The Colombian authorities say they have rescued Ingrid Betancourt and three American hostages held by Farc rebels.

Good news, for a change.

A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.

Sandrine Helene Sellies, 34, who has a fear of flying, had drunk alcohol and taken sleeping tablets ahead of the flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane.

She was seen on the Cathay Pacific plane walking towards a door with an unlit cigarette and a lighter.

She then began tampering with the emergency exit until she was stopped by a flight attendant.

Reminds me of the Bill Hicks piece:

Now get this, I’ve been travelling all over the country on British Air. No smoking on British Air. Now let me get this straight, no smoking, right, but they allow children. Little fairness, huh? “Well smoking bothers me.” Well guess what? I was on this one flight right, I’m flying, I’m sleeping on the plane, I’m fucking “knackered”. Very tired right and I feel this tapping on my head. And I look up and there’s this little kid – loose! on the fucking plane, he’s just loose. It’s his playground in the sky. And he has decided that his job is to repetitively tap me on the top of the head. I look across the aisle at his mom. she’s just smiling, you know. Guy next to the mom goes, “They’re so cute when they’re that small.” Isn’t that amazing, letting your kid run loose on a fucking plane. And then the kid runs over to the emergency exit and he starts flipping that handle to the door. And the guy next to the mom starts to get up, and I go, “Wait a minute… we’re about to learn an important lesson right here.” Kwoooshh. Boy you’re right, the smaller he gets, the cuter he is. God, I wish I had a camera right now. With a telescopic lens. Love to get a picture of his face when his pudgy little legs hit that farmhouse down there. Aah, aah, kids. Ha hha. Stewardess, since we got a breeze in here can we smoke now? Fairly well circulated at this point. Woosh. True story. But, you know.

The wife of prominent defense attorney and TV legal analyst Daniel Horowitz was found slain in the entryway of the couple’s San Francisco Bay area home, authorities said Sunday.

Horowitz, currently leading the defense in a sensational murder trial, called 911 Saturday evening to report that he found his wife, Pamela Vitale, dead in their home, police said.

Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputies said Sunday that the death was being investigated as a homicide. An autopsy was planned Monday to determine how she was killed.

“We talked to a number of people last night, but there’s nobody in custody. We’re still trying to establish a motive,” said spokesman Jimmy Lee.

A Colombian airliner has crashed in a remote mountainous area of Venezuela killing all 160 people on board. The 152 passengers were from the French Caribbean island of Martinique – the eight crew members were Colombian, West Caribbean Airways said.

I have already realized that wealth, and especially vast wealth, does not in itself make a person free. As a co-owner of Yukos, I had to make enormous efforts to protect this wealth. I had to limit myself in everything that might harm this possession.

I avoided saying many things, because speaking candidly could harm my possessions. I had to close my eyes to many things, to put up with many things, all for the sake of my assets, to preserve and to increase them. I controlled my possessions; they controlled me.

So I would like to warn young people today, those who will soon come to power: Do not envy those who have great wealth.

Do not think that their life is easy and comfortable. Property creates new possibilities, but it also paralyzes a person’s creative forces, it dilutes the personality. It is a cruel tyranny, the tyranny of property.

I have been transformed. I am becoming a normal person (economically, a member of the well-to-do middle class), for whom what is most important is not to acquire, but to live. The struggle now is not for property, but for myself, for the right to be myself.

In this struggle, popularity ratings, official contacts and public relations gimmicks are not important. All that is important is you, yourself – your feelings, ideas, talents, will, intellect and faith.

This is, indeed, the only possible and correct choice – the choice of freedom.

I have great pity for those authorities who sincerely believe that they are doing a good thing for the country, for the people. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Further down this road they will realize that repressive methods and the forced redistribution of wealth are not compatible with modern economic development. And they will not be able to limit this assault to Khodorkovsky, Yukos or the oligarchs – their victims will be many, including those who created this machinery.

My persecutors know that there’s not a shred of evidence of any guilt on my part. But that’s irrelevant, since they could always accuse me of something else – burning down the Moscow Manege, or economic counterrevolution. I’ve been told that they want to put me away for a long time – five years or more – because they fear that I will seek revenge.

These simple people judge others by themselves. Relax: I have no intention of becoming a Count of Monte Cristo. To breathe the spring air, to play with children studying at an ordinary Moscow school, to read good books – all this is so much more important, more right and more pleasant than multiplying wealth and settling scores.

I thank God that unlike my persecutors, I have understood that making more money is far from the only (or most important) goal of human endeavors.

For me, the time of big money is in the past. Now, freed from the burden of the past, I am determined to work for the benefit of those generations that will soon take charge of our country. Generations that will come with new values and new hopes.

Update: It seems this is getting more coverage. It should be noted I noticed Cheese and Crackers topping the Truth Laid Bear traffic listings. Malachy Joyce dropped me a mail with a roundup.

Matthew correctly points out:

Besided that, a word on the “stingy” issue. What the UN official actually said was that rich countries including the US are stingy with aid money. Whether out of anti-UN malice, or simply demented America-centrism, this has been widely reported as the claim that the United States is stingy which has pissed people off. But no one said that. The US government is stingy with official aid relative to the size of our economy, but the karmic balance is evened by the fact that our citizens are much more generous than the rest of the rich world in terms of individual donations. We also provide some global public goods — clear shipping lanes and the like — for self-interested reasons that wind up benefitting everyone. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t do more. Indeed, virtually every rich country should do more. We’re all stingier than we ought to be, especially in terms of doling out aid that history teaches would be effective like to fight disease and provide clean water in rural areas.

And as for levels of donations – perhaps we should wait six months to see how much everyone donated – looking back, rather than when the events are still unfolding.

Donations are approaching a quarter of a billion dollars. You can do your bit here.

Here are the seismic readings.

Iraqi troops took control of the main hospital in the besieged city of Falluja, a U.S. pool reporter outside the city said Sunday. The operation marks the start of the planned offensive to retake the city, Pentagon officials said, but it remains unclear when the main assault on the city will begin

Update:

Fox reports:

U.S. forces stormed into western districts of Fallujah (search) early Monday, seizing the main city hospital and securing two key bridges over the Euphrates River (search) in what appeared to be the first stage of the long-expected assault on the insurgent stronghold.

An AC-130 gunship (search) raked the city with 40 mm cannon fire as explosions from U.S. artillery lit up the night sky. Intermittent artillery fire blasted southern neighborhoods of Fallujah, and orange fireballs from high explosive airbursts could be seen above the rooftops.

U.S. officials said the toughest fight was yet to come — when American forces enter the main part of the city on the east bank of the river, including the Jolan neighborhood where insurgent defenses are believed the strongest.

The initial attacks on Fallujah began just hours after the Iraqi government declared 60 days of emergency rule throughout most of the country as militants dramatically escalated attacks, killing at least 30 people, including two Americans.

Dr. Salih al-Issawi, the head of Fallujah’s main hospital, said he had asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the Americans.

I used to get this train every day, I do wonder if any of the people that died were people I shared a carriage with, or even shared a table with. My thoughts are with the survivors of the train crash, and with the family of the victims.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040722/ap_on_re_us/attacks_surveillance_video&cid=519&ncid=716

The video represents the only footage known to exist showing any of the Sept.
11 hijackers boarding their final flights that fateful morning. It shows most of the hijackers in Washington were pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after alarms went off at metal detectors but then were permitted to board American Airlines Flight 77.

The video also shows an airport screener hand-checking the baggage of one hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, for traces of explosives before letting him continue onto the plane with his brother, Salem, a fellow hijacker. Al-Hazmi had been added to a U.S. government terrorism watch list just weeks earlier.

The disclosure of the video late Wednesday came just before the release of the final report by the Sept. 11 commission, which is expected to include a detailed accounting of the events that day.

Details in the grainy video are difficult to distinguish. But an earlier, preliminary report by the commission describing activities at Dulles is consistent with the men’s procession through airport security as shown on the video.

No knives or other sharp objects are visible on the surveillance video. Investigators have said the hijackers at Dulles were believed to be carrying utility knives either personally or in their luggage, which at the time could legally be carried aboard planes if the blades were less than 4 inches long and were not considered “menacing.” There is no indication on the video that security screeners questioned the hijackers about any knives.

All 58 passengers — including the hijackers — and six crew members, along with 125 employees at the Pentagon, died when the flight crashed into the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m. on Sept. 11.

The video shows hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed, each dressed conservatively in slacks and collared shirts, setting off metal detectors as they pass through security around 7:18 a.m. Moqed set off a second alarm, and a screener manually checked him with a handheld metal detector.

The pair were known to have traveled together previously and had paid cash to purchase their tickets aboard Flight 77 on Sept. 5, 2001, at the American Airlines counter at Baltimore’s airport.

Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been known to be associated with al-Qaida since early 1999 by the National Security Agency, and were put on a terrorism watch list on Aug. 24, 2001.

Only Hani Hanjour, believed to have been the hijacker who piloted Flight 77, passed through Dulles security that morning without being subjected to a secondary security check, according to the video.

Moments after Hanjour passed alone through the security checkpoint, wearing dark slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, the final two hijackers, the al-Hazmi brothers, both wearing slacks and Oxford shirts, walked through the checkpoint.

Nawaf al-Hazmi, described by investigators as the right-hand accomplice of hijacker-planner Mohammed Atta, set off two metal-detectors, and a screener manually checked him with a handheld device.

Nawaf and his brother, each wearing slacks and Oxford shirts, were directed to a nearby counter, where they appeared to closely examine their tickets while another screener checked Nawaf’s carryon bag with an explosive trace detector. Each was cleared to board Flight 77.

The Associated Press obtained the video from the Motley Rice law firm, which is representing some victims’ families who are suing the airlines and security industry over their actions in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Even after setting off these alarms, the airlines and security screeners failed to examine the hijackers’ baggage, as required by federal regulations and industry-mandated standards, or discover the weapons they would use in their attack,” lawyer Ron Motley said.

Llaine Teague, who is suing over the death of her 31-year-old daughter, Sandra, said she had previously been shown the footage by the FBI (news – web sites). But the terrorists’ faces had been digitally disguised.

Teague said she was surprised at how relaxed security was, given that airlines had received three warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration (news – web sites). One such warning, issued in June 2001, cited “unconfirmed reports that American interests may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups.”