Teleprompters, Other Equipment Stolen from Virginia Truck Before President Obama Appearence

An NBC station out of Richmond, VA is reporting that a truckload of official White House equipment including Presidential seals, sound equipment and a pair of TelePrompTers was stolen at a hotel parking lot in Henrico, VA. [Just teleprompters? Good thing nothing of value was taken! *WHEW!*- NANESB!]

A truck filled with President Obama's podiums and audio equipment was stolen in Henrico just days before his visit to Chesterfield.

[WWBT, Channel 12] confirmed an investigation with the U.S. Defense Department. There are still a lot of questions. The biggest one being did the thieves intentionally target the President's truck or did they take advantage of a crime of opportunity and give a big "uh-oh" when they saw what was inside.

When you see President Obama speak, there is a pretty typical setup including the presidential seal on a podium, the see-thru Teleprompter and a portable sound system.

Thieves saw the truck carrying that equipment and couldn't resist the target.

We're told the truck was parked at the Virginia Center Commons Courtyard Marriott in advance on Wednesday's presidential visit to Chesterfield.

Sources said inside that vehicle was about $200,000 worth of sound equipment, several podiums and presidential seals, behind which only the President himself can stand.

They told NBC12 around 12:30 Monday afternoon that truck was recovered in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express near the airport and hotel staff confirm police activity. One guest we spoke with said he saw various law enforcement agencies examining a white box truck parked there.

According to him, the entire back parking lot was blocked off as Henrico Police along with "lots of guys in suits" investigated. He said the truck had no markings and no indication anything special was inside. That leads to another big question of whether or not any of that was actually stolen.

Late Monday evening we found a truck with US government tags still parked in the Marriott's lot. We are waiting to find out if that is the original truck returned to the staff or a second vehicle.

We were able to get this statement from a Defense Information Systems Agency spokesperson: "No classified or sensitive information was in the vehicle. We take incidents such as this very seriously and a formal investigation is continuing."

We are waiting to find out if surveillance cameras on the building captured the crooks on tape.

President Obama is scheduled to kick off a second bus tour in North Carolina and Virginia this week. The truck was reportedly travelling in advance of the Presidential motorcade for a Wednesday appearance with Virgina GOP governor Bob McDonnell at a veterans-focused event in Ft. Eustis, VA.

Horn of Africa Update- Suspected Al Shabaab Car Bomb Kills 70 in Mogadishu; Somali Pirates Sentenced in Murder of American Yachters

MOGADISHU: The Islamic Al-Shabaab militia took credit for a deadly truck bombing that tore through the heart of Mogadishu, killing at least 70 people on a crowded street outside of the Ministry of Education this week.

A truck loaded with drums of fuel exploded outside the Ministry of Education, where students accompanied by their parents registered for scholarships offered by the Turkish government. The thunderous blast covered the city in dust more than a half-mile away, leaving blackened corpses sprawled on the debris-strewn street amid burning vehicles. One woman used a blue plastic bucket to pour water on a smoldering body.


Even in a city mired in war and anarchy for two decades, Tuesday's attack by the al-Shabab group horrified rescue workers. Ali Abdullahi, a nurse at the city's Medina Hospital, said countless victims were being brought in with amputated limbs and burns.

"It is the most awful tragedy I have ever seen," he said. "Imagine dozens are being brought here minute by minute. Most of the wounded people are unconscious and others have their faces blackened by smoke and heat."

Duniya Salad sobbed over her brother's burnt body after he died while undergoing treatment at the hospital.

"They killed him before he started university! Why was he killed? Damn to al-Shabab," she said.
Al-Shabab, which was formed about five years ago, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on a website it uses.

"Our Mujahideen fighters have entered a place where ministers and AMISOM foreigners stay," al-Shabab said in a brief post on a website, referring to the Ugandan and Burundian forces who make up the African Union peacekeeping mission.

The attack took place on one of the busiest streets in the capital, and it was not clear whether the Ministry of Education was the intended target.

In the last few days, the death toll from the attack has climbed past 100, as hospitalized victims have succumbed to their injuries. The bomber was reportedly a dropout named Bashar Abdullah Nur who wanted Somali youth to abandon secular eduacation and take up arms in jihad instead.

This is the part where I remind you that Somalia hasn't had a functioning government since 1991 when Said Barre's autocratic regime collapsed in a civil war that fractured most of the country into feuding fiefdoms controlled by bandits, pirates, warlords, smugglers and Islamic militias.

Backed by peacekeepers from Burundi and Uganda, Somalia's transitional government was able to clear the Somali capital of al Shabaab militants over the last year, although the Islamic terrorist group still controls large swaths of territory to the south of the capital and is reportedly fighting against Yemeni government forces with their Al Qaeda counterparts on the Arabian Peninsula. To hardly anybody's surprise, Al-Shabaab has vowed to carry out further attacks.

VIRGINIA: The leader of a gang of Somali pirates who hijacked an American yacht off the coast of Yemen and murdered the 3 Californians on board received a life sentence at a federal court in Norfolk, VA this week.

Mohamud Salad Ali is the fifth of 11 men who have pleaded guilty to piracy in the case to be sentenced.

He received a second life sentence that he'll serve concurrently with the other one because he also pleaded guilty to hostage taking resulting in death. That charge carried the possibility of the death penalty, but prosecutors agreed to the lesser sentence as part of a plea deal.

Ali has detailed for investigators how piracy operations in Somalia work and has agreed to help prosecutors as they pursue charges against other men.

None of those who have pleaded guilty in the case so far are believed to have been the triggermen. Three other men are charged with murder and other death penalty-eligible counts.
Ali -- a former policeman who recruited men for the expedition -- was on board a U.S. Navy warship at the time the killings happened.

The Navy had offered to let the pirates take the 58-foot sailboat in exchange for the hostages, but the men refused because they wouldn't get the kind of money they wanted. Hostages are typically ransomed for millions of dollars.

"Mohamud Salad Ali led the pirate attack, and his refusal to release the four Americans -- even with the opportunity to proceed to Somalia with the Quest -- reveals the callous regard that Somali pirates have for their hostages and the threat they pose to any U.S. vessel on the high seas," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a written statement.

Two other pirates had been sentenced this week to life in prison for their role in the February hijacking. Aside from Californians Jean and Scott Adam, four of the Somali pirates were killed in close-quarters combat when US sailors boarded the hijacked vessel.

KENYA: Two European tourists were abducted from upscale resorts along the Kenyan coast in separate incidents in the past month. In mid September, a British tourist was shot to death and his wife was abducted by gunmen on a speedboat in the Kenyan island of Lamu, less than 50 miles south of Kenya's border with Somalia.

The defense minister for Somalia's transitional government says that it's possible that al-Shabaab could be holding the woman for ransom, but didn't rule out the possibility of bandits. Police in Kenya and the UK believe that somebody on the staff might have tipped off the kidnappers, who had checked in a few hours before the gunmen raided the resort.

Members of the al Shabaab-linked Ras Kamboni brigades have calimed credit for the kidnapping- and announced that they were using her as a human shield to protect themselves from US Predator drone airstrikes amid multiple reports that the captive Briton was being held in an Island in Somali waters.

In the beginning of October, a disabled French woman was abducted by gunmen from her vacation home on the Kenyan island of Manda- across a lagoon from Lamu. Despite a brief chase and firefight with the Kenyan Navy, the abductors were able to slip back into Somali territory and the woman is reportedly being held in a coastal area in southern Somalia's Lower Jubba Region.

SEYCHELLES: British officials have announced the formation of a task force in the Indian Ocean island chain of they Seychelles that will be dedicated to tracking the pirate financiers and ransom money.

Ministers plan to despatch officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency to staff a new Indian Ocean unit dedicated to hunting pirate financiers, who provide start-up cash for gangs in return for the lion's share of ransom proceeds.

A financier who offers as little $10,000 to equip a gang with skiffs, fuel and guns can easily expect a return of 10 or 20 times his money in the event of a successful hijacking.

But while such profits are now believed to run into tens of millions of dollars a year, relatively little is known about exactly where the cash ends up, beyond a widespread acknowledgement that it makes the gangs ever more powerful, and may also line the pockets of Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist movement.

"Pirate financiers are the kingpins of piracy," said Henry Bellingham, Foreign Office minister for Africa, who will announce details of the new centre in a speech to the Chamber of Shipping in London on Wednesday. "Effectively targeting them will have a huge impact on the ability of pirates to terrorise the high seas."

The new unit will be based in the Seychelles Islands, nearly 1,000 miles east of Kenya, which have now become a key forward operating base against pirate gangs as they spread their reach across the Indian Ocean.

As Somali pirates stage attacks further east, local fishermen and tourism officials in the Seychelles fear that pirate activity could do long-term harm to the small island nation's economy.

US Air Force General Claims He Was Pressured to Alter Testimony About White House Backed Sattelite Communications Network

The Commander of the United States Air Force Space Command told House members that he was pressured to change prepared testimony before Congress to benefit a communications company that had a major Democrat donor as one of its main investors.

Republicans have raised questions about whether the project pursued by the company, LightSquared, is being unduly expedited by the Obama administration, which has pushed for national wireless network upgrades.

The Virginia-based satellite and broadband communications company has plans to build a nationwide, next-generation, 4G phone network that many, including Shelton, think would seriously hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS receiver systems, a product used most commonly by the United States military.

General William Shelton testified before Congress last week that interference with the military's GPS satellite system due to activity from LightSquared's proposed satelite-based 4G and wireless communications network could not be mitigated.

He did testify that testing done by various agencies responsible for military GPS positioning "demonstrated empirically that the LightSquared signals interfere with all of the types of receivers in the test."

He added that mitigation would not be possible because redesigning the equipment to filter out interference from LightSquared "would involve substantial financial cost and likely degrade the accuracy of high performance receivers, which is critical to many key GPS users."

Military training that relies on precision GPS, such as dropping ordnance, potentially could cease to exist in the United States. Many farmers who also rely on the systems would also be affected. It's estimated this system is used by as many as 1 million people.

The Federal Aviation Administration has also expressed worry about the LightSquared project. The FAA is in the process of moving from a radar based positioning system to a required GPS system for all aircraft, and it has “serious concerns” about how LightSquared may interfere with that, according to FAA spokesman Laura Brown.

Since the General's testemony, another witness has come forward to claim that he was pressured to modify his testimony to rflect more favorable on LightSquared.

General Shelton's allegations come less than a month after heavily subsidised solar panel manufacturer Solyndra shut down, leaving taxpayers on the hook for $500 million in loan guarantees.

The Obama Administration reportedly pressured regulators from the Department of Energy to expedite loans to Solyndra, sat in on company meetings and touted the solar company's activities as an indication that the 2009 Stimulus was working as intended, with President Obama visiting the company's Fremont, CA facilities in May 2010.