Girl, 15, gang raped outside school dance while witnesses film horror attack
By Paul Thompson
Last updated at 7:42 PM on 27th October 2009
The brutal gang rape of a teenager, while up to a dozen people watched and filmed the assault on mobile phones, has been described as 'something out of a horror movie' by shocked U.S. police.
The 15-year-old victim was found unconscious after the terrifying assault in the grounds of a school in California.
Police said she had been raped by up to six people in an ordeal lasting two-and-a-half hours before being beaten and left for dead.
Detectives arrest a suspect in the gang rape of a girl, 15, on the grounds of a school in Richmond, California
But what has shocked police in Richmond, California, is that as many as 12 others watched the attack take place and did nothing to help.
Investigators said several filmed the rape on their mobile phones and they are checking YouTube and Facebook to see if footage of the assault had been posted on the internet.
'This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it,' said Lt Mark Gagan from Richmond Police.
'It was like a horror movie after looking at the evidence. I can't believe not one person felt compelled to help her.'
The events mirrored the 1988 film The Accused for which Jodie Foster won an Oscar for her portrayal of woman who is raped while others look on and do nothing to help.
The assault took place after the student left a dance at her school and was waiting to be picked up by her father.
Police said she met a former student who took her to a courtyard away from school grounds.
After she was encouraged to drink alcohol the assault began.
As word of the sexual assault spread by text messages as many as 15 people crowded round to watch, with some joining in.
Police received a tip off about a possible assault and found the victim semi-naked under a bench.
She had been severely beaten and was flown by air ambulance to hospital where she is said to be in a stable condition.
'She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanised by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other's presence,' Lt. Mark Gagan said.
'What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it.
'I would say we're looking at four to seven active participants of sexual assault and extremely violent felonies.
'We're also suspecting there were up to a dozen people who witnessed what had happened and their involvement is unknown.'
Police arrested Manuel Ortega, 19, at the scene as he attempted to flee. Two other men are being questioned by police.
Motorist 'drives a mile with a MAN stuck in his windshield'
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:48 PM on 27th October 2009
A U.S. motorist has been charged with hitting a man with his car and then driving for more than a mile with the victim stuck in his windshield.
Christopher Swiridowsky drove into the group of three men standing on the side of a motorway in Providence, Rhode Island, police said today.
One of the men became trapped in his windshield. But, astonishingly, Swiridowsky drove on, only stopping because he realised someone was following him.
'Hit' man: Christopher Swiridowsky, who allegedly drove for a mile with a man stuck to his windshield
He managed to escape after confronting his pursuer - but was later found by police hiding in a closet in a Rhode Island home.
The victim survived - but suffered two broken legs and a broken arm.
Swiridowsky, 30, is now facing charges of leaving the scene of an accident, and has been jailed after allegedly violating bail in another case.
Swiridowsky's phone has been disconnected. No defence attorney is listed for him, and a public defender who previously represented him hasn't returned a message
Sex offender is charged with kidnap and killing of girl, 17, who vanished after Facebook meeting
By Paul Sims and Chris Brooke
Last updated at 12:11 PM on 28th October 2009
Victim: Ashleigh Hall's body was found dumped in a ditch
A man on the Sex Offenders' Register was today charged with killing a 17-year-old girl who disappeared after she arranged to meet a man she befriended on Facebook.
The body of Ashleigh Hall, a child care student, was found in a field in Sedgefield, County Durham, on Monday evening.
Peter Chapman appeared before Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court this morning charged with her manslaughter and kidnap.
The 32-year-old, of no fixed address but who had links to Stockton-on-Tees and Merseyside, also faced a charge of failing to notify a new address as required for sex offenders.
He was remanded in custody to appear before Teesside Crown Court on November 3 following a five-minute hearing.
The alleged killing raises serious questions over how effectively the known sex offender was being monitored.
As a registered sex attacker he was required to inform police of any change of address.
Ashleigh, who was studying childcare at Darlington College, left her house at 7pm on Sunday, telling her mother she was going to stay at a friend's house and would be back the following afternoon. 
Charged: The Prison van carrying Peter Chapman leaves Newton Aycliffe Magistrates court today
A forensic officer leaves a tent with the body of a teenage girl inside, in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham
When she failed to return her mother repeatedly rang her mobile phone but there was no reply.
On Monday evening at 5.40pm, traffic officers, alerted by their onboard computer, pulled over a Ford Mondeo being driven without any insurance on the A177 in County Durham. 
Ashleigh was studying childcare at Darlington College
They arrested the driver on suspicion of motoring offences and took him to Middlesbrough police station. He was then booked in and taken to a cell.
After the body was found the man was transferred to Darlington Police station where he underwent a medical examination.
Police would not confirm how the girl had died or whether she had been sexually assaulted.
It is not known if the suspect was being monitored by Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, an agency set up to keep a close eye on dangerous sex offenders.
The girl's body was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital where a post-mortem examination was being carried out by a Home Office pathologist.
Forensic officers yesterday continued to examine the scene just yards from a Little Chef restaurant and Travelodge hotel. Detective Chief Inspector Paul Harker said the body of the girl, who had not been reported missing, could have been there for up to 24 hours.
The car was also undergoing a forensic examination.
DCI Harker said that the girl's family had since looked on her computer and discovered conversations with an unknown man.
Today Ashleigh's devastated mother Andrea paid tribute to her daughter - and warned other parents of the dangers of children using Facebook.
'Tell your kids to be careful on the internet,' she said. 'Don't meet someone without telling your family where you are going. Don't trust anybody and don't put your children on Facebook or other sites if they are under age.
'We have learned a terrible lesson. All we ask now is that people help the police in any way they can. We don't want any other child to be a victim.'
She added: 'No one can imagine the hurt and devastation that has hit our family.
'Ashleigh was loving, honest, caring and well-liked.
'Everybody loved her. She was a person who brought light into the lives of others.
'Ashleigh was in her last year at college on a child care course and hoped for a career as a child minder or nursery nurse.
'All the kids liked her, in the fact the whole community was fond of her and they have shown that love by rallying round to support us in our time of need.
'She was the eldest of four children and her sisters - Olivia, aged six, Ellie, four and one-year-old Evie have been distraught.
'To have Ashleigh taken from us in such circumstances is beyond belief and I don't want other families to suffer what we are going through.'
Hunt for evidence: Forensic officers near the spot where the body was found
Did you see it? The Ford Mondeo car, registration S148 JNK, which Durham Police are asking for sightings of in connection with the murder
Ashleigh, who had four sisters, left Hurworth School in Darlington last year after completing her GCSEs.
One college friend said Ashleigh had confided that she had met a boy online.
Danny Fisher, 17, from Darlington, who went to college with Ashleigh, said: 'She was always really popular.'
Other shocked friends paid tribute to Ashleigh, describing her as a bubbly girl, who was always smiling.
James Hyde, 18, said: 'She has four little sisters and she was always looking out for them. She loved them.'
Elisha Currie, 17, said: 'I did a work placement with Ashleigh at nursery for four months over the summer.
'She was always really helpful and great with the chidren.
'All the girls that knew her at the nursery said she was a really great girl and had a great personality.'
A white tent covers the place where the 17-year-old's body was found
Police officers guard the area behind their cordon
Hurworth School's headmaster Eamonn Farrar said: 'I'm absolutely stunned. I heard it on the news and thought it couldn't be our Ashleigh, but then the news came through to my colleague. I just can't believe it.
'We will try to remember Ashleigh not in terms of her passing, but as a student at Hurworth, and one we were all fond of.
On the dangers of forging relationships on the internet, he added: 'This shouldn't happen to anybody. '
Pub regular banned from drinking Stella died after downing six pints of water in protest
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:51 AM on 28th October 2009
A pub regular banned from drinking Stella Artois lager at his local died after he downed six pints of water in protest, an inquest heard.
Tony Holtam, 47, collapsed while watching TV in the Mackworth Arms in Bridgend, South Wales.
The forestry worker was a heavy drinker who could down five pints of Stella per hour, the inquest heard..
But landlady Sian Davis banned him from buying the strong lager because of the way Mr Holtam would 'act up' when he was drunk.
Drinking ban: Tony Holtam was stopped from drinking stronger lagers at The Mackworth Arms in Bridgend, South Wales
Ms Davies said: 'He used to get in a bit of a mess with it - I would only allow him to drink weaker lagers.
'On the day he died Tony came into the pub and only drank water.
'He was in his corner watching the Grand Prix and it looked like he was having a fit.
'He just went rigid. He was sitting with his back against the wall so the table was in front of him.
'He pushed the table up and was clutching his chest.'
Pathologist Alan Rees, who carried out a post mortem examination said there were 'dangerously low' levels of sodium in Mr Holtam's bloodstream.
He told the inquest in Aberdare that low sodium levels coupled with underlying health problems - including cirrhosis of the liver - were probably to blame for his death.
Mr Holtam’s brother, Gary, told the hearing his brother had suffered from jaundice and prostate problems and had received treatment for low blood sodium on two previous occasions – one just a month before his death.
Mr Holtam, of Laleston, Bridgend, was a Christmas tree salesman and was known for donating trees to villages in the Bridgend area.
Verdict: Accidental death.
Woman Accused of Offering Sex for World Series Tickets on Craigslist
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A Philadelphia woman was arrested Tuesday after she allegedly posted an ad on Craigslist offering to perform sex acts in exchange for World Series tickets, MyFoxPhilly reported.
Susan Finkelstein, 43, was charged with prostitution and related offenses after police say she advertised herself as a buxom, blond, die-hard Phillies fan who was desperately seeking World Series tickets and would have sex to get them.
"I'm the creative type! Maybe we can help each other," authorities say Finkelstein's online ad read. She described herself as "gorgeous" and said her price was negotiable, according to police.
Finkelstein was busted when, authorities say, an undercover officer responded to the Craigslist posting. She allegedly offered to perform sex acts on the officer in exchange for the coveted tickets of the baseball championship between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.
Serves you right bitch: 'Taunts of tormentors as girl lay dying after jumping from a window to escape them'
By Arthur Martin
Last updated at 1:08 AM on 28th October 2009
Window fall: Rosimeiri Boxall died 'in a bid to escape her bullies'
A vicar's adopted daughter was hounded to death by two teenage girls, a court heard yesterday.
Rosimeiri Boxall, 19, jumped from a window to escape a 'prolonged period of physical and verbal abuse'.
But even as she lay dying from multiple injuries, one of her tormentors stood over her, calling her 'bitch' and 'whore', the Old Bailey was told.
The 13-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, picked up Miss Boxall's mobile phone and hurled it to the ground, shouting: 'Serves you right, you bitch'.
The girl, now 15, and Oluwakemi Ajose, 19, of Charlton, South-East London, deny manslaughter in May last year.
Miss Boxall was born in an orphanage in Brazil and adopted by the Reverend Simon Boxall, 54 - now Anglican vicar at the Open Gateway Community Church in Thamesmead - and his wife Rachel. The family moved to the UK in 2005.
Miss Boxall had spent the day of her death with the two girls in a house in Blackheath, South-East London.
The property is run by Greenwich social services as temporary accommodation for teenagers.
Roger Smart, prosecuting, said: 'It appears that there was friction between the girls over a boy.'
Father Simon Boxall was at the Old Bailey today where two girls are accused of her murder
He said Ajose and the 13-year-old became aggressive and violent after drinking vodka.
The court was shown mobile phone footage said to be of an attack on Miss Boxall just half an hour before her death.
It appeared to show her sitting on the bed while Ajose sprayed air freshener in her face before punching and slapping her head.
A voice said to be that of the 13-year-old could be heard shouting encouragement, telling Ajose to punch 'lower, lower'. Miss Boxall was also subjected to a torrent of swearing and abuse.
The video footage was later shown to Raffaelina Asli, 47, who was helping her son move into a flat below.
Shocked at the violence, she ran upstairs and demanded to be let into the girls' flat.
As she walked in she called Miss Boxall's name, but there was no answer.
The jury heard that the 13-year-old girl shouted: '****ing hell, she's escaped. She's gone out the ****ing window. She's ****ing jumped.'
Mr Smart said Miss Boxall had not wanted to fight and was passive throughout the incident.
He said: 'Rosie fell to her death having, in fear of further violence at the hands of the defendants, clambered out of a window.'
The trial continues. 
Rosimeiri, 19, died after plunging from a third floor window (above and below) at Blackheath, south-east London
Texas Man Executed for 2000 Shooting Death
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A man convicted of murder in the robbery and slaying of another man in San Antonio more than nine years ago has been executed in Texas.
Twenty-eight-year-old Reginald Blanton received lethal injection for the April 2000 shooting death of Carlos Garza at the 22-year-old man's apartment.
Blanton maintained his innocence but a security video submitted at his capital murder trial showed him pawning two gold necklaces and a religious medal belonging to Garza about 20 minutes after the shooting. Blanton was wearing more of Garza's jewelry when he was arrested four days later.
Blanton's twin told police Blanton broke into Garza's apartment, believing no one was home, and shot Garza when he appeared.
The execution Tuesday evening came less than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals.
My bizarre and terrifying childhood with my father, Osama bin Laden
By Charlotte Kemp
Last updated at 1:41 AM on 28th October 2009
He swapped their luxury home for a cave, killed his puppies to test his poison gas and tried to make him a suicide bomber. Here, one of Osama bin Laden's sons tells of his bizarre and terrifying childhood.
Asleep in the guest room at his grandmother's home in Jeddah, a 20-year-old man is woken from a deep sleep by a wailing from another room.
Seconds later, his door is thrown open and his uncle comes rushing in. 'Come quickly!' he cries.
'See what your father has done! He has ruined all our lives! He has destroyed us!'
Omar bin Laden, aged 15, pictured with his father Osama bid Laden
Sins of the father: Omar bin Laden in Saudi Arabia in 1997. Omar had no idea his father was planning the September 11 attacks
Not yet fully awake, the young man soon finds himself in front of a television screen where he can scarcely believe the images unfolding before his eyes.
Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. But for Omar bin Laden, the shock of what he saw was magnified by conflicting emotions.
The fourth son of Osama bin Laden, he had recently fled his father's side in Afghanistan and insists he had no idea his father had been planning the biggest terrorist atrocity the world has known. Indeed, it was only after months of torment that Omar finally accepted that the man who raised him was behind the attack.
'The words and images were too horrific to comprehend,' he says. 'Although my uncle had expressed his worst fears, none of us could truly believe that someone we knew, someone we had loved, had anything to do with the catastrophic events we were watching.
'It seemed impossible for my father to be the one responsible for the chaos and death going on in America. The attack I was seeing was far too vast, something that only another superpower could organise.' 
Osama bin Laden's son described him as a harsh disciplinarian who regularly beat them
He adds: 'I did not want my father to be the one responsible. Only much later, when he took personal credit for the attacks, did I know I must give up the luxury of doubt.
That was the moment to set aside the dream I had indulged in, feverishly hoping the world was wrong and it was not my father who brought about that horrible event.
'After hearing an audiotape of my father's own words taking credit for the attacks, I faced the reality that he was the perpetrator behind the events of September 11, 2001.'
Much has been written in the eight years that have passed since 9/11 - but never before has the story been told from the unique perspective of the bin Laden family.
Now Omar and his mother, bin Laden's first wife Najwa, have collaborated on an intriguing new book - Growing Up Bin Laden - which lifts the lid on the secretive life of the world's most wanted man.
While some may question their motives for speaking out, it is certainly fascinating, if deeply unnerving, to read such vivid first-hand accounts about life within Osama bin Laden's family.
Their version of events sheds light on how the son of Saudi millionaires turned his back on a life of fast cars and affluence to become a terrorist mastermind, obsessed with the idea of waging a religious war, Jihad, against the West.
Not only did he amass followers, but bin Laden also purposely sired a vast family by five wives in the hope his sons would join his sick cause.
A harsh disciplinarian, he toughened his boys up with regular beatings and gruelling desert survival trips from a young age, before kitting them out with Kalashnikovs and urging them to sign up as suicide bombers in their teens.
Also revealed for the first time are personal details about bin Laden, which had remained a secret. His son insists, for example, that his father is blind in his right eye as the result of a metal work accident at school and that he suffers from recurring bouts of malaria.
Najwa bin Laden provides a fascinating insight into the control her husband exerted over his family and his followers. She also reveals what it was like raising her 11 children in exile in Sudan, and later in the inhospitable surrounds of the notorious Tora Bora mountain hideout in Afghanistan.
Now 51 and living in Syria with her second eldest son and two youngest daughters, Najwa fled Afghanistan just days before September 11 and has no idea whether the children she was forced to leave behind are alive or dead.
Yet still she refuses to criticise her husband, saying only this: 'For all the horrible events that have occurred since I left Afghanistan, I can only think and feel with my mother's heart. A mother's heart feels the pain of every loss, weeping not only for my children, but for the lost children of every mother.'
Najwa Ghanem was just 15 when she married her 17-year-old first cousin, Osama. Although the union was arranged between the two families, she insists it was a love match and describes the young Osama as a 'soft-spoken, serious boy' whose brown eyes 'lit up with pleasure anytime I walked into a room'.
'See what your father has done! He has ruined all our lives! He has destroyed us!'
Even so, for a Muslim girl used to a life of relative freedom in the port city of Latakia, Syria, her new role as the veiled wife of a devout Saudi took some adjusting to. Home was a two-storey house in Jeddah, where she was expected to live in seclusion while her young husband finished his studies at a prestigious, boys-only school.
Fluent in English, the young bin Laden juggled his studies with his work for the family's construction empire, the huge Saudi Bin Laden Group. And apart from a penchant for 'new cars with big engines', Najwa remembers him as a man of simple tastes who liked to eat stuffed courgette and drive to the desert for long walks.
The couple's first child, a son, was born in 1976 and another boy soon followed. Confined to the domestic world, a teenage mother with two toddlers and another baby soon on the way, Najwa appears not to have noticed a crucial shift in her husband's world view during those early years of marriage.
Indeed, even when her husband announced they were off on a two-week trip to the U.S. in early 1979, she had no idea of the significance. 'My husband's business was not my business, I did not ask questions,' she says.
In fact, while there, the 22-year-old bin Laden had arranged to meet with Palestinian extremist Abdullah Azzam, widely regarded to be his first ideological mentor, who was recruiting young Muslims to join a new Jihad.
And by the time the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan later that year, bin Laden was heavily involved, at first raising funds and delivering supplies to the Afghan resistance fighters, known as the Mujahideen, and then ultimately joining the fighting himself.
Najwa admits she stood by helplessly for the next decade as the war in Afghanistan took over her husband's life. On the domestic front, she had to accept his decision to take other wives.
In 1991, bin Laden and his growing family were expelled from Saudi Arabia after he criticised the royal family for allowing U.S. troops on to Saudi soil.
With wives and children in tow, bin Laden first lived in exile in Khartoum, Sudan, where Najwa says her husband's greatest delight was growing sunflowers on the many farms he owned.
But while she appears ignorant of her husband's terrorist activities during those years and the growth of his global terror network Al-Qaeda, meaning 'the base' or 'foundation', she does reveal that the family were regularly challenged to survive in the desert with little food or water.
The routine was always the same. Osama would drive his wives and children to a remote place and leave them there with little food and water, expecting even the babes-in-arms to sleep in dirt holes dug out of the sand by the older children. 
Omar bin Laden with his British wife Jane Felix-Brown, who he married in 2007
'While the wives and daughters watched, Osama directed the strongest boys to use digging tools to excavate hollows large enough for a human to stretch out lengthwise when sleeping,' she says. 'We did as we were told, slowly easing our bodies into those dirt holes,
waiting for a long night to pass.' Her husband's obsession with waging Jihad ultimately took the bin Ladens to Pakistan and, finally, Afghanistan and the notorious Tora Bora caves, where his wives raised his children surrounded by fighters with only the most basic of facilities.
And yet at no point did Najwa question her husband about the path he was intent on taking her, even when her sons narrowly escaped death in an assassination attempt on bin Laden in Khartoum.
While many will question such devotion to a man whose way of life carried such risks, Omar's relationship was less blinkered.
As a father, bin Laden was brutally strict. Toys were forbidden, along with all things American - from fizzy drinks to air conditioning and fridges.
There were regular beatings, and Omar and his brothers, who all suffered from asthma, were forbidden from using inhalers. Indeed, during one particularly bad asthma attack, Omar says his father ordered his men to find a piece of honeycomb for his son to breathe through - but his home remedies never worked.
What glimpses of normality there were - such as his father's surprise fondness for football and his love of horses - were fleeting.
Starved of love and affection, Omar was initially proud to be chosen, at the age of 15, to accompany his father to Afghanistan. But when he realised the new family home was a series of shacks built into the rocks of the Tora Bora mountains, a gift to bin Laden from a Taliban leader, that pride began to evaporate. 
In his new book, Omar bin Laden recalls the moment he realised his father was behind 9/11
'I could not believe our lives had come to this,' he says. 'My father was a member of one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. My cousins were relaxing in fine homes and attending the best schools.
Here I was, living in a lawless land, wheezing for air in a small Toyota truck, surrounded by Afghan warriors carrying powerful weapons, on my way to help my father claim a mountain hut for our family home.'
Wary of capture, bin Laden sporadically woke his son at night, so they could practise escape routes on foot to neighbouring Pakistan. 'No one knew those mountains like my father. He recognised all the big boulders, knowing the distance from one to the other,' says Omar.
The rest of the bin Laden entourage soon followed and for several months they lived a life of hardship with no running water, a limited diet and fierce winter storms.
It was an experience that Najwa endured with extraordinary stoicism.
'Even though I missed the life I had known before, there was nothing to do but to adapt,' she says. 'My life was for my family and so I did what I had to do. This did not mean that I blamed my husband, for I did not. He had to live where he could and that was Afghanistan.'
But Omar was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his father's obsession with Jihad. Those views were compounded by the discovery, aged 17, that bin Laden's soldiers were using his pet puppies to test out chemical and biological weapons at the Kandahar training camps.
He recalls: 'Several of the new soldiers, young men who had been born without sensitivity, enjoyed describing the death throes of those cute little animals. They insisted on telling me of their trembling terror, sitting tied in a cage, suffering throughout the ordeal.
'I am nothing like my father. While he prays for war, I pray for peace. And now we go our separate ways, each believing that we are right.
'The gas was not as fast as one might have imagined. After I learned about the puppies, I turned even further away from my father, recognising that his path led to nothing but pain, disappointment and death.'
Despite the fact he was trained to use a Kalashnikov and was no stranger at the terrorist training camps, Omar says he was horrified when the violence started to escalate.
His father's role in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, killing more than 210 people, left him deeply troubled.
But it wasn't until a friend confided that something even bigger was 'in the works' that he made plans to leave, the final straw coming when an impassioned bin Laden urged his sons to sign up as suicide bombers.
'We were at his feet, and my father said: "My Sons, there is a paper [a list of potential martyrs] on the wall of the mosque. This paper is for men who volunteer to be suicide bombers. Those who want to give their lives for Islam must add their names to the list."
'He looked at us with anticipation in his eyes. Certainly, he had the power to inspire young men to give up their lives,' admits Omar. 'But I was furious. I finally knew exactly where I stood. My father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons. That's the moment I felt I would be a fool to waste another moment of my life.'
And so it was that Omar left Afghanistan in April 2001. His mother also sought permission from her husband to return to her family in Syria.
Just days before September 11, bin Laden finally agreed, but only allowed her to take the two youngest children with her. She was escorted by her second eldest son, who chose not to return to his father.
'My heart broke into little pieces watching the figures of my little children fade into the distance,' she says of the day she left. 'But I did save Abdul Rahman (then 23), four-year-old Rukhaiya and two-year-old Nour.
'For that entire journey across Afghanistan, I never stopped praying that all lives might return to normal.'
Najwa remains in Syria and claims to have had no contact from her husband or the children she left behind.
Omar's life, meanwhile, has been in stark contrast to what went before. While still married to his first wife, with whom he has a son, he met a British grandmother, Jane Felix-Browne, from Cheshire, while travelling in Egypt - and they fell in love.
The story hit the headlines after they married in 2007 and Omar was refused entry to the UK. The couple moved to Qatar, but, according to the book, Omar is back in Saudi Arabia, where he campaigns for peace.
Omar also claims to have had no contact from relatives he left behind in Afghanistan and says he has no idea whether they are dead or alive.
He says: 'I know now that since the first day of the first battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan, my father has been killing other human beings.
I often wonder if my father has killed so many times that the act of killing no longer brings him pleasure or pain.
'I am nothing like my father. While he prays for war, I pray for peace. And now we go our separate ways, each believing that we are right. My father has made his choice, and I have made mine. I am, at last, my own man.'
'Unicorn' Fly Had Three Eyes on One Horn
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
An ancient fly sporting a horn on its head topped with three eyes would have easily seen predators coming where it lived in the jungles of what is now Myanmar some 100 million years ago.
The fly was also equipped with a pair of large compound eyes, similar to those found in today's insects, for a grand total of five peepers.
A specimen of this bizarre-looking insect had been preserved in Burmese amber and was discovered in a mine in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar. The amber dated back some 97 million to 110 million years ago. Back then, the gooey tree sap would have flowed over the fly before hardening and preserving its features in lifelike detail, the researchers say.
The newfound species, now called Cascoplecia insolitis, gives scientists more details about ancient ecosystems and the creatures that inhabited them.
"No other insect ever discovered has a horn like that, and there's no animal at all with a horn that has eyes on top," said researcher George Poinar, Jr., a professor of zoology at Oregon State University who just announced the newfound species in the journal Cretaceous Research.
The horn and triple-eye set would have given the fly visual prowess in its forest habitat. "I think the horn was to raise up the three simple eyes, which would have made it easier to detect approaching danger," Poinar told LiveScience, adding that the danger may have come from predators that included cockroaches, predator bugs, preying mantids and lizards that lived in the ancient Burmese forest.
The fly showed other freaky features, including antenna with S-shaped segments, unusually long legs that would have helped it crawl over flowers, and tiny vestigial mandibles that would have limited it to nibbling on very tiny particles of food.
Pollen grains found on the fly's legs suggest the insect mostly relied on flowers for food. "It was probably a docile little creature that fed on the pollen and nectar of tiny tropical flowers," Poinar said.
And the oddball may have been in good company when alive, during the age of the dinosaurs.
"This was near the end of the Early Cretaceous when a lot of strange evolutionary adaptations were going on," Poinar said. "Its specialized horn and eyes must have given this insect an advantage on very tiny flowers, but didn't serve as well when larger flowers evolved. So it went extinct."
He added, "This 'unicorn' fly was one of the oddities of the Cretaceous world — and was obviously an evolutionary dead end."
Moby Dick comes to life: The astonishing rare images of a sperm whale feasting on a giant squid
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 11:49 AM on 28th October 2009
They are creatures of the deep immortalised in fictional bestsellers like Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick and Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
But these ultra-rare images of a colossal sperm whale feeding on a giant squid are the real thing.
The captivating pictures show adult sperm whales feasting on a rare giant squid. Though the squid looks small beside the enormous whales, it is thought to be an incredible eight to ten metres long.
Sea-fight: A female sperm whale with a giant squid in her mouth. Her calf follows her closely, and another whale is pictured behind her, in this rare image taken in the seas of Japan earlier this month
One of the dead squid's tentacles - a leftover scrap - was measured at a jaw-dropping three-and-a-half metres long.
And experts now think the pictures could be some of the rarest ever captured beneath the ocean's surface, showing as they do the sight of five adults teaching a hungry calf how to catch its prey.
Underwater photographer Tony Wu witnessed the pod - five adults and a juvenile - devour the mammoth squid near the Ogasawara Islands in Japan earlier this month.
'It was a childhood dream come true,' said Mr Wu.
'I remember reading Moby Dick and the kraken scene from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, dreaming about what it would be like to see a sperm whale eating a massive squid in real life.
'Of course, in reality the animals are not quite so ridiculously over-sized, but it was an adrenaline-inducing sight to witness.'
Monsters of the deep: A close up of the image shows the giant squid - believed to be up to ten metres long - firmly clamped between the jaws of the even more giant sperm whale
Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales in the world, inhabiting every ocean on the planet.
Researchers estimate that more than 110 million tons of squid may be consumed by the species every year.
However with feeding depths ranging beyond 800 metres deep, this behaviour has rarely been recorded.
On this once-in-a-lifetime occasion Mr Wu was lucky enough to see the adult whales appearing near the surface - and teach their calf to dive into the deep blue waters to feed on its prey.
'This is extremely rare,' said the 42-year-old.
'I had seen one video with sperm whales feeding on giant squid but I am not aware of anyone else who has documented this behaviour.
'Of course, I did not see the whale catch the squid at depth. I only saw the whale at the surface with the squid in its mouth. They brought it up from the depths.'
Close your mouth when you're eating: Three of the whales frolic just beneath the ocean's surface as the one in the centre savours the squid between its jaws
Accompanied by underwater photographers Eric Cheng and Douglas Seifert, Mr Wu entered the water to photograph the animals with permission from local whale watching authorities.
'The group kept diving and resurfacing with the larger whale carrying the squid in its mouth,' he said. 'They kept repeating the scenario and it was a good opportunity to get them on film.
'It seemed as if the adult whales were trying to teach the baby to dive and also to eat squid.
'Female sperm whales are known to raise calfs in a collective manner and they have strong family units.'
Cephalopod expert Dr Mark Norman confirmed the images give a rare insight into the feeding ritual of the sperm whale.
'It is incredibly rare to record a sperm whale with a giant squid actually in its jaws,' said Dr Norman, Senior Curator at the Museum Victoria, Australia.
'The region is famous for sperm whale aggregations and their regular dives to depth in this canyon system.
We're going to need a bigger freezer bag: One of the 'leftovers' from the sperm whales' feast - a tentacle of the giant squid measuring three and a half metres long
'I know of one previous record of a whale returning to the surface with squid remains in its mouth.
'This is the site where Dr Tsunemi Kubodera of the Tokyo National Science Museum deployed a baited still camera at 800 metres and got the only live animal shots of giant squid in its natural environment.
'The potential matrilineal teaching of calves is a wonderful thing to think of.'
And Dr Norman thinks the group may have been teaching the youngster to use its built in sonar - echolocation - to find food at depth.
'As echolocation is pivotal for sperm whales finding their prey, it is not out of the question that the females would release the dead squid at depth and let the calf echolocate and recognise it in the dark deep water, typically around 800 m deep.'
For Mr Wu, whose work has taken him from Papua New Guinea to Colombia and Costa Rica, the encounter was a once in lifetime experience.
'It is something that only a handful of people have ever seen,' he says.
'I've experienced unique connections with many of the subjects I photograph, from the smallest of fish to the largest of cetaceans, so I consider myself extremely fortunate.
'There's always a risk in trying new things, going places that aren't well explored, working with animals that aren't well understood. But the rewards can be spectacular.'