[0003.00] ÌýÁ¦¿ÎÌÃÍø tingclass.com [0003.01] BBC News with David Legge. [0004.71] An American report investigating the decision by the Scottish government to release the Libyan man convicted of [0010.24] the Lockerbie bombing says he was freed for political [0013.12] reasons and under what it calls the threat of commercial warfare. [0016.97] Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed from prison in August last year [0020.78] after the Scottish government said his cancer meant he only had three months to live. [0025.29] One of the US senators who commissioned the report, Robert Menendez, flatly disputed that. [0030.16] The Lockerbie bomber was released without medical justification. [0035.08] Two, al-Megrahi was released because of a combination of [0039.54] commercial and political pressures exerted by the Libyans [0042.84] and private commercial interests on the Scottish and British governments. [0046.46] The United Kingdom responded to the threat of Libyan [0049.62] commercial warfare and lobbying by BP with pressure on Scotland. [0054.03] The Scottish government engaged Libya and the United Kingdom in the matter of releasing al-Megrahi. [0100.41] The Scottish government has wholly rejected the US report. [0104.17] The man who, most international observers said, lost the recent presidential election in Ivory Coast, the incumbent [0111.41] Laurent Gbagbo, has appeared on state television, saying that he is the country's legitimate president. [0117.26] It's the first time he's spoken on national TV, which he controls, since the political crisis erupted. [0123.40] Mr Gbagbo offered to let an international panel examine the crisis. [0127.71] He said his rival Alassane Ouattara should leave the hotel [0131.10] where he is based, protected by United Nations peacekeepers. [0135.14] The authorities in El Salvador have asked the Mexican [0138.95] government to investigate the disappearance of scores of Salvadoran migrants. [0142.99] The Salvadoran foreign ministry said unidentified gunmen [0146.48] stopped a cargo train in the state of Oaxaca, in the south of Mexico, on Thursday. [0151.63] It said the men kidnapped around 50 migrants who'd stowed away on the train. [0156.18] This report from Vanessa Buschschluter. [0158.74] Eyewitnesses say gunmen forced the train to stop in Chahuites by blocking the rails with logs and stones. [0205.52] They reportedly boarded the train, robbed and hit the stowaways with machetes, [0210.30] and took a group of them away at gunpoint. [0213.09] The Salvadoran consulate, which interviewed the migrants who escaped, believes 50 were kidnapped. [0219.31] Migrants are increasingly being targeted by drug gangs looking for new recruits. [0224.32] The British Prime Minister David Cameron has said his Business Secretary Vince Cable [0230.18] will play no further part in deciding whether Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate, News Corporation, [0235.93] will be allowed to take over the satellite TV company BSkyB. [0240.02] Mr Cameron said remarks about Mr Murdoch by Mr Cable [0243.92] recorded by an undercover reporter were totally unacceptable and inappropriate. [0248.57] Mr Cable was recorded as saying he'd declared war on Mr Murdoch and was going to win. [0254.32] News Corporation said it was shocked and dismayed. [0258.09] World News from the BBC. [0301.38] The European Union Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas has described as unacceptable [0307.37] the severe disruption experienced by thousands of people in [0310.39] northern Europe trying to travel in the current wintry conditions. [0313.69] Heavy snowfalls have forced several European airports to close, as Maddy Savage now reports. [0319.59] Dublin airport in Ireland is the latest to shut down because of the weather. [0324.19] All flights are currently suspended. [0326.46] At Europe's busiest airport, London Heathrow, more than 700 flights have been cancelled. [0331.71] It's also been revealed that the British government offered to send in the army to help clear the snow, [0336.96] but that the company that operates the airport, BAA, said no. [0341.14] Travellers are being told not to turn up at Heathrow, [0344.15] Dusseldorf, Frankfurt or Amsterdam airports unless their flights have been confirmed. [0349.59] The accounting firm Ernst & Young is being sued for $150m by [0354.84] New York state prosecutors for its role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers. [0359.06] From New York, here's Caroline Hepker. [0401.28] New York's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has accused one of [0404.91] America's leading accounting firms of helping to hide massive accounting fraud at Lehman Brothers [0410.94] in the years before the bank collapsed in September 2008. [0414.94] Mr Cuomo says the accounting giant advised Lehman Brothers on obscuring $50bn. [0421.44] Ernst & Young has made no comment on the case, [0424.78] but the attorney general wants the firm to repay fees it received, totalling $150m plus damages to investors. [0434.21] An online campaign to spread Christmas cheer has resulted in [0438.67] thousands of people being evacuated from a shopping centre in California. [0442.66] About 5,000 singers hoping to take part in an impromptu [0446.28] performance of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus filled a shopping mall in Sacramento. [0450.88] But there were so many of them the building started to shake. [0454.41] The singers performed outside without bringing the house down. 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