Brak (sometimes written Biraq or Birak) (Arabic: براك‎) is a town in the Wadi al Shatii District in west-central Libya. It is the administrative center of the district.

The town has a population of 39,444 (As of 2004^[update]) and is home to a technical college of Sabha University. Much of the new development in the town is occurring to the north of the old town center, which features gardens and forts from the Italian and Ottoman eras.

The technical college "Faculty of Engineering and Technology", now a college of Sebha University, was previously known as the "Higher Institute of Technology", and it is this college that gives much value to the town, as it is a well-known research and academic organization. The college comprises six distinct departments; three of which are specialized in the engineering arm of the college, namely: Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The other arm, the technical arm, has similarly has three departments: Department of Medical Lab Technology, Department of Food Science Technology, and Department of Environmental Science. Graduates of this college are considered the best in the country, as the academic and technical rank of this college is both prestigious and well-known.^{[citation needed]} There are plans to expand this college more to accommodate more students and staff and to have more departments and specialties.

Libya (Arabic: ‏ليبيا‎ Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.

With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.

In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.

As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.

Ben Wedeman is an American journalist. He is CNN senior correspondent in Cairo, Egypt who was based in Jerusalem. Before Jerusalem he lived in Egypt where he was CNN's Bureau Chief. Prior to that, he was CNN's Amman Bureau chief. He was originally hired by CNN as a local Jordanian employee. The job title was fixer/producer/sound technician; one of his duties was to help reporting staff get through checkpoints, since he is fluent in multiple dialects of Arabic and familiar with the culture(s).

Wedeman was born in Washington, DC. His father is a retired diplomat. Ben spent most of his childhood outside of the United States, after having moved with his family to South Korea in 1968. Subsequently, he lived with his family in Bangkok, Thailand; Phnom Penh, Cambodia - during the Cambodian Civil War - then attended boarding schools in Beirut, Lebanon (in 1974-75, just as the civil war broke out); Tangier, Morocco; and Windsor, Connecticut (USA). He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s degree in Oriental Languages and Linguistics and from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies with a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies. He is married with three children, and currently lives in Cairo.

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي‎) (June 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi  /ˈmoʊ.əmɑr ɡəˈdɑːfi/ (Arabic: مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي‎ Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī  audio (help·info)) or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Gaddafi seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 and served as the country's head of state until 1977, when he stepped down from his official executive role as Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, and claimed subsequently to be merely a symbolic figurehead. He styled himself as "Leader of the Revolution"; in 2008 a meeting of traditional African rulers bestowed on him the title "King of Kings". A leading advocate for a United States of Africa, he served as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from 2 February 2009 to 31 January 2010.

Gaddafi replaced the Libyan Constitution of 1951 with laws based on the political ideology he had formulated, which he called the Third International Theory and published in The Green Book. After establishing the Jamahiriya (جماهيرية, "state of the masses") system in 1977, he officially stepped down from power and after that time held a largely symbolic role within the country's official governance structure. Rising oil prices and extraction in Libya led to increasing revenues. By exporting as much oil per capita as Saudi Arabia and through various welfare programs, Libya achieved the highest living standards in Africa; Libya remained debt-free.