Mandela Welcomes Kadafi as Last Guest

South African President Nelson Mandela welcomed Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi as his last official guest and said the ending of the Lockerbie impasse had justified close ties with Tripoli. “We are . . . overwhelmed by at last having here on this southern tip of Africa one of the revolutionary icons of our times,” Mandela told guests at a lunch in his Cape Town offices. Kadafi is on his first foreign tour since sanctions against Tripoli were suspended in April after he surrendered two Libyan suspects in the deadly 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103. He will stay in South Africa until Wednesday to attend the inauguration of Mandela’s successor, Thabo Mbeki.