Obama evokes brighter days ahead in Thanksgiving address

Taken from Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
November 28, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday promised "a new beginning" when he takes over the White House in January and urged Americans to work together to overcome a deepening economic crisis.


President-elect Barack Obama, second from right, his wife Michelle Obama, left, and daughters Sasha, 7, second from the left, and Malia, 10, second from the right, greet people at a food bank in Chicago.

"This weekend - with one heart, and one voice, the American people can give thanks that a new and brighter day is yet to come," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address, usually delivered Saturday but released early for the Thanksgiving holiday.

His political hero, president Abraham Lincoln, established the holiday "in one of the darkest years of our nation's history," 1863, during the US Civil War, Obama said.

"This Thanksgiving also takes place at a time of great trial for our people," Obama said.
"We face an economic crisis of historic proportions."

"That's why I am committed to forging a new beginning from the moment I take office as president of the United States," the president-elect said.

Earlier this week Obama unveiled his economic team, including Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary and Larry Summers as chairman of the White House National Economic Council, and touted his plan to create 2.5 million jobs through a vast infrastructure spending program.

"But this Thanksgiving we are reminded that the renewal of our economy won't come from policies and plans alone - it will take the hard work, innovation, service and strength of the American people," Obama said.

"Times are tough. There are difficult months ahead. But we can renew our nation the same way that we have in the many years since Lincoln's first Thanksgiving: by coming together to overcome adversity; by reaching for - and working for - new horizons of opportunity for all Americans."

American families gather on the fourth Thursday in November for a festive dinner of turkey, potatoes and pie, seen as commemorating the first harvest feast of English pilgrims in the new world in 1621.

Mumbai gunman goes on TV to justify terror attacks

Taken from Sydney morning Herald, Australia
November 27, 2008

One of the gunmen involved in terrorist blasts in Mumbai told a television channel he belonged to an Indian Islamist group seeking an end to the persecution of Indian Muslims.

Identifying himself as a member of a group calling itself Deccan Mujahedeen, the gunman, who was holed up in the Oberoi Trident Hotel, called for the release of all fellow Islamic militants detained in India.



"Muslims in India should not be persecuted. We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he told the India TV channel by phone from inside the hotel, which is surrounded by army commandos.

Up to 100 people were killed and about 100 more wounded in the attacks, Indian media reported.

The luxury Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident hotels and eight other locations across Mumbai, including the train station, a hospital and an up-market restaurant were hit in precisely-timed assaults by small groups of gunmen who lobbed grenades into crowds and opened fire with AK-47s on people as they fled.

Maharashtra Director General of Police A N Roy was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying that about 100 people were dead.

The NDTV news channel put the death toll at 100, with 110 injured in the ongoing violence. The IBN Live channel said at least 87 people were dead. The Times of India was reporting up to 900 injured.

Two Australians - Katie Anstee, 24, and her boyfriend David Coker, 23 - were among the injured as they dineed at Cafe Leopold, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament today the number of Australian casualties could rise.

Australia's Islamic leaders have condemned the attacks.

President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Ikebal Adam Patel said he learned of the atrocity with shock and dismay and condemned the Mumbai attacks as abhorrent, despicable and outrageous.

He said attacks against innocent people were abhorrent to all peaceful people and to all faiths. He stressed that Islam does not preach acts of terrorism and rightly condemns those who do, even if they are Muslims.

Witnesses said the gunmen had specifically chosen US and British citizens to take hostage, and some foreign tourists are reported to be among the dead, including one Japanese man. A Briton who was dining at the Oberoi hotel also said the gunmen there singled out Britons and Americans.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically,'' Alex Chamberlain told Sky News. One of 12 members of a 20-strong NSW trade delegation is unaccounted for and other members of the delegation are trapped in hotel rooms with gunmen taking hostages outside.

Officials were checking with local authorities and hotel owners to determine exactly how many Australians had been caught up in the incidents, he said.

One terrified Australian is former Neighbours actress Brooke Satchwell, who is trapped with her boyfriend.

Rabbi taken hostage
A Jewish rabbi and his family have been taken hostage, India's Jewish Federation said. "The name of the place is Chabad house in South Mumbai. I hear commandos are storming the apartment block, which is a four-storey building. A rabbi is in there with his family," Indian Jewish Federation chairman Jonathan Solomon said.

"I don't know the number of gunmen in there. I don't know how many family members are in there," he added.

Meanwhile, as mainstream media outlets struggled to contend with the enormity of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, citizen journalists were already on the scene filing a constant stream of reports and images from the ground.

Every moment of the attacks has been documented in harrowing detail on Twitter, with new messages published from mobile phones every second as people described the scenes around them.

A little-known Islamic group, the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for serial blasts last month in India's northeast state of Assam that claimed nearly 80 lives.

Six weeks earlier, the capital New Delhi had been hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 dead. Those blasts were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.

US charity guilty in Hamas case

Taken from Al-Jazeera News Agency, November 25, 2008

A US court has convicted a Muslim charity and five of its former leaders on 108 charges in the largest "terrorism" financing trial in US history.

The Texas jury reached its verdict on Monday after eight days of deliberations over whether the former Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the largest US Muslim charity, had given money to the Palestinian group Hamas.

The charity, which was shut down seven years ago, was accused of giving more than $12m to support Hamas, which was designated a "terrorist organisation" in 1995 by the US government.

The hour-long verdict, following a seven-week trial, came after a first trial ended in October 2007 with one man acquitted on 31 charges but jurors unable to agree on verdicts for others.

Several relatives of those convicted on Monday wept as the verdict was read out in the Dallas courtroom, with one woman shouting "my father is not a criminal".

Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, thecharity's ex-chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 charges, includingsupporting a specially-designated "terrorist" organisation, money-laundering and tax fraud, The Associated Press reported.

Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted on three counts ofconspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted on one count of conspiracyto support a "terrorist organisation".

The Holy Land foundation itself was convicted on all 32 counts.

'Political' case
While prosecutors said the foundation raised money for Hamas they did not accuse the charity of directly financing or being involved in "terrorist" activity.

Prosecutors said the charity was spreading Hamas's ideology by funding schools, hospitals and social welfare programmes controlled by the group in the Palestinian territories, and permitting it to divert funds to the activities of fighters.

However, the charity's supporters said the government was politicising the case as part of its so-called war on terror and ignoring the foundation's charitable mission in providing aid to the poverty-stricken Palestinian territories.

Government officials had raided Holy Land's headquarters in December 2001, and George Bush, the US president, later announced the seizure of the charity's assets as "another step in the war on terrorism".

But defence lawyers said their clients had been put on trial partly because of their family ties to members of Hamas - Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's political leader exiled in Syria, is the brother of defendant Mufid Abdulqader.

Unidentified Israeli witness
Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman, reporting from Dallas, Texas, where the court case took place, said a former US state department official testified that he was never told that Hamas directed the US charity during intelligence briefings.

But an unidentified Israeli witness told the court that the aid was funnelled through Hamas channels.

Lydia Gonzalez of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the defendants did not get a fair trial.

"When you're supposed to be able to face your accusers fully and against secret evidence and secret witness, I think that leads to reasonable doubt."

Muslim groups say the prosecution has made American Muslims more hesitant to fulfil their religious obligation of helping the needy and the foundation's defenders accuse the government of selectively prosecuting the charity.

"The same charities that these guys gave to the American Red Cross is still giving to, the USAID is still giving to," Mustafaa Carroll of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said.

Ex-IDF Chief Ya'alon: "We must consider killing Ahmadinejad"

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 23/11/2008

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon was quoted as saying by an Australian newspaper this week that the West must consider all options necessary to stop Tehran's nuclear program, including assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



"We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," Ya'alon said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, published Monday morning in Australia. "There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."

When asked whether "all options" included a military deposition of Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran's current leadership, Ya'alon told The Herald: "We have to consider killing him. All options must be considered." The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, quoted an aide to Ya'alon as saying the former chief of staff never suggested assassination, just defeating the Iranian regime.

Ya'alon, who served as IDF chief from 2002 through the final year of the Palestinian Intifada in 2005, also told The Herald that a military strike on Iran would be welcomed by regional elements as quelling the most divisive conflict in the Middle East today.

"Any military strike in Iran will be quietly applauded by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states," he was quoted by The Herald as saying.

"It is a misconception to think that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most important in the Middle-East. The Shiite-Sunni schism is much bigger, the Persian-Arab divide is bigger, the struggle between national regimes and jihadism is much bigger," he was quoted as saying. "And I can't imagine the U.S. will want to share power in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran."

The former army chief told the paper he has long seen Iran as the source of regional terrorism and was surprised the United States chosen to invade Iraq in its stead.

"I was chief of staff during Operation Iraqi Freedom and I was surprised the U.S. decided to go into Iraq instead of Iran," The Herald quoted him as saying. "Unfortunately, the American public didn't have the political stomach to go into Iran."

Ya'alon made headlines last week when he announced that he would be running for the Knesset on hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud list, after weeks of being courted by the opposition leader.

Interesting reading:
(1) Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran - Brisbane Times - Click here!
(2) NZ Government overrules war-crimes arrest order against Moshe Ya'alon - New Zealand Herald Click Here!

India shocked by discovery of first Hindu terror cell

At least 10 people, including monk and army officer, held over bombings initially blamed on Islamists

Taken from The Independent, UK,
By Andrew Buncombe in DelhiSunday, 23 November 2008

India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year's notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk.

Bomb attacks are not uncommon in India – there has been a flurry in recent months – but police usually blame them on Muslim extremists, often said to have links to militant groups based in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, the recent cracking of the alleged Hindu cell has forced India to face some difficult issues. A country that prides itself on purported religious and cultural toleration – an ambition that in reality often falls short – has been made to ask itself how this cell could operate for so long. India's military, which prides itself on its professionalism, has been forced to order an embarrassing inquiry.

The near-daily drip of revelations from police has also caused red faces for India's main political opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of state polls and a general election scheduled for early next year. The BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, Lal Krishna Advani, have long accused the Congress Party-led government of being soft on terrorism that involved Muslims. However, the BJP has refused to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups, and last week Mr Advani even criticised the police over the way they questioned one of the alleged cell members, a woman called Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, phoned his rival to ask him not to politicise the issue or the investigation. "There is a strong case so let the police do their job," he told Mr Advani. While some commentators have expressed surprise about the discovery of the alleged cell, others have pointed out that there has been growing concern about the possible threat from Hindu extremists. In the summer, two members of a right-wing Hindu group were killed while putting together a bomb, and two other suspected members of the same group died in similar circumstances in 2006.

Meanwhile, senior right-wing leaders have made no secret of their wish that Hindus should form suicide squads to protect themselves against Muslim extremists. Bal Thackeray, leader of a group called the Shiv Sena, which has been responsible for communal and regional violence in Mumbai, wrote recently in the party's magazine: "The threat of Islamic terror in India is rising.

It is time to counter the same with Hindu terror. Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation."

Observers say the fact that the police have arrested the alleged cell members amid considerable political pressure suggests the growing professionalism of its security forces. "It's the first Hindu cell and it's the first time Hindus have been shackled and taken to jail," said Professor Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at Delhi's Jawarlahal Nehru University. "I'm quite pleased with the way the police have done their jobs."

U.S. study urges Obama to press Israel over nuclear program

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 18/11/2008
By Yossi Melman

The Middle East is in danger of accumulating large stocks of nuclear material over the next decade that could be used to produce over 1,700 nuclear bombs, a U.S. research center has projected in a newly released report.

The Institute for Science and International Security, headed by David Albright, one the world's top experts on nuclear weapons and the prevention of nuclear proliferation, recently released its report urging president-elect Barack Obama to take a number of measures to avoid such an outcome, including convincing Israel to halt production of its nuclear weapons.

"The Obama administration should make a key priority of persuading Israel to join the negotiations for a universal, verified treaty that bans the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosives, commonly called the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT)," the institute argued. "As an interim step, the United States should press Israel to suspend any production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. Toward this goal, the United States should change its relatively new policy of seeking a cutoff treaty that does not include verification. The Bush administration's rejection of the long-standing U.S. policy of requiring verification was a mistake that the incoming administration needs to rectify."

Though Israel has never publicly admitted it has nuclear arms, it is largely believed to possess about 200 nuclear warheads. Iran has defied the international community for years by running a nuclear program which many observers fear may allow it to obtain nuclear arms in the future.

More recently, several Middle Eastern countries including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey announced their intention of building nuclear power plants.

Though most countries said they want to build reactors in order to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels as their sole source of energy, the institute's researchers believe they also wish to create a nuclear infrastructure in their own countries in light of the possibility that Iran will obtain nuclear arms.

In the year 2020 a number of nuclear reactors in the Middle East are expected to be completed, producing over 13 tons of plutonium. According to the institute, a nuclear device requires only eight kilograms to be assembled.

The institute believes the White House should strive to have Egypt, Iran and Israel ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). It also has stated that the U.S. should discourage the reprocessing of irradiated power reactor fuel both domestically and internationally.

Jewish settlers desecrate Hebron mosque and graves

Well we usually hear about Jewish graves through Europe being desecrated by facsist now it seems that Jewish Settlers (majority who had left the same parts of Europe) are doing what facsists had done to their communities!

Taken from Google News, By AFP

HEBRON, West Bank — Jewish settlers angry at an Israeli court order for their eviction from a house in Hebron desecrated a mosque and tombs in the flashpoint West Bank City before dawn on Thursday, witnesses said.

The settlers scrawled "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs" on the front of a mosque and drew the Israeli emblem, the Star of David, on several gravestones in a Muslim cemetery, the witnesses said.

The mosque and cemetery both lie near the Hebron house where dozens of hardline Jewish settlers are defying the order by the Israeli High Court setting last Wednesday a deadline for them to leave or face eviction.

Israeli soldiers are on round-the-clock patrol in the tense neighbourhood.

The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hardline Jews seeking to erect unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.

The court rejected an appeal by two right-wing organisations against a government order to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.

The four-storey house at the centre of the dispute was occupied in March 2007 by dozens of hardline Jewish settlers who have dubbed it "the house of peace".

The court ruling said the settlers "should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner."

The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for 700,000 dollars, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.

While the court ruling said there were "contradictions and queries" in Rajabi's claims, it also said that documents presented by the settlers in a bid to show ownership "were found by police investigators to be forged."

Leaked list reveals BNP strongholds

Taken from the Independent, 19 November 2008

Lancashire was today revealed as a stronghold of BNP supporters with 861 people in the county on a leaked membership list.

West Yorkshire has the second highest rate of membership with 858 people from the county on the list.

And throughout Yorkshire as a whole the party counts more than 1,600 members.

The list, posted on an internet blog, contains 12,000 names including addresses, contact details and some members' jobs.

Some of the towns in Lancashire with the most BNP members include Oldham (78) and Burnley (73) which were the scene of violent race riots in 2001.

In Yorkshire, more than 240 members live in Leeds and 109 are in Bradford - where the 2001 rioting spread after igniting in Lancashire.

Essex has just over 670 members and the West Midlands more than 580. In Kent 417 people are signed up and in Leicestershire there are 409.

But there are hotspots of BNP membership across the country.

In Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, where there are nine BNP councillors on the city council, there are more than 100 members.

London has close to 500 members on the list and more than 230 members are listed as living in Manchester.

Burnley Council Labour Leader Julie Cooper said: "It doesn't surprise me that there are so many members in Lancashire and in Burnley. The BNP in Burnley have worked very hard to prey on vulnerable communities and appeal to the selfish side in all of us.

"Most of their support comes from traditional Labour areas where there is a lot of deprivation.

"But I think the tide is turning. We have four BNP members on the council now but we used to have seven and I believe that we can bring that down to three at the next election.

"It is such a shame because Burnley has got so much going for it and so many people here are doing a lot of good work."

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The publication of the list was inappropriate and put the lives of people “we disagree with” in danger. Although the original source of the list on Blogger has been taken down there are many websites still hosting the bnpmemberslist.

Whatever people say – groups like The BNP, National front, Combat 18 etc are all racist groups. The BNP may appear to be more mainstream and have a clean cut image but deep down it is another matter.

It has been alleged that hate groups like the above have set up websites that publish names and address of left wing politicians and ordinary people that stand up against fascism. Websites such as redwatch.org / redwatch.net (note: domain name keeps changing) is one prime example. here is a video report youtube.com

The majority of the members of hate groups have grown up in areas where there is a lot of deprivation but most of them have a disillusioned life. One of the highest profile BNP members was uncovered in 2006 – ballerina Simone Clarke. She joined the party to stand up against mass immigration (something unfamiliar to her that every party stands against).

The astonishing thing about Simone Clarke was that at that time she was in a relationship with fellow English National Ballet star Yat-Sen Chang, a Cuban immigrant of Chinese descent. They even have a five year old daughter, Olivia. The relationship didn’t last as Yat-Sen Chang, refused to back her politics. Simone Clarke is currently engaged to local BNP politician Richard Barnbrook who allegedly made the comment of Simone and Yat’s relationship "I'm not opposed to mixed marriages but their children are washing out the identity of this country's indigenous people." - Need I Say more!

Here are some points why many people consider the BNP to be a fascist party Click Here!

Stand up against fascism - for more info Click Here!

World recalls end of World War I

World recalls end of World War I
Taken from BBC News, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Ceremonies are being held across the globe to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Four years of trench warfare between Germany and the Allies killed some 20m people and redrew the map of Europe.

A major commemoration will take place in Verdun, north-east France, where French and German troops fought for eight months.

The battle was the war's longest, and Verdun has since become a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.

Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and the Duchess of Cornwall will be the guests of honour of French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the event.

Pacific century
Remembrance ceremonies have already been held in Australia, which lost 60,000 men in the conflict.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd used a speech at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to issue a call for peace.

"We have all endured a most bloody century," he said.

"Let us resolve afresh at the dawn of this new century... that this might be a truly pacific peaceful century."

A lone bugler then played the Last Post, which is used to to commemorate the war dead in Commonwealth countries.

In the UK, three of the four surviving British World War I veterans - Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108 - will represent the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively during a ceremony at London's Cenotaph.

Mr Patch, Britain's oldest survivor of the trenches, will read an act of remembrance.

A two-minute silence will be observed from 1100 GMT, marking the exact time - at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - when the Armistice Treaty came into effect to end the war.

World War I led to the creation of the Soviet Union and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.


Useful reading:

(1) Echoes of conflict 90 years on (BBC)

(2) The last soldiers to die in WWI (BBC)

(3) Map of WWI battlegrounds (BBC)

(4) Audio slideshow: Scenes from the Great War's trenches (BBC)

Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine

Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine
Taken from BBC News, 09.11.08

Israeli police have had to restore order at one of Christianity's holiest sites after a mass brawl broke out between monks in Jerusalem's Old City.

Fighting erupted between Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Christ's crucifixion.

Two monks from each side were detained as dozens of worshippers traded kicks and punches at the shrine, said police.

Trouble flared as Armenians prepared to mark the annual Feast of the Cross.

Tapestries toppled
Shocked pilgrims looked on as decorations and tapestries were toppled during Sunday's clash.

Dressed in the vestments of the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations, rival monks threw punches and anything they could lay their hands on.

The Greeks blamed the Armenians for not recognising their rights inside the holy site, while the Armenians said the Greeks had violated one of their traditional ceremonies.

An Armenian clergyman said the Greek clergy had tried to place one of their monks inside the Edicule, an ancient structure which is said to encase the tomb of Jesus.

"What is happening here is a violation of status quo. The Greeks have tried so many times to put their monk inside the tomb but they don't have the right to when the Armenians are celebrating the feast," he said.

The Armenians had been preparing to commemorate the 4th Century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.

A Greek clergyman said: "We protested peacefully, we stood here in the middle and we claimed that we shall not leave the procession finished unless they leave our guardian be inside. This didn't happen and in that moment the police interfered."

Six Christian sects share control of the ancient church and the BBC's Wyre Davies in Jerusalem says confrontations between them are not uncommon, but rarely descend into violence.

Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States of America!

Democratic Senator Barack Obama has been elected the first black president of the United States. The world is already a better place and Americans are loved all around the world once more!



"It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America," the president-elect told a jubilant crowd at a victory rally in Chicago. His rival John McCain accepted defeat, saying

"I deeply admire and commend" Mr Obama. He called on his supporters to lend the next president their goodwill.

World Reacts to Obama Win!