CNN Anchor Ali Velshi was born in Kenya, and raised in Ontario, Canada. The son of a liberal Canadian parliament member, Velshi has a history of opposing rightwing politicians in Canada and working for Democrat elected officials here in the United States.

Interviewing Republican Congressman Peter King yesterday on CNN, Velshi shut him up in mid-sentence. Velshi halted the Congressman from mentioning the name of the suspect of yesterday's attempted bombing of a NorthWest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The suspect in custody is 23-year old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is identified as an Engineering student at University College London.

Transcript (h/t Conservative Blog Watch):

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK (via telephone): Basically the person's name. I understand he's a 23-year-old Nigerian who boarded the flight in Nigeria, his name is Abdulmattal (ph)...

VELSHI: Representative King, I've got to tell you, we have not got any information on anyone being charged. So thank you for bringing us information. But would ask you not to name anybody on TV right now, we do not have any word of official charges. Let me know what else you know other than the identity of the person who may be charged.

KING: His name did appear in a database as far as having a terrorist nexus.

Later on in the interview:

VELSHI: Ok, I understand that you do know -- or you believe you know the name of the identity. We're not in a position to say that on CNN yet. We are working to confirm that.

KING: Again, my understanding is his name was in the database. That he does have al Qaeda connections. Certainly extremist terrorist connections and his name popped up pretty quickly.

The name of the suspect had been released hours earlier by Fox News, Reuters, and various other media outlets.