Iran - Activist dies in fight with intelligence officials during journalist father's funeral 

Haleh Sahabi, an activist and contributor to the magazine Chashm Andaz (Panorama), has died in hospital after being hit in the stomach when she, fellow family members and friends resisted attempts by security officials to stop the funeral of her father, Ezatollah Sahabi, a leading opposition figure and former editor.

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Yanomami Indians in the Brazilian Amazon have captured an airplane used by health workers, in protest at corruption within the health service.

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Green spaces in Britain are worth at least £30 billion a year in health and welfare benefits, says the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and economic prosperity.

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ISI helped Headley execute Mumbai attacks

The ISI and LeT coordinated with each other, and ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar in attacking Mumbai on 26 November 2008, accused David Coleman Headley said

In further indictment of ISI, 26/11 accused David Coleman Headley on Monday said the Pakistani spy agency and its operatives like Major Iqbal and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed had helped him in laying the groundwork for the Mumbai attacks.

The testimony by 50-year-old Headley, a prosecution witness, came as the trial of Mumbai attacks co-accused and his longtime friend Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian of Pakistani origin, opened in the US at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Building. Pakistani-American Headley is also a co-accused.

“They (ISI and LeT) coordinated with each other and ISI provided assistance to Lashkar,” Headley told judge Harry D. Leinenweber.

According to Headley, Rana’s old friend from military school in Pakistan, two years before terrorists struck Mumbai, he began laying the groundwork for the attack with $25,000 finance from Major Iqbal.

Headley said that when LeT leaders began talking about a possible attack in India, he suggested that he get involved.

“I suggested that I change my name and make a new passport to make it easy to enter India undetected,” he told the court.

Headley said ISI provided help to LeT and that he first started training in Pakistan more than a decade ago with the Lashkar.

Headley said LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind behind the 26/11 attacks that killed 166 people, motivated him for carrying out a “jihad”. Saeed told him that the satisfaction of one second of “jihad” is equal to “100 years of worship.”

LeT operators also chose Headley because he was an American and that people would least suspect him.

A bald Headley, wearing a blue T-shirt and a black jacket, said that besides Hafiz Saeed and Major Iqbal, others like Major Abdur Rehman Pasha, Zaki Saab and Sajid Mir, who are named by him in the case, had helped him.

He said ISI provided financial and military assistance to Lashkar and he assumed they worked under the same umbrella.

Headley had scouted India’s key atomic installation BARC and had visited Shiv Sena headquarters in Mumbai, prosecutor Sarah Streicker told the judge.

Headley had gone to the Shiv Sena office to build contacts with its public relations officer Rajaram Rege.

Streicker said that Rana knew all along what Headley was doing with the preparation of the attacks and that “India deserved it”.

“Rana knew all along what Headley was doing and defendant moved his business for Headley’s terror and plotting of attacks,” Streicker told the court.

“Defendant Rana knew about the deadly consequences of his assistance and he did not stop to provide assistance,” Streicker added.

On the other hand, Rana’s lawyer Charlie Swift, who has defended the case of Osama bin Laden’s driver Salim Ahmed Hamdan, said that Headley was “manipulative leading multi-lives” and maintained three wives.

Swift also played a telephonic call between Abdur Rehman Pasha and Headley in which he made fun of Rana. Swift said that Headley was a double agent who worked for ISI and CIA, DEA at the same time.

Delhi’s National Defence College is next target: Headley

26/11 mastermind Illiyas Kashmiri believed that attacking National Defence College would kill more Indian brigadiers than what the Pakistan Army could not do in four wars with India

Mumbai attacks co-accused David Headley on Wednesday testified that New Delhi-based National Defence College is on the hit-list of terrorists as 26/11 mastermind Illiyas Kashmiri believes in this way he can kill more Indian brigadiers than what the Pakistan Army could not do in four wars with India.

Within a few months of the Mumbai terror attacks, Kashmiri, who has now emerged as mastermind of 26/11, met Headley, and asked him to go to India again to do surveillance of the National Defence College in New Delhi and a number of Chhabad Houses in various cities of India.

When Headley, accompanied by Major Abdur Rehman Pasha - one of his handlers, went to see Kashmiri in Waziristan in February 2009, he among the Lashkar-e-Taiba circles had emerged as a “surveillance expert” thus a key element of the planning of the terrorist attack.

“Kashmiri asked me to return to India. He said that his leadership was very upset about the recent Israeli strike on the Gaza strip and (thus) wanted retaliation,” Headley said in response to a question, adding that Kashmiri wanted him to identify the Chhabad houses in India.

On the way back he was given a list of Chhabad houses in India by Pasha.

Headley said since he was coming to India again, he was asked by Kashmiri to also visit National Defence College, which he described as a prestigious Indian institution that teaches high level army offices, Colonels and above.

Pasha told him that if “we were able to conduct” attack on NDC then “we will be able to kill more Brigadiers than Pakistan has done in the four wars” with India.

Following the instructions from his handlers, Headley carried out surveillances of Chhabad houses in Delhi, Pushkar and Goa, along with that of the National Defence College.

He again went to Pakistan to hand over to them the surveillance materials including pictures and videos.

He shared the NDC videos with Pasha, who was very happy with the materials and told Headley that he would definitely work on this target.

When asked how serious Pasha was on this project, Headley said: “What I got from him that it would be a target in the near future.”

It is important for not only Pasha, but also him, Headley stressed.

When Headley, shared the NDC plan with Rana, he said: “This would be a big deal”.

However, he did not talk about the Chhabad house attacks.

The Mumbai terrorist suspect said that he was afraid of going back to India at this point of time.

Why?, he was asked.

“Because I have been coming in and out of India before the (Mumbai) attack, conducted the surveillance, (so I was) was concerned about being apprehended in India during the travel,” he said.

But since this was a mission, he decided to go, not before sending an email to Tahawwur Rana and asking him what needs to be done in the event if his death and how to distribute money or take care the well being of his wives and children.

“I am travelling and things are so bad these days, I would like to leave a few instructions with you in case of my death or if I am anticipated for some reason,” Headley wrote to Rana on 3 March, 2009 in an email.

Two German airports shut as volcanic cloud drifts

Two German airports halted flights on Wednesday as ash from an Icelandic volcano drifted across northern Europe, with parts of Scandinavia also facing a risk of disruption.

The Grimsvotn volcano forced the cancellation of some 500 European flights on Tuesday, with Scotland especially hard hit.

Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency responsible for some of the world’s busiest air corridors, said the ash cloud may affect parts of Denmark, southern Norway and southwest Sweden on Wednesday.

In northern Germany, Hamburg and Bremen airports cancelled takeoffs and landings, and German authorities said Berlin terminals could also face closure from 9:00pm.

“Currently there is no forecast when the restriction will be lifted,” Hamburg airport said on its website. German airline Lufthansa advised passengers that tickets for cancelled flights within Germany could be exchanged for rail vouchers.

The ash has caused far fewer problems than last year, when more than 10 million people were hit by a six-day European airspace shutdown after another Icelandic volcano erupted. Airlines put their revenue loss then at $1.7 billion.

But the latest episode has exposed disarray among the people who decide on aviation safety as they try to apply new rules to avoid another mass shutdown. Budget airline Ryanair was again vocal in its criticism on Tuesday, and airline association IATA said more coordination was needed.

Dutch airline KLM said it would cancel 19 flights on Wednesday to and from Britain, Norway, Sweden and Germany. It expected to operate all other flights as scheduled.

In Iceland, volcano experts had good news for airlines as they said the eruption was petering out.

President Olafur Grimsson told the BBC: “The volcano seems to be calming down. The eruption is gradually being diminished and the ash cloud is definitely smaller than it has been.”

VIP TRAVELLERS

Traffic in Scotland and northern England was the main ash victim on Monday, but Britain said it thought this would ease. UK air traffic control body NATS said no ash was expected over Britain from 1:00am.

Among travellers affected were US President Barack Obama, who left Ireland for Britain late on Monday ahead of schedule.

The Barcelona soccer team flew to London early for Saturday’s Champions League final against Manchester United.

Eurocontrol said the approximately 500 flights cancelled on Tuesday were out of around 29,000 expected that day across the continent.

New procedures put the onus on airlines to make judgments on whether it is safe to fly through ash, in coordination with the forecasting authorities and civil aviation bodies.

Showing the problems, sources told Reuters that a British research plane designed to sample ash remained grounded for a second day in a wrangle over its deployment.

The rules are also not accepted by all, with Germany backing a tougher stance for the sake of safety, aviation sources said.

“The potential for a patchwork of inconsistent state decisions on airspace management still exists,” IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement.

Ryanair said it had safely sent two planes into what authorities had deemed high ash zones over Scotland, and criticised “bureaucratic incompetence”.

Grimsvotn erupted on Saturday and smoke belched as high as 20 km into the sky. The eruption is its most powerful since 1873 and stronger than the volcano that caused trouble last year.