April 7, 2006

Columbia Plays Host to Libyan Scholars

By BURTON BOLLAG

Some 45 Libyan scholars attended a conference on democracy at Columbia University last month, the first major academic delegation from Libya to visit the United States in 25 years.

In the early 1980s, 3,000 Libyans, mostly graduate students, were attending American higher-education institutions. But the number fell to almost nil during the next quarter-century as Libya slid into isolation, accused by Western governments of supporting terrorist groups. Libya began re-emerging on the