Did Pakistani intelligence help plan and finance Mumbai attacks?

Chicago trial will hear from businessman accused of identifying targets for militants

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Two and a half years after armed militants stormed ashore in Mumbai and launched an assault that left more than 160 people dead, court proceedings have begun in the US which could expose disturbing allegations that elements within Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency helped plot and finance the operation.

Amid tight security at the Dirksen federal courthouse in Chicago, the jury selection process has started in the trial of the Chicago-based businessman Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of helping an old school friend scout targets in India for the Pakistani militants. Among the targets identified by David Coleman Headley were the locations in Mumbai that the 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba militants laid siege to for up to three days.

Cathay Pacific Airbus 330 makes emergency landing in Singapore

‘God, save our flight! Give us your protection!’ passengers pray

msnbc.com news services

Terrified passengers aboard a blazing jetliner prayed together before the plane made an emergency landing on Monday.

An engine on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 caught fire in midair.

Cathay Pacific said the jet, bound for Jakarta with 136 passengers on board, landed back in Singapore “without incident” just before 2 a.m. It said the crew shut down the engine after receiving a “stall warning.”

Reuters photographer Beawiharta was aboard the aircraft with his wife, two sons and daughter. About 20 minutes after take-off, there were two sharp bangs, sending cabin staff scurrying to retrieve the meals they had only just begun serving.

IMF chief held on suspicion of sexual assault on N.Y. hotel worker

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is taken off a plane about to leave JFK, arrested and charged in the attack on a chambermaid in his luxury suite.

By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 15, 2011, 12:07 a.m.

Reporting from New York– Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was hauled off a flight about to leave JFK airport for Paris on Saturday and arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted a maid in a Times Square-area hotel, a police spokesman said.

Strauss-Kahn, who is also an important figure in French politics, was taken to the Harlem headquarters of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which investigates rape and other sex crimes. He was charged with committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a chambermaid in the luxury suite of a midtown Manhattan hotel, said Paul Browne, deputy New York City police commissioner.

EXTREME MEASURES

A Maritime Self-Defense Force member whipped out his tool in a Yokohama video shop in a successful bid to get arrested for exposing himself in public. He was not keen on being sent to Iwate to retrieve bodies killed by the March 11 tsunami.

A Japanese fashion blogger/medical student “Tokyo Panda,” extremely popular on Chinese online shopping site Taobao, is doing her part for tsunami victims by posting photos of herself in various outfits online and then selling the clothes to raise money for charity.

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea are “under pressure to reduce electric power consumption in anticipation of a power shortage this summer.” The theme parks reportedly use 10 times more power than the Tokyo Dome.

A fundraising effort organized by Tokyoite Gary Bremermann raised ¥100 for every beer sold with the money going to help kids in Tohoku.

Meanwhile, a new internet phenomenon known as “slacktivism” has sprung up in the wake of March 11, gaining popularity in Japan. Combining slacker and activism, the term means “to casually engage in social activism at little cost or effort … leisurely philanthropic activities.”

It’s a go: Spillway to inundate Cajun country

25,000 people hurriedly pack their things and worry that their way of life might soon be drowned

Associated Press  

BUTTE LAROSE, La. – In an agonizing trade-off, Army engineers said they will open a key spillway along the bulging Mississippi River as early as Saturday and inundate thousands of homes and farms in Louisiana’s Cajun country to avert a potentially bigger disaster in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm’s way when the gates on the Morganza spillway are unlocked for the first time in 38 years.

“Protecting lives is the No. 1 priority,” Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said aboard a boat from the river at Vicksburg, Miss., hours before the decision was made to open the spillway.

Pakistan Army Chief Balks at U.S. Demands to Cooperate



By JANE PERLEZ

Published: May 12,

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Despite mounting pressure from the United States since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, seems unlikely to respond to American demands to root out other militant leaders, according to people who have met with him in the last 10 days.

While the general does not want to abandon the alliance completely, he is more likely to pursue a strategy of decreasing Pakistan’s reliance on the United States, and continuing to offer just enough cooperation to keep the billions of dollars in American aid flowing, said a confidant of the general who has spoken with him recently.

Such a response is certain to test American officials, who are more mistrustful of Pakistan than ever.

Bin Laden death ‘not an assassination’ – Eric Holder



The BBC  12 May 2011

US Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, in which the al-Qaeda leader was killed, was “not an assassination”.

Mr Holder told the BBC the operation was a “kill or capture mission” and that Bin Laden’s surrender would have been accepted if offered.

The protection of the Navy Seals who carried out the raid was “uppermost in our minds”, he added.

Pakistanis disclose name of CIA operative



By Karin Brulliard and Greg Miller, Tuesday, May 10

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The public outing of the CIA station chief here threatened on Monday to deepen the rift between the United States and Pakistan, with U.S. officials saying they believed the disclosure had been made deliberately by Pakistan’s main spy agency.

If true, the leak would be a sign that Pakistan’s powerful security establishment, far from feeling chastened by the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison city last week, is seeking to demonstrate its leverage over Washington and retaliate for the unilateral U.S. operation.

Less than six months ago, the identity of the previous CIA station chief in Islamabad was also disclosed in an act that U.S. officials blamed on their counterparts in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI.

US says it wants access to bin Laden widows

The women could answer questions about how much Pakistan knew

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

The United States wants access to Osama bin Laden’s three widows and any intelligence material its commandos left behind at the al-Qaida leader’s compound, a top American official said in comments broadcast Sunday that could add a fresh sticking point in already frayed ties with Pakistan.

Information from the women, who remained in the house after the commandos killed bin Laden, might answer questions about whether Pakistan harbored the al-Qaida chief as many American officials are speculating. It could also reveal details about the day-to-day life of bin Laden, his actions since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the inner workings of al-Qaida.

The women, along with several children also picked up from the house, are believed to be in Pakistani army custody. A Pakistani army official declined to comment Sunday on the request, U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.

Nuclear agency is criticized as too close to its industry

Many experts say lax oversight played a key role in Japan’s crisis

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

In the fall of 2007, workers at the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois were using a wire brush to clean a badly corroded steel pipe – one in a series that circulate cooling water to essential emergency equipment – when something unexpected happened: the brush poked through.

The resulting leak caused a 12-day shutdown of the two reactors for repairs.The resulting leak caused a 12-day shutdown of the two reactors for repairs.

The plant’s owner, the Exelon Corporation, had long known that corrosion was thinning most of these pipes.