Georgia Man Dies After BASE Jump From Bridge

MACON, Ga. -- A Georgia man is dead following a risky jump from a bridge in Idaho.
Richard Heaton, III of Macon successfully parachuted off the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho but authorities believe the 27-year-old died of exposure trying to hike out of the Snake River Canyon.
Heaton's girlfriend reported him missing Friday morning, after not hearing from him on Thursday. Officials said they checked Heaton's hotel room and found all of his personal items but no parachute gear.
Searchers found his body Friday.
A BASE jumper who operates a Web site for enthusiasts, Tom Aiello, told the Times-News that it was only Heaton's third jump ever.
In a Web site posting, Heaton's girlfriend in Georgia, identified only as Jill, gave the following account:
"I spoke with Richard late Wednesday night from Perrine Bridge," Jill wrote on the BASEjumper.com site. "He was too excited to wait 'till Thursday during the day, and told me he would make the jump. He never called back ..." She also wrote, "His phone records indicate that he never made, or received, any calls after my conversation with him Wed night.
In another posting on the BASEjumper.com site, Aiello said, "Never having jumped this site, it is unlikely that Richard knew the trail to climb out."
BASE stands for bridge, antennae, span and earth. The Perrine Bridge is the only structure in the U.S. where BASE jumping is legal year-round. The Perrine Bridge is one of the world's most frequented BASE jump sites.

U.S. to seek death penalty for 6 Gitmo detainees

The United States will seek the death penalty against six Guantanamo Bay detainees who are suspects in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, an Air Force general said Monday.

The government will submit criminal charges against the detainees, who include alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Brig Gen. Thomas Hartmann said during a Pentagon news conference. The government hopes to try the men together, he said.
All six have been charged with conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and material support of terrorism, said the general who is serving as legal adviser to the military commissions trying the detainees.
The 169 charges allege a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by al Qaeda to attack the United States of America," Hartmann said.

"There will be no secret trials," Hartmann said. "We will make every effort to make everything open."
The exception will be when classified information is presented that could compromise national security, he said.
All six suspects are accused of helping plan the September 11 attacks in which hijackers flew two jets into the World Trade Center in New York and another jet into the Pentagon in Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 2,974 people were killed in the attacks, not including the 19 hijackers.
Also charged are: Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, accused of being an intermediary between the hijackers and al Qaeda leaders; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who has been identified as Mohammed's lieutenant; al-Baluchi's alleged assistant, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and Walid bin Attash, who is accused of selecting and training some hijackers.
Four of the detainees -- Mohammed, bin Attash, al-Shibh, and Ali -- will be additionally charged with the offense of hijacking or hazarding an aircraft.
Military prosecutors will submit the charges along with a request to seek the death penalty in the cases, and Judge Susan Crawford will have to approve charges and the request, defense officials told CNN.
A military commission would thereafter be held at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If a judge approves the charges, it will mark the first time that Guantanamo detainees have been charged in the

Within 30 days of the judge's approval, the detainees will hear the charges against them and enter pleas, Hartman said. Within another 90 days, the military panel will be assembled and motions and discovery will ensue, he said.
"We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to our military members," Hartmann said.
About 380 foreign nationals are being held at Guantanamo. The detainees' lawyers have repeatedly complained that their clients are being denied due process.
The U.S. Supreme Court also has twice expressed reservations about how the government handles detainees at the U.S. naval base.
In 2006, the high court struck down the Bush administration's use of military tribunals to try terror suspects, saying the process was unconstitutional because the system did not allow prisoners to challenge their detention.
Congress last year passed the Military Commissions Act, which provided terror suspects with a limited right to appeal any conviction. It also reduced the jurisdiction of federal courts.
The commissions were specifically established to try crimes related to the war on terror. The exact charges that the six detainees face are unclear.
Not much is known about the commissions system. The detainees will have lawyers, and they will be allowed to see at least some of the evidence against them.
However, several legal and political challenges remain, and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said it could be five years before any of the detainees go to trial.
"One thing's clear about Guantanamo is that the next president is going to have to resolve this," Toobin said.
Bob Hughes, whose 30-year-old son died in the World Trade Center, said he was disappointed with the slow legal process, but he applauded the government's efforts to impose the death penalty on any conspirators.
"Anyone involved that helped these people get to America to do what they did, they definitely deserve the death penalty," he said.
One legal issue expected to stall the process is whether prosecutors will be able to use confessions or other information gleaned using controversial interrogation techniques.
Hartmann said Monday that a military judge will determine whether information obtained during interrogations is admissible.

On Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden for the first time publicly confirmed Mohammed and two other terror suspects were subjected to a technique called waterboarding, which is intended to simulate drowning.
The technique was used on top al Qaeda detainees in the aftermath of the attacks to "help us prevent catastrophic loss of life of Americans or their allies," Hayden said.

How smart operators brought down the market

The stock market crash of January 21, when the benchmark indices dived to the maximum permissible limit of 10 per cent within minutes of opening, proved that it was not very difficult to manipulate the stock prices (however liquid they may be) and create a sense of panic among the stock investors.
"It was ridiculous to find the 30-share Sensex hitting the lower circuit even before the traders settled in their chairs for the day's trading," noted a seasoned dealer in a local brokerage house.
There was a sense of fear ahead of the opening bell, on account of a drastic fall in stock prices across US, Europe and Asia. Moreover, the Sensex had fallen by nearly 700 points in the previous session.
Manipulators, or smart operators, whichever way you look at them, punched in orders on the 30 Sensex stocks (and NSE too) at prices much below the previous day's closing.
The volumes were absolutely negligible, but the absence of buyers ensured that the market had a free fall.
Consider this: The trading volumes on Reliance Industries [Get Quote], in the first few minutes before the market shut down, were a mere 30,235 compared with the previous hour's (last hour of the previous day) turnover of 21 lakh shares.
It was the same with most of the other stocks on the dreaded day. Take the case of ABB, a very liquid counter. Its total shares on offer were a mere 50 on the crash day compared with the previous hour's 1,14,723 shares.
The prices punched in were 7.8 per cent lower than the previous day's close of Rs 1,272. "There were simply no buyers as stock prices were falling all across the globe," explained the dealer.
Bharti Airtel [Get Quote], a key Sensex constituent, saw trading of only 1,966 shares at Rs 724.50, down 11 per cent from the previous day's close of Rs 826.50.
The average traded quantity on the counter was 6.87 lakh shares in the last 20 sessions.
"Though our margining systems and mark-to-market systems are very good, regulators should find out who manipulated the market by creating panic during January and last October (when the issue of curbs on participatory notes arose) by bringing the level to the maximum allowed 10 per cent," said a dealer in a brokerage house, adding that this fear factor was used by smart traders during the crash.
Any crash triggers margin calls, which makes matters worse for the retail investors, who account for over 60 per cent of the derivatives turnover.
Narayan Ramachandran, managing director and country head of Morgan Stanley, said the problem was in the margining system and not a technical problem.
"I'm sure regulators must be looking at the current system, so that the pain is much lesser in the future," he said.

Jodhaa Akbar

This February, the Dhoom: 2 couple will appear on screen in a different avatar. This time as the greatest Mughal emperor and his Hindu wife in Ashutosh Gowarikar's epic Jodhaa Akbar.
Ash and Hrithik look stunning in the trailers, A R Rahman's music is wonderful, the battle scenes are supposed to be one of the authentic in the history of Hindi cinema, so Gowarikar, the man who made Lagaan and Swades, may have a winner when the film releases next fortnight, on February 15.
rediff.com presents the great Mughal love story.

Nepal police to lodge three cases against Kumar

Kathmandu (PTI): Nepalese police on Friday said they would lodge three cases against Dr Amit Kumar, the alleged mastermind of the illegal kidney transplant racket who was arrested from a jungle resort in the Himalayan country.
The first case against the tainted doctor would be for possession of illegal foreign currency as police recovered from him Euro 145,000, USD 18,900 and an Indian bank draft of Rs 936,000 when he was arrested on Thursday, Kathmandu SSP Upendra Kanta Aryal said at a crowded press conference.
The other two cases are related to the Red Corner Notice issued against him by the Interpol and illegal human organ transplants under the Nepalese Act 2055, police said, adding they were also investigating whether Kumar carried out any kidney transplants in Nepal.
Under the human organs transplant case, he can get a maximum sentence of five years or Rs 5 lakh as fine, or both, if convicted, police said, adding he faces up to four years in jail over the foreign currency possession.
He had arrived in Nepal in connection with a project to build a hospital, according to police. His accomplices in Nepal were identified as Ramesh Thapa, Bishnu Khatri, Giri Dai, Heera Pun, Baburam, Sher Bahadur and Pankaj Jha.

Google phone demo due next week

British chip designer ARM will demonstrate a prototype of Google Inc's Android mobile phone platform in action next week at the world's biggest wireless fair, a source close to the company said.
It was not immediately clear what the working model that ARM plans to show at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona would look like or who would supply the parts. Google plans to deploy phones and services using the Android platform commercially in the second half of this year. Google and ARM declined to comment on the report. Google established an alliance of more than 30 carriers, handset makers, software firms and chipmakers in November to develop Android, which is based on open-source software and designed to make the Internet work better on mobile phones. Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp (HTC) have said that they plan to offer phones based on the Android platform this year. Internet search leader Google's entry into the wireless industry will upset established relationships between carriers, cellphone makers and customers and could challenge Nokia, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc, among others. Google is also bidding for wireless spectrum in the United States in a move that pits it against entrenched carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Its operator partners in the Open Handset Alliance include China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Telefonica -- all of which have said they are working with handset makers to develop Google-based phones. Research firm Strategy Analytics has estimated that Android will be in 2 per cent of smartphones this year.

Evidence of water on Saturn's moon

Astrophysicists in Germany say they can add evidence to bolster theories that water, one of the precious ingredients for life, exists on the Saturnian moon Enceladus. A tiny satellite measuring just 504 kilometres across, Enceladus has become one of the most fiercely debated objects in the solar system, thanks to close-up pictures taken by the US probe Cassini. Enceladus has a brilliant white shell of ice that is untouched except for some strange-looking grooves and impacts from space rocks. Cassini revealed plumes of water vapour that gush from surface stripes near its south pole, shooting crystal jets upwards for hundreds of kilometres into space. Fuelling discussion about the origin of these strange "cryo-volcanoes" is the fact that icy particles of dust are also mixed in with the eruptions, but beguilingly travel far slower than the vapour.

Have Saif, Kareena tied the knot?

Actor Saif Ali Khan has denied the rumours that have been doing the rounds for the past few days that he and Kareena Kapoor have done a nikaah ceremony. Sources had said that Saif’s mother Sharmila Tagore had been witness to the nikaah. But when contacted Saif on Wednesday night, he said, “Such rumours will only upset both families.” Kareena, on her part, categorically said in an interview that took place on Tuesday, ‘‘I am not getting married for the next five years.’’ Meanwhile, industry sources insisted that a wedding had taken place. They said that the Khan family had witnessed the nikaah, but the Kapoor family has been kept out of it. Kareena and Saif had begun a relationship six months ago on the sets of Tashan. Saif has also tattooed her name on his arm in Hindi. Friends of the couple say Saif has never been more committed in a relationship. A close friend of Saif had recently said, "There's a fierce and single-minded determination in Saif to make this relationship work for keeps. And, it isn’t a defiant determination to disprove the cynics who say it won’t last. Saif doesn’t give a damn about what people say." The friend further added, "Earlier, after Rosa left, there were whispers of Saif being involved with various ladies. Saif doesn’t like the image of a casanova at all. He thinks he’s too grown up for it. He wants stability in his life and a relationship that’s for keeps. He believes he has found it in Kareena. Saif will make this relationship work." Apparently, both of them spend as much time together as possible. Lately, Kareena has also been seen in public with Saif’s kids.

Scotland Yard report on Bhutto death faces condemnation

Scotland Yard has set the cat among the pigeons by declaring that Benazir Bhutto died from banging her head after a suicide bomb attack, rather than a gunshot wound. A detailed report prepared by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) inquiry into how Bhutto died was presented to the Pakistan Government on Friday, threatening to inflame the already-febrile political situation in Pakistan as it prepares for parliamentary elections on February 18. The controversial report, which Western observers said, rather startlingly comes down heavily on the side of the Musharraf regime's official version of Bhutto's December 27 assassination, clearly states that "Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a severe head injury sustained as a consequence of the bomb-blast and due to head impact somewhere in the escape hatch of the vehicle". The report's conclusions were immediately and categorically rejected by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party with a spokesperson insisting "she died from a bullet injury, this was and is our position" and renewing appeals for a UN investigation into the assassination. Dr Nathaniel Cary, a British Home Office pathologist, adds in the report that "In essence, all the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shots before detonating an improvised explosive device". The report was handed over to the Pakistan interior minister by the visiting Scotland Yard team's Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent John MacBrayne, accompanied by a senior official from the British High Commission in Pakistan. Despite its categorical conclusions, the report does, however, admit to widely-expressed criticism that "The task of establishing exactly what happened was complicated by the lack of an extended and detailed search of the crime scene, the absence of an autopsy, and the absence of recognised body recovery and victim identification processes". But it adds, "Nevertheless, the evidence that is available is sufficient for reliable conclusions to be drawn". Some critics say the report has been issued too speedily to be entirely credible, considering it comes just under five weeks after officers from Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command travelled to Pakistan at the government's request to support domestic law enforcement agencies investigating Bhutto's death. Doubt has also been cast on the report's findings because the British team self-confessedly faced serious difficulties in investigating the murder being unable to examine Bhutto's body and finding that vital evidence had been removed from the crime scene. Scotland Yard said on Friday that its officers spent two-and-a-half weeks "conducting extensive inquiries in Pakistan last month" and were joined by other specialists from the United Kingdom during the course of the investigation. It said that the British team's overall objective placed particular focus on "establishing the actual cause of death, and whether there were one or more attackers in the immediate vicinity of Ms Bhutto." Scotland Yard emphasised that its team placed "considerable reliance ... upon the X-rays taken at Rawalpindi General Hospital following Ms Bhutto's death...Additionally, a valuable insight was gained from the accounts given by the medical staff involved in her treatment, and from those members of Ms Bhutto's family who washed her body before burial". From this, the team concluded that the former prime minister's "only apparent injury was a major trauma to the right side of the head". The report said all the British experts consequently excluded "this injury being an entry or exit wound as a result of gunshot. The only X-ray records, taken after her death, were of Ms Bhutto's head. However, the possibility of a bullet wound to her mid or lower trunk can reasonably be excluded. This is based upon the protection afforded by the armoured vehicle in which she was travelling at the time of the attack, and the accounts of her family and hospital staff who examined her". The report said that even though pathologist Nathaniel Cary was unable, in the absence of a full post mortem examination, to "exclude the possibility of there being a gunshot wound to the upper trunk or neck", there was sufficient cause to conclude Bhutto sustained "no gunshot injury". The UK experts added that Bhutto injury "is entirely consistent with her head impacting upon the lip of the escape hatch" of her vehicle, after a blast in which high explosives were used, which typically detonate at a velocity between 6000 and 9000 metres per second. The report said that "when considering the explosive quantities and distances involved, such an explosion would generate significantly more force than would be necessary to provoke the consequences as occurred in this case. The report concludes that "In essence, all the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shots before detonating an improvised explosive device. At the time of the attack this person was standing close to the rear of Ms Bhutto's vehicle. The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle, causing a severe and fatal head injury".