The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Australian collar bomb suspect arrested in Kentucky
- Hackers protest in San Francisco subway
- Biden seeks strong China ties under shadow of debt
| Australian collar bomb suspect arrested in Kentucky Posted: 15 Aug 2011 09:05 PM PDT LOUISVILLE, Ky (Reuters) - A man wanted in Australia for allegedly strapping a fake bomb to the neck of a teenage girl was arrested on Monday near Louisville, authorities said. Paul "Doug" Peters, an Australian who police in New South Wales were seeking to apprehend in connection with last month's sensational bomb hoax, was taken into custody without incident, the FBI said. Peters had been staying at the home of his former wife outside La Grange, Kentucky, about 25 miles (40 kms) northeast of Louisville, the FBI said. On August 3, a man wearing a balaclava broke into the Sydney home of Bill Pulver, the wealthy chief executive of a company that makes speech recognition and text-to-speech software. The only person home was Pulver's 18-year-old daughter, Madeleine. The man strapped a device to the girl's neck that he claimed was a bomb he could detonate by remote control, and left behind a ransom note. He also reportedly told the girl that the device had a microphone that allowed him to monitor her conversations. The girl summoned help anyway and after a 10-hour ordeal, officers were able to remove the device, which turned out to be harmless. Peters, who authorities believe left Australia on Aug. 8, will appear in court in Louisville on Tuesday. Australian authorities will seek to have him extradited to face charges in the bomb hoax, the New South Wales Police Force said in a statement. (Reporting by Ivonne Rovira and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Jerry Norton) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Hackers protest in San Francisco subway Posted: 15 Aug 2011 09:05 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Four San Francisco subway stations shut down temporarily on Monday during a demonstration organized by the hacker group Anonymous over police brutality and free speech. The Bay Area Rapid Transit commuter train service had shut down cell phone networks in some stations on Thursday to stop demonstrators organizing a protest over the fatal shooting of a man by police last month. "This was a complete silencing of the people." said Carlos Wilson, a 41-year-old gay rights activist who came to protest police brutality and the shut-down of the mobile phone network last week. A few dozen protesters turned out for Monday's rush hour action, which ended when authorities shut down the Civic Center station. Later, three other stations closed briefly, apparently due to crowding. Police said there were no arrests, although officers arrived dressed in riot gear. Cell phone service was left on in the station during the action, and some protesters took that as a sign of victory. "I have more cell service now than usual on BART. I think what they did last time was an empty threat. I have full bars," said Beck Simmons, a 21-year-old student. Anonymous, a loosely knit group that has attacked financial and government websites, had called for protesters to descend on the station at 5 p.m. and media widely publicized the plan. Would-be protesters were encouraged to download software for short-range mobile-to-mobile messaging, in case the in-station networks are shut down again. BART said a website for its users, myBART.org, had been hacked over the weekend, and contact information from at least 2,400 people had been stolen. (Writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Anthony Boadle) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Biden seeks strong China ties under shadow of debt Posted: 15 Aug 2011 09:05 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite festering tensions over debt, deficits and currency, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has one top priority during his trip to Asia this week: get to know China's next generation of leaders.
Biden leaves on Tuesday for a journey to China, Mongolia and Japan in what the White House views as further outreach to a continent at the top of its foreign priority list. Biden's own priorities are multi-pronged. He will press Beijing to allow its yuan currency to rise more quickly against the U.S. dollar, praise Mongolia for its successful democracy, and offer solace in Tokyo as it deals with the aftermath of the country's earthquake and tsunami. But Biden's main goal will be building a relationship with his counterpart, Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, who is widely expected to become president in 2013. "Simply put, we're investing in the future of the U.S.-China relationship," Tony Blinken, Biden's national security adviser, said in a conference call. "One of the primary purposes of the trip is to get to know China's future leadership, to build a relationship with Vice President Xi, and to discuss with him and other Chinese leaders the full breadth of issues in the U.S.-China relationship." Those issues span human rights, Taiwan, and -- casting a shadow over the trip -- the recent debate over the yawning U.S. deficit. As the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, China wants sound management of Washington's fiscal problems, and berated Washington this month after its near-default on its debt. Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed earlier this month on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut the deficit, but the divisive political debate helped prompt a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from Standard and Poor's. Biden's trip will be the first to China by a high-level U.S. official since the crisis. "The Chinese are going to be extremely interested in getting his take on what has occurred and what will occur in the U.S. management of its deficit," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a foreign policy expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "I think (there will be) an effort to reassure the Chinese that, despite the downgrade in the credit rating, the U.S. is still strong, that the country will recover, and that China's dollar assets are safe," said Paul Haenle, the director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. BUILDING RELATIONS It is Biden's first trip to east Asia as vice president and the Obama administration has also invited Xi to come to Washington for a reciprocal visit. Apart from raising concerns about the United States' economy and debt outlook, China's leaders are likely to press Biden about any plans to sell more weapons, especially new F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan. At stake is Taiwan's request for 66 new Lockheed Martin F-16C/D fighter jets, a sale that China has warned would risk inflaming tensions between the two big powers. People familiar with the matter said the sale of the advanced Lockheed Martin fighter jets is unlikely to go through, although they cautioned that the Obama administration has not made a final decision yet. The State Department confirmed that no decisions have been made on arms sales to Taiwan. "The vice president has no plans to raise the Taiwan issue, certainly not arms sales during his trip," said Daniel Russel, a White House national security adviser on Asian affairs. "We take our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act very seriously and we don't negotiate these issues with China." The getting-to-know-you process will offset the more weighty issues at the heart of Biden's visit. He will hold meetings with Xi and Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing and attend a meeting of U.S. and Chinese business leaders as well as meeting with President Hu Jintao. On the last day of the trip Biden and Xi will have an informal dinner at a local restaurant in the southwestern city of Chengdu. "This trip will enable Vice President Biden to, you know, as a good politician does, take a read of the other guy," said Lieberthal of Brookings. Xi, 58, is likely to succeed Hu as Communist Party chief at a party congress in late 2012, and then assume the presidency at a meeting of China's national parliament early in 2013. His ascendance will not change the basics of the sticking points that dog the U.S.-China relationship. Last month Xi vowed to crack down on separatist forces he said were led by the Dalai Lama, just days after the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader met President Barack Obama at the White House. (Additional reporting by Chris Buckley in Beijing; editing by Christopher Wilson) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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