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Spanish MP's photo used for Osama Bin Laden poster

  A photo of Bin Laden from 1998 (left) was digitally altered using elements from an image of Gaspar Llamazares (right)

A Spanish politician has said he was shocked to find out the FBI used his photo for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look.

Gaspar Llamazares said he would no longer feel safe travelling to the US after his hair and parts of his face appeared on a most-wanted poster. He said the use of a real person for the mocked-up image was "shameless".

The FBI admitted a forensic artist had obtained certain facial features "from a photograph he found on the internet". The digitally-altered photos of the al-Qaeda leader, showing how he might look now, aged 52, were published on the state department's Rewards for Justice website on Friday.

Officials said they had adapted a 1998 file image to take account of a decade's worth of ageing, and possible changes to facial hair.

'Unintentional and inadvertent'

Mr Llamazares, 52, the former leader of the United Left coalition in parliament, said he could not believe it when he was first told about the similarity between himself and the new photo-fit of Bin Laden.  He said he realised that his forehead, hair and jaw-line had been "cut and pasted" from an old campaign photograph.

"I was surprised and angered because it's the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist," he told a news conference. "It's almost like out of a comedy if it didn't deal with matters as serious as Bin Laden and citizens' security."

The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology, but Mr Llamazares said it showed the "low level" of US intelligence services and could cause problems if he was wrongly identified as the Saudi.

"Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is," he said, adding that he was considering taking legal action. Later, an FBI spokesman told the BBC that it was "aware of the similarities in hairline features of the age-progressed photograph of Osama Bin Laden, posted on the web yesterday, and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official".

"When producing age-progressed photographs, forensic artists typically select features from a database of stock reference photographs to create the new image." After a preliminary review, it appears that in this instance the forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the internet."

"The forensic artist was not aware of the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph. The similarities between the photos were unintentional and inadvertent."

BBC News - Spanish MP's photo used for Osama Bin Laden poster

Need for security

I understand the need for security, but this is ridiculous. NAJLAH FEANNY HICKS, a New Jersey mother whose 8-year-old son, Michael, is on a terrorist watch list and is therefore subject to heightened scrutiny when flying  because he shares a name with a person who is a suspected threat.

White House Unbuttons Formal Dress Code

NY Times — The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket.

There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat. “He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

Thus did an ironclad rule of the George W. Bush administration — coat and tie in the Oval Office at all times — fall by the wayside, only the first of many signs that a more informal culture is growing up in the White House under new management. Mr. Obama promised to bring change to Washington and he has — not just in substance, but in presidential style.

Mr. Obama has exhibited a relatively informal working relationship with aides like his staff secretary, Lisa Brown. In a visit to the Capitol on Tuesday, Mr. Obama surprised his former Senate colleagues by stopping to talk to reporters.

Some of Mr. Obama’s work habits are becoming clear. He shows up at the Oval Office shortly before 9 in the morning, roughly two hours later than his early-to-bed, early-to-rise predecessor. Mr. Obama likes to have his workout — weights and cardio — first thing in the morning, at 6:45. (Mr. Bush slipped away to exercise midday.)

He reads several papers, eats breakfast with his family and helps pack his daughters off to school before making the 30-second commute downstairs — a definite perk for a man trying to balance work and family life. He eats dinner with his family, then often returns to work; aides have seen him in the Oval Office as late as 10 p.m., reading briefing papers for the next day.

“Even as he is sober about these challenges, I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Axelrod said. “The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man.”

In the West Wing, Mr. Obama is a bit of a wanderer. When Mr. Bush wanted to see a member of his staff, the aide was summoned to the Oval Office. But Mr. Obama tends to roam the halls; one day last week, he turned up in the office of his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who was in the unfortunate position of having his feet up on the desk when the boss walked in.

“Wow, Gibbs,” the press secretary recalls the president saying. “Just got here and you already have your feet up.” Mr. Gibbs scrambled to stand up, surprising Mr. Obama, who is not yet accustomed to having people rise when he enters a room.

Under Mr. Bush, punctuality was a virtue. Meetings started early — the former president once locked Secretary of State Colin L. Powell out of the Cabinet Room when Mr. Powell showed up a few minutes late — and ended on time. In the Obama White House, meetings start on time and often finish late.

When the president invited Congressional leaders to talk about his economic stimulus package, the session ran so long that Mr. Obama wound up apologizing to the lawmakers — even as he kept them talking, engaging them in the details of the legislation far more than was customary for Mr. Bush.

“He was concerned that he was keeping us,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican whip. “He said, ‘I know we need to get you all out of here at a certain time.’ But we continued the discussion. What are you going to say? It’s the president.”

If Mr. Obama’s clock is looser than Mr. Bush’s, so too are his sartorial standards. Over Mr. Obama’s first weekend in office, his aides did not quite know how to dress. Some showed up in the West Wing in jeans (another no-no under Mr. Bush), some in coats and ties.

So the president issued an informal edict for “business casual” on weekends — and set his own example. He showed up Saturday for a briefing with his chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, dressed in slacks and a gray sweater over a white buttoned-down shirt. Workers from the Bush White House are shocked.

“I’ll never forget going to work on a Saturday morning, getting called down to the Oval Office because there was something he was mad about,” said Dan Bartlett, who was counselor to Mr. Bush. “I had on khakis and a buttoned-down shirt, and I had to stand by the door and get chewed out for about 15 minutes. He wouldn’t even let me cross the threshold.”

Mr. Obama has also brought a more relaxed sensibility to his public appearances. David Gergen, an adviser to both Republican and Democratic presidents, said Mr. Obama seemed to exude an “Aloha Zen,” a kind of comfortable calm that, Mr. Gergen said, reflects a man who “seems easy going, not so full of himself.”

Mr. Obama has exhibited a relatively informal working relationship with aides like his staff secretary, Lisa Brown and on a visit to the Capitol, he surprised his former Senate colleagues by stopping to talk to reporters.

Mr. Obama has also maintained the longstanding presidential tradition of weekly lunches with his vice president. For Mr. Obama, lunch generally means a cheeseburger, chicken or fish in his small dining room off the Oval Office. There is also a new addition to White House cuisine: the refrigerators are stocked with the president’s favorite organic brew: Honest Tea, in Mr. Obama’s preferred flavors of Black Forest Berry and Green Dragon.

Ballooning priest's ID confirmed

Balloons used by Father Carli found in April

DNA tests on a body found off Brazil's coast match that of a priest who went missing trying to set a flight record.

Father Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the Brazilian port city of Paranagua in April strapped to 1,000 brightly-coloured helium balloons. The 41-year-old Roman Catholic priest wanted to raise money to build a shelter for local lorry drivers.

His attempt went wrong when unexpected winds carried him out to sea. The body was discovered by chance earlier this month by tugboat workers.

Father Carli was attempting to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons. His bundle of brightly coloured balloons was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off Santa Catarina state, near the point where he last made contact with authorities on the ground.

Father Carli had said he was having difficulty operating his GPS device, and was "very cold, but fine". He was said to have reached an altitude of 20,000ft (6,000m), then descended to about 8,200ft for his planned flight to the city of Dourados.

But he was blown off course by winds. Before losing contact, he said he had to land in the sea as he was "losing height". In January, the priest used the same mode of transport to fly over 110km (70 miles) in four hours between Parana and the nearby Argentine city of San Antonio.

'Hypnotist' thief hunted in Italy

Police in Italy have issued footage of a man suspected of hypnotising supermarket checkout staff to hand over money from their cash registers. 

In every case, the last thing staff reportedly remember is the thief leaning over and saying: "Look into my eyes", before finding the till empty.

In the latest incident captured on CCTV, he targeted a bank at Ancona in northern Italy, then calmly walked out.

A female bank clerk reportedly handed over nearly 800 euros. The cashier who was shown the video footage has no memory of the incident and only realised what had happened when she saw the money missing.

CCTV from the bank showed her apparently being hypnotised by the man, according to the reports. Italian police believe the suspect could be of Indian or North African extraction.

Mesmerising?