PILGRIMS' PROGRESS

For days, Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi has threatened to defy U.N. sanctions barring air travel to or from Libya, and today he did, sort of. The sanctions were imposed in1992 to force Libya to turn over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Today a planeload of 150 Muslim pilgrims left Tripoli for a pilgrimage to Mecca -- only to turn right around and land again. Then U.N. officials decided to make an exception for religious flights, saying, "Libyan pilgrims should not be denied the right to pilgrimage and should not suffer for the actions of their government."