Kate Middleton, Runaway Bride? Plan Was in Place in Case She Bolted on Friday
May 5, 2011 No Comment
Admit it: You were harboring suspicions that Kate was going to cut loose and run before the big day, weren’t you? Looks like you weren’t alone. Royal officials and security people had plans in place for “Operation Pumpkin,” in the event that Kate Middleton decided to bolt rather than walk down the aisle. (More on
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Four Met officers deny assault during and after dawn raid on British Muslim’s south London home A British Muslim has told a court how specialist police officers had beat him so badly in a dawn raid at his home that he had thought he was going to die. Southwark crown court heard from Babar Ahmad, 37, how he was the subject of a prolonged and vicious attack, starting in the bedroom of his home and continuing in a police van and at a London police station. Ahmad was under surveillance, and the officers had been told he had been trained as a terrorist and fought in Bosnia, the court has been told. Giving evidence on the second day of the trial of four officers who deny charges of assaulting Ahmad, he said that, after he had been repeatedly kicked and punched, one officer put him in a headlock in the back of the police van. The jury heard from him that one officer straddled him and said: “You will remember this day for the rest of your life, you fucking bastard. Do you understand me?” Ahmad said: “He squeezed and kept on squeezing. I remember the pressure to the side of my neck. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and held it in that position. “I thought he would hold it for a few seconds, and, if I hold my breath, I could bear it and he would let go. But he didn’t let go. I was panicking because I couldn’t do anything or move. It’s like drowning. There is nothing you can do. He kept squeezing to the point where I thought ‘This guy is going to kill me. He wants to kill me. I am going to die in this van’.” Medical examinations carried out four days later showed blood in Ahmad’s urine and that there had been bleeding in the middle of both of his ears. Shortly after the arrest in December 2003, he was released without charge. The court has heard that in the 1990s Ahmad had travelled to Bosnia to fight with the Muslim forces, and was under surveillance prior to his 2003 arrest. In 2004, he was re-arrested, following a request from the United States, over claims that he helped raise money to fund terrorism. He has been in custody in the UK ever since. Earlier the jury heard Ahmad describe how he had been in bed with his wife at 5am when officers from the Met’s territorial support group smashed their way into his south London home. Moments later the officers, dressed in full protective clothing, entered his bedroom, where they carried out what he called a “sustained and very violent assault”. “It was complete confusion and shock. I had just woken up and lots of things were going through my mind: ‘Why have they come up here? Have they mixed me up with someone else? Is there a robber hiding in my house or have they come to arrest me?’ All these things were going through my mind.” The prosecutor, Jonathan Laidlaw QC, asked if he had fought or struggled. Ahmad, 37, replied: “I was completely compliant, because I had made my mind up when they came towards me I was going to co-operate and reassure them they had nothing to fear from me whatsoever “At no point did I struggle or make it difficult for them. At no point did I say anything to them, other than: ‘Can you stop hitting me’ I didn’t make it hard for them or provoke them whatsoever.” At one stage, he told the jury, he was pushed into a praying position and asked “where is your God now … pray to him.” The security service, MI5, had Ahmad under surveillance and had bugged the room. A recording of the raid was played to the seven men and five women of the jury but the contents were largely inaudible.. The court had heard that the attack continued in a police van and at Charing Cross police station. Police constables Mark Jones, Roderick James-Bowen and Nigel Cowley and Detective Constable John Donohue deny assaulting Ahmad. The arrest took place less than a year after another terror suspect, Kamel Bourgass, stabbed an anti-terror squad officer to death during a raid on a house in Manchester. The hearing continues. Police Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Fresh doubts raised over the legality of killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden Pakistan’s foreign minister said on Thursday that US forces may have breached his country’s sovereignty, raising fresh doubts about the legality of killing Osama bin Laden. Clutching UN security council documents, Salman Bashir said: “There are legal questions that arise in terms of the UN charter. Everyone ought to be mindful of their international obligations.” His comments, at a press conference in Islamabad, may have been aimed as much at preventing India from launching a unilateral raid on Pakistan territory in revenge for the 2008 Mumbai massacres as reproaching Washington. Bashir added that this “violation of sovereignty, and the modalities for combating terrorism, raises certain legal and moral issues which fall … in the domain of the international community”. As more detailed accounts of the assault on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad by US special forces emerged, international lawyers, religious leaders and human rights groups called for clearer justification of the legitimacy of the raid. In London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said American confirmation that the al-Qaida leader was not holding a weapon when he died was disturbing. “The killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done,” he said. “When we are faced with someone who was manifestly a war criminal in terms of the atrocities inflicted it is important that justice is seen to be served.” In the wake of reports that only one of those who died opened fire on the US Navy Seals team, repeated revisions of the initial, official version of events have reinforced international unease. The veteran Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, was among those who exploited those doubts. The US president, he wrote, “has no way to hide that Osama was executed in the presence of his children and wives”. Following years of targeted killings by US drones along the Afghan/Pakistan border and in Yemen, the death of Bin Laden plays into a climate of legal and political suspicion about the lawfulness of American overseas strikes. The International Committee of the Red Cross discussed the Bin Laden case in Geneva. “The ICC do not … have enough facts to assess the legal and humanitarian implications,” a spokesman said. Earlier this week, the UN’s independent investigator on extrajudicial killings, Christof Heyns, said there was “considerable dispute in legal circles as to whether we are dealing with an armed conflict in respect of al-Qaida in Pakistan”. Prof Nick Grief, an international lawyer at Kent University, said that the attack had the appearance of an “extrajudicial killing without due process of the law”. He added: “It may not have been possible to take him alive… but no one should be outside the protection of the law.” Even after the end of the second world war, Nazi war criminals had been given a fair trial, Grief added. Comparisons between Bin Laden and Nazi war criminals have set the context for debates over whether greater effort should have been made to capture the founder of al-Qaida alive and bring him to justice in an international court. The writer Toby Young said that a different second world war analogy applied, since al-Qaida had not surrendered, unlike the Nazis in 1945. Comparisons should not be with Nazi war trials, he wrote, “but with the plot to assassinate Hitler … Had the Allies succeeded in assassinating any of the Nazi leaders during the Second World War, we would have applauded those responsible.” Most legal opinion in the United States has accepted the White House’s rationale that the US is at war with al-Qaida. Steven Ratner, a professor at the University of Michigan law school, said: “A lot of it depends on whether you believe Osama bin Laden is a combatant in a war or a suspect in a mass murder.” If Bin Laden was a combatant, then “whether he has a gun or not really doesn’t matter”, Ratner said. “You’re lawfully permitted to kill combatants.” The US administration has asserted that he had two weapons within reach. But David Scheffer, of Northwestern University school of law, pointed out that Bin Laden was indicted in Manhattan US district court in 1998 for conspiracy to attack US defence installations. “Normally when an individual is under indictment, the purpose is to capture that person to bring him to court to try him,” Scheffer said. “The object is not to summarily execute him if he’s under indictment.” Such questions may only be resolved if the instructions given to the US navy Seals are published and clarification given about what efforts were made force Bin Laden to surrender. Osama bin Laden Pakistan United States United Nations Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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*Scroll down for photos of cool moms and to add your own* Enter any department store changing room, and you’re bound to hear the same two phrases: “Try it on” and “I don’t want to, Mom.” As humans, we’re hard-wired to rebel against our parents and control our children. And this species malfunction is most obvious during shopping trips. At least that was my experience. I never wanted to dress like my mom. She didn’t know me or where I was coming from and so on and so forth. And then one day, everything changed. I mean everything. I had a wedding to attend, and I needed a fancy purse–the kind without strings or straps that you have to hold in your palm all night–the kind that can only fit a few nickels, and–if you’re lucky–a tampon. The kind only moms own. Rifling through my mother Marilyn’s closet, a collector of these props, I accidentally pulled out a crocheted belt from the ’60s. I dug a little deeper and came across a suede fringe vest. Both were items I’d been coveting in stores–the knockoff versions, of course. And here I was in the presence of the real thing. I asked my mom when they were from. Her replies: “Oh, that’s from a SoHo boutique. I used to wear that when I was an art student at NYU.” “That? I wore that to a party in the West Village in the late ’60s. I remember Barry Gibb was holding court by an indoor swimming pool in the middle of the living room. Lots of pot smoke.” Wait . . . what? My digs through the years eventually led me to the mother lode: two white photo albums stuffed with pictures that I found tucked in a cabinet in my parents’ living room. When I slipped the first one from its hiding place, a brittle, faded snapshot fell out. Mom? “Oh, that’s when I went to Jamaica for the weekend with my friend.” “For the weekend?” “My rent was low; things were reasonable back then. If there was a great last-minute deal, my friend and I would just take off. We stayed at the Playboy Club in Ocho Rios. It was a total party scene.” Who is this woman, and what did she do with my mother? I wondered. And more to the point, can I borrow those bell-bottoms? It’s not that I didn’t know my mother had a past; I just didn’t realize there was so much of it. And that it was so good-looking. I’d been trying for years to acquire the femme fatale hairstyle she flaunted in the pictures. I collected bracelets for months to pull off the kind of arm accessory she let dangle in front of the camera effortlessly. And the men? I didn’t even know they made them like that. I realized then that I will turn into my mother. If I’m lucky. Those pictures triggered a life-altering revelation–the kind that compels a daughter to start, and more importantly maintain, a blog. I’d spent the past few years editing fashion and lifestyle articles for the New York Daily News, where I’d insert the term “style icon” in stories about Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Angelina Jolie. Finally, I’d found my own. The blog My Mom, the Style Icon began as a tribute to Marilyn’s buried fashion past. But everyone I showed it to would insist that his or her mom had some incredible style, too. They weren’t exaggerating. Submissions piled up from around the world, including Canada, Iran, Ireland, and Chile. While the countries, eras, and fashions varied, the subtext of the submissions was the same: awe. It was as if people were emerging from an apocalyptic cloud of smoke, each holding a pic¬ture of her mom, saying “It all makes sense now.” Photo submissions became homages, memorial tributes, boasts, and, in some cases, apologies to mothers. It’s hard to imagine your mom as a person, even less a teenager, unless you see photo evidence. It’s like meeting a different person–one you may have been friends with. All of the pictures in the following pages were submit¬ted by people who made that monumental discovery and learned a valuable lesson in the process. Style isn’t just about the clothes; it’s about the way they are worn. That’s to say, with no regrets. This post is an excerpt from the book My Mom, The Style Icon.
Continue reading …Virginia’s attorney general learned all about the dangers of Twitter yesterday, when he sent out a tweet that made at least one writer think he wanted to “service bin Laden, sexually, in the great beyond.” The offending tweet from Ken Cuccinelli: “How much would I give to be one of…
Continue reading …The Situation Room photo taken during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound has quickly gained “icon” status, racking up 1.6 million views in 38 hours. On Salon, Joan Walsh called it “riveting,” noting that “Hillary Clinton is beyond anguished; her hand is over her mouth, her eyes red-rimmed….
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Wow. This newscaster, from Canada’s Global TV Toronto , slips up three times , referring to Osama Bin Ladin as “Obama.” In the same breath she also refers to President Barack Obama as “Obama.” How could she possibly not hear the serious error she was committing? “It started when Obama took office,” she begins. “He directed the head of the CIA to make killing Obama their number one priority.” “Egregious”… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Wire Discovery Date : 04/05/2011 14:48 Number of articles : 4
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President Barack Obama greets NYPD officers who were at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001. He says they are proud of the work they did on that day, a day they will ‘never forget.’ (May 5)
Continue reading …Really, Fox Business? You irresponsible idiots. That’s right, let’s just all make a joke out of torture, shall we? As if it’s not bad enough that you jerks make a concerted effort to convince your viewers that immoral, unethical, violent behavior is perfectly fine, now you joke about it? Yes, Fox Business asked their twitter buddies who should be waterboarded next. And their Twitter buddies responded. Among their choices: President Obama, Alan Colmes, Rachel Maddow, Joy Behar and Keith Olbermann. There were more, but isn’t this enough? Perhaps the only light moment came when Monica Crowley said waterboarding Eric Bolling wouldn’t help because he has no “actionable intelligence.” Neither, evidently, do the idiots who program this show. What an incredible waste of bandwidth. Transcript of list-reading : BOLLING: I wanted to know who else at home who you thought should be waterboarded. So, Louise says, waterboard “Joy Behar.” Patti says “Senate Dems… and then Obama… and then the kooks on The View, starting with Joy.” Jerry says he wants to see Alan Colmes get waterboarded. “The secrets of the left wing cabal will come pouring out of that boy.” This guy’s a bit more sentimental, go ahead, waterboard “my ex-wife.” Denise says Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow. And Mike says “Waterboard the Westboro Baptists Church.” I agree with them. Did Bolling agree with all of the suggestions, or just the Westboro suggestion? It’s not clear to me…and it’s hard to want to give him the benefit of the doubt given his obvious glee at asking the question and receiving the answers he did. [h/t Media Matters ]
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Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today’s movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Cisco may be aiming for the business crowd , but if we hold to NCIS: Los Angeles ‘ golden standard of real-world gadget application, the Cius tabletphone is going to revolutionize interrogation. “I ain’t telling you nothin ‘ copper, not noth — oh, is that a Cisco Cius you have there?! Yeah okay, I did it.” Gee, isn’t technology just fabulous? Hit the break to see Nell and Eric execute the future of tablet-based criminal interrogation. [Thanks, nmrules20] Continue reading Screen Grabs: Cisco Cius plays bad cop on NCIS: Los Angeles (video) Screen Grabs: Cisco Cius plays bad cop on NCIS: Los Angeles (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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