Rice arrives, highest-ranking American to visit in over 50 years

Описание: (5 Sep 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of airport
2. Wide of plane carrying US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice taxing on tarmac
3. Mid of Rice walking down the stairs; Rice being greeted by officials
4. Tracking-shot of Rice walking up red carpet with Libyan officials, zoom in to Rice
5. Billboard of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
6. Exterior of Libyan foreign ministry
7. Photo op with Rice with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam; zoom in to Rice smiling; pan to Shalgam; pull out
8. Reporters in corridor
STORYLINE
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that her historic visit Libya proves that the United States will never completely ignore another nation forever.
Rice is the highest-ranking American official to visit the North African country in more than a half-century.
She is set to dine with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whom former US President Ronald Reagan once called a "mad dog" and other US leaders have called labelled a "terrorist," in a traditional desert-style tent.
As Rice flew to the capital she recognised the US-Libya relationship needed a lot of work, but said her visit shows the US "doesn't have permanent enemies."
Rice was welcomed with a modest ceremony at the airport and was meeting with Libya's foreign minister before highlight of the trip - dinner with Gadhafi.
Rice told reporters she looked forward to hearing his "world views."
She explained her visit shows that when countries such as Libya make such great strategic changes, the US will respond.
Gadhafi has sought the visit to culminate five years of halting but steadily improving ties that began when Libya abandoned weapons of mass destruction and renounced terrorism in 2003.
Libya has since agreed to pay compensation to the families of victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and to those of a 1986 attack on a disco in Berlin, which prompted then-US President Reagan to order retaliatory airstrikes on Libyan targets.

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