The government-controlled stock exchange in Dubai, the fast-growing Middle East business center, announced Thursday in Stockholm that it would take significant ownership in the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York and the London Stock Exchange.

Dubai will become the first Middle East government to own a large stake in an American stock exchange and be the largest single investor in Nasdaq.

Under the deal, Nasdaq will take over the Nordic bourse operator OMX Group, while Borse Dubai will acquire just under 20 percent of Nasdaq and 28 percent of the LSE.

Borse Dubai will go ahead with its \2.94 billion, or $4.12 billion, cash bid for OMX but will sell all shares to Nasdaq.

OMX, based in Stockholm, also operates in Helsinki, Copenhagen and other countries in Scandinavia and the Baltic states.

[”Taken together, these strategic actions will provide us with a footprint unlike any other exchange, creating a global exchange leader, with operations in key markets around the world,” Bob Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq, said in a statement, Reuters reported.]

With a 17 percent share, Horizon Asset Management of Seattle is now Nasdaqs largest investor, according to the exchange.

Reports of a possible deal brought questions Wednesday night from lawmakers in Washington about potential compromises to security in the United States. The concerns were similar to those raised more than a year ago when another Dubai-owned company, DP World, tried to buy a U.S. port operations manager, and in 2005, when a Chinese oil company, Cnooc, tried to buy an American rival, Unocal. Both efforts were abandoned under pressure from Congress.

Dubai is the commercial and financial center of the United Arab Emirates on the Gulf and has been cited as a transit point for money used to finance terrorism.

Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, who helped lead the opposition to Dubais investment in the U.S. ports, said that the deal, which would make Dubai a major player in New York finance, would “raise serious questions that have to be answered.”

“Should any government own any part of a major U.S. stock exchange?” asked Schumer, who is on the banking and finance committees in the Senate and is the chairman of the joint House and Senate economic committee.

A spokeswoman for Nasdaq did not return phone calls seeking comment, and executives in Dubai could not be reached.

Borse Dubai plans to acquire its stakes in the New York and London exchanges through an elaborate series of steps growing out of its success in outbidding Nasdaq for OMX Group.

In the deal, Borse Dubai will complete the purchase of OMX Group and then hand it over to Nasdaq in exchange for a 19.99 percent share in the New York exchange and Nasdaqs stake in the London Stock Exchange, which is valued at about $1.8 billion.

Nasdaq has been struggling to get a foothold in Europe and watched as a rival, NYSE Group, merged with Euronext to form a global exchange company. Stock markets around the world are combining or buying stakes in each other to meet clients demands to trade shares of companies anywhere, at a faster pace, across different asset classes and for less money. Combinations also help them save costs in an industry where the largest expense is developing the technology to run trading platforms. Qatar buys 20% stake in LSE

The Qatar Investment Authority said Thursday that a wholly owned subsidiary, Qatar Holding, had bought a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange, Reuters reported from Stockholm.

The Qatari group said it had no immediate plans to make an offer for the London exchange.

THE victims of the bombing of Pan Am 103 fell through the night sky for two minutes. It took 13 years for their convicted killer to touch down within the confines of Barlinnie Prison, on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi arrived in handcuffs, onboard a helicopter on 14 March, 2002. In the gloom of a late winter’s evening, the helicopter disappeared behind the grey prison wall: an image of justice done.

Or was it?

The Libyan’s night flight to Scotland was triggered by the announcement earlier that day that his first appeal against his conviction as the perpetrator of Britain’s biggest mass-murder had been unsuccessful.

As three judges had decided his fate, a further five judges, led by Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice-General, were required to review their decision. The argument, put to them by William Taylor, QC, was that the trial judges had failed to recognise the relevance of significant evidence and “facts” had been “unreliable”.

The Court of Criminal Appeal, once again sitting in the Netherlands, began listening to arguments on 23 January, 2002, but was unswayed.

On a challenge to the identification evidence, the appeal judges stated: “We are satisfied the trial court was entitled to treat [shopkeeper Tony] Gauci’s evidence as reliable and a highly important element in the case.”

A second ground of appeal had been whether the Crown had established that the suitcase started its journey from Malta.

The appeal court stated: “A proper analysis of the [trial court’s] judgment does not disclose any underlying defect in reasoning… it rejected the possibility of infiltration at Frankfurt or Heathrow… it was open to it to decide that the suitcase began its journey at Luqa [in Malta].”

Megrahi’s lawyers had produced new evidence, not heard at the trial, about a break-in 18 hours before the bombing at a baggage area at Heathrow, showing it to have been the most likely place to “ingest” the suitcase. Again, the appeal judges were not impressed.

They said: “The lapse of time, creating a period during which the infiltrator and the case would require to be concealed… points away from a connection.

“The trial court accepted it was possible that an extraneous suitcase could have been introduced in a variety of ways… if the additional evidence merely demonstrates one way in which infiltration might have taken place, it adds nothing to the evidence before the trial court. It does not transform a possibility into anything more substantial”.

In Barlinnie, Megrahi was accommodated in a small suite of rooms and allowed access to a television and a computer. An arrow indicated the direction of Mecca to assist his daily prayers.

The Libyan government purchased a house in Glasgow for his wife and children, to allow them to visit regularly. Over the next few years, his visitors included Nelson Mandela and he was later moved to Greenock Prison. Among those who became convinced there had been a miscarriage of justice was Jim Swire, who lost his daughter, Flora, in the atrocity.

For Megrahi, there was one final option: the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which was established in 1999 with powers to investigate alleged cases of miscarriage of justice. The SCCRC began its investigation in 2004. The following year, Megrahi’s defence team was given a boost from unexpected quarters. Lord Fraser of Carmyllie had been the Lord Advocate at the time of the bombing and had drawn up the indictments against Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalida Fhimah - who was found not guilty - in 1991.

Yet, in a remarkable interview in 2005, he appeared to cast doubt on the competence of Mr Gauci, the Crown’s principal witness, whom he described as “not quite the full shilling” and an “apple short of a picnic”.

The legal establishment was stunned. William Taylor, QC, who defended Megrahi at the trial, pointed out Lord Fraser had put Mr Gauci forward as a “witness of truth” and was only now revealing “misgivings”. He said: “The fact he is coming out after my former client has been in prison for nearly four-and-a-half years is disgraceful. Mr Gauci’s evidence was central to the conviction and for Peter Fraser not to realise that is scandalous.”

Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP, who had been instrumental in achieving the trial at Camp Zeist, described the remarks as an “extraordinary development”.

Meanwhile, Robert Black, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, who had helped design the legal framework under which the trial was carried out, said this was “an indication that various people involved in the Lockerbie prosecution are positioning themselves in anticipation of the SCCRC holding that there was a miscarriage of justice, and sending it back for a fresh appeal.”

For three years, the SCCRC has ground through the evidence and examined new witnesses including, it is understood, a former senior police officer who alleges key evidence was tampered with, while other pieces of evidence were fabricated.

Meanwhile, the Libyan government agreed to pay a price for the Lockerbie bombing, as a means of removing sanctions against the nation. The price was $2.7 billion (1.3 billion), representing $10 million (5 million) for each family of the 270 victims, some of whom collected, while others dismissed it as blood money. The American lawyers of the families were expected to earn as much as $300 million (150 million).

On 15 August, 2003, Ahmed Own, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, submitted a letter to the Security Council in which Libya accepted “responsibility for the actions of its officials” regarding the bombing.

Yet the following year, Sukri Ghanem, the Libyan Prime Minister, insisted the compensation payment was the “price of peace” with the West and was designed to remove sanctions. When asked by a BBC interviewer if the country did not accept any guilt, he replied: “I agree with that.”

This morning, Megrahi woke with hope in his heart. By noon, he will have been told if he is to be granted a second appeal.

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LONDON: Gold rose to a 27-year high in New York and London as the dollar sank to a record low against the euro, spurring demand for alternative investments.

Bullion has advanced 14 percent this year, heading for its seventh-consecutive annual gain, as investors seek a hedge against inflation with oil rising to a record. Gold assets in funds managed by ETF Securities, a London-based money manager, more than tripled in the past seven weeks, a record rate.

“Gold is a hedge against everything in life,” Pavel Skitovich, chief executive of Polyus Gold, said in an interview in London. Polyus Gold, based in Moscow, is the biggest Russian gold producer.

Gold for immediate delivery gained $7.05, or 1 percent, to $728.45 an ounce at midday in London. Prices earlier climbed to $730.51, the highest since Jan. 22, 1980. The record is $850 an ounce on Jan. 21, 1980.

Gold futures for December delivery gained $6.80, or 0.9 percent, to $736.30 an ounce in electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, exceeding a 27-year high of $735.50 set Tuesday. Prices rose earlier to $738.30.

Credit Suisse Group raised its 12-month forecast for gold to between $730 and $770 an ounce, from a previous forecast of $670 to $720, according a report Wednesday by Tobias Merath, head of commodity research.

Gold increased to more than $700 an ounce this month because of signs that investors were seeking a haven from losses in U.S. subprime mortgages.

Gold could rise to $800 by the end of this year, said Michael Widmer, director and head of metals research at Calyon in London. Frederic Panizzutti, a senior vice president at MKS Finance, one of four Swiss bullion refiners, said the metal could hit $750 this year.

Skitovich said he had bet a case of Cristal Champagne that gold would not exceed $800 this year. A six-bottle case of 2000 Cristal Prestige Cuvйe costs roughly 870, or $1,748, in London.

One risk for the price of gold is speculation that the 11 percent advance this month, on track for the biggest monthly gain since April last year, is too much.

At these prices, “investors are likely to be less aggressive in the fourth quarter than they have been in the third quarter,” Michael Jansen, an analyst at JPMorgan Securities in London, wrote in a report to clients on Thursday.

Suki Cooper, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London, said: “I wont rule out a correction.”

Some banking customers of Northern Rock, bailed out by the Bank of England, have withdrawn money and put it into gold, said Mark OByrne, managing director of Gold Silver Investments in Dublin.

Barrick Gold, the worlds biggest gold producer, is forecasting a decline of 10 percent to 15 percent in global gold mine production in the next five to seven years. Mine supply last year fell to a 10-year low.

Less supply could help gold in the long run, but the focus Thursday was the dollars record low, as the euro reached $1.4065.

“When the euro went to $1.40, we were off to the races,” said Jack Allen, head gold trader at Natixis Commodity Markets in London. “Weve already seen some new investment demand.”

Silver rose 19 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $13.125 an ounce, after rising to $13.19, the highest since Aug. 8.