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Norway killings: search for bodies continues as first victims named

Police boats search fjord around Utøya island as man charged for allegedly selling chemicals used in Oslo bomb Investigators are still searching for bodies the fjord surrounding the island where Anders Behring Breivik killed 68 out of his 76 victims last week. Police have so far released the names of 13 people who died in the twin atrocities. Sharidyn Svebakk-Bohn celebrated her 14th birthday five days before she was killed at the Labour party youth convention on Utøya, and is the youngest. The teenager was well known in her town of Drammen in east Norway: aged 12 she featured in the local newspaper when she wrote a letter to the mayor demanding a children’s summer camp not be shut. Another 14-year-old is still listed as missing. Johannes Buo was a football and judo enthusiast from Mandal, a fishing town on the south coast. As investigators continued their inquiry, a Pole was charged with “crimes against public safety” for allegedly selling the chemicals which Breivik used to make the bomb he planted in Oslo’s government district, killing eight people. Police sources suggest that by Wednesday afternoon only one person remained unaccounted for, though a full list would only be released once all identities had been confirmed and their families informed. Two boats and a miniature submarine searched the water surrounding Utøya through the day. The island remained cordoned off as a search continued in the woods and along the shoreline. The police commander in charge of the operation to evacuate the island following the attack described how Breivik surrendered with his hands in the air and his guns on the ground when armed counter terrorism officers surrounded him on Friday. They had been directed towards the south side by terrified teenagers who had evaded his 90 minutes of gunfire. “When we got 350 metres away, we used our voices to call to him. The terrain was very difficult and it was hard to get clear visibility,” said Havard Gasbakk. “Suddenly the gunman was in front of us with his hands above his head.” After police apprehended Breivik “in the usual way”, Gasbakk’s task was to see if there were other gunmen on the island. “I had to see if there was anybody else shooting,” he said at a press conference. Having established Breivik was acting alone, Gasbakk co-ordinated the rescue operation, which saw hundreds of young people from Utøya brought safely to shore. Some were fished out of the water with the help of holidaymakers from the campsite opposite who used their own boats; others were coaxed out of their hiding places on the island. Many did not believe the police officers were genuine because Breivik had been wearing what appeared a police uniform. Then the first aid effort began. “The victims just came like on a conveyor belt,” said Gasbakk. The injuries were so severe that rescuers had to change their surgical gloves “very fast”, he added. Aware of the criticism levelled at police and emergency services for taking an hour and a half to reach the island, Gasbakk said he was “proud and humbled” at how his team had responded; he himself had been on his day off when the alarm came. But Sissel Hammer, chief of police of Nordre Buskerud district, where Utøya is located, said there would be an inquiry into how her officers had dealt with the incident. The prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, announced an independent investigation into the two attacks, which would report directly to him. Called the July 22 Commission, it will examine whether more could have been done both to prevent the attacks and respond to them, he said. He also announced that the government would pay for the funerals of all victims, as well as legal bills incurred by any survivors. At a press conference at his Oslo residence, Stoltenberg underlined his commitment to openness, defending freedom of thought, even if includes extremist views such as those held by the 32-year-old who confessed to Friday’s bomb blast and to the shooting massacre. “We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions that are completely legal, legitimate to have, [and] what is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence,” he said. “I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after 22 July,” he said. “But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.” He said the Labour party, including survivors of the massacre, were determined to reopen Utøya as a retreat in the future. He himself had visited the island every summer since 1974, he said. Hadia Tajik, 28-year-old Muslim Labour party MP, said: “We want to reclaim the island. It is associated with sadness, but we want it to become a paradise again.” Norway Anders Behring Breivik Europe Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk

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Happy Homecoming: Six Poached Baby Gorillas Rescued, Returned to Congo

Six endangered mountain gorillas were returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after being rescued from poachers who smuggled them into neighboring Rwanda. The gorillas, who range in age from 5 to 8 years old, were victims of what’s become a widespread issue in Africa: animal trafficking. According to Rwandan and Congolese

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Thousands Seek Aid in Famine-Stricken Africa

A plane carrying 10 tons of urgently needed nutritional supplements to treat malnourished children has landed in famine-hit Somalia. (July 27)

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Click here to view this media Piers Morgan has been ardently defending Rupert Murdoch as the whole ugly Rupertgate scandal has unfolded, calling him the innocent victim of a witch hunt. It seems maybe there’s a reason for that : Former tabloid editor Piers Morgan accused media and bloggers of being “lying smearers” Wednesday after a 2009 interview surfaced in which he appeared to admit that hacking phones for reporting purposes was tolerated on his watch. Morgan, who edited Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World in the mid-1990s and went on to edit rival The Daily Mirror, was asked by the BBC’s Kirsty Young how he felt about “dealing with people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs.” Morgan, who replaced interviewer Larry King on CNN this past January, began his answer by saying that “not a lot of that went on,” but then acknowledged that newspapers he worked for used information obtained by these methods. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it because obviously you were running the results of their work,” he said in an excerpt of the 2009 interview posted on the BBC’s website on Wednesday. “I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of the tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to. I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do,” he said. My, what a tangled web we weave.

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Click here to view this media Piers Morgan has been ardently defending Rupert Murdoch as the whole ugly Rupertgate scandal has unfolded, calling him the innocent victim of a witch hunt. It seems maybe there’s a reason for that : Former tabloid editor Piers Morgan accused media and bloggers of being “lying smearers” Wednesday after a 2009 interview surfaced in which he appeared to admit that hacking phones for reporting purposes was tolerated on his watch. Morgan, who edited Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World in the mid-1990s and went on to edit rival The Daily Mirror, was asked by the BBC’s Kirsty Young how he felt about “dealing with people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs.” Morgan, who replaced interviewer Larry King on CNN this past January, began his answer by saying that “not a lot of that went on,” but then acknowledged that newspapers he worked for used information obtained by these methods. “A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it because obviously you were running the results of their work,” he said in an excerpt of the 2009 interview posted on the BBC’s website on Wednesday. “I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of the tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to. I make no pretense about the stuff we used to do,” he said. My, what a tangled web we weave.

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Adrianne Curry, ‘America’s Next Top Model’, Thrown Out Of Comic Con; Outfit Too Sexy (PHOTO)

This year, Comic Con is full of surprises. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t limits. Former ‘American’s Next Top Model’ winner Adrianne Curry, apparently took things a little too far with her super sexy getup. Cops stopped the ‘Playboy’ cover girl as she tried to enter the festival for a signing. Despite her mind-blowing looks (and her barely-there costume), security insisted her outfit was too revealing. Well, the law is the law. She was asked to leave as soon as her signing was over. Later Curry tweeted a geeked-out response to the incident that most certainly had Sci-Fi boys swooning, “Apparently the San Diego police are unfamiliar with a screen accurate version of Aeon Flux.” You tell ‘em! PHOTO:

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Adrianne Curry, ‘America’s Next Top Model’, Thrown Out Of Comic Con; Outfit Too Sexy (PHOTO)

This year, Comic Con is full of surprises. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t limits. Former ‘American’s Next Top Model’ winner Adrianne Curry, apparently took things a little too far with her super sexy getup. Cops stopped the ‘Playboy’ cover girl as she tried to enter the festival for a signing. Despite her mind-blowing looks (and her barely-there costume), security insisted her outfit was too revealing. Well, the law is the law. She was asked to leave as soon as her signing was over. Later Curry tweeted a geeked-out response to the incident that most certainly had Sci-Fi boys swooning, “Apparently the San Diego police are unfamiliar with a screen accurate version of Aeon Flux.” You tell ‘em! PHOTO:

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What is it with New York Times columnists likening Republicans to terrorist groups? On Sunday Nicholas Kristof

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Microsoft releases Mango SDK Beta update for developers

Windows Phone developers are getting one step closer to the fresh, fruity tang of Mango’s RTM build with a newly released SDK update . The one month-in-the-making “Beta 2 Refresh” tweaks the previously issued Windows Phone SDK 7.1 and is available now for download, packing an improved profiler, the ability to lock application platform APIs, an emulator-based screen cap feature for your apps and a “peek at the Marketplace Test Kit.” Microsoft’s also thrown devs an extra bonus and will be pushing an OS update, Build 7712, to manually upgraded Mango phones. Sounds sweet, but it’s too bad this hot number won’t be ready in time for your app-building, beta hands. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in.] Microsoft releases Mango SDK Beta update for developers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

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Netflix has a new competitor, and it’s a behemoth: Walmart. The world’s biggest retailer added Vudu, a movie streaming service it bought 18 months ago, to its site yesterday. Walmart now offers 20,000 titles to rent for $1 to $5.99, or to buy for $4.99 and up;…

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