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Police hunting a gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France have surrounded a flat in Toulouse.
The 24-year-old Frenchman from Toulouse has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".
Police are now negotiating with the man, who is still said to be heavily armed but has indicated he may give himself up in the afternoon.
Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.
The suspect's brother is under arrest.
The suspect's mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as "she had little influence on him".
The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
© Unknown
On March 6, 2012, the US Congressional Research Service released a report to the US Congress concerning Restrictions on the use of American weapons by recipient countries.
For those who have followed the subject there was not a whole lot new in the CRS study, yet it is instructive in identifying Israel once again as far and away the most egregious violator of virtually every provision of every US law which purports to regulate how American weapons are used.
In accordance with U.S. law, the U.S. Government is mandated to enforce strict conditions on the use against civilians, of weapons it transfers to foreign recipients.
Violations of these conditions can lead to the suspension of deliveries or termination of contracts for such defense items, and even the cutting off of all aid to the violating country.
Section 3(a) of the 1976 US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) sets the standards for countries to be eligible to receive American arms and it also sets express conditions on the uses to which these arms may be put.
© AFP Photo/Eric CabanisFrench activists rip open bags of MON 810, a variety of Monsanto's genetically modified corn after entering a Monsanto storehouse.
"Due to the proximity of the planting season," said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire along with Francois Fillon, Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, in a press release on Friday, authorities "decided to take a precautionary measure to temporarily prohibit the cultivation of maize MON810 on the national territory to protect the environment."
All prior plantings of MON810, trade name YieldGard, become illegal on March 20.
Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto announced in January that it would not sell genetically modified corn in France due to public opposition.
© Tracy A. Woodward / The Washington Post
Over the course of a year, 29-year-old Amine El Khalifi, who was clearly mentally ill and often high on cocaine and other drugs, was persuaded by an FBI informant to agree to attack the U.S. Capitol. Because El Khalifi didn't have a gun, a bomb or a car, the FBI informant graciously offered to provide him all three - and thus El Khalifi was driven to the U.S. Capitol building by the FBI, handed a gun and a bomb, and then arrested as an "al Qaeda operative."
© Reuters / Mustafa AndalibThree captured Taliban insurgents are presented to the media in Ghazni province.
The report carried out by the Afghan Independent Rights Commission and the Open Society Foundation documents numerous cases of torture in Afghan detention facilities between February 2011 and January 2012.
The document has credible evidence in 11 recent cases where practices such as "beatings, suspension from the ceiling, electric shocks, threatened or actual sexual abuse, and other forms of mental and physical abuse" were commonplace. Researchers also discovered widespread violations of prisoners' rights were in evidence, "including the right to counsel and family notification."
According to the study, these techniques are "routinely used to obtain confessions or other information."
French interior minister says man who killed rabbi and three children at Jewish school had a video camera around his neck
The gunman who killed a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday was wearing a small video camera around his neck and may have filmed the attack, according to the French interior minister.
Claude Guéant said the attacker was wearing "a kind of filming apparatus" on his chest when he struck just before 8am and opened fire on children and adults outside the school. Asked whether the gunman recorded the scene, he said: "We can imagine that."
Guéant said on Tuesday that authorities were combing the internet to see if the killer had posted a video online, but had not yet found any traces.
The biggest manhunt in modern French history is under way to find the motorcycle gunman, who is still at large.
Schools across France held a moment of silence on Tuesday to honour the three children and a rabbi killed in Monday's attack.
The gunman who killed a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday was wearing a small video camera around his neck and may have filmed the attack, according to the French interior minister.
Claude Guéant said the attacker was wearing "a kind of filming apparatus" on his chest when he struck just before 8am and opened fire on children and adults outside the school. Asked whether the gunman recorded the scene, he said: "We can imagine that."
Guéant said on Tuesday that authorities were combing the internet to see if the killer had posted a video online, but had not yet found any traces.
The biggest manhunt in modern French history is under way to find the motorcycle gunman, who is still at large.
Schools across France held a moment of silence on Tuesday to honour the three children and a rabbi killed in Monday's attack.
New York City police are investigating death threats made against staff through the phone and on twitter. This after officers forcibly arrested more than 70 people during an Occupy Wall Street protest. Since the start of the movement, nationwide protests have faced numerous cases of police brutality with batons and tear gas often used to disperse crowds. As the movement continues, so too does Washington's desire to silence the American public, as RT's Marina Portnaya explains.
© Reuters/Scanpix Sweden
There are many, many things to dislike about analog money. Cash and coins are unwieldy. They're heavy. They're dirty. They leave no automatic record of the financial transactions that are made with them.
Here in the U.S., despite Square and PayPal and other services that would seem to herald the end of cash, bills and coins still represent 7 percent of our total economy. In Sweden, however -- which ranked first in this year's Global Information Technology Report from the World Economic Forum -- cash is scarcer. And it's becoming, the AP reports, scarcer still. While Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661, it's now come farther than any other country in the attempt to eradicate them. In most Swedish cities, the AP notes,
public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices -- which make money on electronic transactions -- have stopped handling cash altogether.Even houses of worship are becoming increasingly friendly to cash-free transactions: At the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to allow worshipers to tithe in digital form.
Jason Russell loses exposes his true nature
Comment: WARNING: If you see this man in the vicinity of children, call the appropriate authorities.
Kony 2012 Co-founder, Jason Russell, Arrested for Masturbating in Public
'Kony 2012′ filmmaker expected to be released from mental hospital soon
Comment: So that's a wrap then: the killer is an 'Islamist', he threw the gun used in all three shootings out the window of his flat and his motive was revenge against Israel.
And now France is in a state of high alert 6 weeks before Presidential elections...