U.S. releases bin Laden's 'home movies'
WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- The Pentagon released five of Osama bin Laden's home videos Saturday, saying they show him directly running al-Qaida operations.
One video shows the terror leader wrapped in a blanket, watching a television, with gray hair and a gray beard. U.S. officials said bin Laden would dye his hair and beard black before filming public statements.
Officials said the videos and other information seized from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, constitute the greatest intelligence bonanza ever collected from a top terrorist. They said 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices were taken.
One of the videos is a warning to the United States believed to have been recorded last fall. Officials did not play the audio, saying it would be "inappropriate."
Also Saturday, a top Pakistani intelligence official said U.S. forces were tipped off to bin Laden's location by a courier's phone call. The call was "not the final one, it was the initial piece of evidence," the unnamed official told CNN.
U.S. officials had learned the identity of the courier, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, in 2007. He and his brother were among those killed in Monday's raid.
Last year al-Kuwaiti, a Pakistani, took a call from an old friend, The Washington Post reported.
"Where have you been?" asked the friend. "What are you doing now?"
Kuwaiti replied, "I'm back with the people I was with before."
The cryptic answer meant he was back with bin Laden.
The friend replied, "May God facilitate."
The compound had no telephone lines or Internet hookup, making it invisible to spying by the National Security Agency, officials told the Post.
Whenever Kuwaiti or others had to make a call, they drove 90 minutes before even placing a battery in a cellphone. Turning on the phone would open it to electronic surveillance.
Pakistanis say U.S. wants spy names
WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- Pakistani officials said the United States has been leaning on them to name their top intelligence agents in the United States.
The request was made in what The New York Times said was a tense meeting with an American envoy in the aftermath of Monday's military raid that resulted in the slaying of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
U.S. officials want to know who is working for Pakistani intelligence in the United Sates and whether they have had secret ties to al-Qaida.
A senior official in the Obama administration told the Times it was unlikely the commanders of Pakistan's military and intelligence personally knew of bin Laden's whereabouts, but it would not be unreasonable to assume someone close to them did have contacts among Muslim extremist elements.
Great white spotted near Martha's Vineyard
MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass., May 7 (UPI) -- A fisherman says he spotted a 20-foot great white shark off the coast of Martha's Vineyard on the U.S. eastern seaboard.
Jeff Lynch, a commercial fisherman, told The Boston Globe the shark was circling the carcass of a minke whale off the western tip of the island Friday morning.
"The funny thing is I was going mackerel fishing to get shark bait," Lynch said. "He was kind of following me around."
Lynch said the shark, estimated at 2,000 pounds, got within 2 feet of his fishing boat.
"I had a few 'Jaws' quotes going through my head," Lynch said. "I go shark fishing all the time. But to see something that size was absolutely incredible."
Wildlife officials said the shark sighting is no cause for panic. Sharks are often seen in the area, although usually a little later in the spring.
The shark disappeared when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental police towed the whale carcass away.
Local elections start across China
BEIJING, May 7 (UPI) -- County and local elections began across China Saturday, with rural and urban areas now guaranteed equal representation, the government said.
More than 2 million legislators are to be chosen from more than 2,000 counties and 30,000 townships, Xinhua reported, citing figures from the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the national legislature.
An election law passed last year stipulates the same number of representatives per population for rural and urban areas. Previously, cities were overrepresented by a 4-1 ratio.
More than 900 million people are expected to vote in the county elections and more than 600 million in township races.
Under orders laid out in training sessions for election officials Saturday, China's 200 million migrants are to be guaranteed voting rights either in their hometowns or in the cities where they have moved.
Candidates also are supposed to include more workers, farmers, professionals, technicians and women and fewer Communist Party and state officials. There will be quotas for ethnic minorities as well.
