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The officers, three men and a woman, were wearing bullet proof vests and did not even have time to return fire as the killer, armed with a handgun, unleashed a volley of shots and then fled.

The attack immediately raised fears of a repeat of the massacre at Fort Hood military base in Texas, where Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 people on Nov 5.

The gunman burst into the Forza coffee shop, which is on a side street next to the base in Tacoma, Washington, 40 miles south of Seattle.

The victims were working on laptops preparing paperwork ahead of their shifts when the gunman attacked at 8.15 am.

Police said the officers were deliberately targeted and the attack was not a robbery that went wrong.

“This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers,” said Ed Troyer, the Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman.

“There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform.” He said the gunman is believed to have walked in alone but the possibility of an accomplice has not been ruled out.

Police said they believed one of the officers wrestled with the suspect and may have shot him.

Mr Troyer said: “We believe there was a struggle in there and there is a possibility one of the officers may have fired a shot. We hope that he hit him. If he did, then he is injured.”

He appealed for information about anyone who had been seen in the area with a gun wound. The suspect was described as black, in his 20s or 30s and “scruffy”.

Describing the scene at the coffee shop, Mr Troyer said: “It’s carnage out front everywhere. It’s like a bad horror movie. It’s horrible.”

There was also speculation that the attack could be a copycat shooting after another officer, Timothy Brenton, was shot and killed last month while sitting in a car.

Authorities say the man charged with that shooting also firebombed four police vehicles last month as part of a “one-man war” against police.

Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested days after the Seattle shooting and remains in hospital in a stable condition.

Mr Troyer said: “We won’t know if it’s a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved. We don’t even have a suspect ID right now.” Two baristas and several customers were in the coffee shop but were not shot.

Mr Troyer said: “Some are in shock. They are very upset. They are the ones who are going to put together for us how this happened.”

“I think the response of the program has been tremendous,” said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, “but we’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit.”

The federal program now feeds one in eight adults and one in four children, with more than 36 million people using inconspicuous plastic cards to buy staples, Concannon told The Washington Post.

A big step toward acceptance was a push by the George W. Bush administration to call food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and to make it easier to apply.

The program is expanding by about 20,000 out-of-work and underemployed people a day, the Post reported, noting the growth has been swift in once-prosperous communities effected by the housing bust.

The central bank, which has been mute since Dubai World said Wednesday it would restructure and seek a six-months debt standstill, will issue a statement later Sunday or early Monday, when the Dubai government is also slated to make a parallel announcement, the people said.

“You will hear news out of Abu Dhabi today, that’s where the story has shifted to,” a senior Dubai-based official said.

Abu Dhabi-based officials confirmed to Zawya Dow Jones Sunday that a central bank intervention was forthcoming.

The unprecedented measure will allow local U.A.E. banks exposed to Dubai World, which has almost $60 billion of liabilities, to avoid taking provisions, people who had been briefed on the matter, said.

A spokesman for Abu Dhabi government would not comment when called.

Senior Abu Dhabi-based bankers have told Zawya Dow Jones that the central bank would protect local lenders from having to provision for their exposure to Dubai World, after aggressively lending directly to Dubai’s government and to its state-related entities over the past few years.

“When the [Abu Dhabi] government tells two of its banks to subscribe to a Dubai government bond, we can be fairly certain it’s neither going to let its own banks, or Dubai, fail,” one banker said.

BofA-Merrill Lynch said in a report that the restructuring undertaken by Dubai would be a serious blow to the Gulf region’s economic recovery prospects, adding that the scale of the region’s debt was now the issue.

“The lack of official debt data may add up to uncertainty and cause higher risk premiums,” it said.

Of the $184 billion UAE debt, Dubai holds $88 billion while Abu Dhabi accounts for $90 billion. BofA-Merrill Lynch said the debt servicing cost will be higher than these estimates as their numbers only include the principal payments.

The bank said Dubai faces almost $50 billion of debt amortization in the next three years: $12 billion in 2010, $19 billion in 2011 and $18 billion in 2012.

(PilotsFor911Truth.org) – Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled “FLT DECK DOOR”, cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles at 8:20 am Eastern Time. According to reports and data, a hijacking took place between 08:50:54 and 08:54:11[1] in which the hijackers allegedly crashed the aircraft into the Pentagon at 09:37:45. Reported by CNN, according to Ted Olson, wife Barbara Olson had called him from the reported flight stating, “…all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers…”[2]. However, according to Flight Data provided by the NTSB, the Flight Deck Door was never opened in flight. How were the hijackers able to gain access to the cockpit, remove the pilots, and navigate the aircraft to the Pentagon if the Flight Deck Door remained closed?[3]

Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has analyzed Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack, the events in Shanksville, PA and the World Trade Center attack. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials along with Mainstream Media refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html for full member list.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/join to join.

[1] Hijacker Timeline – http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=17

[2] Common Strategy Prior to 9/11/2001 – http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html

The head of Russia’s FSB counter-terrorism agency, Alexander Bortnikov, said the bomb, hidden on the railway line between Moscow and St Petersburg, contained the equivalent of 7kg (15.4lb) of TNT. Officers had found “elements of an explosive device”, he said.

…

Yesterday, investigators said they had discovered a 3ft crater beneath the rails where the bomb had gone off. Reuters, however, said that its reporters at the scene had been unable to find it. Earlier, Russian news agencies had quoted transport officials as saying the cause may have been an electrical fault. Russia has a poor record of serious accidents caused by Soviet-era infrastructure.

“One cannot rule out — as a tail risk — a case where this would escalate into a major sovereign default problem, which would then resonate across global emerging markets in the same way that Argentina did in the early 2000s or Russia in the late 1990s,” Bank of America strategists Benoit Anne and Daniel Tenengauzer wrote in a report.

A default would lead to a “sudden stop of capital flows into emerging markets” and be a “major step back” in the recovery from the global financial crisis, they wrote.

Emerging-market stocks around the world have slumped for two days on concern a debt restructuring by Dubai World, with $59 billion of liabilities, will add to the $1.72 trillion of losses and writedowns from the global credit freeze. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index fell 1.9 percent to 940.30 as of 1:55 p.m. in New York, extending this week’s decline to 2.6 percent.

In a bizarre story reminiscent of the film Lars and the Real Girl, the man, known by his nickname SAL9000, fell in love with a fictional character from the Nintendo DS “love simulator” Love Plus.

Popular in Japan’s geek subculture, the game invites players to pick a girlfriend and then challenges them to woo her by taking her out on “dates” and perform boyfriend duties such as saying “I love you” 100 times into the handheld games console.

The most successful lotharios can even give their virtual love interest a kiss by literally kissing the DS’s touch screen.

But that wasn’t enough for SAL9000, who wedded Nene Anegasaki in an official-looking but not legally binding reception in Tokyo on Sunday.

Unusually, before the wedding, he took her on a “honeymoon” to Guam.

The reception included a priest, an MC, a DJ, speeches from friends and family, photo slideshows, wedding music and even a bouquet. The entire event was streamed live on a Japanese video-sharing site, of which SAL9000 is a prominent member.

…

“I’m so happy so many people were able to witness this,” SAL9000 wrote in a letter to tech culture blog BoingBoing.net, calling it a milestone in his life.

“Some people have expressed doubts about my actions, but at the end of the day, this is really just about us as husband and wife. As long as the two of us can go on to create a happy household, I’m sure any misgivings about us will be resolved.