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NEW YORK (CBS) ― New York Sen. Charles Schumer wants the United Nations to condemn Libya's welcome home celebration for the man convicted in the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Democratic senator was scheduled to holding a news conference Saturday to urge the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N to introduce a resolution condemning the ceremony and asking for an apology. Family members were furious that convicted Libyan bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison Thursday and was greeted in Libya by cheering crowds. Pan Am Flight 103 — which was carrying mostly American passengers to...

The Scottish Nationalists have never been too fussy about the international company they keep. Indeed, the last time they were celebrated anywhere more exotic than Banff was when Alex Salmond became "the toast of Belgrade" – the late Robin Cook's phrase – for denouncing Nato action against the deeply unpleasant Serbian regime. However, the Nationalists crave to be noticed on the international stage by whatever means. And this week, they succeeded. Rarely can so many decent Scottish stomachs have turned than at the sight of the Saltire being flourished in Tripoli as a centre-piece of the repulsive celebrations to welcome...

Celebrations at Bomber's Return to Libya Stir Angry Response; White House Calls the Reception 'Outrageous and Disgusting'LONDON -- The government of Scotland found itself scrambling Friday to control political fallout from a decision to flex its independence by releasing a Libyan man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Television footage of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi welcoming home Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, and a crowd of Libyans waving Scottish flags has fanned anger about the release. He was allowed to travel to Libya on Thursday despite demands from victims' family members and a host of U.S....

Prince Andrew may be forced to scrap a trade visit to Libya after it was revealed today Colonel Gaddafi ignored a personal plea from Gordon Brown to ensure the Lockerbie bomber did not receive a hero's welcome. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was greeted by thousands cheering and waving Scottish flags when he arrived back in Libya last night following his release from a Scottish jail. The scene provoked an outcry from victims' families and the U.S. government and threatened to open up a new diplomatic rift between Britain and Libya. It was revealed today that, in a letter delivered by...

Gordon Brown was under fresh pressure last night after shocking claims by Libya that the release of the Lockerbie bomber was linked explicity to trade deals benefiting Britain. Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam said the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was discussed at every meeting between the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Libyan leader. But the Foreign Office strongly denied any link between the boosting of UK business interests and the freeing of the man convicted of Britain's worst terrorist atrocity. A spokesman insisted: 'No deal has been made between the UK Government and Libya in...

Lockerbie: To Scottish authorities, the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, serving a life sentence for planning the Pan Am jet bombing that killed 270, is a "humanitarian" act. But to any civilized person, it's an outrage.Scottish justice officials and Britain's government should be deeply ashamed. Not only have they let an unrepentant killer go, but also they have advertised the weakness and stupidity of Western European governments when it comes to terrorism. On returning to Libya, al-Megrahi was given "a hero's welcome as thousands greeted him at the airport waving flags and posters," Britain's Telegraph reported. So much for Libya...

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif, claimed the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was linked to trade deals between Britain and Libya. Saif al Islam Gaddafi said that Megrahi’s return was a “victory” for all Libyans. He made the claims in a television interview for Libyan television recorded as he accompanied Megrahi on the flight back from Scotland to Libya on Thursday. The claims were vehemently denied by the UK government. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “There is no deal. All decisions relating to Megrahi’s case have been exclusively for Scottish ministers, the Crown Office in...

"Four hundred parents lost a child, 46 parents lost their only child, 65 women were widowed, 11 men lost their wives, 140 [people] lost a parent, seven lost both parents." -- Scottish prosecutor Colin Boyd at the 2001 trial of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi flew home Thursday to his wife and children in Libya. Scotland's justice secretary, Kenny Mac-Askill, freed al-Megrahi only eight years into his life sentence for murdering 270 people, 189 of them Americans. A flag-waving crowd greeted al-Megrahi when his Afriqiyah Airways jetliner landed at Tripoli. More warm welcomes may follow: When an...

The US President’s criticism of the “mistake” added to a growing backlash against the Scottish decision to free the biggest mass murderer in British legal history on compassionate grounds. Hours after the Scottish National Party administration in Edinburgh announced its decision to free him, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the 1988 atrocity, flew home to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli.

Lockerbie Victim's Mom Calls Obama Response 'Soft' Susan Cohen 'Furious & Sick' Over Bomber's Release In Scotland CBS News Interactive: Pan Am Flight 103 The mother of a young woman killed in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 was blunt in her anger over seeing the mastermind of the attack return home to cheering crowds. "I was furious and I was sick," Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora, then 20, died on the flight. Cohen reserved some of her anger toward the Obama administration as well. Thursday, President Obama called the release of Libyan Abdel Baset al-Megrahi...

Here is video of Wolf Blitzer speaking with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill about his controversial decision to release the Lockerbie bomber....(Watch Video)

This is the transcript of the interview that was conducted by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer after Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill released the murderer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi yesterday. The video was deemed “too controversial” and was never released. But thanks to the efforts of famed hacker trax8er (a long-time reader of this blog, apparently) we have it. Blitzer : Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Secretary MacAskill. MacAskill : It is my pleasure. We Scots are an open people and encourage curiosity. Blitzer : Releasing the man-made disaster maker Mohmed al-Megrahi was a very controversial move. Can you comment...

Relatives of those who died in the bombing of a US plane over Lockerbie voiced anger as the man convicted of the attack was welcomed home in Libya. Crowds in Tripoli greeted Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, after he was freed from prison on compassionate grounds. The son of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi called his release a courageous step by Scotland and Britain. But there was angry reaction from families of those killed in the bombing and from US President Barack Obama. Most of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie in 1988 were...

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago was returned to his native Libya on Thursday. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi covers his face as he boards a plane. "Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available," MacAskill said. He spoke to CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the case. Here is a transcript of that interview. Blitzer: And joining us now from Scotland, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. Mr. MacAskill, did Al Megrahi kill 270 people? MacAskill: Yes. He was convicted by a...

Over ferocious American objections, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie jet bombing, flew home to a jubilant welcome in Libya on Thursday night after the Scottish government ordered his release on compassionate grounds. Mr. Megrahi,57, a former Libyan intelligence agent, had served 8 years of a 27-year minimum sentence on charges of murdering 270people in Britain’s worst terrorist episode. Widely forecast in British news reports over the past week, his release angered many Americans whose relatives died in the bombing, leaving them to confront anew the agony and anguish of loss and to question...

Isn't this fantastic? Scotland releases the person responsible for killing 270 people on compassionate grounds and look at the hero's reception he gets: [VIDEO AT SITE] He was convicted and still claims he didn't do it but offers his sympathy to the families of those killed. Despite strenuous American opposition, the Scottish government on Thursday ordered the release on compassionate grounds of the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, permitting Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent, to return home after serving 8 years of a 27-year minimum sentence on charges of murdering 270 people in...

It is not just the reputation of Scottish justice that will suffer in America as a consequence of the release “on compassionate grounds” of Abdelbasat Ali Mohmen Al Megrahi. The credibility of Barack Obama’s influence on the world is going to take at least as hard a knock. In the end, all the protests and all the diplomatic pressure from the White House counted for nothing. Scotland’s determination to return Megrahi to the bosom of his family and his homeland was not going to be blocked. The rehabilitation of America’s standing in the world was going to be one of...

Scottish officials are in stitches over what has been called "one of the greatest ironic jokes in all of human history." Public outrage was pouring in from around the world over the decision by a high court to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Megrahi was convicted of masterminding the 1988 airline bombing which killed over 200 people.

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - A former Libyan agent jailed for life for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people flew home on Thursday after Scottish authorities released him because he is dying of cancer. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, believed to have less than three months to live, was freed on compassionate grounds, a decision strongly criticized by the United States, which had campaigned to keep him in prison. Many of the victims were Americans. "He is a dying man, he is terminally ill," Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill told a news conference. "My decision is that he returns home to die."

Here is video of family members of those who died in the 1988 Pan-Am Lockerbie Terrorist Bombing reacting to the release by Scotland of the Lockerbie Bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. They are outraged that he is being released and flown back to Libya to die with his family. He is suffering from Prostate Cancer. The United States has expressed disappointment in the decision to release him. . . . . (Watch Video)

The government of Scotland has decided to release convicted Lockerbie terrorist bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds." The government of the United Kingdom has washed its hands of the entire affair, allowing the Scottish government total freedom in taking this perfidious action against the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103. The actions of the Scottish government are inexcusable. A man who is responsible for the mass murder of 270 innocent civilians must be held accountable for such a cold blooded and ruthless act. Freeing a terrorist in order to further ties with the tyrannical Libyan regime...

Sky News has learned that the Lockerbie bomber will be released from prison on compassionate reasons and will go home to Libya to die.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has sponsored dozens of abortions for underage girls in Scotland in recent years. The Daily Record newspaper reports that 87 13-year-old girls and eight 12 year-olds as well as almost 3,000 girls under 15 had NHS abortions between 2000 and 2008. The government has responded to the statistics with promises of still more sex education in Scotland for young people, despite statistics demonstrating the failure of the strategy. Public Health Minister Shona Robison told media that the numbers were "cause for concern" and said that the government...

Stone carvings dating back centuries have been uncovered by an amateur archaeologist. The prehistoric artwork was found on the mountain of Ben Lawers in the Scottish Highlands by rock art enthusiast George Currie. The art is similar to other prehistoric pieces found in the area, consisting of depressions known as cup marks, or cup and ring marks, which are carved on rocks Helen Cole from the National Trust of Scotland admires the stone carvings found on a mountain in the Highlands Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1207118/Ancient-rock-art-revealed-Scottish-Highlands.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0OSucxbSU However, the newly-discovered rock is unusual as it bears a much higher concentration of the markings...

Archaeologists have discovered an early Bronze Age grave and artefacts at the site of a centuries old royal centre. The 4000-year-old burial chamber was uncovered near Forteviot, Perthshire. Few remains of the body were found, but the archaeologists said it would have lain on a bed of quartz pebbles in sand, in a large stone coffin. A bronze dagger with a gold band was discovered inside the grave, along with a leather bag, wooden objects and plant matter, which could be floral tributes. The discovery was made by archaeologists from Glasgow and Aberdeen universities. They found a large sandstone slab,...

The exhibit, Untitled 2009, is part of the Made In God's Image exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow and was thought up by local artist Anthony Schrag. The intention was for gays and transsexuals who felt left out of religion to "write their way back in" to the holy book.

Time for the year's 3rd major championship(already)and the only one of the 4 that is not played on this side of the Atlantic. This year's event takes us to the west coastline of Scotland, to Royal Turnberry Golf Club where I'm sure the weather will have a lot to do with who wins and who doesn't win. So what storyline is going to be written this time.....Can Padraig win for the 3rd year in a row? Is Tiger going to tie his buddy Roger and win his 15th Major? Can Greg Norman turn the fountain of youth on again, but...

Medieval Scottish soldiers fought wearing bright yellow war shirts dyed in horse urine rather than the tartan plaid depicted in the film Braveheart, according to new research. Historian Fergus Cannan states that the Scots armies who fought in battles like Bannockburn, and Flodden Field would have looked very different to the way they have traditionally been depicted. Instead of kilts, he said they wore saffron-coloured tunics called "leine croich" and used a range of ingredients to get the boldest possible colours.

A paedophile ring has been smashed after eight men were found guilty of a horrifying catalogue of more than 50 child pornography and abuse charges.Among the crimes was a shocking sexual attack carried out on a three-month-old baby boy by an executive adviser on child sex issues. James Rennie, chief executive of a publicly-funded gay rights group, was one of the men exposed yesterday as members of Scotland's biggest paedophile ring.   Rennie, 38, molested the toddler son of unsuspecting friends - a little boy he had been trusted to babysit - recording the abuse and sharing it with other...

A patient being treated in a Scottish hospital for swine flu has become the first in Britain to die from virus, the government has confirmed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5535075/First-UK-swine-flu-death-confirmed-in-Scotland.html

In just three hours of savage, face-to-face fighting in a Northumberland field, 15,000 men lost their lives in the most brutal of ways. The scale of the butchery in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden, near the village of Branxton, is astonishing in an age well before the mechanised killing capabilities of modern artillery. At the end, the Scots King James IV, most of his accompanying nobility and 10,000 of their countrymen lay dead. Now the first steps have been taken to plan how this momentous battle's 500th anniversary should be marked in just over four years' time. For the...

A THREE-TOED dinosaur which once roamed the Isle of Skye may have been the same species as one whose prints have been found in the Red Gulch mountains in Wyoming, paleontologists said yesterday. The 170 million-year-old tracks are so similar that Glasgow paleontologist Neil Clark believes the Wyoming dinosaurs may have swum or waded over to Skye – which at that time was part of an island off the east coast of America. US scientists now plan to put his theories to the test, using 3D mapping technology to compare both sets of footprints. Dr Clark, Curator of Paleontology at...

Experts are baffled over the discovery of fossilized, three-toed dinosaur tracks that have been found in both north-central Wyoming and on Scotland's coast, The Associated Press reported. Neil Clark, a paleontologist at the University of Glasgow, has not been able to identify any differences between the two sets of 170 million-year-old tracks even after a series of painstaking measurements and statistical analysis. He told AP that since the footprints in Wyoming and Scotland are so similar, they may have been produced by a very similar kind of dinosaur, if not the same species. Paleontologists have never been able to say...

LONDON - The Church of Scotland has approved the appointment of an openly homosexual minister - the latest case of tensions over sexuality to prompt division in the Anglican Communion. The church's ruling body voted Saturday by 326 to 267 to support the appointment of the Rev. Scott Rennie, 37, who was previously married to a woman and is now in a relationship with a man. Rennie was first appointed as a minister 10 years ago, but has faced opposition from some critics since he moved to a church in Aberdeen, Scotland, last year. The case threatens to divide Scottish...

Perhaps getting tired of talking about himself, the taxi-cab driver asked me my impressions of London; I mentioned it was my first time, my first few hours, here, and that it all seemed a bit too much. Then I asked, "What's the place furthest away from London, where one can go, where there's fewer people, fewer things? A lot fewer?" The taxi-cab driver commented this was January, not a prime touring season, and that one best stay in the south of England, with its [slightly] warmer weather and better amenities, if he was new to the country. I reminded him...

EDINBURGH, Scotland, May 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A ringleader of a pedophile ring unveiled in Scotland was a top advisor to the Scottish Executive on homosexual issues regarding children, reports the Daily Mail.LifeSiteNews.com reported Monday that James Rennie, the 38-year-old chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, was found guilty this month of molesting for four years an infant - beginning when the infant was 3-months-old - whom friends left with Rennie to babysit.  Rennie, who resigned from his position at LGBT Youth following his arrest late last year, lobbied for homosexual issues in the Scottish parliament, and has visited...

... “[Hitler] guessed correctly that the French had no stomach for a fight. If only they had, then the tragedy of a Second World War might have been avoided,” Mr Watson said in the sermon he delivered at Kirkmuirhill Church in Lanark. “To claim that the homosexual lifestyle is worthy of a child of God; to demand that a same-sex partnership be recognised as on a footing with marriage; to commend such a lifestyle to others is to deny that Jesus Christ is our only Sovereign and Lord. It is to turn the grace of God into a licence for...

IT IS set to be the biggest ever celebration of Scotland's history, culture and tradition. Clan members from dozens of countries have been urged to head to Edinburgh this summer for a festival celebrating the best of Scotland, "past and present". But the thousands flocking to the capital for the world's biggest clan gathering this summer have today been told they risk arrest and up to two years in jail – for brandishing weapons.

NOT a brick has been laid to build the first distillery on the island where Whisky Galore! was filmed – but connoisseurs have already signed up to reserve the entire batch of its first-year casks. Peter Brown will begin building the distillery on Barra in the autumn. The distillery, costing more than £1 million, will make about 5,000 gallons of Isle of Barra Single Malt Whisky a year using water from Loch Uisge, the island's highest loch.

The Scottish Government has defended its decision not to tell hundreds of concertgoers that Britain's first swine flu victim was in the audience days before being diagnosed. Newlywed Iain Askham, 27, went to see rock band Doves at an Edinburgh venue on April 23 after returning from his honeymoon in Cancun, Mexico. Mr Askham was among the crowd at the 1,500-capacity HMV Picture House in Lothian Road two days after flying home, but told The People newspaper he had been advised not to reveal he had been at the concert. He said: "I told them everything when I was in...

LONDON – They went to Mexico for their honeymoon, they came back with swine flu. A Scottish couple who are Britain's first confirmed cases of swine flu had just returned from their Mexican honeymoon, neighbors confirmed Tuesday. Dawn and Iain Askham became ill over the weekend, a few days after returning from Cancun. .

A SCOTTISH Muslim convert, dubbed the "Tartan Taleban", has re-emerged in Pakistan where he has reportedly been arrested as a terror suspect. Pakistan television paraded images of a man said to be James Alexander McLintock, who had been detained in the north-west city of Peshawar in late February. The 44-year-old father of four, originally from Dundee, converted to Islam in his 20s but came to international attention in December 2001 when he was arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of being a foreign fighter. Mr McLintock was released five weeks later after strenuous denials of links to terror organisations and sent...

FOR more than 60 years Steven Brandon has lived peacefully in rural Berwickshire, an ordinary existence in stark contrast to his life as Istvan Bujdosoin in war-torn Hungary during the Second World War. At his modest prefab bungalow in the small village of Earlston, the elderly Hungarian spoke about his police service in his homeland and recalled the most tumultuous period of his life to refute what he views as a grossly unfair and baseless accusation. A small, thin man with sharp features and large round glasses, Brandon is remarkably sprightly and sharp-minded for his age and remains proud of...

AMATEUR archaeologists have uncovered evidence of Scotland's oldest human settlement, dating back 14,000 years. The team dug up tools that have been shown to date from the end of the last Ice Age. It is the first time there has been proof that humans lived in Scotland during the upper paleolithic period.

Scientific evidence of an ancient invasion of Scotland from Ireland may have been uncovered by DNA techniques. Researchers from Edinburgh University said studies of Scots living on Islay, Lewis, Harris and Skye found strong links with Irish people. Early historical sources recount how the Gaels came from Ireland about 500 AD and conquered the Picts in Argyll. Scientists said the study was the first demonstration of a significant Irish genetics component in Scots' ancestry. The research, which features work by geneticist Dr Jim Wilson, a specialist in population genetics, is being featured in programmes on Gaelic television channel BBC Alba....

The annual Scotland Week celebration in North America is to kick off with Hollywood star Alan Cumming leading a parade through New York. The star of the X-Men 2 movie has been chosen as grand marshal of the Tartan Day parade. He will be joined by students from his former drama school, as well as politicians and celebrities. Further events are planned in cities including Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago and Toronto. The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama recently announced former student Cumming as the president of its new American Foundation. In that role the actor will work...

Edinburgh, Scotland (LifeNews.com) -- Scotland MSP Margo MacDonald has narrowed her bill that would legalize assisted suicide, but the measure still targets the disabled. MacDonald is hoping to get a private member's bill introduced at Holyrood this year, and she has narrowed the scope of the bill to attract more support. The Scottish Parliament, the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, has not been receptive to the legislation thus far. MacDonald originally had only four members of the parliament behind her effort. To get more MSPs on her side, she modified her bill to only allow assisted suicides for three...

Scottish government to withhold results of homosexual adoption study Cardinal Keith O'Brien Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Mar 13, 2009 / 01:49 am (CNA).- The Scottish Government is drawing criticism for saying that the results of an official investigation into the effects of homosexual adoption in Scotland will not be made public. The announcement comes soon after Cardinal Keith O’Brien urged the government to promote adoption rather than permit same-sex couples to foster children.In 2006 the Scottish Government passed laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt. The government is now working to permit same-sex couples to become foster parents.Scottish Ministers began an investigation...

The 15th century explorer who opened up the American continents to Europe was actually called Pedro Scotto - not Christopher Columbus - and his family originally hailed from Scotland, a Spanish historian has claimed. Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga has disputed conventionally-accepted narratives on the explorer's origins - that he was the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, or that he was from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain. In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher," Mr Villalonga told Spain's ABC newspaper on Sunday. And his...

LONDON (AFP) – They may be cute and cuddly but that won't be enough to save grey squirrels in northern Scotland after the launch on Monday of Britain's largest ever culling campaign of a mammal. Naturalists and landowners are joining forces to rid northern Scotland of the squirrels, arguing they carry a deadly pox virus and threaten the smaller native red squirrel. Scotland is one of the few safe havens left for the red squirrel whose numbers have been in slow decline throughout Britain since the arrival of its stronger, disease-carrying cousin from North America in the 1870s. "The red...