Judge attacks forced marriage woman

Judge attacks forced marriage that put disabled woman 'at risk’

A judge has said the forced marriage of a Muslim woman with learning difficulties should be annulled and condemned the “insulated” families who arrange them.

The judge said the woman lived in a “very traditional family” in a “close-knit community” that was not integrated with other Bengalis in the area.

Her parents are very largely insulated from mainstream English society and are mistrustful of non-Bengalis. They do not communicate well in English: her mother understands and speaks almost none. They are devout Muslims.

9/11 defendants ignore judge at Guantanamo hearing

They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn't listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that ended late Saturday night in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court.

In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin and reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reads a document during his military hearing at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, Saturday, May 5, 2012. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed repeatedly declined to respond to a judge's questions Saturday and his co-defendant Walid bin Attash was briefly restrained at a military hearing as five men charged with the worst terror attack in U.S. history appeared in public for the first time in more than three years.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted architect of the attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the four men accused of aiding the 9/11 conspiracy put off entering pleas until a later date. Another hearing was set for June 12.

It wasn't until more than seven hours into the disrupted and prolonged hearing that prosecutors at the U.S. military base in Cuba even began reading the charges against the men, including 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism that carry the death penalty.

Earlier Saturday, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl's questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.

Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.  CONTINUE .. . . .

Pakistan did not help hide bin Laden

Pakistan Foreign Minister says government did not hide bin Laden

Pakistan's Foreign Minister told CNN International's Christiane Amanpour that her government had "no complicity" in the hiding of Osama bin Laden.  Hina Rabbani Khar said in an interview that broadcast Wednesday on "Amanpour" that an extensive investigation has so far found nobody in the government that knew of the Al Qaeda terrorist's hideaway in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  CONTINUE - - - - - -

Pakistan police detail Osama bin Laden's life on the run

Osama bin Laden spent years on the run in various parts of Pakistan after the 2001 terrorist attacks, moving from one safe house to another and fathering four children, and at least one was born in a government hospital, his youngest widow has told Pakistani investigators.  MORE - - - - - -

Yemen airstrike victim six from al-Qaida

Yemeni warplanes killed at least six militants linked to al-Qaida on Wednesday, the government said as it pressed ahead with an offensive against insurgents in the south.
 

Yemen has been struggling to control Islamist fighters in the territory who have taken advantage of the chaos surrounding more than a year of mass protests and fighting that unseated former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The country's defense ministry said it launched an airstrike on a group of militants near the southern city of Lawdar, killing six of them.

Lawdar residents told Reuters one person was also killed and another two injured after mortar rounds hit their houses. There was no independent confirmation of who launched the attacks.

Syria suicide attacks kill 30

The Syrian government says more than 30 people have been killed in two suicide car bombings outside security service facilities in the capital, Damascus.
Suicide bombers in explosives-packed cars killed some 30 civilians and military troops Friday in two attacks in the Syrian capital Damascus.
 

Opposition groups cast doubt on state media reports saying a preliminary investigation indicated the bombings -- the first major attacks in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March -- carried the "blueprint" of al-Qaida, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported.
Activists on social media accused the government of being behind the blasts, which came as Arab League mission observers arrived to oversee the government's agreement to a peace plan to end the nine months of violence.
State media reported 30 deaths.
The blasts came a day after an advance team of Arab League observers arrived in the country to monitor Syria's promise to end its crackdown on protesters demanding the ouster of President Bashar Assad. Government officials took the observers to the scene of the explosions and said it backed their longtime claims that the turmoil is not a popular uprising but the work of terrorists.