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Michelle urges Americans to give ‘man we can trust’ another term
SEALS were told to ‘catch Osama alive’, if possible
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Hillary’s visit fails to narrow US-China differences over South China Sea
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at a joint press conference in Beijing on Wednesday. — AP/PTI Pirates hijack ship with 23 Indians aboard Pak approves draft bill to tackle financing of terrorism
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Michelle urges Americans to give ‘man we can trust’ another term
Democrats on Tuesday kicked off their party's national convention with a passionate appeal from First Lady Michelle Obama to Americans to give her husband another four years in the White House, while other speakers made the case why Republican challenger Mitt Romney "doesn't get it." Michelle Obama, who delivered a rousing speech, was greeted by chants of "four more years!" US President Barack Obama, "knows what it means when a family struggles. He knows what it means to want something more for your kids and grandkids," she said. "Barack knows the American dream because he's lived it," she added. She exhorted the gathering to "once again come together, and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward." Julian Castro, the 37-year-old mayor of San Antonio, Texas, whose family moved to the US from Mexico, delivered the keynote speech. "Mitt Romney, quite simply, doesn't get it," Castro said. "What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance," he said. "And the thing is, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are perfectly comfortable with that America. In fact, that's exactly what they're promising us." Indian American actor Kal Penn, who served as associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement, delivered a passionate defence of his former boss. "I've worked on a lot of fun movies, but my favorite job was having a boss who gave the order to take out Osama bin Laden and who's cool with all of us getting gay married," Penn said. He then took a dig at actor Clint Eastwood who delivered a rambling speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, last week in which he interviewed an empty chair that he said represented Obama. "So thank you invisible man in the chair, for that, and for giving my friends access to affordable health insurance and doubling funding for the Pell Grant," Penn said to cheers and applause. Speakers at the convention represented some of the major vote blocs in the America: Latinos, blacks and women. They slammed Romney, who accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination last week, on immigration, health care, foreign policy and his tax policies, which they said would benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class. Obama will formally accept his party's nomination on Thursday night.
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SEALS were told to ‘catch Osama alive’, if possible Washington, September 5 Former commando Matt Bissonnette, who has written a book titled 'No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden', using the pseudonym "Mark Owen," has made the claim in an interview to CBS news. "This was absolutely not a kill-only mission. It was made very clear to us throughout our training for this that, 'Hey, if given the opportunity, this is not an assassination. You will capture him alive... if feasible'," Bissonnette said. A makeup artist was employed to disguise his appearance and sound manipulation was used to mask his real voice for the interview. His book, "No Easy Day" has irked the Pentagon as it had threatened to take legal action against the former Navy SEAL on charges of leaking classified information. The book went on sale yesterday. Apart from making the claim that they were told to capture bin Laden alive if possible, Bissonnette also gave an insight in to the crashing of one of the two helicopters in the courtyard of bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad on May 2, last year. Pakistan didn't know they were coming so the helicopters, flown by the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, flew at tree-top level on a moonless night to avoid Pakistani air defences. They reached the target and prepared to slide down ropes into the compound when everything went wrong in Bissonnette's chopper. "And then, all of a sudden, we banked hard 90 degrees, and then we, once we went hard 90, it was very apparent that something was wrong," Bissonnette said. "Something about the downdraft hitting the complex of walls below caused the heavily loaded helicopter to falter in the air," he added. — PTI
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Hillary’s visit fails to narrow US-China differences over South China Sea Beijing, September 5 Hillary, who arrived here yesterday on what was stated to be her last visit as Secretary of State before the November Presidential polls in the US, held wide-ranging consultations with President Hu Jintao, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and other top officials, mainly focusing on China's disputes with its neighbours in South China Sea and Sino-Japan row over islands in East China Sea. Hillary's scheduled meeting with Vice-President Xi did not take place, amid speculation that he preferred not to meet her in protest over her continued insistence that US-Japan Defence Treaty was applicable to Diaoyu/Senkaku islands claimed by China. However, unofficial reports said Xi cancelled the talks at the last minute as he was laid up with a back problem. Xi is widely expected to be elected as General Secretary of the ruling CPC in a Party Congress in the coming weeks to succeed Hu. Answering a question as to why the meeting between Xi and Hillary had not taken place, Yang told a joint press conference with Hillary that there need not be "unnecessary speculation" on it. Differences between the two sides on resolving territorial disputes over the South China Sea were also highlighted during the press meet. The US is calling on China and ASEAN countries to work out a code of conduct through a diplomatic process to resolve the South China Sea disputes involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. China, however, continued to insist that it should be worked out through direct talks between respective parties. About concerns over free navigation, Yang said, “For China and neighbours, South China Sea is a life line for trade and exchanges. There is no issue currently in the area, nor will there ever be (any) issue in that area.”— PTI
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Pirates hijack ship with 23 Indians aboard Abuja, September 5 International Maritime Bureau (IMB) officials said the Singapore-owned vessel, MT Abu Dhabi Star, which was carrying fuel, was sailing towards the open sea when it was hijacked. Twenty three Indian sailors were on board the oil tanker operated by the Dubai-based company, Pioneer Ship Management Services LLC. Pat Adamson, the company’s spokesperson, told PTI that all the crew on the tanker are Indians. “There was a call from one of the crew members to the management company saying the vessel was boarded by pirates but nobody was harmed,” he said. “Pirates have not yet established contact with the company,” Adamsan said, adding “we have not got any report of loot so far.” “We understand that a naval ship is on the way to intercept the vessel,” he said. Earlier, the IMB said the Nigerian authorities had been notified of the attack and were taking action. It said the sailors had locked themselves in a safe room to avoid harm by the attackers who are suspected to be oil thieves from Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. Last month, pirates had hijacked and looted two oil tankers off nearby Togo. The ships and all crew members were later freed. Also, an oil vessel was seized last week by pirates, off the Coast of Togolese capital of Lome and released few days later near Nigeria with its 23 Russian crew members. About 3,000 tonnes of fuel was stolen from the ship. The Gulf of Guinea has witnessed 37 attacks on ships this year alone. — PTI
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Pak approves draft bill to tackle financing of terrorism Islamabad, September 5 A meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf approved the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill and the Investigation for Fair Trial Bill, an official statement said. The second bill was cleared after some amendments. The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill contains measures to address shortcomings in the provisions covering the financing of terrorism in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. It strengthens provisions on terrorism financing and covers all aspects in the light of international standards. The bill also provides "more effective measures for law enforcement agencies to investigate" such offences. The Investigation for Fair Trial Bill covers the "collection of evidence by means of modern techniques and devices" during investigations to prevent and effectively deal with offences. — PTI
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Beijing, September 5
