Libya, UK police allow Lockerbie checkpoint: Minister

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - said British police to investigate the Libyan Government Libya, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the unresolved 1984 killing of a police officer in London will go, a British Minister on Thursday.
Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt, who with Libyan Minister in Tripoli last week talks, said that the Libyan Government had fresh conduct permission for British police investigations in the two shadowy episodes occurred under the reign of late strongman Muammar al-Gaddafi.

"I have absolute confidence that the police of Dumfries and Galloway (in Scotland) and the Metropolitan Police (in London) go back to Libya to their studies once again going to get and they get a positive way of the Libyan authorities," Burt Reuters said in a telephone interview.

Burt, the Foreign Office said the Ministers responsible for North Africa and the Middle East, or no date had been set for a visit to the police, noting that the Libyan authorities had to deal with a lot of other problems in a turbulent post-Gaddafi transition.

But he said that in his talks with Libyan Interior Minister Fawzi Abd al am all and Foreign Minister Ashour Hayal, both had recognised the importance of the so-called "legacy" issues.

The bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland include the killing of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London and Libyan aid for Irish Republican Army guerrillas in 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

Fletcher, 25, died after triggered by a shot of the Embassy during a demonstration against Gaddafi. After a siege of 11-tägigen 30 Libyans at the Embassy were carried off and no one was ever accused of their murder.
Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was in 2001 a "significant role in planning and committing" condemned the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

He shared was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum prison 27 years, but returned to Libya in August 2009 after liberation from a Scottish jail on the grounds that he was suffering from prostate cancer in late stage. He is still alive.

The decision angered many victims relatives and asked strained traditionally strong relations between Britain and the United States, with some US politicians, safe giant BP contracts in Libya help whether it had developed for oil.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who took office in May 2010, called the publication an error. However, Scotland has responsibility for their own legislation after decentralisation 1999.

A British newspaper knew the whereabouts of a former diplomat for the Fletcher wanted to kill Libyan officials said in August. In the same month were officials from Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) contradictory statements, whether they all suspect abroad be tried would allow.

Great Britain played a leading role of NATO's air campaign, which helped to topple NTC fighters Gaddafi in August.
(Reporting by Adrian Croft)

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2:06 PM | 0 comments

Robert Wagner not suspect in Natalie Wood's death: police

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Actress Natalie Wood in undated photo.

Credit: Reuters/File

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES | Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:00pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Homicide detectives who have reopened an inquiry into the death Natalie Wood said on Friday that the film star's husband, actor Robert Wagner, was not considered a suspect in the case.

The new investigation was opened into Wood's 1981 drowning off the California coast after a yacht captain said that he lied about the incident three decades ago and now holds Wagner responsible for her death.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Lt. John Corina told reporters at a news conference on Friday that the original finding that Wood's death was an accidental drowning had not changed.

But detectives had reopened the investigation based on new information from several sources "which we felt was substantial enough to make us take another look at this case," Corina said.

Asked by reporters if Wagner, who is now 81, was considered a suspect, Corina responded: "No."

In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, yacht captain Dennis Davern said Wagner fought with Wood, 43, shortly before she went missing from the "Splendour" and Wagner showed little interest in trying to find her.

Wood had spent the night dining and drinking with Wagner, and her "Brainstorm" co-star Christopher Walken.

Her body was found floating in a Catalina Island cove off the coast of California on November 29, 1981. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning, noting that Wood had been drinking and was intoxicated when she died.

Questions over the circumstances surrounding her death have lingered for 30 years.

A spokesman for Wagner has said that the actor's family had not been contacted by the sheriff's officials but "fully supports" the department's efforts.

The family members trust that the sheriff's department "will evaluate whether any new information relating to the death of Natalie Wood Wagner is valid and that it comes from a credible source or sources, other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death," spokesman Alan Nierob said in the statement.

The department has asked that anyone with information about Wood's drowning contact sheriff's homicide investigators or an anonymous tip line.

Wood, who was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko to Russian immigrant parents in San Francisco, appeared as a child in such films as the Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."

She was nominated for a best supporting actress Academy Award as a teenager for her role opposite screen legend James Dean in the classic 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause."

Wood was also nominated twice for best actress Oscars, for parts in the 1961 film "Splendor in the Grass" and "Love with the Proper Stranger" two years later. She never won the award.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

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6:27 PM | 0 comments

Anti-Wall Street protesters dig in against police

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1 of 3. People walk around an Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall in Oakland, California, November 11, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Kim White

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES |

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tensions were rising at anti-Wall Street protests in three western U.S. cities on Friday as demonstrators in Portland, Salt Lake City and Oakland defied orders by police to dismantle their camps.

In Portland, police said they had received reports that protesters were digging a reinforced hole and fashioning make-shift weapons out of wood and nails after Mayor Sam Adams gave them until midnight on Saturday to clear out of two downtown parks.

Police said they believed Occupy Portland organizers had also put out a call for reinforcements from Oakland, Seattle and San Francisco as they prepared for a confrontation.

"There may even be as many as 150 anarchists who will arrive soon," Portland police said in a written statement.

"There is information that people may be in the trees during a police action and that there are people who are attempting to obtain a large number of gas masks," the statement said.

Occupy Portland organizers, who say their encampment numbers between 500 and 800 people, denied that they were making weapons or recruiting anarchists for a pitched battle and insisted that they were a nonviolent movement.

Still, while a few protesters trickled out of the two main camps in downtown Portland as the deadline approached, hundreds remained hunkered down in their tents on a chilly Friday night in the Pacific northwest.

In Salt Lake City, meanwhile, protest organizers vowed to resist an order by police chief Chris Burbank clear out of Pioneer Park in downtown by 30 minutes after sundown Saturday.

Burbank said he had had enough after an unidentified and possibly homeless man was found dead in his tent there, possibly of carbon monoxide poisoning from a propane heater and a drug overdose.

'I'M GOING TO FIGHT'

"We can no longer tolerate individuals camping on our streets. We can no longer care for individuals camping here," Burbank told protesters. "I commit to work with you to find avenues that you can express your free speech. It just can't be done through camping in our streets and in our parks."

But protest organizer Jesse Fruwirth told Reuters that a number of protest members were willing to remain in the park and face arrest on Saturday night if the city could not be persuaded to let them stay.

"We were caught off guard this afternoon. We believed we had a cooperative relationship with the city," he said following an impromptu press conference and candlelight vigil.

Homeless protester Nathan Clark, meanwhile, told Reuters he had found a safe haven in the park after years in foster homes and on the streets and "us being shut down isn't cool."

"I'm staying here," Clark, 18, said. "I'm going to fight this cause. I'm going to stay my ground."

And in Oakland, where police and protesters have clashed several times over the past few weeks, organizers said they intended to stay in Frank Ogawa Plaza near city hall despite increasing pressure by authorities.

On Friday night, police handed out fliers at the Occupy Oakland encampment putting demonstrators on notice that they were violating the law by camping and having open fires.

The warnings came one day after a man was shot to death not far from the plaza, prompting the Oakland police officers union to release an open letter asking protesters to pack up and leave.

But protesters, who say the shooting was unrelated to them, took shelter in their tents on Friday night as a steady rain fell over the Bay Area, showing no signs of leaving.

Police forcibly removed tents and drove protesters out of Frank Ogawa Plaza on October 25, only for demonstrators to return later to reclaim the public square outside City Hall.

Police and protesters clashed again the following week after a day of largely peaceful citywide rallies and marches that forced a brief shutdown of the Port of Oakland.

(Additional reporting by Teresa Carson, James Nelson, Noel Randewich, Jim Christie, Dan Levine, James Nelson, Alex Dobuzinskis and Mary Slosson)

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6:04 AM | 0 comments