US President Barack Obama was to honor Osama bin Laden’s Sept. 11, 2001, victims yesterday, laying a wreath at the site of the World Trade Center, where the slain terrorist leader changed the course of history in a day of carnage that shook the US and killed about 3,000 people.
Just days after US Navy SEALs stormed bin Laden’s palatial hideout in Pakistan, killing him with a bullet to the head, the president was to travel to New York for what will be a somber ceremony of remembrance.
The president was to meet with families who lost loved ones and the first-responders who tried to help as the World Trade Center’s twin towers became infernos after bin Laden’s terrorist teams flew hijacked jetliners into the buildings nearly a decade ago.
He makes the journey a day after rejecting calls for him to release death photos of bin Laden as proof he was killed in the airborne raid on his compound. The president said he would not risk giving propaganda to extremists or gloat by publicizing gory photos of the al-Qaeda leader.
To those who doubt, Obama said: “You will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again.”
SELF-DEFENSE
His government, meanwhile, insisted the shooting of an unarmed bin Laden during a daring raid in Pakistan was lawful and in national self-defense. Officials who were briefed on the operation said that the Navy SEALs who stormed bin Laden’s compound shot and killed him after they saw him appear to lunge for a weapon.
Obama’s New York visit is intended to have a measured tone — not a bookend to former US president George W. Bush’s rousing visit in the days after the attack when he stood in the rubble and promised vengeance.
White House spokesman Jay Carney called it a “cathartic moment for the American people.”
Obama did not have planned remarks during his trip, but he was likely to make comments during his time at the Sept. 11 memorial, where he was to lay a wreath.
SENSITIVE MOMENT
The president must handle the moment without being seen as celebrating bin Laden’s death or aiming to boost his own standing in victory.
“The president is coming here because this is the place where you can really feel what happened that day,” said Joelle -Tripoul, a tourist visiting Manhattan from Marseilles, France. “And I think he wants to come to say that bin Laden’s death marks the end of this stage of our human journey after Sept. 11.”
However, Obama said this is no time to gloat.
“We don’t need to spike the football,” he said in an interview with CBS television during which he announced he would keep bin Laden’s death photos sealed.
Obama invited Bush to join him yesterday, but the former president declined.
ICONIC PHOTOGRAPH
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday she has “no idea” what she and the rest of Obama’s national security team were watching at the precise moment a photographer snapped what has become an iconic image of the operation that killed bin Laden in Pakistan.
“Those were 38 of the most intense minutes,” Clinton said of the raid. “I have no idea what any of us were looking at at that particular millisecond when the picture was taken.”
The photo was taken by the White House photographer on Sunday night as Obama and his national security team monitored the assault. Clinton is covering her mouth with her right hand, but she said yesterday that the gesture might not convey any special significance.
“I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs,” she said. “So, it may have no great meaning whatsoever.”
The story behind the photograph has been a subject of intense curiosity, but US officials have refused to discuss details of what exactly was happening when it was taken, saying that could compromise intelligence efforts and capabilities.
Nonetheless, Clinton said bin Laden’s death “sent an unmistakable message about the strength and the resolve of the international community to stand against extremism and those who perpetuate it.”
“I think our resolve is even stronger after bin Laden’s death because we know it will have an impact on those who are on the battlefield in Afghanistan,” she said.
She and other officials have expressed hope that al-Qaeda sympathizers and other militants may now be more inclined to give up violence and rejoin Afghan society.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique