Read the Lockerbie bombing verdict

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 on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

Read the original verdict against Abdel Basset al-Megrahi below, from FindLaw.com

from Africa News blog:

Africa back to the old ways?

The overthrow of Madagascar’s leader may have had nothing to do with events elsewhere in Africa, but after four violent changes of power within eight months the question is bound to arise as to whether the continent is returning to old ways.

Three years without coups between 2005 and last year had appeared to some, including foreign investors, to have indicated a fundamental change from the first turbulent decades after independence. This spate of violent overthrows could now be another reason for investors to tread more warily again, particularly as Africa feels the impact of the global financial crisis.

"Although I don't think these instances of instability in Africa are related to each other or part of a pattern, I think there's no doubt external constituents and businesspeople around the world will assume there is a pattern," said Tom Cargill, Africa Programme Coordinator at London thinktank Chatham House.

The fact that coup makers have succeeded without being forced to step down or even face major censure could also embolden those who might be tempted to take power in bigger countries, where falling growth is encouraging disaffection.

from Africa News blog:

Gaddafi keeps African leaders talking

Despite the extremely tight security at this week's African Union summit in Ethiopia, one brief lapse gave some journalists covering the meeting a very rare glimpse behind the scenes.

Reporters at the annual meeting in Addis Ababa are normally kept well away from the heads of state, except for the occasional carefully managed press conference, or a brief word thrown in our direction as they sweep past in the middle of a phalanx of sharp-elbowed, scowling bodyguards.

As the talks dragged well past midnight on Tuesday, long after the summit was scheduled to end, a European diplomat approached me and a colleague: "Want to see something interesting?"

Leading us down an outside staircase, we were suddenly confronted with the sight of dozens of African leaders consulting in private.

from Africa News blog:

Will Gaddafi bring change to African Union?

Libya's often controversial leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has finally won the top seat at the African Union and promised to accelerate his drive for a United States of Africa, but it seems doubtful that even his presence in the rotating chairmanship will do anything to overcome the reluctance of many African nations to accelerate moves towards a federal government.

Gaddafi, a showman whose fiery, often rambling speeches, sometimes unconventional behaviour and colourful robes are always a scene stealer at international gatherings, has been pushing for a pan-regional govenrment for years. But like his previous, three-decade drive to to promote Arab unity, it has not aroused much enthusiasm in many quarters. All the AU's 53 states have said they agree in principle but estimates for how long this will take vary from nine years to 35.

Gaddafi was installed as chairman on Monday, the first time he has headed the AU or its discredited predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity although his aides say he has rejected the role twice before, preferring to work as a backroom reformer. He vowed in his inaugural speech to push forward with his pet project and said if there was not a majority opposed at the next summit in July, this would mean the idea was approved - somewhat discordant with the AU's traditional way of making decisions by consensus. AU leaders were berated by Gaddafi at a three-day summit in Ghana in 2007 for not agreeing to immediate union but braved his scorn and did not reach a deal. Regional economic power South Africa, with its considerable clout, leads the group of reluctant nations.

Austria’s Haider: a hero beyond the grave?

He may have died in a car crash last month whilst drunk, but Austrian rightist Joerg Haider is not gone.

Haider, who was enmeshed in nearly every part of Austrian political life, is now being hailed for his efforts to help two Austrian hostages being held in the Sahara months before his death.

According to a newly-published e-mail, Haider asked the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in March for help in freeing Andrea Kloiber and Wolfgang Ebner, who disappeared in February while on holiday in Tunisia. They are believed to have been held by al Qaeda’s North African wing.

The hostages were released last week, several months after Haider wrote to his close friend Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The Austrian Foreign Ministry said Libya only helped in initial negotiations but not the eventual release.

Gaddafi and Lukashenko – coming in from the cold?

Posted by Andrei Makhovsky and Salah Sarrar

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi found they had plenty in common when they met in Minsk this week.

Both their  countries have started to come in from the cold after years of international isolation and sanctions that were imposed on their countries because of their policies. They also share a vision of a multi-polar world to counterbalance U.S. influence.

But despite their efforts to improve ties with the West, they could not avoid a dig at Washington.

Gaddafi – No longer “Mad Dog” of Middle East

Once called the “mad dog of the Middle East” by President Ronald Reagan, Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi will meet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week.

Senior State Department official David Welch told reporters he had met Gaddafi — “a person of personality and experience” — several times. 

“We don’t refer to Colonel Gaddafi in those terms today,” said Welch when asked about Reagan’s derogatory reference. 

He anticipated Rice, America’s most senior diplomat, was “quite capable” of meeting with Gaddafi and looking after U.S. interests. 

Could hotel scandal threaten Kenya’s government?

Kenya’s parliament and critics are calling loudly for Finance Minister Amos Kimunya to be fired for his role in the secretive government sale of a luxury hotel under murky circumstances. Pressure is mounting for Kimunya to resign or for his political patron, President Mwai Kibaki, to fire him over the sale of the Grand Regency hotel to a company that includes Libyan investors and at least one senior Kenya Central Bank employee.

The matter has tested the government set up in a power-sharing deal to end a bloody post election crisis

Kimunya denies wrongdoing and says the price offered was too good to resist. Political opponents and others have said that the value was drastically low, but straight answers about who bought it, how the deal came about and who is benefiting have not been forthcoming or given when asked for by the public or the press.

It hasn’t helped Kimunya’s situation that the Grand Regency first came to public scorn in the early 1990s when the man at the heart of the country’s longest running corruption scandal bought it with what the government says was stolen Central Bank money. That scandal, the Goldenberg affair, nearly brought the country’s economy to its knees and became the symbol for most in the east African nation of the impunity with which politicians and a small politically connected elite can steal public assets. Adding to Kenyan frustration is the fact that many of the players from that era are still active in politics or remain in the small club of the connected. For example, the lawyer who handled the sale of the Grand Regency in 1994 to accused Goldenberg architect Kamlesh Pattni is now a government minister and is on the commission investigating the new case. Also on that commission is Justice Aaron Ringera, who earns 2.5 million Kenya shillings ($37,820) per month in his job as the head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission – and Kimunya was on the panel that awarded Ringera that job.