Four More Released-Thank God :-)

Watch the relevant video at the Source.

Four Implicated In Toronto Terror Plot Have Charges Stayed

Tuesday April 15, 2008

CityNews.ca Staff

They were accused of being involved in what could have been one of the worst terror attacks to ever hit this country. But now four men implicated in crimes that were never actually committed are going free.

The so-called Toronto Terror plot saw 18 suspects arrested between June and August of 2006, charged with planning to attack some high profile Canadian targets, possibly including the CN Tower, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the TTC.

And while the case against three of them had already fallen apart, another four are now off the hook, after the Crown stayed charges against them in a Brampton courtroom on Tuesday.

It means Qayyum Abdul Jamal, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, Ibrahim Aboud and Yasim Mohamed will have the charges against them dropped and unless the Crown decides to reactivate them within a year – an unlikely move – they’ll be free.

It’s a huge relief to those involved, who always proclaimed their innocence.

Among them: Jamal (top left), the oldest of the accused, who had been painted as the ringleader of the terror gang. He spent 17 months behind bars – 13 of them in solitary confinement. “I’ll move on with my life,” he insists, before claiming bitterly, “Being in jail was not proper. I was tortured. I was abused based on my age.”

Three out of the four are on a peace bond for the next year, which keeps them under a curfew.

But while the lawyers for Canada have been reluctantly forced to admit they can’t make their case, those representing the now former accused are incensed that their clients were ever put into the system in the first place.

Rocco Galati represents Ghany. He calls the arrest a blatant instance of racial profiling. “He’ll be forever stigmatized by the charges, like, you know, regardless of whether they’re stayed or not,” he notes.

Those alleged to be involved in the plot all attended a camp north of Toronto before their arrests. Officials had claimed it was conducting training for terrorists. But those who went there counter it was just what it seemed – a facility designed to “identify people of skill, physical and spiritual,” and not conduct any kind of nefarious activities.

“My client went to a winter camp for five days with some of his friends, and for that his life has been irrevocably changed into a Kafkaesque nightmare,” complains Raymond Motee, the lawyer for Aboud.

“As far as I’m concerned … there should be some form of inquiry as to why it was this gentleman spent such a period of time in custody and spent it in the fashion that he did,” demands Anser Farooq, Jamal’s advocate.

Eleven people still remain accused of plotting the terrible deeds, which allegedly included storming the Parliament Buildings, kidnapping MPs and even beheading the Prime Minister.

Thankfully, any such plan – if it existed – was discovered before it could happen and the legal proceedings of those involved have plodded slowly through the courts under veils of extreme secrecy ever since.

“I believe, and this is my own personal opinion, that … there’s been a political agenda,” charges Motee. “This is Canada’s way of showing that we’re fighting the war on terror.”

Galati agrees and gets even more contentious. “I think a lot of western prosecutions on alleged terrorism charges are simply horse and pony shows in furtherance of George Bush’s oil war and to sustain Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan.”

The trial for the remaining young offender will begin next month, while the rest of the suspects will likely get their day in court sometime next year.

Global Hunger, Corporate Greed

Sigh! so many problems in this world…May God help the People, amin.

Global Hunger, Corporate Greed:

When will enough be enough?

By Debnath Guharoy

15/04/08 ” Jakarta Post ” — – Media around the world are currently feeding off the increasing price of food everywhere. The World Bank chief has joined in with the prediction that starvation is a distinct possibility for many of the weaker nations, leading to political turmoil.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) chief says only 14 percent of available water is used in Asia, 2 percent in Africa, with the rest flowing into the oceans each year. If this is the sorry state of affairs, what do our political leaders and their henchmen do at the office every day?

The instinctive urge to shoot the messenger is of course misdirected energy. But when you put the disparate pieces of our puzzling world on the table, the emerging picture is embarrassing indeed.

A kilogram of rice costs more than US$1 and a barrel of oil costs over $100. One influences the other. The subprime loan crisis will cost more than $1 trillion and the Iraq war will cost the United States alone as much as $3 trillion.

Different problem, same instinct. Many pundits will argue none of this has any connection to global hunger, as if these colossal costs aren’t real and do not affect the common man.

It is all too easy to throw stones at our politicians and bureaucrats. But those of us in business would do well to spend a minute pondering the glass houses we go to work in.

The altar of the shareholder has become the convenient excuse for inexcusable conduct. The voracious appetite for dividends and stock prices has allowed CEOs to hold boards and investors alike to ransom.

Systemic deception has become acceptable culture in too many boardrooms, with nothing more than a wink and a nod required down the chain of command. When it gets to a point that an accountant is unable to explain complex new financial instruments and their equally befuddling acronyms, disaster cannot be far away.

Not even a decade ago, the Internet bubble exploded with disastrous consequences, ripples felt around the globe. Everybody who then believed the lessons were learned have been proven wrong not even a decade later. For every errant CEO who has gone to jail, there are hundreds who have made millions in severance pay alone. Regulators and lawmakers appear not to be troubled.

It seems as if the profit motive is no longer an adequate driver of business today. Unbridled greed has taken over, a global corporate culture spreading like a cancer unchecked.

Anybody who would like to believe Indonesia has yet to be tainted by this malaise could ask a simple question as a test. How many people have a cellular phone connection? A simple answer, a number that resembles the truth, should not be too much to expect. But you are unlikely to get one.

You are more than likely to be told that it all depends on “terminology” or “definitions”. Forty million. Sixty million. Eighty million. One hundred million subscribers. These numbers have all been quoted in this newspaper in the last 60 days. They cannot all be right; only one comes close to the truth. Similar mysteries abound in other industries.

On the other hand, does anybody want to know that at least 60 million SIM cards will be thrown away this year? It’s not a number you will find rolling off an industry analyst’s lips.

That’s apparently because that kind of talk doesn’t build investor confidence. As if shareholders, investors, bankers and financial advisers were incapable of handling the truth.

Regardless of the rising price of rice, the Indonesian people seem constantly divided in a 40:60 ratio, the “haves” and “have-nots”. At any point in time, only about 40 percent “feel financially stable”, or think it’s a “good time to buy major appliances”, or have not “cut down their spending recently”, or believe that “the Indonesian economy appears to be improving”.

For the remaining 60 percent the everyday struggle to put food on the plate gets occasionally even harder, as when the price of fuel jumps up. For the overwhelming majority, having to choose between a 4 kg bag of rice or a cell phone is an easy decision.

Yet many industry analysts and bankers have difficulty coming to the same conclusion.

These observations are based on Roy Morgan Single Source, the country’s largest syndicated survey with over 27,000 Indonesian respondents annually, projected to reflect almost 90 percent of the population over the age of 14. The results are updated every 90 days. The opinions expressed are my own.

The silent majority have little ability to improve their lot all by themselves. As corporate citizens and fellow humans, working with the truth should be a basic prerequisite.

There is plenty of opportunity in Asia and in Indonesia, if effort and monies are directed appropriately. What is unfortunately in oversupply is greed, fostered too often with the need to distort the truth.

The writer can be contacted at debnath.guharoy@roymorgan.com

Source

Did Ahmadinejad Realy Deny the Holocaust?

Watch this interview by MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, and then decide.

Source: U.S. Strike on Iran Nearing

Hmm! so they are thinking of attacking Iran? On basis of what?

1-Vague evidence that Iran is helping spread more chaos in Iraq? Who is telling us that? The same people who told us that Iraq has “weapons of mass destruction”?

2-The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is thinking of “wiping Israel off the face of the planet”? But his words are taken totally out of context here. Check this video out.

Make sure to check the links in “About the video” section if you have some time on your hands. Don’t buy into propoganda by the mainstream media. Do your research.

By: Jim Meyers

15/04/08 “Newsmax.” — – Contrary to some claims that the Bush administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America’s Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table – but likely.

Israel is preparing for heavy casualties,” the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.

“Look at Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East as preparation for the U.S. attack,” the source said.

Source

Please click on Source to read the full article.