New questions over Lockerbie bomber

Posted by Jamie at 6 24 AM on Sunday, July 25

THE AMERICAN government secretly told Scottish Ministers they wanted the Lockerbie bomber to be freed.
New documents uncovered last night showed Barack Obama’s administration said they wanted to see Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi set free instead of being transferred to a Libyan prison.

The letter was sent to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US Embassy in London

It states: “If Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer.”

And it questions the US President’s claim last week that Americans were “surprised, disappointed and angry” at the bomber’s release from jail.
The Americans wanted the Lockerbie bomber to remain in Scotland if he was freed.

But the letter shows they were involved in discussions before he was freed.
The revelation comes as a US Senate inquiry into the scandal considers demanding access to al-Megrahi’s medical records.

Senators want to find out if he really was released because he was dying from cancer, or if it was part of an oil deal.

Al-Megrahi was jailed for life after>>>

Lebanon To Raise Israeli Spying At UN

7/22/2010 6:55 AM ET

(RTTNews) - Lebanon is reported to be planning to file a complaint about Israeli "espionage" at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), viewing it as a violation to Resolution 1701, according to the country's Information Minister.

Tareq Mitri said on Wednesday that the Cabinet had agreed to present a "detailed report" about Israeli "espionage" to the UNSC later this week.

The move follows the arrest of two employees, both technicians, from the state-owned Alfa phone company. They could face the death penalty if convicted of spying.

Mitri told reporters following the Cabinet meeting at the Baabda Presidential Palace that the government also agreed to form a supervisory committee for telecommunications along with another to monitor the Telecommunications Control Centers.

More than 50 people were arrested since an investigation was launched into allegations of spying by Israeli agents inside Lebanon in April 2009.

Two other people have already been sentenced by a military court to death for espionage. One of the condemned, Hassan Ahmed al-Hussein, was convicted of giving Israel the names and addresses of Hezbollah officials in the southern village of Qantara.

A second man, Ali Manstash,>>>

Fallout continues over bashing of U.N. chief

By Evan Buxbaum, CNN

United Nations (CNN) -- The United Nations remained abuzz Wednesday as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon returned to New York headquarters days after an internal report from a senior staffer sharply chastised him.

Ban, fresh from a trip to Afghanistan, met with British Prime Minister David Cameron Wednesday afternoon. But those discussions have taken a back seat to the controversy surrounding a leaked 50-page memo from the outgoing U.N. anti-corruption director.

Swedish diplomat Inga-Britt Ahlenius wrote in the memo that the U.N. is "drifting into irrelevance" under Ban's supervision.

Ahlenius wrote that the U.N. seems "to be seen less and less as a relevant partner in the resolution of world problems," saying Ban has led his office into a "process of decay."

One Western diplomat voiced concern Wednesday that Ahlenius' personal attacks against Ban undermine her case, saying that Ban has in fact shown good leadership in some areas. But if there are systemic problems within the U.N., said the diplomat, they should be pointed out and addressed.

The secretary-general's spokesperson,>>>

U.N. Ignores Its Own Freeze on Deals With Alleged Somali Food Distribution 'Cartel'

By George Russell

Published July 23, 2010

| FoxNews.com

At the time, it looked like a bold attempt to contain a hemorrhaging humanitarian scandal.

On March 10, 2010 — the same day it was slammed in a report to the United Nations for "irregular" procedures in supplying food to war-ravaged Somalia — the embattled World Food Program promised it "would not engage in any new work" with three Somali food distributors alleged in the report to operate a "de facto cartel" dominating the relief agency's food delivery business.

Yet two months later, on May 11, 2010, according to WFP documents examined by Fox News, the U.N. relief agency signed off on deals to pay more than $75,000 to at least one of the embargoed firms, for "transportation/logistical services," even though WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran's announced freeze on business with the company was still in force.

According to a WFP spokesman, a detailed review of WFP's Somalia operations is "expected to start this month," under the auspices of the Auditor General of India, who has just begun serving a term as the relief organization's external, i.e., independent, auditor.

The spokesman added that "it will be left to WFP's executive board>>>

U.N.'s Global Warming Report Under Fresh Attack for Rainforest Claims

Updated January 28, 2010
By Gene J. Koprowski

- FOXNews.com

A United Nations report on climate change that has been lambasted for its faulty research is under new attack for yet another instance of what critics say is sloppy science -- guiding global warming policy based on a study of forest fires.

A United Nations report on climate change that has been lambasted for its faulty research is under new attack for yet another instance of what its critics say is sloppy science -- adding to a growing scandal that has undermined the credibility of scientists and policymakers who back the U.N.'s findings about global warming.

In the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), issued in 2007 by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists wrote that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest in South America was endangered by global warming.

But that assertion was discredited this week when>>>

Climate Flimflam Flaming Out

Posted 01/25/2010 07:02 PM ET

Environment: The United Nations makes a claim that can't be supported by science, and U.S. researchers ignore temperature data from frigid regions. The crack-up of the global warming fraud is picking up speed.

With so much of the science behind climate change coming under attack, especially among scientists, it's been a harsh winter for the global warming crowd:

• In late November, thousands of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were leaked to the public. The evidence strongly suggests that researchers colluded to prove the global warming scientific "consensus" by rigging, burying and destroying data that ran counter to their political agenda.

• Last week, the public learned that claims made by the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change were not based on science, but on speculation. Specifically, the IPCC's 2007 report said the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035 due to man-made global warming.

The claim, used at the U.N. Copenhagen climate change conference in cold and snowy December to rush through a restrictive greenhouse-gas-emissions treaty, was not based on a scientific study. It was based on a telephone call that a reporter had with a scientist who was speculating.

The IPCC has withdrawn the claim.>>>

United Nations' Climate Chief Must Go

Posted 01/27/2010 07:00 PM ET

Pachauri: Creating a climate of fraud. AP View Enlarged Image

Global Warming: If we're serious about restoring science to its rightful place, the head of the U.N.'s panel on climate change should step down. Evidence shows he quarterbacked a deliberate and premeditated fraud.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been forced to back off its now-discredited claim that the Himalayan glaciers would soon disappear. But it's not true, the panel's vice chairman, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, told the BBC, that it was simply a "human mistake."

The panel's chairman, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who was forced to admit the claim had no basis in observable scientific fact, said its inclusion was merely a "poor application" of IPCC procedures, acting as if the original source of the claim, Indian scientist Dr. Syed Hasnain, was a total stranger.

In fact, as Christopher Booker of the London Telegraph>>>