http://www.wtop.com/?nid=596&sid=1334443
(AP)
“Man With Suspicious Package Arrested Outside White House”
January 28, 2008 - 6:58pm
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON - The Secret Service says a man who made verbal threats against President George W. Bush and had a suspicious package was arrested outside the north fence of the White House.
The Secret Service says 28-year-old Aleksandar Aleksov, of Guttenberg, New Jersey, was taken into custody just before 2 p.m. on Pennsylvania Avenue. He is charged with making threats against the president. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan says the threats were was overheard by Secret Service officers.”
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities found the body of a U.S. diplomat with a bullet wound in his head at his home in Islamabad on Monday and were investigating a suspected case of suicide, police and the Interior Minister said.
The U.S. embassy named the dead man as 37-year-old Keith Ryan, an immigration and customs enforcement attache from the Department of Homeland Security. "There will be a full investigation; however, there does not appear to have been any foul play," the embassy said in a brief statement. The embassy said Ryan had "passed away" on Monday morning, and his family had been informed.
Kaleem Imam, a Senior Superintendent of police in Islamabad, said the diplomat had been in Pakistan for a year and had been due to return to the United States on Monday, having finished his assignment. "But, he did not come out of the home and was found dead in the bathroom. There is a bullet wound in his head," Imam said. Ryan's body was found in his residence on a leafy avenue close to the diplomatic enclave in the Pakistani capital. "We expect it is suicide, but we are investigating," Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz told Reuters.
The United States does not let diplomats posted to Pakistan take their families, because of the security threat posed by Islamist militants.
Pakistani children hostage-taking ends
Jan. 28, 2008
ISLAMABAD -- Several children held hostage Monday by armed men in a remote Pakistani school were rescued hours later without being harmed, reports said. Tribal elders in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province took custody of the four or five hostage-takers after securing the release of some 30 children and teachers held captive in a primary school in Bannu district, CNN reported, quoting officials.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is touring Europe, had been informed about the incident. The BBC reported the hostage-takers had entered the school after escaping from a police confrontation over the abduction of a district health official. The hostage-takers were initially believed to be Islamic militants but were later described as common criminals, although the area has seen growing pro-Taliban activity in recent months.
The BBC report quoted Musharraf as saying in London: "It was incidental that they entered the school to hide themselves. But in the process to hide they took those students hostage." A GEO TV report said in the confrontation with police the kidnapped health official was released and that five of the armed men were arrested. Another armed man was reportedly killed in the encounter, while the rest apparently stormed the school.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/01/28/pakistani_children_hostage-taking_ends/2859/