Radical Islamic leader Mohammed Yusuf shot dead by Nigerian security forces

Nigerian security forces claimed victory today over a radical Islamic sect blamed for some of the worst violence to hit the West African country for years after police shot dead its leader.

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Mohammed Yusuf, leader of the so-called Nigerian Taleban, was killed after he was captured on Thursday night at the end of a four-day manhunt. His bullet-ridden body was shown to journalists by police shortly after his death.
Human rights campaigners immediately alleged that he had been executed and warned of revenge attacks. Police said today that he died in a shoot-out.
Dora Akunyili, the Nigerian information minister, welcomed his death. She told reporters that his death was “positive” for the country.
She said that the Nigerian Government “does not condone extrajudicial killings” but added: “What is important is that he [Yusuf] has been taken out of the way, to stop him using people to cause mayhem.”
The militant group led by Yusuf, a militant cleric who professes admiration for Osama Bin Laden, has been blamed for days of violent unrest in which hundreds of people died in clashes between his followers and security forces in the north of the country.
“This group operates under a charismatic leader. They will no more have any inspiration,” said a spokesman for the National Police. “The leader who they thought was invincible and immortal has now been proved otherwise.”
He added that there were still pockets of violence in the largely Muslim north, but otherwise “life is back to normal”. The Government was concerned that the violence would degenerate into Muslim-Christian killings that periodically hit Africa’s most populous nation, but have not taken place for several years. New York-based Human Rights Watch called for an investigation.
“The Nigerian authorities must act immediately to investigate and hold to account all those responsible for this unlawful killing and any others associated with the recent violence in northern Nigeria,” said Corinne Dufka, the group’s senior West Africa researcher.
Witnesses said that calm prevailed today in most of city of Maiduguri, the base of the cleric and his followers, mainly consisting of unemployed university students.
However, it was unclear whether Yusuf’s death would end the violence or inspire revenge attacks by the group, also known as the Boko Haram sect, which seeks the imposition of strict Sharia in the country.
Sheikh Yusuf had encouraged his followers to rid themselves of all material wealth while he was chauffeured around in a Mercedes all-terrain vehicle and amassed dozens of vehicles at his compound.Nigerian troops shelled the compound on Wednesday but the 39-year-old leader escaped with about 300 followers, some of them armed.
Officials said that Yusuf was found on Thursday in a goat pen at his in-laws’ home in the northern town of Kernawa.
Officials imposed partial Sharia in much of the north but Boko Haram members were increasingly angry that full Islamic law had not been implemented, especially the law’s demand for a social welfare system helping poor people. The militants attacked police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings in a wave of violence that began last Sunday in Borno state and quickly spread to three other northern states.
President Umaru Yar’Adua, a Muslim, said that security agents had been ordered to attack when the movement started gathering fighters from nearby states at its sprawling Maiduguri compound in preparation for “the holy war”.

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Hacker loses extradition appeal

British hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States.

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The US wants to try the 43-year-old, from Wood Green, north London, for what it calls the biggest military computer hack of all time, in 2001 and 2002.
Mr McKinnon admits hacking, but denies it was malicious or that he caused damage costing $800,000 (£487,000).
Whether or not he can appeal to the UK Supreme Court will be decided at a later date, Lord Justice Burnton said.
He said it was a matter which should be dealt with "as expeditiously as possible".
'Lawful and proportionate'
Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon had challenged refusals by the home secretary and the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to try him in the UK.
The home secretary insists he has no power to demand the trial take place in the UK.
The DPP refused to order a UK trial, saying the bulk of the evidence was located in the US and Mr McKinnon's actions were directed against the US military infrastructure.
He had also asked the court to rule on whether his Asperger's Syndrome meant he could not be extradited to the US. His lawyers argued extradition was "unnecessary, avoidable and disproportionate" and had not taken place in other cases.
But, in a 41-page ruling, the judges said extradition was "a lawful and proportionate response to his offending".
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: "Mr McKinnon is accused of serious crimes and the US has a lawful right to seek his extradition, as we do when we wish to prosecute people who break our laws. "The court judgement has also made absolutely clear that the DPP's decision not to prosecute in the UK was the right one. "My predecessor has already sought and received clear assurances from the US that Mr McKinnon's health and welfare needs would be met, should he be extradited. "It is open to Mr McKinnon to seek to appeal to the House of Lords."
UFO search; Mr McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the US of what prosecutors have called "the biggest military computer hack of all time".
He has always insisted he was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed. Speaking outside the High Court, his mother, Janis Sharp, said her son - who did not attend court - had been "naive enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present".
"We are heartbroken. If the law says it's fair to destroy someone's life in this way then it's a bad law." She said she feared for his health. "He's very ill, he's got really bad chest pains, it's affected him emotionally, mentally, every way, he's terrified," she said.
Ms Sharp appealed directly to US President Obama to intervene in the case. "Stand by us and make this world a better place, a more compassionate place," she said.
"Obama wouldn't have this. He doesn't want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be a guy with Asperger's, a UFO guy. He wouldn't want this.
"I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing," she added. In a statement, his lawyer Karen Todner, asked: "What does it take to make this government sit up and listen to the clear public view that Gary McKinnon should not be extradited?
"The extradition treaty with America was brought in to facilitate the extradition of terrorists and it must be clear to anyone following this case that Gary McKinnon is no terrorist.
"Why aren't they stopping the extradition of a man who is clearly vulnerable and who on the accepted evidence suffers from Asperger's?
"Gary is clearly someone who is not equipped to deal with the American penal system and there is clear evidence that he will suffer a severe mental breakdown if extradited."
Mr McKinnon accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa.
In February the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring charges against Mr McKinnon in the UK. The decision followed a ruling last October by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow his extradition. Mr McKinnon has already appealed unsuccessfully to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights and his latest judicial reviews in the High Court are likely to be his last chance.
His lawyers say the authorities have not given proper consideration to his Asperger's Syndrome, which could have "disastrous consequences," including suicide, if he was to be extradited.
They argued he was "eccentric" rather than malicious and should be tried on lesser charges in the UK to protect his mental health.

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In-camera briefing on buying French submarines demanded

ISLAMABAD: The opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) in the Upper House on Thursday demanded an in-camera briefing to the senators on the government plan to buy submarines from France instead of Germany.
Senator Jamal Leghari of the former ruling PML-Q while speaking on a point of order strongly opposed to government plan to buy submarines from France instead of Germany at a costly price.
He informed that Pakistan Navy had sent a summary to the President recommending buying submarines from Germany, but he regretted that the President rejected the summary and decided to purchase these from France.
He said that there would be one billion rupees loss to the national exchequer to go into agreement with France for purchasing the marines instead of Germany. He said that Germany has a latest technology and also a cheapest offer against the French old technology, which would also be costly. Therefore, he added that there was not need to undertake new agreement with France.
Pakistan had agreed to buy three Type 214 German submarines under deal worth more than $1 billion (773.7 million euros) that the two countries were expected to sign last year.
Leghari demanded an in-camera briefing of the Navel Chief to the Senate on buying the submarines saying that the House should betaken into confidence before going into any agreement with the French government.
Another senator of the PML-Q, Tariq Azeem also backed the demand saying that it was an important issue and the house should be taken on board in the in-camera briefing.
The presiding officer Tahir Hussain Mashadi, however, referred the matter to the Defence Committee of the House for further discussion, because of the absence of the minister concerned as well as Leader of the House at that time.

Microsoft and Yahoo! Link-Up Targets .......?

Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced a web search deal to rival Google.

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The agreement ends years of negotiations and gives Microsoft access to the internet's second-largest search engine audience.
It adds a potentially potent weapon to Microsoft's Internet arsenal as the software maker girds for an online assault against Google.
Yahoo is teaming up with Microsoft following years of financial decay.
In the process, Yahoo hopes to recover some of the money that was squandered in 2008 when it turned down a chance to sell the entire company to Microsoft for £29bn.
Microsoft wants to process more search requests because the inquiries have become a critical lever for selling Internet ads.
The extended reach will allow Microsoft to introduce its recently upgraded search engine, called Bing, to more people.
The Washington-based software maker believes Bing is just as good, if not better, than Google's search engine.
Taking over the search responsibilities on Yahoo's highly trafficked site gives Microsoft a better chance to convert Web surfers who had been using Google by force of habit.
In return for handing over the keys to its search engine, Yahoo will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal.
Yahoo estimated the deal will boost its annual operating profit by £305m.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said: "Microsoft and Yahoo know there's so much more that search could be.
"This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search."
Analysts hailed the deal as big news.

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China Internet users soar to 298 million

BEIJING: The number of Internet users in China jumped nearly 42 percent to 298 million by the end of 2008 from the previous year, cementing the country's position as the world's largest Internet population, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said.
The number of mobile Web surfers surged 113 percent to 117.6 million in 2008 and mobile Internet is expected to grow explosively in the next few years after the recent issuance of third-generation (3G) licenses, the state-run agency said.
The Internet penetration rate in China has risen to 22.6 percent, slightly higher than the world's average of 21.9 percent, CNNIC said in a report on Tuesday.
In addition, the number of Internet news readers has risen to 2.34 million and websites have become a crucial area for publicity, the report said.
News portals in China, such as Sina Corp and Sohu.com Inc, are the major sources of information for a large number of Internet users across the country.
Wary of threats to its grip on information, Beijing launched a crackdown on "vulgar" Web content this month after conducting numerous censorship efforts targeting pornography, political criticism and web scams in the past.

India launches nuclear submarine

India has launched its first nuclear-powered submarine, becoming only the sixth country in the world to do so.

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The 6,000 tonne Arihant was launched by India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a ceremony on the south-east coast.
It was built entirely in India with Russian assistance and a second one is due to be constructed shortly.
It will undergo trials over the next few years before being deployed and will be able to launch missiles at targets 700km (437 miles) away.
Until now, only the US, Russia, France, Britain and China had the capability to build nuclear submarines.
'China threat'
Launching the INS Arihant, Mr Singh said India had no aggressive designs on anyone.
But the sea was becoming increasingly relevant to India's security concerns, he added.
"It is incumbent upon us to take all measures necessary to safeguard our country and to keep pace with technological advancements worldwide," he told the ceremony in the port city of Visakhapatnam.
The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says until now India has been able to launch ballistic missiles only from the air and from land.
Nuclear submarines will add a third dimension to its defence capability.
When it is eventually deployed, the top-secret Arihant will be able to carry 100 sailors on board.
It will be able to stay under water for long periods and thereby increase its chances of remaining undetected.
By contrast, India's ageing conventional diesel-powered submarines need to constantly surface to recharge their batteries.
Our correspondent says the launching of the Arihant is a clear sign that India is looking to blunt the threat from China which has a major naval presence in the region.

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China launches Arabic TV-channel

BEIJING: Chinese state television launched an Arabic-language channel beamed to the Middle East and Africa on Saturday as part of efforts to expand the communist government’s media influence abroad.
The 24-hour channel will air in 22 Arabic-speaking countries, reaching a total population of nearly 300 million people, China Central Television said in a statement.
The channel “will serve as an important bridge to strengthen communication and understanding between China and Arab countries,” said a CCTV vice president, Zhang Changming, in the statement. Beijing is carrying out a multibillion-dollar effort to raise the profile of its state media abroad by expanding CCTV, the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily and the official Xinhua News Agency.

Swine flu 'reaches 160 countries'

The swine flu virus has reached 160 countries and could infect two billion people within the next two years, the World Health Organization has said.

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A senior WHO official, Keiji Fukuda, said the virus was still in its early stages and would continue to spread for some time.
Mr Fukuda said work on a vaccine was intensifying but safety could not be compromised by rushing the process.
The virus is thought to have killed almost 800 people in recent months.
Mr Fukuda, the WHO's Assistant Director General for Health Security, said the agency had been reporting only laboratory-confirmed cases, but that this was always going to be "only a subset of the total number of cases".
"Even if we have hundreds of thousands of cases or a few millions of cases, we're relatively early in the pandemic," he told the Associated Press news agency.
"One of the things that is relatively clear is that we will continue to see spread of the virus; even though we are now three to four months into the pandemic, this is still pretty early into the overall period," he said.
Mr Fukuda said the WHO estimates two billion people, one third of the global population, could eventually be infected.
He said the figure was a reasonable prediction, based on analysis of previous pandemics, but that it was "really impossible to predict what the future will hold".

Pregnancy risk, Mr Fukuda said officials and drug manufacturers were investigating how to speed up the process of developing a vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu strain.
But he said there could be no doubt over the safety and efficacy of the drug before it was publicly distributed.
"There is always a balance in this sort of situation. You of course want to get out vaccine and as much vaccine as possible, as quickly as possible. On the other hand there are certain things which cannot be compromised," he said.
"There are certain areas where you can make economies, perhaps, but certain areas where you simply do not try to make any economies."
The WHO says that in most affected countries, the majority of cases appear to be occurring in young people, around the ages of 12 to 17, although some reports suggest it is mainly older people who have required hospital treatment.
The organisation also said there was "accumulating evidence suggesting pregnant women are at higher risk of more severe disease".
But Mr Fukuda said the WHO "certainly has no recommendations on whether women should try to have children now".
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