Six In The Morning

NATO helicopters join Libya attacks

First use targets military installations, radar site, armed checkpoint near Brega

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

 British and French attack helicopters under NATO command struck Libyan military targets for the first time Saturday, increasing pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi, commanders said. British Apache helicopters destroyed two military installations, a radar site and an armed checkpoint near the coastal city of Brega, the captain of HMS Ocean told the BBC. The choppers were deployed from the ship.

French Gazelle helicopters also took part in simultaneous attacks on different targets, the BBC reported.

“This successful engagement demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters,” Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of Operation Unified Protector, said in a NATO statement. “We will continue to use these assets whenever and wherever needed, using the same precision as we do in all of our missions.”

Detained: bus driver suspected of being hitman for Rwandan President



By Yoletta Nyange and Cahal Milmo Saturday, 4 June 2011

With his Belgian passport and job as a Brussels bus driver, Norbert Rukimbira would not have stood out as a suspected international assassin as he sat on board the Eurolines coach that pulled into the passport control building at Folkestone’s Eurotunnel terminal three weeks ago.

But within moments of his arrival on British soil, the 43-year-old teaching graduate found himself surrounded and being quietly taken aside by counter-terrorism officers, and questioned about his suspected involvement in an assassination squad allegedly sent to London by the Rwandan government to kill two critics of the increasingly authoritarian regime of President Paul Kagame.

Syria: ‘Dozens killed’ as thousands protest in Hama

More than 60 people were killed in Syria as thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers, rights activists say.

The BBC  4 June 2011  

At least 53 people are believed to have died when security forces fired on a crowd of about 50,000 people in the central city of Hama. Some accounts put the death toll at more than 100.

The opposition had dedicated the day to children killed during the uprising.

The army meanwhile continued its assault on the central town of Rastan.

Escaping the Clutches of the Financial Markets

Dignity and Democracy

An Essay by Dirk Kurbjuweit

We are doing well. In fact, we’re doing splendidly. The economy is booming, with 1.5 percent growth in the first quarter. We are as prosperous as we were before the crisis, which has finally been overcome. Congratulations are in order for everyone.

The banks, Deutsche Bank above all, deserve particular congratulations. In the first quarter, it earned €3.5 billion ($5.1 billion) in pretax profits in its core business, and by the end of the year the bank will likely report a record €10 billion in pretax profits, its best results ever. That number is expected to rise to €11 billion or even €12 billion in two or three years.

Malaysian police ‘cattle-branding women’



June 4, 2011 – 1:51PM

accounts.

Malaysian lawyers, politicians and activists have lambasted police , accusing them of abusing their power in chaining up and marking the bodies of 30 foreign women detained for alleged prostitution.

Police raided a high-end nightclub in northern Penang state late on Thursday and arrested 29 women from China and one from Vietnam, along with eight Malaysian men.

Local media reported police officers went undercover at the club for a week before the raid.

Zimbabwe cop-death suspects ‘tortured’ in jail



GILLIAN GOTORA HARARE, ZIMBABWE – Jun 04 2011

The group shuffled into the courthouse on Friday afternoon, limping and handcuffed in pairs. Eight men and four women appeared with deep lacerations and welts on their legs and arms. They lifted their clothing to show the wounds. Several had swollen faces and bloodshot eyes. Suspect Tungamirai Madzokere testified in a statement that he had suffered internal injuries in beatings that police recorded on video cameras.

Defence lawyer Charles Kwaramba said that the suspects, members of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s former opposition party, were detained in a police crackdown in a western Harare township since the killing on Sunday.