistence on staying on the first floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the UN and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps. Gadhafi is also said to rely heavily on his staff of four Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a “voluptuous blonde”. <br />The cable speculated about a romantic relationship. Gadhafi was born in 1942, the son of a bedouin herdsman, in a tent near Sirte on the Mediterranean coast. <br /><br />He abandoned a geography course at university for a military career that included a short spell at a British army signals school. <br /><br />Gadhafi took power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 when he toppled King Idriss, and in the 1970s he formulated his “Third Universal Theory”, a middle road between communism and capitalism. <br /><br />Last month Gadhafi said he feared the change of power in neighbouring Tunisia was being exploited by foreign intervention. <br /><br />Gadhafi said he was “pained” by the violent events in Tunisia and that people there had been too hasty in pushing out President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. <br /><br />On Monday night, with the death toll in Libya’s revolution rising, Gadhafi made a characteristically eccentric television appearance, sheltering under an umbrella and denouncing rumours that he had fled to Venezuela</p>
