Six In The Morning

The race to catch al-Qa'ida's master bomber

 

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the Yemen-based terrorist schemer who specialises in exploding underwear, is at the top of the CIA's hit list

 

Wednesday 09 May 2012 

 America likes nothing better than putting a name and a face to the Islamic terrorist threat. First, there was Osama bin Laden, until he was killed in Pakistan; then Anwar al-Awlaki, internet recruiter to al-Qa'ida's cause, until he was killed by a US drone attack in Yemen last September. There remains Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks, currently on trial for his life in a courtroom at Guantanamo Bay. But now there's a new pubic enemy Number One: Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, al-Qa'ida's bomb-maker in Yemen.

  German High Court to Address Ghetto Pensions

By Christoph Schult

 For years, former laborers in Nazi-era ghettos have been fighting to get the pension that German law ostensibly guarantees them. A strict interpretation of that legislation, however, has meant that a vast majority of applications have been rejected. Now, a complaint has been filed with Germany's highest court.

Elijahu Zicher was just nine years old when he started his first job. The Nazis had marched into Poland, killing his mother and older sister and forcing the rest of the family into the ghetto in the city of Wlodowa in eastern Poland, where the young Jewish boy found work in the ghetto's sewers. Relative to the overall situation, conditions were fairly good. Zicher wasn't kept under guard as he worked, and even received modest pay.

Tens of thousands of Jews living in ghettos under the Nazi regime had similar experiences, working more or less normal jobs. Some of these ghettos had their own employment centers, and some of the German employers even paid into retirement funds.

Terminator's mutineers wreak new havoc

09 May 2012 07:35 - Sapa-AFP

 General Bosco Ntaganda, the DRC deserter accused of recruiting child soldiers, has emptied towns across the Congo as villagers flee his brutal attacks

A gunfight involving Congolese army deserters, led by ex-general Bosco Ntaganda, and DRC soldiers ripped through the DRC town of Kimbumba on Tuesday night.
“We started fighting around midnight,” a Congolese army captain said. “General Bosco Ntaganda was in the ranks” of the mutineers, who are former members of rebel group the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
“After a heavy gun battle lasting four hours in Kibumba, we were backed by heavy weapons fire,” said the captain, himself a former member of the CNDP who integrated into the army under a 2009 peace deal with Kinshasa.
The captain did not give a casualty toll.
Hundreds of former CNDP members mutinied last month, complaining of inhumane treatment in the regular army.

 Chen case exposes a shared weakness

 By Benjamin A Shobert

 Amid all the fury, conjecture and confusion over what to make of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng's flight to the United States Embassy in Beijing, it is impossible to overlook the most simple and yet most compelling insight his story has to offer about China: what cannot last, will not.

During last week's hearing by the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC), congressman Chris Smith (Republican - New Jersey) held a mobile phone connecting Chen from his Beijing hospital room and Pastor Bob Fu who was at the CECC hearing, so that all those in attendance or watching via webcast could hear, it was impossible to avoid the realization that the status quo in China is simply not sustainable.

How Netanyahu's 'unity' government may affect Palestinians, Iran

Prime Minister Netanyahu jolted Israeli politics by forming a 'unity' government with the centrist Kadima party, arguing it will promote stability at a time of contentious challenges.

 By Josh Mitnick, Correspondent

 A stunning overhaul in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could produce progress on the peace process with the Palestinians but also enhance Israeli threats to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

 Late last night, the parliament was pushing forward legislation to dissolve itself and move up general elections by a year to this September. But in what Haaretz newspaper labeled an "atomic bomb," Mr. Netanyahu and opposition leader Shaul Mofaz of the centrist Kadima party instead paved the way for a national unity coalition, something that Netanyahu says will stabilize the government for the next year and a half so it can deal with reforms at home and security threats abroad.