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10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks tomorrow
Interpol issues arrest notice for Gaddafi
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NATO seeks India’s cooperation in countering cyber threats from China
Obama unveils ‘New Deal’
President Barack Obama arrives to address a joint session of the Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday. — AP/PTI
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10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks tomorrow New York/Washington, September 9 Additional forces were put on the streets with sniffer dogs as check points sprouted as the intelligence agencies came across the plot late Wednesday triggering a high level meeting at the White House. President Barack Obama who was briefed on the threat directed the counter-terrorism community to redouble their efforts in response to this credible but unconfirmed information. “The President was briefed on this specific threat information this morning and has been updated on it throughout the day,” the official added. “The United States government has already significantly enhanced its security posture in advance of the 9/11 anniversary to protect the country against possible terrorist threats,” the official said. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg disclosed that the terror threat to the city is “credible but not corroborated”. The threat was received by the US intelligence agency on Wednesday and the officials have put a look out notice for three people, who entered the country last month by air travelling from Afghanistan via a third country. Counter-terrorism officials were assessing the report and media reports said that authorities were contemplating raising the threat level in New York and Washington. The agencies are also pursuing the leads overseas in an effort to unravel the plot, a statement by a spokesman for the department of Homeland Security said. — PTI From London to Mumbai, Qaida still a threat: Hillary New York, September 9 "We are meeting here... amid reports that Al-Qaida is again seeking to harm Americans. This should surprise no one. But it is a reminder of the continuing stakes in our struggle against violent extremism. "We are taking this threat seriously, and federal, state and local authorities are taking all necessary steps to address it," Hillary said in a speech at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan here. She said the death of Osama bin Laden has put Qaida on the "path to defeat" but "we must be clear about the threat that remains. "Cities such as London and Lahore, Madrid and Mumbai have been attacked since 9/11," Hillary said. Thousands of innocent people - most of them Muslims - have been killed in these attacks and even the best of efforts have not guaranteed "perfect security," she said. While Qaida's core leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been weakened significantly, the terror group can still conduct regional and international attacks and inspire others to do so, Hillary noted. The threat has become more geographically diverse, with much of Al-Qaida's activity devolving to its affiliates around the world. — PTI
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Interpol issues arrest notice for Gaddafi Interpol asked its 188 member countries "to take all measures consistent with their national laws to help the ICC locate and apprehend Gaddafi." The "request for Interpol Red Notices will significantly restrict the ability of all three men to cross international borders and is a powerful tool to help in their location and arrest," Interpol chief Ronald Noble said.
"Gaddafi is a fugitive whose country of nationality and the International Criminal Court want arrested and held accountable for the serious criminal charges that have been brought against him," the secretary general said. A red notice by the international police co-operation agency, which is based in the central French city of Lyon, seeks the arrest for an extradition or surrender of a person to an international court based on an arrest warrant. In June, ICC judges issued arrest warrants against Gaddafi, 69, Saif, 39, and Senussi for "crimes against humanity" by troops under their orders, using "lethal force" to quell the uprising against his regime. — AFP
Syria-based TV Gaddafi’s only means of communication
CAIRO:
Muammar Gaddafi's chosen way to communicate with the world since he went on the run is through a Syrian-based television station owned by a former Iraqi politician living in exile in Syria. Gaddafi's whereabouts are not known to his enemies but he has assailed them in several defiant and colourful speeches on Arrai TV since he was overthrown on August 23. His latest message on Thursday was a typical show of bravura. He described his enemies as stray dogs and rats and said he was staying on in Libya to battle them. The private channel Arrai is owned by Mishan Jabouri, an Iraqi who was once close to Saddam Hussein's son Uday but fled to Syria before the US-led invasion toppled the Iraqi leader in 2003. He returned later and was elected to the Iraqi parliament. But he left for Syria again over business problems and set up Arrai more than a year ago, shortly before the start of the uprisings in Libya and Syria in February and March respectively. Jabouri could not be reached by Reuters to discuss his arrangement with Gaddafi. Arrai says on its Facebook page www.facebook.com/arraichannel that it is a private Arabic channel with its headquarters in Damascus. — Reuters
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NATO seeks India’s cooperation in countering cyber threats from China Brussels, September 9 Top NATO officials listed cyber security very high on the list of possible areas of cooperation, which included counter-terrorism, missile defence and anti-piracy operations. "The cyber world does not recognise alignments. It only understands switches," said a top NATO official during a briefing to visiting Indian journalists, while making a strong pitch for joint efforts to combat cyber threats. The NATO official made this remark in context of India's sensitivity against military alliances and its commitment to non-alignment. He suggested this could be a functional alignment in which both sides could give and take. "India has an advanced cyber and IT industry and is very strong in cyber issues", he said, hinting that India and NATO can cooperate in this field. "Democracies face challenges that are common. As democracies we can have a dialogue, as we deal with issues differently... We need to work together, because individually we cannot. It is better to deal with such issues commonly than deal with them individually." He added that even though the threats were different, the nature of our responses could be similar, while seeing India as a strong partner with NATO on various issues. Though he did not mention any of India's neighbours from where the cyber attack challenge came, he hinted at China from where such threats had come in the recent past. Seeking a partnership on matters relating to cyber security, the official pointed out that India and NATO had already reached at a tactical level understanding in dealing with piracy and shared a strategic level understanding in countering terrorism. — PTI
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Obama unveils ‘New Deal’
Washington, September 9 A day after unveiling his ideas on Capitol Hill, Obama will pitch them directly to Americans during a visit to a Virginia university, kicking off a months-long campaign to promote the package across the country. The White House sees the plan, a mix of payroll tax cuts and spending to upgrade roads, bridges and school buildings, as the best hope for reducing the 9.1 per cent unemployment rate that threatens Obama's presidency and addressing what he called a national crisis. Early estimates suggested it could lift US growth by 1 to 3 percentage points in 2012, lower the unemployment rate by at least half a percentage point and add well over 1 million jobs. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics and a former adviser to 2008 Republican presidential contender John McCain, said it could add 1.9 million jobs. Obama hopes he can rally enough popular support to pressure Republicans to get behind the plan so that it can start to lower unemployment before the November 2012 presidential vote. "The next election is fourteen months away," Obama told a rare joint session of Congress on Thursday. "And the people who sent us here, the people who hired us to work for them, they don't have the luxury of waiting fourteen months." Financial markets showed little reaction to the speech, due to doubts over whether it could clear a divided Congress. US. stock index futures fell slightly early Friday. There were initial signs that Republican Congressional leaders may be ready to find at least some common ground on the plan, despite their opposition to much of Obama's agenda over the past year. The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, said Obama's ideas "merit consideration." Eric Cantor, the second ranking Republican in the House whose state Obama will visit on Friday, said the payroll tax cuts were "something that will be a part of the discussions" and described "a lot of room for us to work together." "I heard plenty in the President's speech last night where there is a lot of room for commonality and we can get something done quickly," Cantor told CNN on Friday morning. — Reuters
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Heavily-armed counter- terrorism forces were deployed in New York and high alert was sounded in the city and Washington after US officials warned of a new “credible” threat by
Al-Qaida using car or truck bomb, timed with the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks..
Washington, September 9
Lyon, September 9