For Chancey Bailey, one of the most respected black journalists in America, last Friday's trip to work should have been like any other.
The editor of the Oakland Post was strolling down the pavement in Oakland, a mostly black city next to San Francisco. Bailey, 57, lived just a few blocks away.
Suddenly, a man dressed in black and wearing a mask appeared. Shots rang out and Bailey collapsed from three bullet wounds. He was dead before an ambulance arrived; the apparent victim of an assassination.
Bailey's murder has shocked the San Francisco Bay Area. It has also rippled out into the rest of America as the country comes to grips with the daylight murder of a senior newspaper editor.
There is little doubt that Bailey was executed. It was the kind of ruthless murder more likely to be found on the streets of Moscow than northern California. "This was no random act," said Sergeant Derwin Longmire, an Oakland police spokesman.
Bailey's routine was well-known and it is likely that his killer had been monitoring his movements for some time before he struck. After the shooting, the killer was picked up by a van.
The reason that Bailey was killed appears to lie with the secretive and shadowy black Muslim sect in Oakland that Bailey was investigating.
A day after he died, a series of dramatic police raids unfolded across the city, aimed at a group of Islamists centred on a business called Your Black Muslim Bakery. The bakery was the centrepiece of a business empire founded by Yusef Bey, a black Muslim leader in Oakland whose followers preached a strict message of Islam and black political power. Bey's followers have long been the subject of intense police and media scrutiny for their alleged use of strong-arm tactics in promoting their business interests and also shutting down stores that sold alcohol.
Bey was also stridently anti-homosexual and awaited trial on 27 counts of sex crimes when he died of cancer in 2003.
Bailey had written articles about Your Muslim Black Bakery and was believed to be working on further investigations when he was killed. He had recently been making enquiries in the black business community about the bakery's finances. His colleagues also told police he had recently received death threats because of his journalistic work, but had not been specific about their source.
The raids ended with seven arrests and the discovery of a cache of weapons and ammunition. Police said initial findings had linked some of the weapons to Bailey's case. "The search warrant yielded several weapons and other evidence of value linking the murder of Chauncey Bailey to members of Your Muslim Black Bakery," said assistant police chief Howard Jordan.
Jordan said the raids had been part of a year-long probe that was investigating charges of murder, kidnapping and other crimes.
A simple shrine of flowers and notes now marks the spot where Bailey died. There is a large stuffed bear and poster boards for people to leave messages. His death has stunned colleagues and ordinary Americans who are unused to the murder of journalists. The last reporter killed in America "in the line of duty" was a photo editor in Florida who died as a result of the anthrax postal murders in 2001.

A pro-government militiaman has been killed and six other people have been injured in separate explosions in the southern Philippines, police say.

Shortly before noon on Monday, suspects aboard a motorcycle tossed a fragmentation grenade into a busy street in downtown Cotabato city, local police chief Senior Superintendent Willie Dangane said.

Six people, including a police officer, were hurt. One of them is said to be in a critical condition in hospital, Dangane said.

Four hours earlier, a pro-government militiaman was killed when a powerful improvised explosive device was set off in front of a military detachment in the town of Upi, near Cotabato, the military said.

No one has claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks but military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce said they suspected the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was behind the explosions.

A so-called "special operations group" of the MILF was blamed for a series of bombings that hit the volatile southern region early this month, killing at least eight and wounding over 100 others.

The MILF broke a five-year-old ceasefire in August last year, carrying out simultaneous attacks across Mindanao after a proposed land deal with the government was rejected by the courts.

Fighting that followed has since triggered a humanitarian crisis, with over half a million displaced and scores of civilians and fighters killed.

SACHA Baron Cohen has been forced to tighten security around himself and Australian partner Isla Fisher after threats from a terrorist group over his film Bruno.
Palestinian militia coalition the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades says it is "very upset" at featuring in the movie, in which Baron Cohen appears as a gay fashionista.

"We reserve the right to respond in the way we find suitable against this man," the organisation says in a letter to a Jerusalem-based journalist.

"The movie was part of a conspiracy against the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades."

In the film, Baron Cohen's Austrian character arranges a meeting with the organisation's Ayman Abu Aita and asks to be kidnapped so he can become famous.

The scene ends abruptly when Mr Abu Aita closes his hand into a fist and orders his guest to "get out now".

"This was a dirty use of our brother, Ayman, and we don't accept that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is part of the film," the group says.

Baron Cohen has increased his security around himself, actress Fisher, and their baby daughter Olive in preparation for reprisals, London's Times newspaper reports.

The organisation is a United States-designated terrorist group accused of orchestrating suicide bombings and shootings.

Mr Abu Aita says he is no longer connected to the group and has threatened to sue Baron Cohen.

His lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, says his life is at risk for being associated with the homosexual character.

Almas Hameed grabbed his 7-year-old daughter and stumbled out of their smoke-filled home as she pleaded in vain to bring her pet parrots. His wife, father and two other children did not survive.

Outside, hundreds of

enraged Muslims

called the victims "dogs" as they fired guns and burned house after house in the Christian neighborhood of this eastern Pakistani city. The weekend rampage left eight Christians dead. All but one were relatives of Hameed.

"We always live in fear," said Hameed, 50. "I wonder if I will see a time in this country when I can live like an equal citizen.".........