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Somali widow turns to khat trade
27 February, 2007
Somali widow turns to khat trade
Amina Haji Mumin's husband was killed by a stray bullet during inter-clan clashes in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, five years ago.
He was the sole breadwinner of the family and after his death, Ms Mumin was left without an income.
At first her relatives would help, providing food for her family, but after some time they stopped making payments.
As times became harder she started selling khat, a mild stimulant that is banned in many countries. 
Gunfights and bandits
Ms Mumin, 35, uses most of what she earns from the trade to purchase food for her five children and pay rent.
She concedes that selling khat in Mogadishu is at times very dangerous and exhausting.
The demands of the trade also keep her away from her children, since she has to work long hours at her kiosk.
Most Khat traders in Mogadishu are women and many are widows.
Safety is a big concern, since most of their customers are rogue militiamen, most of whom are addicted to khat. Gunfights at the market have, on occasion, been caused by a row over the stimulant - especially when supplies are scarce.
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Europe Seeks to Tighten Some Online Laws
26 February, 2007
Europe Seeks to Tighten Some Online Laws | |||||||||||
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Some European countries are proposing outlawing the use of fake information to open e-mail accounts or set up Web sites, a move intended to help terror investigations but which could face resistance on a privacy-conscious continent. The German and Dutch governments have taken the lead on the proposals, crafting legislation that would make it illegal to provide false information to Internet service providers and require phone companies to save detailed records on customer usage. The aim, analysts say, is to make it easier for law enforcement to access information when they investigate crimes or terrorist attacks. But Europeans have long cherished their privacy, railing against measures that would see personal information stored for commercial use or government examination. "The people of Europe have a long record of fighting for their personal freedom, and are unlikely to accept such regulations being imposed upon them," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with the London-based consulting group Sophos. "No one disagrees with the need to take decisive action against terrorism and organized crime, but to introduce such restrictive surveillance on the general public and Internet companies - without proper safeguards in place - seems positively Orwellian," he said this past week. Look Christian, 42, who works at an Internet cafe in Berlin, said it's his business - not the government's - if he wants to set up an anonymous e-mail account. "I understand that the police might want to hunt people down on the Internet, and I wish them luck, but it's not going to happen through anonymous Internet accounts," he said. The German Justice Ministry did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment about the proposal. The Germans and Dutch are moving well ahead of a 2009 EU deadline to implement its Data Retention directive, which calls for storing names and addresses of Internet subscribers, including those who use Web-based e-mail accounts. Countries will be able to decide individually how long to keep the information on file, within a range of six to 24 months. But some details of the new proposals have yet to be worked out. For instance, most of the major Web-based e-mail providers such as Google's Gmail or Microsoft's Hotmail require nothing more than a user name and a password to set up an account. Real names and addresses are not requested. Simon Hania, technical director of the Dutch Internet service provider XS4ALL, also points out that knowing who pays the bill for an ISP will not necessarily allow police to know who uses a personal e-mail account. "For each and every e-mail address we at least know who is paying for it, which is not necessarily to say who is actually using it," he said. |
Source: Wired News
Jaguar mauls US keeper to death
25 February, 2007
Jaguar mauls US keeper to death
A female zookeeper has died after being mauled by a jaguar at Denver Zoo in the United States, officials have said.
The zookeeper, who was not named, was attacked inside the jaguar's enclosure on Saturday morning, prompting armed employees to rush to her aid.
They shot and killed the animal after it threatened them, and the zoo was closed after the incident.
The jaguar, a six-year-old male named Jorge weighing 140lbs (64kg), came to Denver Zoo from Bolivia in 2005.
"We are deeply saddened by this loss. It is with utmost sympathy that our condolences go out to this zookeeper's family and loved ones," Denver Zoo president Clayton Freiheit said in a statement on the zoo's website.
An investigation is under way to determine how the mauling occurred.
The zookeeper was taken to hospital where she died of her injuries.
Zoo officials said that the public was never in any danger and that the zoo planned to reopen on Sunday, although the Feline Buildings would remain closed.
Source: BBC News
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6394187.stm
North Africa Feared as Staging Ground for Terror
20 February, 2007
North Africa Feared as Staging Ground for Terror
TUNIS — The plan, hatched for months in the arid mountains of North Africa, was to attack the American and British Embassies here. It ended in a series of gun battles in January that killed a dozen militants and left two Tunisian security officers dead.
But the most disturbing aspect of the violence in this normally placid, tourist-friendly nation is that it came from across the border in Algeria, where an Islamic terrorist organization has vowed to unite radical Islamic groups across North Africa.
Counterterrorism officials on three continents say the trouble in Tunisia is the latest evidence that a brutal Algerian group with a long history of violence is acting on its promise: to organize extremists across North Africa and join the remnants of Al Qaeda into a new international force for jihad.
[Last week, the group claimed responsibility for seven nearly simultaneous bombings that destroyed police stations in towns east of Algiers, the Algerian capital, killing six people.]
This article was prepared from interviews with American government and military officials, French counterterrorism officials, Italian counterterrorism prosecutors, Algerian terrorism experts, Tunisian government officials and a Tunisian attorney working with Islamists charged with terrorist activities.
They say North Africa, with its vast, thinly governed stretches of mountain and desert, could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe. That is all the more alarming because of the deep roots that North African communities have in Europe and the ease of travel between the regions. For the United States, the threat is also real because of visa-free travel to American cities for most European passport holders.
The violent Algerian group the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials G.S.P.C., has for several years been under American watch.
“The G.S.P.C. has become a regional terrorist organization, recruiting and operating in all of your countries — and beyond,” Henry A. Crumpton, then the United States ambassador at large for counterterrorism, said at a counterterrorism conference in Algiers last year. “It is forging links with terrorist groups in Morocco, Nigeria, Mauritania, Tunisia and elsewhere.”
Officials say the group is funneling North African fighters to Iraq, but is also turning militants back toward their home countries.
The ambitions of the group are particularly troubling to counterterrorism officials on the watch for the re-emergence of networks that were largely interrupted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. While most estimates put the current membership of the group in the hundreds, it has survived more than a decade of Algerian government attempts to eradicate it. It is now the best-organized and -financed terrorist group in the region.
Last year, on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda chose the G.S.P.C. as its representative in North Africa. In January, the group reciprocated by switching its name to Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, claiming that the Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, had ordered the change.
“Al Qaeda’s aim is for the G.S.P.C. to become a regional force, not solely an Algerian one,” said the French counterterrorism magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguière, in Paris. He calls the Algerian group the biggest terrorist threat facing France today.
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The Onset of Civil War in Lebanon?
13 February, 2007
Explosion In Bikfaya
Daily Star Online edition staff
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Television footage showed several destroyed vehicles, including a minibus with its roof torn off, on a mountain road. Pools of blood lay near one vehicle.Two simultaneous explosions went off near the Lebanese mountain town of Bikfaya on Tuesday that resulted with the death of nine people, a security source said.
An army spokesman said one explosion had ripped through a minibus carrying passengers near the town, causing casualties. He said it appeared from first reports that the second blast had hit another minibus in the same area.
Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa said early information was that the bombs had exploded inside the minibuses. The head of the Lebanese Red Cross said at least three dead and six wounded had been taken to a nearby hospital. "There could be more casualties," said Georges Kettani .
A service provided by Al Bawaba