By Evann Gastaldo When a badly injured 20-year-old Saudi Arabian student was seen running from the site of the Boston Marathon explosions, a bystander tackled him because he looked suspicious. He was questioned by police; his apartment was searched ; his roommate was intimidatingly interrogated for five hours and hounded by reporters. Why? He…
From: http://www.newser.com/story/166380/we-profiled-the-saudi-marathon-suspect.html
By Paul Alster
New YouTube video from the Syrian battlefield shows rebels firing the same high-powered sniper rifle favored by U.S. Navy SEALs, leaving some experts wondering who the ragtag army of insurgents might train the guns on in the future.
The British-made AS-50, accurate from a distance of 20 football fields, is made for British Special Forces and Navy SEALs. Video showing Syrian rebels, who are aligned with Al Qaeda, firing the guns and shouting “Alahu akbar,” has also raised questions about who is supplying such devastating hardware.
“The video, showing jihadist rebels of the ‘Descendents of the Prophet Brigade’ firing one of the world’s most effective sniper rifles, should be cause for alarm,” said David Reaboi, of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. “We don’t know who has been supplying this group (or the myriad others) with these weapons but, given the jihadist ideology of these groups, it’s only a matter of time until they’re turned on Americans or our allies and interests.”
The gun set a world record when a member of the British Household Cavalry in Afghanistan’s Helmand province killed two members of the Taliban with successive bullets over a recorded distance of more than 1.5 miles.
The Free Syrian Army has been receiving weapons from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – all close allies of the U.S. But the U.S. has repeatedly stated that it has sent no weapons to the opposition forces.
The U.S. State Department has acknowledged directly providing $385 million support to the Syrian people, including “emergency medical care and medical supplies, food aid, and winterization supplies like blankets and heaters for those affected by the crisis.” The site also reports that “over 4,000 major pieces of equipment have been provided, mostly to Damascus, Aleppo, and other areas with significant opposition presence, including communications and computer equipment, as well as generators.”
Experts said it could prove impossible to determine where the rebels got AS-50s and how many they have.
The sniper rifle, manufactured by Accuracy International – which sells arms to the Turkish and Saudi Arabian militaries – has a fearsome reputation. It has been used in various theaters of war in recent years by many elite forces, including both the SEALs and British Special Forces.
“I know from first-hand experience how revered the AI product is, even in the States, where traditionally US producers are favored,” a British Army sniping instructor told Wired in 2011.
Call of Duty, a warfare game that in 2009 sold more than 7 million copies in just one day, seemingly endorsed the already lofty reputation of the AS-50 by featuring the weapon in one of its many urban combat simulations, giving the sniper rifle something of an iconic following amongst players of the record-breaking video feature.
The Free Syrian Army has recently made significant territorial gains against government forces in the two-year-old bloody civil war that in March saw its worst ever body count, with independent monitors determining at least 6,000 people were killed.
The gun costs about $10,000, according to Reaboi, and each one could be around …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Earnings season is just about over, with almost all companies already having reported their quarterly results. But there are still a few companies left to report, and Mosaic is about to release its quarterly earnings report. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarter reports is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.
Fertilizers have been in high demand in recent years, and Mosaic has arisen from relative obscurity to become a much-followed stock in the industry. But lately, Mosaic has dealt with a big competitive disadvantage versus other fertilizer-makers. Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with Mosaic over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report on Thursday.
Stats on Mosaic
|
Analyst EPS Estimate |
$0.88 |
|
Change From Year-Ago EPS |
38% |
|
Revenue Estimate |
$2.29 billion |
|
Change From Year-Ago Revenue |
4.4% |
|
Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters |
2 |
Source: S&P Capital IQ.
Will Mosaic make its shares grow this quarter?
Analysts are getting increasingly optimistic about Mosaic’s future prospects, seeing solid growth for the rest of the 2013 fiscal year and accelerating improvement in earnings during fiscal 2014 and 2015. The stock has also shared in that enthusiasm, rising about 8% since late December.
Fertilizer companies have become extremely popular investments as crop prices have remained high. But the industry has become one of haves and have-nots, with Mosaic and fellow potash- and phosphate-giant PotashCorp having seen shares struggle over the past two years as high production costs and supply gluts have led to lower profits. By contrast, nitrogen-fertilizer players Terra Nitrogen and CVR Partners have seen big gains, as the competitive advantage from low natural gas prices has helped boost their prospects.
But recently, the tide has appeared to start turning. Natural gas prices are finally on the rise, and that has pulled Terra Nitrogen downward in the past month while sending Mosaic higher. Even with concerns about big price declines on recent potash deals with China and India, an evening of the playing field should help Mosaic and PotashCorp recover from their relative underperformance.
Mosaic is also seeking growth in new directions. Just last week, the company announced a huge joint venture with two Saudi Arabian companies in a deal to build a phosphate-fertilizer plant to open in late 2016. The venture could eventually produce 3.5 million tons of phosphate fertilizers annually.
In its quarterly report, watch for Mosaic to discuss how it can stand out from the other major players in the fertilizer market. If the company can manage to establish new profit centers like its Saudi joint venture, then Mosaic could move beyond …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
(AP)—California Institute of Technology President Jean-Lou Chameau plans to step down from the top job at the prestigious institute to lead a new Saudi Arabian university. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Residents of the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh say more than 100 people have demonstrated to call for the release of people detained without charge.
Saudi security officials say they arrested at least five people. They spoke anonymously in line with police regulations.
Dozens of security vehicles blocked the intersections of two streets Saturday where the demonstrations were taking place.
North of Riyadh in the city of Buraydah, around 30 people — mostly women related to the prisoners — held a similar rally.
In past years, a small number of Saudis have demonstrated in Riyadh to demand the release of thousands of people detained without charge or trial on suspicion of involvement in militant activity. Some have been held for up to 15 years.
Protests are rare in the conservative kingdom.
At a darkened train station, the teenager and the purported jihadi pulled into a quiet lot where months of planning were to culminate in this: a plot to kill thousands at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
“You know what to do,” the man said to the teenager, breathing heavily. “O Lord, O Lord, O Lord.”
“Ready,” the teenager said. “Alhamdulillah.” Praise be to God.
They were 14 blocks northeast of this city’s busy tree-lighting ceremony two years ago on Nov. 26, 2010. On Friday, they found themselves across a federal courtroom from each other where the man — who Mohamed Mohamud would learn was an undercover FBI agent — testified against the now 21-year-old and a jury listened to a recording of the moments leading up to his arrest.
The recording crackles as the FBI agent reads out numbers and the teenager punches them into his black disposable Nokia cellphone. He then apparently encounters an error.
“Dial it again,” the man said, words that were in fact the cue for his fellow agents. Mohamud dialed again and waited for the explosion.
Instead: “FBI, FBI, FBI! Get down!”
The agent, whose cover name was “Hussein,” had told Mohamud the number he dialed was connected to a cell phone that would set off six 55-gallon drums filled with diesel fuel in a van parked next to the tree-lighting. The explosion, “Hussein” told him, would destroy two blocks in any direction.
Mohamud’s defense team doesn’t dispute the sequence of events, nor that their client intended to kill thousands of people at the tree-lighting ceremony.
But the path by which he reached that point is the substance of the defense’s claim that Mohamud was entrapped. The entrapment defense has been launched, unsuccessfully, in several post-9/11 terrorism sting operations like the one that targeted Mohamud.
He came to the FBI‘s attention, agents testified, when he kept up email contact with a Saudi Arabian man suspected by Interpol of terrorism.
Without the bureau’s intervention, prosecutors say, the already-radicalized Mohamud would almost certainly have found a way to reach al-Qaida or one of its affiliates and commit an act of terror in the U.S.
Nonsense, Mohamud’s attorneys said in opening statements and cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses. He was a 17-year-old when his emails were identified by the FBI, a teenager with grand but muddled ambitions of achieving some sort of fame in the Islamic world.
If anyone radicalized him, his attorneys attest, it was the undercover FBI agents who convinced him they were members of al-Qaida that had chosen him as a promising recruit.
Jurors had by Friday heard the details of the undercover sting operation and testimony from the men who led it. “Youssef,” another undercover agent testifying under a pseudonym, said he encountered an angry young man at the outset of the sting on July 30, 2010.
But “Youssef” said he didn’t believe Mohamud was truly capable of violence. Not yet. It wasn’t until an August 2010 meeting in which Mohamud picked the tree-lighting ceremony as a target that “Youssef” became concerned that he was dealing with a potentially dangerous person.
After that meeting on Aug. 19, 2010, at least one agent or handler left his or her recorder running. The agents were heard saying it was “fantastic” that Mohamud had identified a “sexy” terrorist target, according to transcripts of the meeting quoted by Mohamud’s defense team.
That plays in direct contrast to the FBI agents’ assertions that they kept hoping Mohamud would turn his back to violence and instead choose a different option offered by the agents: Pray five times daily, get an engineering degree, fundraise for al-Qaida.
Instead, they say, he insisted on becoming “operational,” at first even asking to be a martyr before the agents talked him out of it. It was a theme that they said continued throughout the sting: Agents offered peaceful options, Mohamud repeatedly chose violence.
Even in the final minute of the final hour of the final day, parked in the train station lot, “Hussein” said Mohamud could have walked away.
“Was there any hesitation on his part?” asked prosecutor Pam Holsinger on Friday.
“None,” Hussein said.
Holsinger paused.
“If he saw (the bomb) and said he didn’t want to…” Holsinger said.
“If he did not dial the number,” the agent said, “the directive was for us to drive him home.”
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Reach reporter Nigel Duara on Facebook at http://bit.ly/RSmBei
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News