Excerpt:
Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's visit to Rome to mark the second anniversary of a friendship treaty with former coloniser Italy stumbled into controversy on Monday after he said Europe should convert to Islam.
Gaddafi made the comments on Sunday during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his lecture.
"Islam should become the religion of all of Europe," one of the women quoted Gaddafi as saying in the Italian press.
The agency paid the women, mainly students who hire themselves out for advertising of publicity events, 70 or 80 euros (90 or 100 dollars) to attend and said it would not pay girls who gave their names to the press.