London Court Opens Trial of 3 British Islamists Accused of Bomb Plot
Three British Islamists are on trial in Britain, facing accusations of plotting terrorist attacks that could have been deadlier than the 2005 London transit bombings.
Prosecutor Brian Altman told a high-security London court Monday the three defendants planned to detonate up to eight rucksack bombs in a suicide attack or set off timber bombs in crowded areas. He said the plot was “on a scale potentially greater” than the July 7, 2005 bombings that killed 52 people on London's underground train and bus networks.
Defendants Irfan Naseer, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali have pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges. Authorities arrested the men in the city of Birmingham in September 2011.
Altman said the defendants were inspired to commit terrorism by the anti-Western sermons of U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida loyalist killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year.
The prosecutor said the plot began with Naseer and Khalid traveling to Pakistan for training, learning how to make poison and bombs and producing martyrdom videos. After returning to Britain, he said they worked with Ali to recruit others to the plot and to raise money fraudulently by posing as fundraisers for Muslim charities.
Russia Arrests 2nd Opposition Activist, Punk Band Members Sent to Prison
Russian investigators say they have arrested a second opposition activist in a crackdown against opponents of President Vladimir Putin, after the activist turned himself in.
In a statement, Russia's Investigations Committee says Leonid Razvozzhayev, an assistant deputy of the opposition Just Russia party, admitted to involvement in organizing mass disturbances in Russia and taking part in May riots in Moscow.
But the activist's supporters say he was kidnapped in Ukraine, where he had gone to apply for refugee status. A video on the website LifeNews shows Razvozzhayev shouting to reporters after his arrest Sunday that he was “tortured” and “stolen” out of Ukraine.
Razvozzhayev is the second suspect arrested in a probe launched last week against Left Front party leader Sergei Udaltsov and party member Konstantin Lebedev, who is in police custody.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the two convicted members of the anti-Kremlin all-female punk band Pussy Riot said they have been sent to prison camps far from Moscow.
Attorney Mark Feygin said Maria Alekhina was transferred to the Perm region in the Ural mountains and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to the central province of Mordovia.
The two, along with a third band member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for an unsanctioned protest at a Moscow cathedral.
Alekhina and Tolokonnikova lost their appeals earlier this month. A judge suspended Samutsevich's sentence, saying guards threw her out of the cathedral before she could take part in the performance.
The trio was arrested on the altar of Russia's most prominent Orthodox cathedral in January, after they called on the Virgin Mary to deliver them from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Samutsevich on Friday filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, accusing Russia of violating her right to free speech and illegally detaining her in jail for six months.
The women have argued their impromptu performance was political in nature and not an attack on religion.
Self-Immolation at Famous Monastery in NW China
Another Tibetan has set himself on fire and died to protest Chinese policies in Tibet.
Rights groups say a 61-year-old farmer named Dhondup set himself ablaze Monday near the remote Labrang Monastery in China's northwestern Gansu province. Some witnesses said monks from the monastery surrounded the charred body to prevent Chinese officials from claiming the remains.
The groups say Dhondup left behind a wife and an adopted son.
The highly respected Labrang monastery was the scene of deadly protests against Chinese rule in 2008.
Monday's self-immolation is the second in three days. On Saturday, a man named Lhamo Kyab died after setting himself on fire outside the Bora monastery in Sangchu.
Since February of 2009, at least 57 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese policy in Tibet. In 47 cases the protesters have died.
China has long-accused Tibetan exiles of self-immolating as part of a separatist struggle, denouncing them as terrorists.
Foreign Affairs the Focus at Third Obama-Romney Debate
U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, are set to debate for a third and final time Monday, this time on foreign affairs.
For months during the long campaign leading to the November 6 election, surveys showed voters giving the Democratic incumbent a strong foreign policy edge over Mr. Romney, especially for President Obama's approval of the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The Republican candidate's foreign affairs expertise has largely been limited to overseas business deals he helped negotiate during his long career as a venture capitalist.
However, newer surveys show that Mr. Romney has cut sharply into the president's perceived advantage on foreign affairs. Mr. Romney has pointedly criticized the White House's changing explanations about the September 11 raid on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four U.S. diplomats.
Aside from debating the Benghazi attack, the candidates are likely to discuss a variety of other foreign affairs issues. Among them are the bin Laden raid, China's role in the world economy, Mr. Obama's plan to end American military involvement in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan by late 2014, the deadly conflict in Syria, rising tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear development program, and relations with Russia.
Fifteen days ahead of the election, several surveys show the race virtually tied, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding the race deadlocked at 47 percent each.
Monday's 90-minute debate is being held in the closely contested southern state of Florida and will be moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
Kosovo Police, Nationalists Clash in Pristina, More than 20 Hurt
Kosovo police have used tear gas and pepper spray to break up a protest in the capital, Pristina, by stone-throwing nationalists opposed to European Union-mediated talks with Serbia.
Authorities said Monday's confrontation outside government headquarters injured at least 18 police officers and several demonstrators. Police briefly detained several lawmakers of the ultranationalist Self Determination party who joined the protest.
The nationalist demonstrators denounced Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci for meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic last Friday in Brussels, where EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton acted as a mediator. It was the highest-level meeting between the two sides since Kosovo seceded from Serbia in a 2008 move rejected by Belgrade.
Self Determination party members said it was shameful and criminal for Mr. Thaci to engage in talks with Serbia, which they said refuses to apologize for waging a two-year war against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo in the 1990s. A NATO bombing campaign pressured Serbia into stopping the offensive in 1999.
The Thaci-Dacic meeting was aimed at easing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia and helping them to achieve their aspiration of joining the 27-nation EU bloc. Belgrade already has earned EU candidate status, but Brussels has told both sides to make progress in normalizing their relations before proceeding with their EU membership bids.
Kosovo is recognized as an independent state by around 90 nations, 22 of them from the EU. But five EU members refuse to grant recognition to Pristina. Belgrade insists that Kosovo remains a Serbian province.
VAT on all food items will be removed by Nov 15th 2012
Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has announced that Value Added Tax (VAT) on all food items will be removed, effective November 15, as part of measures tabled in tomorrow’s 2012/2013 Budget presentation.
Addressing a massive crowd of supporters during the People’s Partnership’s “Pre-budget Rally” yesterday she announced her Government’s initiatives to reduce food prices.
"From November 15, 2012, VAT on all food prices will be removed,” Persad-Bissessar said, before repeating, “VAT on all food items will be removed.”
Adding the initiative had been contained in a contribution she had made in 2008 while on the Opposition benches during debate on the high cost of food, she said, “Check the Hansard, you will see.”
She noted that currently, some 59 food items were “zero rated” while on all others the 15 percent VAT was applied.
However, she was quick to add the measure would not be applied to alcoholic beverages and luxury items such as caviar and champagne.
“No luxury items will be zero rated, such as caviar, champagne, and no alcoholic beverages,” she reiterated to the crowd.
The Prime Minister said among the items which would witness a reduction would be pig tail and all types of beans, including canned pigeon peas, baked beans and red beans.
She also announced that a committee comprising various government ministries, including the Finance, Food Production and Trade and Industry Ministries, together with the TT Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) and the Supermarkets Association, will also look at review of those food items which attracted import duties, with a goal of reducing such food items.
She said, however, that this would be done on a phased basis so as not to harm the local food production industry.
Newsday
New OT minister heads to BVI on first OT visit
Mark Simmonds, the FCO’s new overseas territories minister, is heading to the Caribbean this week but he will not be coming to the Cayman Islands. The FCO said he would be visiting the British Virgin Islands on his first trip to a Caribbean territory since being given the FCO job last month following the UK prime minister’s reshuffle. “I am really looking forward to visiting the British Virgin Islands, which will be my first trip to a territory since starting my new role as Minister for the Overseas Territories,” Simmonds stated. “While I have visited the British Virgin Islands before, I am excited to be going back this time in an official capacity.
“I am interested to see how the territory has progressed and developed since I was last there. I am also delighted to have the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with the Honourable Premier and hear his plans for BVI’s future.”
Simmonds will move on to Anguilla after leaving BVI on 24 October but there has been no news yet of when the new minister will be visiting the Cayman Islands. Simmonds has already met Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush when he visited the minister last month on his way to Greenland. Bush told Simmonds then that he would not be passing the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility agreement by the 30 September in accordance with the UK deadline but that he would be addressing it sometime during the next legislative session, which starts on 5 November.
The Clintons head to Haiti
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to northern Haiti on Monday, where she and husband, former President Bill Clinton, will inaugurate a new $300 million industrial park.
They will be joined by Haitian President Michel Martelly and Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, as well as several businessmen the Clintons hope will decide to expand operations to Haiti to create desperately needed jobs.
It is the Hillary Clinton’s first visit to the north and comes nearly a year after her husband, who also serves as U.N. special envoy to Haiti, helped break ground on the controversial project.
Called the Caracol Industrial Park, it is located on 600 acres in rural Haiti, just east of the country’s second largest city, Cap-Haitien. Environmentalists and others have objected to its location on once prime agriculture land and near a fragile ecosystem.
The visit comes just days ahead of the U.S. presidential elections and is expected to highlight the Obama administration’s involvement in Haiti, especially after the devastating January 2012 earthquake. It will take place on the day that President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney hold their final debate, this one focusing on foreign policy.
Long envisioned prior to the earthquake, the park was fast-tracked as a result sof the disaster with both the U.S. government and the International Development Bank pooling resources to create what they hope will be up to 65,000 jobs in the coming years. Just outside of the park is a new road, financed by the European Union.
To highlight what is being dubbed as aide-for-trade, Hillary Clinton will also visit a nearby housing site that is under construction and a recently built power plant that will serve the park and nearby communities. Both are financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
So far, about 900 Haitians, not including the construction workers still building factory shells, are employed inside the park. They recently completed the first t-shirts made there on behalf of Korean clothing manufacturer and main tenant Sae-A.
In addition to the Clintons, other attendees Monday include U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Also taking place on Monday is a 24-person, four-day business development mission to Haiti’s capital led by County Commissioner Jean Monestime. Monestime, born in Haiti, is vice president of the county’s International Trade Consortium board of directors.
The goal of the visit is to highlight the county’s assets as an international trade hub and to pursue commercial and business opportunities in Haiti, said Gerard Philippeaux, Monestime’s chief of staff. Representatives from the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and Port of Miami also will participating in the mission.
Three women killed, four hospitalized-shooter commits suicide
A new photo has emerged showing the gunman behind massacre at a suburban Milwaukee spa on Sunday posing for the camera with an assault rifle.
Radcliffe Haughton, 45, believed to be a Jamaican national would have had to give up the weapon and all of his other guns once his estranged wife's restraining order, filed three days before the shooting, made it through the legal system.
His wife Zina is reportedly among the three women who were killed when he opened fire a Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Four others were hospitalized with non-life threatening gunshot wounds.
Police have not released the names of the victims in Sunday morning's shooting, but WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee quotes an anonymous source as saying Mrs Haughton was murdered in the attack.
Officers believe Radcliffe Haughton was looking for his wife when he entered the spa about 11.10am and began shooting. The two were having marital problems and she had recently moved out of their house. He committed suicide after the rampage inside the spa.
Court records show that a judge issued a order of protection against Haughton on Thursday, and said there was a credible threat against her.
Under that order, Haughton was required to turn in his guns -- though it's unclear when that part of the order would have taken effect. The protection order was filed after an October 4 incident at the salon, when Haughton slashed his wife's tires in the parking lot.
The owner of the salon was out of the country at the time of the shooting.
Daily Mail
Jamaican woman stabbed to death before wedding & giving birth
The man who was suppose to wed Vindalee Smith has been questioned by police, but not named a suspect in here killing.
Smith 38 was stabbed and killed yesterday, her body found at her apartment - she was 8 months pregnant.
Police say they found no sign of forced entry, and no weapon was recovered.
Investigators are looking for a possible suspect. They interviewed her friends and family, and spoke to her fiance.
Smith had four children in their teens and 20s, friends said. A baby shower had been planned for Saturday evening, followed by a small wedding Sunday. Friends told reporters that Smith had met her fiance about a year ago.