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World News Thread & Breaking News!!
- Thread starter kliu0
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I have only read some port in Italy. But it will be next spring before she leaves Giglio so they have time to change their mind if they have already made a decision.Delft thanks for the updates. I missed this somewhere..but where shall the ship be towed too to be broken up? thanks!
BBC Radio 4 just said that the side of the ship has been pulled free from the slope she was lying on and is slowly being pulled upright.
Success, she is righted:
A lot of work will still have to be done, most visibly attaching the sponsons on the heavily damaged starboard side, and that will take many months. So we will hear little news until she is floated next year.
Costa Concordia upright after 19-hour parbuckling salvage operation
Authorities on Italian island of Giglio say ship that ran aground in January 2012 has been righted in biggest ever feat of its kind
Lizzy Davies in Giglio and agencies
theguardian.com, Tuesday 17 September 2013 04.45 BST
Engineers in Italy say they have successfully righted the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship after a marathon operation that lasted around 19 hours and proved a nailbiting wait for those involved in the world's most expensive salvage plan.
At a 4am press briefing in Giglio, with the re-emerged hull looming large over the port, Italy's civil protection agency chief, Franco Gabrielli, was applauded by firefighters as he announced that the ship's rotation had reached 65 degrees, meaning the operation known as parbuckling was finally complete.
Franco Porcellacchia, a representative of the ship's owners, Costa Crociere, said: "We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen."
Porcellacchia said it had been "a perfect operation" with no environmentally damaging spill detected so far.
A later statement from the project engineers said the wreck was "resting safely" on six platforms that have been built 30 metres below sea level. It will remain there throughout the winter while the salvage operation continues.
The island was notified of the news – a landmark feat of engineering and big step towards the removal of the Concordia from Tuscan waters in one piece – by a foghorn that sounded shortly after 4am and was heard across the port and beyond.
The 114,000-tonne ship ran aground off the shore of Giglio on 13 January 2012. Thousands of passengers and crew made it to land safely but 32 people died, including a five-year-old girl.
The bodies of two people – Maria Grazia Trecarichi, a Sicilian passenger, and Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter – have never been found. Their recovery was a priority of the parbuckling but engineers have not yet seen any sign of their remains in the wreck.
Gabrielli told journalists there was still "a lot of work to do" given that the ship remained off the coast.
In the coming months the team carrying out the salvage operation – Titan Salvage from the United States and the Italian engineering company Micoperi – will have to examine quite how damaged the starboard side of the ship is in order to decide how to proceed.
Porcellacchia said that part of the hull looked "pretty bad", which might complicate the attachment of sponsons – large steel boxes – needed for the eventual refloating. That is due to take place sometime in 2014, after which point the Concordia will, at long last, leave Giglio's waters.
Parbuckling is a common means of righting wrecked ships but had never been carried out on a vessel of the Concordia's size. The operation was further complicated by the ship's position, resting on an underwater slope.
A lot of work will still have to be done, most visibly attaching the sponsons on the heavily damaged starboard side, and that will take many months. So we will hear little news until she is floated next year.
A much less happy matter:
I consider it decidedly odd for a Commander-in-Chief to say: 'the victims had faced "unimaginable violence" '.Gun rampage at Washington navy yard leaves 13 people dead
• Former sailor Aaron Alexis, 34, named as gunman
• Worst attack on military base in the US since Fort Hood
• President Obama laments 'yet another mass shooting'
Dan Roberts, Paul Lewis and Spencer Ackerman in Washington DC
The Guardian, Tuesday 17 September 2013
Thirteen people died after a gunman opened fire at a naval complex in the heart of Washington DC on Monday, in what became the worst attack on a military base in the US since the Fort Hood killings in 2009.
As authorities struggled to piece together the details of what happened at the Washington navy yard, Barack Obama lamented "yet another mass shooting" and called it a "cowardly act".
The FBI named the attacker as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old subcontractor and former reservist stationed in Texas until he was discharged in 2011. Police records showed that he had been arrested at least twice in the past for gun-related incidents.
Alexis died after a sustained firefight with police and security staff. "There were multiple engagements with the suspect who was ultimately deceased," said Cathy Lanier, chief of police in Washington DC. She said more people would have died had Alexis not been killed. "There is no question he would have kept shooting," Lanier said.
Law enforcement officials said Alexis was carrying three weapons during the rampage. Two federal officials said he had an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene. The two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the investigation.
The computer firm Hewlett-Packard said Alexis worked for a subcontractor on a navy IT project. At a late-night press conference, the FBI said it was believed that Alexis used his contractor's badge to gain entry to the base. About 3,000 people work at the complex, which houses the US naval sea systems command headquarters, responsible for buying, building and maintaining the US navy's ships, submarines and combat systems.
There was no initial indication of a motive for the attack. John Kirby, the Navy's chief of information, said that after joining the navy in 2007, Alexis was assigned to a fleet logistics support squadron in Fort Worth. Official records show that he was arrested for a gun-related offence there in 2010.
Police in Seattle said Alexis, who was originally from New York, was arrested in 2004 in another gun-related incident. According to a statement by Seattle police, Alexis's father told detectives his son had "anger management problems" associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. He had been an "active participant in rescue attempts on September 11th, 2001," the Seattle police statement said.
Alexis was studying for an aeronautics degree via online classes at Embry-Riddle aeronautical university, the Associated Press reported. He had converted to Buddhism and wanted to become an ordained monk, friends said.
In the confusion after the attack, police initially feared two other men dressed in "military-style" uniform had been been involved, and launched a huge manhunt. They issued descriptions of two suspects, one said to have been a white man wearing a navy-style kahki uniform and carrying a pistol, the second described as black and wearing a drab olive military uniform and carring a rifle.
One of the suspects was quickly identified and ruled out of the investigation. The second was not eliminated from inquiries until later in the evening. At a 10pm press conference, police said the manhunt was over and lifted remaining restrictions on residents.
Doctors at the MedStar Washington hospital center said they were treating several victims. The chief medical officer, Janis Orlowski, said one police officer had multiple gunshot wounds to his legs and was undergoing complex surgery. His future ability to walk had yet to be determined, she said. Two other civilian patients were women: one shot in her shoulder, the other in her head and hand. The second woman's head wound was not serious: "She is a very, very, lucky young lady," Orlowski said.
On Monday night the Metropolitan police of Washington DC released an initial list of seven people killed. They were Michael Arnold, 59; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathy Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Frank Kohler, 50; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46; and Vishnu Pandit, 61. Other victims' names were being withheld until family were notified, officials said.
Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington DC, said he had no information to indicate that the attack was an act of terrorism. In a late-afternoon press conference, he confirmed that 13 people died, including the gunman. Police later said eight people had been injured.
The incident began at about 8.15am, in building 197 of the navy yard complex, when many people were having breakfast in the basement cafeteria. Some reports suggested that the gunman shot into the cafeteria from an overlooking walkway.
As multiple law enforcement agencies rushed to the scene, the naval yard and surrounding buildings were immediately placed on lockdown. With the suggestion that more gunmen were on the loose, security was tightened across Washington.
Speaking shortly after the attack, Obama said the victims had faced "unimaginable violence" and offered his condolences to their families. "We will honour their service to the nation they helped to make great," Obama said. The president, who has tried and failed to enact gun control measures in the wake of previous mass shootings, denounced the attack as cowardly.
Pentagon press secretary George Little added: "Everyone here at the Department of Defense is saddened by the incident at the Washington navy yard this morning. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.
"While the Pentagon remains open, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency increased its security posture, not out of a specific threat, but as a proactive, precautionary measure."
Though the motive for the attack remained unclear, it brought comparisons with the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, when Major Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist at the Fort Hood base in Texas, killed 13 fellow service personnel in an attack that the army believes was carried out in response to US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A lockdown remained in effect for hours after the shooting. Sailors and civilians assigned to the Washington navy yard, as well as all personnel assigned to the nearby joint base Anacostia-Bolling, were advised to stay put while authorities continued to investigate the scene.
In its statement, Hewlett-Packard said Alexis was employed by a subcontractor. The statement said: "Aaron Alexis was an employee of a company called 'The Experts,' a subcontractor to an HP Enterprise Services contract to refresh equipment used on the navy marine corps intranet (NMCI) network. HP is cooperating fully with law enforcement as requested."
Hewlett-Packard said it was "deeply saddened" by the incident. "Our thoughts and sympathies are with all those who have been affected," the company said.
On its website, The Experts, whose headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, describes itself as providing "innovative and mission-critical IT, engineering and litigation professional services for federal, state and local governments and departments".
It said in a statement: "The Experts would like to express our deepest condolences and sympathies regarding the incident that occurred at the DC naval yards. We are actively cooperating with the FBI and other authorities in relation to the investigation on the suspect."
On Monday night, officers from the New York Police Department cordoned off a section of the tree-lined street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where family of Alexis lived in a brownstone apartment.
In what appeared to be an unconnected incident in a jittery Washington, a man was arrested outside the White House after throwing firecrackers over the north fence. Uniformed agents sealed off the area in front of the presidential mansion and ordered journalists inside. Police later identified the man as Alexander Sahagian and said he would likely face charges.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Brazil looks to break from US-centric Internet
Experts see potential perils in Brazil push to break with US-centric Internet over NSA spying
Associated PressBy Bradley Brooks and Frank Bajak, Associated Press | Associated Press – 1 hour 34 minutes ago.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Brazil plans to divorce itself from the U.S.-centric Internet over Washington's widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments.
President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company's network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google.
The leader is so angered by the espionage that on Tuesday she postponed next month's scheduled trip to Washington, where she was to be honored with a state dinner.
Internet security and policy experts say the Brazilian government's reaction to information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is understandable, but warn it could set the Internet on a course of Balkanization.
"The global backlash is only beginning and will get far more severe in coming months," said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute at the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank. "This notion of national privacy sovereignty is going to be an increasingly salient issue around the globe."
While Brazil isn't proposing to bar its citizens from U.S.-based Web services, it wants their data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over Brazilians' Internet use to protect them from NSA snooping.
The danger of mandating that kind of geographic isolation, Meinrath said, is that it could render inoperable popular software applications and services and endanger the Internet's open, interconnected structure.
The effort by Latin America's biggest economy to digitally isolate itself from U.S. spying not only could be costly and difficult, it could encourage repressive governments to seek greater technical control over the Internet to crush free expression at home, experts say.
In December, countries advocating greater "cyber-sovereignty" pushed for such control at an International Telecommunications Union meeting in Dubai, with Western democracies led by the United States and the European Union in opposition.
U.S. digital security expert Bruce Schneier says that while Brazil's response is a rational reaction to NSA spying, it is likely to embolden "some of the worst countries out there to seek more control over their citizens' Internet. That's Russia, China, Iran and Syria."
Rousseff says she intends to push for international rules on privacy and security in hardware and software during the U.N. General Assembly meeting later this month. Among Snowden revelations: the NSA has created backdoors in software and Web-based services.
Brazil is now pushing more aggressively than any other nation to end U.S. commercial hegemony on the Internet. More than 80 percent of online search, for example, is controlled by U.S.-based companies.
Most of Brazil's global Internet traffic passes through the United States, so Rousseff's government plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of U.S. eavesdropping.
More communications integrity protection is expected when Telebras, the state-run telecom company, works with partners to oversee the launch in 2016 of Brazil's first communications satellite, for military and public Internet traffic. Brazil's military currently relies on a satellite run by Embratel, which Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim controls.
Rousseff is urging Brazil's Congress to compel Facebook, Google and all companies to store data generated by Brazilians on servers physically located inside Brazil in order to shield it from the NSA.
If that happens, and other nations follow suit, Silicon Valley's bottom line could be hit by lost business and higher operating costs: Brazilians rank No. 3 on Facebook and No. 2 on Twitter and YouTube. An August study by a respected U.S. technology policy nonprofit estimated the fallout from the NSA spying scandal could cost the U.S. cloud computing industry, which stores data remotely to give users easy access from any device, as much as $35 billion by 2016 in lost business.
Brazil also plans to build more Internet exchange points, places where vast amounts of data are relayed, in order to route Brazilians' traffic away from potential interception.
And its postal service plans by next year to create an encrypted email service that could serve as an alternative to Gmail and Yahoo!, which according to Snowden-leaked documents are among U.S. tech giants that have collaborated closely with the NSA.
"Brazil intends to increase its independent Internet connections with other countries," Rousseff's office said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press on its plans.
It cited a "common understanding" between Brazil and the European Union on data privacy, and said "negotiations are underway in South America for the deployment of land connections between all nations." It said Brazil plans to boost investment in home-grown technology and buy only software and hardware that meet government data privacy specifications.
While the plans' technical details are pending, experts say they will be costly for Brazil and ultimately can be circumvented. Just as people in China and Iran defeat government censors with tools such as "proxy servers," so could Brazilians bypass their government's controls.
International spies, not just from the United States, also will adjust, experts said. Laying cable to Europe won't make Brazil safer, they say. The NSA has reportedly tapped into undersea telecoms cables for decades.
Meinrath and others argue that what's needed instead are strong international laws that hold nations accountable for guaranteeing online privacy.
"There's nothing viable that Brazil can really do to protect its citizenry without changing what the U.S. is doing," he said.
Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins computer security expert, said Brazil won't protect itself from intrusion by isolating itself digitally. It will also be discouraging technological innovation, he said, by encouraging the entire nation to use a state-sponsored encrypted email service.
"It's sort of like a Soviet socialism of computing," he said, adding that the U.S. "free-for-all model works better."
___
Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks reported this story in Rio de Janeiro and Frank Bajak reported from Lima, Peru.
___
Bradley Brooks on Twitter:
Frank Bajak on Twitter:
The article notes Brazil is not like Russia, China, and Iran when it comes to internet censorship yet then what's the problem then if Brazil takes these steps? Potential domestic abuse of the internet is worse as oppose to foreign? It's called spin in order for the status quo to remain.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
If you go to the Fox sight the header photo shows Kenyan Forces. They have FN SCAR H with L3 comunications Eotech gun sights. Pretty high end..Print Close
Kenya's military says 'most' hostages freed after forces launch attack on Al Qaeda-linked militants inside mall
Published September 22, 2013
| FoxNews.com
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"Most" of the hostages who have been holed up at an upscale shopping mall in Kenya's capital after it was attacked by members of an Al Qaeda-linked Somali militant group on Saturday have been freed, Kenya's military says.
Kenya's armed forces launched a "major" assault on the militants on Sunday night -- about 30 hours after the Islamists stormed the Nairobi mall in an attack that left at least 68 dead and 175 injured. At around midnight local time, Kenya's Defence Forces said it had rescued most hostages and had taken control of most of the mall, but declined to give numbers. Officials said four Kenyan military personnel were wounded in the operation.
"This will end tonight," Kenya's Disaster Operation Center earlier said.
Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked rebel group, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack in which they used grenades and assault rifles and specifically targeted non-Muslims. The rebels said the attack was retribution for Kenyan forces' 2011 push into Somalia and threatened more attacks.
On Sunday evening, the FBI and the U.S. intelligence committee was "aggressively" investigating whether or not the militants involved in the attack included Americans, a federal law enforcement source told Fox News
New York Rep. Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week” that al-Shabab is “one of the only Al Qaeda affiliates which actually has actively recruited here in the United States.”
He called the Saturday mall attack a "well coordinated, well planned massacre.”
The announcement of the Kenya military assault came after Associated Press reporters said they heard a large explosion at the mall, followed by silence.
The Kenyan military had remained in a tense standoff with Islamic extremists throughout Sunday, as exchanges of gunfire between both sides were heard inside the mall, Reuters reports.
Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, said in a national address Sunday that security forces had managed to isolate the “criminals” in one place inside the building, according to Reuters. Two helicopters were seen flying over the mall.
Many of the rescued hostages -- mostly adults -- were suffering from dehydration, Col. Cyrus Oguna, a military spokesman, told The Associated Press
There are between 50 to 200 hostages and most of them were hiding in various places inside the mall, Fox News confirms. They are not being held by the hostage-takers. There are between 10 to 15 militants currently inside the mall, with at least one being female.
Some of the people in hiding managed to escape before the military assault, according to Kenyan media reports.
Cecile Ndwiga said she had been hiding under a car in the basement parking garage.
"I called my husband to ask the soldiers to come and rescue me. Because I couldn't just walk out anyhow. The shootout was all over here -- left, right-- just gun shots," she said.
Police said that 49 people had been reported missing, according to a statement released by Kenya's Red Cross.
Kenyatta said in his address that the attackers "shall not get away with their despicable and beastly acts."
"We will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully," he added.
The White House said Sunday that President Barack Obama called Kenyatta to tell him the United States supports his country's effort to bring al-Shabab to justice.
As of Sunday evening local time, Kenya's Red Cross said 68 people were killed in the violence.
Kenyans and foreigners were among those confirmed dead, including French, Canadians and Chinese. The U.S. State Department said four American citizens were injured and were being given assistance. The age of the victims ranged from 2 to 78, Reuters reports.
Nineteen people, including at least four children, died after being admitted to Nairobi's MP Shah hospital, said Manoj Shah, the hospital's chairman. "We have at least two critical patients currently, one with bullets lodged near the spine," he said.
The hospital continued to receive patients Sunday, he said.
The militants assaulted the mall on Saturday and remained there throughout the night.
Sara Head, an American citizen who is in Nairobi for a business trip, told CBC that she was in the mall's parking garage when gunfire first broke out. She said she hid for an hour and a half inside a stairwell with her driver and two other wounded people before they ran into a bloody supermarket to escape through a loading dock.
Combined Kenyan military and police forces had the mall surrounded on Sunday. An Associated Press photographer saw Kenyan soldiers carry into the mall a rocket-propelled grenade, an extremely heavy weapon for an indoor hostage situation. Kenyan security forces are controlling the security cameras inside the building, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Lenku said.
"The priority is to save as many lives as possible," Lenku said, reassuring the families of the hostages in the upscale Westgate mall. Kenyan forces have already rescued about 1,000 people.
Trucks brought in a fresh contingent of soldiers from the Kenya Defense Forces early Sunday.
The mall, which is in the Westlands neighborhood of Nairobi, is frequented by foreigners and wealthy Kenyans.
Security forces had pushed curious crowds far back from the building as the standoff ensued. Hundreds of residents gathered on a high ridge above the mall to watch for any activity.
Kenya has approached Israel for help on the standoff, and Israel sent an advising team.
A United States State Department spokeswoman condemned the "despicable massacre of innocent men, women and children." U.S. law enforcement, military and civilian personnel in Nairobi were providing advance and assistance as requested by Kenya, spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
A statement by Secretary of State John Kerry noted a victim killed in the assault.
"Although we have no reports of any Americans killed today, we have lost a member of our own State Department family: the wife of a foreign service national working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The men and women of USAID work courageously around the world to help people striving for a better life. While we mourn with her family today, we also pledge our commitment to do whatever we can to assist in bringing the perpetrators of this abhorrent violence to justice, and to continue our efforts to improve the lives of people across the globe," the statement said.
Kenyatta's nephew and the nephew's fiancee are also among the dead.
Kenya's presidential office said that one of the attackers was arrested on Saturday and died after suffering from bullet wounds.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said late Saturday that his government had sent a rapid deployment team to Kenya to help. Britons had undoubtedly been caught up in the "callous and cowardly and brutal" assault at the Westgate mall, said Hague.
The United Nations Security Council condemned the attacks and "expressed their solidarity with the people and Government of Kenya" in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Kenya says all hostages freed in al Shabaab mall siege
Photo
8:49pm EDT
By Duncan Miriri and James Macharia
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya said its security forces had taken control of the Nairobi shopping mall where Islamist fighters killed at least 62 people, and that police were doing a final sweep of shops early Tuesday after the last of the hostages had been rescued.
There was an eerie silence outside the mall after a day in which gunfire and explosions were heard in the Westgate mall. A trickle of survivors escaped the building throughout the day on Monday, but the fate of people listed as missing was unclear.
Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which began at lunchtime on Saturday. Kenyan officials say there were 10 to 15 attackers.
President Barack Obama offered U.S. support, saying he believed Kenya - the scene of one of al Qaeda's first major attacks, in 1998, and a neighbor of chaotic Somalia - would continue to be a regional pillar of stability.
Kenyan security forces believed the end was in sight for the siege at the upmarket shopping mall in the capital, saying its forces were "in control" as the ordeal entered its fourth day.
A government official said there was no resistance from the attackers late on Monday night after a barrage of gunfire and blasts throughout the day, but that the security forces were cautious in case some attackers were hiding in the building.
"Our forces are combing the mall floor by floor looking for anyone left behind. We believe all hostages have been released," the Ministry of Interior said on Twitter.
The siege has followed a pattern of bursts of gunfire and activity followed by long lulls.
Patronized by well-to-do Kenyans and expatriates, Westgate mall epitomized the African consumer bonanza that is drawing foreign investment - from West and East - to one of the world's fastest growing regions.
Al Qaeda killed more than 200 people when it bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. When fighters from its Somali ideological counterpart stormed the mall on Saturday, they hit a high-profile symbol of Kenya's economic power.
Obama, whose father was born in Kenya, said the United States stood with Kenyans against "this terrible outrage".
"We will provide them with whatever law enforcement support that is necessary. And we are confident that Kenya will continue to be a pillar of stability in eastern Africa," he said in New York.
Kenya has sent troops to Somalia as part of an African Union force trying to stabilize the country, which was long without a functioning government, and push back al Shabaab.
It has also suffered internal instability. President Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost a nephew in the weekend bloodbath, faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in coordinating violence after disputed elections in 2007. He denies the charges.
Kenyatta has dismissed a demand that he pull Kenyan forces out of Somalia, saying he would not relent in a "war on terror".
British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he believed six Britons had died in the attack. Other known foreign victims are from China, Ghana, France, the Netherlands and Canada. Kenyan officials said the total death toll was at least 62.
FOREIGN FIGHTERS
Kenya believes there are also foreigners among the attackers, with military chief Julius Karangi saying they came from all over the world. "We are fighting global terrorism here," he said, without giving their nationalities.
U.S. authorities are urgently looking into information given by the Kenyan government that residents of Western countries, including the United States, may have been among the attackers, U.S. security sources said.
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said he had no direct information that Americans had participated in the attack, but expressed U.S. worries.
"We do monitor very carefully and have for some time been concerned about efforts by al Shabaab to recruit Americans or U.S. persons to come to Somalia," Rhodes told reporters travelling with Obama to the United Nations in New York.
Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said the militants had set fire to mattresses in a supermarket on the mall's lower floors and his ministry later said the blaze was under control. Two attackers were killed on Monday, taking the total of dead militants so far to three, he told a news conference.
Speculation rose about the identity of the attackers. Ole Lenku said they were all men but that some had dressed as women.
Despite his comments, one intelligence officer and two soldiers told Reuters that one of the dead militants was a white woman. This is likely to fuel speculation that she is the wanted widow of one of the suicide bombers who together killed more than 50 people on London's transport system in 2005.
Called the "white widow" by the British press, Samantha Lewthwaite is wanted in connection with an alleged plot to attack hotels and restaurants in Kenya. Asked if the dead woman was Lewthwaite, the intelligence officer said: "We don't know."
A spokesman for al Shabaab warned they would kill hostages if Kenyan troops tried to storm their positions. "The mujahideen will kill the hostages if the enemies use force," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in an online audio statement.
From Mali to Algeria, Nigeria to Kenya, violent Islamist groups - tapping into local poverty, conflict, inequality or exclusion but espousing a similar anti-Western, anti-Christian creed - are striking at state authority and international interests, both economic and political.
John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, said he believed insurgents such as those who rebelled in Mali last year, the Nigerian Boko Haram Islamist sect and the Nairobi mall raiders were also partly motivated by anger with what he called "pervasive malgovernance" in Africa.
"This is undoubtedly anti-Western and anti-Christian but it also taps into a lot of deep popular anger against the political economy in which they find themselves, in which a very small group of people are basically raking off the wealth," he said.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri and James Macharia; Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg and Steve Holland in New York; Writing by David Stamp and James Macharia; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Eric Beech)
now it's time to heal and learn what needs to be learned.U.S. examines Kenya information about foreign link to mall attack
Photo
9:07pm EDT
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are urgently looking into information given by the Kenyan government that residents of Western countries, including the United States, may have been among armed militants who attacked a Nairobi shopping mall over the weekend, killing at least 62 people, U.S. security sources said.
Kenyan officials said their forces were "in control" of the mall and combing it floor by floor looking for anyone left behind. They said they believed all hostages had been freed.
A U.S. national security source said that the United States had been notified through official channels that Kenyan authorities now believed that foreigners, likely including U.S. citizens or residents, were among the gunmen who attacked the mall.
Reuters on Monday quoted Julius Karangi, Kenya's chief of general staff, saying that the attackers included gunmen from several countries. "We have an idea who they are, their nationality and even the number," Karangi said.
He added: "We also have an idea this is not a local event. We are fighting global terrorism here and we have sufficient intel (intelligence) to suggest that." Karangi said the attackers were "clearly a multinational collection from all over the world."
The U.S. national security source said that Kenyan authorities had passed similar information to American authorities but that it was still unclear how much hard evidence the Kenyans had.
A European security source said that Western authorities still had reason to be wary of claims by Kenyan officials of foreign involvement in the attacks.
U.S. officials had been looking for evidence that U.S. citizens or residents were involved in the attack at least since Sunday, when a Twitter account purporting to represent the Somalia-based militant group al Shabaab published what it said were the names of three Americans, a Canadian, a Swede, two Britons, and a Finn who participated in the attack.
Multiple U.S. security sources said U.S. investigators now believe the Twitter account and its claims were bogus.
However, U.S. authorities acknowledged that over the past several years, as many as several dozen Americans have traveled to Somalia to train or fight with al Shabaab, many of them from Somali exile communities in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota.
Laith Alkhouri, a private expert who monitors militant Internet sites, said that al Shabaab would gain various advantages by using Western or U.S. residents to carry out operations.
"For Shabaab, it helps having Western nationals as operatives: they carry Western passports, allowing them to travel more freely, under less scrutiny. They also attract worldwide attention, making Shabaab, in the eyes of the jihadist base, a highly credible al Qaeda branch on the same footing as AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), for attempting and succeeding to carry bold transnational operations," he said.
(Editing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Sandra Maler)
kwaigonegin
Colonel
3 weeks ago almost everyone in the world thought the US was going to strike Syria. Today Obama spoke to Hassan Rouhani on the phone.
First time since 1979 an American President has spoken to Iranian leader.
The future is IMPOSSIBLE to predict.
First time since 1979 an American President has spoken to Iranian leader.
The future is IMPOSSIBLE to predict.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
:{Senate Passes Budget Bill as House Weighs Options
By JONATHAN WEISMAN, ASHLEY PARKER and JEREMY W. PETERS
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday overwhelmingly approved stopgap spending legislation to keep the federal government open without gutting President Obama’s health care law, setting up a weekend showdown with the House that will decide whether much of the government shuts down at midnight Monday.
The 54-to-44 vote for final passage followed a more critical moment when the Senate, in a bipartisan rebuke to Republican hard-liners, cut off debate on the legislation. The 79-to-19 vote included the top Republican leadership and easily exceeded the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.
The Senate then voted along party lines, 54 to 44, to strip out House Republican language that tied further funding of the government to defunding the health care law. That vote required only a simple 51-vote majority.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, called the votes “the first step toward wresting control from the extremists.” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, had been urging his Senate colleagues all week to oppose ending debate as a way to force Democrats to accept language defunding the Affordable Care Act. But with the clock ticking toward an Oct. 1 government shutdown, an overwhelming bipartisan majority wanted to act quickly to move the spending bill back to the House.
President Obama, speaking in the White House briefing room after the vote, called on Republicans to accept the Senate measure to avoid government disruptions. “Do not threaten to burn the house down just because you haven’t gotten 100 percent of your way,” Mr. Obama said.
Now Speaker John A. Boehner faces a defining choice: accept the Senate bill, which funds the government through Nov. 15 without Republican policy prescriptions, or listen to his conservatives, who will accept a government shutdown unless serious damage is done to the health care law. House Republicans will meet at noon Saturday to hash out their options. Mr. Boehner has signaled that he will again attach language to chip away at the Affordable Care Act, but as the deadline approaches, fissures are appearing in the Republican ranks.
“The only time you shut down the government is when you shut it down and refuse to open it until you accomplish what you want. We’ll fold like hotcakes,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. “You do not take a hostage you are not going to for sure shoot, and we will not for sure shoot this hostage.”
The Senate legislation would almost certainly win approval in the House, largely with Democratic votes, but conservatives warned it could hurt the beleaguered speaker dearly.
“I think it would be devastating to the speaker’s support,” said Representative Richard Hudson, Republican of North Carolina, who is one of the members urging the Republican leadership to drive a hard bargain with the Senate.
“I think the question is do we go with the carrot or the stick strategy,” Mr. Hudson added. “Do we try to do something bad enough to force Harry Reid to negotiate with us, or do we do something that we think he can’t refuse?”
Republicans were also considering a simple bill to keep the government open for as little as seven days while the legislative jousting continues. That was sternly opposed by senior Republicans, like Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
“If you can’t get the House and Senate together by midnight Sept. 30, it becomes a more viable strategy,” said Representative Pat Tiberi, Republican of Ohio and a close ally of Mr. Boehner.
Mr. Reid has said he would reject anything but a plain budget bill.
By Friday, most House Republicans had come around to the view of their leadership: that a government shutdown would be painful for their party from a political and public relations standpoint. Many said they would consider voting for a stopgap spending measure covering as few as seven days to keep the government funded as they struggle to come up with a more long-term solution.
“Listen, I’m not going to let the government shut down,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. “I don’t want to be undercutting Boehner, but put it this way: I will not let the government shut down.”
But House Republicans thought they might be able to find a compromise with Senate Democrats — including, they said, on some more modest changes to the president’s health care law, or in exchange for approval of Republican priorities like the Keystone XL pipeline.
“I’d love to see a medical device repeal, whether it’s Keystone, even a delay in the individual mandate,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, referring to a tax on medical device manufacturers. “Look, I think the administration realizes that Obamacare is not ready for prime time, and so I think ultimately maybe they’d be amenable to it.”
Meh.First Top-Level U.S.-Iran Talk Since 1979
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — President Obama spoke by telephone with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran on Friday afternoon, the first direct conversation between leaders of the two estranged countries since the rupture of the Tehran hostage crisis more than three decades ago.
Mr. Obama called the discussion an important breakthrough after a generation of deep mistrust and suggested that it could serve as the starting point to an eventual deal on Iran’s nuclear program and a broader renewal of relations between two countries that once were close allies.
“The test will be meaningful, transparent and verifiable actions, which can also bring relief from the comprehensive international sanctions that are currently in place,” Mr. Obama told reporters. “Resolving this issue, obviously, could also serve as a major step forward in a new relationship between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Mr. Obama added: “A path to a meaningful agreement will be difficult. And at this point both sides have significant concerns that will have to be overcome. But I believe we’ve got a responsibility to pursue diplomacy and that we have a unique opportunity to make progress with the new leadership in Tehran.”
The conversation took place just days after Mr. Rouhani declined to attend a lunch at the United Nations where American officials hoped the two presidents might shake hands. Mr. Rouhani suggested later that a meeting was premature and might actually jeopardize hopes of diplomatic progress.
But the telephone call on Friday reinforced optimism at the White House that Mr. Rouhani’s election in June may presage a new thinking in Tehran under the weight of crushing economic sanctions imposed in recent years. Secretary of State John Kerry engaged in direct talks on Thursday with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Mr. Obama said the two would pursue additional discussions in cooperation with allies.
The Iranian mission at the United Nations said the two presidents talked as Mr. Rouhani was in a car in New York heading to the airport.
“The Iranian and U.S. presidents underlined the need for a political will for expediting resolution of the West’s standoff with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program,” the mission said. The two presidents “stressed the necessity for mutual cooperation on different regional issues.”
Recognizing the sensitivities of the conversation, Mr. Obama made a point of trying to reassure Israel that he would not sell out an ally’s security. “Throughout this process, we’ll stay in close touch with our friends and allies in the region, including Israel,” he told reporters after the phone call.
He added, “I do believe that there is a basis for resolution,” citing Mr. Rouhani’s comment that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons and reiterating his own “respect” for “the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy.”
The call came after Mr. Rouhani said in New York that his government would present a plan in three weeks on how to resolve the nuclear standoff. “I expect this trip will be the first step and the beginning of constructive relations with countries of the world,” he told a news conference.
He went on to say that he hoped the visit would also improve relations “between two great nations, Iran and the United States,” adding that the trip had exceeded his expectations.
Mr. Rouhani and his aides have been on an extraordinarily energetic campaign to prove that they are moderate and reasonable partners and to draw a stark contrast with his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Mr. Rouhani has yet to propose anything concrete to suggest how different the Iranians really are in their approach. The first glimpse of that is due to come on Oct. 15 and 16, when Iran plans to present its own road map.
Mr. Rouhani’s pronouncements this week painted a mixed picture. He has made clear that Iran plans to continue to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear program and on several occasions said no country should have a nuclear arsenal, singling out Israel. But before the phone call, he attributed his failure to meet with Mr. Obama to a desire “to have a successful and effective meeting.”
He repeatedly emphasized that his government had both the authority and the will to reach a nuclear settlement within what he called “a short period of time.” But he was visibly irritated when asked whether his diplomatic blitz was merely designed to buy time with his Western interlocutors. “We have never chosen deceit as a path; we have never chosen secrecy,” he said.
The last time an American president spoke with an Iranian leader was in 1979, when Jimmy Carter talked by telephone with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi shortly before he left the country, according to an Iran expert. The last time the American and Iranian leaders met in person was on Dec. 31, 1977, when Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, spent New Year’s Eve as a guest of the shah. As he made a toast to the shah at a state dinner, Mr. Carter said the idea for the trip came from Mrs. Carter, when he asked her with whom she would like to celebrate the holiday.
“We have no other nation on earth who is closer to us in planning for our mutual military security,” Mr. Carter said then. “We have no other nation with whom we have closer consultation on regional problems that concern us both. And there is no leader with whom I have a deeper sense of personal gratitude and personal friendship.”
Less than two years later, after an Islamic revolution ousted the shah, an angry crowd overran the American Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days and plunging relations between Iran and the United States into a deep freeze from which they have yet to emerge.
Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington, and Somini Sengupta from the United Nations.
I hope for a speedy and successful rescue.Scores Feared Trapped in Collapse of Mumbai Building
By NEHA THIRANI BAGRI and GARDINER HARRIS
MUMBAI, India — Scores of people were feared trapped or dead after a five-story residential building collapsed early Friday morning, the fifth deadly collapse this year in and around Mumbai, a city with crumbling housing infrastructure and poor building standards. At least 11 people were confirmed dead.
The authorities said it was too early to determine the exact cause of the collapse or the number of people trapped or dead inside the structure, the Babu Genu Market building. Onlookers said the building had more than 100 residents, nearly all of whom were probably home when the structure fell early in the day. The building was about 30 years old, officials said.
The scene Friday was a chaotic pile of broken steel and concrete rubble, with more than two dozen fire trucks and at least 15 ambulances on the streets.
“The building collapsed suddenly at 6 a.m. this morning,” said Tanaji Ghodge, a deputy police commissioner. “We don’t know how many people will come out of the rubble yet. The rescue operation is going on in full force.”
Babu Gupta, a sound engineer who lives next door, said the building had about 24 occupied one-room apartments, each with four to eight residents, underscoring the dangerous overcrowding in many buildings in Mumbai.
“There were many people in that building whom I was friends with,” Mr. Gupta said. “We often played cricket together on this street. There is Parmar, there is Jadhav, there are so many others. There must be at least 15 of my friends in that building. There is no news of them yet.”
Murli Khadpekar, a neighbor, said he heard a “loud bang” at 5:53 a.m. and came running out to see that the building’s huge rooftop water tank had come crashing down, and that the building had collapsed. The building was mostly occupied by city trash collectors and laborers, he said.
Hundreds of police officers, firefighters, dockyard workers and neighbors crowded around the site of the collapse Friday in the kind of chaotic scramble that is routine after such disasters in India. Police officials tried to clear the area of bystanders. Neighbors watched from balconies and terraces overlooking the spot of the collapse.
Dr. Habbu Jadav, the superintendent of a nearby hospital, said that 25 people had been brought in with injuries as of 8 p.m. Friday and that there were 11 deaths. Family members surrounded hospital officials asking if their relatives were among the dead or injured. Among them was Akhilesh Shinghade, a Mumbai city official who was pacing the hospital waiting area hoping for news of his wife, who is eight months pregnant and had been staying in the collapsed building with her parents.
He said there were five people in the house: his wife, Namita, and her grandmother, parents and sister. “None of them have been found as yet,” he said.
Deepteesh Kadam, 16, was admitted to the hospital with a fractured left clavicle after he shimmied out of the building through a small gap. He had been sleeping in his family’s third-floor apartment when the building fell.
“I got out but I could not find my brother,” he said.
In April, an illegally constructed building in a Mumbai suburb collapsed and killed 74 people, the deadliest such episode in decades. Two more episodes followed in June, killing 19 people together. In July, the Bhiwandi garment factory collapsed, killing six people. There have been other collapses in India, including a hospital in Bhopal in April.
The collapses highlight problems with India’s housing stock and construction standards. Many of the structures that dot Mumbai’s skyline are crumbling and date from the country’s independence in 1947, when they were hurriedly built as part of the city’s emergence as a commercial hub.
Mumbai’s buildings department is known for its corruption, and bribing inspectors and other government officials is considered part of the normal cost of doing business. One result is that many buildings are visibly crumbling. Another problem is rent-control rules that allow tenants to live in apartments for a few dollars a month and even pass those rights on to their descendants, giving landlords little incentive to invest in building maintenance. The city requires extensive approvals for even minor repairs, a process so cumbersome that repairs are often either delayed or done illegally and without consultation from engineers.
India is one of the only countries in the world where buildings as tall as six stories are constructed using a small-batch process of mixing concrete by hand, rather than having trucks deliver premixed concrete. The quality of the concrete can vary considerably with hand-mixing, while premixed concrete is of more uniform quality.
In most of the world, structures more than two stories high require premixed concrete not only because of government rules but also because few other places can find workers willing to carry loads of concrete by hand up more than one or two flights of stairs. In India and Bangladesh, workers routinely carry such loads up five or more flights.
Sheetal Shinde stood at a nearby tea stall with tears in her eyes looking at the rescue operation. “There are five of my relatives in that building,” she said. “They are still trapped inside.”
Neha Thirani Bagri reported from Mumbai, and Gardiner Harris from New Delhi.
the House should vote down that bill and send back hundreds of individual CRsObama urges action by Congress to avoid shutdown
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6:00pm EDT
By Rachelle Younglai and Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sternly warned the Congress on Friday against a government shutdown on October 1 as lawmakers struggled to pass an emergency spending bill that Republicans want to use to defund Obama's healthcare reform law.
While there was still a chance of averting a shutdown, time was running out as House of Representatives Republicans fought with each other over the next steps.
"Over the next three days, House Republicans will have to decide whether to join the Senate and keep the government open or shut it down because they can't get their way on an issue that has nothing to do with the deficit," Obama said in a statement to reporters at the White House.
The Senate, as expected, passed a straight-forward emergency-funding measure on Friday to keep the government running through November 15. But first, it stripped out Republican language to end funding for the healthcare law known as Obamacare.
The House could vote on that measure in an unusual Saturday or Sunday session. But all indications were that Republicans would tack on a new measure to that bill, which likely would be rejected by the Senate and make a shutdown all the more likely.
Although some government functions like national security would continue, a shutdown could hit activities ranging from school lunch programs for poor children and paying U.S. troops to foreign embassy operations.
Before the Senate passed its bill to keep the lights on in government buildings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the measure would "send a message to radical Republicans" that they should climb on board with a simple extension of federal funding at current levels.
Taunting House Speaker John Boehner, Reid told reporters the Senate bill would overwhelmingly pass the House "if the speaker had the courage" to bring it up for a vote.
But Boehner had some political realities to consider. Representative Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, said: "I think it would be devastating for the speaker's support" among Republicans if he went ahead with a bill that needed a lot of Democratic support to pass because of Republican opposition.
Meanwhile, business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged Congress to promptly pass the spending bill and raise the limit on government borrowing.
Concern over fiscal negotiations in Washington sent the dollar to a 7-1/2-month low and pressured world equities on Friday.
The impasse has sent the cost of insuring against a U.S. debt default to its highest since May.
A PARTIAL SHUTDOWN
A shutdown would likely result in up to 800,000 federal employees being furloughed. The most visible sign to the public, if past shutdowns are a guide, are museum closings in Washington that outrage tourists and attract television cameras, and possible delays in processing tax filings, for example.
But the government does not grind to a halt.
Large swaths of "essential" activity continue, including benefit checks and national security-related operations. Government agencies were in the process of determining which employees would be considered essential and which not.
Obamacare would continue to be implemented, beginning a period of open enrollment on Tuesday for individuals to purchase insurance.
Various agencies on Friday began announcing plans for next week in the event of a shutdown. For example, the Labor Department said its flow of employment statistics, which financial markets rely upon, would be disrupted.
The key 79-19 vote to end debate on the Senate bill was a defeat for Tea Party-backed Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who tried to tie up the Senate all week with demands that government funds be denied until Obama's healthcare law was put on ice. Fewer than half of his fellow Republicans supported him.
Cruz, speaking to reporters after the vote, urged the House to continue fighting to scuttle Obamacare, which he argues will hurt the U.S. economy.
Indicative of lawmakers' desperation, many mulled the possibility of passing a bill to keep the government running for a very short period of time to avert a shutdown and provide more time to work out a longer-term deal.
Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a senior House Republican, told Reuters: "People are talking about a 10-day CR," a so-called continuing resolution to fund the government through October 10.
That could put the subsequent temporary funding bill on a similar timetable to a debt limit increase that Congress must pass or risk a government default on its loans.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, during a press conference, warned Republicans against lumping those two measures together. "It's two different subjects," she said.
MIDNIGHT MONDAY
As lawmakers stared down the midnight Monday deadline when the current fiscal year ends - and government funding along with it - Senate officials worked feverishly to transmit the newly passed spending bill to the House.
One House Republican aide who asked not to be identified said leaders were weighing attaching a one-year delay of the healthcare law to the bill, "but that's not set in stone."
Earlier, Republican Senator John McCain blamed members of his own party for the difficulties in passing legislation to fund the government beyond Monday. Congress also faces the hard task of raising the limit on federal borrowing authority, which Republicans are targeting for controversial add-ons.
Without a debt limit increase by October 17, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has warned, the United States would have a difficult time paying creditors and operating the government.
"We are dividing the Republican Party rather than attacking Democrats. We are now launching attacks against Republicans ... so it's very dysfunctional," McCain said on the CBS program "This Morning."
Other lawmakers also expressed frustration with their fellow Republicans' demands to win on Obamacare, even though the Supreme Court has upheld most of the law.
"There's a lot of exasperation by those of us who want to move the ball forward and in a rational way," Capito said. "By rational, I mean trying to achieve the achievable."
Tea Party conservatives' insistence on using these two important fiscal bills to advance their small-government agenda comes as a new Gallup Poll shows the country's patience with them could be wearing thin, even though there still are a significant number of backers.
According to the poll, 22 percent of U.S. adults think of themselves as supporters of the movement, down 10 points from the apex of Tea Party popularity in 2010, when they influenced enough elections to return House control to Republicans.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Kim Dixon and Caren Bohan; Editing by Fred Barbash, Jim Loney and Tim Dobbyn)
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