" ... The Arab world is finished", declared Gadhafi, peeved at what he perceived as lukewarm solidarity among fellow Arabs for his campaign to escape UN sanctions imposed on Libya because of the bombing of a jetliner over Scotland. "I have no more time to waste talking with Arabs," he said. "I now talk about Pan-Africanism and African unity"

It was a dramatic turnaround for a strongman who has made Arab unity his political touchstone since the 1860s. And Gadhafi did more than talk .. Libya's government eliminated its Ministry for Arab Unity. State television removed the map of the Arab world that has been its backdrop since 1969, replacing it with a map of the African continent.

"I would like Libya to become a black country. Hence, I recommend to Libyan men to marry only black women and to Libyan women to marry black men", Gadhafi said ..

 ... Diplomatic sources here believe that Gadhafi wants the trial of ... Megrahi and ... Fhimah to go forward – but under .the Libyan leader's terms ... In spite of Gadhafi's irritation with Arabs, the 22-member Arab League is trying to act as intermediary to address Gadhafi's concerns. ... Gadhafi's switch to Pan-Africanism, however, has tended only to alienate his old friends. Gadhafi is wrong to ignore all that Arabs have done to support him, wrote Talman Salman, publisher of Beirut's As Safir, "Gadhafi's Feeling from the Arab World does neither the Arabs nor Libya any good". (John Daniszewski in The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post News Service)