German automaker Daimler has a major new shareholder. The Stuttgart-based maker of Mercedes cars and trucks said March 22 that Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments is paying $2.6 billion for a 9.1% stake, becoming the company’s largest shareholder. Daimler says it will use the injection of fresh capital to develop electric cars and other technology to save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

There are several reasons why the Aabar deal looks positive for Daimler. While the company’s financial situation has not been so bad that it needs a government bailout, Daimler is at the very least suffering from a quandary that afflicts all the big carmakers. Sales and profits are collapsing just as the companies are under pressure to invest in technology to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. The new shareholder makes it much easier for Daimler to devote resources to research and development.

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HANCOCK, N.Y. — If you didn't know where to look, you'd probably never find Islamberg, a private Muslim community in the woods of the western Catskills, 150 miles northwest of New York City.

The town, sitting on a quiet dirt road past a gate marked with No Trespassing signs, is home to an estimated 100 residents. There are small houses and other buildings visible from the outside, but it is what can't be seen from beyond the gate that has some watchers worried.

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Islamberg was founded in 1980 by Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who purchased a 70-acre plot and invited followers, mostly Muslim converts living in New York City, to settle there.

The town has its own mosque, grocery store and schoolhouse. It also reportedly has a firing range where residents take regular target practice. Gilani established similar rural enclaves across the country — at least six, including the Red House community in southern Virginia — though some believe there are dozens of them, all operating under the umbrella of the "Muslims of the Americas" group founded by Gilani.

Federal authorities say Gilani was also one of the founders of Jamaat al-Fuqra, a terrorist organization believed responsible for dozens of bombings and murders across the U.S. and abroad. The group was linked to the planning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and 10 years earlier a member was arrested and later convicted for bombing a hotel in Portland, Ore.

Shoe bomber Richard Reid has been linked to the group, along with convicted D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad. But it is Sheikh Gilani who creates the most controversy and concern.

Gilani has told his followers that "Zionist plotters" plan to rule the world, and he encourates them to leave America's cities and avoid the "decadence of a godless society." Gilani is the man American reporter Daniel Pearl was trying to interview in Pakistan when he was kidnapped and beheaded. The Sheikh was taken into custody and later released by Pakistani authorities; he denies any involvement in Pearl's murder.

Although al-Qaida is probably not going to survive the coming years, a nuclear or chemical weapons attack on British soil is becoming increasingly likely, according to a new report by the British government. The report, quoted by the British Independent on Tuesday, warned that a "dirty bomb" attack was "more realistic" then ever. 

"Contemporary terrorist organizations aspire to use chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons," the report said. "Changing technology and the theft and smuggling of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) materials make this aspiration more realistic than it may have been in the recent past."

According to the Independent the "Contest Two" report is the first unclassified document that includes a detailed picture of the assessments of British officials regarding the probable future course of terrorism, and its underlying causes.

The report describes how terrorists in conflict zones develop new explosives and attack methods and quickly disseminate the information worldwide.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith highlighted the underlying causes of the danger of an unconventional weapons attack.

"Failed states, conflict, technology - both in terms of the ability to use materials and the ability to learn about how materials are used - contribute to our concern about that as a threat, including what we know about what terrorists may have previously planned to do and may be planning to do," she said.