Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

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CPM leader stabbed to death in West Bengal
PTI 28 December 2009, 10:26am IST

SURI (WB): A local CPM leader was stabbed to dead and two others seriously injured by unknown persons in a procession early today at Nischintapur in Rampurhat of Birbhum district.

The police said 61-year-old Abdul Haigh, who was CPM local committee member, was stabbed in the throat, stomach when a quarrel broke out with the members of the procession at about 3 am.

One person was arrested in this connection, the police said.

Haigh was declared brought dead in Rampurhat Hospital and the two other critically injured persons were sent to Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, the police said.

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Maoists call for shutdown, burn buses in south Orissa
IANS 28 December 2009, 10:20am IST

BHUBANESWAR: Parts of south Orissa were tense on Monday as Maoists called for a shutdown, set ablaze four buses and a mobile tower overnight and Twitter Facebook Share
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blew up a forest department beat house as well, police said.

The Maoists have called for a shutdown to protest the alleged police excesses against tribals and set four buses afire in Raipanka of Gajapati district.

"Maoists have set ablaze four government buses in the night. They set them on fire after forcing the passengers to get down around midnight. They have also set ablaze a mobile tower there. About 40 Maoists are involved in the incidents. We have rushed armed policemen to the spot," said Superintendent of Police (Gajapati) Sanjeev Arora.

The Maoists blasted a forest department beat house and a mobile tower in Malkanagiri district also.

"Maoists have blown up a forest beat house at Orkel and a mobile tower in Chitrakonda chawk," said Anup Sahu, the sub divisional police officer of Malkanagiri.

The guerrillas have blocked roads at different places in south Orissa by felling trees on to the roads.

Passenger services have been hit on the Adaba-Rayagada and Brahmani Gaon-Rayagada routes and in Ajapati, Berhampur, Rayagada and Malkanagiri too.

An alert has been sounded in these districts, police said

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Muslims will remain strong despite conspiracies: King
Arab News

RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah said on Sunday that Islam and Muslims would remain strong despite enemy conspiracies, including those by Muslim extremists.

“I would like to tell you that the Islamic world today is strong by the Grace of God,” said the king while receiving guests attending the Prince Naif International Prize for Sunnah and Contemporary Islamic Studies.

“Whatever the enemies do, including some Muslims who are enemies of Islam, would not affect the Islamic faith and Muslims. Muslims would remain strong with their slogan of monotheism, Lailaha Illallah Muhammadan Rasulullah (There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet),” said King Abdullah. He further wished Muslim leaders, who came from across the globe, every success in their endeavors and urged them to become good messengers of Islam wherever they are.

Sheikh Arshad Madani, president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and professor of Hadith at Darul Uloom Deoband, thanked the Saudi government for the warm welcome it accorded to the participants of the Prince Naif Award ceremony.

Madani, the son of the renowned Indian Islamic scholar and famous freedom fighter, Sheikh Hussain Ahmed Madani, commended the Saudi leadership for winning a leading position for the Kingdom in the comity of nations and making the Qur’an and Sunnah the basis for governing the country’s affairs.

Sheikh Madani also noted Saudi Arabia’s efforts in serving religion and supporting Muslim communities around the globe.

“The good works of Saudi Arabia are not limited to Saudis or to Muslim countries but cover the whole world,” he pointed out. The meeting at Al-Yamamah Palace was attended by Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif and top officials.

Crown Prince Sultan also received the foreign guests and praised Prince Naif’s efforts in the service of Islam and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). He also underscored the great role being played by the Prince Naif award in promoting studies and research on the Sunnah.

Speaking at the occasion, Yemeni Minister of Endowments and Guidance Hamoud Al-Hattar said the Prince Naif Prize was instrumental in encouraging Muslim researchers around the world to focus on the Sunnah.

He praised the authorities for presenting a posthumous award to Sheikh Ahmed Shakir, a great scholar of Hadith who died 50 years ago, in appreciation of his contributions.

The secretariat of the prize had received 420 research works relating to the four categories of the prize and rejected 138 of them for not fulfilling the set conditions.

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S. Korea to build UAE nuke plants
Agencies


DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has awarded a South Korean-led consortium a $20.4 billion contract to build four nuclear power plants, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced Sunday.

The UAE “has determined that the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) team is best equipped to fulfill the government’s partnership requirements in this ambitious program,” ENEC Chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak said in a statement.

The deal is expected to lead to additional contracts worth $20 billion to operate and maintain the reactors over the next 60 years, South Korea’s Knowledge and Economy Ministry said in a statement in Seoul.

ENEC was established last week by a presidential decree and is tasked with implementing the UAE’s nuclear energy program, according to official WAM news agency.

ENEC said the KEPCO-led consortium has also been selected to help operate the power plants. However, ENEC did not give details of the second part of the contract, saying only that Sunday’s deal covers “construction, commissioning and fuel loads” for the four 1,400-megawatt reactors, the first of which is to begin producing electricity in 2017.

The consortium tasked with building the plants comprises Korean firms KEPCO, Samsung, Hyundai and Doosan Heavy Industries, along with US firm Westinghouse, Toshiba of Japan, and KEPCO subsidiaries, ENEC said.

It won the deal against competition from rival bidders including the French nuclear group Areva and a consortium composed of the US firm General Electric and Japan’s Hitachi. The four light water nuclear reactors will be built in Sila, 330 km west of Abu Dhabi.

The South Korean president’s office described the deal as “the largest mega-project in Korean history,” while KEPCO said it was also in talks with Turkey to export two nuclear power reactors to Black Sea areas.

The UAE is the world’s third largest oil exporter but must import natural gas to run many of its existing power plants. It says its energy needs are expected to almost double by 2020.

The United States earlier this year signed an agreement with the UAE for the country to import, rather than produce, fuel for its nuclear reactors. The UAE did this to allay fears about enrichment facilities being used to make weapons-grade material.

Gulf neighbor Iran has long been at odds with the West over its declared plans to use enriched uranium to generate electricity, a program the United States and European allies fear is a cover to develop the ability to produce atomic bombs.

South Korea hopes to use nascent nuclear programs in the Middle East, which include developments in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as a springboard for expanding its nuclear industry. “We are now expecting much bigger opportunities in entering overseas markets as winning the UAE nuclear deal will play a role of convincing those countries in the Middle East and other regions which are thinking of importing nuclear power reactors,” KEPCO said in a statement.

South Korea first introduced atomic power in 1978 and now has 20 nuclear reactors in operation. The country relies on atomic power for about 40 percent of its electricity.

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Pregnancy policy for US troops unchanged
Reuters


BAGHDAD: A US commander in northern Iraq does not expect to order a court martial for soldiers who become pregnant, but has not rolled back a controversial new policy on pregnancy, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

A new directive from Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, who commands US soldiers in northern Iraq, sets out possible punishments from reprimand to court martial for prohibited behavior, including drinking alcohol, taking drugs or becoming pregnant.

The policy has been criticized by some women’s advocates and on Tuesday four US senators wrote to the Secretary of the US Army on Tuesday asking that it be rescinded.

“We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child,” Senator Barbara Boxer and others wrote.

Cucolo defended the rules, which took effect for his 22,000 soldiers when he took over in northern Iraq in November, as necessary to retain combat power as US forces prepare to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Cucolo’s command includes some of the most dangerous areas of Iraq, where ethnic and sectarian rivalries have fueled an ongoing insurgency. Military spokesman Major Jeff Allen said Cucol had clarified that he did not intend to court martial any of his soldiers who became pregnant.

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Christmas violence in Suriname
By Gabriel Elizondo in
on December 27th, 2009


Gangs go on killing and raping spree as ethnic violence rears its ugly head in the town of Albina.

Gangs of men running through the streets with machetes with the intent to kill people of a different ethnicity, raping women, and torching buildings and cars.
This was apparently the scene on Christmas in the small city of Albina, Suriname.

Here is what we know thus far: It all started Thursday in Albina when a Brazilian killed a local man. (Albina is a border town of about 10,000 people between Suriname and French Guiana). In retaliation, between 200 and 300 Surinamese men wielding machetes marched through the town looking to kill Brazilians and torching anything in their way.

The Suriname government said 20 women were raped, one who was pregnant lost her baby in the trauma.

According to a first hand account published in Sunday’s Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Brazilian Regiana Carneiro de Oliveira said the men running through the streets going door to door looking for Brazilians were yelling, “Let’s go get rid of all Brazilians.”


“They were like animals. It was a scene of war. They were throwing rocks and stabbing people. I saw people all cut on their face. They held some people in rooms in a small hotel, poured gasoline, and set it on fire.” - Regiana Carneiro de Oliveira, who fled attack against Brazilians and Chinese in Albina, Suriname.


Eyewitnesses say the men also turned their rage on Chinese shop owners – who, like the Brazilians, also tried desperately to flee in the surrounding woods for protection.

The nightmare lasted from Thursday night into Friday morning - the town of Albina up in flames. There are no fire stations in town, so fire personnel had to be sent in from the capitol of Paramaribo over 100 kilometre away. Apparently, if there are any police in Albina, they couldn't do anything to stop the violence.

Aftermath pictures here from RadioKatolica.com. Photo rights reserved to RadioKatolica.com.

The Brazilian ambassador to Suriname says 81 Brazilians have been transported to the Suriname capitol of Paramaribo, 25 of which are injured and seven very seriously.

A member of the Catholic Church in Suriname has said 7 Brazilians are dead, and eyewitnesses say 17 people remain missing and feared dead. (The Brazilian Ambassador in Suriname has not yet announced official death toll, and late Sunday after a visit to Albina said he has no confirmed reports of Brazilian dead).

A team of Brazilian officials from the foreign ministry are in Suriname Sunday to assess the situation, flown in on a Brazilian Air Force transport plane from Brasilia.

Suriname as sent in troops to conduct searches and keep the peace, and by all accounts the violence is over. Suriname officials have come out saying they have the forces to protect all foreigners in the country and have already taken people into custody for questioning.

Albina is a garimpeiro town, meaning the place is primarily a base for nomadic gold prospectors. Albina is made up of people from Suriname, French Guiana, China and Brazil.

There are between 15,000 and 18,000 Brazilian nomad gold prospectors in Suriname, or about 4% of the total population of the country, according to Folha. Most live illegally, without proper work papers. These are some of the poorest people, most from the northeast of Brazil.

I have been to a few Brazilian gold prospecting villages, similar to Albina, and there is often a mix of nomadic foreigners. Tensions can grow, but violence such as what was seen in Suriname is uncommon. Last year I was at a gold mine in the Brazilian Amazon, and one of the men I interviewed said if he didn't find gold he was going to go to Suriname, because he heard rumours there was gold there. I can't help but wonder if he was in Albina.

Usually garimpeiros, as they are called, are not bad people. But they often come in conflict with indigenous people in their search to find and then extract gold from usually remote areas. Garimpeiros are simply poor people, and in need of work and know no other way.

"We have nothing back in Brazil," one Brazilian garimpeiro living in Albina, now holed up in a hotel in Paramaribo, told Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper.

Nothing back in Brazil. And likely nothing worth going back to in Albina either.

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Israel: A monster beyond control?
Alan Hart

ON the first anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip — in my view it was a demonstration of Israeli state terrorism at its most naked — it’s not enough to say that the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, 53 percent of whom are children.

What is actually happening in the blockaded Gaza Strip, and less obviously on the occupied West Bank, is the continuation by stealth of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. My friend professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” (meaning honest) historian and author of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, would and has put it another way. What we are witnessing is, in his words, “genocide in slow motion.” And that, really, is what the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in.

The question that provokes in my mind is: Why, really, are the major powers (and others) allowing it to happen?

The only answer that makes some sense to me is this. They have concluded, but cannot say, that nuclear-armed Israel, with the assistance of the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations, is a monster beyond control.

In my analysis it’s possible to identify the moment in history when the major powers abandoned any hope they might have had of containing Zionism’s colonial ambitions. It came, the moment, in the immediate aftermath of the 1967 war.

Contrary to Zionism’s version of the story, it was a war of Israeli aggression, not self-defense. As I document in some detail in my book “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews”, Israel’s military and political leaders knew the Arabs were not intending to attack.

That being so, what the major powers ought to have said to Israel (in the diplomatic language of a Security Council resolution and more explicitly behind closed doors) is something like: “Aggression cannot be rewarded. Aggressors cannot keep territory conquered in war. You are now required to get the hell out of it without laying down conditions for your withdrawal.”

To drive home the point, they could and should have reminded Israel of what President Eisenhower said to the people of America when he demanded Israel’s unconditional withdrawal from Egyptian territory after its collusion with Britain and France in 1956. Eisenhower, the first and the last American president to contain Zionism, said this:

“If we agree that armed attack can properly achieve the purposes of the assailant, then I fear we will have turned back the clock of international order. We will have countenanced the use of force as a means of settling international differences and gaining national advantage... If the UN once admits that international disputes can be settled using force, then we will have destroyed the very foundation of the organization and our best hope for establishing a real world order.”

As it happened, the major powers could not say that to Israel in 1967 because the Johnson administration had colluded with Israel to the extent of giving it the green light to smash Egypt’s armed forces, in the hope that a humiliating defeat for them would lead to the overthrow of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. But also true is that Johnson sought and obtained an assurance that Israel would not take advantage of the war situation to grab Jordanian and Syrian territory. It was because some in the Johnson administration (probably Defense Secretary McNamara and the joint chiefs of staff) didn’t trust Israel to keep its word that the US spy ship, the Liberty, was stationed off the Israel/Gaza coast to listen to IDF movement orders. And it was because Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan didn’t want Johnson to know that he intended to take the West Bank and the Golan Heights that he, Dayan, ordered the attack on the Liberty. (The full story of that attack and Johnson’s cover-up of it is also in my book, in a chapter headed The Liberty Affair — “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”).

Despite that, the major powers, including and led by America, could still have acted firmly to contain Zionism’s colonial ambitions. They could have said to Israel something like: “We can just about live with the fact that you will retain the newly occupied Arab territories as a bargaining chip, to be exchanged for peace with your Arab neighbors, but we will not allow you to settle those territories. Not one building. If you defy us on this matter, the Security Council will authorize enforcement action as necessary to oblige you to comply with international law.”

In what became Security Council Resolution 242, it was the failure of the major powers to read the riot act to Israel on the matter of not settling the newly occupied territories that marks the moment when they, the major powers, became resigned to the fact that the Zionist state, assisted by its awesomely powerful global lobby, was a monster they could not control. (They could slap it on the wrist from time to time but not control it).

The lesson of the cold-blooded attack on the Liberty was that there is nothing the Zionist state might not do, to its friends as well as its enemies, in order to get its own way. (In my book I explain, on the basis of a conversation with Dayan, the real reason for Israel’s decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal. It was to have the deterrent threat capability of saying to its friends, “Don’t push us further than we are prepared to go or we’ll use these things.”) So in the full light of the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, it’s not surprising that the major powers (and others) are today complicit, more by default than design I say, in Zionism’s crimes.

— Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. He blogs on Alan Hart and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor| (Courtesy: Sabbah Report — Sabbah Report)

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Basement Islam
By David Chater, December 26th, 2009

France is in the midst of a government-sponsored national debate on what it means to be French ... a debate that has had some unfortunate side-effects.

The Battle of the Minarets is spreading across the borders of Switzerland and spilling into France where it’s starting to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on the country’s real attitude towards its six million Muslims.

Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, is a champion of his country’s Republican values, forged in the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. He was quick to declare that he was shocked and scandalized by the result of the Swiss referendum last month which backed a ban on the building of minarets.

But one of the men who shares the same cabinet table as him, the Industry Minister, Christian Estrosi has a radically different attitude.

He also happens to be the Mayor of Nice - a minaret-free zone - and he’s vowed to keep it that way.

The issue has arisen in the midst of a government-sponsored national debate on what it means to be French. It’s a debate that has had some unfortunate side-effects. It has allowed the country’s xenophobes to emerge from under their stones and give their extremist views the oxygen of publicity.

The Mayor though is an eloquent convert to that debate, speaking amidst the elegant frescoes of his City Hall he told me:

“Why not always nourish the debate around the humanist vision of France so that everybody can feel proud to be French, to share the same national identity? Look at me… I’m the son of an immigrant.”

President Nicolas Sarkozy has refused to condemn the result of the referendum in Switzerland and has called on all believers to practice discretion in their religious observance.

He has said politicians should start trying to understand what so many people in Europe - and in France - are now feeling. The President’s political opponents accuse him of a poorly camouflaged attempt to steal some the extreme right’s clothes with local elections due in just three months time.

Nationalists in Nice like Phillipe Vardon don’t mince their words: “ Minarets are just the visible tip of an iceberg of Islamisation - like burkas in the streets of France, halal meals being served in prisons, schools and hospitals. It’s becoming almost obligatory,” he told me.

In a suburb in western Nice we found equally uncompromising opinions amongst the residents of what was supposed to be a temporary re-settlement camp - set up in the early sixties for immigrants following the Algerian war of independence from France.

The fact that it has become a permanent ghetto for Araba from all over North Africa is a testament to the failures of integration in the city. One young man there said since Sarkozy came to power the police had started treating them like thieves. “They see an Arab face and that’s it. You get it”

In Marseille the local administration has given permission for the Muslim community to build a Grand Mosque with a twenty-five metre high minaret.

It’s a decision that has enraged the National Front in the city. One of their leading activists told me: “We must have no minarets and no cathedral like mosques. They are for us a symbol of a Muslim desire for political conquest. It goes way beyond just religious expression.”

Muslim activists in the city say they’ve seen it all before.

Ahmed Najjar told me he wished they could go back to quietly practicing Islam in their basements again:

“ The recipe before every election in France is to wave the scarecrow of immigration … but not every kind of immigration. It’s only the Arabs from North Africa and the blacks. Immigrants the establishment here think practice a kind of religion that is not able to integrate successfully in France … non-solvent religions”

The Muslim community in Marseille still need to find twenty million dollars before they can start to build their Grand Mosque. But no Quranic verses will be broadcast from the minaret. Instead a bright light will sweep the city for the call to prayers.

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Chavez warns of US-Colombia plot
Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:28:43 GMT

An AP photo of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States and Colombia of conspiring to build a fake guerrilla camp on Venezuelan territory in order to undermine his rule.

In a televised address at Fort Mara military base in the western city of Maracaibo, Chavez referred to the 'possibility' of a US-sponsored initiative by Colombia to put bodies and weapons of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters in a neglected region of Venezuela in order to 'discredit' his government.

Colombia may transport corpses of leftist FARC rebels “to a mountain in Venezuelan territory, build some huts, an improvised camp, put some rifles there… and say 'There it is, the guerrilla camp in Venezuela,'” the Associated Press quoted him as saying on Monday.

“We have evidence that the Colombian government, instructed and supported, or rather directed by the United States, is preparing a false positive,” he noted, using statistical terminology to describe the feasibility of such a scheme.

“The verbal war against Venezuela began weeks ago, saying that we have I don't know how many guerrilla chiefs hidden here… that in Venezuela there are rebel camps protected by the Venezuelan government, which is absolutely false,” the Venezuelan president told soldiers stationed near the country's second largest city.

GHN/HGL

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Death toll in Karachi bombing rises to 32
Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:09:18 GMT
The death toll from a bomb blast in Karachi on Monday has risen to 32.

In addition, 80 people were injured in the attack on a procession of Shia Muslims mourning the martyrdom of Imam Hossein (PBUH).

A terrorist detonated an explosive device at the start of the procession in order to disrupt the mourning, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Monday.

Police and law enforcement personnel cordoned off the scene of the crime in the Kharadar district of Karachi as the procession continued to move forward, ignoring the explosion, a Press TV correspondent reported.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Violence broke out in the aftermath of the bombing and protesters set fire to two buildings at Light House market and smashed shops.

Over 400 shops in the Light House Bolton Market area and over 50 vehicles were set on fire by angry mobs.

Police and paramilitary troops then fired into the air to disperse the crowd.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called for calm and restraint and urged the people of Karachi not to be provoked by the “most reprehensible act of terror on the solemn occasion of Yomi Ashur procession.”

Religious leaders from all schools of Islamic jurisprudence and political leaders have condemned the terrorist attack and asked people to remain calm and abstain from violence.

Security has been beefed up across the country and the Pakistani army has been put on high alert in the wake of the attack.

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