Pouches printed with a mixed image of U.S. President Barack Obama and late Chinese leader Mao Zedong are on sale at a small souvenir shop in Houhai, a famous tourist area in Beijing, on Thursday, September 24, 2009. (CCTV.com Photo)
Sunday's arrival of a U.S. president admired for his charisma is already a source of profit and brief fame for some Chinese.
The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames.
"Yes, setting something on fire can have negative connotations, but this piece represents energy and life that Obama has given to the world," said the 38-year-old, who made a similar piece for former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
This July 2009 photo downloaded from the Arabic language web site www.muslm.net shows a man identified by the site as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in detention at Guantanamo Bay. The picture was allegedly taken by the Red Cross. AP
Mohammed and the four others -- Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali -- are accused of orchestrating the attacks that killed 2,973 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and will now be tried in a courtroom down the street from the where the twin towers fell.
"The Department of Justice will pursue prosecution in federal court of the five individuals accused of conspiring to commit the 9/11 attacks. Further, I have decided to refer back to the Department of Defense five defendants to face military commission trials, including the detainee who was previously charged in the USS Cole bombing," Holder said at a Justice Department briefing.
The decision drew outrage from some lawmakers and victims' families.
Oct. 29: Pakistani soldiers display seized photos, passports, ammunitions and weapons during operations against Taliban militants in South Waziristan. AP
Pakistani soldiers battling their way into a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border have seized passports that may be linked to 9/11 suspects, as they confront an enemy skilled in operating in a mountainous terrain with endless ways to wage a guerrilla war.
The military on Thursday took foreign and local journalists for a first look inside the largely lawless territory since it launched a ground offensive here in mid-October. The U.S.-backed operation is focused on a section of the tribal region where the Pakistani Taliban are based and are believed to shelter Al Qaeda.
Soldiers displayed passports seized in the operation, among them a German document belonging to a man named Said Bahaji. That matches the name of a man thought to have been a member of the Hamburg cell that conceived the 9/11 attacks. Bahaji is believed to have fled Germany shortly before the attacks in New York and Washington.