For over six years, the world's most wanted man Osama bin Laden appeared to have been living under the very nose of the Pakistani Army in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Bin Laden was staying in a one million dollar three-storeyed mansion just 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, about 120 km from the country's capital Islamabad, when he was eliminated by US commandos yesterday.

Given the mansion's "closeness to the central location of the Pakistani army", several US lawmakers described as "astounding" and "difficult to understand" Pakistan's claim that they did not know about bin Laden's presence in their soil.

An indication as to how long the mastermind behind the deadly 9/11 terror attack in US stayed in the mansion was given by the SEAL team of the American Navy involved in the dramatic 40-minute operation. John Brennan, President Barack Obama's advisor on counter-terrorism, said the SEAL team which undertook the operation believed that the 54-year-old al-Qaeda chief had lived in the compound targeted in the attack for six years.

French investigators today recovered the cockpit voice recorder from an Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean almost two years ago, killing all 228 people on board.

The machine that records cockpit conversations was located on Monday and raised from the ocean depths today, according to BEA, the French agency that probes air accidents.

The plane's flight data recorder was pulled out on Sunday, meaning both pieces critical to determining the cause of the June 1, 2009 crash have now been found. The memory unit was found by a submarine probing 3,900 meters below the ocean's surface.

Experts have said without the two recorders there would be almost no chance of determining what caused the worst disaster in Air France's history.
Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris slammed into the Atlantic northeast of Brazil after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.

The unsuspecting courier, who led the United States special forces to the Abbottabad mansion of the elusive Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has been identified as a Kuwaiti named Abu Ahmad, a media report has said.

"The courier who was in close contact with Osama bin Laden and who eventually led the United States to him was a Kuwaiti named Abu Ahmad," CNN quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying.

In Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was killed, a senior Indonesian militant named Umar Patek was arrested in January. One of the leaders of the Al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah, Patek is believed to have helped coordinate the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, which killed 202 people.

Since then, Indonesian authorities had tracked down nearly all of the major Islamic extremists associated with that terror attack. Deemed Southeast Asia's most wanted terrorist, Patek, like bin Laden, had been on the run for nearly a decade.

Indonesian authorities are currently negotiating with their Pakistani counterparts to have Patek extradited back home.

The 2011 Arab revolutions had rendered Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden irrelevant in the Arab world, but he was still useful for the Pakistani military. He could sponsor anti-Indian regimes in Afghanistan like the Taliban, and, after the Taliban's overthrow, threaten President Hamid Karzai if he acted against the Pakistani military's interests. He was also useful in preventing the US from becoming too close to India at Pakistan's expense. Keeping bin Laden close, and seemingly protected within the Pakistani secret services, sent a message to the US -- if you favor India over Pakistan, we will turn him loose, writes Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author of Economics Does Not Lie and other books.

Now, the bin Laden bomb has been defused, but the problem of the Pakistani military remains. The end of the war on terrorism will not occur in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, he adds.Read more

The compound in Abbottabad where Osama Bin Laden was killed was once used as a safe house by Pakistan's premier intelligence agency ISI, Gulf News reported.

"This area had been used as ISI's safe house, but it was not under their use any more because they keep on changing their locations," a senior intelligence official confided to Gulf News. However, he did not reveal when and for how long it was used by the ISI operatives. Another official cautiously said "it may not be the same house but the same compound or area used by the ISI". Read more.

Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden could have been living in Pakistan's Abbottabad city for quite some time as one of the women who was arrested from the complex, where he was killed, reportedly told interrogators that they had moved in "few months ago".

"One of the women who spoke a smattering of English said they had moved to the compound a few months ago. But we would want to know how did they come to this place," an unnamed senior Pakistani security official was quoted as saying by the Dawn daily.

It said the elite United States Navy SEALs commandos took away only bin Laden's body, leaving behind a number of women and children in the compound located in the garrison city of Abbottabad in northwest Pakistan.

Bin Laden's two wives, both in their early 50s and one of them of Yemeni origin, were among those left behind in the complex which is just yards away from the Pakistan military academy.

Gen David Petraeus, commander of US Central Command, has told US officials the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive, FOX News has learned.

"The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists operating out of Northwest Pakistan, the general added.

Read the full story here

US special forces came away with hard drives, DVDs and a trove of documents from the Abbottabad safe house of Osama bin Laden which might tip American intelligence to Al Qaeda's operational plan and lead the manhunt to his presumed successor Ayman al Zawahiri.

The documents, US officials said could also provide details of Al Qaeda's links to other terror groups like the Taliban, Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

While Al Qaeda's links with Taliban and Haqqani network are "known and established", US officials said, the thrust of the search would be now to unravel the extent of Qaeda's ties with groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

US officials and lawmakers have recently expressed concern over sprouting of LeT terror camps in Pakistan's restive tribal belt in the northwest and the expansion of the group's activities to Afghanistan and terror campaigns on the European mainland.

Do you have a layer of flab around the stomach? Beware, it may double your risk of dying from heart disease or strokes, scientists say.

A US study of nearly 16,000 patients with coronary heart disease found that having a "modest" beer belly, or muffin top, can be as dangerous as smoking a packet of cigarettes a day or having very high cholesterol.

The findings by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester add to the evidence that heart problems and furred arteries are not just linked to how much fat people have, but also to the location of the fat, the Daily Mail reported.

Past studies have shown that "apple-shaped" women with fat around their waists are at greater risk than "pear-shaped" women whose fat is on their hips.

For their study, the Mayo researchers looked at data from 15,923 patients with coronary heart disease and found that those with fat around their waists were twice as likely to die from the disease.

Study author Dr Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, said that fat around the waist was more metabolically active. "It produces more chances in cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar," he said.

"However, people who have fat mostly in other locations in the body, specifically the legs and buttocks, don't show this increased risk."

Doctors often assess a patient's risk of coronary artery disease by looking at their body mass index -- a measure that takes into account someone's weight and height.

However, the study authors said doctors should advise patients with heart disease with normal BMIs to shed weight if they have a large waist or high waist-to-hip ratio.

The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The news of US elite forces eliminating Osama bin Laden brought the entire country together as "an American family", President Barack Obama said today.

"Last night, as Americans learned that the United States had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, I think we experienced the same sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11," Obama said in his remarks at a Congressional bipartisan dinner.

"We were reminded again that there is a pride in what this nation stands for, and what we can achieve, that runs far deeper than party, far deeper than politics," Obama said.

He said the administration had scheduled the dinner a few weeks as he thought it would be a good opportunity for leaders of both parties and their spouses to spend some time together outside of politics.

Air India will implement 'no work, no pay' against striking pilots, an airline official has said.

Earlier in the day, with the strike by Air India pilots entering the seventh day, the Delhi high court rapped the airline management and the pilots' association for their rigid attitude and appointed a counsel to assist it in resolving the stand off.

They've had a tumultuous on-off relationship since their surprise pairing was first revealed last year -- but it seems that Elizabeth Hurley and her cricketing beau are most definitely back and now closer than ever.

Read the full story here

They've had a tumultuous on-off relationship since their surprise pairing was first revealed last year -- but it seems that Elizabeth Hurley and her cricketing beau are most definitely back and now closer than ever.

Read the full story here

Three thousand security personnel were on Tuesday searching the inhospitable altitudes of Sela Pass to trace the missing chopper carrying Arunachal Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu and four others as inclement weather coupled with overnight rains led authorities to cancel aerial operations.

Government spokesperson Jarbom Gamlin said the Army, Indo Tibetan Border Police and Sashashtra Sena Bal along with police are moving into Naga Jiji of Dirang in Sela Pass, about 85 km from Tawang, from where the helicopter carrying the chief minister took to the air on Saturday last.

He said search teams have reached Chabrela, about 6-7 kms from the area, indicated by Indian Space Research Organisation on Monday.

Satellite images from its RISAT-2 reportedly traced few metal parts in the area, which may be parts of helicopter.

Warning of tough times ahead, the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday raised the key short term lending rate and savings bank rates by 50 basis points and advised the government to hike petroleum prices as soon as possible in line with the ruling global crude prices.

In view of uncertainty prevailing in the global market, the RBI, while announcing its annual Credit Policy, has pegged the growth outlook for 2011-12 at a lower level of 8 per cent as against the government's projection of 9 per cent.

The RBI's decision to increase its lending (repo) and borrowing (reverse repo) rates by 50 basis points to 7.25 per cent and 6.25 per cent respectively will raise the cost of home, auto and other loans.

"Current elevated rate of inflation pose significant risk to future growth. Bringing them down, therefore, even at the cost of some growth in the short run should take precedence," RBI Governor D Subbarao said.

The current inflation is hovering around 9 per cent, much above the RBI's comfort level of 5-6 per cent.

Commenting on the RBI policy, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "This (rate hike) was necessary to contain inflation. Inflationary pressures to the economy is still very high".

After the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, America's relationship with the Muslim world, and Pakistan in particular, would become stronger, US Muslim leaders have said.

"I think this event will only strengthen the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world," said Mohamed Elsanousi of the Islamic Society of North America.

Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council hoped that this will be a new chapter in how the US is able to engage the Muslim world.

"Osama bin Ladin and his ideology had become increasingly irrelevant in the Muslim-majority countries, and we had seen this over the past few months with the Arab Spring," he said.

"We hope that today this will be a new chapter in our country's moving forward in terms of our national security and our relationship with the Muslim-majority countries and ensuring that we no longer completely securitize that relationship, and are engaged, as the President had said, in our mutual understanding and mutual respect of one another," Tarin said.

Tarin agreed that bin Laden's death is not going to end terrorism, it's not going to end terror tomorrow.

"Bin Ladin represented a binary view of the world, that the world is split between those who think like him and those who are other than him. It wasn't just between Muslim and non-Muslim. It was between those who think like him and those who think other than him," he observed.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said the raid by US special forces to kill the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden deep inside his country was "not a joint operation."

In an opinion column titled "Pakistan did its part" published in the 'Washington Post', Zardari also said the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader, who was killed in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, about 120 km from Islamabad yesterday, was not known to the Pakistani authorities.

"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world," he said.

At a White House briefing, John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, said Islamabad was not informed about the operation until the US forces had left Pakistani airspace and that no Pakistani individuals were engaged in the operation.

"We did not contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, all of our aircrafts were out of Pakistani airspace," he said at a White House briefing.

With Pakistan facing the heat on the presence of bin-Laden in its soil before being eliminated, Zardari said, "He(Osama) was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone."

Former India skipper, Sourav Ganguly, makes dramatic return to Indian Premier League Season 4 by signing for the Pune Warriors.

Ganguly has been roped in as replacement for the injured Ashish Nehra.

Read the full story here

Robert Frisk writes in The Independent: When the Americans were drunk with joy, a middle-aged non-entity, a political failure outstripped by history, died in Pakistan yesterday.

The body's secret flight to Afghanistan, an equally secret burial at sea? The weird and creepy disposal of the body -- no shrines, please -- was almost as creepy as the man and his vicious organisation..

Read the full atricle here

At least five persons were killed and six others injured when several houses were flattened as the area on abandoned coal mines subsided at Jamuria near Asansol on Tuesday.

Police said Munni Devi, 40, Mohan, 8, Uttam Bauri, 26, Purnima Bauri, 21 and Bristi Bauri, 4, died in sleep early this morning when their houses at Chatimdanga village collapsed.

Bristi was the only daughter of Uttam and Purnima Bauri, the police said. This area is prone to subsidence as locals steal coal from the blocks of coals in the mines abandoned by Eastern Coalfields Limited.

Lt Governor Iqbal Singh, who returned to Puducherry on Saturday last from Delhi after a four day stay in the capital, has since left for Delhi again.

He had met the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram during his recent visit to the capital.

Raj Nivas sources said that Singh, who left last night, would proceed to his native state of Punjab from Delhi and would fly back to Puducherry after a few days stay in Punjab.

Enforcement Directorate officials had last week questioned Singh over his recommendation for issuing passport expeditiously to Hasan Ali Khan, facing money laundering and tax evasion charges.

He is also mired in another controversy in connection with the issue of NOC by the Puducherry administration to a trust that planned to set up a medical college at Karaikal. Singh's two sons were formerly members of the trust.

Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's death will be a difficult time for members of his family, who even though had distanced themselves from the terrorist after 9/11, still considered him as their "brother," a relative of bin Laden's has said.

"My understanding of the Saudi society is I'm sure they (bin Laden's family) are mourning because for them he is their brother. It is my perception and I'm sure that it must be difficult time for them. They consider him as their brother," bin Laden's former sister-in-law Carmen Binladin told CNN.

Binladin, who spells her surname differently than Osama, said after 9/11, the family had realised the harm bin Laden had done and they had to distance themselves from him but "blood is thicker than anything and they still consider him as part of the family and part of the bin Ladens."

"They are very close knit, emotionally together." Hearing of bin Laden's death brought back memories of the 9/11 attack for the Swiss-born Binladin, who said the families of the victims "could at last have a sense of justice... It is a relief to be able to know that they will have some kind of closure."

She said she remembers bin Laden as a "very religious man. When I was living in Saudi Arabia, he had started going to Afghanistan against the Soviets. I knew he was very religious but at that time in the early 1980s I never thought that he would come and take so many innocent lives."

The US troops were prepared to capture Osama bin Laden alive, but his resistance and use of a woman as shield forced them to kill the Al Qaeda leader, the White House said.

"If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that. We had discussed that extensively in a number of meetings in the White House and with the (US) President," John Brennan, National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism and Homeland, told reporters at White House.

Bin Laden was killed in a pre-dawn operation yesterday in Pakistan's Abbottabad, 120 km from Islamabad.

"The concern was that bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation. Indeed, he did. "There was a firefight. He therefore was killed in that firefight, and that's when the remains were removed. But we certainly were planning for the possibility, which we thought was going to be remote, given that he would he likely resist arrest but that we would be able to capture him," he said.

The White House official said they were trying ensure that mission was accomplished safely. "We were not going to put our people at risk. The president put a premium on making sure that our personnel were protected, and we were not going to give bin Laden or any of his cohorts the opportunity to carry out lethal fire on our forces."

"He was engaged, and he was killed in the process. But if we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that," he said.

Brennan said Osama bin Laden was engaged in a firefight with those entered the house. "

The US on Tuesday closed its embassy and consulates in Pakistan to the general public until further notice, a day after American special forces killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a daring raid near the garrison city of Abbottabad.

"The US embassy in Islamabad and the Consulates in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi are closed for routine business to the general public until further notice," Embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez said.

Routine business includes matters like the issuance of visas. The embassy and consulates will remain open for "other business and for emergency American citizen services", he said.

The move came amid fears of reprisals by the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda for the killing of bin Laden, who was hiding out in a compound located a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy.

21 per cent polling was recorded in the first two hours of voting in 63 constituencies in Howrah, Hooghly, East Midnapore and parts of Burdwan districts where the fourth phase of West Bengal assembly polls is underway.

"The turnout so far is good. In the first two hours, polling was 21 per cent," officials said. An electorate of 1.26 crore will decide the fate of 366 candidates, including several ministers, in 15,711 polling stations.

The constituencies going to polls during this phase include Nandigram and Singur which changed the political scene in the state in the last few years.

Besides CPI-M heavyweight and Industries Minister Nirupam Sen, other CPI-M ministers in the fray include Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury, Food Processing Minister Mohanta Chatterjee, Minister of state for Information and Culture Soumendranath Bera and Technical Education Minister Chakradhar Maikap.

Agriculture Minister Naren Dey belonging to Forward Bloc and Fire Services Minister Pratim Chatterjee belonging to Marxist Forward Bloc are also contesting.

Trinamool Congress has fielded former IPS officers Rachpal Singh, H A Sawfi and Sultan Singh in this phase. The six-phase election will end on May 10.