It’s not surprising security is tight at the UN during the general assembly. We all expect to have to stand in long queues to pass through metal detectors at any gathering where Barack Obama is present, especially when he is joined by Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Muammar Gaddafi and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. No wonder there are snipers on top of the nearby hotels and sniffer dogs are roaming the streets.

But now it seems all the security is in the wrong place. The latest US terror alert issued yesterday is not warning of a possible attack against any of the world leaders visiting here or the United Nations itself. The most dangerous places in the city are apparently the sports stadiums. That’s where the police say they are now expecting the next Al Qaeda attack - a ball game is more likely to be hit than tomorrow’s meeting of the security council.

The Feds are warning that an Al-Qaeda training manual specifically lists “blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin … and attacking vital economic centres” as desired targets of the global terror network.

A joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said while the agencies “have no information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack, we believe it is prudent to raise the security awareness of our local law enforcement partners regarding the targets and tactics of previous terrorist activity.”

They obviously don’t realise that all of their local law enforcement partners in New York (I assume they include the NYPD) are patrolling the weird array of protests outside the United Nations building.

Still, since it appears that the NYPD accidentally blew the surveilance of a terrorist suspect this month by questioning one of his friends about him, maybe the FBI will be happy if all the cops are kept out of the way.

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Quick update on Gaddafi’s accommodation whilst he is enjoying his first visit to New York:

Having been denied permission to erect his huge Bedouin tent anywhere in the city he’s had to sleep in the office block that also serves as Libya’s diplomatic HQ at the UN.

We saw him leave there this morning serenaded by a large anti-Libyan protest. But he has managed to put his tent up. 45 miles away in Bedford, Westchester in upstate New York.

Pictures of the tent - which we assume he wants to use to entertain his pals – have outraged local residents and the local council have issued a “stop work” order on the tents construction but they were too late – the tent is up and we don’t know when it might come down.

It’s in the garden of a huge property owned by Donald Trump. He says it was rented out to “mid east partners” and he’s investigating if they are sub-letting to Libya. Gaddafi will be in good company if he ever gets to visit his tent. The neighbours include designer Ralph Lauren and America’s answer to Delia Smith – Martha Stewart.

We’ll see if the tent remains standing long enough for Gaddafi to be able to invite the neighbours in for tea.

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No wonder New Yorkers hate it so much when the UN General Assembly comes to town.

I myself have sore feet after I had to make a 12 block detour to get back to my hotel room, all because Colonel Gaddafi was arriving in town and New York’s finest took this as an excuse to close many of the streets.

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Here’s an African love story.

Adebe married her childhood sweetheart, Daniel, in Addis Ababa when she was 22. The trouble was, although Daniel was born in Ethiopia, he was of Eritrean stock, and when the two countries went to war, he was deported to Asmara, the Eritrean capital, where he was forced to join the army.

Adebe couldn’t bear the separation and fled to Sudan. When Daniel heard she was there, he deserted and escaped and joined his wife in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. It was hard there so after a few months, they decided to try to make it to Europe. It took them two weeks to cross the Sahara desert to Libya, the launchpad for boats to Italy.

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It’s been one of those days that feels like a month. I can hardly remember this morning. This afternoon will stay with me though.

At 4.30pm I met the Lockerbie bomber.

It looked to me as though Abdel Basset al-Megrahi wasn’t long for this world. If he was going to face sentencing “by a higher power,” I wanted to get in there first and fast. 

His release on compassionate grounds denied him his chance to clear his name in court.  He maintained his innocence, but he’d go down in history as the man who killed 270 people on a Pan Am Jumbo. 

If he really was dying, this might be his very last chance to speak to the world.

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I am losing count of the Gs. Yesterday we had the G8 + G5 (including China and India) + 1. The 1 was Egypt.

Today we have the G8 + 9 + 7, which includes African nations and international institutions like the UN, but perhaps we should take away 1 from that list – so G8 + 9 + 7 – 1, because the Chinese president flew home to handle riots on day one of this summit. 

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