Saturday, June 30, 2007

Glasgow Airport Terrorist Attack - SUV Ramed Into Terminal - MyWayNews

Flaming Car Rams U.K. Airport; 2 Arrests
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Jun 30, 12:44 PM (ET)

By IAN STEWART

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) - Two men rammed a flaming sport utility vehicle into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance and sparking a fire, witnesses said. Police said two suspects were arrested.

The airport - Scotland's largest - was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails.

"One has to conclude ... these are linked," Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain's joint intelligence committee, told Sky News. "This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks."

Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, who took office only Wednesday, was being briefed on developments by his officials, Downing Street said.

In Glasgow, the green SUV barreled toward the building at full speed shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into the glass doors and exploding, witnesses said. Two men jumped out of the burning vehicle, one of them engulfed in flames, they said.

"The car came speeding past at about 30 mph. It was approaching the building quickly," said Scott Leeson, who was nearby at the time. "Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through."

Two men were arrested, Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O'Neil said.

Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. "There was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport," she said.

Flames and black smoke rose from the vehicle outside the main entrance. Police said it was unclear if anyone was injured. Other passengers were stranded, with at least one airplane grounded on the runway, the BBC said.

The incident also comes exactly one week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people.
Leeson said bollards - security posts outside the entrance - stopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow's airport.

"He's trying to get through the main door frame but the bollards have stopped him from going through. If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.

Leeson said only the nose of the vehicle made it inside the building. Richard Grey told the BBC that the vehicle was lodged into the center of the terminal's main entrance.
"The jeep is completely on fire and it exploded not long after. It exploded at the entrance to the terminal," witness Stephen Clarkson told the BBC. "It may have been an explosion of petrol in the tank because it was not a massive explosion."

Two men - one of them engulfed in flames - were in the SUV, witnesses told BBC News executive Helen Boaden, who was at the airport at time. She described the men as South Asian.

Clarkson described him as a large South Asian man. "His whole body was on fire.... He was just talking gibberish," he told the BBC.

"An Asian guy had been pulled out of the car by two police officers he was trying to fight off and they'd got him on the floor," Grey told the BBC.

Boaden said police "wrestled him to the ground - the fire was burning through his clothes - and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."

Lesson said an airport officials did not think the incident was an accident.

"He said the men in the car got out and started throwing petrol about - that must be how it caught fire," he said.

Another witness, Fiona Tracey, described a "bang" coming from the SUV. The vehicle was on fire and "every now and again there was a bang coming off it. ... There was definitely a bang," she told Sky News television.

Grey said the car did not explode. "There were a few pops and bangs that seemed to be the tires and the petrol."

YouTube Has 60 Percent Of The Video Distribution Market



According to TechCrunch and Hitwise.com, YouTube, the famous online video distribution system, has 60 percent of the market as of May 2007.

YouTube is miles ahead of the next most popular video system, MySpace Videos, which has 16 percent of the market. Google Videos has about half that at third, with just over 7 percent of the market. As LeAnne Prescott, the research director for Hitwise has reported, YouTube's growth is not set to slow anytime soon:



YouTube's growth has not begun to slow yet this year. Hitwise traffic data shows that the market share of US visits to YouTube has increased by 70% when comparing January 2007 to May 2007 (this only includes site visits, not streams or streams from views on embedded videos). In comparison, the market share of visits to a custom category of 64 other video sites increased by only 8% in that period. As of May 2007, YouTube's market share was 50% greater than those 64 sites combined.

Note that the other players are well down the line, and some you've heard of aren't even listed, like BrightCove, Blip.tv, and Revver. They must be well down the list, because AOL Media has just .94 percent market share -- that's about 1 percent and AOL's a huge website. Yahoo Video's at 2.77 percent, and Break.com is at 1.33 percent.

What does this all mean? It means that if you want to make sure your video has a chance to be seen, use YouTube. There's a 60 percent higher possibility that your work will be seen by more than one person or two -- you and your friend -- if you use YouTube. Plus, add this fact, there are over 70 YouTube competitors around, which makes it even harder for any competitor to challenge YouTube for supremacy.

Why? Because YouTube's an established brand and any other competitor with a smaller reach and a less established brand has to cope with another new company's ability to draw new users. YouTube has so many users and visitors that it can stand to lose a few, whereas a smaller company would be harmed by such fluxuations.

NFL EUROPE DISCONTINUED - NFL INTERNATIONAL TO FOCUS ON GLOBAL IMPACT - NFlLMedia.com

From the NFL. The official press release annoucing the death of NFL Europe.

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
280 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
(212) 450-2000 * FAX (212) 681-7573
WWW.NFLMedia.com
Joe Browne, Executive Vice President-Communications
Greg Aiello, Vice President-Public Relations


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
6/29/07

NFL INTERNATIONAL TO FOCUS ON GLOBAL IMPACT:
NFL EUROPA DISCONTINUED

The NFL has determined that it will switch the focus of its international business strategy to
presenting the NFL to the widest possible global audience, including broader media visibility and the
staging of international regular-season games, and will discontinue NFL Europa.

“The time is right to re-focus the NFL’s strategy on initiatives with global impact, including worldwide
media coverage of our sport and the staging of live regular-season NFL games,” commented Mark
Waller, senior vice president of NFL International.

“We will continue to build our international fan base by taking advantage of technology and
customized digital media that make the NFL more accessible on a global scale than ever before and
through the regular-season game experience. NFL Europa has created thousands of passionate fans
who have supported that league and our sport for many years and we look forward to building on this
foundation as we begin this new phase of our international development.”

Last October, NFL owners passed a resolution to stage up to two international regular-season games
per season. The new international series will launch on Sunday, October 28 when the Miami
Dolphins host the New York Giants at London’s Wembley Stadium.

In addition to the 2007 game in the United Kingdom, the NFL is preparing to stage regular-season
games in future seasons in Germany, Mexico and Canada, with Germany being a strong candidate to
host a regular-season NFL game in 2008.

NFL Europa began in 1991 as the World League of American Football, with 10 teams competing in
the United States and Europe. After a two-year hiatus (1993-94) following the 1992 season, the
league returned in 1995 as a six-team, all-European venture, with five teams in Germany since 2005,
and has existed in that format through its final season in 2007.


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