Ms Sandiford to be executed for drug trafficking.

A British grandmother has been sentenced to death by firing squad for smuggling almost 5kg of cocaine into Bali.Lindsay Sandiford was arrested in May last year after she tried to enter the Indonesian holiday island with illegal drugs worth £1.6 million hidden in her suitcase.Local prosecutors had called for the 56-year-old housewife to be jailed for 15 years. But today there were gasps in the Bali courtroom when a panel of judges announced Ms Sandiford would be executed for drug trafficking.As the shock verdict was announced, Ms Sandiford, from Gloucestershire, slumped back in her chair in tears before hiding her face with a brown sarong as she was led out of the courtro...

Read more »

Al Qaeda Number Two Abu Yahya Al Libi Is Killed In US Drone Strike In Pakistan

Al Qaeda's second in command has been killed in a drone strike in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, a US official has said. Abu Yahya al Libi is the latest in a series of the terror group's most senior and powerful commanders to be removed by the US drone campaign in the region. Al Libi, who had appeared in al Qaeda propaganda videos and escaped from an American military prison in Afghanistan in 2005, was a key figure in what remains of the core al Qaeda network. Major Al Qaeda Leaders Killed By US Drone Strikes :: February 9, 2012: Badr Mansoor is killed in Miran Shah, Pakistan :: September 30, 2011: Anwar al-Awlaki is killed in in the mountains of Yemen :: September 11, 2011: Abu Hafs al Shahri, chief of operations in Pakistan, is killed :: August 22, 2011: Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, then...

Read more »

Saudi Arabia bans English language and Western calendar

Saudi Arabian receptionists won’t answer your call in English anymore and reading timeframes and dates in business deals will require a calendar converter. Arabic is now the exclusive language to be used in government and private agencies, while the Islamic Hijri calendar is the sole datebook in Saudi Arabia, reports the Gulf News. The country’s Interior Ministry explained the move saying it's an attempt "to preserve” both the calendar and the language. Previously, Saudi entities were allowed to “occasionally” use Gregorian, or Western, dates providing there was a corresponding Hijri timeline.  But the Interior Ministry has apparently lost its patience with the so-called “unnecessary” practice, which violated higher orders, says the Arabic daily, Al Watan. Hijri is a lunar cycle calendar,...

Read more »

BSkyB launches Sky News Arabia

Once a barren media landscape, now awash with ways to receive news, as of Sunday the Middle East boasts another pan-Arab news network, after Sky News Arabia switched on its transmitters. Co-owned by BSkyB, the new arrival in the regional market will have the same pacy 24/7 approach as Sky News. It has spent the past year hiring and getting established in the heartland of its other shareholder, the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, owned by Manchester City's owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Like its competitors – al-Arabiya, al-Jazeera and Alarab – Sky News Arabia claims a commitment to independence and reporting without fear or favour. "They are going to see that we are different," says its head, Nart Bouran. "The issue of balance is going to distinguish us." The newcomer...

Read more »

Bin Laden widows welcomed in Saudi Arabia as 'not suspicious'

Saudi officials have said they have no suspicions about Osama Bin Laden's widows and children, who arrived in the kingdom late last week. The three women and reportedly 11 children were deported from Pakistan last week. A spokesman said the kingdom had acted out of "humanitarian considerations" in offering shelter to the group. The group spent a year in Pakistani custody after Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in May last year. "Saudi Arabia acted out of humanitarian considerations... in so far as there are no reports or evidence of any implication in criminal or illegal acts," the official Saudi Press Agency quoted a spokesman as saying, AFP news agency reports. 'Country of choice' The spokesman said the group had been welcomed by their relatives when they arrived in Jeddah...

Read more »

10 things not to say to someone when they're ill

'People really did feel the need to reassure me that my hideousness was plain to see.' Illustration: David McCoy for the GuardianWhat no one ever tells you about serious illness is that it places you at the centre of a maelstrom of concerned attention from family and friends. Of course it does. That's one of the nice things. It's actually the only nice thing. But it's also a rather tricky challenge, at a time when you may feel – just slightly – that you have enough on your plate. Suddenly, on top of everything else, you are required to manage the emotional requirements of all those who are dear to you, and also, weirdly, one or two people who...

Read more »

Energy-rich Qatar seeks la dolce vita with purchase of luxury resorts on Italy’s Sardinia isle

Qatar signed a deal Monday to buy the operator of four luxury resorts and other properties on the island of Sardinia as the wealthy Gulf emirate looks to bolster ties with Italy. The purchase coincided with a visit to Rome by the country’s emir. It is the latest deal in a European shopping spree that has given the natural-gas rich state a stake in European banks, energy companies and some of the continent’s best known brands. 0 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post State-owned Qatar Holding, an arm of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, said it will acquire resort operator Smeralda Holding from Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm Colony Capital. The deal includes the Cala di Volpe, Pitrizza, Romazzino and Cervo hotels, a marina and shipyard, a golf club and a 51 percent...

Read more »

...

Read more »

British terror supergrass sentence cut by two years

jailed British terrorist has had his sentence cut by two years in a supergrass deal after giving evidence about an al Qaeda-linked “martyrdom” plot in New York, it was revealed today. Former teacher Saajid Badat was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for plotting with shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic airliner in 2001 in what an Old Bailey judge said was a “wicked and inhuman” plot. He has now had his term reduced by two years under the first “supergrass” deal involving a terror convict, after providing intelligence to US prosecutors investigating an alleged plot to blow up the New York subway on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Details of the deal — kept secret for more than two years — were revealed today by the Crown Prosecution Service as a trial of the alleged...

Read more »

Western embassies targeted in Afghanistan attacks

 Gunmen have launched multiple attacks across the Afghan capital Kabul. Western embassies in the heavily-guarded, central diplomatic area are understood to be among the targets as well as the parliament building in the west. There are reports that up to seven different locations have been hit. The Taliban has admitted responsibility, saying their main targets were the British and German embassies. There is no word at this stage on any casualti...

Read more »

Taliban free hundreds from Pakistan prison

Hundreds of prisoners are believed to have escaped from a jail in northwest Pakistan after it was attacked by anti-government fighters armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Some of those who escaped from the facility in the town of Bannu, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, early on Sunday morning were "militants", an intelligence official told the Reuters news agency. "Dozens of militants attacked Bannu's Central Jail in the early hours of the morning, and more 300 prisoners have escaped," Mir Sahib Jan, the official, said. In Depth   Profile: Pakistani Taliban "There was intense gunfire, and rocket-propelled grenades were also used." Many of those who escaped following the raid were convicted Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters,...

Read more »

Canadian man detained in Spain 'extremely thin and weak,'

Philip Halliday, the Nova Scotia man who has been detained in Spain for more than two years on drug-trafficking charges without a trial date, is extremely weak and thin but in good spirits, his family said Monday, hours after returning home from their first visit to him in jail. "It was pretty emotional. It's hard to describe. Definitely a lot of hugs, some tears," Halliday's son, Daren, told Postmedia News. Philip Halliday, 55, was arrested in December 2009 about 300 kilometres off the coast of Spain aboard a converted Canadian Coast Guard research vessel, the Destiny Empress. Inside a hidden compartment, authorities found more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $600 million. Halliday, an ex-fisherman who spent more than 30 years dragging scallops off the...

Read more »

$10 mln bounty on LeT founder Hafiz Saeed

 The United States has put up a $10 million reward to help arrest Pakistani Islamist leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding two spectacular attacks on Mumbai and the parliament building in New Delhi. The offer comes at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Pakistan and increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies despite an Interpol warrant against him. India has long called for Saeed's arrest and said the bounty - one of the highest on offer - was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Only last week Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in Islamabad. "India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States," External Affairs Minister...

Read more »

Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details

Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, officials said Friday. The full report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks, may include test results and physical descriptions of the singer’s heart that will show whether she suffered a heart attack, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. The report is being compiled and Winter said he did not have access to its findings, which might show whether there were any obvious signs such as discoloration of her heart that would suggest Houston had a heart attack before slipping underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11. Houston’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing...

Read more »

Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen

Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials said on Saturday they were investigating whether Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of killing seven people in southern France, had been part of this group. Merah traveled to Pakistan in 2011 and said he trained with al-Qaida in Waziristan. He was killed in a gunfight with police Thursday in the French city of Toulouse. The officials said 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years. Most have dual nationality with France and North African countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the med...

Read more »

FEMALE pals of Murder Inc thugs John and Wayne Dundon are using SEX to recruit hitmen to execute gangster's moll April Collins.

The Irish Sun can reveal two women close to the depraved brothers have been sleeping with a string of young Limerick thugs in a bid to recruit them as killers.The female mobsters, who we can't name for legal reasons, want their former friend murdered at all costs.Last Friday, brutes Wayne, 33, and John, 29, were convicted of threatening to kill members of April's family, for which they face up to ten more years behind bars.But now the blood-soaked savages fear April will testify against them for ordering at least FOUR gangland murders — including those of innocent victims Shane Geoghegan, 28, and Roy Collins, 35.And a senior security...

Read more »

Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda

Two police officers were injured in a shoot-out in Toulouse on Wednesday with a gunman claiming links to al Qaeda and who is believed to responsible for the killing of four people at a Jewish school and three soldiers in southwest France. Interior Minister Claude Gueant said that the 24-year-old man had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan and had said that he was acting out of revenge for France’s military involvement overseas. “He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al Qaeda,” Gueant told journalists at the scene of the siege. “He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions,” Gueant said. Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the residential area...

Read more »

Shoot-Out In Raid Sees Police Injured

 French police are engaged in a siege with a man they are reportedly "confident" was responsible for the killings of seven people in the south west of the country. Two elite officers reportedly suffered minor injuries during a shoot-out with suspects in the ongoing pre-dawn raid in the Croix-Daurade district of the city of Toulouse. AFP news agency - which said up to six shots were heard in the raid - is reporting that police believe the gunman responsible for three attacks that killed three children, a rabbi and three soldiers is inside the target building. Four people were killed during the shootings at Ozar Hatorah school A source linked to the probe also told the news agency that a man claiming to be linked to al Qaeda was holed up in the building. The agency said the suspect being...

Read more »

American Airlines flight attendant restrained after taking over PA system and screaming 'we're going to crash'

 A flight attendant had to be restrained by passengers and crew on an American Airlines flight after she started ranting that the plane was going to crash over the PA system. According to news.com.au, she told passengers on the flight from Dallas to Chicago: "We are not taking off. We're having technical difficulties. We are heading back to the gate." First class travellers helped cabin crew subdue the woman after she started screaming things like, "I am not responsible for crashing this plane", talking about 9/11, and rambling about American Airlines' bankrupt...

Read more »

A Moroccan teenager killed herself after a judge forced her to marry her rapist.

 The 16-year-old girl, named as Amina Filali, ate rat poison after a Tangier court which was supposed to be punishing her 26-year-old attacker decided that they should instead be wed.This is because Moroccan laws exempt a rapist from punishment if he agrees to marry his victim.Sentenced: A judge in Tangier (pictured) ordered the rapist to marry his victim as 'punishment'Traumatised by the rape and the forced marriage, Moroccan newspaper al-Massae said she committed suicide at her husband's house.   Hafida Elbaz, director of the Women’s Solidarity Association, criticised the law and said rapists often believed they could avoid...

Read more »