British Honeymooner Killed: Shark attack

The couple had only been married for two weeks

A hunt has been launched for a rogue shark after a British man was killed in an attack while on honeymoon in the Seychelles.The Foreign Office confirmed the death of Ian Martin Redmond, from Lancashire, on the islands.The 30-year-old was believed to have been attacked by a 6ft shark as he swam off Anse Lazio beach, on the island of Paslin.A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed the death of Mr Redmond and said: "We are providing consular assistance to the next of kin."A local restaurateur told Sky News: "I heard an ambulance was coming to the beach and I went around and saw somebody on the floor and I asked a policeman and he said it was a shark attack."

The location is regularly voted as one of the best beaches in the world but it was the second fatal shark attack, after a 36-year-old French tourist was killed there on August 2.A Seychelles government minister chaired an emergency meeting last night to discuss the freak attacks and later released a statement announcing a swimming ban."With immediate effect, the Seychelles Maritime Safety Administration has issued a temporary ban on swimming or entering the water in certain bays of the island of Praslin and islands off the coast of Praslin following two fatal shark attacks this month in the northwest area of the island."They are the first fatal attacks around the small Indian Ocean nation for almost 50 years, prompting speculation the deaths were the result of a single rogue shark.Australian research scientist Dr Jonathan Werry told Sky News that environmental conditions can affect shark behaviour."They have specific drivers, generally physical or biological drivers, that coincide with their movement into a coastal area."An in many cases when you look at an attack there are other features that have correlated and led to that attack."An employee at the four-star La Reserve hotel confirmed the latest victim was staying there with his wife.It is believed Mr Redmond was snorkelling some 20 yards from the shore while his wife stayed on the beach.Authorities launched a hunt for the shark and cautioned beachgoers in other areas about swimming dangers.

 

"We haven't had a reliable sighting. We don't know where that number came from. People have been guessing. We have no idea whatsoever about what type of variety of shark it would be," Jumeau said.Jumeau told ABC News that a special committee had been assembled last night, composed of standing authorities from the National Parks, the Seychelles Fishing Authority, area police, the Coast Guard, marine biologists, hotel security and residents of the area to coordinate their actions in guarding the area and preventing a third attack."A domestic advisory has been announced to make sure people don't go too far out. They are monitoring the waters to insure that they can get the shark. There's probably just one shark, but we are certainly taking precautions. There is no panic on the island, no wild shark hunt, although some of the popular beaches around that area have been closed and are being patrolled," said Jumeau.Current precautions include using fishing nets to cordon off areas of the bay. Fishing boats are also circulating in the area with bait in hopes of luring the shark.Seychelles officials tried to downplay the dangers of sharks in the area."In Seychelles, we don't even think about sharks, it's that rare, Seychelles is not known for that . . . That beach is one of my favorite beaches, and until now I would have gone into the water without hesitation .

China accused on copter

WASHINGTON. Pakistan’s intelligence service probably allowed Chinese military engineers to examine the wreckage of the American Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed.US spy agencies have concluded that it is likely that Chinese engineers took detailed photographs of the severed tail of the helicopter equipped with classified technology designed to elude radar. The team that conducted the raid had tried to destroy the helicopter after it crashed at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, but the tail section remained largely intact.American officials cautioned that they did not yet have definitive proof that the Chinese were allowed to visit Abbottabad.

   

Britain Turns to Reckoning With Rioters:Cameron Faces Parliament

TimesCast | Riots Spread in Britain

LONDON — Still reeling with shock and anger over the worst rioting in decades, Britain has turned to a tough reckoning with the perpetrators, with courts sitting through the night and the police saying Thursday that over 1,200 people had been arrested, the bulk of them in London.Police officers framed by a burned vehicle in Liverpool on Wednesday.But, despite an apparent lull in the rioting that has ravaged London and other major cities, concern was growing about many of the ethnically segregated districts battered by the rampages, particularly Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, where the police and political leaders worried about a potentially explosive new pattern of interracial violence that could be set off by the past days and nights of mayhem.Three young men of Pakistani descent were killed in Birmingham on Tuesday night when a car crashed into a group of residents who had gathered to protect local businesses from attack. Witnesses said that the driver appeared to be of Afro-Caribbean descent, and the police arrested a 32-year-old man and charged him with murder.On Thursday, the London police said 888 people had been arrested and 371 charged with offenses since the violence took root on Saturday, while the Manchester police in the northwest put the total of arrests there at 145, with similar numbers detained in Birmingham in the English Midlands. Courts in London and Birmingham sat through the night. But, with thousands of police reinforcement on the streets, heavy rain in some areas and residents in some places patrolling their own residential areas, there were no new reports of major violence overnight.Meanwhile, politicians braced for the fallout from the convulsion of violence as Prime Minister David Cameron faced the most severe crisis of his 15 months in office. The wildfire spread of violence, the initial failure of the police to contain it, the slow early response of political leaders and the cruelty of the attacks have left the nation shaken and wrung by an embittered debate about whom and what to blame.Casting himself as a decisive leader taking charge of the nation’s destiny, Mr. Cameron was set to address an emergency session of Parliament — recalled from its summer recess because of the violence — on Thursday. In face of the violence, he has taken a tough line, saying the actions of those who looted and committed arson showed a lack of “proper morals” and a failure of parenting.While many Britons had initially blamed the violence on unemployed youth, however, one surprise was the presence of young men and women with regular jobs among the riot suspects lined up in police wagons outside courthouses in London and other cities. That raised questions about why they had been caught up in the kind of mayhem that has traditionally drawn on an underclass of alienated young people, with no jobs and few prospects.Many of those who were remanded for trial appeared to come from just those kinds of backgrounds — evidence, as some commentators saw it, that the root causes of the disorders lay in social deprivation and despair. But those who stood before the courts for bail hearings in London, many of them still in their jeans and hooded sweatshirts, included a graphic designer, a postal employee, a dental assistant, a teaching aide, a forklift driver and a youth worker.One 19-year-old woman was listed on court documents as living in a converted farmhouse in a leafy, upmarket area of rural Kent that is part of what Londoners call the stockbroker belt. A 22-year-old woman gave her address as an upscale block of flats in a gentrified neighborhood of Hackney, one of the worst-hit riot areas in London. Local residents said that many of the residents of the apartments, which are valued at about $500,000, belonged to a community of affluent, middle-class people with jobs in London’s news media and art world.

TimesCast | What Is Driving the Riots

Ahead of the emergency House of Commons session on Thursday, Mr. Cameron declared a “fightback” against what he condemned as the “groups of thugs” who had driven the riots. With his government jolted by the scenes of young people looting and setting fire to shops, warehouses, vehicles and police stations, he spoke with an angry vehemence that conveyed a sense that his government had settled on an unyielding crackdown, shorn of the kind of exculpatory language that British politicians have often used when confronted with youth disorder.

Officer shot at San Diego and Suspect killed in gunfight

SAN DIEGO -- A police officer was shot in the head Saturday in an apparent unprovoked attack as he waited at a stop light alongside a vehicle suspected of being involved in a shooting hours earlier.

He was shot around 5:30 p.m. when he pulled up to a black Audi in the City Heights area on the city's eastside and a passenger in that car shot him."As far as we know, it was totally unprovoked," Police Capt. Jim Collins told the newspaper. "He was not attempting to stop the suspect vehicle. He had no idea that was the suspect vehicle."

He said the shooting led police to track down the vehicle to a nearby apartment, where they got involved in a gun battle and fatally shot one suspect. Another one remained inside the apartment late Saturday as a SWAT team surrounded the building.

The Audi was suspected of being involved in a shooting at an In-N-Out restaurant about two hours earlier and 14 miles away in El Cajon. Police chased the vehicle on the freeway, but had to give up after it sped more than 100 mph.

Syria demonstrators rally despite crackdown

Tanks occupy the centre of Hama in a government offensive aimed at quelling the uprising

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets around Syria, after activists said troops had killed at least 45 civilians in a tank assault to occupy the centre of Hama.
From the capital, Damascus, to Deraa in the south and Deir ez-Zoor in the east - demonstrators began rallying after noon prayers on the first Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan - billed by activists as the day "God is with us".
Other protests were being held in Qamishli in the north and Homs in the centre, activists said, as President Bashar al-Assad sought to crush a five-month-old uprising against his rule, leaving the city of Hama under siege for the sixth day.
Armed men in plain clothes were randomly shooting people in the city's streets, forcing families to bury their loved ones in gardens at home for fear of venturing out to cemeteries, a Hama resident said on Thursday.
Phones, internet and electricity have been cut or severely hampered for days.
The resident, who spoke by phone on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told the AP news agency that people are being forced to ration food to get by during Ramadan.
"People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street," the resident said.
"I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank."
He said he left Hama briefly through side roads to smuggle in food supplies.
The resident said around 250 people have been killed since Sunday.
The claims could not be independently verified as Syria is not allowing journalists into the country to cover the uprising.
Hozan Ibrahim, of the Local Co-ordination Committees which tracks the crackdown on protesters, said up to 30 people may have been killed in Hama on Wednesday based on reports from fleeing residents. But neither of those numbers could be immediately verified.
Families have resorted to burying their loved ones in home gardens or roadside pits "because we fear that if we go to the cemetery, we will end up buried along with them", the resident said.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said up to 1,000 families have fled Hama in the past two days, most of them to the village of Mashtal Hilu and al-Salamieh.
"The people of Hama want freedom, dignity, equality," Gaetan Vannay, a journalist with Radio Television Suisse, told Al Jazeera just three days after escaping from Hama.
"They want to get ride of Assad and his regime. But it will cost a lot of lives."
 US Sectary said

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the Syrian government has killed more than 2,000 people in its attempts to crush the protests against it and has lost all legitimacy.

She told a press conference that the US was extending sanctions, including against a prominent businessman and MP it said had close ties to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad and his brother, and believed that and moves such as a statement from the UN security council on Wednesday condemning the regime could turn the screw.

"We are working around the clock to try to gather up as much international support for strong actions against the Syrian regime as possible. I come from the school that actions speak louder than words," she told reporters on Thursday.

Clinton said it was time for the international community to match its rhetorical outrage "with actions that will send a very clear message to the Assad regime, the insiders there, that there's a price to pay for this kind of abuse and attacks on their own people".

The move by the US Treasury marks the fourth round of US sanctions against Syria aimed at pressuring Assad's government to ease its bloody crackdown against unarmed protesters. Activists said government troops killed at least 45 civilians on Thursday in a tank assault to occupy the centre of Hama.

History of dissent
Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen largely out of government control since June as residents turned on the government and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks.
But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive that left corpses in streets on Sunday and sent residents fleeing for their lives, according to accounts.
In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered the military to quell an uprising by Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement there, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.
Assad has sought to deal with the revolt against his family's 40-year-dynasty through deadly force, but has also acknowledged the need for reform.
He issued two legislative decrees on Thursday that will allow the formation of political parties alongside the Baath Party and enable newly formed parties to run for parliament and local councils.
Both draft bills were endorsed by cabinet last month, and were key demands of the opposition movement.
But opposition figures now dismiss the moves as manoeuvring tactics and insist they want regime change.
Russian advice
Even longstanding allies of Syria are becoming wary of uncritically backing Assad. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, has called the situation in Syria "dramatic" and expressed "enormous concern" over the deadly violence in the country.
"Unfortunately, people die there in large numbers. This arouses enormous concern from us," he said in an interview given to Russian media in the southern resort Sochi on Thursday.
Assad needs to "carry out urgent reforms, come to terms with the opposition, restore peace and create a modern state", Medvedev said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
"If he cannot do this, a sad fate awaits him, and in the end we will have to take some decision. We are watching the way the situation develops. As it changes, some of our perspectives also change."
Medvedev's remarks followed a foreign ministry statement on Monday strongly criticising the Syrian government's crackdown on demonstrations in a sign of a possible shift in Russia's rigid position.
Russia supported the Security Council statement on Wednesday which condemned "the widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities".
However, it did not support stronger action rebuffing efforts by Western powers to agree on a resolution over fears that it might pave the way for another military intervention like the one against Muammar Gaddafi's rule in Libya.
Germany will ask the UN to send a special envoy to Syria to increase pressure on Damascus over its crackdown on civilian protesters, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Thursday, a move aimed at adding weight to the Security Council's statement.
"Together with our partners, I will urge the UN to name a special envoy for Syria who will start work immediately, carrying the international community's clear message to Damascus and adding authority to the demands of the Security Council," Westerwelle said in a statement.
For its part, the US government warned on Thursday that Assad had placed Syria and the Middle East on a "dangerous path".
President Barack Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, said Syria would be a "better place" without Assad and said people in Syria and around the world were making plans for a future without him.

Funeral held for slain Libya rebel military chief

(AP) Thousands of mourners followed the funeral procession for the Libyan rebels' slain military chief on Friday, a day after he was gunned down under still mysterious circumstances.

Mourners chanted "Martyrs are God's Beloved" as they carried Abdel-Fattah Younis's coffin to a cemetery in the de-facto eastern rebel capital Benghazi.

Fear and confusion gripped Benghazi, where heavy gunfire crackled in the early hours Friday, as residents worried about the possibility his death could undermine the rebels' military forces, leaving the opposition-held east vulnerable to attack by Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

The circumstances of his death remained almost entirely unexplained. The head of the rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said Younis had been summoned to Benghazi for questioning on a "military matter" and was killed along with two aides while on route.

Libyan rebel leader: Our military chief killed

Rebel commander Abdel Fattah Younes speaks during a rally in Benghazi on July 6.

The head of the Libyan rebels' military campaign against Moammar Gadhafi was shot dead by assailants on Thursday, the top rebel leader said.
Abdel Fattah Younes was part of the group involved in the 1969 coup that brought Gadhafi to power, and was interior minister before he defected and took a senior position in the rebellion in February.
"We received news today that ... Younes and two of his bodyguards were shot at after he was called in to appear before a judicial committee investigating military issues," rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Some rebels were never comfortable with an army leader who had until recently been so close to Gadhafi, and Younes had been involved in a dispute over the leadership of the rebel forces.
Jalil said Younes was shot before appearing in front of the judicial committee and the head of the armed cell that killed him had been arrested.
It was not clear where Younes and his bodyguards had been killed or how Jalil had learned of their deaths, but Jalil said all efforts were being made to find their bodies.
Shortly afterwards, gunmen burst into the grounds of the hotel where Jalil was speaking and fired bursts of shots in the air, a Reuters reporter said.