He has a distinct London accent and is believed to be a British citizen of Nigerian descent who, along with the second suspect shot by police after Wednesday’s attack in Woolwich, south-east London, is believed to have converted to a radical form of Islam around 10 years ago.

His identity has not been formally released, but emerged on Internet forums and Twitter hours after the soldier was butchered on the busy London street near Woolwich Army barracks and his name is now being quoted by BBC and Sky News sources here.

Both suspects are being treated in separate hospitals while under arrest and their condition is said to be serious.

Adebolajo was reportedly known to Al Muhajiroun, a radical and banned Islamist organisation in the UK, and went by the name of Mujahid.

Anjem Choudary, the former leader of the group, claims he had converted to Islam in 2003 but had stopped attending meetings of Al Muhajiroun and its spin-off groups two years ago.

Video footage filmed by an onlooker and broadcast by Britain’s ITV news channel showed Adebolajo with hands covered in blood and holding a bloodied meat cleaver and a knife.

“I apologise that women had to witness this today but in our lands, our women have to see the same,” he said. “You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”

The soldier who was killed has not been named on his family’s request. He was reportedly first hit by a car before the two men in that vehicle came out with a machete and a gun and started to attack him.

Witnesses said the attackers had approached police when they arrived and were then shot. The two men were said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they carried out the attack.

Source: Zee News

The victim, who is believed to have been based at the Royal Artillery Barracks just 300 to 400 yards from the attack in Woolwich, was left to die after being butchered in a road when he was allegedly confronted by the men when his car crashed into a signpost.

His two assailants, who filmed the attack, were shot by armed police who arrived 20 minutes later after passers-by had risked their lives to try to help the victim.

If confirmed as a terrorist attack, it would be the first in the UK since the Glasgow Airport incident of 2007, when two men drove a Jeep into the main terminal before it exploded.

Scotland Yard’s top officer last night confirmed two men had been arrested

The UK Government’s emergency committee, Cobra, met and heightened security was put in place around Army barracks in London. Personnel at the Woolwich barracks were locked down. Home Secretary Theresa May said it was “an attack on everyone in the United Kingdom”.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who will chair another meeting today in Downing Street, said it was “absolutely sickening” and pledged Britain will “never buckle” in the fight against extremists.

TV footage showed one of the men thought to be involved, moments after the attack with blood-stained hands and using jihadist-style rhetoric to justify the violence.

Brandishing a bloodied meat cleaver and knife, yards from the body, the man, speaking clearly in English with a London accent said: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day.

“We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

He later added: “I apologise that women had to witness this today. But in our land our women have to see the same.”

He also urged the Government to be overthrown, adding: “You people will never be safe. Remove your Government. They don’t care about you.

“Tell them to bring our troops back so you can all live in peace.”

The public were praised after a number of people got out of their cars and shouted at the armed men to stop during the attack on the man, who was wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of the forces charity, Help for Heroes.

A group of women shielded the dead man’s body from further attack, despite the men standing over them with their weapons.

At a Paris press conference with French President Francois Hollande, Mr Cameron said: “Tonight, our thoughts should be with the victim, with their family, with their friends.

“It is the most appalling crime. We are obviously seeking, and the police are urgently seeking, the full facts about this case, but there are strong indications that it is a terrorist incident.”

He added: “We look at every aspect of security. We look at every aspect of what you can learn from any of these incidents.

“But you also have to remember that in a free country like ours the best way to defeat terrorism is to make sure you continue to go about your life, to live your life and to show terrorists can never win. That’s important.”

It is believed the soldier had been returning to the barracks, home to the Princess of Wales regiment and the ceremonial King’s Troop, after a day out.

The phrase used by the suspects, “Allahu Akbar” means “God is the greatest”.

Witnesses described how one of the suspects rushed at the police, brandishing weapons, before being shot.

It emerged that armed officers took 20 minutes to arrive, leaving the two men to linger at the scene and allegedly boast about what they had done.

It was also suggested they had filmed themselves. One of the men was heard to shout: “It was God’s will.”

One eye-witness, James, said: “These two guys were crazy. They just were not there. They were just animals. They dragged the poor guy – he was obviously dead, there was no way a human could take what they did to him.

“They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there.”

The Muslim Council of Britain said: “This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. This action will no doubt heighten tensions on the streets of the United Kingdom.”

“We call on all our communities, Muslim and non-Muslim, to come together in solidarity to ensure the forces of hatred do not prevail.”

Former Labour Home Secretary Lord Reid added: “If it is a terrorist action, if it is proven to be, it is very difficult to counter this kind of attack.”

Professor John Gearson, reader in terrorism studies and director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London, said: “There has previously been speculation, plans and discussions by some groups about targeting the armed services and that is worrying.”

Buckingham Palace said the Queen had expressed concern about the attack and was being kept informed of developments.

Source: Herald Scotland

Crews frantically searched the wreckage and were only beginning to get a sense of the destruction when night fell hours later. Officials warned the death toll could climb. At one hospital, 85 patients, including 65 children, were being treated for minor to critical injuries.

“The whole city looks like a debris field,” said Mayor Glenn Lewis of the city of Moore, which appeared to be the hardest hit.

At least seven of the dead children were killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School, where the tornado tore the roof off the school about 3 p.m. A teacher told NBC affiliate KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them. Officials said the dead children drowned in a pool of water at the decimated school.

It was not clear how many children still were missing. Students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade were evacuated to a church, but students in lower grades had sheltered in place, KFOR reported. More than two hours after the tornado struck, several children were pulled out alive.

The twister was a mile wide at its base, according to The Weather Channel, and a reporter for KFOR said the tornado kicked up a cloud of debris perhaps two miles wide. The National Weather Service initially classified the storm as an EF4, the second-strongest type, with winds of 166 to 200 mph.

“It seems that our worst fears have happened today,” said Bill Bunting, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, Okla.

Even before the death toll began to climb, television footage showed a landscape shattered — not the arbitrary damage of a tornado that leaves some homes untouched, but vast and utter obliteration.

Emergency workers stepped gingerly around piles of wreckage left on the foundations of homes. Other people simply walked around dazed, marveling that nothing was left of their houses — and in many cases that they themselves were alive. Fires broke out in several places.

“I lost everything,” one man said as he walked through the ruins of a horse farm. “We might have one horse left out of all of them.”

Tiffany Thronesberry told The Associated Press that her mother, Barbara Jarrell, called her and screamed: “Help! Help! I can’t breathe! My house is on top of me!”

At one hospital in Moore, cars were “piled like Hot Wheels” in the parking lot, and police were searching them one by one and spray-painting X’s to mark them clear of victims, said Kurt Gwartney, news director for radio station KGOU.

An Oklahoma emergency management spokesman said a hospital was being evacuated after sustaining severe damage, and 16 ambulances were being sent to move patients. It was not clear whether it was the same hospital.

The tornado struck at mid-afternoon and tore a 20-mile path, said Rick Smith, another weather service meteorologist. He said it was on the ground for 40 minutes. Much of the storm’s rampage was captured on live television, perhaps alerting people in its path to seek shelter.

President Barack Obama declared a major disaster, making federal aid available to people in fove counties. Gov. Mary Fallin asked the people of Oklahoma for patience and promised: “We will bring every single resource out that we can.”

Relief efforts sprang up. The Red Cross said it was opening a shelter, and the University of Oklahoma opened some of its housing for displaced families.

In addition to Plaza Towers, Briarwood Elementary School was heavily damaged, KFOR reported.

Search and rescue teams converged on a staging area at the Warren Theater, which was also damaged, as the tornado churned toward other Oklahoma towns. The storms were expected to continue through the evening.

Grasping for comparisons, some people said it looked like Joplin, the Missouri town virtually wiped off the map two years ago when a tornado — this one an EF5 — blew through and killed 158 people.

Joplin city officials said Monday they were sending a team of 10 officers and three firefights to Moore to help. “Giving back in whatever way we can,” the mayor said on Twitter.

For those living in Oklahoma, the ferocity was reminiscent of May 3, 1999, when a tornado registered wind of more than 300 mph, left 46 dead and damaged or destroyed more than 8,000 homes.

The tornado Monday also came one day after another cluster of storms in Oklahoma that killed two elderly men in the town of Shawnee. Tens of millions of people from Texas to the Great Lakes — an area covering 55 million people — had been warned to brace for more severe weather Monday.

The Sunday storms destroyed mobile homes, flipped trucks and sent people across 100 miles running for cover. In Kansas, a weather forecaster was forced off the air as a tornado bore down on his station.

“You can see where there’s absolutely nothing, then there are places where you have mobile home frames on top of each other, debris piled up,” Mike Booth, the sheriff of Pottawatomie County, Okla., told The Associated Press. “It looks like there’s been heavy equipment in there on a demolition tour.”

Fallin declared a state of emergency for 16 counties on Sunday and added five Monday.

Source: ABC News

Andrea Rebello

One of the shots hit Rebello in the head, killing her, police spokeswoman Maureen Roach said.

Also killed was the intruder, who authorities identified as Dalton Smith, 30, of Hempstead. He was struck seven times.

Authorities say Smith, who was wearing a mask, invaded the home Rebello shared with her twin sister and two others during the pre-dawn hours on Friday.

At some point, a female roommate of the twins was able to leave the home and call police, a police spokesman told CNN on Friday.

When a police officer arrived, Smith was holding a gun to Rebello’s head, Roach said.

He told the officer he was going to kill Rebello, and then turned the handgun toward the officer, she said.

The officer, fearing for his life, drew his gun and fired, Roach said.

Authorities have not identified the officer.

At the time of the shooting, Smith was wanted for jumping parole, police said.

He was on parole for first-degree robbery and had an “extensive” arrest history that includes robbery, assault, and promoting prison contraband, said police in Nassau County.

A warrant for his arrest was issued April 25 for allegedly absconding from parole, police said

Rebello’s high school principal, Carol Conklin-Spillane, said the twins’ home community in Westchester, New York, was heartbroken.

She described Rebello as a fun-loving, personable and self-aware young woman.

Her parents, Fernando and Nella Rebello, are closely tied to the Portuguese community, and always worked to create opportunities for their children, Conklin-Spillane said.

Rebello, a junior, was majoring in public relations.

CNN’s Michael Martinez and Brittany Brady contributed to this report.

Source: CNN

Topless Women in Public Not Breaking the Law Says NYPD

This policy shift comes after several years of litigation and protest. In the 1992 case People v. Ramona Santorelli and Mary Lou Schloss, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of two women who were arrested with five others for exposing their breasts in a Rochester park, holding the law void as discriminatory. The ruling was put to the test in 2005, when Jill Coccaro bared her breasts on Delancey Street in New York, citing the 1992 decision, and was detained for twelve hours. She subsequently successfully sued the city for $29,000.

In 2007, Go Topless, a national organization supporting gender equality in shirtlessness laws, established Go Topless Day. Dozens of women protest – often topless – in thirty cities around the United States, promoting equal rights to be shirtless. Protests usually include chants of “Free your breasts. Free your minds” and a song “Let ‘em Breathe” to the tune of the Beatles’ “Let it Be.”

While some who have witnessed these events have suggested that “[t]his is extreme liberalism and why America’s in decline” or “[i]t’s degrading to women,” others have been supportive. One man even said he would encourage his wife to join them.

Though bare-breasted women might shock the sensibilities of some in the public, it is encouraging to see the police responding positively to gender bias, even on such a seemingly small scale. After all, no one thinks twice about a man shirtless on a summer day. However, the female nipple or chest is still considered “lewd.” By reminding its officers of this, the NYPD is publicly declaring that it will no longer perpetuate unconstitutional gender discrimination, a standard to which all law enforcement should be held and a decision for which it should be applauded.

Footage of the protesters can be found here (NSFW)

Source: Policymic

Jessica Rinaldi / Russell family via Reuters, file
Sgt. John Russell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing five fellow service members at a base in Iraq in 2009.

A military judge, Army Col. David Conn, found Sgt. John Russell guilty of premeditated murder on Monday and imposed the sentence Thursday morning. The only other possible penalty for Russell would have been life in prison with the possibility of release.

Russell will be transferred within the next several days to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said late Thursday.

The 14-year veteran from Sherman, Texas, had previously pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. Under the agreement, prosecutors were allowed to try to prove to an Army judge at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state that the killings were premeditated. A streamlined court-martial ended Saturday.

The shooting was one of the worst instances of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war and raised questions about the mental stresses of serving repeated tours of duty.

Killed in the 2009 shooting in Baghdad were Navy Cmdr. Charles Springle, of Wilmington, N.C., and four Army personnel: Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr., of Federalsburg, Md.; Dr. Matthew Houseal, of Amarillo, Texas; Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, of Paterson, N.J.; and Spc. Jacob D. Barton, of Lenox, Mo.

Russell’s lawyers argued that he was deluded by depression and despair at the time. An Army mental health board found that Russell suffered from severe depression with psychotic features and post-combat stress.

Russell had long sought help with sleep troubles and was stammering and crying for help in the days before the shooting. His commanders were so alarmed that they disarmed him and sent him for repeated visits to mental health clinics, said attorney James Culp.

However, prosecutors argued that Russell was trying to paint himself as mentally ill in an attempt to win early retirement — just as he was facing a sexual harassment complaint that could derail his career and his benefits.

The day before the killings, psychiatrist Michael Jones told him that a mental disability retirement would require “some kind of suicidal psychotic crisis,” Maj. Daniel Mazzone said during closing arguments, according to the Los Angeles Times.

But when Russell saw Jones again the next day, the psychiatrist said he had no intention of giving him “a golden ticket” out of the Army.

When Russell returned about an hour later, prosecutors say, he was looking for Jones, but wound up killing two patients, a bystander and two other mental health workers, including Navy Cmdr. Springle, who had also briefly treated Russell in the days before the shootings. Jones escaped injury by jumping out a window.

Source: NBC News

Gates, 57, was more than $550 million ahead of Carlos Slim, who has a $72.1 billion net worth. The co-founder of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has seen his fortune climb about $10 billion this year. The software maker’s shares hit a five-year high today, and have advanced 28 percent year-to-date.

Slim’s fortune has dropped more than $2 billion this year as Mexico’s Congress passed a bill to quash the market dominance of the 73-year-old billionaire’s America Movil SAB.

“When they’re talking about reform in a country that’s generally poor, and the guy shows up No. 1 on the list — not a good thing,” said Greg Lesko, managing director at New York-based Deltec Asset Management LLC, which oversees $750 million and has an “underweight” position in Slim’s flagship company. “He’s had a pretty good monopoly situation in Mexico, and the Mexican cellphone user has been paying more than he should. We applaud it for the country.”

Earlier this month, a group of kazoo-playing protesters confronted Slim when he appeared at an event at the New York Public Library, denouncing him for overcharging consumers to enrich himself. He denies the accusation.

Cascade Investment

The bill passed by Mexico’s Congress last month, which is backed by President Enrique Pena Nieto and is now before state legislatures, would allow regulators to break up phone companies with more than 50 percent of the market or force them to share their networks. America Movil (AMXL) has 70 percent of Mexico’s mobile-phone subscribers and 80 percent of the country’s landlines.

Gates’s fortune has also benefited from a rally in stock holdings that include the Canadian National Railway Co. and waste-collection company Republic Services Inc (RSG).

Most of Gates’s fortune is held through Cascade Investment LLC, a holding entity through which he owns stakes in more than a dozen publicly traded companies and several closely held operations, including Four Seasons hotels and Corbis Corp. Less than a quarter of Gates’s fortune is held in Microsoft. He’s donated $28 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Gates, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Arturo Elias, Slim’s spokesman, didn’t immediately return phone and e-mail messages

Source: Yahoo Finance

Roger Brumback

Police are saying little else about the case.

They do not plan to release additional information, police said, in order to protect the investigation, which is being led by a homicide unit.

However, they have said a cold case unit is assisting to determine whether there is a connection between the case and the unsolved killings of Shirlee Sherman and Thomas Hunter.

According to CNN affiliate KETV, 11-year-old Hunter and Sherman, the family’s housekeeper, were killed in March 2008.

“When I heard the news last night, I was literally shaken — literally,” Laura Neece-Baltaro, a family friend of the Brumbacks, told KETV.

She met them when they all lived in Oklahoma in the 1990s.

“Why would anyone want to harm them? They did so much for the community here, and the community in Oklahoma City and they were still contributing. They still had a lot to give back,” she said.

“It’s a terrible loss to the whole world that they’re no longer with us.”

Roger Brumback was a professor at Creighton University.

According to the school’s website, he attended Pennsylvania State University and worked in the pathology and neurology departments.

A prayer service was held at the school Thursday for the slain couple. Students wore white coats in tribute.

“It’s just kind of shocking to have somebody that seemed so full of life and invincible taken so suddenly,” said Creighton medical student Justin McCarthy,

Source: CNN

30 MONTHS OF GOVERNMENT UNUSUAL: Osun Vindicated, with lowest unemployment rate (3%) in Nigeria by National Bureau of Statistics

Mopping up 40,000 youths off the streets in two years and productively engaging them, thereby pumping 200 Million Naira monthly into the local economy with its attendant multiplier effects in commerce and exchange of goods and services, triggered economic rejuvenation and coupled with massive infrastructural development dotting across the landscape of Omoluabi land on a scale unparalleled in the 21-year history of our darling State of Osun, cannot but propel us forward…

Asese bere ani ki le ti rio. Asi ma goke si to ri bi giga laye tawa. Osuo ju pe ta lantakun o ba ku lati bi de ido oma tun ta kun dado…

EVERY STEP, A PROMISE KEPT! IREEEEE KABITI, OSUN TI N’DARA! AJURAWALO TIJAKADI KO!!!!

CULLED FROM GOVERNOR AREGBESOLA’S FACEBOOK STATUS

“The unverified clip, posted by a pro-government campaign group, claims to show a man – believed to be Abu Sakkar, the well-known founder of Homs’ Farouq Brigade – standing over the uniformed corpse in a ditch while ranting against President Bashar al Assad,” says a report in UK’s Daily Mail.

“Using a knife, the man hacks open the torso and removes two organs before holding them up to the camera and declaring: ‘I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog.’ He then raises one to his mouth and takes a bite,” according to the report.

The man’s rant is unbelievably greeted by offscreen cheers of his comrades shouting “Allahu akbar (God is great).”

Human rights groups say the video, posted on YouTube by and billed as proof of a war crime, is emblematic of a civil war that has rapidly descended into sectarian hatred and revenge killings.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said that he had seen an original, unedited copy of the video and that Abu Sakkar’s identity had been confirmed by rebel sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers.

“The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence,” Bouckaert was quoted as saying.

He said that in the unedited version of the film, Abu Sakkar instructs his men to “slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them,” before biting into the heart.

Abu Sakkar has been seen in previous videos firing rockets at Lebanese Shi’ite villages on the border and posing with the body of a soldier purportedly from the Lebanese Shi’ite militant Hezbollah group, which is helping Assad’s forces.

Last month, a photograph was released by a pro-Assad group based in Lebanon that appeared to show a young rebel fighter barbecuing the severed head of a government soldier.

The Syrian conflict started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but when these were suppressed it gradually turned into an increasingly sectarian civil war which, according to one opposition monitoring group, has cost more than 80,000 lives.

Majority Sunni Muslims lead the revolt, while Assad – whose family have ruled for over four decades – gets his core support from his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Source: News Express