I nearly spit out my Turkish coffee when I read this BBC headline.

The Libyan government is planning to expel all immigrants who cannot normalize their status, a population of one million that includes not only economic migrants, but refugees from conflicts in Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Libya has been improving its relationships with Western countries. Last May, the country normalized relations with the United States and in July, finally extradited 6 Bulgarian health workers, detained for 8 years and initially sentenced to death for purportedly infecting children with HIV/AIDS.

The European Union has been pressuring Libya to crack down on illegal immigration, since many migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa use North African countries as jumping off points to Europe. But this is clearly not the way to solve the problem!

In other news, a US judge has ordered Libya pay billions in damages to the families of those who perished in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Photos: Top: Muammar Al Gaddafi has been Libya’s head of state since 1969. Source: © European Communities, 1995-2005.