Free Republic

Taliban told US it would give up Osama - middleman By Mark Trevelyan BERLIN, June 4 (Reuters) - U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the September 11 attacks to discuss terms for the Afghans to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary. But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001, which bin Laden subsequently hailed in a videotape as the work of his al Qaeda network. ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a...

Investigators into the collapse of the Italian dairy giant Parmalat are turning the spotlight on America's big investment banks. Italian magistrates and officials from the powerful Securities and Exchange Commission are examining the role of lenders to Parmalat - which collapsed into administration last month following the disclosure of an €8 billion (£5.6bn) hole in its finances. These lenders include some of the US's largest financial institutions. An SEC source said that while at this stage an investigation did not imply wrongdoing by the investment banks, it was focusing on placements of notes and bonds in the US. But he...