News
Daily Update
THE AMERICAS
General security, policy
1. Iran in new oil money move to dodge sanctions
Agence France-Presse 10 August 2008
Iran's government has ordered the state oil company to deposit oil revenues only in selected banks in a bid to dodge toughening sanctions over its nuclear drive, local media reported on Saturday. The state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had been free to choose where to deposit the tens of billions of dollars Iran receives annually in earnings from its crude oil exports. But a new government directive said the NIOC could now deposit the foreign currency only in foreign banks previously selected by the central bank. "NIOC is from now on obliged to deposit 100 percent of crude oil export income in foreign bank accounts that are chosen by the Central Bank of Iran," state television quoted the new government directive as saying. The order did not say on which criteria the foreign banks would be selected. But EU governments have pressured European financial institutions to cut their business with Iran as a way of pressuring the Islamic republic in the standoff over its controversial nuclear programme….
2. Bin Laden Driver Gets 5 ½ ; U.S. Sought 30
By Jerry Markon and Josh White Washington Post Friday, August 8, 2008; A01
IPT NOTE: See related item #34 below, http://tinyurl.com/675dw7
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 7 -- A former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced by a military jury Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for supporting terrorism, a far shorter term than demanded by government prosecutors. The judge gave Salim Ahmed Hamdan credit for five years and one month of his pretrial incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, making him eligible for release from custody in five months. The sentence was a stunning rebuke to prosecutors who had insisted on a prison term of at least 30 years and portrayed Hamdan throughout the trial as a hardened al-Qaeda warrior. The jury of six military officers convicted him Wednesday of supporting al-Qaeda by driving and guarding bin Laden and ferrying weapons for the terror group, but he was acquitted of terror conspiracy. Hamdan's trial by the first U.S. military commission since World War II was viewed as a test case of a system that the administration has been pushing, despite fierce opposition and repeated delays, since just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The result -- a mixed verdict and an extraordinarily light sentence -- could raise questions about the administration's strategy of taking high-profile terrorism trials out of civilian courts and bringing them before the military. The jury's decision could also be used by the administration, however, to counter allegations that the tribunals are unfair because the rules give great latitude to prosecutors…
Hamdan case sets stage for bigger trials at Guantanamo
The partial conviction may give the tribunal system a credibility boost and help the White House reach its goal: trial by year's end for accused Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
By David G. Savage Los Angeles Times August 8, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ksm8-2008aug08,0,35...
WASHINGTON — From the start, the military trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan had the makings of a mock trial, an exercise in testing the system… But this week's verdict -- a partial conviction and a light sentence -- may inject some much needed credibility into the administration's heavily criticized system of military commissions. Such a boost could help the White House reach an even more important goal: trials by year's end for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who are accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks or of leading Al Qaeda…
3. Lawyers for Guantanamo inmate sue Canadian PM
Fri Aug 8, 2008 5:49pm EDT By David Ljunggren
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0835659120080808
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Lawyers for a young Canadian man imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay filed a lawsuit on Friday against Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a bid to force him to intercede with Washington on the inmate's behalf. Harper has so far refused to ask the United States to repatriate 21-year-old Omar Khadr, who is due to go on trial in October on charges of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in July 2002, when he was 15. Critics say Khadr was a child soldier and should be helped rather than punished. Harper, whose right-wing Conservatives won power in January 2006 on a law-and-order platform, says the man is facing serious charges. The suit wants Canada's Federal Court to order Harper to intervene before the U.S. military trial starts...
4. Chinese spy sentenced to 15 yrs in US prison
Agence France Press August 8, 2008
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvC_2vvM3Sai8R4vizGcXa6TF3Kg
IPT NOTE: The government press release is posted at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/08-nsd-701.html
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A Taiwan-born American who admitted spying for China was given more than 15 years in prison, the US Justice Department said Friday. Tai Shen Kuo, 58, of New Orleans, Louisiana, was sentenced by federal court in Virginia to 188 months in prison, and required to forfeit 40,000 dollars, after he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to deliver US military information to China. Kuo was charged as a part of a small ring that included a Chinese woman, Yu Xin Kang, and former Pentagon analyst Gregg Bergersen, that obtained secret information mainly on US military sales to Taiwan and US military communications security and sought to provide the information to Beijing. The three were arrested earlier this year in the case, which spanned from March 2007 to February 2008, when the three were arrested. Yu Xin Kang, the intermediary between Kuo and Bergersen, pleaded guilty to charges of aiding an undeclared foreign government agent and was sentenced on August 1 to 18 months in prison. Bergersen, a security and defense weapons systems analyst for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements the Pentagon's foreign military sales program, was sentenced to more than five years in jail last month for handing secret military documents to Kuo…
New Orleans Man Sentenced to More Than 15 Years in Prison for Espionage Involving China
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, August 8, 2008
NSD (202) 514-2007 TDD (202) 514-1888
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/August/08-nsd-701.html
5. Defence attorneys to visit TT and Guyana
Friday, August 8 2008 Newsday (Trinidad & Tobago)
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,83974.html
Defence attorneys for the four men accused of plotting to blow up fuel lines at the John F Kennedy Airport, will soon be travelling to Trinindad and Guyana, to conduct their own investigations into the allegations levelled against their clients. It was not until 12.08 pm that Russel De Freitas, Kareem Ibrahim, Abdul Kadir, and Abdel Nur, stood before United States Federal Court Judge Dora Irizarry… During the routine hearing which lasted just under an hour, Nur’s attorney Daniel Nobel, told the Judge that, some of the alleged activities occurred in Guyana and Trinidad, and defence counsel may have to travel to those countries to conduct investigations. “Your honour some of these conversations attributed to the accused allegedly occurred in Trinidad and Guyana. If there is a procedure for request for defence counsel to take up investigations at these locations we should put them in place.” Justice Irizarry promptly replied, “I have been thinking about that; this is an unusual case and because of the complex circumstances, maybe there should be a case budgeting plan which can be set up ahead of time. The court will keep track of it, but not in a way to hinder the defence.” Another critical issue which arose at the hearing, was Ibrahim’s refusal to take food… The men are being kept at the Metropolitan Detention Center,on 29th Street, 3rd Avenue Brooklyn. Ibrahim, Kadir, Nur,and De Freitas, are charged with; conspiracy to attack a public transportation system; conspiracy to destroy a building with fire and explosives, conspiracy to attack an aircraft, and aircraft materials, conspiracy to destroy an international airport, specifically JFK; and conspiracy to attack a mass transportation facility. Kadir was additionally charged with the unlawful surveillance of a transportation facility…
6. 170 Americans Evacuated From Republic Of Georgia
Georgian President: Russian Troops Have Cut Country In Half
Associated Press
POSTED: 2:21 am EDT August 11, 2008 UPDATED: 2:05 pm EDT August 11, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia -- The State Department said it has evacuated more than 170 U.S. citizens from Georgia as the conflict over separatist areas there intensifies between Georgia and Russia. A spokesman said Monday that two convoys carrying about 170 private U.S. citizens along with an undetermined number of family members of American diplomats based in Georgia have left Tbilisi on their way by road to neighboring Armenia. The spokesman said more convoys were being prepared in case other Americans choose to leave Georgia. On Saturday, the State Department said it would pay for the dependents of U.S. diplomats to leave Georgia if they wanted. In addition, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Russian troops have effectively cut the country in half...
7. Plot a 'delusion,' youth not involved: lawyer
Toronto-18 Trial
Melissa Leong National Post Friday, August 08, 2008
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=707707
BRAMPTON, ONT. - A 20-year-old convert to Islam was unaware of an alleged nefarious plot to "cripple Canada" even though the scheme was nothing more than an unrealistic "delusion," a court heard yesterday. Mitchell Chernovsky, who is defending a suspected terrorist before court, said his client could not have agreed to the alleged conspiracy because the plan was a fantasy "with zero probability."… The young man on trial, who was underage at the time of his alleged crimes and cannot be named, is accused of attending two terrorist training camps and stealing camping supplies for the group. A publication ban also prevents the identification of his 10 co-accused. They were among 18 people arrested in the summer of 2006 after Canada's largest anti-terror investigation. Seven individuals have since had their charges stayed... Mr. Chernovsky targeted the "linchpin" in the Crown's case: Mubin Shaikh, the police agent who infiltrated the alleged terrorist group…
Judge reserves decision in first trial of alleged homegrown terrorist plot
The Canadian Press August 9, 2008
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/080808/n080866A.html
BRAMPTON, Ont. — The fate of the first person tried in an alleged homegrown terrorist conspiracy to "cripple Canada" that captured headlines around the world two years ago rested with an Ontario judge Friday as his trial ended with the defence pressing for his acquittal. Superior Court Justice John Sproat was left to decide between defence suggestions the plot was a "jihadi fantasy" the accused knew nothing about, and Crown assertions he was a knowledgeable and willing participant in a potentially deadly conspiracy…
8. Suskind to Release CIA Interview Transcripts on 'Forged' Document
By Jeff Stein | August 7, 2008 7:18 PM Spy Talk
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/08/suskind-to-release-cia-inter...
IPT NOTE: See http://www.ronsuskind.com/thewayoftheworld/ for the transcript.
Author Ron Suskind says he will release transcripts of his interviews with a top CIA official that will confirm his story that in 2003 the White House ordered the agency to fabricate a phony document linking Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The letter, written by an Iraqi intelligence official under the control of the CIA, according to Suskind, was concocted to mislead the public into believing that Saddam Hussein conspired with Osama Bin Laden in the attacks, and had gotten uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons, thus justifying the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Then-CIA Director George Tenet directed agency officials to carry out the subterfuge under orders from the White House, Suskind writes in a new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. One of the CIA officials involved, Robert Richer, the agency's then-deputy director of clandestine operations, issued a statement this week denying Suskind's allegations...
9. Spying risks Maryland police funds
Federal rules of '70s eyed
Tom LoBianco Friday, August 8, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/08/spying-risks-police-fund...
As much as $4.5 million in federal funding for the Maryland State Police would be at risk if an ongoing investigation reveals that its use of a criminal database to track peaceful activists violated federal rules. The undercover infiltration of the protest groups appears legal under state law, legal analysts said. But entering a Baltimore activist's name in the drug-trafficking and terror suspect database without apparent justification could violate 1970s-era regulations stemming from revelations of domestic spying by national intelligence agencies. It also could breach Maryland privacy laws. State Sen. Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, has set a hearing for Sept. 16 on the scandal. If the covert operation, including the infiltration of peaceful groups, did not violate state law, Mr. Frosh told The Washington Times Thursday, he expects legislation to ban the practices would be introduced…
10. Police out in force after night of violence
LES PERREAUX Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press August 11, 2008 at 12:29 PM EDT
MONTREAL — Dozens of police officers were patrolling a Montreal neighbourhood Monday morning after an overnight rampage that erupted following the shooting of a young man by police. Officers went through the burned out north neighbourhood, questioning residents and collecting evidence at several crime scenes. The husks of six burned out cars sat in front of the local fire station, which was closed, while dozens of people watched from the sidewalk or their apartment balconies… Community leaders in Montreal North said many people in local immigrant communities have been angry at heavy-handed police tactics for quite some time. Propane tank fireballs, Molotov cocktails and gunfire lit up a Montreal neighbourhood as marauding youth gangs responded to the police shooting… The rioters then set dozens of fires in the streets and pelted fire trucks with bottles when firefighters arrived to put them out… Witnesses in the neighbourhood, known among some officers as “The Bronx” because of its gang activity and crime, tried to fill in the gaps with their own accounts…
Air, rail, port, health & communication infrastructure security
IPT NOTE: For more infrastructure news, see Dep’t of Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Reports http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/programs/editorial_0542.shtm; Public Safety Canada Daily Infrastructure Report http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/dir/index-eng.aspx
11. Residents survey fire damage
August 11, 2008 Toronto Star Bill Taylor, Feature Writer
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/476140
Northwest Toronto is picking itself up and dusting itself off after yesterday’s massive propane explosion turned the area around Wilson Ave. and Keele St. into a wasteland… With some parts of the 1.6-kilometre evacuation area around the devastated Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases distribution plant still closed, mainly because of asbestos pollution, residents and business people are trying to get their lives back on track. Many say they don’t have insurance to pay for the damage. A series of blasts just before 4 a.m. yesterday flung bright orange fireballs into the air and sent about 12,000 residents, many of them elderly, fleeing from their homes, most still in their night clothes…
12. DHS, Rejecting Advice, Puts Mississippi on Shortlist for Facility
By Larry Margasak Associated Press Monday, August 11, 2008; A05
The Department of Homeland Security swept aside evaluations by government experts and named Mississippi -- home to powerful U.S. lawmakers with sway over the agency -- as a potential location for a $451 million national laboratory to study some of the world's most virulent biological threats, according to internal documents obtained by the Associated Press. Among the sites passed over for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility was Beltsville, Md., even though it scored better on Homeland Security's evaluation system than the Mississippi site. The department said there were too many skilled researchers near Beltsville, and the agency worried about competing to hire them... Instead, the DHS shortlist of locations for the lab includes Granville County, N.C.; San Antonio; Manhattan, Kan.; Athens, Ga.; and Flora, Miss. It is the inclusion of Flora on that list that one official for a rival bid, Irwin Goldman of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, called "very suspicious." Mississippi's lawmakers include Rep. Bennie Thompson (D), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees DHS, and Sen. Thad Cochran, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee that oversees DHS money. Each said he was not aware of the department's deliberations about the lab location…
13. San Francisco Case Shows Vulnerability Of Data Networks
Arrest Spurs Other Cities to Boost Security
By Ashley Surdin Washington Post Monday, August 11, 2008; A03
LOS ANGELES -- San Francisco is being forced to overhaul security measures on the computer network that controls data for its police, courts, jails, payroll and health services, as well as other crucial information, after the technology administrator entrusted with the system blocked access for everyone but himself last month and for days refused to reveal the password, even from jail. Terry Childs, 43, was arrested July 13 at his suburban home, where police found $10,000 in cash, diagrams of the city-county computer network, a co-worker's access card, a loaded 9mm magazine and several loose .45-caliber rounds. Under the user name Maggot617, he hijacked the system and refused to turn over passwords for the network, which superiors belatedly discovered only he controlled. The standoff ended July 21 when Childs relinquished the passwords to Mayor Gavin Newsom in his jail cell. "I don't want to make it sound hopeless," but "when I go around and give talks, it seems like people don't really understand their risk of being the victim of insider sabotage," said Dawn Cappelli, a specialist in insider threats with CERT, the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute's Computer Emergency Response Team, which studies security vulnerabilities. "If you have IT, then it can happen to you."…
14. TSA weighs airport gun ban in unsecured areas
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY August 8, 2008
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-08-07-tsa-gun-ban_N.htm
WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration may allow airports to ban firearms from terminals, parking lots, roads and other airport areas where many states currently allow passengers to carry lethal weapons. Airport officials and lawmakers are watching closely as the TSA weighs a request by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to modify its security program to impose an airportwide ban on guns. It is the first such request to TSA from an airport. "Any decisions we make that affect (Atlanta) could affect every other airport in the country," TSA spokesman Christopher White said Thursday. Federal law bars passengers from bringing weapons to or past airport checkpoints. But in many airports, state law allows passengers to carry guns and knives in unsecured areas such as a main terminal — often to airport officials' dismay…
15. Former prosecutor: UFO hack looked like terrorist attack
Investigative resources diverted in crucial weeks, months after Sept. 11
Sharon Gaudin August 7, 2008 (Computerworld)
After the computer network at the Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey was breached and crashed just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, investigators thought it might be part of a larger al-Qaeda plot against the United States. Investigators worked around the clock to figure out who had been in and out of the system that runs the weapons station for about five months, stealing passwords, installing remote access software, deleting data and ultimately shutting down the network of 300 computers for an entire week. That weeklong shutdown meant that for that period of time -- in the aftermath of attacks on the U.S. -- the station couldn't do its job of replenishing munitions and supplies to the Atlantic fleet... After throwing critical resources at the probe when the government was already investigating not only the 9/11 attacks but the anthrax killings, investigators didn't track the breach to al-Qaeda. They tracked it to an unemployed system administrator in the U.K. -- Gary McKinnon, who was subsequently charged with hacking into 92 computer systems at the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense and NASA. It has been seven years since the break-ins and about six since the charges were leveled against McKinnon, 42, of London, Since then, he has been fighting extradition to the U.S., but just last week the highest British court dismissed his latest appeal against the extradition. McKinnon, who has said he broke into U.S. military computers hoping to uncover evidence of UFOs, plans to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights. According to his attorney, Karen Todner, it's the last appeal he can file…
Financing, identity theft, money laundering
16. Judge Postpones Al-Arian Contempt Trial
IPT News August 8, 2008
http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/747
In a heated pre-trial hearing before the Eastern District of Virginia today, federal Judge Leonie Brinkema postponed the criminal contempt trial of admitted terrorist-supporter Sami Al-Arian until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a separate appeal. The appeal, filed July 30, challenges the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Al-Arian's 2006 plea agreement did not grant him the right to refuse to testify before a grand jury investigating terror financing by a Virginia-based think tank. Al-Arian was charged in 2003 with conspiring to provide material support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated terrorist group. Jurors acquitted Al-Arian on eight of the 17 counts against him but deadlocked on the others, including racketeering and conspiracy. In April 2006, Al-Arian agreed to plead guilty to one of those hung counts – conspiracy to provide goods and services to a terrorist group. Al-Arian has argued that his plea agreement ruled out any cooperation with the government and has repeatedly refused to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the International Institute of Islamic Thought despite a grant of immunity and repeated court orders. That led to a two-count criminal contempt indictment in June. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his argument about the plea deal when Al-Arian was found in civil contempt, and the Supreme Court, in April 2007, declined to hear his appeal of the 4th Circuit's ruling. The 11th Circuit issued a similar opinion in January which led to the Supreme Court appeal filed last month.
Border security, immigration, customs
17. Bomb report closes Peace Arch
Border crossing shut down for hours
Monday, August 11, 2008 By HECTOR CASTRO Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/374442_border11.html
The U.S.-Canada border at the Peace Arch in Blaine was closed both ways Sunday night after reports by Canadian authorities that a bomb had been left there. Canadian customs officials shut down their side of the border about 8:30 p.m. when they discovered an explosive device in a suitcase. Their American counterparts quickly followed suit and began redirecting traffic to other border crossings, the U.S. Border Patrol reported. Mike Milne, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said agents with the Canadian Border Services Agency found something that is believed to be an explosive. "In the interest of safety, the Canadian Border Services Agency has shut down southbound traffic coming to us at the Peace Arch," Milne said. Paula Shore, spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency, says a Canadian border officer found the package on a person entering Canada. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police bomb squad was called in. Details about the person were not immediately available, and it was not immediately known how long the crossing would be closed…
18. Violent South American Jewel Thieves May Be Hitting Smaller U.S. Cities
By Kari Lydersen Washington Post Monday, August 11, 2008; A05
The FBI is investigating whether a violent, well-organized ring of South American jewelry thieves is expanding its operations away from large metropolitan areas such as New York, Miami, Houston and Chicago and hitting targets in smaller cities in the South. In one incident in Little Rock, diamond merchant Faramarz Hakimian, 48, of New York had just pulled into the parking lot of an upscale strip mall July 29 when two masked men jumped out of a black Chevrolet behind him, smashed his car windows, pulled a gun and told him to lie down on the seat. The assailants took his keys and stole a satchel with half a million dollars' worth of jewelry from the car's back seat, all in broad daylight in front of witnesses at the jewelry shop that Hakimian had come to visit. Arkansas police and FBI agents say the attack may be related to similar robberies of jewelry salesmen in Pine Bluff, Ark., on June 26 and in Nashville on June 24… Between April 22 and May 15 in Houston, at least $3.5 million worth of jewelry was stolen in six robberies, which the FBI considers related and linked to the South American ring. On May 14, a jewelry merchant was robbed at a gas station. Despite massive media and law enforcement attention, the next day another salesman was pistol-whipped and robbed in a Waffle House where he had stopped for lunch. "They literally charged into the Waffle House store in broad daylight," said Shauna Dunlap, a Houston FBI special agent. "We were surprised at their brazenness and the level of violence."… The FBI's Web site says "South American Theft Groups," made up largely of Colombians, started burglarizing hotels and cars during jewelry trade shows in the early 1980s and have moved on to sophisticated surveillance and violent attacks against jewelry salesmen in more recent years...
19. MS-13 Killer Gets 40 Year Sentence
By Jonathan Dienst WNBC-TV (NY) POSTED: 1:15 pm EDT August 11, 2008
http://www.wnbc.com/news/17159117/detail.html
NEW YORK -- An MS-13 gang leader from Long Island was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday after admitting to killing a man he wrongly thought was in a rival gang. Johnny Rodas, who goes by the street name "Arana", admitted he fired three times at another man who he mistakenly thought belonged to the "Salvadorans With Pride" or SWP gang… MS-13 is currently Long Island's largest street gang. It is a violent international group whose members are often from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Long Island alone has seen 50 members convicted in the past three years in connection with federal felony charges, including murder conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
20. Self-Deportation Has Few Takers
Program Reflects Problems in Immigration Enforcement Efforts, Experts Say
By Spencer S. Hsu and Kari Lydersen Washington Post Sunday, August 10, 2008; A02
CHARLOTTE -- With a fanfare of news conferences and Spanish-language television and newspaper ads, U.S. authorities last week started giving 457,000 illegal immigrants a chance to turn themselves in without the usual threat of arrest and detention. Three accepted. The cold reception given to the rollout of the three-week pilot self-deportation program, called Scheduled Departure, presents an apt metaphor for the state of relations between U.S. enforcement officials and immigrant advocates in the year since Congress killed President Bush's proposed overhaul. Since lawmakers rejected Bush's plan to combine tougher enforcement with a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and more guest workers for industry, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have stepped up raids at workplaces, in neighborhoods and in homes...
Other items
21. Accused killers make court appearance
By: Louie Rosella August 11, 2008 12:12 PM - Mississauga News (Ontario)
http://mississauga.com/article/17539
The father and brother of a 16-year-old Mississauga girl, who are each charged with killing her, will make brief appearances Thursday in a Brampton court. Waqas Parvez, 27, and Muhammad Parvez, 57, will be remanded in custody and a new court date will be set, likely for the fall, with the preliminary hearing for both men to begin Dec. 17. The hearing, which will determine if Peel's Crown Attorney has enough evidence to warrant a trial, is expected to last several weeks. Each man is charged with first-degree murder in the death last December of Aqsa Parvez, a Grade 11 student at Applewood Heights Secondary School. The father was initially facing a charge of second-degree murder in the death of his daughter, but Peel Regional Police and the Crown decided earlier this summer to upgrade the charge. The brother was initially charged with obstructing justice. But Peel police laid the more serious charge last month after receiving further information from family members… Friends of the slain teen said she feared for her life and had been threatened by family members over a religious dispute in the weeks prior to her death.
22. Terrorist's wife pens memoir
By MICHELLE THOMPSON, SUN MEDIA Edmonton Sun August 8, 2008
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2008/08/08/6383446-sun.html
The ex-wife of an Edmonton man who once took hostages in a Canadian Embassy over a child-custody fight tells her own tale of terror at the hands of Mohammed "Eddy" Haymour. "Right from the very beginning, it was beatings," Loreen Janzen told Sun Media. "(It was) very, very scary." Janzen, who now lives in Athabasca, shares her story in Married to a Terrorist, a memoir being promoted this weekend in Edmonton. Haymour - who moved to Lebanon after spending time in a B.C. mental institution - gained international notoriety after he took hostages in the Canadian Embassy in Beirut in 1976…
23. Tyson plant adds Muslim holiday, keeps Labor Day
By ROSE FRENCH – Associated Press August 9, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ip3uRL8zfYxRfVMD2E2NVailI41gD92EBGQ00
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Union workers and officials at a Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee said Friday they have agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday, and the plant will also observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr this year. Tyson had previously agreed to drop Labor Day and substitute the Muslim holiday as part of a new 5-year contract to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant in Shelbyville, which is about 50 miles south of Nashville. The decision sparked widespread criticism, from local politicians to talk radio to the Internet. The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it requested reinstating Labor Day after complaints from plant workers and the public. Union members voted Thursday to reinstate Labor Day as one of the plant's paid holidays and keep Eid al-Fitr as an additional paid holiday for this year only. For the remainder of the contract, workers will have Labor Day and a personal holiday, which can be used to observe Eid al-Fitr or another day the employee's supervisor approves. Union officials have said at least a couple hundred of the 1,200 plant workers are Muslim...
MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
24. US Navy: Pirate attack stopped in Gulf of Aden
The Associated Press Friday, August 8, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/08/africa/ME-US-Navy-Pirates.php
MANAMA, Bahrain: The U.S. Navy says it has stopped a pirate attack on a merchant vessel north of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden. The Navy says the USS Peleliu responded to a call for help from the Gem of Kilakari on Friday morning. The ship said it was under attack from armed pirates as it was traveling to the Suez Canal. The Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said in a statement that the USS Peleliu was about 10 miles (16 kilometers) away from the Gem of Kilakari when it received the distress call. The Navy says the suspected pirate ships fled the scene after the USS Peleliu launched three helicopters. The Navy says one grenade landed on the Gem of Kilakari's bridge wing but didn't explode, and no injuries were reported.
25. Slain Syrian aide supplied missiles to Hezbollah
Recently assassinated Muhammed Suleiman had been supplying anti-aircraft missiles to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah
From The Sunday Times (London) August 10, 2008 Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4493334.e...
A KEY aide to the Syrian president who was assassinated last weekend in mysterious circumstances had been supplying Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, with advanced Syrian SA-8 anti-aircraft missiles, according to Middle Eastern sources. Once operative, the mobile missiles will threaten the dominance of the Israeli air force over Lebanon. The assassinated aide, Brigadier-General Muhammad Suleiman, 49, was “more important than anyone else”, wrote the London-based Saudi paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat last week: “He was senior even to the defence minister. He knew everything.” He was killed by a single shot to the head as he sat in the garden of his summer house near the northern port city of Tartus. Nobody heard the shot, which appears to have been fired from a speedboat by a sniper, possibly equipped with a silencer. The expertise required to execute such a long-distance sniper murder has led suspicion to fall upon the Israelis… If Syria has passed Russian-made SA-8 mobile launchers to Hezbollah, the Shi’ite militia that came close to defeating the Israeli army two years ago, it is in possession of a potent weapon to defy Israeli air power...
ASIA / PACIFIC
26. Canadian troops help net drugs, weapons in operation in southern Afghanistan
Canadian Press August 8, 2008
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hi2S8-gRxBn9eYc1Q00vloW53N...
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Coalition troops have seized a large quantity of weapons, bomb-making materials and drugs during an ongoing operation in Maywand district west of Kandahar City, Canadian military officials said Friday. The joint operation, which has involved Afghan forces as well as U.S. and British troops, is aimed at disrupting insurgent activity in the area of Band-E-Timor. The area is considered a "logistical hub" that was feeding insurgent fighters, supplies and cash into both Helmand and Kandahar province. Military official said the latest operation is likely to have an effect on the Zhari and Panjwaii districts where much of the fighting between insurgents and Canadian troops is taking place...
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