Obama to unveil Afghan troop cut plan tomorrow

President Barack Obama is finalising his decision on how many US troops to withdraw from Afghanistan starting next month and will announce his plan tomorrow, a US official said yesterday.

Obama (picture) will lay out a blueprint for bringing home thousands of troops in the initial phase of a military drawdown and also unveil a broader withdrawal strategy for the remainder of the 30,000 extra “surge” troops he ordered deployed in late 2009, the official said.






But the president was still deliberating on the exact numbers and pace of the troop reduction as he faced growing pressure from Congress and US public increasingly weary of the nearly 10-year-old war.

Obama’s decision comes at a critical time as he eyes his 2012 re-election prospects and lawmakers from both parties, seeking to reduce federal spending, are anxious to curtail what has become a costly and unpopular US military intervention.

Obama’s challenge is to strike a balance between military leaders seeking to limit any reduction in combat forces and White House advisers pressing for a withdrawal large enough to placate his own Democratic party’s anti-war wing and a growing number of Republicans.

Obama has only said the initial withdrawal will be “significant” but has not said publicly what that would entail. Some US officials have privately estimated that could mean 3,000 to 5,000 troops at first and an equal number by the end of the year.

But Defence Secretary Robert Gates, backed by the Pentagon brass, has urged a more modest drawdown out of the 100,000 US troops now in Afghanistan, warning that a faster withdrawal could jeopardise hard-won gains on the ground against the Taliban.

US, Japan drop 2014 Okinawa base-transfer deadline

A US Air Force F-22 fighter jet (front) taxis past a C17 aircraft after landing at Kadena US Air Force Base on Japan’s island of Okinawa in this file photo of May 30, 2009. The US and Japan say they will drop the 2014 Okinawa base-transfer deadline


The United States and Japan today agreed to drop a 2014 deadline for building a new airstrip on Okinawa and transferring US Marines from that Japanese island to Guam, top officials said in a statement.

“Completion of the FRF (Futenma Replacement Facility) and the Marine relocation will not meet the previously targeted date of 2014,” the two allies said in a statement following Cabinet-level talks in Washington.

They vowed to complete the projects “at the earliest possible date after 2014.”

UK teenager arrested in global hacking probe

British police arrested a 19-year-old man in England on suspicions that he was linked to cyber attacks on the CIA, Britain’s anti-organised crime agency and Sony Corp.

As part of international efforts to catch the culprits behind a string of high-profile hacks, London’s Metropolitan Police, working with the US FBI, said they arrested the teenager in the town of Wickford, close to London.

The raid was linked to recent attacks on the websites of the US Central Intelligence Agency and the British police Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which targets organised crime in Britain and overseas, police said.

The suspect’s computer was being examined for data linked to Sony, whose websites have also been attacked.



The Lulz Security group of hackers has claimed responsibility for these attacks, but police declined to say whether the suspect was linked to that organization.

Lulz Security said on Twitter that the suspect was not a group leader. It said he was “at best, mildly associated” with the group and that Lulz Security used one of his servers to host one of several chatrooms.

In addition to attacks on Sony, the CIA and SOCA, Lulz Security has also claimed responsibility for targeting the US Public Broadcasting Service and Fox.com. Fox is a unit of News Corp.

But no hackers have claimed responsibility so far for some more serious recent security breaches including attacks on the International Monetary Fund, Lockheed Martin Corp, Citigroup Inc, Google Inc and Michaels Stores.

Lulz Security has also not claimed responsibility for two major attacks against Sony that captured personal data of more than 100 million customers, including 77 million PlayStation Network and Qriocity accounts.

Computer misuse and fraud

Lulz Security often uses so-called denial-of-service attacks to overwhelm websites with Internet traffic.

SOCA’s website, which is used purely for public information, went down for a short time on Monday before being brought back up. Hackers would not have had access to confidential data or information about ongoing operations, a SOCA spokesman said.

Police said the teenager, who was being held at a central London police station, was arrested on suspicion of computer misuse and fraud offences.

The London Force said forensic experts were examining “a significant amount of material” following searches at the home where the arrest took place.

“The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group,” the London force said.

Lulz Security said on Sunday that it has teamed up with Anonymous, a group of hacker activists, or “hactivists,” in a campaign to steal highly sensitive government data.

Anonymous has publicly targeted websites of companies that it says are foes of the “WikiLeaks” website and governments that it describes as oppresive.

Spanish police arrested on June 10 three suspected members of Anonymous.

US Senate confirms Panetta as Pentagon chief

CIA Director Leon Panetta testifies at his Senate confirmation hearings to become US Secretary of Defence on Capitol Hill Washington in this June 9, 2011 file photograph. The US Senate voted unanimously on June 21, 2011 to confirm Panetta as the new secretary of defence.


The US Senate voted unanimously yesterday to confirm outgoing Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta as the new secretary of defence, replacing the retiring Robert Gates.

Panetta, 72, who has held a variety of senior posts in Washington dating back decades, was nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Pentagon. Panetta is expected to start his new job on July 1.

The rare 100-0 vote followed a debate that saw praise for Panetta and anxiety about the challenges he will face to push defence budgets lower and oversee the start of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

The troop pullout is due to begin next month and Obama is expected to present a blueprint for it in a prime-time speech to Americans today.

“The next secretary of defence will have to struggle with the competing demands on our forces while Washington struggles with an extremely challenging fiscal environment,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said.



He said Panetta’s lengthy experience made him the right man for the job. As CIA director since February 2009, Panetta had been “intimately” involved in the most pressing national security issues, Levin said — personally overseeing the manhunt that ended in last month’s covert operation to kill Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.

During his confirmation hearing, Panetta broadly signaled his alignment with Gates, saying they tended to “walk hand in hand” on many issues. Gates has warned against hasty troop drawdowns in Afghanistan.

Senators of both parties lauded Gates, who is stepping down after four and a half years as Pentagon chief, first under former President George W. Bush and then Obama.

Debate over Afghanistan

While there was no argument about Panetta’s qualifications, his confirmation did produce Senate debate on Afghanistan.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said the United States could not afford the war any longer as it “drowns in a sea of debt.” Manchin urged Obama to “end the scope of our current mission well before 2014,” when the lead in Afghanistan’s security is due to be turned over to Afghan forces.

“I believe it is time for President Obama to begin a substantial and responsible reduction of our military presence in Afghanistan,” Manchin told the Senate. “I believe it is time for us to rebuild America, not Afghanistan.”

Senator John McCain called Manchin’s comments isolationist, while fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said it was important not to leave faster than Afghan security forces are able to fight militants without the help of US troops.

Panetta told Congress he would ensure fiscal discipline in the US military, saying the days of “unlimited” defence budgets were over.

Panetta was budget director for former President Bill Clinton and helped shape decisions that led to budget surpluses of the late 1990s, Levin said. Panetta is also a former member of Congress and once chaired the House budget committee.

Decades ago, Panetta headed the Office of Civil Rights in the administration of Republican President Richard Nixon. But he won election to the House of Representatives as a Democrat and worked for Democratic administrations after that.

Death row inmate eats two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries... and a glass of fruit punch

Milton Mathis had IQ of just 62 and has problems dressing himself

A mentally handicapped murderer who fatally shot two people and paralysed a third in a Houston crack house in 1998, was executed last night by lethal injection - after eating a mammoth final meal.

Milton Mathis, 32, scoffed two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries, and fruit punch, officials said.

Lawyers for Mathis, who was the 23rd person put to death in the U.S. this year and the sixth executed in Texas, had spent yesterday morning pleading his case before the Supreme Court. He previously lobbied unsuccessfully to state and federal courts.

Meaty: Mathis requested two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries and fruit punch (file photo).Sad ending: Milton Mathis, 32, was executed in Texas on Tuesday, despite being mentally disabled

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry, however, vetoed state legislation in 2001 that would have outlawed executing inmates with mental disabilities.

Perry's decision gave Texas juries the power of deciding who to execute.

A year later, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Atkins verse Virginia, but left it to the states to determine how to decide whether a person had mental disabilities.

It's been documented Mathis had an eighth-grade education when he was convicted, and scored in the low 60s on several IQ tests, once getting a 62.

Former Texas Governor, Mark White, came to Mathis's aid several years ago, voicing his opinion the convicts life should be spared.

White argued his low IQ scores should alter the decision.

Psychology experts have routinely put the standard for mental disabilities around a 70 IQ and lower.

'Mathis has suffered from obvious mental disabilities since childhood,' White has stated. 'He has had problems with functions that come easily to most of us, like dressing himself.'

Mathis was convicted in September 1999 after opening fire in a crack house located in Fort Bend County.

Travis Brown III, 24, and Daniel Hibbard, 31, were instantly killed. A third victim, Melanie Almaguer, then 15, was also shot in the head and is paralysed from the neck down.

According to the state attorney general's office, Mathis also turned the gun on Almaguer's mother, but ran out of bullets.

He looted the home before setting it on fire, fled in Brown's car, and later told a fellow inmate that he wished he had 'killed them all.'


SIX OF THE BEST: Famous last meals on death row



* GARY GILMORE (1977): Hamburgers, eggs, potatoes, coffee and whisky
* HENRY PORTER (1985): Tortillas, steak, beans, tossed salad, jalapeno peppers, ice cream and chocolate cake
* TED BUNDY (1989): Steak, eggs, toast, milk, coffee, juice, butter, jelly and hash browns
* JAMES SMITH (1990): Yoghurt [after asking for dirt]
* ROBERT HARRIS (1992): Chicken bucket, two large pizzas, Pepsi six-pack, jelly beans and Camel cigarettes
* TERESA LEWIS (2010): Fried chicken, sweet peas and German chocolate cake

La Familia leader captured without a shot fired - Mexican claims major drug 'hit'

La Familia leader, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, has been arrested and Mexican authorities contend that the group's reign in the state of Michoacán has come to an end. Federal police escort one of nearly 50 suspects of two major drug cartels to a news

UN assembly approves second term for UN chief Ban

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon smiles during a news conference after a meeting with Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica (not pictured) in Montevideo on June 14, 2011.

The 192-nation UN General Assembly yesterday unanimously approved a second five-year term for UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who analysts and diplomats see as a solid ally of Washington.

The former South Korean foreign minister, who took over from his predecessor Kofi Annan in 2007, was re-elected to the world body’s top job by acclamation starting January 1, 2012.

Ban, 67, was unopposed, making his re-election a virtual certainty after the Security Council last week recommended he continue at the helm of the United Nations. He thanked the UN member states for the “great honor” they bestowed on him.

“I am humbled by your trust and enlarged by our sense of common purpose,” he said.



US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice welcomed Ban’s re-election to the post of secretary-general and praised his performance in “one of the toughest jobs in the world.”

“No one understands the burdens of this role better than he,” she said, adding that Washington was “grateful that he is willing to take them on.”

All the regional groups of UN member states backed Ban, including the Latin American and Caribbean group, the last to officially endorse his re-election.

UN officials and diplomats had said Cuba, Barbados and others held up the group’s endorsement amid complaints that Ban had neglected the region. Havana denied causing a delay.

Mexico’s UN mission denied comments from diplomats who said it had wanted more than one candidate but noted in a statement that Mexico’s UN envoy Claude Heller suggested updating the “obsolete procedure” of electing the UN chief.

Under an unwritten UN rule, the job of secretary-general rotates between the world’s regions and may not be held by a citizen of one of the five permanent Security Council members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.

Mixed record

It is normal for an incumbent to serve two five-year terms, although Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali was ousted after one term in 1996 by the United States, which felt he had performed poorly over the war in Bosnia.

Despite a run-in with Moscow over Kosovo in 2008 that UN diplomats say elicited a threat to veto his second term, Ban worked hard to avoid upsetting the council’s five veto powers.

Diplomats and analysts say that Ban has been especially sensitive to the wishes of the United States, which hosts UN headquarters in New York, and has proven to be a solid ally of Washington. That led to some grumbling by left-wing governments in Latin America and some envoys from developing nations.

Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch welcomed Ban’s re-election, saying he was a “principled leader who has advanced the cause of human rights in some of the world’s most troubled areas.” Human Rights Watch, however, has accused him of being too soft on China.

Analysts see Ban, noted for his self-deprecating manner and imperfect command of English, as a tireless worker and inveterate globe-trotter, but say his tenure so far has a mixed record on the issues he has championed.

Global UN-led negotiations on climate change have made little progress, and the UN role in combating world poverty has been challenged by the rise of the Group of 20 nations.

Years of UN mediation in conflicts from Cyprus to Western Sahara have produced no result so far. But Ban won a success in Ivory Coast this year with a firm UN line on election results that led to the ouster of Laurent Gbagbo, who had clung to the presidency despite world agreement that he had lost the vote.

Ban has also won praise for his encouragement of the “Arab Spring” of pro-democracy movements that has swept the Middle East and North Africa, and his personal exhortations to the region’s autocratic rulers not to use force against protests.

Jumbo jet forced to make screeching halt at JFK to avoid Egypt Air plane which had taken wrong turn on runway

Controllers screamed: 'Cancel take-off, cancel take-off plan' as 747 accelerated down runway

A Jumbo jet, with 286 passengers on board, had a terrifying near miss when it was forced to screech to a halt to avoid colliding with another plane that had turned into its path.

The Lufthansa Boeing 747 was accelerating along a runway as it prepared to take off at Kennedy Airport, New York, when it narrowly avoided slamming into an EgyptAir Boeing 777.

An air traffic controller screamed: 'Cancel take-off, Cancel take off plans' when he noticed the Munich-bound Jumbo on a collision course.

Close call: The Jumbo jet was racing down the runway when it had to brake to avoid hitting an EgyptAir Boeing 777.A Lufthansa Boeing 747 screeched to a halt to avoid slamming into an EgyptAir plane which had turned into its path.Panic: Controllers at New York's JFK airport screamed into their radios when they saw the two planes about to collide

The Jumbo's pilot slammed on the brakes before radioing back: 'Lufthansa 411 heavy is rejecting take-off.'

A pilot aboard another flight arriving from Los Angeles radioed the tower to say: 'That was quite a show.'

Airport controllers believe the EgyptAir jet made a wrong turn, ending up in the path of the German Lufthansa plane

A source said: 'It was close.'

The Lufthansa plane later arrived safely in Munich and no one is believed to have been injured.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the incident would be investigated but that it would take several days to sort out the details.

In April this year an Air France A380, Superjumbo collided with a Delta regional jet which was parked outside a terminal building.

The smaller Delta jet was sent spinning around wildly although no one was hurt in the incident, which is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety

44 killed in Russian highway plane crash - Russian plane crash blamed on "pilot error"

A 9-year-old boy died of his injuries Wednesday, bringing the death toll in the crash of a Russian passenger plane that slammed into a highway in heavy fog to 45, officials said. The RusAir Tu-134 on a flight from Moscow crashed just ...

Ash cloud clears, Australia flights resume

A Virgin plane takes off at Sydney’s domestic airport June 22, 2011. Tens of thousands of air passengers faced more flight chaos in Australia on Wednesday caused by an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano, although grounded flights were starting to resume from some cities as the ash moved offshore


Australian airlines struggled to move a backlog of tens of thousands of passengers today after an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano, which had grounded flights across the country’s eastern and southern states, cleared .

The ash cloud has circled the earth twice to disrupt Australian airlines for a second time, costing Qantas an estimated A$20 million (RM64.20 million) before the latest disruptions and the tourism industry more than A$15 million in two weeks.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre said long-term modelling suggested the ash cloud would not pass over Australia for a third time and disrupt airlines.

Volcanic ash can be extremely dangerous to aircraft and cause engine failure or engine damage.



Qantas said it had resumed flights from Melbourne and Sydney, the country’s two main terminals, while Virgin Australia had also resumed flights. Qantas low-cost subsidiary Jetstar and discount carrier Tiger Airlines were all also gradually resuming flights.

“There’s possibly some hope that Thursday will start to return to normal,” said Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson.

The majority of international carriers continued flights to and from Australia today, with airlines including Singapore, Thai, Etihad and Emirates landing in Sydney.

A volcano in Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain erupted on June 4 after lying dormant for decades, the latest eruption to hit international travel.

Iceland’s most active volcano at Grimsvotn sent a thick plume of ash and smoke 25km into the sky last month, disrupting air travel in northern Europe.

The eruption of another Icelandic volcano in April 2010, Eyjafjallajokull, led to 100,000 cancelled flights, affecting 10 million people at a cost of US$1.7 billion (RM5.14 billion).

Australia’s Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the disruption would impact the economy, already hit by natural disasters that cut 1.7 per cent from growth during the first three months of this year, the biggest decline in 20 years.

“Having that disruption to international services means lower revenue in terms of tourism and in a country such as ours, where we rely on aviation to connect each other and to the world, there is a bigger economic cost,” he said.

Air New Zealand domestic flights operated as scheduled today, while Jetstar in New Zealand said yesterday it would cancel all New Zealand domestic flights until midday today.

Andrew Tupper from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, said it was unlikely the ash cloud would make a third journey round the globe.

“The volcano is still erupting but not at the same levels,” he said. “It is very unusual for ash clouds to do two circuits.”

“The last time volcanic ash circled the globe in the southern hemisphere was in 1991.

Israeli leaders test nuclear bunker in defence drill

Israeli leaders holed up in a new underground nuclear bunker today as part of annual nationwide manoeuvres to prepare for a possible missile war with Iran, Syria and their Lebanese and Palestinian guerrilla allies.

Officials said it was the first time that the security cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had tested the bunker, dug deep in the western Jerusalem foothills over the past decade and dubbed the “Nation’s Tunnel” by local media.

Israel has held increasingly sweeping civil defence drills since the 2006 Lebanon war, during which Hezbollah guerrillas fired thousands of short-range rockets at its northern towns. There have been similar salvoes from Hamas and other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to the south, and Israeli officials say a future war could also involve non-conventional missile strikes by Syria and Iran.



“It is certainly an extreme scenario,” Homefront Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said today’s exercise, dubbed “Turning Point 5”, which envisaged heavy shelling and thousands of dead and wounded on several Israeli fronts.

“We assume that our enemies would not dare to operate this way, given our deterrent power,” he told Army Radio.

Reputed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, Israel bombed an Iraqi reactor in 1981 under what it called a policy of denying foes the means to threaten its destruction.

Israel launched a similar sortie against Syria in 2007 but its veiled threats to tackle Iran’s remote and fortified uranium enrichment sites have often been dismissed as bluster given the tactical challenges involved. World powers say they prefer a negotiated resolution with Iran, which denies seeking the bomb. Disclosures of the Jerusalem bunker’s existence prompted some Israelis to question whether their country, which has also been developing an elaborate ballistic missile shield, was taking a more passive approach to potential nuclear threats.

Officials say that providing Israeli leaders with a secret haven from which to respond to attacks would in itself discourage, or at least contain, any future war.

“Israel finally has a proper place to function during emergencies,” Vilnai said.

US Navy intercepted North Korean ship sending missile material to Myanmar

The guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell transits the western Pacific Ocean during combat system ship qualification trials in this US Navy handout photo dated May 26, 2010.

The US Navy intercepted a North Korean ship suspected of carrying missile parts to Myanmar two weeks ago, media reports and a US official said yesterday.

The New York Times reported late on Sunday, citing senior American officials, that a North Korean cargo ship was forced to return home after a standoff at sea and several days of diplomatic pressure from Washington and Asian nations.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed the interception, but declined to comment on the cargo or destination of the North Korean vessel.

“We talked directly with the North Koreans to stress the importance of not engaging in proliferation-related transfers,” he said.

“We learned that the ship, the vessel, changed course at sea, and we believe it returned to North Korea,” said Toner.

UN sanctions imposed on North Korea after it conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 include a ban on trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea. A UN resolution adopted last year authorised UN member states to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo.

According to the Times, the destroyer USS McCampbell caught up with the cargo ship M/V Light south of Shanghai on May 26 after American officials began tracking the vessel, which was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments.

The destroyer asked to board the vessel under authority given by Belize, but the North Koreans refused, Toner said.

“The ship’s master refusing us permission to board it, as well as the fact that it turned around and headed back to North Korea, speaks to ... some of our concerns about its cargo,” he said.

'Sex gang groomed girls of 13': Asian men accused of luring teens and turning them into prostitutes

A gang of Asian men went on trial yesterday accused of a sickening catalogue of child prostitution offences against vulnerable teenage girls as young as 13.

The nine – six are married and one is a grandfather – face 55 charges, including inciting child prostitution, grooming and rape between 2007 and 2009.

The girls – who cannot be named for legal reasons – were said to have received cash, alcohol, drugs, meals and mobile phone credit in exchange for sex with some of the defendants.

Three of the men – Ahdel Ali, 23, his brother Mubarek Ali, 28, and Tanveer Ahmed, 39 – allegedly acted as ‘pimps’, passing two of the young girls among their friends and using them as sexual commodities.

Mubarek Ali is also accused of trafficking one of the girls, while Abdul Rouf, 34, and Mohammed Younis, 59, are accused of using their homes as brothels for child prostitution.

Deborah Gould, prosecuting, said: ‘The Crown say that the men in the dock variously trafficked, raped or sexually abused girls both over and under the age of 16 years over a considerable period of time.

‘These men ensnared these girls. They had cars, jobs and money which gave them both freedom and power. They enticed the girls, groomed the girls and then exploited them either for their own sexual gratification or for money.’

 Accused: Mohammed Islam Choudhrey (L) and Noshad Hussain are among the defendants facing trial at Stafford Crown Court

 Also accused: Mohammed Ali Sultan, left, and Marhoof Khan are on trial for sex offences

 Brothels: Defendants Mohammed Yunis, left, and Abdul Rouf are accused of using their homes for child prostitution

'Pimp': Tanveer Ahmed Tanveer Ahmed, 39, allegedly passed two of the young girls among his friends

Miss Gould told Stafford Crown Court that the case was ‘not about race, religion, colour or creed’.

She said some of the seven alleged victims came from troubled backgrounds and their low self-esteem made them ‘highly vulnerable’ to the attentions of the men.

She added: ‘They do not value themselves and therefore have no expectation that they will be valued by others.

'Accordingly when they receive attention from others, particularly what they perhaps perceive to be somewhat exotic older males with money and cars, they soak it up, believing themselves to be the objects of genuine emotions and affections.

‘They believed themselves, and may still believe themselves, to be loved by and in love with some of these men.’

She said the alleged abusers would contact their victims by computer and mobile telephones ‘out of sight, sounds and control of even the most wary parent’.

Some of the girls first met the men in a churchyard in Telford, Shropshire, which had become a gathering place for ‘young Asian males’ who would smoke and drink there.

The court heard the Ali brothers would regularly present one of the girls for other men to have sex with. She was 16 at the time and didn’t realise at first that she was being sold for sex, Miss Gould added.

Men would pay between £20 and £40 and would either hand the money to her ‘pimps’ or pay her. She would then hand the money to them in exchange for mobile phone top-ups.

At one stage, she was 14 weeks pregnant but Mubarek Ali continued to sell her for sex, the jury heard. It is not known what happened to the baby.

After teachers and parents raised fears that the girls were being sexually abused, a police investigation named Operation Chalice began.

In December 2009, officers arrested most of the defendants and charged them with various offences related to child prostitution.

The men on trial – who all used Western nicknames – are Ahdel Ali, Mubarek Ali, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 24, Tanveer Ahmed, Mahroof Khan, 33, Noshad Hussain, 21, Mohammed Islam Choudhrey, 52, Mohammed Younis and Abdul Rouf.

They deny all charges. The trial continues.

Extensive operation: The trial, which is expected to last for several months, is taking place at Stafford Crown Court

Clinton urges Africa to drop Gaddafi, embrace rebels

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today urged African leaders to abandon Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, saying it was time to live up to their pledges to promote democracy across the continent.

Clinton, the first US secretary of state ever to address the 53-member African Union, said unreformed African leaders were themselves at risk from the same tide of democracy sweeping the Middle East, proclaiming “the status quo is broken and the old ways of governing are no longer acceptable.”

“It is true that Gaddafi has played a major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the AU,” Clinton said in her speech at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa.

“But it has become clear that we are long past the time when he can remain in power.”



Clinton urged African states — many with longtime diplomatic and financial ties to the oil-rich Libyan strongman — to join the international coalition demanding his exit as the condition for a ceasefire.

She also urged them to close pro-Gaddafi Libyan embassies, expel his diplomats and to build ties with the Benghazi-based rebel National Transitional Council which the United States and its European and Arab allies are promoting as a future interim government for the country.

“Your words and your actions could make the difference in building this situation to finally close and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s AU speech came at the end of a three-nation Africa tour during which she sought to highlight the Obama administration’s drive to boost trade ties with Africa and encourage better political and economic governance.

Sudan talks

She praised many African countries for implementing reforms and moving away from a tradition of strongman rule. But on a continent where autocrats still rule from Equatorial Guinea to Zimbabwe, Clinton said more needed to be done.

“We know that too many people in Africa live under long-standing rulers — men who care too much about the longevity of their reign and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future,” she said.

Clinton won applause for advocating women’s rights, and for speaking gamely on even as the lights flickered briefly out in the AU’s main meeting hall, leaving delegates in the dark.

US officials say the African Union has played a more constructive role in regional affairs including the political deadlock in Ivory Coast and mustering peacekeepers for other regional crises.

On Libya, US officials have praised several African nations including Senegal and Mauritania for publicly declaring that Gaddafi must go.

But the AU’s position has been murkier and the organisation — long itself the beneficiary of Gaddafi’s largesse — has declined to join calls for Gaddafi’s ouster, instead accusing Western nations of undermining its own efforts to find a solution to the conflict.

Diplomats say the lack of a clear African voice on the Libyan conflict has complicated the Libyan crisis, where Nato has unleashed air strikes to support Libyan rebels demanding Gaddafi’s exit.

Clinton is scheduled to hold meetings in Addis Ababa today on Sudan, where diplomats said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed Sunday to pull troops out of the disputed border region of Abyei before the south secedes — a move which could help reduce tensions.

The two sides have yet to agree on sensitive issues such as where to draw the common border and how to share oil revenues, leaving the potential for further conflict as the South prepares for formal independence on July 9.

Clinton, speaking before her arrival in Addis Ababa during a stop in Tanzania, said the United States supported a proposal to put Ethiopian peacekeepers in the disputed Abyei region and called on Khartoum to withdraw its troops from the area.

At the AU, she repeated her call for both sides to redouble their efforts to resolve the situation “peacefully through negotiations, not violence.”

Tokyo launches large-scale radiation monitoring after Fukushima

A radiation monitor indicates 0.82 microsieverts per hour at a checkpoint to the restricted zone of a 20km radius around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, in Kawauchi village, about 20 km (12 miles) from the plant in Fukushima ...
China's nuclear regulators have given the country's reactors a clean bill of health following inspections ordered after the disaster at Japan's tsunami-struck Fukushima Dai-ichi facility. Inspections have been completed on all 13 of ...

Long Libya mission to stretch UK force, says navy chief

An extended military campaign in Libya will be challenging for British naval resources and the government may need to prioritise where its assets are focused, the UK’s navy chief said today.

British aircraft and navy ships are playing a leading role in striking at Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Britain also has about 10,000 troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the second most after the United States.

Admiral Mark Stanhope said he was “comfortable” within Nato’s new 90-day Libya mission mandate, which runs out at the end of September.

“Beyond that ... we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about what priorities they want,” he told reporters at a joint briefing with the head of the US navy in London.

“We have a small scale commitment in Libya ... if we do it for longer than 6 months then we have to reprioritise our forces across the piece — that does not mean we won’t be doing it.”

UK defence chiefs said in May extending the Libya campaign beyond six months would be a challenge for its armed forces.



“If there was a continuation of the need for maritime interdiction operations off Libya, then the government will have a choice as to where they chose to take the platform from — it could be from around home waters,” Stanhope said.

“I am not going to prejudge what that decision would be,” said Stanhope, who is the UK’s First Sea Lord.

British defence chiefs had said last month an aircraft carrier and surveillance planes scrapped as part of defence cuts last year would have helped in the Libya campaign.

Their views are embarrassing for the year-old coalition government which ordered British forces to help in Libya only months after ordering an eight-per cent real-terms cut in defence spending over four years to rein in a budget deficit.

“If we had Ark Royal and the Harriers in the February timeframe, I feel relatively reassured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground support piece,” Stanhope said today, referring to scrapped assets.

“There is far too much of what could have been as opposed to what is,” he said. “We have got to look forward.”

The United States accused some Nato allies on Friday of failing to pull their weight in the Libyan operation.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the alliance, prosecuting an air campaign against Libyan forces, risked “collective military irrelevance” unless European partners deepened their commitment and spending.

“We in the military I believe are fairly self-critical, so there will be a very good examination of the operations in Libya and we do the same thing regardless of where we are operating,” US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told reporters at the briefing.

Hackers break into US Senate computers

The US Sergeant at Arms Office confirmed yesterday that the Senate’s website had been hacked this past weekend and that it had ordered a review of all Senate computer sites.

“Although this intrusion is inconvenient, it does not compromise the security of the Senate’s network, its members or staff,” a Sergeant at Arms Office official said. “Specifically, there is no individual user account information on the server supporting senate.gov that could have been compromised.”



The revelation came after a loosely aligned group of computer hackers calling themselves Lulz Security said they broke into the US Senate’s computer network.

Lulz Security, who have hacked into Sony’s website and the US Public Broadcasting System, posted online a list of files that appear not to be sensitive but indicate the hackers had been into the Senate’s computer network.

“We don’t like the US government very much,” Lulz Security said at the top of their release. “This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov — is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?”

The comment refers to reports that the US military had decided that it could respond to cyber attacks from foreign countries with traditional military force.

Senate staffers asked about the hack were unaware of it.

“They (Lulz) certainly demonstrated that they were in and they found the file server,” said Stewart Baker, a former cyber official at the Department of Homeland Security.

US House leader Boehner says Weiner should resign

A man holds a sign out of their car calling for representative Anthony Weiner to resign, outside Weiner's residency at the Queens borough of New York on June 12, 2011.


US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said today he thought Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner, who has been snared in an Internet sex scandal, should resign.

Boehner, a Republican, simply said “yes” when asked by reporters if he thought Weiner should step down.

The House granted Weiner, who has admitted to sending lewd photos and messages to half a dozen women, a two week leave of absence for treatment. The lawmaker has refused calls by Democrats and Republicans to resign but instead said he wanted to get medical treatment to get back on track.



President Barack Obama weighed in an interview yesterday, saying he would resign if he were in Weiner’s position.

Weiner, 46, admitted last week that he sent online messages and photos of himself to at least six women then lied about it.

Weiner’s refusal to resign has angered Democrats, who say his inappropriate online exchanges with women have hurt the party as it looks toward next year’s elections when it will seek to win back the House from Republicans.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who joined with other Democratic leaders over the weekend to urge Weiner to step down, spoke to a closed-door meeting of House Democrats.

Today’s meeting she repeated her position and members of the Democratic caucus praised her handling of the matter, according to a congressman in the meeting.

Democrats had hoped to put an end to the issue, which has been dragging on for weeks, overshadowing other news on Capitol Hill and efforts to focus on the economy.

China warns outside nations to stay out of sea dispute-paper

A militant group warned Wednesday that the Philippine government's proposed oil and gas exploration activities off Palawan, particularly in areas near the Spratlys, may trigger a shooting war between the Philippines ...China vehemently opposes external powers meddling in territorial disputes over the South China Sea, the main military newspaper said on Tuesday, after Vietnam asked for international help to defuse tensions ...

Libyan rebels face setback after refinery hit

Workers inspect a damaged power generator of the oil refinery which was hit by a grad rocket of the forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi at western Libyan city of Misrata on June 13, 2011.


Libyan rebels faced new obstacles in their campaign to march on Tripoli after shelling from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces damaged an oil refinery in the insurgent stronghold of Misrata, disrupting fuel supply lines.

A Reuters photographer in Misrata joined rebel units as they pushed their front several kilometres west yesterday to the outskirts of Zlitan, a town controlled by Gaddafi’s forces.

Any fighting over Zlitan would bring the rebellion closer to the capital Tripoli, the Libyan leader’s stronghold which lies 200km west of Misrata.

A doctor in a field hospital to the west of Libya’s third largest city said two rebels had been killed and a dozen wounded after the two sides traded heavy artillery fire.

Rebels from Misrata say tribal sensitivities prevent them from attacking Zlitan, and they are instead waiting for local inhabitants to rise up.

Late yesterday, six rockets hit generators at the refinery near Misrata port leaving them heavily damaged. An engineer on site said it was unclear how long it would take to repair.

Nato said it struck an armoured vehicle armed with anti-aircraft guns east of Tripoli today as well as a multiple rocket launcher and another anti-aircraft system.



A Nato statement said the alliance also struck an armed pickup truck, a tank, a multiple rocket launcher and an armoured vehicle in Misrata last night.

“These types of equipment have been used to indiscriminately target the civilian population throughout Libya,” the commander of the Nato mission, Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, said.

“Nato will maintain the pressure on the Gaddafi regime and continue to take action to protect civilians wherever they are under threat of attack.”

The fighting east of Tripoli came during an apparent lull in Nato bombardment of the Libyan capital, a lull which continued through today, although state television reported the alliance had bombarded targets in Al Jufrah in the centre of the country.

Nato defence chiefs were due to meet in Belgrade today to discuss the mission, after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates accused some European allies of failing to pull their weight in a mission he feared could run out of steam.

Libyan troops fired Grad rockets from positions controlled by Gaddafi’s forces over the border into Tunisia today, witnesses said, in an assault likely to raise already high tensions between the two countries.

The explosions, close to rebel territory along the border in Libya’s Western Mountains, caused no damage or injuries.

The last time Libyan forces fired rockets into Tunisia, on May 17, the Tunisian government threatened to report Libya to the UN Security Council for committing “enemy actions.”

Fighting flared at the weekend in the town of Zawiyah, 50km west of the capital — clashes the rebel leadership said were a sign that the momentum in the four-month-old conflict was shifting their way.

But a Zawiyah resident, who could only be identified as Mohamed, told Reuters by phone today that it had since gone quiet, with neither side having advanced much from their original positions.

“Things are now calm in Zawiyah. Gaddafi’s forces are still in their place in town and on the main road,” he said.

The main highway west from Tripoli to Tunisia, which had been closed because of the fighting, appeared to have re-opened.

“Violation of sovereignty”

A rebel spokesman in Zintan, in the rebel-held Western Mountains range southwest of Tripoli, said the town had been quiet yesterday after being subjected to its heaviest bombardment by pro-Gaddafi forces in several weeks on Sunday.

Gaddafi has said the rebels are criminals and al Qaeda militants. He has described the Nato military intervention as an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya’s oil.

Western governments say they believe it is only a matter of time before Gaddafi’s 41-year rule ends under the weight of Nato military intervention, sanctions and defections.

Nato member Germany became the latest country to recognise the rebel council based in the second city of Benghazi as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, giving heavyweight support to rebels poised to run the country.

France, Qatar, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have already recognised the Transitional National Council.

“We share the same goal — Libya without Gaddafi,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Benghazi.

Libya’s foreign ministry in a statement condemned the visit as an “irresponsible step by the German state.”

“The visit by the foreign minister of ... Germany to Benghazi is a blatant violation of national sovereignty and ... international laws,” it said, adding that Germany was “recognising an imaginary council that only represents itself.”

Adding to diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged African leaders to abandon him.

Gaddafi has styled himself the African “king of kings” and over the years won support from many African states in exchange for financial help and generous gifts. Most countries on the continent have been lukewarm towards the rebels.

“Your words and your actions could make the difference... (in ending this situation) ...and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country,” Clinton said in a speech to the African Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Tanks deploy in east, Syrians flee assault on north

People dig out bodies of 10 security men killed and buried by armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour, according to the Syrian news agency, in this still image taken from video June 12, 2011


Thousands of Syrians fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape tank forces thrusting into the country’s north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

In the tribal east, where all of Syria’s 380,000 barrels per day of oil is produced, tanks and armoured vehicles deployed in the city of Deir al-Zor and around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, a week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding an end to Assad’s autocratic rule.

“The army is coming, find safety for yourselves and your families!” residents said mosque loudspeakers announced on Tuesday in Maarat al-Numaan, a town of 100,000 that straddles the main north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria’s second largest city, the merchant hub of Aleppo.

Syrian forces pushed toward Maarat al-Numaan after arresting hundreds of people in nearby villages close to Jisr al-Shughour, residents said.



Syrian state television said security forces “are pursuing and hunting down the remnants of the members of terrorist armed organisations in the areas surrounding Jisr al-Shughour in order to enable the residents to return to their neighborhoods.”

Residents from Maarat al-Numaan, Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages streamed toward Aleppo and to villages in the desert to the east, while some headed to neighboring Turkey, where more than 8,500 Syrians have already fled.

They sought shelter across the border to escape Assad’s latest assault on protests demanding more freedoms in a country dominated by the Assad family, from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, for the last 41 years. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslim.

Around 70 per cent of Maarat al-Numaan’s residents have fled, Othman al-Bedeiwi, a pharmacy professor there told Reuters by telephone. He said helicopters, which also fired at protesters on Friday, had been ferrying troops to a staging camp in Wadi al-Deif, several km (miles) from the town.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents since the unrest began, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

On the edge of a limestone massif in a relatively prosperous agricultural area, Maarat al-Numaan is a centre of Muslim pilgrimage with a rebellious history.

It was the site of the massacre of thousands of men, women and children by Crusader forces in 1099. In modern times, the town was focus of a brutal campaign to crush Islamist and leftist challengers to Bashar’s father, the late Hafez al-Assad.

CO-RELIGIONISTS

In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, witnesses said several tanks deployed inside the provincial capital, on the Euphrates river, after security forces pulled out from the streets last week.

But protests continued and a violent confrontation occurred this week between Assad loyalists and protesters during which several people were seriously injured, they added.

“A pattern keeps repeating itself across Syria. The local garrison goes to their headquarters and leaves a city to try and create disorder, then tanks and troops are sent in to subdue protesters,” an activist in the city said.

“Sadly the invention of rubber bullets has not reached Syria,” he said. “It is live ammunition on protesters or nothing.”

Rights campaigners said around 20 tanks and armoured vehicles also deployed around the town of Albu Kamal to the east of Deir al-Zor city, which is also an official crossing point to Iraq, but said there were no troops inside the town.

Deir al-Zor province borders Iraq’s Sunni heartland. The two sides are linked by family ties and trade routes that preceded the creation of the two states by colonial powers in the 1920s.

France, with British support, has spearheaded efforts for the United Nations Security Council to condemn Assad’s repression of the protests. But Russia and China have suggested they might use their veto power to kill the resolution.

Turkey has set up four refugee camps just inside its borders and the state-run Anatolian news agency said yesterday authorities might provide more. It said the number of refugees, mainly from the Syrian northwestern region of Jisr al-Shughour, had reached 8,538, more than half of them children.

Fleeing refugees described shootings by troops and Alawite gunmen loyal to Assad, known as “shabbiha”, and the burning of land and crops in a scorched earth policy to subdue people of the region after large protests.

HMS Invincible, pride of the Falklands, is broken up in knacker's yard

As senior Naval officers back First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope's criticisms of the ability of the Navy to fight in Libya, Commander John Muxworthy, who sailed to the Falklands with the Royal Navy Task Force, looks at the ignominious end of a symbol of the once-mighty British fleet.

The image is a poignant symbol of Britain’s rapid decline as a maritime power. With her metallic carcass exposed, the once mighty aircraft carrier HMS Invincible languishes in a Turkish port, being broken up for scrap.

The ship was once the pride of the Royal Navy, a hero of the Falklands War and a veteran of other conflicts from Iraq to Yugoslavia.

But now, as Britain’s naval heritage is obliterated by an irresponsible Coalition Government, she faces an utterly degrading end.

HMS Invincible sits in the Port of Aliaga, Turkey, earlier this year, waiting to be scrapped and recycled

Unseemly death of a courageous veteran: Like a tired but noble beast brought down by jackals, HMS Invincible's carcass is picked clean in a Turkish scrapyard

What makes the image all the more shaming is how it reflects the profound concerns of First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, who said this week that Britain’s defences will be at risk if the war in Libya drags on, because our naval fleet can operate there for only another 90 days before it has to make serious cuts in firepower elsewhere.

Once Invincible’s 22,000-ton hull has been stripped of all valuable material, she will be melted down by the Turkish firm of Leyal into thousands of one-metre long blocks of steel, which will be recycled and used for building reinforcement, bridge cables, and more mundane objects such as office furniture.

HMS Invincible, launched in 1977, may have been coming to the end of her life, though with a refit she could have stayed in service for years to come.

But her demise is part of a wider pattern of brutal defence cuts that have left Britain dangerously vulnerable.

When I joined the Navy in 1960, we had 12 aircraft carriers, along with 30 cruisers and 150 frigates and destroyers.

Today, we have just 19 frigates, no major warships, and a single aircraft carrier, Illustrious, which can carry only helicopters and has no deck for fixed wing-aircraft

Moreover, all 60 Harriers have been withdrawn from naval service, which means that Britain, once the greatest sea power in the world and a pioneer of naval aviation — and still an island nation needing a navy to keep its food and fuel coming in times of conflict — has little real capability in its Fleet Air Arm.

The Government boasts it has ordered two new aircraft carriers, but neither will come into service before 2020, and it is almost certain that one will immediately be mothballed to save money. So, for almost a decade, Britain will be without an effective carrier, just at a time when other powers such as China, Brazil and Russia are launching a new generation of such vessels.

David Cameron is fond of claiming that a government’s first duty is national self-defence but the Coalition has hardly lived up to that rhetoric. In the Navy alone, 5,000 jobs are to go — meaning that personnel will fall below 30,000 for the first time in centuries.

Never in our history has there been a British government with less understanding of our defence needs.

Part of the problem is none of today’s senior politicians has served in the forces — unlike, for example, the Labour government in the Seventies with Jim Callaghan, Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins, who served in World War II.

The result is the chasm between the lofty pretensions of Britain’s foreign policy and the reality of the disastrous impact of defence cuts, as exemplified by the overstretch in Libya and Afghanistan.

Given the ongoing destruction of the Navy, it is simply not credible that we could mount a Falklands campaign today, as pointed out by Task Force commander Admiral Sandy Woodward in the Mail yesterday.

Our operation in 1982 involved about 100 vessels, two-thirds of them naval craft, the rest support vessels like the liner Canberra, converted into a troopship, in which I served as a liaison officer. We have nothing like those resources today.

Aboard Canberra I remember feeling a tremendous sense of comfort from the knowledge that Invincible was at the head of the Task Force.

Weighing 22,000 tons, with a runway 560ft long, a top speed of 28 knots and carrying nine Hawker Harriers and 12 Sea King helicopters — one of them flown by Prince Andrew — the Invincible was a formidable asset.

Without her, the Task Force would have struggled to provide an effective response to the Argentine invasion, not least because our troops would have been deprived of air cover.

Built by the famous engineering giant of Vickers at its Barrow-on-Furness yards, she could cope with any conditions, no matter how wild the seas or how aggressive the Argentine attacks.

The great irony of Invincible’s triumph in the South Atlantic was that, shortly before the Argentine invasion, the government had been negotiating to sell her to Australia for about £175  million, regarding her as surplus to naval requirements.

But that idea was immediately put on hold once the plans for the Task Force were put together, and she went on to play her pivotal role in the recapture of the islands.

After the war, she gave another two decades of magnificent service — helping to enforce the no-fly zone in southern Iraq during the late Nineties and serving in Nato’s operations in the Balkans in 1999.

Based in the Adriatic, she enabled Harriers to carry out air strikes against Serbia, as well as rescuing Kosovan refugees. It was not until 2005 that she was decommissioned.

With her demise, we have lost another part of Britain’s glorious naval tradition. Our greatest naval hero, Lord Nelson, would be weeping at what has happened to his beloved Royal Navy, with centuries of excellence being ripped apart in a Turkish scrapyard.

 An ignominious end: Workers take a break amid debris from the broken-down HMS Invincible in the Port of Aliaga in Turkey

 Battle: Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, Chief of the Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, said cuts to naval forces has left British defences at risk

End of the journey: HMS Invincible enters the naval dockyard in Plymouth for the last time in 2005