US Secret Service hunts Facebook user after presidential death poll

• The US Secret Service is hunting for a Facebook user who posted a poll on the social networking website asking if President Obama should be killed.
• The poll offered four possible answers – “yes”, “no”, “maybe” and “If he cuts my healthcare” – and received 730 responses before the authorities were notified and Facebook removed it from its site.
• Threatening the President is a crime under federal law and the Secret Service, which is responsible for Mr Obama’s safety, said last month it had seen a 400 per cent surge in death threats against him since the launch of his push for healthcare reform earlier this year.
• News of the poll prompted demands from Democratic Party activists that whoever was behind it be prosecuted and jailed, but the Secret Service left open the possibility today that it was a high school prank that could still go unpunished.
• Posting a poll was not necessarily against the law, a source close to the investigation told The Times, adding: “What we have to do is determine the person’s intent and the only way we can do that is to interview him.”
• A Facebook spokesman said the poll had been posted to the site by a “third-party developer”, whose content is not subject to screening for offensive material.
• Some of those who would like Mr Obama dead have said so with little obvious fear of repercussions. One demonstrator at an anti-healthcare reform rally in New Hampshire last month carried a gun and a placard with the message: “It’s time to water the tree of liberty” – a reference to a warning from Thomas Jefferson, often quoted on the extreme right, that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots”.
• Earlier this month the Rev Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptists minister in Orange County, California, told an interviewer that he was praying for Mr Obama’s death. Far from being muzzled, he has won a first-round victory in an effort to show in court that the President was not born a US citizen. A preliminary date for a hearing has been set for January 2010.

By www.michaeljackson50.com

Backlash to Hollywood petition demanding release of Roman Polanski

• A backlash was growing last night against the actors and directors who leapt to the defence of Roman Polanski after his arrest on a child sex charge.
• Celebrated cinema luminaries including Woody Allen, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese called for Polanski to be freed immediately from arrest in Switzerland on a US extradition warrant.
• He is wanted for fleeing 30 years ago to avoid sentencing after admitting unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Lawyers for the film director have appealed for his release on bail.
• Luc Besson, the director of Léon, however, refused to sign the Hollywood petition, saying that no one should be above the law, and Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, criticised his Foreign Minister for urging the director’s freedom.
• Polanski, 76, is said to have felt no qualms about visiting Zurich Film Festival to pick up a lifetime achievement award, partly because his lawyers believed that he was no longer actively being sought. He faces a wait of up to two weeks to hear about bail, which legal sources said was unlikely.
• “The case involves a great director but still it is also a case of ... sex with a child,” Mr Tusk said. “We should not bring politics into this or speak in patriotic tones.”
• Mr Tusk’s warning followed an appeal by his Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, and Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister of France, where Polanski lives with his wife and two children.
• The petition has been signed by more than 100 cinema industry figures. “We demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski,” it stated. “Film-makers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision.”
• The Oscar-winning director of films including Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist faces several months in prison because the US has 60 days to send its formal extradition request and the appeal process is likely to last “some weeks”, Swiss authorities said.
• In Hollywood, Polanski’s friends and admirers were as outraged that the Los Angeles District Attorney still wanted to prosecute the 32-year-old case, not least because his victim said that she did not believe that he should be pursued.
• The actress Whoopi Goldberg said: “I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, ‘You know what, this [judge] is going to give me a hundred years in jail. I’m not staying’.”

By www.michaeljackson50.com

Tsunami 'wipes out' villages - Pictures

By http://www.michaeljackson50.com/

Tsunami 'wipes out' villages

Villages 'wiped out' by tsunami after Samoa quake: report

• Villages have been 'wiped out' by a tsunami that hit the South Pacific after a quake off the coast of Samoa.
• A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 struck off the South Pacific island nation of Samoa on Tuesday, wiping out villages and killing 19 people in the region, reports said.
• At least 14 people were reported to have died in American Samoa, and five in Samoa as enormous waves battered the island states, with one witness saying the wall of water had been up to 30 feet (nine metres) high.
• The Samoan capital of Apia was evacuated as authorities scrambled to get thousands of people to higher ground.Witnesses said cars were swept out to sea in American Samoa where buildings were destroyed in what the US congressman for the territory said was a scene of "devastation."
• The US Geological Survey said an 8.0-magnitude quake struck at 6:48 am (1748 GMT) at a depth of 18 kilometres (11 miles), 195 kilometres south of the Samoan capital Apia.
  The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially issued a tsunami alert over a vast swathe of the Pacific, as far as Hawaii, but later withdrew the warning.
• The centre said waves of up to 1.57 metres (over five feet) above the average sea level had smashed into American Samoa.Eyewitnesses said the waves were much larger.
• Mike Reynolds, superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, which has its headquarters in the territory's capital Pago Pago told colleagues in California there had been widescale destruction.National Park Service spokeswoman Holly Bundock said she had spoken to Reynolds, who was sheltering under a coconut tree.
• "Park staff when they are able to make cell phone calls are calling in to our offices," she said."They said five tsunami waves have hit the park visitor centre in Pago Pago. It would appear park offices and the visitor centre there have been destroyed. "One of the waves was about 30 feet high."Samoan journalist Jona Tuiletufuga told AFP there was widespread destruction with possibly thousands of people left homeless on the island.
• "Entire villages have been wiped out."
• Tuiletufuga said there were up to 70 villages in the worst-hit area and each housed from 300-800 people.
• A New Zealand tourist who called Radio New Zealand to appeal for help said he was looking over an area of destruction from high ground near Apia."We clambered up a hill and one of the party has a broken leg. We just need help. There will be people in a great lot of need around here, it's flattened."Information from both islands was patchy.
• A series of powerful aftershocks rattled the South Pacific in the hours after the initial quake.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre initially issued a tsunami warning for a large area of the South Pacific including Fiji, New Zealand and Tonga.The USGS said the 8.0-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 18 kilometres.
• Several of the Earth's tectonic plates meet in South Pacific and violent geological activity is common.Large quakes with an under-ocean epicentre can trigger tsunamis that can have devastating effects.
• In December 2004 an undersea earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra set off a tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean and laid waste to huge areas of coastline.

By http://www.michaeljackson50.com/

Royal Navy has made its largest ever seizure of cocaine worth £240m

The Royal Navy has made its largest ever seizure of cocaine with a haul worth more than £240million.

• The Royal Navy has made its largest ever seizure of cocaine with a haul worth more than £240m.
• HMS Iron Duke seized more than five and a half tonnes of the drug in an operation off the coast of South America.
• In the UK it would have a street value of £240m, the Navy said.
  A 138ft fishing boat, the MV Cristal, was spotted by a Navy helicopter crew in an area known for trafficking, which led to a dramatic swoop with the US Coast Guard and another British ship, Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Fort George.
• In total, 212 bales of cocaine were found, weighing about 26kg each. The crews then sank the smugglers' boat with gun fire.
• Commander Andrew Stacey said that an armed helicopter and rigid inflatable boats were sent to intercept the ship on September 15.
• In a painstaking search of the vessel, the drugs were eventually found hidden under the ship's regular stores, beneath a concrete floor and steel panels.
• Tonnes of stock had to be moved, the hard floor broken up with sledgehammers and metal panels unbolted before the stash was revealed.
• Cmdr Stacey said: "This was our third successful drug bust in as many months but this surpasses anything we've had and anything the Navy had previously. It is the largest drugs bust by value, and by volume in terms of cocaine."
• Several drug runners of different nationalities were arrested.
• The cocaine was stored on the Iron Duke for around 24 hours - because there was so much of it some had to be kept on deck under armed guard.
• Cmdr Stacey said: "We are very well prepared to defend ourselves. It was a big quantity and I was conscious of the fact that some people might want it back, but they would have a tough time getting it back from us."
• HMS Iron Duke is on a six-month deployment to visit UK overseas territories during hurricane season.
• Prince William served on the vessel last year when it seized cocaine worth £45m in the Caribbean.

By www.michaeljackson50.com

THIS IS IT Tickets On Sale!

• Tickets to Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT will go on sale today, Sunday, September 27. The movie, a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Michael Jackson as he developed, created, and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place this summer at London's O2 Arena, will be in theaters worldwide for a limited two-week engagement starting Wednesday, October 28. It will premiere the night before, Tuesday, October 27, with 25 global premieres, 15 of those simultaneously around the world. Go to MichaelJackson.com
• The Michael Jackson's This Is It movie pre-sale has begun!
• "MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT” 2 CD Music Collector's Edition With Souvenir Movie Poster
• The Limited Edition 2-CD Music set featuring the music that inspired MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT including a deluxe 36-page booklet and souvenir movie poster is now available for pre-order.

By www.michaeljackson50.com

Surfers shocked to find shark on beach - discovering a 12ft shark

Surfers got a "nasty shock" at discovering a 12ft shark that had been washed up on a beach in Cornwall.

• The thresher shark was found on Hayle beach by the surfers who thought it was a dolphin.
  It had a 6ft long body, with a tail of the same length, and is estimated to weigh around 440lb.
• Dave Jarvis, from Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network, has formally identified the shark that was found on Wednesday.
  "The surfers who found it thought it was a dolphin so they got a nasty shock when they got closer and saw it was a shark," he said.
• "It was in good condition, there were no marks on it so we don't know how it died."
  Thresher sharks are native to UK waters but it is unusual for them to be washed up in this way.
• Mr Jarvis said he could not think of another that had washed up in recent years in Cornwall.
• "They don't pose any threat to humans, if they did decide to go for you it would take a lump out of you but they only have a small mouth and two rows of teeth so its not like Jaws," he said.
• "I've never heard of anyone being attacked by one."Thresher sharks can grow up to 20ft in length.
• In 2007 a trawler fisherman caught a 16ft thresher shark off the coast off Land's End, Cornwall.

By www.michaeljackson50.com