By Adam Morris
A FATHER-of-two from Edinburgh is facing deportation after being detained on suspicion of terrorism.
Algerian Bachir Mohammed, 45, who has lived in the Capital for six years, was stopped by police on his way to Northern Ireland for a short break. Mr Bachir, who is registered disabled after contracting polio as a child, was held in Stranraer under the Terrorism Act on February 17.
He has since been moved to Dungavel detention centre in Lanarkshire and was due to be flown to Algeria tomorrow, where he claims he faces certain death. However, he was granted an eleventh-hour reprieve yesterday.
His lawyers now hope he can be reunited with his wife Nacera and Edinburgh-born children, Hafsa, six months, and Safia, two, at their Leith Walk home.
Mr Bachir recently got a licence to drive a private cab. He has a permit to work in the UK, was married here and has a house, although he is classed as "officially without status".
He said he was set to apply for asylum under new Home Office guidelines when he was detained.
Speaking from his room in Dungavel, he said: "I went with a friend whose bathroom I had carried out some work on and we were about to get on to the ferry when we were stopped by police.
"I was called a terrorist and held there, and sworn and shouted at. They said my plan was to get into Northern Ireland then go to Dublin to commit terrorism.
"That is ridiculous. I didn't carry my passport because I had no intention of leaving the UK. I had all my Home Office papers and other documents which I have signed at the police station every month in Edinburgh."
Mr Bachir has
written extensively about what he calls "atrocities and wrongdoings" in his
homeland – which he says would lead to him being killed if he goes back. He said: "When people like me who have criticised the regime go back there, we can just disappear."
He said he was accused of having links with the Islamic Salvation Front through his work with the Algerian Community in Britain, but he categorically denied any links to terror organisations. "Yes, I am anti-war, but I hate death," he said. "I'm no terrorist, I know nothing of this."
Scotland Against Criminalising Communities, a charity which has been lobbying on Mr Bachir's behalf, said: "If he is returned to Algeria there is a real risk that he will be tortured or even executed."
The Border and Immigration Agency wouldn't comment on his specific case, but said foreign nationals would be sent home if they had no right to be here.
The full article contains 454 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
Last Updated: 08 March 2008 11:18 AM
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Fatheroftwo--suspected-of-terrorism.3858373.jp
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Father-of-two suspected of terrorism faces deportation
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Morocco dismantles widespread domestic terrorist network
Magharebia
Published on Magharebia (http://www.magharebia.com)
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2008/02/21/feature-01
Morocco dismantles widespread domestic terrorist network
21/02/2008
Investigations into a suspected terrorist network in Morocco led to the arrests of three senior political party officials, Morocco's interior ministry announced on Wednesday. The group, trained in part by Hezbollah, is believed to have links to al-Qaeda.
By Sarah Touahri and Naoufel Cherkaoui for Magharebia in Rabat – 21/02/08
[Sarah Touahri] Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday (February 20th) Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said Moroccan investigators have dismantled a "major Jihadist terror network" established in Tangier in 1992.
Moroccan authorities announced Monday (February 18th) that security services had dismantled a "major Jihadist terrorist network, which was preparing to perpetrate acts of violence in the country." Painstaking intelligence work led to the identification and subsequent arrest of the group's main active members.
Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa told the press on Wednesday that the investigations had uncovered a number of branches of the network, originally established in 1992 in Tangier. The group had connections to terrorist organisations active in Morocco and abroad, including al-Qaeda. Benmoussa said the network was preparing to assassinate top-level civilian and military officials and Moroccan Jewish citizens.
In all, 32 people representing a broad cross-section of society have been detained. Many are educated professionals, one is a police superintendent and three more are senior political party leaders. The network is reportedly led by Moroccan Abdelkader Belliraj, a resident of Belgium.
The interior ministry said searches of the residences and workplaces of members of the "Belliraj Cell" in Casablanca and Nador led to the seizure of large quantities of weapons, ammunitions and explosives, as well as supplies intended to conceal the terrorists' identities.
The ministry added that police helped to identify the sources of financing for the Belliraj cell, including armed robbery, sale of stolen goods, and direct contributions by members. The terrorist organisation also reportedly smuggled some 30 million dirhams into the country in 2001 that were invested in money-laundering endeavours in tourist, real estate and commercial projects in several Moroccan cities. Real estate purchased by the group was also used to house some of the terrorists.
The interior minister also revealed that the group received explosives and arms training from Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2002.
The Moroccan public was perhaps most shocked by the arrests of Secretary-General Mustapha Lmouaatassim and El Amine Regala of the Al-Badil Al-Hadari (Civilised Alternative) party, as well as Mohamed El Merouani, leader of the unrecognised Al Oumma (The Nation) party.
According to the interior minister, the terrorist network was found to be instrumental in the creation of the Al-Badil Al-Hadari party. As a result, Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi decreed the dissolution of the party, under Article 57 of the law governing political parties.
Al-Badil Al-Hadari contributed to the creation of an Islamist association in 1995 before becoming a full-fledged party in 2005. The party fielded candidates in the September 2007 legislative elections but failed to win any seats.
Al Oumma began as a partisan offshoot of Al Haraka Min Ajli Oumma (Movement for the Nation). Founded in 1998, the party applied for government recognition in 2007 but has yet to be approved.
"The creation of the Al-Badil Al-Hadari association in 1995 and Al Haraka Min Ajli Al Oumma in 1998," Chakib Benmoussa explained, "was just a front for the members of the [terrorist] network."
Saad Al Othmani, Secretary-General of the Justice and Development Party expressed his surprise at the arrests, saying the political leaders were "all known for moderation, rejection of violence and extremism, and for working within the framework of institutions and established national principles."
"We are sure that there is some sort of an error," he said, "and we hope it will be corrected."
Meanwhile, Mohamed Moujahid, leader of Morocco's Unified Socialist Party, said the charges are "in contradiction with their stances that call for modernity, democracy and human rights".
Mohamed Ziane, leader of the Moroccan Liberal Party, commented on the case, saying, "Political struggle has nothing to do with violence. The proponents of a culture of violence have no place in politics. This rule applies to both leftist and rightist ideologies."
In a statement issued Tuesday, Ibrahim Borja, Vice-Secretary-General of Al-Badil Al-Hadari condemned Mustapha Lmouaatassim's arrest, describing him and El Amine Regala as proponents of democracy and rejecters of all forms of extremism and terrorism, and called for their immediate release.
He said the arrests were a crackdown on people trying to effect a real democratic transition in Morocco. Mohamed Ben Hammou, leader of the Citizenship and Development Initiative party, said if the allegations prove true, then it is both shocking and frustrating. "Morocco is our country. We should defend it, particularly when we accept a position of political responsibility. We have to be vigilant when it comes to extremism. No one has the right to go down any route other than the democratic one," he declared.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Terrorism, climate change to figure in Manmohan-Brown talks
Date:19/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/19/stories/2008011959041300.htm
Back
Front Page
Terrorism, climate change to figure in Manmohan-Brown talks
NEW DELHI: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will arrive here on Sunday to coordinate the approach of the two countries on reforms of multilateral institutions providing aid to African countries, climate change and terrorism.
“We want to bring out two themes — to work with India in third countries and talk in detail with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about reforms in the international system. The visit will also give Mr. Brown an opportunity to explain Britain’s philosophy of development,” British High Commissioner Richard Stagg said on Friday.
Recalling that both countries had resolved to work closely on terrorism issues, the High Commissioner said they would discuss “practical areas” for collaboration. Subjects could include exchanging experiences on keeping the rail transport functioning (Mumbai suburban rail and London metro) after terrorist strikes and ensuring the possibility of a terrorist attack on multinational sporting events is kept to the minimum.
On his maiden visit to the country after taking over as Prime Minister in June last year, Mr. Brown is expected to utilise his two-day stay to discuss the situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Mr. Stagg said Britain felt that effective steps had not been taken to make the Myanmar government more inclusive and both Prime Ministers would discuss the implications of the lack of progress and ways to address it.
Entrepreneurship conferenceOn Sunday, Mr. Brown will also address an entrepreneurship conference which will discuss some practical issues facing businessmen. This will be followed by a private dinner with Dr. Singh, with formal talks to take place the next day.
Also on Monday, Mr. Brown will deliver a speech with the focus on an altered international framework and making international governance both representative and effective to reflect the changed realities of the world. He will also be conferred an honorary degree by the Delhi University. A joint press conference with Dr. Singh has also been planned.
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu
Tories attack Islamic terrorism 'rebranding'
Conservative MPs have attacked Jacqui Smith's apparent rebranding of Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity". The move comes after the Home Secretary's first official speech on radicalisation, in which she repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic" to describe the activities of Muslim extremists. advertisement At one point Mrs Smith said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic." Conservative MP Philip Davies complained that the Home Office appeared to be spending too much time discussing what to call terrorism as opposed to actually fighting it. "Whenever anyone refers to Islamic terrorism, they are not saying all Muslims are terrorists," he said. "Everybody knows what people mean is terrorists doing it in the name of Islam, misguidedly. "If the Government spent less time worrying about this, and more time worrying about things such as having effective border controls, we would be getting somewhere." The criticism comes as ministers reportedly move to drop the term "war on terror" and refer to jihadis as "criminals" in an attempt to stop glorifying acts of terrorism. The Home Office has denied that any words or phrases have been banned. |
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh look at terrorism's roots
Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman
Reviewed by David Isenberg
When considering solutions to really important problems it is useful to step back and ask what if everything we know is wrong.
The question, of course, is not asked nearly enough. Questions that are complex and difficult often require solutions that are equally difficult and complex. Sometimes they require us to shake off our preconceived blinders and think in entirely new ways,
Take, for example, the issue of terrorism. To look at a document
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh look at terrorism's roots
Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman
Reviewed by David Isenberg
When considering solutions to really important problems it is useful to step back and ask what if everything we know is wrong.
The question, of course, is not asked nearly enough. Questions that are complex and difficult often require solutions that are equally difficult and complex. Sometimes they require us to shake off our preconceived blinders and think in entirely new ways,
Take, for example, the issue of terrorism. To look at a document
like the White House's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism is to read statements like this:
The terrorism we confront today springs from: Political alienation; grievances that can be blamed on others; subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation; and an ideology that justifies murder.But what if that is wrong? What if all the platitudes and cliches about why people turn to terror, such as George W Bush administration claims that global Islamic terrorists hate democracy and freedom, are based on myths and sound bites, signifying nothing? What if most of the terror experts are guilty of the same sin that the intelligence agencies were accused of in regard to the reason the US invaded Iraq, ie, cherry picking the evidence?
If that is the problem then the answer is this book.
Marc Sageman is a University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatry and ethnopolitical conflict, and a former Foreign Service Officer who worked closely with Islamic fundamentalists during the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s and gained an intimate understanding of their networks. His 2004 book Understanding Terror Networks gave the first social explanation of the global wave of activity.
Now, in his new book, Leaderless Jihad, we have a book that chooses to boldly go where few books on terrorism have gone before; namely to use scientific method to study terrorism.
I
n so doing he chooses not to focus on individuals and their backgrounds, or "root" (micro and macro approaches respectively) causes, to explain how the Muslims who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks and those like them are radicalized to become terrorists. Sageman takes the common sense view that you can't defeat an enemy until you know them and understand what drives them. Instead, by using ordinary social science methods he studies how people in groups influence each other to become terrorists. By building his own evidence-based, independently checked database of over 500 terrorists he has been able to see what various members of al-Qaeda had in common. He finds that are "part of a violent Islamist born-again social movement".
And this social movement, similar to the Russian anarchists of the late 19th century, is actually motivated by idealism. Sageman's data show that they are generally idealistic young people seeking glory fighting for justice and fairness.
This runs counter to the Bush administration counter-terrorist strategy, which is framed in terms of promoting democracy and freedom; a concept that that is readily grasped by the American domestic audience.
But these are not terms with which Middle Eastern Muslims identify. To them democracy means leaders who win elections with almost 100% of the vote. And if a Salafi Islamist party does win an election, as was the case with the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1992 or Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2006, the election results are canceled or the world shuns the victor.
Thus, those who eventually become terrorists see Western-style democracy as a harmful "domination of man over man", undermining their theocratic utopia (Salaf). In their view that was the only time world history that a fair and just community existed. The Salafis, like other religious fundamentalists, see the Muslim decline over the past centuries as evidence that they have strayed from the righteous path.
Among Sageman's most useful points is his description of al-Qaeda both as a social movement and an ideology. The most important thing the United States can do, in countering global Islamic terrorism, is to avoid the mistakes of the early Cold War era when policymakers assumed that communism was one global monolithic movement. It wasn't and neither is al-Qaeda. Even before September 11 it had evolved beyond the group that had first formed in the aftermath of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and it has evolved several times since, and will continue to do so. Increasingly, to paraphrase, the old cliche about politics, all terrorism is local.
Sageman also does an excellent job of debunking the conventional wisdom as to how people become terrorists, ie, that they are brainwashed when they are immature children or teenagers, that they lack family obligations, act out of sexual frustration, that there is something intrinsically wrong with them (the "bad seed" school of thought).
Sageman finds that one of the greatest motivators for joining an Islamic terrorist social movement is the one that is most easily understood; relationships with friends and kin. In other words, there is no to-down recruitment into al-Qaeda. Rather, the movement forms through the spontaneous self-organization of informal, trusted friends.
On a positive note, despite much right-wing fear-mongering, Sageman finds that there are far fewer homegrown Islamic terrorists in the United States than in other regions, like Europe. He attributes this to the fact that the Muslim community in the United States is far less radicalized, due to America's greater acceptance of immigrants, as a part of its integrationist, religiously tolerant, "American Dream", "melting pot" mythology. In short, inclusion, as opposed to exclusion, pays dividends.
In conclusion, Sageman finds that as Islamic terrorism has evolved it has increasingly degraded, out of necessity due to its own lack of appeal, into a "leaderless jihad". To the extent it still has an agenda, it is set by general guidelines found on the Internet, which allows it to maintain a facade of unity. Without the Internet it would dissipate into a political vacuum.
In truth, Islamic terrorism is not an existential threat to the existence of the United States. No amount of ominous predictions of al-Qaeda acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons will change that.
According to Sageman, the only thing that can keep al-Qaeda from fading into the dust heap of history is if the United States "transforms its fight against global Islamic terrorism into a war against Islam, which would mobilize all Muslims against the United States".
Thus, the answer to the Islamic threat is the same one proffered by George Kennan with respect to the Soviet Union; containment. The goal is to accelerate the process of internal decay already taking place within al-Qaeda and its copycat cells.
Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century by Marc Sageman. University of Pennsylvania Press (December 2007) . ISBN-10: 0812240650. Price US$24.95, 176 pages.
David Isenberg is an analyst in national and international security affairs, sento@earthlink.net. He is also a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, contributor to the Straus Military Reform Project, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, and a US Navy veteran. The views expressed are his own.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Friday, January 11, 2008
Japan Rejoins US Anti-Terrorism Mission
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's defense minister ordered the navy Friday to return to the Indian Ocean on a U.S.-backed anti-terrorism mission, ending a three-month hiatus but deepening political divisions with the opposition.
Washington lobbied strongly for the deployment, including a rare public foray into domestic politics by U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer who had met with lawmakers to urge their support.
Japan had refueled ships since 2001 in support of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, but was forced to abandon the mission in November, when the opposition blocked an extension, saying it violated Japan's pacifist constitution and did not have the United Nations' backing.
Public opinion polls show increasing support for sending troops abroad — as long as it does not involve combat. But the opposition accused the ruling camp of forcing its will on the people.
Friday's order was issued by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's ruling coalition forced a bill through the country's parliament to revive the mission.
Fukuda said he expects the ships to leave by the end of the month, meaning they could be back in the Indian Ocean in February.
Unable to build a consensus, Fukuda's ruling coalition made the rare move of using its two-thirds majority in the lower house to overrule the opposition-controlled upper house, which voted down the mission on Thursday. It was the first such override since 1951.
"We want to restart this mission as soon as possible," Ishiba said. "We are committed to actively contribute to the fight against terrorism."
Under the new orders, Japanese ships will monitor possible terrorist activity at sea and will refuel and resupply ally vessels, but will not directly be involved in the hostilities in Afghanistan — a restriction aimed at winning over a public wary of violating the spirit of the post-World War II constitution.
When the mission was halted, only two Japanese ships, a tanker and a destroyer, were in the region. The new mission was also expected to involve only two or three ships at a time.
Officials said the mission, though tightly restricted, symbolizes Japan's commitment to the war on terror and its support of Washington, its main ally and trading partner.
Fukuda and other ruling-party lawmakers have stressed that Japan must fulfill its obligations in the global war against terrorism and accept a security role commensurate with its economic clout.
Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador, lauded the bill's passage on Friday.
"Terrorism is the bane of our time," he said in a statement. "Japan has demonstrated its willingness to stand with those who are trying to create a safer, more tolerant world."
So far, Japan has supplied 132 million gallons of fuel to coalition warships, including those from the U.S., Britain and Pakistan, according to the Japanese government.
"This is a clear abuse of power," said Yoshito Sengoku, a lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. "The government will now surely lose the trust of the people."
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
U.S. wants life in prison for 3 in terrorism case
By Jane SuttonMIAMI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - U.S. former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla and two other men convicted last year of conspiring to aid terrorists abroad returned to a Miami court on Tuesday for a hearing to decide whether they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.The hearing was scheduled to last several days and began with a long list of defense challenges to a government sentencing report recommending life in prison for all three.Padilla, a U.S. convert to Islam once accused by the Bush administration of plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack, was convicted in August of unrelated charges he offered his services to al Qaeda.Jurors convicted him and co-defendants Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons abroad, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, and providing material support for terrorism.The three Muslim men were accused of forming a Florida support cell that provided money and recruits for Islamist radicals seeking to establish Taliban-style governments in countries where Muslims lived.Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke for maximum prison terms under a "terrorism enhancement" provision that increases the penalty if a crime is committed with the aim of influencing government conduct.Defense lawyers disputed the sentencing report's historic description of the jihadist movement that arose in the 1980s, and denied that the defendants aided mujahideen fighters or terrorist groups that advocated the violent overthrow of "infidel governments."They contend Padilla moved to the Middle East in 1998 to study Arabic and Islam in Egypt, not to train as a killer at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. They also contend Hassoun and Jayyousi supported groups that aided Muslim victims of atrocities in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s.'JIHAD' AGAINST THE SOVIETSOne of Hassoun's lawyers, Kenneth Swartz, cited events depicted in the popular movie "Charlie Wilson's War" as evidence that aid to Muslim guerrillas is not synonymous with aiding terrorism. The movie portrays a U.S. congressman's covert efforts to fund and arm the mujahideen fighters who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989."Jihad was not a bad word in our society back then," Swartz said.Prosecutors said the jury had already settled those issues by convicting the trio, and accused defense lawyers of trying to undercut the jury's decision.The Bush administration praised the conviction of the three men as "a vivid reminder of the serious threat that we face" from terrorism. But the case has also tested the limits of presidential authority in the fight against terrorism.Padilla, 37, was arrested in Chicago upon returning from Egypt in 2002 and President George W. Bush ordered him held in a military prison as an "enemy combatant."Faced with a Supreme Court challenge to Bush's authority to jail someone without charge, the government added Padilla to an existing terrorism support case in Miami and turned him over to civilian authorities in 2006.Padilla never was charged in any bomb plot. He was implicated by two suspected al Qaeda operatives now held without charge at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.One claimed he falsely implicated Padilla under torture at a Moroccan prison. The CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes of the other, Abu Zubaydah, whom news reports said was subjected to a form of simulated drowning known as "waterboarding" and widely condemned as torture.Padilla's lawyers have asked the judge to order the government to turn over any remaining evidence from those interrogations in hopes of overturning his conviction.Padilla and Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian computer programmer, have been jailed for more than five years. Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, had been out on bond during the trial but was jailed upon conviction. (Editing by Tom Brown and Mohammad Zargham)
© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Storm Track Disinformation: Terrorism by the Numbers
It’s obvious that Dr. Raja Muzaffar Bhat has not heard the truism that not all Muslims are terrorists but the majority of terrorists are Muslims. By ignoring this obvious fact, he goes on to do what every moral equivalence pin head has tried to do over the last several years. Show that Muslims aren’t the only ones who commit terror and if they do, it’s a form of freedom fighting.
Muslim terrorism is just another form of Western propaganda, he says.
The simplistic, uni-dimensional view in a large section of Western media has tarnished the image of Islam, dubbing it as a religion of terrorism and violence. This trend has gained ground after 9/11. To many Muslims, it sometimes seems as if all anti-Islamic forces have united to destroy Islam which only strengthens the determination of Muslims. Defining “terrorism” is not simple. There are various interpretations and definitions, mainly in terms of acts of violence and deaths of innocents at the hands of non-state actors. Some legitimize such acts as political struggles. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Assam’s ULFA, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Kashmiri militants, who have all been labeled as terrorists in their respective countries, are regarded as “freedom fighters” among other sections, even in their own countries. The case of Bhagat Singh is particularly interesting. The British dubbed him a “terrorist” but many Indians see him as one of the greatest revolutionaries and as a freedom fighter.
Blah, blah, blah. Let’s play find any terrorist in a haystack and show that they are no different than Muslim terrorist. Unfortunately, he sidesteps the mathematical facts.
Here’s Muslim terrorism by the numbers.
More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. ( source)
More civilians were killed by Muslim extremists in two hours on September 11th than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. (source)
Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 50 years. (source)
19 Muslim hijackers killed more innocents in two hours on September 11th than the number of American criminals executed in the last 65 years. (source)
How about those numbers, Dr. Bhat?
Get a FREE TRIAL COPY of the The Gathering Storm eBook which includes the Forward by Walid Shoebat, Introduction, and first 50 pages of The Gathering Storm eBook. And sign up for my free WEEKLY STORM REPORT and receive a synopsis of the most important weekly news revealing the intimidation, infiltration and disinformation tactics used to soften-up the non-Muslim world for domination.
http://www.bloggernews.net/112886
Dakar Rally cancelled due to 'direct' terrorism threat
[Published: Saturday 5, January 2008 - 15:29]
Organisers of the rally cancelled the event following "direct" threats of terrorism against the event, and the slaying of a family of French tourists in Mauritania on Christmas Eve.
Eight of the rally's 15 stages were due to pass through the African Republic.
The annual car and motorcycle marathon had been due to start in Lisbon on January 5th with the finish coming in Dakar on January 20th.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/sport/motor-sport/article3310729.ece
© Belfast Telegraph
Sunday, November 4, 2007
A man who was detained by police in Dundee under the Terrorism Act is now being questioned in West Yorkshire.
His arrest on Saturday followed the earlier detention of a man in Goole, East Yorkshire, after a search uncovered explosive material.
Police have been granted a warrant of further detention, which means the 31-year-old arrested in Dundee could be held until Saturday.
The investigations are not thought to be linked to Islamic extremism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/7077655.stm
Published: 2007/11/04 11:37:28 GMT
© BBC MMVII
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Six Months Without Madeleine McCann: Morocco Sighting Legit?
| By Keith Walters Jones Nov 3, 2007 |
Madeleine McCann disappeared on the evening of Thursday, May 3rd. That was a full six months ago. She was snatched from the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal, just days short of her fourth birthday. One hundred and eighty days later, it appears that authorities are no closer to finding the now four year old little girl. Her parents Kate and Gerry McCann have commented on the grim date.
 |
| Six Months Without Madeleine McCann: Morocco Sighting Legit? |
Gerry writes, "Today marks six months since Madeleine was taken from us. It is an incredibly long time for us but must be even longer for Madeleine. It is so painful for us simply being separated, but all the more distressing when we have to speculate about the situation Madeleine finds herself. We have no idea whether she is suffering but we have to hope and pray that she is being treated like a princess, as she deserves."
Continuing: "This afternoon there will be prayer vigils in Liverpool, Praia da Luz and many friends will be praying in Glasgow. Tonight we will be attending an ecumenical service to pray for Madeleine and other children who are suffering. There is again a lot of media presence in Rothley and the upshot is that millions of people know Madeleine is still missing and that we will not give up looking for her."
He concludes with this pea, "We urge anyone who may have information that might help us find Madeleine to call us on the confidential number +34 902 300 213, which is manned by private detectives in Spain or e-mail investigation@findmadeleine.com, or contact the police."
There have been more reports of a sighting in Morocco. The UK Daily Mirror reports that a Moroccan police chief yesterday said officers were scouring the north of the country after the most recent sighting of a Madeleine look-alike. Mum Naoual Malhi saw a little blonde girl with Madeleine's distinctive eye mark being bundled into a taxi in the town of Fnidk by a Moroccan woman and driven away.
According to the UK Daily Express she said, " She said: “I am certain it was Madeleine. She had the same mark of Madeleine that I have seen in the posters and looked exactly like her.” Mrs. Malhi said she was told by police that more than 100 people had called them to report seeing the missing four-year-old in the same mountain area.
She alerted police about a month ago that she had seen Madeleine with an older woman, who tried to hide the girl as she whisked her away in a battered Mercedes taxi. Ms Malhi, who has a four-year-old daughter, was shopping in the coastal town of Fnidek during a holiday when she spotted the girl with a middle-aged woman.
“I went to Morocco on August 19. I saw Madeleine between August 22 and September 7,” she said last night.
From nationalledger
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272617038.shtml
Friday, November 2, 2007
Private detectives target Morocco in search for Madeleine
MADRID (AFP) — The Spanish private detective agency hired by the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann believes she was abducted and taken to Morocco, its director has revealed.
The managing director of Barcelona-based Metodo 3, Francisco Marco, told daily newspaper La Vanguardia he was confident that his agency would find Madeleine, who went missing in southern Portugal, and said her parents were not involved in her disappearance.
"A blond girl like Madeleine is a symbol of social status in Morocco. That is the way it is and I can't tell you more," he said.
Marco, 35, said he had already traveled to Morocco since being hired by Kate and Gerry McCann to pursue a lead that proved to be false.
"I bought some dolls at the airport for Madeleine. Unfortunately the lead was false. But I have kept those dolls in my house and will bring them in my suitcase on the day that I find Madeleine," he said.
The agency has 40 people working on the case in Spain and Morocco and has told the girl's parents that they expect to find her within six months, he said.
Metodo 3 focuses on cases of business fraud but also locates about 300 missing people each year, he added.
Last week the agency began operating a 24-hour hotline to gather information about the missing girl from callers in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal on May 3, a few days before her fourth birthday, while her parents dined nearby with friends.
Kate and Gerry, who are both doctors, returned to England in the beginning of September after being named as official suspects in the case by Portuguese police. They have not been charged.
"Our technicians interviewed the McCanns for 10 hours, enough time to detect if they were deceiving us. My specialists assured me that they are not hiding anything, this is why we decided to help them," said Marco.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwBOh4Ap1-7VbY5XlZJ9o01vjjog
Thursday, October 11, 2007
'Dark Web' Project Takes On Cyber-Terrorism
here are currently over a billion Internet users in the world, but not all of them are friendly.
In recent years, the anonymous nature of the Web has turned it into a boomtown for all sorts of radicalized hate.
"Since the events of 9/11, terrorist presence online has multiplied tenfold," says Hsinchun Chen, director of the University of Arizona's Artificial Intelligence Lab. "Around the year 2000, there were 70 to 80 core terrorist sites online; now there are at least 7000 to 8000."
Those sites are doing everything from spreading militant propaganda to offering insurgency advice to plotting the next wave of attacks, making the net, as Chen also points out: "arguably the most powerful tool for spreading extremist violence around the world."
But thanks to Chen, that tide may be turning. He's the architect behind the newest weapon in the war on terror — a giant, searchable database on extremists known as Dark Web.
Using a bevy of advanced technologies, Dark Web is an attempt to uncover, cross-reference, catalogue and analyze all online terrorist-generated content.
This is a vast amount of material, posted in dozens of languages and often hidden behind the blandest of portals. The more radical of these forums can host as many as 20,000 members and half a million postings, making the Web an increasing nightmare for the intelligence community, but a perfect prowling ground for a data-mining expert like Chen. In fact, Dark Web is Chen's second foray into online crime-fighting. The first began in 1997, when he — already an expert at tracking social change online (crime and terrorisms being extreme examples of social change) — teamed up with the Tucson Police Department and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help develop Coplink, a way for law enforcement forces around the country to link files and consolidate data. It was Coplink that helped build the case against the Washington, D.C., Beltway snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Because of this and other successes, in early 2002 the NSF asked Chen to try to build a similar system against terrorism. He began with a modified version of Web-spidering. Typically, Web spiders are keyword-based followers of the hyperlinks between Web pages. This is essentially how search engines like Google and Yahoo do their work. Unfortunately, a study done by the NEC Research Institute, the research arm of Japan's consumer-electronics giant NEC Corporation, found that existing engines cannot keep up with the Web's growth rate. Each one can only mine 16 percent of the available material. The recent arrival of meta-search engines, capable of triangulating between several engines at once with a much higher success rate, solved this problem, but unearthed another. "Information analysis was our goal," says Chen, "and information overload was the biggest hurdle." To clear this hurdle, Dark Web relies on all sorts of analytical tools. It utilizes existing technologies such as statistical analysis, cluster analysis, content analysis and link analysis, as well as brand new technologies like sentiment analysis, which is capable of scanning documents for emotionally charged keywords such as "that sucks." This form of analysis has proven effective in gauging the success of new consumer products. But instead of judging the fate of the latest movie, Chen uses sentiment analysis to look for emotions like rage and hate in an attempt to tease apart the social activists from the suicide bombers. That's merely the beginning. Dark Web also employs social-network analysis to map extremist networks, determining the importance of each member and establishing the organizations' hierarchies. To do this, Chen uses centrality and structural-equivalence measures to examine social-network components, such as the prestige allotted to any given poster by other members and the "closeness" — a given poster's access to information on the network coupled with his independence from others — among subjects in an attempt to further separate an organization's leaders from its outliers. Researchers then explore things such as cohesiveness and group density — using a form of pattern analysis called blockmodeling — to help determine the stability of any given organization and, perhaps more importantly, the nodes most vulnerable to attack. These methods were already in use before Dark Web. Chen and his cohorts also developed a few novel ideas of their own, including a technique called Writeprint which examines structural and semiotic content from anonymous postings in an attempt to determine authorship. "The Web is a gargantuan series of diffused networks," says NSF spokesman Dana Cruikshank. "Dark Web finds the patterns that make it much less decentralized." Chen says that if Dark Web had been online before the Iraq war, it could have determined whether the purported links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were fact or fiction. Moreover, the database also offers a terrorism knowledge portal, essentially a search engine for extremism, and a terrorism expert finder, a database of the world's best anti-terrorism minds — two things that have been sorely missing in the war against extremism. Despite all of this tantalizing potential, not everyone is convinced Dark Web is actually a tool for freedom. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an online civil-liberties group, says "the very same tools that can be used to track terrorists can also be used to track political opponents." To make sure that doesn't happen, Rotenberg maintains that Dark Web must be used within the confines of our existing privacy laws — an idea that may be better in theory than in practice. Though Chen strenuously denies it, there are a number of similarities between Dark Web and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) initiative, for which funding was cut off by Congress in 2003 over civil-liberties concerns. "Just because someone posts something we don't like on the Internet, doesn't mean they also suspend their First Amendment rights," says Mike German, the ACLU's policy counsel on national security, immigration and privacy. "Things like authorship analysis are particularly tricky. How could you know that someone was really intent on violence before that act of violence was committed?" German, who spent years on the domestic-terrorism beat for the FBI before coming to work for the ACLU, feels that Dark Web is a great waste of critical resources. "I know this from my time spent undercover, infiltrating exactly these kinds of organizations: Every terrorist training manual makes it clear that a huge separation should be kept between the bomb-makers and the propagandists. Between the action wing and the political wing. This means, by design, Dark Web is chasing the wrong people." Chen disagrees. "By design, we really only look into the contents of the propagandists of the jihadist movement," he says. "I think this is the bigger danger — the ability of the Web to attract and 'infect' young disgruntled men in the world. "We do not get into the actual operational wings of their groups, as most of the secret operational communications are encrypted and moved off-line," Chen explains. "Tracking those secret member communications is the domain of NSA, not us." Civil-liberties concerns may continue to dog the technological front of the war on terror, but Dark Web is already producing results. A recent study by Chen's group of training manuals and methods to build and use improvised explosive devices posted online — including where in the world such manuals have been downloaded — has led to countermeasures that are currently keeping soldiers and civilians alike safer. Which is, after all, the point. from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300956,00.html
Battle against terrorism in Fata is lost, US Congress told
WASHINGTON, Oct 10: The US pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to do more in the war against terror has been counter-productive and the battle against extremists in the tribal areas has been lost, a key congressional panel was told on Wednesday.
Witnesses appearing before the House Armed Services Committee also noted that the United States has been publicly involved in arranging a power-sharing deal in Pakistan, which may hurt its image if the arrangement fails.
“I’m concerned that our policy toward Pakistan has not been as comprehensive as it should be,” said the committee’s chairman, Congressman Ike Skelton. “We may be unprepared to handle the repercussions if events in Pakistan continue to move as rapidly as they have in recent years.”
The powerful committee, which oversees US military policies, invited a host of witnesses to speak on “security challenges involving Pakistan and policy implications for the US Department of Defence.”
“We’ve put additional pressure on President Musharraf,” Dr Marvin Weinbaum of Washington’s Middle East institute told the committee. “Let me suggest, however, that increasingly this pressure has been counter-productive.”
He said that the actions President Musharraf took under pressure had not only fallen short “but have had the double-barrelled effect of intensifying opposition within the frontier region and also eroding his political support in the country.”
Mr Weinbaum, a veteran South Asian scholar who has authored several books on Pakistan, warned: “Most of us who look at Pakistan believe at this point in time (believe) that Pakistan has in the northwest frontier area lost the battle against extremism and terrorism.
“And the consequences … are quite considerable for the United States, for our success in dealing with the insurgency in Afghanistan, stabilizing that country, and of course uprooting the Al Qaeda network and the spread of Islamic extremism in Pakistan,” he said.
“And … the consequences … for Pakistan, its stability, its integrity are really tied up with what happens in that tribal region.”
Congressman Duncan Hunter, the ranking Republican member of the committee, however, noted that Pakistan is committed to the war against terror, has deployed nearly 100,000 troops in the tribal belt, some of them coming off the Indian border, and hundreds of Pakistani troops also have died while fighting the terrorists.
But “there’s been information that I’ve seen to the effect that most of that corps resides in garrison and is not undertaking what one might call aggressive operations,” he added.
Teresita Schaffer, a former US ambassador and now director of the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the committee that in the past six months, President Musharraf has been seriously weakened.
And “the major non-religious political figures, in my view, have been diminished; and the US has been publicly involved in the deal-making leading to Pakistan’s next government,” she observed.
“I expect that Musharraf’s election last weekend will eventually be confirmed by the Supreme Court and that legislative elections will be held in January,” she added.
Ambassador Schaffer warned that the government that follows these elections is likely to be an uneasy one. “Musharraf will be one power centre. He believes in unity of command … and is not particularly interested in power-sharing. Both his political party and perhaps the army will be strongly tempted to manipulate the elections to minimise Ms Bhutto’s claim on power,” she said.
“If Bhutto does participate in government, she will strongly defend her turf. And assuming that Musharraf retires from the army, that institution will be under new leadership and will be a distinct power centre, no matter how careful Musharraf has been to promote officers loyal to himself,” she said.
from
http://www.dawn.com/2007/10/11/top5.htm
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Israel to seize Arab land near Jerusalem
Poll says majority of Israelis oppose Jerusalem sharing plan
JERUSALEM: Israel has ordered the confiscation of Arab land outside east Jerusalem, a newspaper and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday, reviving fears that the occupied West Bank could be split in two.
Issued late September, the order covers 110 hectares (272 acres) in four Palestinian villages between east Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, said Hassan Abed Rabbo, a senior official at the Palestinian local government ministry.
The land could create a bloc of settlements incorporating Maale Adumim and nearby Mishor Adumim and Kedar, and “prevent Palestinian territorial continuity” between the West Bank and Jordan Valley, he said.
The army orders given to landowners, a copy of which was seen by AFP, justified the expropriation on “military grounds” and for “measures designed to stop terrorist acts”. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the land was earmarked for a new road that would connect east Jerusalem with the West Bank town of Jericho.
“That in turn would ‘free up’ the E-1 area between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, through which the current Jerusalem-Jericho road runs, for a long-planned Jewish development consisting of 3,500 apartments and an industrial park,” Haaretz wrote.
The Palestinians heavily criticise the project because it would effectively split the West Bank and separate the territory from east Jerusalem.
“We condemn this Israeli decision to confiscate Palestinian land at a time in which we are trying to revive the peace process,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
Israelis oppose Jerusalem sharing: More than 60 percent of Israelis oppose sharing sovereignty over Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a final peace deal, in a poll published on Tuesday.
Asked if Israel should agree to “any sort of compromise on Jerusalem” as part of a final deal, 63 percent said no, compared with 21 who said yes, according to the poll published in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily.
Sixty-eight percent oppose transferring Arab neighbourhoods in occupied east Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty, compared with 20 percent who are in favour.
Asked who should have sovereignty over the holy places in the Old City, 61 percent said Israel alone, 21 percent favoured international sovereignty, and 16 percent supported joint Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty.
On whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government has a mandate from the public to reach a permanent status arrangement on Jerusalem, 52 percent said yes on condition that 80 MPs in the 120-seat parliament supported such a move. afp
from
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C10%5C10%5Cstory_10-10-2007_pg4_3
Home Office: Cost of fighting terrorism triples to £3.5bn by 2010
By Andy McSmith
Published: 10 October 2007
Fighting terrorism continues to be one of the fastest-growing items in the Government's budget. By the end of this financial year, the whole cost of anti-terrorist initiatives, taking in everything from education programmes to undercover police work, will have risen to £2.5bn a year. By 2010-11, that figure will be up to £3.5bn – more than three times what it was at the start of the decade.
The size of the anti-terror budget is one sign of how government priorities have changed since the 11 September and 7 July attacks. Another is yesterday's announcement about who will control the money.
In a break with Whitehall tradition, anti-funds will not be allocated to individual government departments in the usual way, but will be disbursed by a Cabinet committee headed by Gordon Brown. The budget covers money for the police, the intelligence services, and programmes designed to persuade young Muslims not to be drawn into in violent extremism. It includes an extra £220m a year for the Home Office's counter-terrorism and security budget. The security services have been told their budget will continue growing by 9.6 per cent a year.
"The funding will improve our ability to tackle the immediate threat to the UK, strengthen our security measures to protect the UK from attack, allow the development of new technology which will enable us to keep ahead of the terrorists, and put in place longer-term programmes to counter radicalisation," the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said.
Another £37m a year from the same budget will go to the Foreign Office, for programmes to discourage radicalism in the Middle East. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, which is to get £15m to launch a Farsi language television channel, broadcasting to Iran. Its 12-hour-a-day Arabic language television station is to expand to a 24 hour service. The overall Home Office budget will rise by the equivalent of 1.1 per cent a year from £9.2bn now to £10.3b in 2010-11, which means that Mrs Smith did slightly better than expected out of yesterday's announcement. It includes money for 9,500 new prison places, 8,500 of which will be ready by 2012, and over £11m a year to establish a National Fraud Strategic Authority and National Fraud Reporting Centre.
According to the Howard League for Penal reform, the UK holds a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other western European country, and 12,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell designed for one. The numbers of prisoners has risen from 42,000 in 1993 to 80,000 today. The Home Office insists that the increase is a sign of the government's "robust approach to serious and violent offenders".
The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, added that yesterday's announcement "demonstrates the priority the government gives to tackling fraud, an issue that has had too low a priority in the past".
from
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3043768.ece
Pre-Budget: Counter-terrorism funds up 10pc
Security spending has already doubled from around £1bn before the 9/11 attacks on America.
MI5 has recruited hundreds more staff and aims to have a complement of around 3,000 by next year - twice its size in 2001.
It is not immediately apparent what difference a single budget will make to the fight against
It will be more difficult to discover where the money is going because the intelligence budget is already opaque and not broken down.
While the counter-terror budget has gone up, the overall spending on law and order has been frozen in real terms.
Both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice were locked into their existing budgets for the next three years.
The Government said the squeeze has come on after a period that saw a 50 per cent rise in spending on public order and safety since 1997.
The big problem for the Ministry of Justice is how to deliver a promised extra 9,500 prison places with no extra money.
There has also been a big cut of more than three per cent in the law officers' budget, though victims' programmes will be protected.
The Government has set out new targets for cutting violent crime, reducing alcohol and drug abuse and controlling immigration
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: "The public expect more from public services in tackling crime, alcohol and drug abuse, security, antisocial behaviour and managing migration. We will be able to invest in improving performance, rolling out neighbourhood policing and delivering our major projects."
this article is from this website
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/nbudget109.xml
TEXT-Fitch on Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act
(The following statement was released by the ratings agency)
Oct 9 - The current extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act (TRIA) is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2007. Discussion in Congress is ongoing regarding another extension and recently the House of Representatives passed a bill which would extend TRIA. Below, Fitch will discuss the credit implications for the commercial real estate industry in general, and commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) specifically, should TRIA expire. These include a review and potential downgrading of a specific set of CMBS transactions, and a broad reduction in lending, possibly leading to greater defaults and downgrades across the broader CMBS universe.
Historically, coverage for losses related to terrorism was included in standard all-risk property damage policies, also known as casualty policies. Following the extraordinary claims that resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, most insurance companies either stopped offering terrorism coverage or offered only limited amounts at high rates. Although many market participants believed that a private market would naturally develop to offer terrorism coverage, this did not materialize in a significant enough size to make the coverage generally available at commercially reasonable rates. Many insurance industry experts contend that a private market has not developed as insurers do not have enough data to reliably estimate the magnitude of a loss due to a terrorist act. TRIA requires that all insurance companies offer terrorism coverage as part of casualty policies. This effectively provides a federal backstop which limits insurance company exposure to casualty from a terrorist event, a protection otherwise unavailable in the private market.
Insurance coverage for terrorism is important because it helps facilitate the flow of debt capital to the real estate industry. In general, debt providers write their loan documents to place the risks and costs of property ownership with the borrower/owner. One such risk is the risk of casualty. Real estate lenders require that borrowers obtain full replacement cost insurance so that should a casualty occur, their loan can be repaid in full. However, if TRIA is not renewed, Fitch believes the market availability of terrorism insurance would be limited. If a property owner obtains insufficient insurance, the risk of a casualty resulting from terrorism is effectively transferred to the lender.
As we experienced in late 2001, if the casualty risk were transferred to property lenders, fewer lenders would be willing to make new loans on properties which lack these insurance protections. Such restrictions in new lending could force many existing loans into default upon maturity of their insurance policies. Also, existing loans could simply become more risky as they would bear the terrorism risk previously borne by the borrower and insurance company.
As a subset of the commercial mortgage lending industry, the CMBS industry would be directly and immediately affected if TRIA were not in place. Fitch's methodology for rating CMBS transactions assumes insurance coverage, including casualty resulting from terrorism, for the full loan amount. In fact, Fitch has declined to rate some transactions which it believed did not have adequate terrorism insurance.
With respect to currently existing loans, if TRIA were to expire, Fitch would expect to take similar rating actions as it did in 2002, when coverage for terrorist acts was not widely available. At the time, Fitch placed 29 classes from 13 transactions on Rating Watch Negative, indicating that if coverage were not provided, we would view the underlying assets, and the bonds issued based on them, as riskier and no longer as creditworthy as their then current rating indicated. Generally these were transactions that had a single property, or several properties owned by a single borrower. Ultimately, after TRIA was enacted, all but one of these transactions obtained insurance and the ratings were affirmed. Since 2002, volume in the CMBS market has expanded greatly such that Fitch would likely need to take more negative rating actions across its CMBS portfolio of approximately $450 billion of CMBS bonds. In addition, if the lack of terrorism insurance was to make loans more difficult to obtain, and a large number of maturing loans were not able to be refinanced, CMBS multiborrower transactions could also come under review for downgrade.
thi article is from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/09/nbudget109.xml
Monday, October 8, 2007
Greatest fear is terrorism
TERRORISM and immigration are people’s greatest fear according to a new survey.
The poll also shows that one in seven adults (15 per cent) is reluctant to have children and one in four (27 per cent) less inclined to plan for the future because of world troubles.
Terrorism is people’s greatest fear - 70 per cent say they are most worried about that, while immigration worries 58 per cent of people.
Environmental issues are less of a concern - only a third are worried about climate change (38 per cent) and a quarter by the threat of a natural disaster (23 per cent).
The YouGov survey, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation ahead of World Mental Health Day on Wednesday, found that world events left some people feeling powerless (56 per cent), angry (50 per cent), anxious (35 per cent) and depressed (26 per cent).
To help cope with their worries, more than a third of respondents said they sought to find out more about an issue (38 per cent).
Almost the same number said that talking to family and friends provided relief (33 per cent).
A quarter said voting helped, while 12 per cent found comfort in a religious or spiritual belief.
Clinical psychologist Dr Michael Reddy said: “As social animals, we are sensitive to dangers from other humans that are intentional, such as terrorism.
“Accidental dangers, such as natural disasters, fail to motivate us in the same way.
“Immigration ranks highly as a worry because humans identify themselves as belonging to particular groups who share the same values and codes of behaviour this is one of our main ways of feeling secure."
from
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article313015.ece
In the UK, Possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook Is Terrorism
Anonymous Terrorist writes
"Back in the midsts of time, when I was a lad and gopher was the height of information retrieval I read The Anarchist's Cookbook in one huge text file. Now it appears the UK government considers possession of the book an offense under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is prosecuting a 17 year old boy, in part, for having a copy of the book. 'The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000. The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year. The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.'"
this article is from
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/10/08/0348253.shtml
