Notorious whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published five million emails from a geopolitical analysis company that Reuters likened to a “shadow CIA.”
The emails, stolen in late December from the U.S.-based company, could reveal private information on Stratfor readers and subscribers, the details of sensitive sources, and even throw light on the intelligence-gathering community, Reuters reported.
According to a WikiLeaks statement accompanying the posting of the documents, they reveal the inner workings of the intelligence publisher, which works with companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Fighters pushed Sunday to the outskirts of one of Moammar Gadhafi's last bastions of support, setting the stage for possible clashes ahead of this week's deadline for loyalists of the ousted leader to surrender.
Libya's new leaders gave Gadhafi loyalists in Sirte, Bani Walid and a handful of towns until Saturday to
surrender or face military force.
But there were indications that fighters were planning to enter Bani Walid, where a powerful tribe is sympathetic to Gadhafi, before the deadline.
National Transitional Council media coordinator Adel Zintani told CNN's Kareem Khadder that fighters could enter Bani Walid by Sunday morning.
"The rebel fighters have surrounded the outskirts of Bani Walid on the western side," he said Saturday.
"Some tribal leaders and many of the residents have surrendered their weapons, but there are still many loyalists who are protecting Moammar Gadhafi and his sons," Zintani said.
The deadline was extended by a week to curb further bloodshed and prevent prevent further destruction, military commanders have said.
"This extension does not mean we are unaware of what Gadhafi's accomplices are up to," Jalil said at a news conference, countering earlier criticism that a grace period might give Gadhafi's forces to regroup.
But Gadhafi's spokesman, who has not been seen since Tripoli fell, said key tribal leaders in Bani Walid remain loyal to the ousted leader.
Musa Ibrahim, in a telephone call from an undisclosed location, told Reuters that the transitional council's messages "are not being heeded here in Bani Walid."
Ibrahim also told Reuters that Gadhafi remained in Libya, though he said he did not know where. He did say Gadhafi was well defended.
Anti-Gadhafi forces are positioning around the former leader's hometown, Sirte, and Bani Walid, said Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, on Saturday.
Ali Tarhouni, interim deputy prime minister and oil minister of the NTC, said the Bani Walid was close to falling.
"It's possible, although we are not sure, that the Bani Walid (tribe) has joined the revolution, and now it's under control of the revolutionaries," he said.
Anti-Gadhafi fighters from the east pushed toward Bani Walid Saturday with virtually no resistance. They were able to reach El Mardum, which sits on the border of Bani Walid province and is home to Khamis Gadhafi's 32nd Brigade base.
The anti-Gadhafi forces entered the base and arrested three men in civilian clothes they claim were loyalists. They also took seven armored personnel carriers.
Tarhouni said Libya's new leadership will move their headquarters from Benghazi to Tripoli this week to begin implementing political plans to shape a new future.
But for the time being, guns trump government on the streets of the capital.
Tripoli has become a city of checkpoints, weapons and no real authority as the threat of Gadhafi's loyalists lingers.
Jittery and suspicious anti-Gadhafi fighters blocked a road Saturday where a drive-by shooting occurred earlier. They collected weapons and registered them at police stations. Those who called themselves rebels just a week ago were now working with Tripoli's law enforcement authorities.
With Gadhafi's armories emptied, guns -- always in large supply in Libya -- have proliferated on the streets.
Those who want to carry weapons now must be issued identification cards, but the selection process is not centralized -- neighborhood councils are making that decision.
A group called the Tripoli Revolutionary Council is trying to exert control over the city, creating the potential for further conflict with the established National Transitional Council in a volatile situation.
Tarhouni announced Saturday the formation of the Supreme Security Committee, which held its first meeting Friday. Among the priorities for the committee were the protection of public institutions and weapons in Tripoli.
The transitional council, meanwhile, is trying to get Libya's oil-dependent economy going again.
It expects to restart oil production at the Misla and Sarir oil fields in less than two weeks, Tarhouni said.
Kevin Antoine Dodson, star of a viral Internet song warning neighbors to watch out for a sexual predator, was arrested and charged with marijuana possession after being stopped for speeding, police in Huntsville, Ala., said Saturday.
Dodson was charged with second-degree marijuana possession, speeding, failure to have liability insurance and other minor charges after police stopped him early Saturday in Huntsville, police spokesman Harry Hobbs told Reuters.
He was released later on Saturday after posting a $1,340 cash bond, Hobbs said.
"Let me be the first to tell it!!" Dodson tweeted to his 33,000 Twitter followers after his release. "So just got out of jail off a weak charge ... Got pulled over in my Benz and they got me ... I never been in jail except that time in grade school. You remember!!!"
Dodson, who lives in Huntsville, which is about 80 miles north of Birmingham, came to prominence when millions of people watched his response to an NBC television affiliate last summer after his sister was attacked in their home.
The interview was turned into a song titled "Bed Intruder," by New York musicians Evan and Michael Gregory. Thousands of copies of the song were sold on iTunes and earned Dodson royalties.
"Obviously we have a rapist in Lincoln Park," Dodson told the television station. "He's climbing in your windows. He's snatching your people up trying to rape them, so you all need to hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband because they are raping everybody out here."
Dodson chastised the sexual predator who attacked his sister in her bed — an attack he reportedly thwarted.
"You don't have to come and confess that you did it," Dodson told the NBC affiliate last year. "We are looking for you. We are going to find you. I'm letting you know now."
Chris Brown's occasionally discomforting quest for career rehab hit another roadblock Tuesday, when an appearance on "Good Morning America" concluded with the singer trashing his dressing room and storming shirtless out of the ABC New York studio.
The reported meltdown came off-camera, after an interview with co-host Robin Roberts, who asked him about his 2009 assault of Rihanna, and after he performed a song in the "GMA" studio.
He was scheduled to perform another song after a commercial break, but unidentified witnesses told the Associated Press and other news outlets that Brown went to his dressing room, smashed a window -- reports say shards of glass fell several stories onto the street -- broke
several other items and stormed out as security officers were arriving.
Brown was on "GMA" to plug his new album "F.A.M.E." (the title stands, he says, for "Forgiving All My Enemies") which came out Tuesday and already has garnered three hit singles and largely positive reviews. But Brown clearly seemed agitated when Roberts asked him about the assault and continued to emphasize the new album.
"This album is what I want them to talk about and not what happened two years ago," he said.
Brown is still on probation for the Rihanna assault, but ABC said Tuesday it did not plan to press criminal charges against the singer.
Brown is also slated to appear on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" next week; and so far the gig is still on.
KESHA NIXES JAPAN SHOW; CYNDI LAUPER DOESN'T: Pop singer Kesha, known for her gleefully raunchy songs and stage shows, says she has postponed an upcoming concert tour in Japan, in deference to the earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear power plant crisis there.
She urged fans to donate to relief funds.
"My heart is with Japan right now through this disaster and these hardships," the singer posted on her website. "I genuinely don't think right now would be appropriate timing for me to perform in Japan given the content and the spirit of my show, which is all about feeling exuberant, rowdy and wild."
But Cyndi Lauper has decided to go on with her current tour in Japan and will use the shows to raise funds for relief efforts.
ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER LOHAN ARREST: There are new legal problems for Lindsay Lohan's father, Michael Lohan. He was arrested by Los Angeles police on three felony charges Tuesday after a woman accused him of domestic violence at a nearby apartment, police say.
Police said they arrested Lohan after receiving a call at 9 p.m. about a domestic dispute. Lohan was detained while he was walking on the street near a police station. Police said he did not appear to be intoxicated and was cooperative.
Lohan, 50, was booked for inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant, false imprisonment and preventing a report of victimization, police said.
No other details of the alleged incident were revealed.
His daughter Lindsay, meanwhile, is expected to inform a judge by today whether she will accept a plea deal with jail time or go to trial in her felony grand theft case.
Reports say a judge has offered Lindsay Lohan a term of 60 to 90 days in county jail, rather than state prison, if she pleads guilty to grand theft, RadarOnline.com reported.
She could face a worse sentence if she rejects the deal and is later convicted.
Lohan is accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry store near her Venice home last month.
JA RULE BROKE DA RULES: Rapper and actor Ja Rule pleaded guilty Tuesday to failing to file tax returns and will pay more than $1 million in back taxes and penalties, Reuters news service reported.
Ja Rule, 35, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, 35, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to three counts of failing to file a tax return, from 2004 through 2008, even though he was making money from royalties and live tours. Atkins was free after posting $500,000 bail, and will be sentenced June 13. He faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison on each count.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Our family weathered a huge storm, and I feel we are stronger than we have ever been." -- Tish Cyrus, referring to her husband Billy Ray Cyrus's decision to halt divorce proceedings against her.
• 1775: Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, "Give me liberty or give me death!"
• 1806: Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific Coast, began their journey back East.
• 1919: Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.
• 1933: The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.
• 1956: Pakistan became an Islamic republic.
• 1981: The U.S. Supreme Court, in H.L. v. Matheson, ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.
BIRTHDAYS
Comedian Marty Allen (89), Sir Roger Bannister, who broke the 4-minute mile in 1954 (82), movie director Mark Rydell (77), Motorsports Hall of Famer Craig Breedlove (74), singer-producer Ric Ocasek (62), singer Chaka Khan (58), actress Amanda Plummer (54), actress Catherine Keener (52), actress Hope Davis (47), rock singer-musician Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz (43), actress Michelle Monaghan (35), actress Keri Russell (35), gossip columnist-blogger Perez Hilton (33).
TRIPOLI: Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi said his forces will soon launch an assault on rebel stronghold Benghazi, saying "traitors" would be showed no mercy but those who laid down their arms would be spared.
"The decision has been taken. Prepare yourselves. We will arrive tonight," Gaddafi said on state television.
"We will chase the traitors from Benghazi," he told his troops. "Destroy their fortifications. Show them no mercy. The world needs to see Benghazi free."
Meanwhile, he said "those who surrender and throw down their arms will be saved."
Sticking to recurring claims throughout the month-old rebellion that al-Qaida is behind it, Gaddafi said "we will hunt down the miscreants and bearded ones that have destroyed out country and we will punish them without mercy."
"We will also punish the mercenaries who have served them," he added, without saying to whom he was referring.
Gaddafi said the insurgents "take their strength from lies, and you do not have to spare them."
Touching on another recurring theme of his public statements about the rebels, he said they needed to be "hunted down in every neighbourhood, every street, every house."
Gaddafi, who came to power in a bloodless 1969 coup against Libya's monarchy, said "I freed Benghazi with my rifle, and Benghazi will not betray me. Tomorrow Benghazi will be free."
He accused the rebels of using people who had fled from prisons, criminals and murderers to do the "traitorous acts."
This "handful of drug addicts and criminals are in the process of making a racket so that the Americans and the Europeans can come into hour houses, humiliate you and stain your honour."
Bahrain arrested at least four opposition leaders early Thursday morning, including Hassan Mushaima of the hardline Shi'ite Haq movement, which has called for an end to the Bahraini monarchy, members of the largest Shi'ite opposition bloc Wefaq said.
Wefaq parliamentarian Mattar Ibrahim confirmed the arrests to Reuters by telephone, adding that security forces also arrested Ibrahim Sharif, the head of a secular leftist party Waad. Bahrain's Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment.
The rebel leadership said on Thursday that the oil port of Ras Lanuf in eastern Libya is under heavy bombardment. Asked about a Libyan state television report that government forces had cleared Ras Lanuf of "armed gangs", Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the National Libyan Council, said: "No, this is not accurate."
Notorious whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published five million emails from a geopolitical analysis company that Reuters likened to a “shadow CIA.”
