Scotland Yard counter terrorism officers were preparing to interview him after he said he would co-operate and hoped his alleged co-conspirators, including Sir Mark Thatcher, would be punished by the British legal system.

Mann, the son of an England cricket captain, was released early by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, after serving only 15 months of a 34-year jail sentence for conspiring to overthrow him.

His premature release may have been a reward for accepting his guilt and testifying that foreign governments and prominent businessmen, including Sir Mark Thatcher, were part of the plot to seize Equatorial Guinea's oil riches.

The judge in Milan accepted that Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was seized from a street in Milan in 2003 by the CIA with the assistance of Italian military intelligence officers.

He was transferred to US bases in Italy and Germany and then moved to Egypt, where he claims to have been tortured. He was released after four years in prison without being charged.

Twenty-two of the Americans - all of them tried in absentia - were immediately sentenced to five years in prison at the end of the three-year trial.

• Adamo Bove, Top Investigator in Abu Omar Kidnapping Case on July 27th, 2007
  
• Pollari under Investigation for the Abu Omar Case on July 15th, 2006
  
• New Developments in the Abu Omar Kidnapping Case on December 6th, 2005

The designated Prime Minister Lucian Croitoru was rejected after the voting in the Parliament, with 189 votes in favour and 250 against. In this context, The Boc Cabinet II remains as substitute. Romania's President Traian Basescu is expected to either designate another PM or to extend Boc Government's temporary mandate.

PSD leader Mircea Geoana declared that the opposition's proposal of naming Klaus Johannis as Prime Minister will be readdressed to the President.

(Precedents and context: Presidents vs. Parliaments: now playing in Romania)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Report by International Monitoring Commission warns dissident threat has reached six-year high

...

The paramilitary watchdog said most new recruits to the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and Oglaigh nah Eireann were "inexperienced young males" but warned that the involvement of former PIRA members "significantly added to the threat".

...

The group said the two main dissident republican groups, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, were working more closely together than ever in their attempts to kill police officers and soldiers.

European politicians have expressed relief after David Cameron withdrew the threat of a referendum on Britain's place in Europe, but some have said they are puzzled over his plans to renegotiate terms of membership.

Members of the European parliament said that in some cases Cameron appeared to be asking for opt-outs that already existed - in the charter of fundamental rights and criminal law.

In the case of employment law, they said there was almost no chance Britain's European partners would approve an opt-out as it would be seen as giving the UK an unfair advantage in attracting foreign investment.

"We have had 10 years of institutional debate and now is the time to talk about practical co-operation. We don't need another 10 years of institutional debate," said Elmar Brok, a German MEP and a senior member of the centre-right political alliance that the Conservatives have recently left.

Martin Schulz, the leader of the EU parliament's socialist grouping, said: "All member states including the UK have ratified the treaty. If Cameron is talking of renegotiating it has little to do with reality and much more to do with election campaigning."

Cheer up. The leaves may be coming off the trees, the nights are drawing in. But we are not alone in breeding idiots, as we sometimes tell each other in our egotistical way. Finland bred Soile Lautsi without British help.

Who she? No, not David Cameron's European policy adviser or even a board member at General Motors, whose overnight U-turn over the sale of Opel and Vauxhall demonstrates how a once-great car company can be ploughed into the ground in the ruins of Detroit.

So who is she? Lautsi is the Finnish-born mum, living in northern Italy, who has just won her eight-year battle to get crucifixes removed from classrooms in the school where her two children were then being taught, though by now they may be graduates.

Crucifixes? Italy? Where did Soile she think she was moving to live? Thailand? What will she campaign to ban next? Pizza, the mafia, bling, cheating at football? Little wonder that the papal knickers are in a twist this morning. Pope Benny is on the warpath.

All this kerfuffle is the result of a decision by the European court of human rights (ECHR). Unlike the Italian constitutional court, which told Lautsi she was wrong, the ECHR's seven-man panel has decided that state schools must "observe confessional neutrality".

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has taken a swipe at Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who last week met ahead of the EU summit to talk through their positions on the topic of the day.

Speaking after a meeting of EU leaders last week, Mr Sarkozy said "if they have to meet regularly before each council, that could raise questions."

 "That is not the case yet," he added.

To date, the four countries have met twice at level of head of state and government in Brussels - before a March meeting of EU leaders and before last week's summit.

In the spring, they discussed - and disagreed upon - the economic crisis and how it should be handled, while last week they discussed the two hot issues of the summit, a last-minute Czech demand for an exemption from part of the Lisbon Treaty and climate change negotiations.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs attending a first meeting of the European Parliament's special committee on the financial and economic crisis on Wednesday (4 November) said the group's work should extend well beyond the financial sector.

And in a sign that the committee wants the new incoming EU executive to tackle the ongoing crisis seriously, several members suggested the parliament should quiz designate commissioners on the subject during parliamentary hearings.

 "The new college of commissioners must give an opinion on jobs," said French centre-right MEP Rachida Dati, until recently a minister under French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The oral hearings - which have seen candidates rejected in the past - could start as soon as 25 November.

Over to DoDo :-)

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

PARIS -- A proposal floated by French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux to impose a nighttime curfew on juvenile delinquents under age 13 has sparked mixed reactions among lawmakers.

The head of the opposition Socialist Party has suggested the idea is unworkable - particularly given recent cuts to the police force.
...

The UMP and President Nicolas Sarkozy have long striven to be seen as taking a hard line on security matters.