Cairo, May 8
Violence triggered by rumours of a Muslim-Christian interfaith romance has claimed 12 lives and over 100 injured in the Egyptian capital, with mobs setting fire two churches in one of the worst communal clashes rocking the country in recent times. Egypt’s military rulers said 190 people arrested in connection with deadly riots will face military trial.

There are a number of versions of the story of how the clash erupted, but all of them include Coptic woman. The first story is that a Coptic woman married a Muslim man and was taken to the church to be preached and convinced to leave her husband. Her family then opened fire at members of her husband’s family outside the church when they went to retrieve her.

The second version is that a Coptic woman was imprisoned in the church against her will. The unconfirmed reports prompted a mob to march towards the Saint Menas Church in the Imbaba locality leading to communal clashes that claimed 12 lives. Six Muslims and three Christians were among the dead, while the religion of other three victims has not been confirmed. Hisham Sheiha, a Health Ministry official, told the news agency that 186 were injured. — PTI

Tokyo, May 8
Japan will maintain atomic power as a major part of its energy policy despite the country’s ongoing nuclear crisis at tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, a top official said today.

A protester holds a placard with an anti-nuclear slogan  in downtown Tokyo on Saturday. — AP/PTI

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku also said the government has no plans to shut down any more functioning nuclear reactors other than three at the Hamaoka power plant in central Japan. The plant was asked on Friday to halt the units until a seawall is built and backup systems are improved at Hamaoka.

“Our energy policy is to stick to nuclear power,” said Sengoku on a weekly talk show on public broadcaster NHK. He said Hamaoka was an exception and that the government’s closure request on Friday did not mean a departure from its nuclear-reliant policy. Chubu Electric Power Co., which runs the three Hamaoka reactors, postponed its decision on Saturday on the government’s shutdown request.

The main concern is that shutting down the reactors would likely worsen power shortages expected this summer. Nuclear energy provides more than one-third of Japan’s electricity. Since the March 11 disasters, buildings have reduced lighting, stores have trimmed service hours and subway operators have shut air conditioning to join a nationwide conservation effort.

However, Sengoku said there is "no need to worry" about other plants in the country. "Scientifically, that's our conclusion at the moment,” he said. Chubu Electric executives failed to reach a decision yesterday over the shutdown request and will meet again after the weekend, said company official Mikio Inomata. — AP

Washington, May 8
Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout was an “active command and control centre” of Al-Qaida, the US has said, releasing five videos of the slain terror kingpin seized during the daring raid on his compound in Pakistan that showed how he “jealously guarded” his image.

An image released by the US on Saturday shows Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden watching television. and A series of still images from the videos of bin Laden that were seized during the raid on his Abbottabad hideout. The US said the material shows Laden was a hands-on leader who took pains to shape his public image. — AFP

Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound was “an active command and control centre” for Al-Qaida’s top leader. It is clear that he was not just a strategic thinker of the group. He was active in operational planning and driving tactical decisions inside Al-Qaida,” a senior intelligence official said, giving an insight into the lifestyle and personality of the Al-Qaida chief.

Authorities have removed audio from the five video clips released last night because it would be inappropriate to spread the words of terrorists and their propaganda messages, especially bin Laden's, the official explained, asserting that footage had not been altered in any other way.

The video clips, not seen in the public domain so far, were being released to underscore two main points: first, to make it clear that bin Laden remained active in al-Qaida’s terrorist propaganda operations, especially in shaping his own image. Second, it is highly unlikely that some of this footage would have resided anywhere else but with bin Laden, the official said.

The newly-released videos included one showing bin Laden — in which his hair and beard are white — watching images of himself on television inside his $1million three-storey building, just 800 yards away from the Pakistan Military Academy in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control, bin Laden was shown flipping back and forth between clips of himself. The small television was placed on top of a desk with wires running to a nearby cable or control box.

The world’s most wanted terrorist, killed by the US special forces on May 2, “was far from a figurehead, he was an active player,” the official said.

The material seized from his hideout included digital, audio and video files, printed items, computer equipment, recording devices and handwritten documents. “As a result of the raid, we have acquired the single largest collection of material from a senior terrorist ever.” “This is the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation,” the official said.

“The treasure trove of information has provided some golden nuggets of information on communications within the Al-Qaida and we hope to get a better sense as it continues,” he said.

The CIA, which has set up a task force, to go through every piece of material obtained during the raid, said that the US was still cataloging them. — PTI

Osama depended on couriers to keep in touch with outside world

Osama bin Laden, who led a secluded life behind the barbed wire and high walls of his mansion in Pakistan, did not rely on Internet or telephone to connect to the outside world but on trusted couriers and thumb drives they delivered, US officials say.

The world's most wanted terrorist, who remained elusive for US troops for decades, spent many hours on the computer, relying on couriers to bring him thumb drives packed with information from the outside world to his home in Abbottabad, New York Times quoted US officials as saying.

His once-large entourage of Arab bodyguards was down to one trusted Pakistani courier and the courier's brother, who also had the job of buying goats, sheep and Coca-Cola for the household. While his physical world had shrunk to two indoor rooms and daily pacing in his courtyard, bin Laden was still revered at home — by his three wives, by his children and by the tight, interconnected circle of loyalists in the compound. — PTI 

Villagers bemused by hunt for Laden’s trail

Islamabad, May 8
As US investigators comb through a treasure trove of computer data and documents seized from Osama bin Laden’s home, Pakistani officials face a more domestic task: What to do with three of the slain terrorist leader’s wives and eight of his children.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that government officials were still holding the wives and children for questioning and that so far, no country had sought their extradition.

Pakistan gained custody of bin Laden’s family members after a covert US operation killed the Al Qaida chief at his hideout in the northwestern city of Abbottabad. Among them was bin Laden’s Yemeni-born wife Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah. She has told Pakistani investigators that she moved to the home in 2006 and never left the compound.

Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tahmina Janjua said neither Yemen or any other country had asked for the extradition of bin Laden’s relatives. Pakistani officials, who have not disclosed where the relatives are being held, have said they will be returned to their countries of origin.

The ages of the children have not been disclosed.

Osama Bin Laden led a life on the run, yet he kept his family close. One of his sons, Khalid, was killed during the raid. Abdullfattah, his youngest wife, was shot in the leg and was initially taken to a military hospital, a Pakistani military official has said. One of his daughters watched her father being slain, he said.

Abdullfattah told the interrogators that she had been staying in bin Laden’s hideout since 2006 and never left the upper floors of the large, sparsely furnished building, said a Pakistani intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the agency’s policy.

CIA officers have not been given access to the women or children in custody, the official said. Their accounts could help shed light on the US military operation that killed the Al Qaida leader and on how he was able to avoid capture for nearly 10 years. — Agencies

Washington, May 8
Contrary to a widely held belief that Osama bin Laden was on dialysis, his youngest wife has said the Al-Qaida chief was healthy and had recovered from two kidney operations, in part by using homemade remedies, including watermelon. “He was neither weak nor frail,” bin Laden's youngest wife Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah told Pakistani investigators.

The 29-year-old Yemeni told them that Laden had recovered from two kidney operations a decade or more ago in southern Afghanistan, in parts by using homemade remedie, the New York Times reported. There were nine children in the household, but it remained unclear how many belonged to Laden and his son and how many to the courier and his brother. Pakistani investigators, who reached after the American forces left Laden’s Abbottabad house, found remedies for children’s ear infections, colds and coughs.

According to NBC News, they also found Avena syrup, an extract of wild oats that can be taken for an upset stomach, but is also sold as an aphrodisiac. — PTI 

You’re almost 73. You’ve spent close to half a century in politics and government service, culminating with a spell as CIA director in which you've remade that discredited and deeply demoralised intelligence agency and pulled off the anti-terrorism coup to end them all.

If ever there's a moment to pack your bags and ride off into the sunset, this surely is it. Not, though, if you're Leon Panetta. You agree to take on an even tougher job at the Pentagon, making you the oldest incoming Secretary of Defence in American history.

Victory has many fathers, and those basking in the glory of hunting down Osama bin Laden range from a Democratic President transformed from wimp and vacillator into a lion of national security, to the crack commando unit whose raid on the compound in Abbottabad adds yet more lustre to the legend of US special forces. But not least, this was Panetta's triumph.

His long career has led him in many directions: from Republican to Democrat, from civil rights enforcement to Congress, from running the US federal budget to a vital spell as White House Chief of Staff when he, more than anyone perhaps, put the disorderly Clinton presidency back on the rails.

Nothing, though, can have quite prepared him for the moment on May 1 as he talked to Barack Obama and his national security team, assembled in the White House Situation Room, through the nail-biting climax of the operation. True, it was executed by Navy Seals, ultimately part of the Pentagon. But since that terrible day in September 2001, the search for Bin Laden was led by the CIA - and whether by dumb luck or perfect judgement, Panetta was the man in charge when everything finally came together.

If there is such a thing as “the American Dream”, Panetta is a prime specimen. He was born to immigrants from Siderno in deepest Calabria (which should dispel any lingering belief that all those in the US of recent southern Italian extraction end up as opera singers or mobsters). In fact, his father ran a restaurant near Monterey in California before buying a walnut farm in the Carmel Valley nearby. The son still owns the same house, the same farm.

Few are more determined to get ahead than a first-generation American. Panetta excelled at school, took a law degree and served with distinction for two years in the US army. In 1966, he entered politics as a moderate Republican (yes, such creatures existed then), signing up as an aide for Senator Thomas Kuchel of California, a leading Republican supporter of LBJ's civil rights legislation.

It was a natural step, therefore, to switch to the incoming Nixon administration, and in 1970 Panetta was appointed head of the Office of Civil Rights, with the job of making sure the historic laws passed under Johnson were properly enforced. Then Nixon made the cynical move that would turn American politics on its head, by promising lawmakers from the South that he would go easy on enforcement in their states. Thus was born the “Southern Strategy” that transformed the old Confederacy from a Democratic to a Republican stronghold.

For Panetta it was too much. He decided to disobey Nixon's unspoken edict. In politics “there has to be a line beyond which you don’t go”, he said years later, “The line that marks the difference between right and wrong, what your conscience tells you is right”. Panetta had no doubt where that line ran. In 1970, he resigned, and the following year, convinced the Republicans were moving too far to the right, he switched to the Democrats.

In 1973 Panetta was elected to Congress, representing his home turf of Monterey. On Capitol Hill, some in his new party were suspicious of the turncoat, but Panetta's charm and competence quickly won them over - indeed, to this day, it is hard to find a soul in Washington who personally dislikes him. Panetta is a straight shooter, with a slightly old-fashioned sense of morality. But he has an easy manner, an infectious laugh and a rare lack of self-importance.

He was also a pragmatist ready to work with Republicans, and as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee had a big hand in the 1990 budget deal restoring the national finances. It was, thus, small surprise that Bill Clinton enlisted Panetta as his first federal budget director, but he stayed only a year. Panetta’s managerial skills were urgently required as the president’s chief of staff, to rescue a youthful White House beset by indiscipline and scandal and sinking beneath the weight of its own inexperience.

With Panetta, grown-ups took charge. Clinton regained his footing, and easily won re-election in 1996. After two-and-a-half years in one of the most the most physically gruelling jobs in Washington, Panetta returned to California. His legacy included the federal budget surplus that emerged during the second Clinton term, and a solid reputation as a Democratic fixer and wise man. For a decade the contented elder statesman devoted himself to teaching, and the public policy institute he set up with his wife Sylvia in Monterey. From time to time, political opportunities arose, most notably in 2003 when the Democrats desperately searched for a candidate to replace the doomed Governor Gray Davis. Panetta declined, arguing there was no time to raise money.

But in December 2008, President-elect Obama came calling, and this time Panetta could not refuse. The nomination as CIA director of a man with scant background in the spy business caused much surprise, even among fellow Democrats. “The agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time,” sniffed Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee.

How wrong she was. Long discredited by its failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks and its mistaken view of Saddam Hussein’s WMD, the agency was also reviled for its sinister “black camps” and use of torture. On Capitol Hill, the CIA was a punchbag. Top employees had left, either in dismay or under a cloud. What it needed was a man with clean hands and powerful political connections. Panetta qualified on both counts.

He had made known his disgust at “enhanced interrogation techniques” in 2008, when he wrote that Americans had been transformed “from champions of human dignity ... into a nation of armchair torturers”, and did not abandon that view when he moved to Langley. Nor did he need to. If waterboarding helped to lead the way to bin Laden, that information had been extracted long before Panetta arrived in Langley.

Nor was he exactly a neophyte in the secret world. Crumpled and bespectacled, Panetta not only resembled a novelistic spymaster. He also knew the Washington system inside out, and as White House Chief of Staff he attended the daily presidential intelligence briefings, privy to many of the country's most sensitive covert programmes. Within the CIA he quickly impressed. Unlike some newly arrived predecessors, he took only one senior personal aide with him, and told The New Yorker magazine: “I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt.”

There was no public witch-hunt of suspected torturers, while Panetta earned further respect from his staff by fighting the CIA's bureaucratic corner, resisting efforts to shift traditional agency powers to the recently formed Directorate of National Intelligence.

And now Bin Laden, and one mission accomplished. But at the Pentagon, an even tougher mission awaits. Panetta must tidy up in Iraq, sort out Libya and prevail in Afghanistan - even as he pushes through cuts in military spending begun under the outgoing Defence Secretary Robert Gates. In short, just what you look forward to when you're rising 73.

By arrangement with The Independent

Born: June 28, 1938, Monterey, California.

Education: Monterey High School. BA in political science and a doctorate in law from Santa Clara University.

Family: He and wife Sylvia Marie have three children and five grandchildren.

Career: Was in US army from 1964-66. Then began career in politics as legislative assistant to Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel. In 1971, switched to Democrat Party and was elected to Congress, until appointed by Bill Clinton to be his Chief of Staff in 1994. Later, appointed CIA director by Barack Obama in 2009.

BRIEFLY

Pak minister escapes bomb attack
Islamabad: A bomb went off a short distance from the home of a provincial minister in Peshawar in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, injuring at least four persons, including his nephew. The blast occurred near the residence of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Agriculture Minister Arbab Ayub Jan, who belongs to the ruling Awami National Party, officials said. The minister, who was at home at the time of the attack, escaped unhurt. The blast hit a car that was leaving the home of the minister. Jan's nephew, who was in the car, was among the injured. — PTI

Singapore’s ruling party sweeps polls
Singapore: Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party on Sunday retained power with an absolute majority winning 81 of the 87 seats in a “watershed” general election, but PM Lee Hsien Loong acknowledged that opposition gains had marked a “distinct shift” in the city-state’s political landscape. Though the PAP, in power for over 40 years, won 81 of the 87 parliament seats as it captured 60 per cent of the 2 million votes cast in yesterday’s election, the Workers Party won six seats, the most ever captured by the opposition. — PTI

Berlusconi’s nurse ‘to face trial’
LONDON: Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi’s glamorous dental nurse is to face trial for arranging prostitutes for the 74-year-old leader’s infamous “bunga bunga” parties, a media report said. Prosecutors have asked for 25-year-old Nicole Minettia-appointed regional councillor by Berlusconi who’s embroiled in several sex scandals — to be charged with recruiting some 33 prostitutes for him, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported. Minetti, the former dental hygienist, is one of three of Berlusconi’s closest associates facing allegations in the same probe involving a prostitute allegedly paid for sex by the controversial PM. — PTI