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Xinhua
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:00 EST
© Xinhua/Reuters Photo
The Spanish tuna fishing boat Alakrana sails near a Spanish warship in the Indian ocean after it was freed from Somali pirates.
Somali pirates on Tuesday released a Spanish trawler with 36 crew on broad after receiving more than three million U.S. dollars in ransom, a pirate commander said.
"The crew and the ship were released after our demands were met. They paid more than three million U.S. dollars for the freedom of the fishermen and their fishing boat who were caught looting our resources," Omar Ali, a pirate commander with the gang holding the released Spanish trawler told Xinhua by phone from Harardheere, a pirate stronghold in north central Somalia.
The Spanish fishing ship, the
Alakrana, had been seized early last month off Somalia coast by Somali pirates who demanded the payment of a ransom and the release of detained pirates in Spain.
During the holding of the
Alakrana, Somali pirates have threatened to harm the hostages if their colleagues currently on trial in Spanish courts were not released, a move that triggered a wave of protests in Spain demanding the Spanish government to help secure the release of the hostages.
Xinhua
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:00 EST
Armed Somali pirates have hijacked a chemical tanker with 28 North Koreans on board in the latest attacks along the world's most dangerous waters, a regional maritime official said on Tuesday.
Andrew Mwangura, the coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said Kiribati flagged-MV Theresa VIII was seized on Monday 618 nautical miles North West of the Seychelles on its way to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
"She was taken on Monday at 1053 hrs some 618 nautical miles north west of Seychelles. All 28 crew members on board are North Korean nationals. The vessel is Bulgarian owned," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
He said the Singaporean-operated chemical tanker was seized in the south of the Horn of African nation which has been without an effective central government for more than two decades.
Toni O'Loughlin
Guardian.co.uk
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:05 EST
© Unknown
Church of Scientology in Melbourne
The Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has said he would consider an inquiry into the Church of Scientology after a senator tabled allegations against the organisation including forced abortions, assault, torture, imprisonment, covering up sexual abuse, embezzlement of church funds and blackmail.
Senator Nick Xenophon tabled letters from former officials and staff of the Church of Scientology alleging criminal activity, and demanded a review of the organisation's tax exempt status.
"Scientology is not a religious organisation, it is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs," he told the senate.
Among the letters tabled was one written by Aaron Saxton, from Perth, who said he engaged in torture and blackmail while working for the church in Australia and at its American headquarters between 1989 and 1996.
Gul Rahmi Niazmand
Telegraph.co.uk
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:25 EST
War-weary villagers in northern Afghanistan are taking up arms against insurgents, sick of having the Taliban encroach on their once-peaceful patch of the country.
In villages across Kunduz province, where a misdirected Nato air strike killed 90 civilians in September, tribal elders say that they have had enough of being caught in the middle of an escalating war.
So they are grabbing their guns, forming their own armies and getting rid of the Taliban insurgents who took control of their region.
"We were fed up with the Taliban," Abdul Jalil Tawakal, a tribal elder from Qala-i-Zal district said.
He and other local leaders have formed a militia with one aim: to get rid of the Taliban and the Nato forces that have been battling them for months.
"Both the Taliban and international forces were killing us, this was too much. So we picked up our guns and forced the Taliban out of our village," he said. "Now we are living a peaceful life."
The area came to the Taliban's attention with the opening earlier this year of a supply route for US and Nato troops funnelling fuel and other materiel from Tajikistan over the border to military bases in Afghanistan.
Fidel Castro
OpEdNews
Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:35 EST
Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened 'Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States' signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States.
The agreement puts theoreticians and politicians in a predicament. It wouldn't be honest to keep silence now and speak later on sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire as easy as lizards catch flies. This is the Colombian people; a self-sacrificing, industrious and combative people. I looked up in the hefty document for a digestible justification and I found none whatsoever.
Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
The News
Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:49 EST
Pulitzer prize winning American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed that an elite US special forces squad which operates covertly and includes terrorism and non-proliferation experts from the US intelligence community - the Pentagon, the FBI, and the DOE - is already present in Pakistan and could well be housed in the US embassy in Islamabad.
The startling disclosure was made in Hersh's candid interview with Pakistan's most popular TV channel Geo News' widely viewed current affairs programme Meray Mutabiq, hosted by Dr Shahid Masood. The programme was aired on Saturday late evening.
Seymour Hersh said that the Americans had been constituting such crack teams for various purposes and the team in question here was to deal with any eventuality including any fear of takeover by Taliban or any other 'development' with regard to Pakistani nukes.
Michael Evans
The Times
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:22 EST
© Reuters
British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with "bags of gold", according to a new army field manual published yesterday.
Army commanders should also talk to insurgent leaders with "blood on their hands" in order to hasten the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.
The edicts, which are contained in rewritten counter-insurgency guidelines, will be taught to all new army officers. They mark a strategic rethink after three years in which British and Nato forces have failed to defeat the Taleban. The manual is also a recognition that the Army's previous doctrine for success against insurgents, which was based on the experience in Northern Ireland, is now out of date.
José Adán Silva
IPS News
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:08 EST
Managua- Gender-based violence and sexual abuse are serious public security problems in Central America, and Nicaragua is no exception, according to reports by United Nations agencies and women's organizations.
The Central American Human Development Report 2009-2010, released on October 20 by the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, says violence against women, adolescents and children is the "hidden" and "most invisible face" of public insecurity in the region.
According to the study, entitled "Opening Spaces for Citizen Security and Human Development", two out of three women murdered in Central America are killed for gender-related reasons, a phenomenon that is known as femicide.
Zofeen Ebrahim
IPS News
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:48 EST
© Credit:Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
A bowl of curry and two rotis (unleavened wheat bread) in this child’s should tide him over to the next meal.
Karachi - Until meager resources began dwindling to almost nothing, 43-year-old Firdaus Begum had not ventured into the Khana Ghar (Food House), which serves up inexpensive but filling meals.
Not too long ago, she finally stepped into the 'tandoor' (clay oven where unleavened wheat bread is baked) restaurant and bought meals priced so low they are practically giveaways. She could not have been more grateful to Perween Saeed for her soup kitchen - where food is offered at a very low price.
Saeed - a small, energetic woman now approaching her 50s - has been running her first 'tandoor' center in Taiser Town's Khuda Ki Basti-3, located some 30 kilometers from the center of Karachi, for the past six years. She offers meals comprising a bowl or plate of curry or vegetables - depending on what is on the menu on any given day - and two 'rotis' (unleavened wheat bread). All these for the price of three Pakistani rupees (less than one U.S. cent).
Press TV
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:48 EST
© Unknown
Protestors shout slogans during a rally against the visit of Israel's President Shimon Peres to Argentina outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, November 16, 2009.
Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered in the square opposite the Argentinean parliament in Buenos Aires to protest President Shimon Peres' visit to Argentina.
"It's a disgrace that the president of our country is meeting today with the child-murderer, Shimon Peres... There are thousands of people who came here today to protest against the hospitality shown to a representative of an occupying and oppressive government," one of the protestors said.
The protestors carried pictures and placards glorifying Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The signs read "Get out of Argentina, murderer Shimon Peres", while others said "Death to Zionist-fascist Israel, officer of American imperialism in the Middle East, murderers of the Palestinian people!" the signs also included pictures of Palestinian children killed during Israel's Operation Cast Lead at the beginning of the year.
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