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Moammar Gadhafi and Hugo Chavez urged nearly 30 leaders from throughout Africa and South America on Saturday to form a strong intercontinental alliance to make the two regions a new global power. Gadhafi proposed a defense alliance of South American and African nations, calling it "a NATO of the South" -- an idea Chavez has raised with other allies in the past. Seven South American leaders signed an agreement to create a regional development bank with $20 billion in startup capital, and Chavez offered to help create a "South-South bank" with African countries in the future. The two-day meeting that...

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi marked the 40th anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought him to power, with celebrations attended by African, Arab and Latin American leaders but largely ignored by the West. At the end of a two-hour show late Tuesday retracing the 40 years since Kadhafi ousted King Idriss in 1969, a brief video clip showed the return to Libya last month of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, but the western delegations present did not react. Kadhafi's party kicked off around midnight on Monday at the former US military base of Matega near Tripoli with a two-hour...

Libya staged a lavish spectacle Tuesday, parading white-robed horsemen and gold-turbaned dancers as jets streaked overhead to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Moammar Gadhafi to power in the oil-rich nation. The four-day festivities were designed to highlight the volatile leader's acceptance on the world stage, but were overshadowed by new controversies about the recent return of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. While African leaders held a summit to coincide with the celebrations, most Western leaders stayed away. Libya's decision to include a...

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Russian dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for allegedly supplying weapons to Africa's bloody conflicts over power and diamonds was arrested Thursday in Thailand on suspicion of conspiring to smuggle guns to Colombia's leftist rebels. Viktor Bout, 41, whose dealings reportedly inspired a 2005 movie about the illicit arms trade, was arrested at U.S. request in his hotel room in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan. Bout had eluded arrest for years and was finally seized after a four-month sting organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In New York, federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint...

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last month Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard; today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will speak by video to a conference at Columbia University that his regime is cosponsoring. (Columbia won't answer questions about how much funding it got from Libya or what implied strings were attached.) Then there's Yale, which for three weeks has refused to make any comment or defense beyond a vague 144-word statement about its decision to admit Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi--a former ambassador-at-large of the murderous Afghan Taliban--as a special student. The three backers of the foundation that,...

NEW YORK (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, in a rare moment of self-criticism, lashed out at what he described as "backward" societies in the Middle East, arguing that government heavy-handedness in dealing with political opposition stemmed from the violent nature of that dissent. "You ask us, 'Why do you oppress opposition in the Middle East?"' Gadhafi told attendees at a Columbia University panel discussion on democracy Thursday, speaking in Arabic during a live video appearance. "Opposition in the Middle East is quite different from opposition in advanced countries. In our countries, the opposition takes the form of explosions, assassinations,...

By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF, Associated Press Writer CAIRO, Egypt - The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday Arab countries should support President Bush's campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East. Numerous Arab governments have rejected Bush's democracy initiative, notably Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's, as an imposition unsuited to Arab culture and traditions. "Instead of shouting and criticizing the American initiative, you have to bring democracy to your countries, and then there will be no need to fear America or your people," said Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. "The Arabs should either change or change will be imposed on them from...

<p>The United States intercepted an illegal shipment of thousands of parts of uranium-enrichment equipment bound for Libya in October, leading to Tripoli agreeing to cap its weapons program, U.S. officials confirmed yesterday.</p> <p>Senior State Department official John R. Bolton plans to fly to London today to make plans with Britain for holding Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to his pledge to dismantle his nuclear-weapons program.</p>

<p>CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (CNN) -- Several dozen jailhouse sketches by accused sniper Lee Boyd Malvo -- some depicting police in rifle crosshairs and others containing references to a holy war -- have been entered as evidence by defense attorneys, who say they are evidence of his indoctrination by an accomplice.</p>

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Jurors began weighing spy suspect Brian Patrick Regan's guilt or innocence Monday after prosecutors argued that, for $13 million, he would have sold Iraq or Libya "whatever they would have paid for." Defense attorneys said the information he carried when arrested would not have helped Iraq, Libya or China and could readily have been found in public sources. The jury deliberated about an hour, then broke for the night. Members were to take today off and resume deliberations on Wednesday. Regan, of Bowie, Md., has denied that he tried to sell classified information. The retired Air Force...