BBC News with David Legge
An American report investigating the decision by the Scottish government to release the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing says he was freed for political reasons and under what it calls the "threat of commercial warfare". Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed from prison in August last year after the Scottish government said his cancer meant he only had three months to live. One of the US senators who commissioned the report, Robert Menendez, flatly disputed that.
"The Lockerbie bomber was released without medical justification. Two, al-Megrahi was released because of a combination of commercial and political pressures exerted by the Libyans and private commercial interests on the Scottish and British governments. The United Kingdom responded to the threat of Libyan commercial warfare and lobbying by BP with pressure on Scotland. The Scottish government engaged Libya and the United Kingdom in the matter of releasing al-Megrahi."
The Scottish government has wholly rejected the US report.
The man who, most international observers said, lost the recent presidential election in Ivory Coast, the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, has appeared on state television, saying that he is the country's legitimate president. It's the first time he's spoken on national TV, which he controls, since the political crisis erupted. Mr Gbagbo offered to let an international panel examine the crisis. He said his rival Alassane Ouattara should leave the hotel where he is based, protected by United Nations peacekeepers.