anders behring breivik

anders behring breivik

anders behring breivik

Obama : Osama bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces (osama bin laden is dead)

Osama Bin Laden has been killed by the U.S. military after a decade-long hunt to avenge the 9/11 attacks. The leader of Al Qaeda was killed in a gun battle with some members of his family in an attack on a mansion outside Islamabad in Pakistan.

The U.S. military has recovered the body and intelligence sources have confirmed his identity. Within minutes of the news breaking Americans began gathering outside the White House to wave American flags, sing the national anthem and chant: ‘USA! USA!’

Announcement: Barack Obama announces the death of Bin Laden during a special address to the nation from the White House, ending an almost ten-year hunt

Sources said that Bin Laden was not killed by a drone but by ground forces attacking a home in Islamabad. President Obama said that the attack had been in the planning for months but that he gave the authorisation for the action today.

Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the killing and said it was the result of a ‘highly sensitive intelligence operation’ involving themselves and the U.S.

Bin Laden has been sought by America since 2001, when he masterminded the September 11 attacks that left 2,700 dead and led to the invasion of Afghanistan as America sought to track him down.

The dramatic development will be a major victory for Barack Obama who made a statement to the nation to outline more details. Relatives of those who died on 9/11 immediately welcomed the killing.

Carie Lamack, who lost her mother Judy on American Airlines flights 11 on 9/11, said: ‘I cannot express how this feels to my family. Relief is one word.’

U.S. military posts around the world had been put on alert in case of retaliation attacks by Islamic radicals. Mr Obama said a small team of Americans carried out the attack and took custody of bin Laden's remains.

Pakistani forces said in August last year that they thought they knew where Bin Laden was hiding. Mr Obama said that American intelligence sources said it was a strong enough lead to methodically organise the terrorist's capture of killing.

The development comes just months before the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and Pentagon in Washington. The attacks set off a chain of events that led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

Al-Qaida organization was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
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A City Outsources Everything. Sky Doesn’t Fall

MAYWOOD, Calif. — Not once, not twice, but three times in the last two weeks, Andrew Quezada says, he was stopped and questioned by the authorities here.

“I’m walking along at night carrying an overstuffed bag,” he said, describing two of the incidents. “I look suspicious. This shows the sheriff’s department is doing its job.”

Chalk up another Maywood resident who approves of this city’s unusual experience in municipal governing. City officials last month fired all of Maywood’s employees and outsourced their jobs.

While many communities are fearfully contemplating extensive cuts, Maywood says it is the first city in the nation in the current downturn to take an ax to everyone.

The school crossing guards were let go. Parking enforcement was contracted out, City Hall workers dismissed, street maintenance workers made redundant. The public safety duties of the Police Department were handed over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

At first, people in this poor, long-troubled and heavily Hispanic city southeast of Los Angeles braced for anarchy.

Senior citizens were afraid they would be assaulted as they walked down the street. Parents worried the parks would be shut and their children would have nowhere to safely play. Landlords said their tenants had begun suggesting that without city-run services they would no longer feel obliged to pay rent.

The apocalypse never arrived. In fact, it seems this city was so bad at being a city that outsourcing — so far, at least — is being viewed as an act of municipal genius.

“We don’t want to be the model for other cities to lay off their employees,” said Magdalena Prado, a spokeswoman for the city who works on contract. “But our residents have been somewhat pleased.”

That includes Mayor Ana Rosa Rizo, who was gratified to see her husband get a parking ticket on July 1, hours after the Police Department had been disbanded. The ticket was issued by enforcement clerks for the neighboring city of Bell, which is being paid about $50,000 a month by Maywood to perform various services.

The reaction is all the more remarkable because this is not a feel-good city. City Council hearings run hot, council members face repeated recall efforts and city officials fight in public. “You single-handedly destroyed the city,” the city treasurer told the City Council at its most recent meeting.

Four years ago, in what was probably the high-water mark of acrimony in Maywood, a deputy city clerk was arrested and accused of soliciting a hit man to kill a city councilman. The deputy clerk, Hector Duarte, was concerned that his salary might be reduced or his job eliminated during a previous round of bad fiscal times; he was sentenced to a year in jail and six months of anger management counseling.

This time, the councilman, Felipe Aguirre, has received no threats and has seen remarkably little anger. “This is a very bad economy,” said Mr. Aguirre, who like the mayor and fellow council members receives a stipend from the city of $347 every two weeks. Even if city employees lose their benefits, he said, “very good workers are still going to hang around.”

Jose B. Garcia, an assistant city planner, will now be working on contract. “I still have a job,” he said. “In that sense, I can’t complain too much.”

Maywood, which covers slightly more than one square mile, is one of the most densely populated cities in the country. The official population of 30,000 is believed to considerably understate the actual total of about 50,000.

It has some of the ills that plague other cities. Property taxes, a primary source of revenue, have declined to $900,000 from $1.2 million in 2007. Sales taxes have also dropped. But Maywood’s biggest problem by far has been its police department.