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- THE WEEK, Page 15WORLDShut Down Until Further Notice
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- The U.N. embargo against Libya begins, but Gaddafi won't relent
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- If Muammar Gaddafi has any friends left in the world, they
- are keeping a decidedly low profile. After refusing once again to
- hand over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
- Gaddafi discovered just how hard U.N. sanctions could bite. On
- Wednesday, after the World Court declined Gaddafi's request to
- halt the sanctions, a ban on commercial flights in and out of
- Libya went into effect. Cairo and Tunis ordered Libyan planes
- headed for their countries to turn around, and Rome even
- dispatched several F-104 jets to intercept a Libyan passenger
- plane about to enter Italian airspace.
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- Many countries also began expelling Libyan embassy
- staffers, who were forced to fly to Malta and then take the
- ferry to Tripoli. Some 1,000 Americans and 10,000 Europeans work
- in Libya, but so far, most have elected to stay. Surprisingly,
- nearly the whole Arab world went along with the sanctions,
- though some Arab diplomats complained that the U.S. had not
- exhausted the diplomatic game before spearheading the campaign
- for the embargo.
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- On Friday a lawyer for the two men accused of blowing up
- Pan Am 103 said they would be willing to stand trial in the
- U.S. or Britain. But he attached conditions that made a deal
- unlikely (e.g., intelligence officials could not question the
- suspects).
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- The embargo marks the first coordinated action by the
- international community against state-sponsored terrorism. If
- the sanctions do not work -- and the Libyans have endured so
- many economic hardships over the years that more pain might make
- little difference -- then the U.N. has the option of instituting
- an oil embargo.
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