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[OMEN]

Harald K., in white, was said to be well-known in the Afghan town where he lived

German and Afghan authorities are searching for leads two days after a German living in Afghanistan was kidnapped by armed gunmen. Police doubt he was taken hostage for political reasons.

A German foreign ministry crisis team said on Tuesday, Dec. 18, that it was still investigating the reasons behind a German man's kidnapping in the western Afghan province of Herat.

"We are tracking all related information and are trying to find some answers," said a spokesperson said Monday in Berlin.

Police and intelligence officials in Afghanistan said they have begun a search for the 42-year-old carpenter Harald K. reported to be from the Bavarian town of Amberg.

K. travelled to Afghanistan with the Green Helmets as part of project to build schools in the country. He later married an Afghan woman and was living with her and their child in the western province of Herat.

Trouble at home

The German aid organization is located near Bonn

K., is also being pursued by German authorities on charges of embezzling money from an aid organization, according to the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.



He is accused of stealing over 87,000 euros ($125,000) from the Green Helmets aid organization and a warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to appear in court in 2004, Bonn prosecutor Jörg Schindler told the paper.



Kidnapping details still murky

Even as Afghan police search houses, the circumstances of K.'s kidnapping remain unclear.


Most German soldiers stationed in northern Afghanistan

Juma Khan Adeel of the Afghan police said the kidnapping could be the result of a family dispute as K.'s wife separated from another man to marry him, the Associated Press reported. A well-known person and carpenter in the region, K. blackmail could also be behind the kidnapping, Adeel added.

Kleber is the fifth German kidnapped in Afghanistan this year. German engineer Rudolf Blechschmidt was released on Oct. 10 after nearly three months in the hands of Afghan kidnappers. A second man taken hostage with him was killed during captivity.

Germany currently has 3,500 troops stationed in northern Afghanistan.

DW

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[OMEN]

Sir Desmond Rea said discussions will take place as soon as possible
Police and prosecutors are studying the implications of the Omagh bomb trial after a man was cleared of all charges.

The judge criticised police evidence and questioned the scientific technique central to the prosecution case.

Northern Ireland Policing Board chairman Sir Desmond Rea has requested a meeting with chief constable Sir Hugh Orde in the wake of the verdict.

Sean Hoey, 38, of Jonesborough, south Armagh, was cleared of the murders of 29 people in the 1998 Real IRA attack.

'Terrible atrocity'

The judge, Mr Justice Weir, had especially strong words for two police officers who lied about wearing protective clothing when searching the scene of a crime.

He said officers working on the case were guilty of a "deliberate and calculated deception".

Following the case, Sir Desmond said: "The Omagh bombing was a terrible atrocity and has had a devastating impact for all those families who lost loved ones and who were injured in the attack. Their suffering continues.

"Copies of the judgment and verdict were being sent to all board members.

"Having carefully studied the judgment, the board will discuss Mr Justice Weir's findings and the issues arising from the case with the chief constable at the earliest opportunity."

Bomb timers

The outcome of the case is expected to have large implications for future trials beyond Northern Ireland.

The prosecution claimed that forensic examination of the bomb timers used in the attacks showed links to Mr Hoey.

The prosecution relied on a technique called Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA which some scientist believe can provide evidence from microscopic traces such as an individual fibre.

Mr Justice Weir made it clear that he regarded the technique as unproven and said work needed to be done to validate it.

Careful analysis

The police said they would study the judgement in detail and work to ensure that any organisational or procedural shortcomings were addressed.

The Public Prosecution Service said the decision to proceed was made following a careful analysis of the available evidence.

The verdict was delivered after a trial which lasted a total of 56 days over a period of 10 months, and was one of the biggest murder trials in UK legal history.

Electrician Mr Hoey is the only person to have been charged with what was one of the worst atrocities of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

BBC

[OMEN]

Dozens of wounded worshippers were carried away from the scene
At least 30 people have been killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in north-western Pakistan, police say.

The explosion tore through the mosque, near the city of Peshawar, as about 1,000 people offered prayers for the Muslim festival of Eid.

Among the worshippers was Aftab Sherpao, interior minister in the outgoing government. He survived the attack but said his son was injured.

The violence comes as Pakistan prepares for a general election next month.

President Pervez Musharraf lifted a state of emergency on Saturday, saying the threat from Islamic militants had been contained.

But in the past week there have been several suicide attacks.

A senior police official said Friday's attacker had taken a place among the congregation, in the second row behind Mr Sherpao.

We were saying prayers when this huge explosion occurred. It almost blew out our ear drums
Shaukat Ali, eyewitness

"Naturally, Aftab Sherpao was the target," the politician's spokesman Salim Shah told the AFP news agency.

It was the second apparent attack on Mr Sherpao - a close ally of President Musharraf - in eight months.

He is running as a candidate for parliament in general elections next month.

Surge of violence

Dozens of people wounded in Friday's explosion have been taken to a local hospital.

"We were saying prayers when this huge explosion occurred. It almost blew out our ear drums," said another witness, 26-year-old Shaukat Ali.


It was the second attack on Mr Sherpao in eight months

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says there has been a wave of suicide bombings in the past six months, most in the north-west of the country and most aimed at army and government targets.

More than 600 people have been killed, including around 200 soldiers.

The attacks are blamed on pro-Taleban militants retaliating for military operations against them in the border areas near Afghanistan.

There has been a surge of violence in north-western Pakistan since troops ousted armed militants from the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.

Troops have driven the militants from a series of small towns and villages where they had tried to implement strict Islamic law.

The army says it has killed nearly 300 pro-Taleban militants in the restive Swat region in North West Frontier Province.

The fighting in Swat is the first serious insurgent threat from pro-Taleban forces in what is considered a settled area of Pakistan.

BBC

[OMEN]

The gift that keeps on giving: Europe gives 400 million citizens a Christmas without borders
It would have been laughed at as an inconceivable idea 20 years ago but this week the last remnants of the Iron Curtain come down, increasing freedom of movement for around 400 million Europeans.

The last remnants of the Iron Curtain will be swept aside Friday when the European Union scraps the internal border restrictions for nine mostly eastern European EU members to create a vast free-movement zone embracing 24 countries from Spain to Estonia.

The new signatories of the Schengen Treaty, named after the Luxembourg border village where the no-frontiers pact was born in 1985, will join the current 15 members in enjoying the benefits of deregulated cross-border movement. It's a bit like an early Christmas present at a peak travel time -- some 400 million Europeans will be able to travel by road, rail and ship with increased ease.

After two years of preparation, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia will join the oldest EU states -- Britain and the Republic of Ireland excluded -- plus Iceland and Norway in the extended zone pushing the area's outmost borders hundreds of kilometers eastwards.

The expansion is expected to continue with Cyprus and Switzerland planning to sign on soon. London and Dublin prefer to remain outside and keep their own visa regimes, rather than the "one visa for all" policy that applies to the Schengen countries.

As well as having border controls removed, the nine signatories will also see travel document checks abolished at their airports in March. All border controls can be re-established temporarily in case of emergency, for security reasons or when people move en-masse, such as for sporting events.

New border, new responsibilities

German officers will pass border duties to Polish cops

In return for free-movement, the new countries will be obliged to provide data to the Schengen Information System (SIS) so police and customs officers can access information about people, vehicles and goods.

The nine signatories will also sign up to new measures which will allow extended police and judicial cooperation including cross-border surveillance and the "hot pursuit" of suspects across frontiers. Internal freedom within the Schengen Zone will also lead to tightened security on its new eastern reaches, placing increased responsibilities on its latest members.

Celebrations to mark the extension of the Schengen Agreement were planned along the newly opened borders. European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini will be there as the barriers come down.

"We will live and circulate in an area of 24 countries without internal borders. This is a unique and historic accomplishment," Barroso said on Tuesday. "The lifting of the European Union's internal borders brings opportunities for people living, circulating and doing business in Europe," he said.

A cause for celebration

The festivities began early Thursday on the Slovakia-Austria border, one of the many locations which marked the outer boundaries of Europe's East-West divide, when Slovak premier Robert Fico and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer sawed through a border post on their common frontier on Thursday.

The opening of the Slovak-Austrian border is symbolically marked

The symbolic gesture took place at the crossing point between Berg in Austria and Petrzalka in Slovakia and was aided by Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic. Concerts, fireworks and even a disco evening at the Petrzalka-Berg crossing on the Slovak-Austrian frontier will mark the occasion.

"We are standing here at the border between Bratislava and Vienna to take away the most important symbolic barrier," said Slovak premier Fico. "From midnight tonight, you can travel 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls." The Austrian and Slovak capitals are Europe's closest, just 40 kilometers apart.

Austrian leader Gusenbauer focused on the final days of the Iron Curtain's legacy. "It's an historic occasion following the destruction by the first and second world wars and the division of our continent by the Iron Curtain."

"Free borders in a free Europe: who would have dared to even dream of that in 1985," he added.

Slovak President Gasparovic, sipping champagne under a European flag bearing the slogan 'Christmas without borders,' said, "I propose a toast that this frontier never be closed again."

A zone of security

Schengen "is not about criminality, it is not about insecurity or fear. It is a bigger zone of peace, security and stability," said Gusenbauer.

The Austrian chancellor was echoing the words of European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering who focused on the security aspects of the expanded Schengen Zone at the summit for EU leaders in Brussels last week.

"It is a visible sign that the former divisions in Europe, the borders on the ground and in people's minds, are being overcome," he said. "This will lead to greater freedom and security, not only for the citizens of the nine future Schengen countries, but also for the European Union as a whole."

Border residents fear crime wave

As one barrier is lifted, many more are erected

However, not everyone is convinced. Polls in Germany and Austria show that many people are concerned that the Schengen zone's expansion east will spark a "Made-in-Eastern Europe" crime wave.

One survey shows that around 59 percent of former East Germans view Schengen's expansion negatively with local media reporting a boom in house alarms and reinforced doors.

In Ebersbach, a small town of 8,500 in former East Germany on the Czech border, the concern is evident in the barbed wire stretched over house windows and the newly-formed residents' border security association.

In Austria, a poll by ORF public television put the number of those opposed to the border deregulation at 75 percent. One Austrian town, Deutschkreutz which lies a few kilometers from the Hungarian border, is even planning to hire a private security firm to patrol the streets.

The concern is also felt on the other side of the border. "It will allow more criminals to come, for example from Austria, mostly from the Turkish minority and from former Yugoslavia," Ondrej Kralik, a Slovak policeman who has worked 11 years at various border crossing points told news agency AFP.

DW

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[OMEN]

BAGHDAD — Two separate homicide attacks in Iraq killed at least 34 people and wounded scores more Tuesday, local and U.S. military authorities said, shattering more than a week of relative calm.

A homicide truck bomb exploded outside a residential complex belonging to a state-run oil company in the town of Beiji, about 155 miles north of Baghdad, killing 25 people and wounding 80, police and hospital officials said.

Most of those killed were civilians, and at least four were children, a police officer said. The dead also included guards of the oil company and members of the volunteer force. An official at the main hospital in Beiji gave the same casualty figures.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information to the media.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, 10 people were killed and five people were wounded in a suicide bombing, the U.S. military said. Baqouba police said Dr. Ahmed Fuad of Baqouba hospital put the death toll at nine.

Local officials said a bomber wearing an explosives vest targeted a funeral procession for two members of an Awakening Council group — fighters who have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq — who had been accidentally killed by U.S. troops during a dawn raid.
The U.S. military said in a statement that a coalition forces raid in Baqouba killed two people, one of whom was revealed later to be a member of such a group, which the U.S. military call "Concerned Local Citizens."

In Beiji the bomber detonated his explosives-rigged pickup truck when Iraqi police and members of a volunteer security force prevented him from entering the gate of a compound belonging to the state-run North Oil Company, a police officer said.

Local authorities said they feared more victims might be buried in the rubble of two buildings damaged by the suicide truck bomb.

The U.S. military reported that a member of a volunteer group said two people had been in the truck. It gave the casualty figures as 20 dead and 80 wounded, and said the most severely injured were taken to a hospital in Tikrit.

Beiji's police chief, Saad al-Nafous, was fired, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Authorities imposed a curfew on the city — home to the country's largest refinery — until further notice.

The wounded, bloodied and bandaged were crowded into the rooms and hallways of the Beiji General hospital. Three bodies — one of a child — were laid out on the floor, covered with white sheets.

In the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a roadside bomb hit the passing convoy of the governor of Ninevah province, Durayid Kashmoula. The governor was not injured, but his driver and one of his bodyguards were wounded, said Brig. Mohammad al-Wakka of Nineveh police.

Despite Tuesday's attacks, there has been a clear reduction of violence in Iraq in the past few months. The U.S. military has said violent attacks have fallen by 60 percent since June.

The Awakening Councils, who are funded by the U.S., have been credited with helping reduce the violence, and while bombings and other attacks continue throughout the country, their number and frequency has fallen.

Iraq's oil industry and those who work in it have come under repeated attack since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion, usually through bombings of key pipelines. Revenue from the oil industry is seen as key to funding Iraq's reconstruction and sparking economic recovery.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said troops killed 13 suspected insurgents and detained another 27 on Monday and Tuesday in operations targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq in the central and northern parts of the country.

Separately, eight bodies were found in rivers and on city streets. Baghdad police found two bullet-riddled bodies in Karkh on the western side of the Tigris River that flows through the capital, and one in Risafa on the eastern side, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

To the south, four bodies found floating in the Tigris were taken to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Hadi al-Atabi of Kut morgue. In Mosul, northern Iraq, one body was found dumped on the streets in an eastern neighborhood of the city.

Foxnews

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[OMEN]

An Australian man has died in hospital after he was hit by three vehicles while walking on the Monash Freeway.

The 27-year-old man's grey Peugeot 206 sedan was travelling into Melbourne about 4.40am when it hit a barrier at a construction zone, police said.

The sedan drove up an embankment, clipped a light pole and crossed the Police Road on-ramp before colliding into the barrier.

The driver, who was the car's only occupant, walked onto the freeway where he was hit by a four-wheel-drive which stopped at the scene.

Shortly afterwards he was struck again by an oncoming sedan and then a truck. These vehicles did not stop.

The man was taken to the Royal Melbourne hospital with life-threatening injuries and died several hours later.

SMH

[OMEN]

They look cute but ... the incident happened a year after a Siberian tiger ripped the flesh off a zookeeper's arm as horrified visitors looked on / AP
AN escaped tiger killed a visitor at San Francisco Zoo and mauled two other men today, a year after the same animal attacked a park employee.

The Siberian tiger fatally attacked the unidentified man just after the zoo's 5pm (12pm AEDT) closing time.

The tiger, a 136kg female called Tatiana, was shot and killed by police while it was on top of another victim, said zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca.

She did not have details about the victims but reports said the dead man, aged 23, was attacked near an outdoor tiger enclosure.

A group of four responding officers came across his body when they made their way into the dark zoo grounds, said police department spokesman Steve Mannina.

Then they saw another victim about 300m away, in front of the Terrace Cafe.

The man was sitting on the ground, blood running from gashes in his head. Tatiana sat next to him. Suddenly, the cat attacked the man again, Mr Mannina said.

The officers started approaching the animal, bearing their handguns. When Tatiana started moving in their direction, several of the officers fired, killing the animal.

The two injured men were in "stable but critical condition" at San Francisco General Hospital, said Lieutenant Ken Smith, a spokesman with the San Francisco Fire Dept.

Local news radio KCBS said they suffered cuts and slashes all over their bodies.

Ms LaMarca could not say how the nine-year-old tiger escaped but police were investigating.

The 40ha park was evacuated after the attack, but attendance was low at the time because of the Christmas holiday and early darkness, Ms LaMarca said.

The incident follows a December 22, 2006, attack when Tatiana ripped the flesh off a zookeeper's arm during feeding time as horrified visitors looked on.

The public feeding house was immediately closed, and only reopened in September after a $US250,000 ($287,000) safety upgrade.

The zoo has four tigers but only Tatiana left the cage.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said he was deeply saddened by the incident and said a thorough investigation had begun.

Reuters