Update 11:15 US President Barack Obama announced in the early hours of Monday 2 May, Swiss time, that Western nemesis and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed in an attack in Pakistan. He was killed in a US raid on the luxury residence near a Pakistani military base where he was staying in Abbottabad, about 150km north of Islamabad.
Reaction in US and the international media has been swift, starting with crowds gathering outside the White House to celebrate the end to a 10-year search for bin Laden. Al Jazeera’s correspondents in Pakistan and Afghanistan say that reaction there has so far been muted, and while the news agency reports US media are saying the body was taken to Afghanistan and dumped at sea, that “having the body may help convince any doubters that bin Laden is really dead.” The White House has not yet confirmed the news, which is being attributed widely to “a US official”.
The Economist notes that “Pakistani officials were not informed of the mission ahead of time, a detail that is likely to exacerbate tensions with the country. While it is not surprising that Mr bin Laden was found in Pakistan, most believed he was hiding out somewhere in the remote tribal areas. That he was found in a relatively large city raises troubling questions about what Pakistan’s spooks actually knew about his location.”
Pakistan’s Nation underscored that Obama had telephoned Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari. The Globe & Mail in Canada in a long report reviews the history of al-Qaeda and bin Laden since 11 September 2001 when terrorism took centre stage in the US. The Guardian details the 40-minute firefight that took bin Laden’s life, where three other people were also killed. They reportedly included a son of bin Laden and his most trusted courier.
National Public Radio in the US carries a biography of bin Laden, reminding readers that the 54-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen was the 17th child of 57 of a millionaire construction company owner, and the son spent his youth playing soccer and riding horses, before discovering radical Islamist ideas at university.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Economist, Fox News, Nation, Pakistan, The Globe & Mail, Canada, Guardian, UK, NPR
White House video (9 minutes) of Obama announcement of bin Laden death and press briefing transcript at the White House
Hans Erni with Yolanda Rojal, president of the Swiss foreign press association in Lucerne 16 May 2009
Hans Erni
Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hans Erni, Swiss artist who celebrated his 100th birthday in February, has been named Swiss Personality of the Year 2008-2009 by the Foreign Press Association, which is based in Geneva.
Erni Saturday evening 16 May welcomed a small group of journalists to his museum next to the Swiss Transportation Museum in Lucerne, his hometown. He spoke passionately for 30 minutes, focusing on his continuing work to promote peace.
The artist’s new wall fresco, a series of ceramic panels that plea for peace, is currently being installed to cover 60 metres of cement wall at the United Nations building in Geneva. It will be unveiled 6 June in a public ceremony.
The web site is much easier to use since they revised it in November 2008 but you now get a limited number of articles for free if you register; for months they advertised registration as free.
