RAJA KAMAL - The election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States was indeed a historical event. This coming January, an African American, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, will become the leader of the world's most powerful country.

AMMAR ABDULHAMID (JPost) - The rising phenomenon of "non-monarchical family succession" in the Arab world, affecting countries like Syria, Libya and Egypt where official ideology would be expected to preclude such a possibility, continues to baffle analysts.

Tuque Souq - "Constitutions cannot be considered the law of society. A constitution is fundamentally a man-made positive law, and lacks the natural source from which it must derive its justification." - Col. Moammar al-Qaddafi, from his Green Book (full English translation here), 1975.

TAKI (Spectator) - New York - When I heard about it, my own inchoate feelings were confused. A party for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and the caller was Nat Rothschild, son of Lord Rothschild, a major donor to Jewish causes and Israel.

Thomas Olson (TRIBUNE-REVIEW) - An attorney for family members in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New York related to four victims of Pan Am Flight 103 claims Bank of America refused to accept $7.7 million in compensation checks this week.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid - Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, visited Moscow on 1-2 November. The visit of the Libyan leader was his first visit to Russia since 1985, a trip that could revive close cooperation between Tripoli and Cold War ally Moscow.

Traveller -  Libya is an extremely safe country in which to travel. Hostility of any kind towards foreigners is practically nonexistent, theft is extremely rare and Libyans will go out of their way to make you feel welcome.

Ayman El-Amir- The post-11 September global scene is undergoing a transformation to a new phase of confrontation marked by the rise of autocracy in countries that were believed to be on the path to democracy.

Mike King - The economy of Libya is primarily dependent on revenues from the oil sector. The sector contributes almost 30% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Libya has one of the highest per capita GDPs on the African continent.

Dana Moss and Simon Henderson - Nearly twenty years ago, on December 21, 1988, PanAm Flight 103 from London to New York exploded in midair over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board.

Tim Walker - After my revelations about how Nat Rothschild had been hobnobbing with the Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, George Osborne and Lord Mandelson during the summer,

Guardian (UK) - A Museum of Conflict in Libya? Not before time you might say. The London-based Metropolitan Workshop, a collective of architects founded in 2004 by Neil Deely, David Prichard and Tim Peake

Artinfo - TRIPOLI —The London-based Metropolitan Workshop, an architecture collective founded in 2004 by Neil Deely, David Prichard, and Tim Peake, has won a competition to design Libya’s new Museum of Conflict, the Guardian reports

Ludwig De Braeckeleer (ludwig) - "It would be immoral for me to abandon Libya after it had helped the ANC to fight apartheid which has been one of the most brutal systems in the world." -- President Nelson Mandela