Libyan Rebel Army Head Shot Dead

Libya’s rebel military commander, Abdel Fattah Younes, was found dead with a bullet wounded head. Rebels say he was shot by assailants. The killing of such a elderly figure is an embarrassment to the rebels and other supporters. Some say Gaddafi may have been responsible for this tragic death, considering the stark divisions between Gaddafi defectors and those whom he never worked with. The rebels refused to mention who killed Younes or where it occurred.

Weeping relatives and supporters carried his coffin to mourn him. Rumors had been spreading that Younes had held secret talks with the Gaddafi government. Mourners are worried that he may have died at the hands of other rebels. Rebel defense minister Omar Hariri said his death was still being investigated and that it was a great loss.

Seraj, a soldior believed to be his relative, said that two other army officials had been killed with him as well. This incident goes to underline that divisions in rebel ranks definitely do exist. Younes worked with Gaddafi, before swapping sides to become the military chief in his group of rebels. Some rebels admit that Islamists might be the ones to blame for the loss.

Norway Police Hammered For Slow Response to Oslo Tragedy

The man who caused the chaos and violence in Oslo, Norway was Anders Behring Breivik. After launching an assault on the innocent youth campers, he was expecting Norway’s police forces to come down and stop him. Instead, the police made the 25 mile journey by car, due to the lack of a helicopter, and took over 90 minutes to reach the gunman. After this terrible tragedy, international experts are saying that Norway’s government must work on its security forces and prepare them for more possible acts of terror in the future.

Survivors said they struggled to get their calls out to the police because emergency lines were rejecting all calls not connected to the Oslo bomb. After realizing that a gunman was also shooting teens, Breivik had already been attacking them for half an hour. Police finally revised the island death toll down to 68, after initially miscounting the dead bodies as 86.

According to Breivik’s lawyer, he was extremely surprised he even made it on to the island without being stopped by police. The island’s single part-time security guard was one of the first people he killed. Soon after police reached the crime site, Breivik was disarmed and in custody. According to the killer himself, he planned to surrender as soon as police arrived, in order to publicize his extreme anti-Muslim views in court and inspire others to perform similar attacks elsewhere. It is sad to see that a country renowned for a culture of openness must now inflict it’s residents with much tighter and stricter security.

Oslo Suffers Bomb Attack and Shooting

A bomb attacked Oslo’s central government district and killed 7 people, only soon before a gunman opened fire at a youth camp on a nearby island. The Oslo bomb destroyed the Prime Minister’s building, damaging the finance and oil departments. The attacks appeared to be planned as an Islamist militant assault, however it is still too early to draw any conclusions.

The Oslo bomb damaged the facade of the 17-storey central government building, scattering metal and glass all over the streets. The building of a publisher who recently interacted with a Mohammad cartoon controversy was also affected, but believed not to be intentional. The attack was said to be the most violent event in Norway since World War Two.

The district that was attacked is known to be the heart of power in Norway. There are several other key administration buildings nearby which were also harmed. Nevertheless, security was not tight due to the lack of violence in the past.

Fake Apple Store Found in China

Not so surprisingly, a blogger has discovered a fake Apple store operating in Kunming City, China. The anonymous blogger is a 27-year-old American living in the capital of China’s Yunnan region. Pictures on the man’s blog show a wealthy-looking Apple Store, containing the same sophisticated details as a real Apple Store. Sales assistants even walk around in their blue T-shirts with the apple logo and chat with the customers. The funny part is, the sales assistants were being fooled and believed they were really working for the Apple Company!

Outside the store, the words “Apple Store” were written by the famous Apple logo. This is what hinted to people that the store may be fake. Those words have yet not appeared on any real ones. Nonetheless, the interior of the store looks identical to Apple Stores found around the world. The truth is that Apple has no stores in Kunming City, China.

It is still unclear whether the store was selling fake or genuine Apple products. It may be that the products were real but were just bought from overseas and smuggled into the country. The operation of such stores underlines the minimal effort China’s government is putting into stopping such acts.

The Game Changin’ The Game?

Due to the NBA lockout shutting down the league’s free-agent market, general managers and other team executives must give their rosters some time to begin rebuilding. That means that no one affiliated with an NBA team is eligible to recruit any players. But this hasn’t stopped everyone from making some phone calls and setting up important meetings. As of now, this summer’s biggest powerbroker might be 31-year-old Jayceon Taylor, better known by his stage name, The Game. The rapper has taken his talents from the recording studio to the basketball courts, recently becoming the player-coach-GM for Go Ham, a team in South Central LA’s Drew League.

The Game has recruited an impressive roster, including appearances from Kevin Durant, Ron Artest, Derrick Williams, and many others. The game has definitely increased the league’s ties to the NBA. Surprisingly, recruiting NBA talent hasn’t led to easy wins for Go Ham. In one of their recent games, Go Ham lost to a team with no NBA players on it. Go Ham’s roster changes quit frequently, while most of the opposing teams include players who have been on the team for years.

The Game often spends his weekends at the Drew League in South Central, constantly trying to improve his team. The Drew League allows all fans to still watch some of their favorite NBA players even during the NBA lockout. Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention the games are FREE? Thats right. Maybe The Game is making this lockout turn out to the fans’ benefit?

California Dividing Into Two?

Republican member, Jeff Stone, of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors wants his county, along with 12 others, to secede from California and form the 51st state. As interesting as this sounds, his colleagues don’t seem to be too enthusiastic about his idea. Four members of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors agreed to allow a 5th member to call a statewide meeting on this long shot idea in fall. Each supervisor stated their objections to the idea, but agreed to at least talk about it after Stone said that private funding, not public, would be used to hold the meeting.

Campaigns to split California into halves and even thirds have been around since the days of the gold rush. Mr. Stone’s vision involves persuading 13 counties to secede from the state. Stone’s idea definitely has some pros. Some analysts believe it will balance out the power between Sacramento and California localities. But the vision remains legally and politically unrealistic and perhaps isn’t the best solution to the problems it seeks to solve.

The plan did not receive enthusiastic approval at the public board meeting either. Several local residents agreed with Stone that California is extremely hard to govern, while some called him names and hoped he would fail. At the very least, Stone’s secession bid has triggered useful conversations on the subject of “what makes California so difficult to govern?”.

US Airlines Threatened By Human Bomb Implants

The US Government has warned overseas airlines that fly into the country that foreign terrorists may surgically implant explosive devices into travelers. This means that fliers will likely encounter stricter security at the airport, including more pat-downs, bag screening, explosives detection, and passenger questioning. Unfortunately, the full-body backscatter scanners do not detect explosive devices beneath the skin. Nick Kimball, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration, refused to comment specifically on whether or not metal detectors or scanners would detect surgically implanted devices.

According to Kimball, only the TSA’s approach of using different security methods, from canine checks to air marshals, will give us the best chance to detect a threat before it is carried out. Air Travel continues to have its special appeal on terrorists, and evidence from Osama bin Laden’s compound showed that the al-Qaida leader still had the desire to attack airplanes. Last year, British officials reportedly uncovered intelligence that al-Qaida was planning to surgically implant bombs inside humans.

US officials have felt especially threatened about plots originating from Yemen. The US government and foreign air cariers have been hard at work, trying to identify ways to discover hidden explosives, including surgically implanted ones. Obviously, terrorizing airlines with surgically implanted bombs is easier said then done. There are only so many places to hide a bomb in the human body, and a suicide bomber would have to recover from the surgery before traveling and detonating the bomb.