British Prime Minister David Cameron has promised the UK will do everything it can to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the "brutal and savage" attack in Algeria.

The Lockerbie bomber has been tracked down to his villa in the Libyan capital, where he is apparently comatose and near death.

AGAINST my better judgment, I have started Christmas shopping. Wandering aimlessly around Easons the other day, they seemed to be doing a brisk business in Bush countdown calendars. A variant on the traditional Advent calendar, it enables you to tick off the remaining days until a new US president is elected next November and Dubya leaves the White House in January 2009.