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The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has made an outspoken attack on the United States over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Cardinal Keith O'Brien said the Scottish government was right to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi last year on compassionate grounds. US lawmakers want Scottish politicians to explain to a Senate committee their decision to release Megrahi. But the cardinal said ministers should not go crawling to the US like lapdogs. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish government's justice secretary, released Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, after being told that three months was a "reasonable estimate" of his life...

A SPECIALIST who examined the Lockerbie bomber revealed yesterday that he warned the Scottish Government that the cancer which won the Libyan his freedom would not kill him within three months. The warning, revealed to The Sunday Express by Professor Jonathan Waxman of the Hammersmith Hospital, London, heaps further pressure on Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to justify the decision to release terrorist Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds 11 months ago.

Bush's second coup aids election race By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 21 December 2003 The announcement by Libya has given President Bush his second coup in a week and delivered a resounding blow against Howard Dean, the man most likely to be his challenger in next year's presidential race. When Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole near Tikrit last weekend, Mr Dean pointed out that his capture had done nothing to make America safer - an analysis shared by many observers. Just six days later, however, the White House has been able to respond with what was presented as...

The buck (or the pound, in this case) stops at the desk of perpetually embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. According to numerous reports in newspapers in the U.K. and worldwide, a clandestine oil-for-prisoners deal with Libya facilitated the recent “compassionate release” of convicted terrorist Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from the Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence for having bombed a commercial airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.Despite weeks of Brown’s denials and pretended offense at the very suggestion that either his government or the government of Scotland would ever make such a behind-the-scenes...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya made clear on Saturday it wanted to come in from the cold after decades as a pariah state, and the United States and Britain promised to reward its decision to abandon banned weapons programs. Almost 15 years to the day since its agents brought down a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Muammar Gaddafi's state opened the prospect of an end to sanctions and a return of U.S. oil firms with a pledge on Friday to stop seeking weapons of mass destruction. Britain said it had been close to an atomic bomb. Some U.S. officials cautioned that...

US government has accused Britain of legitimising the Gaddafi regime after the massacre of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in Libya. Louis Susman, the US ambassador to London, suggested moves to repair relations with the Libyan dictator had only served to give him "greater stature" on the world stage while campaigners condemned the rapprochement as a failure. Mr Susman said: “I would suggest that to deal with him, to give him greater stature, greater ability on the world front to look like he is a good citizen is a mistake.” Up to 300 demonstrators are thought to have been killed after...

January 30, 2004Iraqi WMD Debate and Intelligence: the Links to LibyaAnaysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. Discussion and analysis of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs relating to the former Iraqi Administration of Pres. Saddam Hussein has seriously — and virtually from the beginning — missed the point. By focusing entirely on Iraqi WMD programs within the physical borders of Iraq, and by refusing to discuss contextual issues, the arguments missed the point that the bulk of the Iraqi WMD work since 1991 was conducted outside the borders of the country, this being a result of the lesson which...

Does anyone have a source to a list of worldwide attacks attributed to Alqaeda or other terrorist groups? I have a debate going with someone who feels that the US "deserved" 911. I'd like to run down a list, one by one, of terrorist attacks around the world to find whether they feel that they were also deserved, or whether they are biased against the US.

Anti-war protesters hurled shoes and eggs at Tony Blair on Saturday as he held the first public signing of his fast-selling memoir. Scores of demonstrators chanted that Blair had "blood on his hands" as the former British prime minister arrived at a Dublin book store. A shoe, eggs and other projectiles were thrown toward Blair as he emerged from a car, but did not hit him. A flip-flop could be seen lying on the roof of a BMW in Blair's motorcade. Security was tight for the signing, with book buyers - who appeared to outnumber the 200 or so protesters...

The former prime minister said it was true that "people commit horrific acts of evil in the name of religion". But Mr Blair, who converted to Catholicism after leaving government in 2007, said it was also true that religion inspires acts of extraordinary good. Sceptic Mr Hitchens, who has terminal cancer, likened God to a "celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea". He appeared to win over the audience, which voted two-to-one in his favour following the debate, which argued the motion "be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world".

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...

Tony Blair used his final foreign trip as prime minister to sign a confidential deal with Muammar Gaddafi to train Libyan special forces and supply him with Nato secrets. A copy of the accord obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows that the two leaders agreed to co-operate on defence matters in a range of areas, including exchanging information about defence structures and technology. It was signed during the former Labour prime minister’s “Blair-well” tour of Africa in May 2007, in Gaddafi’s tent in the Libyan desert. Included in the document was an agreement on “co-operation in the training of specialised...

June 10, 2002 Mandela calls for new Lockerbie appeal by pa news Nelson Mandela today called for a fresh appeal in the case of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi. His comments came after meeting al-Megrahi for more than an hour at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison. Mr Mandela also called for consideration to be given to al-Megrahi serving his life term in a Muslim country like Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt. "Megrahi is all alone," Mr Mandela told a packed press conference in the prison's visitors' room. "He has nobody he can talk to. It is a psychological persecution that a man...

A high-profile conversion begs the question: what are these women seeking that they could not find under liberty? Very recently Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, journalist Lauren Booth, embraced the faith after what she described as a “holy experience” in Iran. Based on what Ayaan Hirsi Ali has described as the brutal, totalistic character of Islam, one is obliged to ask why any modern career woman would opt for conversion to the Muslim religion. After all, as so many autobiographies of Muslim women note, the religion bans anything that is fun (“haram,” or forbidden). No chewing of gum, no bicycle riding, no...

The sister in law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has converted to Islam. Lauren Booth, the half sister of Blair's wife, Cherie, said she decided to convert to Islam after undergoing a “spiritual experience” in the Iranian city of Qom several months ago. Booth said that she avoids alcohol and pork, prays five times a day, and wears a full-length Muslim hijab when she leaves the house. She also reads the Quran every day. “I'm up to page 60,” she told reporters.

Tony Blair uses his new book to expose Gordon Brown as a manipulative figure who lost a winnable election by abandoning the principles of New Labour. The former prime minister’s memoir discloses that a “maddening” Mr Brown effectively blackmailed him while he was in No 10. He suspects the then chancellor of orchestrating the investigation into the cash-for-honours scandal. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at a Labour Party rally The pressure on Mr Blair to step aside became so great that he admits he may have become reliant on alcohol as he faced coup attempts from Mr Brown’s supporters. He...

Dick Cheney wanted to invade several Middle East nations, not just Iraq, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals in his new book. Blair writes that the former Vice President had a goal to remake the power structure of several countries in that part of the world. Cheney "would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran, dealing with all their surrogates in the course of it -- Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.," Blair wrote in his memoir, "A Journey." The former PM told Christiane Amanpour on ABC's "This Week" that Cheney, 69, believed "the world had to be remade after...

Intense political pressures and "commercial warfare" waged by the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi led to last year’s release of the "unrepentant terrorist" who blew up Pam Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, according to a new report prepared by four U.S. senators. The report is being released Tuesday, 22 years to the day after a terrorist bomb exploded aboard the Pan Am airliner, killing 270 people — including 189 Americans — in one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11. An advance copy of the report – titled "Justice Undone: The Release of the Lockerbie Bomber"...

The sister-in-law of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair has said a rise in the number of Muslims in Britain would be "good for the country". And she told a conference in Colchester, Essex, that since becoming a Muslim she was a "better worker" and a "better mother" to her two daughters. She told the University of Essex's annual Islamic Conference that Britons were "seeking not to be afraid" of Muslims and wanted Muslims "to be happy". Ms Booth said she had been "scared" of Arabs, and "probably" of Muslims. She said that given the amount of "one-sided news" people...

The whole story of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is evidence of the shifty conduct of those supposed to represent us but who in reality disgrace themselves and their offices. Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on the grounds that he had terminal cancer and would die within three months. Here he is a year later, at home and apparently thriving. A cancer specialist, Dr. Karol Sikora, examined him and is the one who gave him three months. It turns out that the Libyan authorities paid him, and he says now that Megrahi might live ten or even twenty...