Denmark convicts four over plot to attack newspaper offices

Four men accused of planning to attack the Copenhagen newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 have been convicted of terrorism. They were arrested in 2010 before they could carry out the plot.

A Danish court found the four men guilty of plotting to attack the offices of Jyllands-Posten newspaper for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad seven years ago. They were sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to be expelled from Denmark after serving their time.

Prosecutors had accused Tunisian national Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, and Swedish citizens Sahbi Ben Mohamed Zalouti , Munir Awad and Omar Abdalla Aboelazm of planning to "kill a large number of people" at the offices of the newspaper. The three Swedish citizens are of Tunisian, Lebanese and Moroccan origin respectively.

All four had pleaded not guilty to the charges of terrorism and three of them pleaded not guilty to charges of weapons possession. Dhahri pleaded guilty and was convicted of the weapons charge.

DW.DE

Mohammed cartoons have lasting effect

The trial of four men suspected of plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons considered offensive to Islam begins Friday. The cartoon controversy marked a turning point for political cartooning. (13.04.2012) 

Arrests in Denmark and Sweden

They were arrested in a joint operation between Danish and Swedish police on December 29, 2010. Danish police had wiretapped the suspects and said they moved in to make the arrests after hearing that the men were about to travel to the newspaper's offices.

Danish police arrested three of the suspects in a Copenhagen suburb, while their Swedish counterparts took Zolouti into custody outside of Stockholm later on the same day.

Many Muslims found the cartoons - one of which depicted the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban - offensive, and they were protested all over the Arab world. 

Denmark's PET intelligence service said earlier this year that Jyllands-Posten remains a prime target for Islamist extremists.

pfd, ncy/jlw (Reuters, AFP)

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15997030,00.html

Canada seeks swift extradition of murder suspect

Prosecutors in Canada have begun work on securing the extradition of 29-year-old porn actor Luka Magnotta on charges including murder. Magnotta was arrested in Berlin on an Interpol warrant on Monday.

Canada's justice ministry said late on Monday that it had begun to assemble the necessary paperwork to extradite murder suspect Luka Rocco Magnotta from Germany, just hours after the porn actor was arrested at an Internet cafe in Berlin.

Magnotta is suspected of murdering his gay Chinese lover with an ice pick, filming the killing and later dismembering the body. He subsequently sent parts of the body to leading Canadian political parties.

"Mr. Magnotta has been arrested in Berlin, Germany on an Interpol Red Notice which under German law constitutes a provisional request from Canada for his extradition," justice ministry spokeswoman Julie Di Mambro said in a statement. "Pursuant to the Canada-Germany Treaty on extradition, Canada has to now submit a formal request for his extradition accompanied by documentation outlining the evidence supporting the request."

Di Mambro also said that the suspect was due to appear in a Berlin court on Tuesday, saying the Canadian authorities would "continue to be advised of the progress of this matter."

Magnotta was arrested in the Neukölln district of Berlin on Monday morning, after an employee in an Internet cafe recognized his face and flagged down a passing police car.

"He tried at first giving fake names but in the end he just said: 'You got me.' He didn't resist," police spokesman Guido Busch said of Magnotta's arrest.

Magnotta spoke French in the Internet cafe, arousing suspicion

The 29-year-old former porn actor had been traveling under aliases including Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov as he sought to avoid arrest.

History of gruesome videos

Interpol had issued the Red Notice warrant to its 190 member countries after Magnotta apparently released video footage of the murder on the Internet.

Canadian police believe that the murder victim was 33-year-old Jun Lin from Wuhan, China, who Magnotta had dated.

Animal rights activists, meanwhile, had been trying to locate him for months as the suspect had previously posted similar videos online in which he tortured and killed cats.

The killing is believed to have taken place on May 25 but the hunt for Magnotta began on May 29, when a janitor in Montreal found a decomposing human torso in a suitcase behind his flat. That same morning, a human foot was discovered at the ruling Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa, having been mailed from Montreal. Police later intercepted a hand that had been sent to the office of the Liberal Party.

Magnotta is wanted on five charges: first-degree murder, defiling a corpse, corrupting morals, using the mail system for delivering "obscene, indecent, immoral or scurrilous" material, and harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Canada, like Germany, does not practice the death penalty, removing one possible hurdle from the extradition case.

msh/av (AFP, AP, dpa)

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15998517,00.html

Drone strike targeted al Qaeda second in command

The latest US drone strike in Pakistan reportedly targeted al Qaeda's deputy commander. Pakistani officials say there are indications that he was killed, but militants in North Waziristan say he's alive and well.

The US government targeted al Qaeda's second in command in a drone strike that killed 15 people in northwestern Pakistan, according to Pakistani and American officials on Tuesday.

US officials confirmed to the New York Times that Abu Yahia al Libi was the target of Monday's drone strike. Pakistani intelligence officials also told the news agency Reuters that the Libyan national had been targeted, suggesting that he may have been killed.

"We intercepted some conversations between militants," one of the intelligence officials told Reuters. "They were talking about the death of a 'sheikh.' They did not name this person but we have checked with our sources in the area and believe they are referring to al-Libi."

DW.DE

Pakistani experts say US drone strikes are controversial but effective

At least fifteen people have been killed in US drone strikes in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan region. Pakistani experts say drone strikes are controversial but an effective way to eliminate terrorists. (04.06.2012) 

But a militant commander in North Waziristan closely associated with foreign fighters denied that Libi had been killed.

"He has not been killed," the unnamed commander told Reuters. "This is not the first time claims have been made about his death. The Americans are suffering heavy losses in Afghanistan so they have resorted to making false claims."

The al Qaeda operative was falsely reported dead after a December 2009 drone strike in South Waziristan. Libi, a trained chemist, had been captured in 2002 after US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power. He was subsequently held at the high-security Bagram Air Base prison for three years, but managed to escape.

Al Qaeda under pressure

Libi became al Qaeda's second in command after his predecessor, Atiyah al-Rahman, was killed in a drone strike last August. There has been a high turnover in al Qaeda's ranks since Osama bin Laden was assassinated by US special forces in May 2011.

Libi has been reported dead before

The terrorist group's original second in command, Egyptian-born Ayman al Zawahiri, became al Qaeda chief after bin Laden's demise.

Washington has stepped up its drone campaign in Pakistan, launching six strikes in less than two weeks. Three strikes took place over the past four days, killing four suspected militants on Saturday, 10 on Sunday, and 15 people on Monday.

Pakistan has publicly criticized the drone strikes as a violation of its sovereignty. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International consider the program illegal. But the US considers the strikes an effective way to take out high-level al Qaeda operatives and prevent terrorist attacks.

"The degradation to core al Qaeda during the past several years has depleted the ranks to such an extent that there is now no clear successor to take on the breadth of his responsibilities," a senior unnamed US official told the news agency AFP in reference to Libi, adding that his death would put "additional pressure on Zawahiri to try to manage the group in an effective way."

slk/ncy (AP, AFP, Reuters)

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15998691,00.html

Things to Consider When Looking For the Best Web Design Company

Websites are the calling cards of every online venture that you should be proud of! It should provide relevant information along with pleasant viewing to all its users, achieved through quality web development and designing services. With advancements in the field of internet marketing and web technologies, now the market is over-flooded with avowedly best web design company. Therefore, selection of a good web designing company has become a tricky task. However, there are many determinants based on which a probable decision is reasonable as well as worth the value of your hard earned money. if you want to reach to any worthy decision, consider these following points before finally venturing out on any web design company:- 

• Experience- this factor plays a very important factor while looking for the best web design company. A web design company with years of experience is undoubtedly competent in understanding customer needs and requirements, rendering relevant solutions. Experience helps in honing expertise that directly impacts productivity. A web design company rendering services like Application development, SEO, brand building, etc for years should be kept on top of the list. 

• Service portfolio- always make sure to check a web design company’s service portfolio. Go through the range of service packages provided by the company along with their expertise level in every domain of web designing. The richer the service portfolio of the company, the better the chances of receiving multifarious web design solutions under a single roof. 

• Methods of working- checking on the workflow as well as the work procedures followed by an apparently best web design company will save you from the unnecessary worries and troubles. Those companies following unorganized and complicated workflow will demand your presence, delaying web designing and development projects unnecessarily. Talk about their working methods and go with systematic and simplified one. This will save your time and money, ensuring timely submission of assigned projects. 

• Reputation- gauging out the reputation of a web design company is probably one of the trickiest tasks. Get ready to do a thorough research on the selected companies to know more about their company profile along with their market reputation to reach to a decision. Go through the company website, check their clientele and accomplishments and don’t miss out on their client’s feedback. Or simply search over the internet to find information about the company through online forums, communities and groups. Never trust a web design company without checking its credibility. 

• Cost effectiveness- this is another important factor that goes into selecting the best web development company. It is vital to measure the cost effectiveness of the company’s web design solutions. Check whether your investment is worthy or not and for that you can even ask for quotes. Compare your needs with the company quote to get cost effective web design solutions at competitive rates. 

The above mentioned points surely would help you to find the best web design company. But you should also invest your foresightedness to determine the suitability of a web design and development company that will build your dream website.
Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_2746.shtml

Magento SEO: Guide to Better Optimize Your Magento Website

Magento is an outstanding e-Commerce platform with inbuilt SEO. Initially, during its release there were no written rules or step-by-step guide for Search Engine Optimization in Magento. It was basically developed as a search engine friendly platform and the updated current release is 1.2.1. To implement it properly, first the most recent version should be employed followed by the enabling of Server URL rewrites, which is found under System-Configuration-Web-Search Engines Optimization. The following are the Magento SEO tips that can guide to better optimize Magento websites. 

WWW vs. non-WWW version: WWW is known as the secure version and non-WWW is the unsecure version. Below the secure or unsecure options you can locate the base URL and position the preferred domain. This function will permit you to choose among WWW and non-WWW versions. At this moment you can set the favored thing without altering the redirect from WWW to non-WWW or either way. After which you can produce a 310 redirect through .htaccess with mode_rewrite. This action will also check Magneto from accumulating the SID query to your URLs. Always confirm that the Base URL matches the redirect. Put in the index.php to the root when you are editing the .htaccess file. Just about line 119 use the following code: 

Use the following code if your Magento install is not found in the root, conversely in the sub-directory http://www.mydomain.com/magento/: 

Header Settings: The default title of the Magento install is "Magento Commerce" always. Are you looking for augmenting quality traffic to your Magento platform? Then you need to remember the following steps: 

* It is advisable to keep your keywords next to your page title as Search engines lay emphasis on the early words or the words that are nearer to the page title. This will increase the chances of more likely clicks by people who search for result pages. 

* Initially you should eliminate the default title "Magento Commerce". To get rid of the default title, go to Configuration => Design => HTML Head. 

* Choose a comprehensive & pertinent title for your site. This particular title will be employed by many non-content pages without any custom title. Few such pages are "Contact Us" page, "Popular Search Terms" and more. 

* You also have an option of using “Title Suffix” to include the name of your store to all the page titles, products and categories. It is advisable to keep the Prefix empty for the above stated reasons. 

* Following which you should keep “Default Description” and “Default Keywords” empty. For all applications ensure that “INDEX, FOLLOW” is set up and for other non-production environment set “Default Robots” to “NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW” to avoid indexing of the site. 

* This is the right time to add new canonical tag for optimizing your web-store pages. For developing your Magento SEO, you can fix the Canonical URL’s for Magento Module to adjoin them to your head. 

* It is also desirable to take away the empty Meta’s from your code by installing Yoast MetaRobots Module. At times Magento converts non-set Meta robots into a Meta tag in the following style: . This might end up in certain strange behavior in the search engines.

CMS Pages: CMS (Content Management System) is an exceptional management tool for your business and it lets you to make content alterations. CMS pages are fixed pages such as About Us page, Home Page and Customer Service pages that give information about your web store and these pages are generally managed through the backend panel. These pages are complete pages that are accessible through their own URL address. 

Category optimization: Magento grants you the power to add the name of categories to path for product URL’s. As Magento do not support this functionality well, it forms duplicate content issues and it is a good thought to disable this function. For implementing this, go to System => Configuration => Catalog => Search Engine Optimization and set up "Use categories path for product URL's to "no". 

This is the right time to set the particulars for each category. Go to Catalog => Manage Categories. The most imperative fields are: 

Meta Description: Place an eye-catching description here. Remember that your visitors will see the explanation in the result listings of the search engines. 

Page Title: It is good to keep this empty for using the category name including parents’ categories. At the time of customizing it, the title will look exactly like your input, without the presence of the parent category.. 

URL Key: Strive to keep a small but keyword rich URL. It is good to eliminate stop words like "the", "and", "for" etc. Make a note that you can put this only for all store views and for a multi-language store, you are required to keep it language independent. 

For each and every store view you can denote the Name, Page Title, Description, and Meta data. This is a special feature for multi-language stores. 

Products optimization: Products pages optimization is similar to Categories. You can put the Meta Information for each "Store View" and the "Default Values". Also notice that the "Meta Title", will overwrite the whole page title including categories except title prefix/suffix, and not only the name of the product. Generally, the images will be renamed to the product title, alt tags and titles by default. You can change the alt tags and titles for each and every product image. This can be done for every specific store view also. 

Magento Template Optimization: 

Optimized Blank Template: The default Magento coats like "Modern Theme”,"Default Theme", and "Blue Skin" do not perform well in the use of headings. From the view of SEO there is a lot of scope for development. A Blank Magento SEO Theme, depending on the core Magento Blank Theme is developed for your ease. 

Headings: The default logo is an h1, and this should only appear on the front page, apart from this page, all other pages should be no more than an h3. The significant factor is to obtain the title of the content in an h1 tag. For example a category page should have the category name and for a product page it should have the product name. Next to this you should clean up the excess usage of headings. 

It is recommended to eliminate the usage of header in the side columns. You can also make the text pertinent to the store (ie. include keywords). There is no basis for adding "static" and keyword less titles with an h4. For example it is good to alter all the h4 tags in div class="head" to strong tags. This is the best time for content optimization. Place the category name in an h1 and the product names in an h3 at the category pages and set the product name in an h1 on the On product pages. 

Clean up your code: In general the CSS and JavaScript pages doesn’t contribute anything beneficial to Magento SEO for which the JavaScript and CSS pages located in your template files are to be shifted to external CSS files and JavaScript. This aids in keeping your templates clean and it ensures that your users can acquire those files on the first load and ease the search engines from downloading the same every time. 

Aim for speed: Speed is the most noteworthy factor that directly contributes to visitor’s traffic. The two notable things that can be done to enhance your Magento install’s speed are: 

Facilitate caching. Go to System=> Cache Management and enable the caching features. 

You can significantly increase Magento’s speed by using PHPopcode cache and MySQL. 

These Magento Search Engine Optimization tips will help in optimizing your Magento website.
Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_2743.shtml

How To Use a WordPress Blog To Enhance Traffic To Your Website

WordPress blog can be installed easily in any website and it can be used to drive traffic by writing useful posts that contain relevant information and relevant business key phrases. As we use a blog in our websites to update our prospective and existing customers about our products and services, we can also use it strategically to enhance traffic to our websites. 

WordPress blog is very easy to install in your website. You or your web designer can customize it as per your specific needs. The WordPress admin interface is so handy to use that it hardly takes few minutes to write and publish a new post. But it is important to know how to use your blog for search engine optimization and to drive traffic to your website. 

Four important things you need to show on your blog are recent posts, archives, categories and comments. Every new post you generate through the WordPress admin must be done strategically as search engines consider it as a new page on your website with a distinct link. Hence, it is vital to understand the importance of the title you select for your blog post. You can easily customize the titles of the posts in WordPress blog in a way that only title comes in the new post link and not the date or category of posts. You can even include business key phrases in the title of the post. For this, you must write a post that contains useful information on the services or products you want to promote. Title must be selected accordingly. 

As it is not easy to update content on your website regularly, writing new posts serve that purpose. You can target new keywords through the blog posts. What you need to do is to write relevant content including these keywords and link them with the appropriate page of the website. It serves dual purpose. First, you help your customers to know more about the services you provide and second, you make search engines to see the appropriate interlinking with targeted keywords on your website. You can also target long tail keywords through blog posts as it is not easy to target these keywords through main pages of your website. This way you can drive traffic to your website through WordPress blog. 

Try a WordPress blog to drive traffic to your website through strategic writing in your posts and to keep your targeted customers updated through relevant information about your products and services.
Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_2739.shtml

What To Look For In an SEO Company?

Go to a popular search engine like Google, and search for a keyword relevant to your business and check whether you can find your company in the first page of the search results. If you don't find it there, then how can your customers find you from among those millions of competitors? Here, search engine optimization can help you reach your customers. Social Media Marketing is a web technique which ensures you that you reach your targeted customers who are located in different parts of the world. 

In today's competitive world, it is very important that you get a Search Engine Optimization for your website. You can always outsource the same to a trusted and experience search engine optimization Company who can do the work for you. It is not easy to find a good SEO company who gets you the result for what your pay. Some companies make you pay extra claiming that they will bring your website on top of the Google result page and end up in not finding in any search engine at all. Hence, it is essential to understand what to look for in a SEO company before choosing one. Which one of these methods is the most effective when it comes to search engine marketing? Pay Per Click Optimization is a one or the other” technique or is a successful SEM campaign dependent on prudent utilization of both techniques? These questions have been brought to the forefront thanks to a brewing disagreement between parties supporting each side. 

Before starting with this, the SEO specialists should visit your company and understand each and every aspect of your business so that they can help your achieve your marketing goals. If you already have a website, they should do a thorough checking of your current website and analyze its performance with regards to your competitor's site, so that they can get you the maximum benefit out of the Search Engine Optimization. Another important point they need to consider is your keyword. They need to develop or find the appropriate keywords for your website in order to attract more traffic to your website. This helps to achieve your online sales target. 

Before implementing the optimization plan, they need to show you a test version so that you can see the working and can suggest for any changes if there need to be any. They need to have a proper link building plan as it is a very critical ingredient of SEO which, if done properly, will give you long term results. This is not the end as they need to give you quarterly or monthly reports also on the progress of your Search Engine Optimization. As an addition to this, some search engine optimization companies also give an offer to expand the search engine optimization by adding more keywords based on the day to day changes in the market. 

If you find a company or a specialist who gives you the above services, then don't wait; start today!
Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_2742.shtml