Medvedev’s Improbable Mission: Mediating Peace with Gaddafi

On Thursday, as NATO war planes prepared fresh strikes against the compound of Muammar Gaddafi, his prime minister, Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, put in an urgent call to Moscow. After months of civil war, he said, Gaddafi was ready to negotiate a ceasefire and he needed Russia to mediate the talks

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Lockerbie bomber: I prayed to ‘see my parents before I die’

"I am praying every day that I will see my parents before I die," the Lockerbie bomber wrote in a plea to be set free from a Scottish jail, previously secret documents released Tuesday by the Scottish government show. The handwritten letter from Abdelbeset al Megrahi to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was published as the Scottish and British governments fight back against allegations al Megrahi was released as part of a deal involving Libyan oil. Al Megrahi was released last month on the grounds that he has terminal cancer.

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Iraq says ex-Baathist confesses to Finance Ministry attack

Iraqi officials Sunday released what they called a confession from a man identified as a former Baathist police official, who says he helped organize one of last week’s attacks on government buildings in Baghdad. In the videotaped statement, the man identified himself as Wissam Ali Kadhim Ibrahim, a former police chief in executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s government. Ibrahim said he received orders for the bombing of the Finance Ministry building from a member of Hussein’s Baath Party now living in Syria

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Argentina protests Ahmadinejad cabinet choice

Jewish groups and the Argentine government condemned Friday the nomination of a man accused in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish center to serve as Iran’s defense minister. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated Ahmad Vahidi to fill the cabinet position on Wednesday, which drew a rebuke from Jewish leaders in Buenos Aires, including one from the Delegation of Israeli-Argentine Associations, or DAIA

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UK minister condemns Lockerbie bomber’s ‘hero’s welcome’

It was "deeply distressing" and "deeply upsetting" to see the convicted Lockerbie bomber get a hero’s welcome in Libya, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Friday. The way Libya handles the return of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi will determine its place on the world stage, Miliband said. Al Megrahi, 57, was freed Thursday from the Scottish prison where he had been serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

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