Israel Test-Fires ‘Iran’ Missile

Dude! what is this? Haven’t we had enough of wars, murders etc. to continue with this insanity? Shouldn’t all the nuclear weapons of this world be disarmed by now? How come Israel, a country that hasn’t still signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty reserve a right to talk about the nuclear energy program of Iran which, by the way, was passed as “peaceful” by the UN. And what’s with Iran’s comment “eliminating Israel from the global arena”. I mean hello, what about the innocent civilians there? Is this an Islamic thing to do? <Knock Knock>.

I am totally clueless as to how the politics are being conducted nowadays. Shouldn’t it be a bit more simpler than that-like having tea together, making friends with each other, learning from each and developing together in this world; compared to deception, lies, propoganda….Argh!

Jee! its articles like this one that makes me want to stop reading news. When would this all end? You know wouldn’t it be a good idea to put all these angry leaders in one room and give them some pillows to hit each other. Let them take all this frustration out and the world would be an easier place to live in.

Israel test-fires ‘Iran‘ missile

A ballistic missile was launched from a military base in central Israel [GETTY]

Israel has conducted a test of a ballistic missile aimed at simulating an Iranian attack on Israel.

The test of the “Blue Sparrow” on Tuesday came after Israel’s foreign minister said in Qatar the day before that Iran represented “the extremists in the region” and was “a threat and challenge to the entire region”.

Mohammed Rada Ashtiani, the deputy commander of the Iranian army, responded on Tuesday by saying that they would “eliminate it from the global arena” if Israel took any action against them.

Israel’s missile test follows confirmation from a senior Israeli defence official that the US has agreed to connect the Jewish state to its ballistic missile early warning system “to protect” the regime against any missile attack.”Israel asked the US to connect to its ballistic missile early warning system as part of its efforts to defend itself from missile attacks. The US has agreed to the request,” he said.

The missile was launched from an Israeli air force fighter aircraft, simulating the flight of an advanced Shahab-3 ballistic missile used by Iran.

Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, said: “We have to prepare, and if there’s a need, to take action, not just to talk idly.”

Call for support

Tzipi Livni, Israeli’s foreign minister, told delegates on Monday that Israel and Arab states are mired in the same struggle with extremists who “refuse to recognise our democratic rights” at a democracy and trade conference in Qatar.

“When I say “our”, I mean the rights of Israelis, moderate Palestinians, moderate Arabs and pragmatic Muslim regimes alike.”

In what was Livni’s first visit to Qatar, an energy-rich Gulf state that has no diplomatic ties with Israel, she said Iran worked with “radical” Shia elements such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and supported Hamas, a “terrorist organisation” controlling Gaza “by weapons, training and money”.

Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, Iran’s deputy commander-in-chief, said: “We are not worried by Israeli manoeuvres, but if Israel takes such action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will eliminate it from the global arena.

“As the president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] has said, we have a great motivation to defend the frontiers of our country,” he added.

His comments come a week after Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel’s national infrastructure minister, warned that any Iranian attack against Israel “would lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation”.

“Turning point”

Israel last week held a five-day exercise codenamed “Turning Point” simulating air and missile attacks on cities, including by non-conventional weapons, the biggest drill of its kind ever carried out.

The exercise sparked alarm in Israel’s northern neighbour Lebanon, home to the Shia group Hezbollah.

Israel, the Middle East’s sole, if undeclared, atomic arms power, accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon and, along with its chief ally the US, has never explicitly ruled out a military attack against the Islamic republic.

But Iran, which does not recognise Israel, insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and aimed solely at generating energy for a growing population.

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Your Internet Provider is Watching You

Hmm! so someone else is now “watching us”. Big deal! Aren’t we used to this by now? So annoying! I hope someone puts a leash on these “big brothers”. Sheesh!

Fine print reveals that you have fewer rights than you might realize

The Comcast case is a rare example of the government getting into the ISP contract nitty-gritty. “There really should be an onus on the regulators to see this kind of thing is done correctly,” said Bob Williams, who deals with telecom and media issues at Consumers Union.

By Peter Svensson

updated 12:08 p.m. ET, Fri., April. 4, 2008

NEW YORK – What’s scary, funny and boring at the same time? It could be a bad horror movie. Or it could be the fine print on your Internet service provider’s contract.

Those documents you agree to — usually without reading — ostensibly allow your ISP to watch how you use the Internet, read your e-mail or keep you from visiting sites it deems inappropriate. Some reserve the right to block traffic and, for any reason, cut off a service that many users now find essential.

The Associated Press reviewed the “Acceptable Use Policies” and “Terms of Service” of the nation’s 10 largest ISPs — in all, 117 pages of contracts that leave few rights for subscribers.

“The network is asserting almost complete control of the users’ ability to use their network as a gateway to the Internet,” said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. “They become gatekeepers rather than gateways.”

But the provisions are rarely enforced, except against obvious miscreants like spammers. Consumer outrage would have been the likely result if AT&T Inc. took advantage of its stated right to block any activity that causes the company “to be viewed unfavorably by others.”

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said this clause was a “piece of boilerplate that is passed around the corporate lawyers like a Christmas fruitcake.

“The idea that they would ever invoke it and point to it is nuts, especially since their terms of service already say they can cut you off for any reason and give you a refund for the balance of the month,” Zittrain said.

AT&T removed the “unfavorably by others” wording in February after The Associated Press asked about the reason behind it. Subscribers, however, wouldn’t know that it was gone unless they checked the contract word for word: The document still said it was last updated Oct. 8, 2007.

Most companies reserve the right to change the contracts at any time, without any notice except an update on the Web site. Verizon used to say it would notify subscribers of changes by e-mail, but the current contract just leaves that as an option for the company.

This sort of contract, where the subscriber is considered to agree by signing up for service rather than by active negotiation, is given extra scrutiny by courts, Zittrain said. Any wiggle room or ambiguity is usually resolved in favor of the consumer rather than the company.

Yet the main purpose of ISP contracts isn’t to circumscribe the service for all subscribers, but rather to provide legal cover for the company if it cuts off a user who’s abusing the system.

“Without the safeguards offered in these policies, customers could suffer from degradation of service and be exposed to a broad variety of malware threats,” said David Deliman, spokesman at Cox Communications.

The language does matter: In a case involving a student accused of hacking, a federal appeals court held last year that subscribers should have a lower expectation of privacy if their service provider has a stated policy of monitoring traffic.

But these broadly written contracts still don’t provide all the legal cover ISPs want. Comcast Corp. is being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission for interfering with file sharing by its subscribers. The company has pointed to its Acceptable Use Policy, which said, in general terms, that the company had the right to manage traffic. Since the investigation began, it has updated the policy to describe its practices in greater detail, and recently said it would stop targeting file-sharing once it puts a new traffic-management system in place late this year.

The Comcast case is a rare example of the government getting into the nitty-gritty of one of these contracts.

“There really should be an onus on the regulators to see this kind of thing is done correctly,” said Bob Williams, who deals with telecom and media issues at Consumers Union.

If there were more competition, market forces might straighten out the contracts, he said. But most Americans have only two choices for broadband: the cable company or the phone company.

Williams himself knows that it’s tough to pay attention to the contracts. He recently had Verizon Communications Inc.’s FiOS broadband and TV service installed in his home. Only after the installation was completed did he get the contract in the mail.

He could have read some of the terms earlier, when placing the order online, but he just clicked the “Accept” button.

“I’m a hard-nosed consumer advocate type … I really should have examined it better than I did,” he said. But, he added, he acted like most consumers, because of the lack of alternatives. “You click the ‘Accept’ button because it’s not like you’re going somewhere else.”

Other common clauses of ISP contracts:

ISPs can read your e-mail
Practically all ISPs reserve the right to read your e-mails and look at the sites you visit, without a wiretap order. This reflects the open nature of the Internet _ for privacy purposes, e-mails are more like postcards than letters. It’s also prompted by the ISPs’ need to identify and stop subscribers who use their connections to send spam e-mails.

Some ISPs, like AT&T Inc., make clear that they do not read their subscriber’s traffic as a matter of course, but also that they need little or no excuse to begin doing so. Cablevision, a cable operator in the Northeast, says one of the reasons it might look at what a customer is doing online would be to help operate its service properly.

The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act protects e-mail and other Internet communications from eavesdropping, but several of its provisions can be waived by agreements between the ISP and the subscriber. Also, the law is mainly aimed at making it difficult for the government, not companies, to snoop.

Wiretapping laws may also apply, but the situation is unclear. A federal appeals court panel in 2004 dismissed charges against a company that provided e-mail services for booksellers and snooped on their Amazon.com order confirmations. The charges of illegal wiretapping were reinstated by the full appeals court the next year, but the case hasn’t been tried.

ISPs can block you from Web sites
Or at least they would like to think so. In a clause typical of ISPs, Comcast reserves the right to block or remove traffic it deems “inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful.”

The ISP sees itself as the sole judge of whether something is appropriate.
Broad enforcement of this kind of clause for business purposes other than protecting users is likely to draw attention from regulators like the FCC, as is happening in the Comcast file-sharing case.

ISPs can shut you down for using the connection too much
For cable ISPs, up to 500 households may be sharing the capacity on a single line, and a few traffic hogs can slow the whole neighborhood down. But rather than saying publicly how much traffic is too much, some cable companies keep their caps secret, and simply warn offenders individually. If that doesn’t work, they’re kicked off.

It’s difficult to reach these secret bandwidth caps unless users are downloading large amounts of high-quality video from the Internet, but the advent of high-definition Internet video set-top boxes like the Apple TV and the Vudu could make it more common.

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Terror suspects sign peace bonds

i don’t understand why these guys were arrested in the first place. And why do they have to sign some peace bonds? Shouldn’t some action be taken against RCMP instead of innocent Canadian citizens? Those days are gone when the government was for the people and by the people. Nowadays, its all about “power”, “corruption” and “greed for more” not to forget “being a puppet of some bigger government”. Funny thing is that many Canadians don’t even realize that. They are so tuned into the mainstream media and of course their busy lives. I think every Canadian should make it their heart-felt duty to learn the truth and to make some time from their dialy routine to do something about it. I know its tough but stay determined and just one step at a time, inshaAllah. There must be good apples in the government, there just have to be, I think.

Terror suspects sign peace bonds TheStar.com – GTA – Terror suspects sign peace bonds

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR

Abdul Qayyum Jamal outside Brampton court at noon today, after he and two other defendants signed peace bonds.

April 15, 2008

Isabel Teotonio

STAFF REPORTER

Three men accused of belonging to a home grown terror cell are one step closer to freedom after they signed peace bonds for terrorism-related offences in a Brampton court this morning.

Prosecutors have asked that charges against the trio be stayed this afternoon, marking one of the final chapters of what has been a lengthy ordeal since their arrests during a massive police sweep in the summer of 2006

The men, Abdul Qayyum Jamal, 45, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 23, and Ibrahim Aboud, 21, appeared relieved as they left the courtroom, flanked by family and friends.

The three, who are currently out on bail, are all charged with participating in a terrorist group and training for terrorist purposes.

“I am innocent,” Jamal told reporters outside the courthouse, saying his reputation is in tatters after being originally portrayed as one of the group’s leaders because of his age.

“I have nothing to do with this terrorism thing,” he said, adding that he did attend a winter camp where he played paintball and marched around in the snow.

“Everybody is allowed to do that.”

His lawyer, Anser Farooq, said an inquiry should be held into the government’s handling of the case, particularly since his client spent 17 months in jail, 13 of them in solitary confinement.

“The public should know why 18 Muslim men were arrested and why it went the way it did,” he told reporters.

“It’s close to two years and the public has a right to know why it’s taking as long as it’s taking and what’s going on with it,” he said.

“Two or three (of the adults accused) are still in isolation and that has faded from public memory. It is not appropriate to have individuals locked in isolation for that period of time without the public asking why is this necessary,” Farooq said.

The other two men and their lawyers said they would speak with reporters after the charges are stayed.

Ontario Court Justice Peter Wilkie presided at the court this morning. Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno is expected to order the charges stayed later this afternoon.

A peace bond allows the court to impose strict conditions on an individual if it deems there are reasonable grounds to believe a terror-related offence will be committed. It has been celebrated by some as a necessary tool in fighting terrorism and criticized by others who say it restrains civil liberties on mere suspicion. People accused of a crime often agree to peace bonds to convince the Crown to withdraw or stay charges.

The men, all of whom are from Mississauga, now face various restrictions for one year. Some of the conditions include not associating with co-accused, surrendering their passports, abiding by a curfew and not possessing any firearm or explosive substance.

A stay in proceedings would mark yet another setback in the government’s landmark case against the so-called Toronto 18.

At stake is the reputation of Canada’s spy service and the federal police force, particularly since news of the alleged cell captured worldwide attention when 14 adults and four youths were charged. Their arrest marked the first time an alleged terrorist organization was charged in Canada using criminal laws implemented after the 9/11 attacks.

The men, mostly in their 20s, were alleged to be part of an Al Qaeda-inspired cell that planned to storm Parliament Hill, take politicians hostage and behead the Prime Minister.

They are also alleged to have attended a so-called terrorist training camp and are accused of plotting to bomb sites such as the Toronto Stock Exchange and offices of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Police allegedly intercepted an order for three tonnes of ammonium nitrate destined for truck bombs.

But the case against the suspects has slowly unravelled since it first garnered international headlines — in the 10 days following the arrests, at least 4,710 articles appeared in media outlets including CNN, BBC News, Al-Jazeera, The Bangkok Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New York Times.

Last year, charges were stayed against three youths — two of whom also signed peace bonds for terrorism-related offences. Of the 14 adults, four were granted bail — lawyers for some of the others say their clients will also seek bail as they await trial.

When the trial for the fourth youth opened last month, the Crown said members practised military-style exercises in camouflage gear and undertook firearms training with a 9-mm firearm while attending a 12-day camp near the town of Washago, Ont .

But a far less menacing and near-comical portrait emerged when a defence lawyer told the court that the terror suspects ventured off to the camp in the dead of winter without a proper tent and insufficient supplies. They were reduced to sleeping in their cars and marching around to stay warm, he said, adding they trekked off to Tim Hortons several times a day for coffee runs and washroom breaks.

Prosecutors declined to speak with reporters this morning about the strength of their case.

Dan Brien, a spokesperson for Public Prosecution Service of Canada, the federal government department that prosecutes all federal offences on behalf of the Attorney General, was expected to speak with reporters this afternoon.

For Jamal, the oldest of the suspects, today’s events are particularly significant, and somewhat bittersweet. Of the trio, he spent the most time behind bars, was originally charged with participating in the bomb plot, and received intense media attention.

Following the arrests on June 2, 2006, Jamal was portrayed as a key player in the group, who acted as a spiritual advisor to the others.

His work as a caretaker at the Al-Rahman Islamic Centre in Mississauga, where he reportedly made no secret of his anti-Western views, raised suspicions that he was recruiting teens and young men for Jihad.

Because he originally faced an explosives charge, he appeared to be instrumental in the group’s alleged ambitions. That charge was dropped in September 2007, helping to pave the way for his eventual release.

After 17 months in jail — many of them in solitary confinement — Jamal was granted bail in November 2007. As he left the courthouse that day, flanked by his wife and four young sons, he told a crush of reporters that he hoped to clear his name and restore his tarnished reputation. Today, he appears closer to doing that.

Ghany, however, hasn’t garnered the same amount of ink in the press — this, despite being the brother-in-law of one of the group’s alleged ringleaders, Zakaria Amara.

Apart from his familial relations and his dramatic arrest while driving on the Gardiner Expressway, the McMaster University graduate has maintained a relatively low-profile since being released on bail in late July 2006.

Aboud, a Ryerson University student, was the 18th suspect charged. Unlike his co-accused, who were all arrested on the same day, he was taken into custody on Aug. 2, 2006. He was released three weeks later.

Much of the Crown’s case against these men, which surfaced during preliminary inquiries held for the youth and the adults, cannot be reported on because of sweeping publication bans.

The preliminary hearing for the adults was abruptly halted in September when the Crown filed a direct indictment, meaning the case will go directly to trial. Some believed the surprise move, which came in the middle of key evidence being given by police informant Mubin Shaikh, was made to avoid the potential embarrassment of some of the accused being discharged at the end.

Some counsel for the accused argued they had been dealt a sucker punch, pointing out that both sides had hammered out an agreement in which the defence made a number of concessions in return for the chance to question key witnesses.

Some of those witnesses, including a second police mole, never took the stand. His testimony was considered crucial because he allegedly took part in the delivery of the ammonium nitrate. Since police were aware of the alleged purchase, they arranged to switch the ammonium nitrate for a harmless substance before delivery.

Reporters will finally be permitted to flesh out the government’s case against the Toronto 18 when the trial for the remaining youth begins to pick up steam.

Lawyers are currently debating various motions and it will be next month before the first witness takes the stand. By law, none of the youths arrested can be identified.

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Poor Muslims of Canada

I read this news today and quite frankly, I am not horrified by this. Muslim community in Canada is relatively young. We need more people to stand up for the rights of Muslims and speak up for them inshaAllah. If you don’t demand your right, you are never going to get it. I also have seen this silly mentality among some Muslims where they think that staying away from politicians is better. Well, how do they expect to make it work for the Muslim community who is living within the Canadian system without talking to the people who represent the Canadian system? Muslims of Canada and that of the rest of the world have lots of potential in them inshaAllah. They face a lot of barriers, but if they put their mind to something, they can acheive it inshaAllah. I know this first hand b/c I myself am a Muslim living in Canada. Barriers are a fact of life, no one can deny that. But one’s persistance, determination and talent is also a fact of life and no one can deny that. So my message to my community is to never give up and strive for the best inshaAllah. May Allah help you in this task, amin. Remember, alone we are fragile, together we are strong.

For Muslim poor, a shameful admission TheStar.com – GTA – For Muslim poor, a shameful admission

April 12, 2008

Noor Javed

Staff Reporter

On the corner of Dundas and Chestnut Sts., Ahmed dumps a handful of pennies and quarters on the sidewalk, and begins counting his day’s earnings.

“Asalamu alakum, can you spare some change?” he shyly asks two men as they rush past him and into Masjid Toronto, a downtown mosque.

A former teacher, Ahmed left war-torn Iraq five years ago for Canada. “I came here but couldn’t find a job, couldn’t make money,” he said. “Now I am homeless. I live in a shelter.”

The exact number of Muslims in Toronto who live below Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-off, the country’s unofficial poverty line, is difficult to determine, as socio-economic data is rarely gathered through the lens of religion.

But among those on the front lines in the Muslim community, those who work in mosques, community centres and the few charitable organizations, there is growing concern about the magnitude of poverty in the community, the lack of resources available to deal with the problem, and the reluctance – among all social classes – to admit the problem even exists.

For the Muslim poor, an admission of poverty is shameful. To the rich, the problem is invisible, or at least not so obvious when compared to the stark conditions of poverty they have seen back home.

“It is a cause for concern,” said Uzma Shakir, former executive director of the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, and member of the Colour of Poverty campaign. “The repercussions of poverty and systemic poverty are not just economic but have serious social impacts as well,” she said.

“Already we can see the formation of ghettos in some parts of the city,” said Shakir, referring to neighbourhoods where overt race-based poverty is glaringly obvious, and where halal meat stores are in abundance.

The scant data available paints a troubling picture of a growing community of nearly 300,000 Muslims, which includes a mix of refugees, recent immigrants, and those who settled in Canada decades ago.

The four poorest of all ethno-racial groups, with more than 50 per cent of their members living below Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-off, were Somalis, Afghans, Ethiopians and Bangladeshi populations – all from predominately Muslim countries. At least 30 per cent of Pakistanis and West Asians also qualified as poor, according to a study done by the Institute for Social Research at York University in 2006, which looked at the demographic and social profiles of ethno-racial groups in the city.

According to the low-income cut-offs, a family of four in Toronto with an annual income of $33,221 after taxes would be considered poor. Bangladeshi women earned the lowest median income of any group at just more than $15,000.

In 13 neighbourhoods deemed “at-risk” in Toronto by United Way, more than half have significant Muslim populations, including Flemingdon Park, Regent Park, Etobicoke North and Jane-Finch.”Every year, we see more and more poor people coming to the mosque for help,” said Omar Farouk, president of the International Muslims Organization, based in Etobicoke, which has opened a food bank and distributes food to shelters once a month. More than 200 people regularly access the food bank.

“People will work two or three jobs, and still not have enough money to make ends meet at the end of the month,” said Atulya Sharman, a community legal worker with the South Asian legal clinic. “But nobody wants to admit they are poor, partly because of the stigma, and because they think it’s just part of the settlement process.”

That is where they are mistaken, said Mohamed Boudjenane, director of the Canadian Arab Federation, which is part of the Colour of Poverty campaign.

“The Muslim community is faced with tremendous barriers, like the issue of foreign credential recognition, and the issue of racism and stigmatization of simply being Muslim post 9-11,” he said.

“It’s not about settlement; it’s about systemic barriers in the system. We are receiving well-educated people. They are … engineers and doctors, but they are still doing dishes, or driving cabs.”

But many don’t even get those menial jobs. In a 2005 Canadian Labour Congress study on Racial Status and Employment Incomes, Arab and West-Asian visible minorities had the highest overall unemployment rate at 14 per cent.There are internal barriers within the community too. There is an obvious divide between the haves and have-nots, the second-generation Muslims and the new arrivals who have little interaction with each other outside of “Friday prayers at the mosque.”

While charity is a fundamental part of the Islamic faith, many established Muslims in the GTA are ignorant of the growing need within their own communities and instead see poverty in their countries of origin as a more worthy cause.

“The image that comes to mind when you think poverty is that beggar on the street in Pakistan. You don’t think of a family in Scarborough,” said Sadaf Parvaiz, a chartered accountant and second-generation Pakistani-Canadian.

Attitudes are slowly changing among some second-generation Muslims, who feel little connection to their parents’ homeland. Parvaiz is organizing a walk for poverty in the summer with proceeds going to a local food bank.

The Muslim Welfare Centre, one of the few organizations addressing poverty, runs a halal food bank and emergency women’s shelter, funded by donations from the community, said CEO Qaiser Naqvi.

In most neighbourhoods, mosques have become places of service as well as worship.

It is a concept that Waris Malik put to use three years ago, when he launched a weekly Hot Soup Day at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, a mosque in Scarborough – the first to launch a project of this kind in the city. The initiative now serves and distributes 750 meals each week. Masjid Toronto will be starting a similar soup kitchen at downtown’s Scadding Court at the end of this month.

“The mosque can’t play all roles,” said Boudjenane, of the Canadian Arab Federation, who believes Muslims need to shift their focus from building mosques to creating civic structures and social agencies.

“We have the foundations, what we need now is to start building the community.”

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