Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Died Today

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia was King Abdullah's half-brother and first in line to the Saudi throne. He was also minister of defense and aviation.

He was in his eighties and was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004. He is thought to have died at a New York hospital.

Prince Sultan had been on a visit to the US for medical tests, and he had an operation in New York in July.

The royal court confirmed the death in a statement carried by SPA, the state news agency:

"With deep sorrow and sadness the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz mourns the death of his brother and his Crown Prince Sultan... who died at dawn this morning Saturday outside the kingdom following an illness."

Source

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Ghadaffi captured?Killed??

Muammar Gaddafi has been captured by revolutionary forces in Libya, it has been claimed today.
The former Libyan dictator was reportedly found cowering in a hole in the ground at the centre of Sirte after rebels moved in on the city for a final account.

Fighter Mohammed Al Bibi told reporters that the toppled tyrant had pleaded 'Don't shoot, don't shoot' and surrendered.

However it is unclear whether Gaddafi is now dead or alive. There were multiple reports in the Arab press that he died after suffering wounds to the legs.

It is understood that he has been taken to hospital in the city of Misrata.
Rebels said he had been armed with a golden pistol when he was found and was wearing a khaki uniform.
Gaddafi and his family have been on the run since Nato and rebel forces started closing the net on Tripoli in mid-August.
The reports of Gaddafi's capture came on the same day that revolutionary forces said that they had taken control of Sirte - the leader's home town.
Initial reports from CNN and the National Transitional Council (NTC) said Gaddafi was in custody, while Al Jazeera reported that a ‘big fish’ had been caught but did not provide a name.
Al Jazeera later joined Al-Arabiya in saying that Gaddafi was dead.
Sky News reported that Gaddafi had been wounded in both legs prior to his capture. He was wearing a military-style uniform.

A military official told Reuters via telephone: 'He's captured. He's wounded in both legs ... He's been taken away by ambulance.

Libya's transitional government forces have taken full control of the city - the last stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists. Gaddafi's presence there would explain why fighting had been so intense in the past few weeks.

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Police shot tear gas as protesters riot in Italy

Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday in Rome as violent protesters turned a demonstration against corporate greed into a riot, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles.
The protest in the Italian capital, which left dozens injured, was part of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations against capitalism and austerity measures that went global Saturday.

Tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in major cities across Europe, as protests that began in New York linked up with long-running demonstrations against government cost-cutting and failed financial policies in Europe.

Heavy smoke billowed into the air in downtown Rome as a small group broke away from the main demonstration and wreaked havoc in streets close to the Colosseum.

Clad in black with their faces covered, protesters threw rocks, bottles and incendiary devices at banks and Rome police in riot gear. Some protesters had clubs, others had hammers. They destroyed bank ATMs, set trash bins on fire and assaulted at least two news crews from Sky Italia.

TV footage showed police in riot gear charging the protesters and firing water cannons at them. Several police forces and protesters were injured, including one man trying to stop the protesters from throwing bottles. TV footage showed a young woman with blood covering her face, while the ANSA news agency said one man had lost two fingers when a firecracker exploded.

In the city's St. John in Lateran square, police vans came under attack, with protesters hurling rocks and cobblestones and smashing the vehicles. One police van was set ablaze, but the two people inside were able to abandon the vehicle. Peaceful demonstrators who could not leave the square climbed up the staircase outside the Basilica, one of the oldest in Rome.

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno blamed the violence on "a few thousand thugs from all over Italy, and possibly from all over Europe." He said some Rome museums were forced to close down because of the violence.
Some protesters also trashed offices of the Defense Ministry and set them on fire, causing the roof to collapse, reports said.

Police were out in force as up to 100,000 protesters had been expected a day after Premier Silvio Berlusconi barely survived a confidence vote in Parliament. Italy, which has a national debt ratio second only to Greece in the 17-nation eurozone, is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe's debt crisis.

"People of Europe: Rise Up!" read one banner in Rome. Some peaceful demonstrators turned against the violent group and tried to stop them, hurling bottles, Sky Italia and ANSA said. Others fled, scared by the raw violence.

ANSA said four people from an anarchist group were arrested early Saturday morning, with police seizing helmets, anti-gas masks, clubs and hundreds of bottles from their car.

Elsewhere, bright autumn sunshine and a social media campaign brought out thousands across Europe.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial hub, some 5,000 people protested at the European Central Bank, and some were setting up a tent camp aiming at permanently occupying the green space in front of the ECB building.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke to about 500 demonstrators outside St. Paul's cathedral in London, calling the international banking system a "recipient of corrupt money."

U.K. police contained most London demonstrators in the streets around the cathedral, near the city's financial district. Protesters erected tents and asked supporters to bring them blankets, food and water as they settled down for the evening.

Several hundreds more marched in the German cities of Berlin, Cologne and Munich and the Austrian capital of Vienna, while protesters in Zurich, Switzerland's financial hub, carried banners reading "We won't bail you out yet again" and "We are the 99 percent."
In Brussels, thousands of marched through the downtown area chanting "Criminal bankers caused this crisis!" They pelted the stock exchange building with old shoes then marched on to the European Union sector.
Protesters also accused NATO, which has its headquarters in Brussels, of wasting taxpayer money on the wars in Libya and Afghanistan, saying that one European soldier deployed to Afghanistan costs the equivalent of 11 high school teachers.

In Helsinki, around 300 activists held a peaceful, creative rally with homemade signs and stalls full of art and food.

In Spain, the Indignant Movement established the first around-the-clock "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns across the country beginning in May and lasting for weeks. Six marches were converging Saturday on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza just before dusk.

Portuguese angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis were protesting in downtown Lisbon later. Portugal is one of three European nations — the others being Greece and Ireland — that have already needed an international bailout.

Across the Atlantic, hundreds gathered in Toronto's financial district, converging close to the Toronto Stock Exchange and the headquarters major Canadian banks to decry what they called government-abetted corporate greed. Protests were also being held in Montreal and Vancouver.

In New York, protesters marched on a Chase bank to protest the role banks played in the financial crisis, and demonstrations were culminating in an "Occupation Party" in Times Square.

Support for the anti-capitalist protest movement was light in Asia, where the global economy is booming. In Sydney, around 300 people turned out, while another 200 people in Tokyo chanted anti-nuclear slogans outside the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
In the Philippines, some 100 people marched on the U.S. Embassy in Manila to support the Occupy Wall Street protests.

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Yemen forces kill 12

 Security forces shot dead at least 12 people protesting against the rule of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital Sanaa Saturday and al Qaeda insurgents blew up a pipeline, halting the nation's gas exports.

Yemeni officials said the attack on France's Total gas pipeline was in retaliation for the killing of the head of the media department of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in an air raid on militant outposts in Yemen.
In Sanaa, security forces shot dead at least 12 demonstrators as Yemenis waited for the U.N. Security Council to agree to a resolution expected to urge Saleh to hand over power under a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) peace plan.

The death of Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian described by Yemeni officials as high on their wanted list, and 23 other people late Friday is a fresh blow to the Islamist group regarded by Washington as the most serious threat to the United States, following the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki last month.

But the destruction of the Total pipeline, which transports gas from the central Maarib province to Belhaf port on the Arabian Sea, deals a severe blow to the Yemeni economy, already reeling from months of protests.
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said its air force targeted militant hideouts near the town of Azzan in the southern Shabwa province. Residents said the attack also killed the oldest son and a cousin of U.S.-born cleric Awlaki, long sought by Washington for links to al Qaeda.

But local residents and officials said they believed the aircraft that launched at least three strikes in the area were foreign, flying at high altitude and smaller than the Soviet-made Yemeni air force planes.
"There were planes flying high. I could hear the sounds of their engines but I could not make them out," one witness who declined to be identified, told Reuters. "All of a sudden, the area was shaken by successive explosions," he added.

A senior U.S. official said Washington continues to work closely with Yemeni forces against al Qaeda.
"While our counterterrorism cooperation with Yemen remains strong, we continue to call upon the government in Sanaa to implement the ... proposal that calls upon President Saleh to transfer power and to initiate a peaceful political transition," the official told Reuters.

A Yemeni official described al-Banna as a "dangerous" militant and one of the most wanted people internationally.

Witnesses said militants were seen removing several mutilated bodies as well as an unknown number of injured people from the scene early Saturday.

Last month, a drone killed Awlaki, identified by intelligence as "chief of external operations" for al Qaeda's Yemen branch and a Web-savvy propagandist for the Islamist cause, officials said.

Awlaki relatives said the cleric's son and cousin were due to return home Saturday. "Instead of that, we received them as mutilated corpses," Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Awlaki said by telephone.

Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda captured large swathes of southern Abyan province, including the provincial capital Zinjibar, earlier this year.
The Yemeni army last month drove the militants out of Zinjibar, which lies east of a strategic shipping strait through which some 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.
GAS PIPELINE
Residents and officials said the 200 mile pipeline, which links gas fields in Maarib, east of Sanaa, to a $4.5 billion Total-led liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, was attacked soon after the raids.

Sources at Total told Reuters the pipeline was blown up in two places, stopping the supplies that feed the Belhaf LNG plant. Witnesses said flames were visible from several kilometers away.

The company evacuated nearly half its foreign staff to neighboring Djibouti, and sent some local and French engineers to start repairing the pipeline.

Three South Korean companies also hold stakes in the plant, Yemen's largest industrial project, which opened in 2009.

Yemen's only liquefied natural gas producer, Yemen LNG, warned customers in March of potential supply curtailments as violence spread.

Yemen has the capacity to supply up to 6.7 million tons of LNG per year. Last year Yemen LNG, the 16th largest seller of the gas, shipped more than half its supplies to Asia, the rest going to the Americas and Europe.

The project delivers LNG under long term contracts to GDF Suez (GSZ.PA), Total and Korea Gas Corp (036460.KS).

SANAA HEATS UP
In Sanaa, heavy violence broke a lull as Yemenis awaited deliberations in the U.N. Security Council aimed at pressuring Saleh to comply with a Gulf Arab initiative to hand over power to his deputy as part of a plan to end months of protests.

Witnesses and medics said Yemeni security forces opened fire on tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators trying to march toward state buildings, such as the presidential palace.

They said dozens of people were wounded and taken to a field hospital in Sixty Street, where thousands have camped out for months demanding that Saleh steps down. A Yemeni government soldier also died in the clashes, government sources said.

Witnesses said troops initially used tear gas and water cannon against the demonstrators, who responded by hurling stones at security forces.

Tareq Noman, head of the field hospital, told Al Jazeera television that his facility had received the bodies of 10 people and that hundreds were wounded. The deputy information minister, Abdu al-Janadi, said the death toll was lower.

In a separate incident, witnesses said government forces fought heavy battles with gunmen loyal to powerful tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar, who supports opposition demands for an end to Saleh's 33-year grip on power.

They said the fighting was concentrated in the Hasaba neighborhood of Sanaa, where al-Ahmar lives, and near the airport, which was closed by the fighting.

Opposition sources said four tribal fighters were killed in the clashes.

In the southern city of Aden, a security official said gunmen on a motorcycle ambushed and killed an intelligence officer in the Arabian Sea city of al-Mukalla. The government has previously blamed other similar incidents on al Qaeda.

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