 The Telegraph reports that the National Association of Muslim Police has attacked government policy on countering Islamic extremism. In evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating Islamic extremism, the NAMP attacked the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy, warning that it is an ‘affront to British values’ which threatens to trigger ethnic unrest... that ministers were wrong to blame Islam for being the ‘driver’ behind recent terrorist attacks.
Far-Right extremists were a more dangerous threat to national security... that Muslims were being ‘stigmatised’ by the Government’s attempts to tackle terrorism, which was adding to ‘hatred’ against entire communities. ...The memorandum warned that Muslims were subjected to 'daily abuse' due to the strategy. 'We must not diminish our British values further by continuing to allow such behaviour and policies to continue unchecked.' This is an extremely alarming development. First, a general point. The very idea that police officers form themselves into interest groups of any stripe whatever should be anathema to the ethic of policing.
That applies equally to Black, Gay, Jewish or One-Legged Transgendered Red-Haired Police associations. Police officers should serve the entire community equally, and should have no agenda but that professional commitment of equal public service to all. The idea that they identify themselves as an interest group is simply wrong, and the police service should never have allowed this to develop. The memorandum by the National Association of Muslim Police, however, is of a different order of magnitude altogether. To take their least serious point first: the idea that there is no Islamic threat and that the real threat to Britain comes from the ‘far right’ is demonstrably ludicrous. The ‘far right’ poses no threat to Britain other than some low-level thuggery.
The Islamist threat to Britain is very great indeed.
Dozens of Islamist plots aimed at murdering thousands of people have been thwarted, and the security service say between 2000 and 4000 British Muslims are radicalised to potential acts of terrorism.
This terrorism is part of a global holy war being waged in the name of Islam. While many British Muslims support neither the aims nor the tactics of this holy war, an insupportable number do.
For Muslim police officers to deny this is extremely disturbing. It means they have bought into the radical narrative of systematic denial and deceit. But the NAMP went much, much further than this. They attacked government policy; worse, they attacked government policy aimed at protecting the lives and safety of British citizens; worse still, they suggested that British Muslims should resist that policy, and implicitly threatened disorder if it were not changed. Let us pinch ourselves: these are British police officers, subject to the same disciplinary and professional codes as any other police officers. Yet their call for action to ‘check’ counter-terrorism policy, and the implicit threat of violence if it is not so checked, suggests that rather than helping form the line of defence against the Islamist threat, these police officers must be considered to be part of that threat. On its website, moreover, NAMP recommends that British Muslims reporting crimes should also ‘report any such actions to the Islamic Human Rights Commission’. Let’s think about the implications of this for a moment.
The IHRC is an extremist organisation with links to Iran. The NAMP is therefore advising British Muslims to use an extreme Iran-linked Islamic jihadi front organisation, which threatens the security of this nation, as a parallel law enforcement mechanism in Britain. The attempt to set up parallel Islamic institutions and jurisdiction in Britain is a core element of the Islamist attempt to suborn and take over this country. The irony of this frightening situation is extreme. The government has bent over backwards to avoid associating Islam with terrorism. In an attempt to peel moderate Muslims away from the radicals, it has poured more than £140 million a year into ‘moderate’ Muslim groups. It has positively fallen over itself to encourage the recruitment of Muslim police officers in the belief that that this would persuade British Muslims that the government had no problem with them, only with the radicals in their midst. Yet these are precisely the policies which the NAMP claims have led to ‘hatred against Muslims’ which ‘has grown to a level that defies all logic and is an affront to British values’. Thus the fruits of appeasement. Rather than taming jihadi extremism in Britain, the cowardice of politicians has merely resulted in fracturing the thin blue line that protects us -- and turning it into a potential weapon of the jihad. Melanie Phillips 
 by Khaled Abu Toameh Arab journalists are under growing pressure from the Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to avoid “hanging the dirty laundry in the open.” Arab journalists are often taught that they should place the interests of their leaders, governments and homelands before above anything else, including the facts and the truth. Americans and Europeans who are pouring billions of dollars on Abbas and Fayyad need to be aware of the absence of an independent media in the West Bank. One can understand why the Iranian-funded Hamas is repressing journalists, but there is no reason why American and European taxpayers should be funding a regime that has no respect for independent reporters. If the West nevertheless insists on dealing with corrupt secular regimes to keep radical Muslims away, then Washington and its Western allies should demand good government and free media.
Western donors have every right to demand something positive in return for their money. The financial corruption and lack of democracy and freedom of expression is, meanwhile, driving many Arabs into the open arms of Hamas and al-Qaeda. Journalists are forced to go and work in the international or even Israeli media to be able to practice some form of real journalism. The absence of a free and independent media in the Palestinian territories has driven a majority of Palestinians to rely on foreign media outlets as a reliable source of information. Public opinion polls have even shown that most Palestinians prefer Al-Jazeera to the Hamas and Fatah media. The pressure is taking place in the context of the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas that has been raging in the Palestinian territories since the Islamist movement won the parliamentary elections in January 2006. Since then, the two rival parties have been waging a smear campaign against each other, using every available platform to discredit and undermine one another. Many local journalists have found themselves caught in the middle of this ongoing dispute. In the West Bank, the Western-backed “moderate” government of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad has been exerting pressure on journalists to “toe the line” and refrain from reporting news that might reflect negatively on the two men. Abbas and Fayyad are using the US-trained Palestinian policemen not only to crack down on Hamas supporters in the West Bank, but also to silence critics and intimidate local reporters and editors. Some journalists who have dared to publicly criticize the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have either found themselves behind bars under the pretext of “supporting” Hamas - an allegation aimed at keeping human rights organizations and Westerners silent. Other journalists who are not renowned as Fatah loyalists often receive threats over the phone directly from officials close to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. This policy has resulted in the creation of a media that is not much different than the ones existing under Arab dictatorships. The three major Palestinian newspapers, Al-Quds, Al-Ayyam and Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, are controlled, directly and indirectly, by Abbas and Fayyad loyalists. Criticism of these two men and their policies in the local media is unheard of. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of journalists who seek jobs with the Palestinian media in the West Bank are required to be Fatah loyalists. Of course no one is expecting Abbas and Fayyad to employ Hamas-affiliated journalists, but what about those who don’t belong to any political faction? And there’s certainly no shortage of fine and independent Palestinian journalists. Hamas’s attitude toward Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip has not been any better. Many journalists living there are afraid to speak out or report stories that might anger Hamas. Under this frightening atmosphere, many of these journalists nowadays sound as if they are Hamas spokesmen. A free media is one of the basic foundations of a healthy and prosperous society. It’s also an important element in the construction of a solid infrastructure for the much-desired Palestinian state. Hudson New York
 by Salim Mansur
Into the ninth year since the menace of Islamism spilled out well beyond the borders of the Arab-Muslim world, the West and the U.S. in particular continue to be incoherent about how to respond. To get a sense of this incoherence in dealing with Islamism effectively, we need to recall how the west, led by the U.S., dealt with a far greater existential challenge from the Bolshevik-Communist threat of the Soviet Union armed with nuclear might. At the end of the war against Hitler's Germany, Europe lay in smouldering ruins, its population terrorized, broken and displaced. The war against Japan in Asia and the Pacific ended with A-bombs and complemented the devastation in Europe. The human toll of the war is estimated to have been more than 70 million dead. The war that began with Hitler's army invading Poland ended with Stalin's army taking Berlin and dividing Europe in half. The spectre of Bolshevik-Communism that had loomed over Europe since 1917 became real in 1945 as the eastern half of the continent traded one form of totalitarian tyranny for another. But for the generation of Americans, Canadians, Brits and others — now remembered rightly as the greatest generation — and their leaders, however exhausted by the ordeal of 1939-45, the task of holding the line against tyranny had to be met in defence of freedom, and it was met. In March 1946, Winston Churchill, then out of office, travelled to Fulton, Mo., and U.S. president Harry Truman's home state. At Westminster College, Churchill gave his now famous "The Sinews of Peace" speech in which he warned Americans of the communist peril in Europe divided by an iron curtain. Churchill understood the nature of totalitarian communism as he had of European fascism during the 1930s. Truman took Churchill's warning to heart and so did that generation of Americans. The following year in July 1947, George Kennan, an American diplomat, published an essay titled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in Foreign Affairs magazine. Kennan had studied Russia all his life, spoke the language and served in Moscow from 1944 to 1946 as the chief of U.S. mission. Kennan had witnessed the brutal nature of Soviet ideology and watched the display of its expansionist ambitions. He provided the Truman administration with the intellectual foundation for what became the policy of containing the Soviet Union. Years of European appeasement and American isolationism had brought a devastated world to the cliffhanger between freedom and tyranny in 1945. Yet that generation rose to the occasion. It met the challenge of communism, implemented the containment policy, provided resources such as the Marshall Plan for the recovery of Europe, fielded armies in freedom's defence, helped end colonialism, founded the United Nations and laid the institutional framework for democracy and developmental assistance around the world. Soviet Communism was contained and defeated. Chinese communists eventually became capitalist freeloaders. And almost without exception, people around the world came to want democracy, irrespective of how well or poorly they understood its workings. In retrospect, it is remarkable — in contrast to the present western incoherence against Islamism — how quickly the greatest generation grasped the threat posed by Soviet Communism and responded with a coherent policy that prevailed. CIP
 Big surprise here. Who ever heard of a devout Muslim sending hate mail? More on this story. "Christian hoteliers received violent threats over Muslim guest 'insult,'" by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in the Telegraph, December 12
Christian hoteliers Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang have received hate mail after they were accused of insulting a Muslim guest because of her faith. The couple said they have been "living a nightmare" since they were charged in July with a "religiously-aggravated" offence of causing harassment, alarm or distress. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the couple have told of their relief at being cleared of insulting Ericka Tazi, a Muslim woman who was staying at their hotel.
They said that they had suffered emotionally and financially since the prosecution began, received threats warning they would be attacked and nearly lost their business due to an 80 per cent decline in takings at their nine-bedroom hotel, the Bounty House in Aintree, Liverpool. "The last nine months have been a nightmare for us," said Mr Vogelenzang. "We've been drained emotionally and financially. We have, sadly, received some threats and hate mail. That has been upsetting. "Our business has almost been destroyed."... The hotel had been reliant for much of its business on a local hospital, which routinely referred outpatients to stay, but hospital chiefs put a stop to this once they heard about the court case.... With thanks to JihadWatch
 AMRITSAR: A Sikh advocate in Pakistanwas reportedly thrashed and threatened with dire consequences recently if he did not convert to Islam, forcing his family to run for safety to a gurdwara in Hassanabdal near Rawalpindi.
While the victim, Anup Singh, was yet to regain consciousness, the incident has left the Sikh community in Pakistan rattled and insecure.
Talking to TOI from Islamabad, Anup’s brother, Ravinder Singh, recalled horror of November 21. ‘‘A group of at least eight men kidnapped my brother from his office and took him to Mohammad Amin’s residence, where he was stripped and photographed with Amin’s wife.’’
Undergoing treatment for fractures and severe head injuries in Holy Family Hospital, Ralwalpindi, where doctors said it might take a few months before Anup could start leading a normal life, the advocate was reportedly assaulted for fighting a separation case for Amin’s wife, Safina Kanwal.
‘‘The goons made my brother sign on a blank paper, after which they cut his hair, beard, moustaches and threatened him to convert to Islam if he wanted to live in Pakistan.’’
 Israel's warnings that it will not tolerate an existential threat in the form of a nuclear Iran should be taken seriously, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon warned in an interview with the Britain-based Sky News on Friday. "The one who's bluffing is Iran, which is trying to play with cards they don't have," Ayalon told the news network. "All the bravado that we see and the testing and the very dangerous and harsh rhetoric are hiding a lot of weaknesses." Israel has repeatedly warned the Islamic Republic -- and the rest of the world -- that it will not allow Iran to complete its nuclear development program and create an atomic weapon to be aimed at the Jewish State. "If Iranian behavior and conduct continues as they have exhibited so far, it is obvious that their intentions are only to buy time and procrastinate," Ayalon said. He pointed out that negotiations with Western nations have not resulted in any reduction in Iranian nuclear activities. Iran has vowed to continue all of its nuclear development programs regardless of what proposals for alternatives are offered by Western nations in diplomatic talks. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared last Sunday that Iran is negotiating with the West from a position of power, and compared the power of Iran's enemies to that of "a mosquito." IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi politely warned the Islamic Republic in September that the Jewish State is prepared to defend itself against any nuclear or other attack it might be inclined to launch. "We all understand that the best way of coping [with the Iranian nuclear threat] is through international sanctions]" Ashkenazi told an interviewer on IDF Army Radio. However, he added, "Israel has the right to defend itself, and all options are open." Source: INN
 A militant Islamist group associated with al Qaeda has for the first time threatened to attack Israel, far from its normal base of operations in Somalia.
Al-Shabab, which is fighting to control the east African country, accused Israel of "starting to destroy" the Al Aqsa mosque, where standoffs have taken place recently between Israeli police and Palestinians.
The mosque is part of the complex that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif.
"The Jews started to destroy parts of the holy mosque of Al Aqsa and they routinely kill our Palestinian brothers, so we are committed to defend our Palestinian brothers," said Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur, a prominent Al-Shabab commander.
His threat was part of a series of fiery sermons delivered after Friday prayers in Baidoa in southwest Somalia. Al-Shabab controls the region, which is part of a country that has been without an effective national government for nearly 20 years.
Other leaders of the group also threatened Israel, the first time the group is known to have done so. "We will transfer and expand our fighting in the Middle East so we can defend Al Aqsa mosque from the Israelis," Al-Shabab commander Abdifatah Aweys Abu Hamza said in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Read more at CNN H/T: JihadWatch
 ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani Taliban's chief is vowing to turn Pakistan into "another Afghanistan or Iraq" unless the military stops its assault in the militants' stronghold near the Afghan border. The army is claiming new advances into South Waziristan after capturing the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud and one of his top deputies yesterday. The military says most homes in the town had been converted into bunkers and it had hosted a training camp for suicide bombers. After capturing two key fronts, the army says its forces are closing in on a militant base. In a telephone call with The Associated Press, Mehsud warned of new attacks across the country and claimed the militants haven't "suffered any significant losses." The Taliban have carried out a string of bombings over the past three weeks that has killed about 200 people. Source: FoxNews
 by Hillel Fendel A high-ranking Iranian government official says Iran will respond to either an American or Israeli attack by "blowing up the heart of the State of Israel."
The spokesman is a representative of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's highest spiritual leader, in the country's most powerful military force, the Revolutionary Guard. "Even if one Zionist or American rocket hits our land," said Mojtaba Zolnour, "Iranian rockets will explode in the heart of Israel even before the dust settles." He sounded the threat on Friday morning. Just a week ago, Iran conducted an exercise in which it fired multiple long-range Shihab-3 ballistic missiles simultaneously. The rockets are able to reach any point in the Middle East, as well as some in Europe. Western and Iranian negotiators are scheduled to begin their next round of talks on Iran's uranium enrichment program later this month. The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to have President Barack Obama report by January 31 on his diplomatic efforts to have Iran stop its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, Obama set an informal deadline of "the end of this year" to see if negotiations with Iran would prove effective. Congress has now given him an extra month. The new bill, which still requires Senate approval, also demands the levying of sanctions on Iran if that country does not accept the American offer "to engage in diplomatic talks" and also if it does not "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities" related to its nuclear ambitions. Source: INN
 The top nuclear inspector at the UN does not believe that Iran is the number one threat in the Middle East.He says Israel is the number one threat.China View reported, via Free Republic: Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.
At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30 years, the report said.
"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.
Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear capabilities, although it refuses to confirm or deny the allegation.
"This (possession of nuclear arms) was the cause for some proper measures to gain access to its (Israel's) power plants ... and the U.S. president has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen," said ElBaradei.
ElBaradei arrived in Iran Saturday for talks with Iranian officials over Tehran's nuclear program.
Chiado Publisher Censors A Book About Islam PORTUGAL (NOVOpress) — The publisher Chiado Editora decided to suspend the publication of a book that explores the topic of Islam. The book entitled A Última Madrugada do Islão (“The Last Late Night of Islam — The conspiracy that killed Yasser Arafat and Islam”), by André Ventura, was the cause of threats against the publisher, this according to the primary justification of the very same Chiado Editora in relation the suspension of the edition.… Now that publisher has revealed in a press release that it has in its possession “some comments and assessments that would force any respectable publisher in the world to reflect, to consider, and to measure the consequences of the publication of this book, in the Portuguese market or in any other market.” The Chiado Publisher supposedly based its decision on negative comments by university professors such as Pablo Cortés from the University of Leicester and Olufemi Amao, from the University of Brunel [both the names and the universities are foreign — translator], and of “members of the Muslim community who purposely asked their names not to be divulged, fearing reprisals.” The consulted personalities have considered that the book has “an ‘incendiary potential’ of ‘unpredictable consequences,’ because of the psychological and sexual circumstances that surround the figure of the prophet Mohammed, as well as the mention of real people and places related to the Palestine Liberation Organization.” The last opinion was that of the “sheik” David Munir, responsible for the Central Mosque of Lisbon. The publisher rejected the idea that this request represented a kind of “prior censorship” and guaranteed that they “absolutely respect freedom of expression”, but underline, however, that freedom of expression “cannot be exercised without taking into account fundamental values like safety and the harmony of the community.” In a time when freedom of expression is a hot topic, and after the President of the Republic had displayed a preoccupation with the case of Manuela Moura Guedes, it is still worrying that, apparently, a small religious community is able to boycott the publishing of a book, something that would be unthinkable had the theme in line been, for instance, Christianity. Afonso adds this note: Read All here: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/09/censorship-and-murder-in-culturally.html#readfurther
 Nasrallah said his party stands
ready for military confrontation with Israel Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Lebanon's Hezbollah, has warned that his group will strike Tel Aviv if Israeli forces attack Beirut or its suburbs. Addressing supporters on Friday, in the third anniversary of Hezbollah's deadly conflict with Israel, Nasrallah emphasised his group's ability to fight the Israeli military, but played down the possiblity of another war. "We do not want war, but we are not afraid of it and we say to you: if you bomb Beirut or its suburb, we will bomb Tel Aviv," he said. "We do not think there will be a new Israeli war on Lebanon in the near future," he said in the televised speech watched by a crowd of thousands gathered in Beirut's southern suburb, the stronghold of the Shia group. "Today we are in a better situation than we were three years ago," he said, adding that Hezbollah now has the capacity to strike any area in Israel. Israeli response Levanon, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Nasrallah's speech was designed for "local consumption". "I think this is a speech for local consumption for the simple reason that every time Hassan Nasrallah feels that he has some difficulty... in Lebanon he turns to Israel and starts with threats. "We're facing a strange situation. We have Hezbollah with heavy armaments, weapons from Syria and Iran, and the state of Lebanon, the authorities, the government of Lebanon, says nothing." Israel's 33-day war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 Lebanese civilians, a third of them children, as well as 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. The conflict destroyed much of the country's major infrastructure and targeted Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and the southern suburb of Beirut before ending with a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14, 2006. On Monday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, warned that the Lebanese government would be held responsible for any new attacks against Israel coming from its territory if the group was included in the cabinet. But Nasrallah said Netanyahu's warnings only amounted to "psychological warfare" and served to sow discord among Lebanese parties, hinder the formation of a cabinet and prevent Hezbollah from joining a new Lebanese government. Seven weeks after the start of negotiations on a new Lebanese government, rival parties agreed on the number of ministers each political bloc will have but still disagree over who will get such key portfolios as foreign affairs, finance, interior and telecommunications. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer addresses a rally outside the Chinese Consulate in Toorak.Mary-Anne Toy | August 8 THE Chinese Government has threatened to end Melbourne's 29-year sister-city relationship with the city of Tianjin if Lord Mayor Robert Doyle does not intervene to stop the screening of a film about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer at the Town Hall today.Mr Doyle has rejected the Chinese demands - as well as intense pressure from his own councillors to stop the screening of the controversial film. The Chinese consul-general in Melbourne, Shen Weilian, requested an urgent meeting with Cr Doyle after the Melbourne International Film Festival on Wednesday moved the premiere of The 10 Conditions of Love to the 1500-seat Town Hall. The move sought to cater for unprecedented demand created by earlier Chinese attempts to ban the film. It is understood that Mr Shen told Cr Doyle in blunt terms at a meeting at the Town Hall on Thursday that he risked jeopardising the Australia-China relationship - including Melbourne's sister-city arrangement with Tianjin - if he did not intervene and cancel the screening. The Chinese Government has labelled Ms Kadeer a terrorist and accused her of inciting the ethnic riots that last month killed almost 200 people. It is appalled at any apparent support for her. Read more here... Source: The Age
 * Iran demands UN respond to Israeli "threats"
* Israeli officials hint Israel could attack nuclear sites
* Obama hopes engagement will defuse crisis
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 (Reuters) - Iran on Tuesday called on the United Nations to respond firmly to what it described as Israel's "unlawful and insolent threats" to launch an attack on Tehran's nuclear installations.
Israeli officials, including President Shimon Peres, recently have suggested that the Jewish state could use military force to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, as the West suspects it is doing.
Iran insists it is only interested in building reactors that peacefully generate electricity.
Its U.N. ambassador, in a letter to Mexican U.N. Ambassador Claude Heller, said Israel was violating the U.N. charter and urged the international body to respond clearly and resolutely. Mexico holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council.
"These outrageous threats of resorting to criminal and terrorist acts against a sovereign country and a member of the United Nations not only display the aggressive and warmongering nature of the Zionist regime, but also constitute blatant violations of international law," Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee wrote.
The letter came two days after Peres told Israel's Kol Hai radio that Israel would respond with force if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to soften his position on proceeding with an uranium enrichment program.
"We'll strike him," Peres said in the interview.
An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted last month by Atlantic magazine as saying the government was weighing the military option.
Khazaee said the remarks were "unlawful and insolent threats" based on "fabricated pretexts."
OBAMA WORRIED
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said that Israel should be "wiped off the map," has vowed to continue his country's nuclear program.
Iran said on Monday it would welcome constructive dialogue on its nuclear program with the the five Security Council permanent members -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- as well as Germany.
The Security Council has adopted five resolutions demanding that Iran freeze its uranium enrichment program, three of which imposed sanctions against Tehran. Iran has so far refused to stop enriching uranium.
In his interview with Israeli radio, Peres also urged Ahmadinejad to speak with U.S. President Barack Obama, who has promised to adopt a policy of engagement with Iran and has said he is willing to meet with its leaders.
Washington cut off ties with Tehran in 1980 after militants seized the U.S. embassy in the Iranian capital. Former U.S. President George W. Bush pursued a policy of isolating Iran during his eight years in office.
U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts say Obama opposes the use of military force against Iran's nuclear sites but is worried Israel, which bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osiraq in 1981, might bomb Iranian sites if engagement fails.
If Tehran continues to enrich uranium, analysts say, Obama will have no choice but to support a push for a new round of U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic later this year.
(Editing by Paul Simao)
SOMALI pirates have threatened revenge after two separate hostage-rescue raids by foreign forces killed at least five comrades, raising fears of future bloodshed on the high seas.  Picture: Reuters The latest raid by US forces this morning saved American hostage Capt Richard Phillips. Three pirates were killed and one was taken captive, the US Navy said. That rescue mission and one by France last week have upped the stakes in shipping lanes off the anarchic Horn of Africa nation where pirate gangs have defied foreign naval patrols. "The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone. "We cannot know how or whether our friends on the lifeboat died, but this will not stop us from hijacking," he said. Sea gangs generally treat their captives well, hoping to fetch top dollar in ransoms. The worst violence has been an occasional beating. "We shall revenge," said another pirate, Aden, in Eyl village, a pirate lair on Somalia's eastern coast. Some fear the US and French operations may make the modern-day pirates more like those of previous centuries. "The pirates will know from now that anything can happen. The French are doing this, the Americans are doing it. Things will be more violent from now on," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program. "This is a big wake-up to the pirates. It raises the stakes." Piracy is lucrative business in Somalia, where gangs have earned millions of dollars in ransoms, splashing it on wives, houses, cars and fancy goods. After a wane in business early this year, pirates have struck back. They presently hold more than a dozen vessels with about 260 hostages, of whom about 100 are Filipino. Eyl, Haradheere and other pirate havens along the Indian Ocean coastline have come back to life with the windfall of successful operations. Somalia's anarchy - whose 18 years of civil war have given sea gangs assault rifles, grenade launchers and little central control - has long been ignored by world powers. The saga over the capture of Capt Phillips has thrown international attention on the long-running piracy phenomenon that has hiked up insurance costs on strategic waterways where warships now patrol. "Killing three out of thousands of pirates will only escalate piracy," said Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, spokesman of the moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca. Source: The Australian
President-elect Barack Obama on Friday repeated his campaign assertion that Teheran "is a genuine threat to US national security."
Obama told reporters at a Washington news conference that he would have more to say about the Iranian nuclear program after he is inaugurated.
Obama also touted a "practical, pragmatic approach" to concerns about its nuclear development and said once more that he believes diplomacy should be put into play more than it has been in the past.
Obama also said his administration will "uphold our highest values and ideals" in its approach to fighting terrorism.
He was asked at the conference whether he would continue a policy of harsh interrogation, for instance.
Obama replied that he has told CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta and retired Adm. Dennis Blair that he expects the Geneva Conventions to be honored.
The president-elect introduced his choices for CIA chief, Panetta, and national intelligence director, Blair, earlier on Friday.
Obama described them as men of "unquestioned integrity" and "broad experience" who are "uniquely qualified" for the posts. He said they will help the United States stay ahead of emerging threats.
The introduction of Panetta and Blair comes four days after their names were leaked to reporters.
There was surprise in Washington over the choice of Panetta for the CIA post. The former White House chief of staff has no direct intelligence experience.
Blair is a former head of US Pacific Command who was credited with fighting terrorism in southeast Asia after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Source: Jerusalem Post
Rihanna has canceled a concert scheduled for Friday in Indonesia over security concerns. Dive Purnomo, a spokeswoman for the event organizer, says the pop singer had been scheduled to perform before a sold-out crowd of 6,000 in the capital, Jakarta. But she changed her mind while in Australia, one of several countries that issued a travel advisory to citizens in Indonesia after the weekend executions of three Islamic militants convicted in the 2002 Bali bombings. The men called on followers to carry out revenge attacks if their deaths by firing squad went ahead. Read more ...Source: AP
![]() September 24, 2008
NEW YORK: The US and five other powers have called off plans for high-level talks at the UN this week to debate further sanctions against Iran, after Russia complained of American attempts to "punish" it.
The move came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised to pursue nuclear technology despite Western “bullying”.
Iran “will resist the bullying and has defended and will continue to defend its rights,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in a defiant speech to the UN General Assembly.
In a clear reference to the US and its allies, he said: “They oppose other nations' progress and tend to monopolise technologies and to use those monopolies in order to impose their will on other nations.”
He also lashed out at Israel, saying “the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters”.
On the presidential campaign trail, Barack Obama condemned the "outrageous remarks", saying he was "disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views".
Despite three rounds of UN security council sanctions, Iran continues to defy calls by the US and its Western allies to halt uranium enrichment - a process the West and Israel fear is being used to make an atomic bomb.
Iran says it aims only for peaceful civilian nuclear energy.
The cancellation of the meeting on Iran in New York involving US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came amid rising US-Russian tensions over the crisis in Georgia.
“There is not going to be a P5-plus-one ministers meeting” on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
The permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany were to meet on Thursday to consider possible further sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program.
However, Mr McCormack said Dr Rice would hold a one-on-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday.
The Russian foreign ministry said earlier that Moscow was against the planned meeting of the six powers, referring to US attempts to “punish” Russia, apparently over its August 8 incursion into Georgia.
The statement appeared to indicate it was walking away from the meeting.
Speaking in New York before the US announcement, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the possible cancellation of the ministerial meeting would make it “difficult” to bring pressure to bear on Iran. Source: The Australian
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The Telegraph reports that the National Association of Muslim Police has attacked government policy on countering Islamic extremism. In evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating Islamic extremism, the NAMP attacked
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