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- The LSE–Gaddafi affair was a scandal in the United Kingdom that occurred as a result of relationship that existed between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Libyan government and its leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The NGO Gaddafi Foundation pledged to donate £1.5 million over five years to a research centre, LSE Global Governance, of which £300k were paid. In addition, LSE Enterprise established a contract worth £2.2 million to train Libyan officials. In 2008, the LSE granted a PhD degree to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, for a dissertation. Currently, allegations circulate that Gaddafi's thesis was ghost-written and/or plagiarised. In December 2010, Muammar Gaddafi addressed members of the School in a video link-up where he was addressed as "Brother Leader" and received an LSE cap previously given to Nelson Mandela.At the time of the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the relationship between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime, and the conduct of individual members of LSE's staff was called into question. As a result of the scandal, the LSE's Director, Sir Howard Davies, resigned on 3 March 2011, citing "errors of judgement". In a New York Times op-ed piece on 7 March 2011, Roger Cohen wrote, in reference to events that had transpired at the School, "It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can't think how. ...The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter. ...How did we back, use and encourage the brutality of Arab dictators over so many years? To what degree did that cynical encouragement of despots foster the very jihadist rage Western societies sought to curb?" (en)
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