World News joined 2

[OMEN]

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said he would bring "the right kind of change" to the US presidency as he launched a general election campaign against likely Democratic opponent Barack Obama.

McCain, an Arizona senator who has wrapped up his party's White House nomination, also sought to distance himself from President George W. Bush by promising a new energy policy and a plan to curb global warming.

"He is an impressive man, who makes a great first impression," McCain says of Obama, according to a copy of prepared remarks he will deliver later on Tuesday.

"But he hasn't been willing to make the tough calls, to challenge his party, to risk criticism from his supporters to bring real change to Washington. I have."

Reuters

[OMEN]

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri is expected to issue a new statement calling for an end to Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, US-based Internet monitors said.

The statement was produced by al Qaeda's media arm, as-Sahab, and an announcement of its impending release was posted to Islamist Web forums, the SITE Intelligence Group said. Monitor IntelCenter said the audio-video release was expected within 72 hours.

Zawahri is following recent statements by Osama bin Laden that also reflected an increased emphasis by al Qaeda on the Palestinian issue. Analysts say al Qaeda is in a competition with Hezbollah for Islamist support.

The SITE Intelligence Group said bin Laden's top aide will address the upcoming anniversary of the June 1967 Six Day War after which Israel occupied the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, Gaza, Sinai and Golan Heights.

Al Qaeda has vowed attacks on Jews both within and outside Israel. Despite calls by al Qaeda supporters for the militant network to establish a presence in Palestinian areas, US intelligence officials see no evidence it has done so.

Bin Laden on May 18 urged Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state.

In his last message on April 22, Zawahri urged Muslims to back the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, which he said posed the biggest threat to US-led forces.

US and Pakistani officials have said they believe bin Laden and Zawahri are hiding somewhere on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

I wanted Hillary to win:sad:

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's awful to read...

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow, they should have just let him rot in jail.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Interesting news, thanks.

[OMEN]

The accused al Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks sang a chant of praise to Allah and said he would welcome the death penalty when he appeared in a US military court.

"This is what I wish, to be martyred," Pakistani captive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative in US custody, told the Guantanamo war crimes court.

He and four accused co-conspirators appeared in court at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base in Cuba for the first time on charges that could result in their execution.

As the judge questioned him about whether he was satisfied with the US military lawyer appointed to defend him, Mohammed stood and began to sing in Arabic, cheerfully pausing to translate his own words into English.

"My shield is Allah most high," he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney.

He criticized the United States for fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, waging what he called "a crusader war," and enacting illegal laws, including those authorizing same-sex marriages.

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, tried to persuade Mohammed to accept an attorney, telling him, "It's a bad idea for you to represent yourself."

Mohammed looked old and portly and wore a long, bushy gray beard and big black military-issue glasses. He wore a neat white tunic and turban, in stark contrast to the saggy white undershirt he wore in photographs taken after his capture during a raid in Pakistan in March 2003.

Mohammed and co-defendants Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash are charged with committing terrorism and conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians in the attacks that launched the Bush administration's global war on terrorism.

They also face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed in 2001 when hijacked passenger planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

CAME WILLINGLY

All five defendants came to court willingly, a spokeswoman for the trials said. She initially said none were shackled inside the courtroom, but Binalshibh, whom she characterized as having "mental issues," wore leg chains bolted to the floor.

Bin Attash, who lost his right leg in a battlefield accident in Afghanistan in 1997, appeared frail and sat on a pillow.

Mohammed told a military review panel last year that he approached Osama bin Laden with the proposal to hijack passenger planes and crash them into landmark US buildings, then oversaw execution of the plan "from A to Z," according to US military transcripts of the hearing.

But Mohammed cast doubt on that transcript in Thursday's hearing.

"They mistranslated my words and put many words in my mouth," he said in broken English learned as an engineering student in North Carolina.

He later objected when the judge repeatedly told one of his lawyers to sit down, telling the court, "It is inquisition, it's not trial."

"All of this has been taken under torturing," he added, "You know that very well."

The other defendants are accused of helping choose, train and fund the 19 hijackers, assisting their flight school enrollment and travel to the United States.

Their lawyers are expected to waive formal reading of the charges and defer entering a plea until they've had more time to prepare.

Prosecutors want to start the trial on September 15, a date the defence says was chosen to influence the US presidential election in November.

All five suspects, who could be executed if convicted, were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 after spending about three years in secret CIA prisons.

The CIA has acknowledged interrogating Mohammed using a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and condemned as torture by human rights observers.

Defence lawyers have said they will challenge any attempt to introduce evidence tainted by abuse.

Reuters