Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Tourists safe after drama at world's biggest observation wheel

Singapore officials on Wednesday were investigating a fire at the world's biggest observation wheel that left almost 175 tourists trapped for hours, some of them dangling high in the sky.
Tuesday night's fire in the control room of the Singapore Flyer shut down the 42-storey high observation wheel, leaving customers stuck for six hours before power was restored.
A few lowered themselves in a sling-like device on a rope from one of the observation capsules before the Singapore Flyer eventually began turning again to allow other trapped passengers to walk out, an AFP reporter witnessed.
Power was restored at about 11:11 pm (1511 GMT).
A 70-year-old woman complaining of dizziness, and a boy who vomited were taken to hospital, said Lieutenant Colonel N. Subhas, of the paramedic and fire service.
"We thought we were going to have to abseil out of the capsule. Of course we were getting fairly panicky about that," said Anna-Louise Allen, an Australian tourist who was trapped with her daughter Amelia, husband Syd, and five other people in one capsule.
A total of 173 passengers were aboard the wheel when a small electrical fire caused the stoppage, said Steven Yeo, general manager of the attraction which began operations early this year.
The power outage at about 5:00 pm is the fourth at the Flyer, Yeo said.
In earlier incidents power was back on within one hour, he told reporters.
"It is a very peculiar incident," Yeo said of the latest case, which is under investigation.
He said some trapped passengers were "a bit disturbed" by the experience. Ten were rescued using harnesses and the other 163 walked out when power returned, he said.
AFP reporters saw one passenger sitting in a sling-like device slowly lower herself about 50 metres (yards) down from the end of one observation capsule to a platform below the wheel.
When she was down safely, onlookers applauded.
At least three other people escaped from the same capsule, including a child brought down in the arms of a firefighter, reporters saw.
The wheel is 165 metres (545 feet) tall, 30 metres bigger than Britain's London Eye, said Great Wheel Corp, which built the Flyer.
Enough electricity was brought back to power air conditioning in the stuck capsules, and to enable the intercom system to function, a Flyer spokeswoman said.
"I was just worried about my baby," said an Indonesian tourist, who gave his name only as Aditya. He was travelling with his two children, aged 11 months and five years old.
Allen, the Australian visitor, said she saw workers in hard hats climbing the wheel while she and her family were trapped. Allen said she was "not sure" at the time whether they would emerge unharmed.
"It was great until it stopped, and when it stopped there was a lack of information," her husband said.
Meta Hartono, an Indonesian visitor, said trapped passengers resorted to urinating in plastic bags while they were hanging in the air. "I love Singapore but I don't think I'll come to the Flyer again," she said.
Yeo said the Flyer would remain closed at least until Thursday.
Unlike old-style Ferris wheel carriages that hang in the open air, the Singapore Flyer and other large observation wheels feature fixed "capsules."
The 28 sleek-looking capsules -- about the size of a city bus -- can hold up to 28 people, and passengers can walk around during the slowly-moving ride.
The Singapore Flyer, worth about 240 million Singapore dollars (171 million US), was a private venture backed mainly by German investors and built by Mitsubishi Corp and Takenaka Corp of Japan.
Great Wheel Corp is also building wheels in Beijing and Berlin which will ultimately edge out the Singapore Flyer as the world's biggest, the chairman of Singapore Flyer, Florian Bollen, said before the attraction opened.

http://news.my.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1851817&page=3

Monday, December 22, 2008

Five Radical Islamists Convicted of Conspiring to Kill Soldiers at Fort Dix

CAMDEN – A jury today convicted five men on charges they plotted to kill members of the U.S. military, Acting United States Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr. announced.
After 5½ days of deliberations, which began Dec. 17, the jury convicted Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, brothers Dritan Duka, Shain Duka and Eljvir Duka and Serdar Tatar on Count One of the seven-count Superseding Indictment that charged them with conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military. The jury acquitted each of defendants of Count Two, which charged attempt to murder members of the U.S. military.
For the conspiracy conviction only, each of the defendants faces a sentence of any number of years up to life in prison.
The case was tried by Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael A. Hammer, Jr., Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Terrorism Unit. U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler, who presided over the 12-week trial, scheduled sentencing of the three Duka brothers for April 22. Judge Kugler scheduled sentencing of Shnewer and Tartar on April 23.
The remaining counts of the Superseding Indictment, which was returned in January, charged the three Duka brothers, who are illegal immigrants, and Shnewer with firearm offenses; including possession of machine guns. See below for conviction details on each of the defendants.
The defendants’ arrests occurred on May 7, 2007, in Cherry Hill as Dritan and Shain Duka were meeting a confidential government witness to purchase four automatic M-16 rifles and three semi-automatic AK-47 rifles to be used in a future attack on military personnel. The other defendants were arrested at various locations at about the same time.
“These men planned, trained and ceaselessly talked unambiguously about their intention to ambush and kill U.S. soldiers,” said Marra. “The word should go out to any other would-be terrorists of the homegrown variety that the United States will find you, infiltrate your group, prosecute you and send you to a federal prison for a very long time.”
“Vigilance was the key to disrupting the dangerous terrorists convicted today and we are glad they are off the street,” said Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI. “We appreciate the tip from an alert citizen who reported this suspicious activity to law enforcement. Without tips from concerned citizens or cooperation from our law enforcement partners, it is much more difficult to safeguard our nation and protect theUnited States from terrorist attack.”
“Today's verdicts underscore the need for continued vigilance against homegrown terror threats,” said Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “While these defendants were not members of an international terrorist organization, their involvement in weapons training, their surveillance of domestic targets and their discussions of killing U.S. military personnel posed a serious threat that required the law enforcement disruption and the prosecutions upheld by the jury today.”
In convicting the defendants, the jury found that one member of the group conducted surveillance at Fort Dix and Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and the U.S. Coast Guard in Philadelphia. The co-conspirator obtained a detailed map of Fort Dix, where they hoped to use assault rifles to kill as many soldiers as possible,according to trial testimony and evidence.
During the trial, the jury viewed secretly recorded videotapes of the defendants preforming small-arms training at a shooting range in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and watching training videos amongst themselves that included depictions of American soldiers being killed and of known foreign Islamic radicals urging jihad against the United States.
The defendants and the charges on which each was convicted are as follows:• Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 23, of Cherry Hill: conspiracy to murder members of the members of the U.S. military, and the attempted possession of AK-47 semi-automatic assault weapons to be used in the attack.• Dritan Duka, 30 of Cherry Hill: conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military; possession of machine guns; possession and attempted possession of machine guns in furtherance of a crime of violence; and two counts of possession of firearms by an illegal alien.• Shain Duka, 27, of Cherry Hill: conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military; possession of machine guns; possession and attempted possession of machine guns in furtherance of a crime of violence; and two counts of possession of firearms by an illegal alien.• Eljvir Duka, 25, of Cherry Hill: conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military, and possession of firearms by illegal aliens. The jury acquitted on one count of possession and attempted possession of machine guns in furtherance of a crime of violence.• Serdar Tatar, 25, of Philadelphia: conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military. A sixth co-defendant, Agron Abdullahu, 26, of Buena Vista Township, Atlantic County, pleaded guilty before Judge Kugler on Oct. 31, 2007, to aiding and abetting the Duka brothers’ illegal possession of weapons. Abdullahu was arrested on May 7, 2007, along with the defendants convicted today. On March 31, 2008, Judge Kugler sentenced Abdullahu to 420 months in federal prison.
The charge of conspiracy to murder members of the U.S. military carries a sentence of any number of years up to life in prison. The charge of possession of a machine gun in furtherance of a crime of violence carries a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years imprisonment. The charge of attempted possession of AK-47 semi-automatic assault weapons to be used in the attack carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. Each count of unlawful possession of machine guns carries a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison. Each count of being an illegal alien in possession of firearms carries a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison.
Marra credited the Special Agents of the FBI's Philadelphia Division and the FBI South Jersey Joint Terrorism Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Fedarcyk, in Philadelphia, for investigation of the case.Marra and Fedarcyk also thanked investigators with member agencies of the FBI South Jersey Joint Terrorism Task Force, which comprises ICE’s Philadelphia Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge John P. Kelleghan, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, under the direction of the Prosecutor Warren W. Faulk, NJ State Police, under the direction of Col. Joseph "Rick" Fuentes, Superintendent, and the Delaware River Port Authority Police, under the direction of Chief Dave McClintock, for their tireless efforts on the investigation.
Additionally, Marra and Fedarcyk would like to thank the following agencies for their assistance and support: the U.S. military services at Fort Dix, Fort Monmouth, Dover Air Force Base, and the U.S. Coast Guard in Philadelphia, along with the Cherry Hill Police Department, Mt. Laurel Police Department, Cherry Hill Fire Department, Camden County Sheriff's Department, Philadelphia Police Department, Pennsylvania State Police, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, and N.J. Homeland Security.

IBM Israel and Samsung develop software reuse technology

Tired of having to install new software with every new device? So are the world's electronic manufacturers. With consumer electronics software becoming increasingly complex and new varieties of product lines each season becoming the norm, consumer electronics companies are urgently looking for ways to reuse the still-good software embedded in components. That's why manufacturing concern Samsung Electronics teamed up with IBM's R&D center in Haifa to develop COMPETENCE, a component modeling technology to meets the demand for mass customization. The two companies last week announced the results of a close collaboration to improve the modeling language and tooling, and produce a new solution that reuses existing standards - all of which would ultimately save manufacturers on the cost of designing a new chip for each new product. Printers are an example of a consumer electronics product line with a variety of models that could benefit from software reuse and simplified customization. A single printer model may have a number of variations, each with different combinations of features and functions. These variations in components include color or black and white printing, scanners, faxes, copiers, and more. Much of the software for each of these printer models is identical, while other individual component variations need to be developed and managed before manufacturing the different models. Boost productivity, lower costs, reduce time to market COMPETENCE is built on IBM's Rational Software Architect tool, which uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML) open standard. Once adopted, COMPETENCE would enable the industry to benefit from higher levels of automation and interoperability. This in turn will enable manufacturers to boost productivity, lower development costs, and reduce total time to market. Much of the savings, Samsung and IBM state, will come from the efficient reuse of existing components in new products, the integration of off-the-shelf components into new product lines, and of standardized interfaces available with model driven development. The collaboration between Samsung and IBM is part of IBM's First of a Kind (FOAK) program for new research innovations. IBM worked with data provided by Samsung to represent their system within a testing environment. COMPETENCE must undergo further development in order to be made available to other IBM clients in the future.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Remains identified as those of Caylee Anthony: They were found near home of missing Florida girl; mother charged in case

ORLANDO, Fla. - Skeletal remains found in the woods are the Florida 3-year-old who has been missing since June, but they don’t reveal any clues about how she was killed, a county medical examiner said Friday.
A utility worker stumbled upon the remains last week, less than a half-mile from where the girl lived. DNA tests confirm that the remains match Caylee Anthony’s genetic profile, said the medical examiner, Dr. Jan Garavaglia.
Caylee’s mother, 22-year-old Casey Anthony, was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even though no body was found. She has insisted that she left the girl with a baby sitter in June, but she didn’t report her missing until July.
It took authorities several days to analyze the remains, and some tests are still being completed. Some of the bones were as small as a pebble and had been scattered, and the fragments were hard to find by excavators who searched on their hands and knees, authorities said. The bone fragments did not reveal any trauma before death, Garavaglia said, but exactly what happened to the girl remains a mystery.
“Bottom line is, folks, no child should have to go through this,” said Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary.
A search team said they did not check the wooded area sooner because it was submerged in water. Beary said his department was investigating reports that the utility worker who called in the tip leading to the discovery of the remains had tried several times in August to call in his suspicion about a bag in the area.
“If we missed a window of opportunity we don’t know,” he said. “I’m not throwing anybody under the bus because we don’t know. That’s why we conduct an administrative review.”
Casey Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez, was with her at the Orange County Jail shortly after she found out the news from a jail chaplain, said Todd Black, a spokesman for the attorney. She was notified about 15 minutes before the news conference about the positive identification. Black said he wouldn’t comment on her reaction.
A message left for the attorney representing George and Cindy Anthony, Casey’s parents, was not immediately returned.
'Sharp eye, good instincts'The Orange County utility worker, Roy Kronk, identified himself at a brief afternoon news conference. He said that he had contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s office in August to report that he had seen “something suspicious, a bag, in the same area.”
Reading from a statement, he said he was cooperating with the sheriff’s office and FBI and would not discuss details with the media.
David Evans, his lawyer, said Kronk is not involved in the girl’s disappearance.
“His participation in this matter is strictly as a concerned citizen with a sharp eye, good instincts,” Evans said. “Those who have speculated to the contrary could not be more wrong.”
Evans asked that the media give his client and other utility workers their privacy.
The case captivated the community where the little girl’s family lived, and Caylee has been a staple on national news as her grandparents pleaded for tips, promising that the girl was still alive.
Caylee’s grandmother first called authorities in July to say she hadn’t seen the girl for a month and her daughter’s car smelled like death.
Troubling detailsPolice immediately interviewed Anthony and soon said everything she told them about her daughter’s whereabouts was false. The baby sitter was nonexistent and the apartment where Anthony said she had last seen Caylee had been empty for months. Anthony also lied about where she worked, they said.
Other troubling details emerged: Photos surfaced of Anthony partying after her daughter went missing. Friends said she was a habitual liar, but also a good mother.
Last month, the Orange County State Attorney turned over almost 800 pages of documents showing someone used the Anthonys’ home computer to do Internet searches for terms like “neck breaking” and “household weapons.”
In mid-March, someone searched Google and Wikipedia for peroxide, shovels, acetone, alcohol and chloroform. Traces of chloroform, which is used to induce unconsciousness and a component of human decomposition, were found in the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car during forensic testing, the documents say.

INTERPOL Secretary General visits India to offer investigative and terrorism prevention support following Mumbai terrorist attacks

NEW DELHI, India – An INTERPOL delegation headed by Secretary General Ronald K. Noble is in India to ensure that the national authorities receive all of the support that they require from INTERPOL’s other 186 member countries in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks against national and international targets in Mumbai last month.
On Saturday, 20 December 2008, and as part of the visit, Secretary General Noble will meet with India’s Union Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Palaniappan Chidambaram.
At the meeting, INTERPOL will reiterate its offer to ensure that the details of the terrorists who were killed or captured – including their names, fingerprints, DNA profiles and photographs – are compared against INTERPOL’s global databases and appropriately disseminated to each and every one of its member countries. INTERPOL will also offer to issue Black Notices (for deceased persons) and Blue Notices (to obtain additional information) for the 10 terrorists involved in the attacks. These notices will allow Indian authorities to seek formal and structured assistance from INTERPOL member countries.
In addition to on-going investigative support, INTERPOL is offering to extend access to INTERPOL’s global databases beyond the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) in New Delhi to include state police, immigration and border-control units and other law enforcement authorities throughout the country, thus enabling officers to conduct real-time checks of INTERPOL’s databases on wanted persons, stolen and lost travel documents, and other critical police information related to terrorism.
INTERPOL will also offer India its state-of-the-art technology to enable immigration officials to carry out direct screening of passports and identity documents on a real-time basis against INTERPOL’s global database of more than 16 million stolen and lost travel documents. This border-control system would permit Indian law enforcement authorities to instantly identify anyone attempting to fraudulently enter the country by air, land or sea. If this offer is accepted, India will join 41 other countries worldwide with this capability.
“India has long been a strong partner of INTERPOL; it is only appropriate that INTERPOL stand shoulder to shoulder with India as it investigates the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which will be remembered for how long they lasted,” said Secretary General Noble.
“India and its Central Bureau of Investigation have much experience in using INTERPOL tools and services to track down terrorist fugitives and so India understands that it cannot be expected to find the answers to this incident without the support of the global law enforcement community, and INTERPOL will help ensure that this happens,” Mr Noble added.
Following the terrorist attacks on 26-29 November which killed more than 170 people and injured at least 300, INTERPOL immediately offered to deploy an Incident Response Team to Mumbai. It is INTERPOL’s practice to offer operational police support to any of its 187 member countries following a crisis, including a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Since 2002, INTERPOL has deployed 43 Incident Response Teams to 30 countries worldwide.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

INTERPOL hosts world’s first conference on homicide and serial sex crimes

LYON, France – Identifying methods to quickly recognize and investigate serial homicide and sex crimes and their potential transnational links is the focus of the first international conference of its kind, hosted by INTERPOL.

Delegates from 36 countries attending the two-day conference (25-26 November) at the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon heard that standard operating procedures for investigating these types of crime needed to be put in place on an international level to help law enforcement identify and arrest sex offenders and serial killers.

“In today’s world of increasing international travel, we can no longer assume that a criminal acting in more than one country is an exceptional occurrence,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

“The global co-operation tools developed by INTERPOL enable law enforcement to easily and safely share photos, fingerprints, DNA and modus operandi with some or all INTERPOL member countries, which can result in identifying links between cases which otherwise would never have been made,” said Mr Noble. “If used systematically, INTERPOL’s databases represent a very powerful tool for investigators.”

An example of this is INTERPOL’s DNA database. Containing 77,000 profiles shared by 49 countries – out of the 56 worldwide which operate national DNA databases – to date 165 positive identifications have been made; of those, four concerned sexual assaults and 10 were murder cases involving multiple countries.

In addition to briefings on case studies, the conference will focus on investigative techniques such as behavioural analysis, methods of obtaining forensic evidence from victims and the INTERPOL tools available to support transnational investigations.

“There is a great deal of individual expertise in investigating homicide and serial sex crimes in our member countries, and this conference is the first step in making this knowledge and experience available to each of our 187 member countries,” said Emmanuel Leclaire, Assistant Director for INTERPOL’s Drugs and Criminal Organizations unit which organized the meeting.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Israel again seals off Gaza

Israel reacted on Tuesday to militant rocket fire by again sealing off the Gaza Strip, where officials said the territory's sole power plant was forced to shut down because of the crippling blockade.
The renewed closure of the impoverished Palestinian enclave came a day after humanitarian supplies were allowed in for the second time since Israel tightened its blockade following a November 4 surge in violence.
"After rockets were fired at the Israeli territory, Defence Minister Ehud Barak decided, following consultations with security services officials, that the crossing points will be closed on Tuesday," the defence ministry said.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket at southern Israel on Monday, causing no casualties or damage, a military spokesman said.
Late Tuesday afternoon, another rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip, police said.
"The rocket fell on wasteland in the west of the Negev desert and caused no casualties nor damage," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
On Monday, 30 truckloads of humanitarian and other basic goods were delivered to Gaza. The Israeli authorities had previously opened the Kerem Shalom border crossing for only one day since the flare-up at the beginning of the month.
Israel also opened the Karni crossing conveyor belt on Monday to deliver wheat and grain as well as the Nahal Oz terminal for the delivery of fuel to the power plant.
But Israeli authorities have made it clear the crossings will open again only if Gaza militants respect a truce that went into effect on June 19 but has been rattled by the upsurge in violence.
The closure of the crossings has led to international concern over the plight of people in the overcrowded sliver of land whose economy has been crippled by a blockade Israel imposed after the Islamist Hamas movement seized power there in June 2007.
On Tuesday, Gaza's sole power plant, which provides 25 to 30 percent of the energy used in the territory, ground to a halt, according to Kanaan Obeid, assistant director of Gaza's energy authority.
"Despite deliveries of fuel on Monday, the power plant stopped functioning because of breakdowns in the production units," he said.
He said the frequent shutdowns of the plant caused by fuel shortages damaged parts of the production units that cannot be replaced because of the blockade.
Israel "refuses to allow in the necessary parts and the plant cannot restart without them," he said.
The plant has been particularly hard hit by the blockade, and Gazans regularly experience blackouts.
Hamas says Israel has not been keeping its side of the truce by refusing to ease the blockade, while Israeli authorities insist Gaza militants must first hold their fire.
Speaking in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that Israel had nothing to be ashamed of.
"The crossings were closed because they returned to fire Qassams (makeshift rockets) and Grads (military-grade rockets) and we did not want to take the security responsibility over the people going through crossings," the outgoing premier said.
"The situation in Gaza is much better than presented outside. Yesterday an order was given to open the crossings.
"We haven't done anything in Gaza that we should be ashamed of. If anything, Hamas should be ashamed. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

Obama vows to get US budget in shape despite stimulus plans

President-elect Barack Obama Tuesday vowed to erase wasteful spending from the deficit-ridden US budget while making wise investments to jump-start the economy.
Obama acknowledged that his plans to inject billions of dollars in stimulus spending would drive the deficit still higher, but stressed the long-term benefits of investment in crumbling US infrastructure and health care systems.
"If we are going to make the investments we need, we also have to be willing to shed the spending that we don't need," Obama said.
"We can't sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists, or interest groups."
Appointing Peter Orszag to head the White House Office of Management and Budget, he said the 39-year-old graduate of Princeton and the London School of Economics would ensure no "mountain of debt" is left for future generations.
Orszag, who is now the director of the Congressional Budget Office, "doesn't need a map to tell him where the bodies are buried in the federal budget," the president-elect told his second news conference in as many days.
Obama, who takes office on January 20, said he was not trampling on President George W. Bush's authority but insisted the economic emergency demanded that he present a clear sense of direction for the years ahead.
"I think it's important, given the uncertainty in the markets and given the very legitimate anxiety that the American people are feeling, that they know that their new president has a plan and is going to act swiftly and boldly," he said.
Obama also named Rob Nabors to serve as Orszag's deputy. Nabors is currently staff director of the powerful appropriations committee in the House of Representatives, and Obama said the pair were "outstanding public servants."
The appointments fleshed out Obama's economic team a day after he nominated New York central banker Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury secretary and named ex-Treasury chief Larry Summers as his top economic adviser.
Both Summers and Geithner cut their political teeth as senior members of president Bill Clinton's economic team, whose hallmark was deficit reduction.
The US government closed its books on the 2008 fiscal year September 30 with a record deficit of 455 billion dollars, and many analysts say the current fiscal year will end with a whopping gap of one trillion dollars.
The economy is staring at recession after contracting by 0.5 percent in the last quarter, according to the latest government data.
Obama said his immediate plans to create 2.5 million jobs through an infrastructure spending spree required a heavy outlay -- reportedly as much as 700 billion dollars.
He pledged anew to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, and has left himself some wiggle room on whether he will extend Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy after 2010.
"But as soon as the recovery is well under way, then we've got to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure that we're not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation," he said.
Unusually for a president-elect, Obama is publicizing his own economic agenda well in advance of taking office in a bid to reassure jittery investors around the world.
While Bush has been at pains to keep Obama abreast of developments, most recently over a bailout for stricken banking giant Citigroup, the Democrat reaffirmed that "there is only one president at a time."
But given the current "extraordinary circumstances," Obama said the public had to know "that we are putting together a first-class team and for them to have clarity that we don't intend to stumble into the next administration.
"We are going to hit the ground running."
Further economic appointments are expected soon, possibly at a follow-up press conference set for Wednesday.
Those could include Obama's pick for commerce secretary, with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson reportedly in line for the job of promoting domestic industry, and perhaps Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell as energy secretary.
Obama is meanwhile expected next week to fill out his national security posts and select a secretary of state -- with former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton hotly tipped to serve as diplomat-in-chief.

US taps online youth groups to fight crime, terrorism

The US State Department announced plans on Monday to promote online youth groups as a new and powerful way to fight crime, political oppression and terrorism.
Drawing inspiration from a movement against FARC rebels in Colombia, the State Department is joining forces with Facebook, Google, MTV, Howcast and others in New York City next week to get the "ball rolling."
It said 17 groups from South Africa, Britain and the Middle East which have an online presence like the "Million Voices Against the FARC" will attend a conference at Columbia University Law School from December 3-5.
Observers from seven organizations that do not have an online presence -- such as groups from Iraq and Afghanistan -- will attend. There will also be remote participants from Cuba.
They will forge an "Alliance of Youth Movement," said James Glassman, under secretary of state for public diplomacy.
"The idea is put all these people together, share best practices, produce a manual that will be accessible online and in print to any group that wants to build a youth empowerment organization to push back against violence and oppression around the world," he told reporters.
The conference will be streamed by MTV and Howcast, he said.
The list of organizations due to attend include the Burma Global Action Network, a human rights movement spurred into action by the ruling junta's crackdown on monks and other pro-democracy protestors last year.
There is also Shabab 6 of April, which has emerged as Egypt's largest pro-democracy youth group, and Invisible Children, which spotlights atrocities committed by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Glassman said.
Others include Fight Back, which fights domestic violence in India, the Save Darfur Coalition, as well as One Million Voices Against Crime in South Africa, said Jared Cohen, from the secretary's policy planning staff.
Also attending will be People's March Against Knife Crime from Britain and Young Civilians from Turkey.
Cohen said Young Civilians is a human rights and pro-democracy organization which works online but has brought thousands of protestors into the streets of Turkey.
Glassman said the State Department is providing about 50,000 dollars in order to help bring delegates from the groups to the United States.
Among the speakers will be actress Whoopi Goldberg and a co-founder of Facebook.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Bruce Willis sues Malaysian royal over rubber deal

Hollywood actor Bruce Willis is suing a Malaysian company and its royal chairman over an investment in an eco-friendly rubber venture which went sour, the firm said Friday.

Petra Group said Willis had filed a complaint in a Los Angeles court to recover 900,000 dollars from a two million dollar investment in the firm's subsidiary, Green Rubber Global.

Petra is chaired by Tunku Imran Tuanku Jaafar, a prince in the royal family of Malaysia's Negeri Sembilan state.

"The company is very surprised with Mr. Willis' legal actions and refutes in the strongest possible terms any allegations of impropriety," Petra Group spokesman Andrew Murray-Watson told AFP.

He said Petra had refunded most of Willis' investment and had every intention of paying the remainder within a deadline, a fortnight away.

"As a gesture of good will, 1.1 million dollars of the two million Mr. Willis invested has been repaid already. Mr. Willis is aware that the balance will be repaid within the next few weeks," he said.

Murray-Watson said in 2007 Willis contacted Petra's chief executive Vinod Sekhar -- who personally owns almost 100 percent of the group -- asking to invest in Green Rubber, which uses an environmentally friendly technology to recycle tyres.

Sekhar agreed to buy back Willis' shares at any time he wanted to sell.

At the time Green Rubber was planning to list on the London stock market, but because of the global credit crunch the plans had to be put on hold -- triggering the disagreement between the two sides, Murray-Watson said.

Willis' friend and fellow Hollywood actor, Mel Gibson, is another investor in Green Rubber and is reported to be a close friend of Sekhar.

Petra said in a statement Gibson was still happy with his investment and agreed with the decision not to list the company. It quoted him as saying that "in hindsight, it has turned out to be absolutely the right decision".

Green Rubber said last year Sekhar, through Petra, owns 84 percent of the firm, with the remainder held by his celebrity friends including Indian former cricketer Kapil Dev, former golfer Lee Westwood, and the Forbes publishing family.

The firm's recycling process, which avoids used tyres being burned or ending up as landfill, reportedly uses waste-free environmentally friendly technology to produce a rubber compound that can be used to make products including tyres.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Bill Gates tops U.S. wealth list 15 years in a row

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the richest person in the United States for the 15th year in a row, but economic woes have claimed some members of Forbes magazine ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
Dropouts this year include former American International Group chief executive Maurice Greenberg, and former eBay chief Meg Whitman, while among those on the list some 126 fortunes declined -- six times more than last year.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson saw his fortune dwindle by $13 billion in the past year, the biggest loss of anyone on the list, while Kirk Kerkorian's fortune shrank by $6.8 billion as shares in casino operator MGM Mirage tumbled.
"The fact that the rich are not getting richer means that the economy is locked," said Matthew Miller, editor of the Forbes list. "Credit is not being extended, there is very little liquidity in the markets and deals can't get done, so the economy contracts."
Forbes used publicly traded stock prices on August 29 when compiling the list, signaling that this week's stock plunges -- part of the worst financial turmoil since the Great Depression -- have further eroded many of these fortunes.
Although Gates topped the list with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes to be about $57 billion, this was down from the $59 billion the magazine said he was worth last year.
Investor Warren Buffett came in at No. 2 with $50 billion, down from an estimated $52 billion last year, followed in third place by Oracle Corp founder Lawrence Ellison, who is said to be worth $27 billion.
HIGH BARRIER
After being booted out last year by Google Inc co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, four members of the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart Stores Inc founder Sam Walton, return at positions Nos. 4 through 7, all with fortunes of about $23 billion.
Rounding out the top 10 are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at No. 8, with a fortune estimated at $20 billion from his news and financial data empire, and brothers Charles and David Koch, who run manufacturing and energy company Koch Industries, and are valued at $19 billion each.
The list of the Top 400 Richest People in America can be seen at (http://www.forbes.com/forbes400).
But for all the economic and financial turmoil, membership in this exclusive club remains as tough as ever.
For a second straight year, the minimum net worth needed to get on the Forbes list is $1.3 billion, while the average net worth of the 400 richest Americans is $3.9 billion.
Collectively, that means that the 400 richest Americans have a net worth of $1.57 trillion, exceeding Canada's gross domestic product.
The youngest member on the Forbes' list is 24-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose $1.5 billion could swell if ever his social networking company goes public.
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts has the largest contingent on the list among elite schools, with 49 alumni, followed by Stanford with 30, Yale with 17 and Princeton with seven.
Of the 400 richest Americans, Forbes said 271 made their fortunes themselves, while 75 people inherited their money.
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Eric Walsh)

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955),[3] is an American business magnate, philanthropist, the world's third richest person (as of February 8, 2008),[2] and chairman[4] of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. Gates was the richest person in the world for 15 consecutive years.[5] During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock.[6] He has also authored or co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a large number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.[7][8] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January, 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June, 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as a part-time, non-executive chairman.

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His family was upper middle class; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way, and her father, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president. Gates has one older sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had dropped his own "III" suffix.[9] Early on in his life, Gates's parents had a law career in mind for him.[10]
At thirteen he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.[11] When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.[12] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he commented on it and said, "There was just something neat about the machine."[13] After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.[14]
At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when it went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."[13] At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.[15]
Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test[16] and subsequently enrolled at Harvard College in the fall of 1973.[17] Prior to the mid 1990s, an SAT score of 1590 was equivalent to an IQ of about 170 (roughly the one in a million level),[18] a figure that would frequently be cited by the press.[19] While at Harvard, he met his future business partner, Steve Ballmer, whom he later appointed as CEO of Microsoft. He also met computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou at Harvard, with whom he collaborated on a paper about algorithms.[20] He did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard[21] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. He remained in contact with Paul Allen, joining him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.[22] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.[23] He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.[21]

MICROSOFT: BASIC

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.[24] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS,[25] and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. They named their partnership "Micro-soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque.[25] Within a year, the hyphen was dropped, and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered with the USPTO.[25]
Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.[26] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[25] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979.[24]
During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, he personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.[27]

IBM PARTNERSHIP

In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to write the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.[28] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000. Gates insisted that IBM let Microsoft keep the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.[29] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.[30]

WINDOWS

Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board.[24] Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences undermined the partnership. Gates distributed an internal memo on May 16, 1991 announcing that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would shift its efforts to the Windows NT kernel development.[31]

MANAGEMENT STYLE

From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it.
As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.[32][33] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"[34] and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?"[35] The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.[34] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."[4][36][37]
Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100 line, but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products.[36] On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.[38]

ANTITRUST LAW VIOLATIONS

Many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates's approval. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words like "compete," "concerned," and "we."[39] BusinessWeek reported:

Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall,' so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail Gates both sent and received.[40]

Gates later said that he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, "Did I fence with Boies? ... I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree."[41] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying, blocking competition, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[41]
The European Union Microsoft competition case is also a case brought by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft for abuse of its dominant position in the market (according to competition law). It started as a complaint from Novell over Microsoft's licensing practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft to divulge certain information about its server products and release a version of Microsoft Windows without Windows Media Player.

APPEARANCE IN ADS

Bill Gates decided in 2008 to appear in at least 1 commercial in a series of ads to promote Microsoft. This commercial, co-starring Jerry Seinfeld, is a 1 and a half minute talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Bill Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. Mr. Seinfeld begins to inform him about a pair of shoes called Conquistadors that run "a little tight" and sells him on them in a size 10 (whereas the store clerk was attempting an 11). As Mr. Gates is buying the shoes he holds up his discount card, this card uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation [42]. As they are walking out of the mall, Jerry Seinfeld asks Bill Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Most critics are still in debate over the exact meaning of this commercial saying that it is too vague to make sense to them, but that it is unlikely that Microsoft is attempting to make edible computers. Some say that it is an homage to Mr. Seinfeld's own show about "nothing"(Seinfeld). [43]

PERSONAL LIFE

Gates married Melinda Gates (née French) from Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine(1996), Rory John(1999) and Phoebe Adele(2002). Bill Gates' house is a earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. According to King County public records, as of 2006, the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is $991,000. Also among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.[44] Gates is also known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby.[45] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.[46][47]
Gates was number one on the "Forbes 400" list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on Forbes list of "The World's Richest People" from 1995 to 2007. In 1999, Gates's wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a "centibillionaire".[48] Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.[49] Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667, and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667.[50] He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.[51]

PHILANTHROPHY

Gates began to realize the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world.[52] The foundation is set up to allow benefactors access to how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.[53][54] The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father have met with Rockefeller several times and have modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.[55] As of 2007 Bill and Melinda Gates were the second most generous philanthropist in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.[56]
The foundation has also received criticism because it invests the assets that it has not yet distributed, with the exclusive goal of maximizing the return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been criticized for worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world.[57] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments to assess social responsibility.[58] It subsequently cancelled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.[59]

RECOGNITION

Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and alternative rock band U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts.[60] In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time".[61] Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite" by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the "Top 100 influential people in media" in 2001.[62]
Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands in 2000,[63] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden in 2002, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 2005, Harvard University in June 2007,[64] and from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008.[65] Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) from Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,[66] in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.[67]
In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".[68]

INVESTMENTS

  1. Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, WA.
  2. bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Imprisoned terrorists still advocating terror: 1993 World Trade Center bombers write letters exhorting jihad

It was 12:18 p.m. on Feb. 26, 1993, lunchtime, when the van exploded. The massive bomb rattled the World Trade Center, leaving a giant crater in the underground garage. Six people were killed, and more than 1,000 were wounded.
At the time, it was the worst act of terrorism ever committed on American soil. Three Islamic extremists were among those convicted, each sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy convicted others involved in the attack.
"It's difficult to imagine people who are more evil or inclined to do more mass homicide," says McCarthy.
So the men were sent to America's most secure federal prisons, eventually ending up at Supermax in Colorado, supposedly unable to do further harm.
Or so we thought. Letters and articles obtained by NBC News show that while behind bars, the 1993 bombers continued their terrorist activities. They wrote letters to other suspected terrorists and brazenly praised Osama bin Laden in Arabic newspapers.
According to confidential Spanish court documents obtained by NBC, at least 14 letters went back and forth between the World Trade Center bombers and a Spanish terror cell.
In February 2003, the bomber Mohammad Salameh writes, "Oh God! Make us live with happiness, make us die like martyrs, may we be united on the Day of Judgement." The recipient, Mohamed Achraf, later allegedly led a plot to blow up the National Justice Building in Madrid and is waiting trial.
In July 2002, a letter Salameh sent from prison is published in the Al-Quds newspaper, proclaiming "Osama Bin Laden is my hero of this generation."
"He was exhorting acts of terrorism and helping recruit would-be terrorists for the jihad," says McCarthy, "from inside an American prison."
The letters to the bombers spoke of the need to "terminate the infidels" and said, "The Muslims don't have any option other than jihad."
Among those corresponding is a man charged with recruiting suicide operatives in Spain. Spanish officials accuse him of using letters to and from the U.S. bombers as a recruiting tool.
All this while the Bureau of Prisons reassured the public that terrorists were under control.
"We have been managing inmates with ties to terrorism for over a decade by confining them in secure conditions and monitoring their communications closely," said Harley Lappin, the Bureau of Prisons director, in October 2003.
Today, federal prison officials refuse to comment directly on what other law enforcement officials call a horrible lapse, saying only that inmates' letters are "monitored" and "inspected."
So how did this happen? Federal officials tell NBC that the Justice Department failed to restrict communications to and from the three bombers because key officials didn't consider them all that dangerous.
Michael Macko lost his father, Bill, in the trade center bombing and attended the 12th anniversary memorial on Feb. 26.
"If they are encouraging acts of terrorism internationally, how do we know they're not encouraging acts of terrorism right here on U.S. soil?" asks Macko.
That's just one of the many questions now being scrutinized by the Justice Department.

Fears for Obama: Neo-Nazi threats as great a worry as Al Qaeda?

With the presidential election only days away, federal officials are looking closely for any uptick in threats to presidential candidates from white supremacist or other extremist groups. But in contrast to the pre-election atmosphere of four years ago, U.S. agencies have picked up little "chatter" about looming Islamic terror plots—and scant indications of any imminent pre-election messages from Al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden.
Earlier this week, authorities announced they had busted up a far-fetched plot directed at Democratic candidate Barack Obama by two young "skinhead" racists in Tennessee. That case, along with a similar extremist plot broken up before the Democratic Party convention in Denver and the recent arrest of a neo-Nazi leader in Virginia, have pointed up the extent to which the government is paying attention to the threat to Obama from far-right extremist factions. "I don't know that we're seeing a resurgence of these groups," Michael Ward, deputy assistant FBI director for counterterrorism, told NEWSWEEK. "But we are seeing an increase in rhetoric."
Ward says the increasing anger of white supremacists has manifested itself in Internet postings and threats reported to law-enforcement agencies. What worries the FBI most, he says, are "lone wolves" who might be seething with anger and armed to the teeth but who do not show up on any government radar screens.
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Since last February, a presidential-campaign-threat task force created by the FBI and Secret Service has conducted more than 650 "threat assessments" to evaluate reports that could involve threats to presidential or vice presidential contenders or any others connected to the election. About 100 of those threats have been assessed to be "racially motivated" and are thought to be directed at Obama. Another 100 of the reports received since last winter are deemed to be "political" and come from across the ideological spectrum. They include pro-gun groups and anti-abortion extremists. Other categories used by the task force to track threats don't breakdown along ideological or political lines.
A similar interagency group was put together four years ago when U.S. agencies were anxious about the possibility of a pre-election attack by Al Qaeda or its affiliates. Ward said concerns about an attack by Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremists haven't evaporated. But this year, concerns about white-supremacist threats have grown. "They're both high on the radar screen and they're of equal concern," he said.
At least three lurid right-wing-extremist threats directed at Obama have come to light through government court proceedings since the end of last summer. First, as delegates and journalists were arriving in Denver in late August for the Democratic National Convention, three alleged white supremacists were arrested by local and federal authorities on drug and gun charges. In court papers, the Feds said that the three, who had access to a rifle with a sniper scope, had discussed their hatred for Obama and the possibility of shooting him from a "grassy knoll." However, investigators said that most if not all of this lurid conversation took place while the suspects were addled by methamphetamines; the suspects were never actually charged with threatening Obama, which in itself is a possible federal crime.
Two weeks ago, in Roanoke, Va., Bill White, a notorious neo-Nazi leader, was arrested on charges of threatening the "use of force" against the foreman of a Chicago jury which had convicted another white supremacist leader in 2004. In an affidavit submitted to a court to request a warrant for White's arrest, an FBI agent included graphics from a purported "National Socialist" magazine White was about to publish, which prominently featured a death threat against Obama. According to the affidavit, White in the past often issued death threats through a Web site he edited; one posting said that "all Jews and Marxists (including their fellow traveling neo-cons, neo-liberals, Zionists and Judaized-Christians in both the Republican and Democratic Parties) should be shot rather than debated …"
Then, earlier this week, agents of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested two alleged white supremacists, Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, on firearms and possible presidential-threat charges. According to an ATF court filing, the two, who shared "White Power" and "Skinhead" enthusiasms, met via the Internet about a month ago and began discussing how they would embark on a "killing spree" that would include killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans. (Experts who monitor right-wing groups say the number 88 is a code for "Heil Hitler," H being the eighth letter in the alphabet.). According to the ATF complaint, the two suspects' discussions eventually led them to a Tarantino-like fantasy plot in which they would shoot Obama from a car with a rifle while dressed in white tuxedos and top hats.
Despite these well-publicized cases, Mark Potok, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center—an Alabama group that monitors racist and neo-Nazi activities—says that most ultra-right-wing extremists have been very careful recently about circulating death threats, which can be attributed to them publicly. "We've seen very little of that on white supremacist Web sites," Potok said. The reason: they fear it will give the Secret Service, FBI and other government agencies an excuse for cracking down on them aggressively, Potok says.
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Meanwhile, U.S. counterterrorism officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that while they remain wary of possible Islamic terrorist-attack plots, they have no specific and credible information to indicate that a pre-election plot directed at targets inside the United States is in the works. (That, of course, does not rule out the possibility that such a plot is indeed afoot and the U.S. authorities just don't know about it yet.) The officials also said they had no specific indication that Osama bin Laden or one of his principal associates, such as Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, were planning in the next few days to circulate a message related to the U.S. presidential election similar to the message from bin Laden that surfaced just prior to the 2004 election.
Recently, persistent attacks by computer hackers have disabled some key Web sites used by Al Qaeda supporters to circulate propaganda and exchange messages. One of the main sites used by Al Qaeda leaders in the past to circulate video and audio messages remains operative, however. There is no indication that the site expects such a message before next Tuesday, said several government and private experts, although this does not rule out the possibility. Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who monitors Al Qaeda Web sites, he says that the terrorist group still could attempt to use the pre-election period as an opportunity to "grab media headlines."

Experts see security risks in downturn: Global financial crisis may fuel instability and weaken U.S. defenses

WASHINGTON - Intelligence officials are warning that the deepening global financial crisis could weaken fragile governments in the world's most dangerous areas and undermine the ability of the United States and its allies to respond to a new wave of security threats.
U.S. government officials and private analysts say the economic turmoil has heightened the short-term risk of a terrorist attack, as radical groups probe for weakening border protections and new gaps in defenses. A protracted financial crisis could threaten the survival of friendly regimes from Pakistan to the Middle East while forcing Western nations to cut spending on defense, intelligence and foreign aid, the sources said.
The crisis could also accelerate the shift to a more Asia-centric globe, as rising powers such as China gain more leverage over international financial institutions and greater influence in world capitals. Global flashpointsSome of the more troubling and immediate scenarios analysts are weighing involve nuclear-armed Pakistan, which already was being battered by inflation and unemployment before the global financial tsunami hit. Since September, Pakistan has seen its national currency devalued and its hard-currency reserves nearly wiped out.
Analysts also worry about the impact of plummeting crude prices on oil-dependent nations such as Yemen, which has a large population of unemployed youths and a history of support for militant Islamic groups.
The underlying problems and trends -- especially regional instability and the waning influence of the West -- were already well established, but they are now "being accelerated by the current global financial crisis," the nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, said in a recent speech. McConnell is among several top U.S. intelligence officials warning that deep cuts in military and intelligence budgets could undermine the country's ability to anticipate and defend against new threats.
Annual spending for U.S. intelligence operations currently totals $47.5 billion, a figure that does not include expensive satellites that fall under the Pentagon's budget. At a recent gathering of geospatial intelligence officials and contractors in Nashville, the outlook for the coming fiscal cycles was uniformly grim: fewer dollars for buying and maintaining sophisticated spy systems.
"I worry where we'll be five or 10 years from now," Charles Allen, intelligence director for the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview. "I am deeply worried that we will not have the funding necessary to operate and build the systems already approved."
Intelligence officials say they have no hard evidence of a pending terrorist attack, and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in a news conference Thursday that his agency has not detected increased al-Qaeda communications or other signs of an imminent strike.
'Banging the drum'But many government and private terrorism experts say the financial crisis has given al-Qaeda an opening, and judging from public statements and intercepted communications, senior al-Qaeda leaders are elated by the West's economic troubles, which they regard as a vindication of their efforts and a sign of the superpower's weakness. "Al-Qaeda's propaganda arm is constantly banging the drum saying that the U.S. economy is on the precipice -- and it's the force of the jihadists that's going to push us over the edge," said Bruce Hoffman, a former scholar-in-residence at the CIA and now a professor at Georgetown University.
Whether terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is technically capable of another Sept. 11-style attack is unclear, but U.S. officials say he has traditionally picked times of transition to launch major strikes. The two major al-Qaeda-linked attacks on U.S. soil -- the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the 2001 hijackings -- occurred in the early months of new administrations.
This year, the presidential transition is occurring as American households and financial institutions are under severe economic strain, and political leaders are devoting great time and effort to that crisis. Frances Fragos Townsend, who previously served as Bush's homeland security adviser, told a gathering of terrorism experts last month that the confluence of events is "not lost" on bin Laden.
"We know from prior actions that this is a period of vulnerability," Townsend said.
As bad as economic conditions are in the United States and Europe, where outright recessions are expected next year, they are worse in developing countries such as Pakistan, a state that was already struggling with violent insurgencies and widespread poverty. Some analysts warn that a prolonged economic crisis could trigger a period of widespread unrest that could strengthen the hand of extremists and threaten Pakistan's democratically elected government -- with potentially grave consequences for the region and perhaps the planet.
Pakistanis were hit by soaring food and energy prices earlier in the year, and the country's financial problems have multiplied since late summer. Islamabad's currency reserves have nearly evaporated, forcing the new government to seek new foreign loans or risk defaulting on the country's debt. The national currency, the rupee, has been devalued, and inflation is squeezing Pakistan's poor and middle class alike.
Shahid Javed Burki, a native Pakistani and former World Bank official, said job cuts and higher food costs are behind much of the anger and desperation he witnessed during a recent trip. "I'm especially worried about the large urban centers," said Burki, author of several books on Pakistan's economy. "If they are badly hurt, it creates incentives for people to look to the extremists to make things better. It's a very dicey situation."
Recruiting toolU.S. officials are following developments with particular concern because of Pakistan's critical role in the campaign against terrorism, as well as the country's arsenal of dozens of nuclear weapons. Al-Qaeda has appealed directly to Pakistanis to overthrow their government, and its Taliban allies have launched multiple suicide bombings, some aimed at economic targets such as the posh Marriott hotel in Islamabad, hit in September.
Economic and social unrest has helped drive recruiting for militant groups that cross into Afghanistan to attack U.S. troops.
The Bush administration has counterpunched by striking unilaterally at al-Qaeda-allied militants in the autonomous tribal region along the Afghan border.
More than 15 such strikes, using unmanned Predator aircraft piloted remotely by the CIA, have killed dozens of suspected insurgents since late August.
Concerns about ChinaThe financial crisis has also prompted security concerns about China, though experts are divided over how the country will fare if the recession is long and deep. Already, China's export-driven economy has suffered a major jolt, prompting Beijing to announce an economic stimulus package worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Job losses and shuttered factories have spurred social unrest, prompting some China-watchers to predict a reduction in spending on its armed forces and space programs as the nation turns its focus inward.
In the past month, factory closings have sparked protests and highlighted the growing gap between social classes.
China turned down a request by Pakistan for a $4 billion loan, and its economic stumbles have dampened hopes that it might, by itself, pull the global economy out of its slump.
"We had 30 years of a Chinese success story, but we're now entering uncharted waters," said Adam Segal, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Yet many China scholars also see great opportunity for the communist giant. Even as the global recession cuts into its export markets, the country continues to experience robust growth at home, thanks to the consumption habits of its rapidly growing middle class. A hefty economic stimulus will ensure continued, if modest, growth, even if exports flat line, said Albert Keidel, a former economist for the World Bank and the Treasury Department and now an East Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
China already was on track to surpass the United States as the world's largest economy, perhaps as early as 2030. Now, many experts believe the global recession could help it do so faster.
The implications are enormous for the global economy and for international security, Keidel said.
"If we have a long recession and China catapults itself forward with double-digit growth, those timelines move forward," he said.
China could quickly outpace the United States to become the world's influential economy, while also competing in other areas long dominated by Americans. Even if China chooses to keep its military growth on a modest pace, the country will become a significant competitor in key areas such as space exploration, several experts said.
"It's not about China moving up the ladder as much as it's about us tripping and falling down the ladder," said Derek Scissors, an Asia specialist at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Military budget cuts are possibleWill the United States be able to retain its edge at a time when its own military spending is threatened with cuts? In recent interviews, several intelligence officials said they anticipate smaller budgets for military hardware and surveillance aircraft because of the economic strain.
"They are expensive programs and some are hard to understand, but they are absolutely invaluable," Allen, the Homeland Security intelligence chief, said of the surveillance systems used in Iraq and along the Afghan-Pakistani border. "The advances we have made are tremendous, but I see a slowing of our technology edge, and that concerns me."
James R. Clapper Jr., the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said his aides are already looking at ways to consolidate and cut. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism programs have had "a lot of money -- we've been awash in it, frankly," he told the gathering of intelligence officials and defense contractors in Nashville. But in leaner times, intelligence officials will have to make tough choices.
"I always think of the apocryphal statement attributed to the chancellor of the exchequer in the United Kingdom in 1927: 'We are running out of money, so we must begin to think,' " Clapper said. "I think we are going to be in another era like that."

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