TERRORISM: The U.S. squad had prepared to kill Osama bin Laden

REUTERS - The U.S. special forces involved in the attack against the residence where Osama bin Laden was hiding were prepared to kill the leader of Al Qaeda, officials said Monday U.S. national security.

"It was an operation to kill. If he released the white flag to surrender, he was captured alive," said one official.But during the preparation of
the operation, the working hypothesis was that bin Laden and fought, what actually happened.

The Islamist leader has "participated" in exchange of gunfire between U.S. commandos and the occupants of the fortified residence in which he entrenched himself in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, the official said.

Other officials said the clash lasted 40 minutes and that the al Qaeda leader had been shot in the head and chest and did not return fire.

Three other men and a woman were killed in the assault of American forces that have no loss in their ranks. A wife of Bin Laden, believed to be dead at first, is in fact injured.The woman killed in the raid was not used as human shields, an official said, correcting earlier statements.

Navy Seals

A senior U.S. administration has confirmed that the soldiers involved in the transaction knew that bin Laden would prefer to die rather than be captured alive.

"The U.S. troops do not seek to kill if there is a way to get a surrender in accordance with military rules of engagement.That said, I think the idea was widely shared that it would end with a death, "the official said.

The operation involved 15 members of special forces, mostly U.S. Navy Seals (elite unit of the Navy), who were based in Afghanistan, said an official familiar with the details of the attack.

Specialists in forensic medicine have also participated in the raid to recover evidence to prove the identity of bin Laden and hunt down information which other leaders of Al Qaeda or to foil the conspiracies being prepared.

According to the National Journal, U.S. authorities had used the information collected on the complex of Abbottabad to build a replica and conduct training sessions in early April.

In the hours that followed the death of Osama bin Laden by President Barack Obama, the commandos have surrounded the remains of Bin Laden at sea

This measure was taken so that the body of the leader of Al Qaeda does not become the object of a cult and it does not appear as a martyr for future activists.

The trail of a "mail"

The crucial information that helped track down bin Laden was provided during interrogations of activists detained by U.S. troops after the attacks of Sept. 11.

Some activists, many of which are held in military prison at Guantanamo, have informed U.S. intelligence on the existence of an "e" close to the Islamist leader.

Initially, U.S. officials did not know the names and activities of this messenger. His identity was discovered four years ago. Two years ago, another reliable information was obtained about the fact that this letter and his brother operated near Islamabad.

In August 2010, the United States end up unable to locate a residence in Abbottabad in which live two brothers, their families and a third larger family.

The residence is at the end of an unpaved road, not far from a military academy in Pakistan.Some residents are retired Pakistani officers.

Using photographs provided by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) from spy satellites and aircraft as well as plays the NSA, the CIA has concluded that the residence was equipped with safety means unusual. It also appeared that its occupants were taking precautions also unusual.

In early 2011, the CIA became convinced that a target "important" was in the residence of Abbottabad and the probability was high whether bin Laden. The CIA, however, has never had the "absolute certainty" that the leader of Al Qaeda was actually in residence, said an official.

FRANCE: "Immersion, Piss Christ," a controversial art photography, vandalized in Avignon

A photographic work by American artist Andres Serrano depicting a crucifix dipped in urine, and has provoked strong protests from Catholic movements who considered blasphemous, was vandalized Sunday in the premises of the contemporary art collection Yvon Lambert in Avignon (Vaucluse).

The work entitled "Piss Christ Immersion", and another snapshot of the New York artist whose subtitle, "Sister Miriam Jane" were destroyed Sunday around 11:30, shortly after the museum opened, two visitors equipped with a "hammer and a blunt object, such ice pick or screwdriver.

Three guards who tried to intervene were threatened and beaten, while the assailants managed to escape the museum, said the leadership of the collection that has filed a complaint and said that the museum would reopen its doors on Tuesday morning with "works shown as they are destroyed."

Sunday evening, the Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterrand condemned an "attack on a fundamental principle, the presentation of these works squarely within the creative freedom and expression which is part of the law," while recognizing that "one of the two works could offend some audiences.

Conducted in 1987 by Serrano said to be a Christian, "Disposal Piss Christ" display as part of an exhibition entitled "I believe in miracles", celebrating ten years of the collection was the subject since early April of strong protests from many Catholic movements, especially fundamentalists.

The Civitas Institute, which presents on its website as "a work of regaining political and social re-Christianize France to" activist "establishment of the Social Kingship of Christ over the nations and peoples", launched a petition against the work.

The series editor, Eric Mézil, had already reported several hundred phone calls and emails "offensive" after the launch of the petition. Saturday, a demonstration involving some "800 ultra-conservatives and fundamentalist youth," according to management, was forced to close the museum.

The bishop of Avignon, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Cattenoz, had also demanded the withdrawal of the work, denouncing a cliche "abhorrent" that "violates the image of Christ on the cross, the heart of our Christian faith."

"I am persecuted by telephone. I received 30,000 emails, I am not exaggerating, 30,000 emails fundamentalists (...) This ignorance, such intolerance.It's the Middle Ages who returns to big-step ", has outraged Yvon Lambert, who lent his collection for twenty years to a future donation to the state, with deposit works in Avignon.

The Observatory for the freedom of creation, from the League of Human Rights, denounced in a statement "these acts of vandalism" and reiterated: "That the public to judge the works, not self-appointed censors" .

The work, which was the subject of controversy in the U.S. media "extremists" at the time of its creation, had elicited no response in a retrospective in 2007 at Avignon, at no more than National Campaign to display the exhibition, which included the work.

Boasting approximately 350 works, the collection is allowed Lambert in the eighteenth century mansion owned by the city of Avignon. The municipality, region and state are subsidizing the arts center. The exhibition "I believe in miracles" opened Dec. 12, 2010 must be completed on May 8

MEDIA: The wall of the New York Times paid no fee if it

The information site most visited in the world, the New York Times, came on Monday in a new era. That of charges. A bet that it hopes the famous American newspaper, should not cause him to lose the nearly 30 million unique visitors per month used to receiving their daily dose of information without spending a penny. To achieve this, the paper has introduced a subscription system considered complicated and very porous by more than one user.

The purpose of the New York Times is not to make that pay the most "addicted" to his readers. "It is above all an investment in the future," wrote on the site on Monday, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the newspaper's editor.For now, the reader does not pay until the 21st article retrieved within a month. In addition, users can continue reading without counting it comes from an article on Twitter, Facebook or blog. He even entitled to five free visits per day from search engines. Besides those who subscribe to the paper version also free access to the site.

Proliferation of avoidance strategies

To be faced with "wall" of the fee must be a major consumer of the site. And the New York Times is not kind to those he calls "the most loyal readers."They will pay $ 15 per month for access to the site and the application on smartphone, $ 25 for the site and the iPad version and $ 35 for all. The Times does not ask for her hand as $ 13 per month for the gathering offers all its services.

Yet, despite the flexibility of the model for "casual readers," the transition to fee has not been smooth. Soon, workarounds Wall paying emerged.

The first to have found the technical gap in the wall is a Canadian computer - the subscription system was tested one week in Canada before its worldwide deployment. He has published last week, a small code to never have to pay.Another user has created a Twitter feed that publishes links to all articles of daily life, allowing them free access. Finally, two former Google employees have set up "New York Times for a nickel" [The New York Times for anything, Ed], a site that lets you view the newspaper without paying.

NYT vs. Murdoch

Why then have paid $ 40 million charge as a wall pierced? The New York Times has asked two former Twitter and Google to stop their initiatives, but stating that he would not complain in court."There will always be some clever to circumvent the system," concedes, a philosopher, a spokesman for the newspaper.

A laissez-faire seems surprising at first, but if we look at the fate of the other big wall project fee, that of the Murdoch empire is finally in line with the era of time. In June 2010, the media tycoon Robert Murdoch decided to erect a model paying much more binding on all its publications. For the British Times, one of its flagship, while paying the passage was rare: 21 million monthly visitors it passed in late 2010, to 2.5 million. A destiny that the New York Times that claims to be the reference on the Net does not surely know.

PAKISTAN: At least 24 dead in suicide bombing at a funeral

AFP - At least 24 people were killed Wednesday by a suicide bomber who detonated his bomb at a funeral in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan, a country gripped by a deadly wave of bombings Taliban allied with al-Qaeda , police said.

The tragedy occurred at the funeral of the wife of a man fighting in an anti-Taliban militia, in the hamlet of Adeza, on the outskirts of large metropolitan France's northwest, located at the gateway areas tribal stronghold of Islamist insurgents.

"The bomber came on foot, his goal was the anti-Taliban militia members" who attended the funeral of the wife of one of them, told AFP by telephone Ijaz Mohammad Khan, an officer Peshawar police.

"At least 24 people were killed and more than 40 were injured," he added.

This new attack comes a day after a devastating attack at a service station near the offices of the powerful intelligence services in Faisalabad in central Pakistan, which killed 25 people and injured over 150.

Pakistan is experiencing an unprecedented wave of attacks (over 450), mostly perpetrated by Taliban allied with al-Qaeda that killed more than 4,100 dead in three and a half years.

These insurgent groups and fundamentalist allies have ruled in the summer of 2007 and in unison with Osama bin Laden himself, jihad Pakistani government for its support for Washington since late 2001.

The attacks are mostly security forces - army, police, intelligence services - but also increasingly on civilian targets.