Maarten Holl - Pool/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, had a mid-air scare Thursday when their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing.

Charles and Camilla were 15 minutes into their flight from London to the Hay Literary Festival in Powys when a “technical fault” aboard the chopper forced the pilot to divert the flight to Denham Aerodrome in Buckinghamshire, according to the Press Association.

“The pilot carried out a controlled emergency landing after diverting to the airport,” a spokesman for the royal couple said.

An investigation has been opened into what caused the mid-air problem aboard the helicopter, which had as many as five people, in addition to Charles and Camilla, aboard.

Once safely on the ground, the prince and the duchess boarded cars to continue on to Hay-on-Wye as scheduled.

Despite arriving three hours late, Charles and Camilla were greeted by a crowd of several hundred people at the festival, an annual gathering of authors, politicians and celebrities.

“They were unflappable despite what they went through. If anyone else had gone through what they did they would have canceled their day,” one attendee told the Press Association.

Prince Charles was later scheduled to attend the Welsh National Opera’s opening night of Lohengrin at the Wales Millennium Center in Cardiff, according to the BBC.

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Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images(LONDON) -- A top Kremlin aide, Nikolai Patrushev, who is in Washington this week, is carrying a letter from President Vladimir Putin to President Obama, according to the Russian Embassy in D.C.

In a statement on its website, the embassy did not disclose the contents of the letter, but Russian officials said last week it would respond to Obama’s letter from a month ago discussing missile defense, among other things.

This is all in preparation for the Obama-Putin meeting next month on the sidelines of the G8 summit. Both sides have been trying to come to an agreement on American-led plans to install a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. NATO insists it’s meant to counter a threat from Iran. Russia says it degrades their own nuclear deterrent capabilities.

Patrushev is also expected to meet with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns.

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Dan Kitwood/Getty Images(LONDON) -- The two men who allegedly hacked a British soldier to death were known to intelligence services before the Wednesday incident, a British security official admitted Thursday. Still, the men weren't deemed enough of a threat to arrest or monitor.

British intelligence will likely face questions about whether they should have been able to stop the assault near an army barracks as police have now widened their investigation, raiding a suspect's father's home and combing, inch-by-inch, the area around the attack that raised fears of terrorism's return to London.

The soldier who died in southeast London has been identified as Drummer Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. "Drummer" is the equivalent of "private" in the Fusiliers, an infantry regiment in the British Army.

He was a veteran of Afghanistan, having served in Helmand in 2009. Before deploying to Afghanistan, he had served as part of the Queen's Guard, standing duty outside London's royal palaces.

One of the alleged attackers was a British Christian who converted to Islam, according to Anjem Choudary, the former leader of the group Al Muhajiroun, a banned Islamist Organization.

He is Michael Adebolajo, who converted to Islam in 2003 and changed his name to Mujahid, meaning one who wages jihad, Choudary told ABC News.

Choudary said Adebolajo was never a member of Al Muhajiroun but he knew him because he attended the group's rallies from about 2005 to 2011.

After 2011, Choudary said, Adebolajo stopped attending rallies. Choudary said he has no idea what Adebolajo has been doing since, and he said that Adebolajo never suggested any antipathy to British soldiers or any willingness to commit violence.

"He was a very peaceful man," Choudary said. "Never saw any kind of violence streak in him. Very quiet, timid man, in fact."

Adebolajo is under arrest in the hospital, recovering from bullet wounds he suffered when police shot him after he allegedly killed the British soldier.

He apparently had no intention of getting away, asking passersby to call the police and inviting them to interview him on their camera phones. He spoke holding two bloody knives and his hands stained deep red, using rhetoric similar to that expressed in martyrdom videos.

"We swear by almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone, your people will never be safe," Abedolajo said calmly, according to ITV News, which first obtained the video. "Tell them to bring our troops back so we -- so you -- can all live in peace."

British police and politicians are concerned about blowback attacks, especially in the London district of Woolwich, the scene of Wednesday's attack, which has had a past history of racial tensions. A few hundred members of the anti-immigrant and right-wing party, the English Defense League, poured into Woolwich Wednesday night, wearing masks and throwing rocks at police. And police reported two separate attacks on Muslim centers in southern and eastern England.

In response, an additional 1,200 cops are patrolling London on Thursday, according to Scotland Yard, focusing on mosques and religious centers, as well as outside army barracks.

And British Prime Minister David Cameron took pains to appeal to all Britons, emphasizing that the attack wasn't only on a single soldier.

"This was not just an attack on Britain and the British way of life. It was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country," Cameron told reporters.

Police in Essex, east of London, arrested a 43-year-old who was holding a knife outside of a Muslim prayer center Wednesday night. They charged him with attempted arson as well as suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, Essex police told ABC News.

And in Gillingham, Kent, which is south of London, another man was arrested Wednesday night outside a mosque on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage, Kent police told ABC News.

British Muslim organizations were quick to condemn the attack.

"We must come together, isolate those who believe that extremism and violence are acceptable, and work to ensure that they meet the full force of the law," Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Faith Matters, said in a statement. "We as the Muslim community will work against anyone who promotes such hatred."

Still, at a moment when much of the country was upset by a crime clearly designed to shock, there were signs of bravery.

After the attack, a mother of two named Ingrid Loyau-Kennett approached one of the attackers and engaged him in conversation. Loyau-Kennet can be seen in a photograph calmly talking to the man. He was holding a bloody knife, and she appeared unafraid.

"I just talked to him. He looked like a normal guy. He wasn't high, he wasn't on drugs. A normal guy pissed off with the fact [as he said], 'Muslim women and children are dying in their countries by the hand of white men,'" she told ITV's Daybreak. " He was very, very close to me. He was almost touching me ... I asked him, what's the point. [He said] 'war in London.'"

An ITV presenter asked her why she wasn't scared. "Better me than a child," Loyau-Kennet said. "Because, unfortunately, there were more and more mothers with children stopping around. So it was even more and more important that I talk to him and then ask him what he wanted."

Cameron called Loyau-Kennet a hero.

"When told by the attacker he wanted to start a war in London, she replied, 'You are going to lose. It is only you against many,'" Cameron said. "She spoke for us all."

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SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(AMMAN, Jordan) -- Secretary Of State John Kerry is sending a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: either find a peaceful solution to the two-year civil war or be prepared to deal with the international community boosting aid to the foes of his regime.

Speaking ahead of the 11-nation "Friends of Syria" conference in Amman, Jordan Wednesday, the top U.S. envoy urged al-Assad, who has vowed not to surrender, to make "a commitment to find peace in his country."

Otherwise, Kerry warned that Washington and its allies will have no choice but to increase assistance to the Syrian opposition, which has thus far not included any weaponry.

Last week, Kerry and his Russian counterpart announced that the two nations would spearhead a conference in Geneva set for early June "to end the bloodshed which has cost tens of thousands of lives."

The plan is to involve both sides in the Syrian conflict as well as other members of the international community, although neither al-Assad nor Syrian rebels have committed to sending representatives to the summit.

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NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/GettyImages(MOSCOW) -- One of the jailed members of the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot has gone on a hunger strike.

Maria Alyokhina announced her hunger strike after being denied the right to attend her own parole hearing on Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported. She was reportedly able to monitor the proceedings via video conference but refused to participate or allow her lawyers to represent her. She had to file her own motions via fax.
 
Alyokhina is one of three members of the Russian female punk group that were convicted last August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after staging what they called a “punk prayer,” a profanity-laced musical protest against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral in February 2012.

The trio were sentenced to two years in prison. One of the women, however, had her sentence suspended in October. Alyokhina and the third woman, who herself was denied parole in April, remain in jail.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- Two attackers savagely killed a man believed to be a British soldier just outside army barracks in southeast London, telling eyewitnesses the killing was "an eye for an eye...because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said there were "strong indications this is a terrorist incident" and senior British officials convened an emergency meeting in Britain's equivalent to the White House Situation Room.

The two attackers hacked the victim to death with large knives and afterward approached eyewitnesses, asking them to start filming with their camera phones. One of the attackers, who spoke with a southern London accent, carried a meat cleaver and his hands were deeply stained with blood as he spoke directly to the camera.

"We swear by almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone, your people will never be safe," the man said calmly, according to ITV News, which obtained the video.

Just a few minutes later, armed police arrived. The two men rushed the police, according to eyewitnesses, and police opened fire, wounding both of them.

The attackers "went for the police with the machetes, knife and handgun," one eyewitness told the BBC. "I don't think they cared."

The attack echoed a plot from 2008, when a British man pleaded guilty to plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier. Police believe it was an isolated incident, but the emergency cabinet meeting ordered security to be tightened around Woolwich, where the attack took place, and other military barracks in London, according to the BBC.

Cameron cut short a visit to France and called the attack "absolutely sickening" and a "most appalling crime."

"People across Britain, people in every community, I believe, will condemn this attack," he said at a news conference in Paris. "We have had these sorts of attacks before in our country and we never buckle in the face of them."

Numerous eyewitnesses emphasized the brutality of the attack.

"These two guys were crazed. They were not there. They were just animals," a man who identified himself as James told a local radio station. "They then dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road.”

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aiweiwei.com(BEIJING) -- The opening moments of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s new video (available on the artist’s website) set the tone for the next five minutes and 13 seconds. Against pounding guitar chords reminiscent of a Metallica classic, Ai is seen handcuffed and wearing a black hood in a dimly lit cell.

He described it as an “inch accurate” replica of the one in which he spent 81 days in detention after his arrest in 2011. Two guards stand over him when, suddenly, his hood is ripped off and the artist stares straight into the camera as the cadence builds to a crescendo. In the corners of his mouth and glint of his eyes is the familiar hint of rebellion seen before in his previous video work. It’s just the starting point.

The music video tells the story of Ai’s time behind bars after he was arrested in the spring of 2011 in a crackdown on dissidents and outspoken, creative thinkers. Eventually, the Chinese government charged him with tax evasion. He was only released after an international outcry put the spotlight on the Chinese government’s practice of detaining dissidents to silence them.

The government, he says, continues to hold his passport, making it impossible for him to travel outside China. Setting aside the music for a moment, the video is at times poignant and at others somewhat over the top. Ai has a notably recognizable, expressive face, although it is the very lack of expression in his art that has effectively conveyed his disdain for the Chinese leadership.

There are scenes that capture the extent to which he was monitored at all times: in the shower, while using the restroom, as he tried to sleep and when he ate.

“I think it is about how the power of the state tried to manage and maintain this kind of control,” he told the New York Times.

At the narrative unfolds, Ai, 55, is portrayed as part-gangster, part-playboy. He has said the second half of the video is about the fantasies of his guards who openly questioned him about the “real” world outside the facility. Scenes of scantily clad women dancing on a small stage dissolve into a scenario in which a child around the same age as Ai’s own young son begins to shave his head. A bald Ai is next seen in drag wearing bright red lipstick and strutting back and forth in a black dress.

Ai, the son of renowned Chinese poet Ai Qing, has described the music as “heavy metal” although it is really more avant-garde. The lyrics embrace profanity, and few can be printed here. He describes China as a country that “puts out like a hooker” and the stanzas get more extreme from there. But he has said the entire experience was akin to therapy for an experience that still gives the artist and his family nightmares.

He worked on the project with the acclaimed Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who has worked with directors as diverse as Americans Gus Van Sant and M. Night Shyamalan and the Chinese director Zhang Yimou. A full-length album, The Divine Comedy, is set for release June 22. It will mark the two-year anniversary of his release from detention.

While the music might not have even devout fans rushing to download the album, Ai says the video has a broader message. “I wanted to show people we can all sing,” he told the New York Times. “It’s our voice.”

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(PARIS) -- The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was evacuated and closed for four hours on Tuesday after a man shot himself dead near the altar.  

Dominique Venner, a 78-year-old French historian, entered the cathedral Tuesday and placed a sealed letter on the altar before shooting himself in front of hundreds of tourists, according to the U.K.'s Independent.  Venner apparently killed himself in protest against France's recent decision to allow same-sex civil unions.

According to the newspaper, authorities immediately cleared the building, one of France's most popular tourist locations now in its 850th anniversary year, and closed it to the public for about four hours.

Though efforts were made by cathedral security to revive Venner, a former member of the nationalist terrorist movement OAS, he later died of the self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Independent reports Venner posted an essay online earlier Tuesday laying out his views on gay marriage. He called for "new, spectacular and symbolic actions to shake us out of our sleep, to jolt anesthetised minds and to reawaken memory of our origins."

In addition to ranting against gay marriage, Venner wrote in the essay that the "population of France" and Europe was going to be "replaced" and brought under "Islamist control," The Independent reports.

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