Presidents, prime minsters, and top officials from nearly 50 countries mingled Monday on the threshold of President Barack Obama’s nuclear proliferation summit, the largest assembly a U.S. leader has hosted since the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.

Obama wants world leaders to confront the threat of nuclear arms falling into the hands of terrorists — a specter he labels "the single biggest threat to U.S. security." And he’s looking at the high-profile security forum here to help him reach his goal of ensuring that all nuclear materials worldwide are secured from theft or diversion within four years.

A few hours ahead of Obama’s official Monday afternoon welcome for the guests at a convention center here, he sat down for a series of meetings with international visitors, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

On the eve of the meeting, Obama said that nuclear materials in the hands of al-Qaida or another terrorist group "could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come."

At an unofficial parallel conference of more than 200 international nuclear experts, participants said too many around the world don’t share the concern that nuclear terrorism is an urgent threat.

"There is a great complacency among policy makers around the world that terrorist groups couldn’t make a nuclear bomb," said Matthew Bunn of Harvard.

Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy focused on his home region, where both Pakistan and India are building up their nuclear arsenals.

"Unfortunately, I do not see this concern either in Pakistan or India about nuclear terrorism," he said. "Both countries do not see the seriousness of this situation."

American nonproliferation expert Robert Gallucci told the conference he believes it’s "probable" over time that terrorists will detonate an atomic weapon in a city somewhere, not necessarily in the United States or Europe.

Clearly with Pakistan and India in mind, the former U.S. diplomat said, "Any country that has suffered serious terrorist attacks, foreign or domestic, needs to take this threat seriously."

Although sweeping or even bold new strategies were unlikely to emerge from the two-day gathering, the president declared himself pleased with what he heard in warm-up meetings Sunday with the leaders of Kazakhstan, South Africa, India, and Pakistan.

"I feel very good at this stage in the degree of commitment and a sense of urgency that I have seen from the world leaders so far on this issue," Obama said. "We think we can make enormous progress on this, and this then becomes part and parcel of the broader focus that we’ve had over the last several weeks."

He was referring to what had gone before this, the fourth leg of his campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The United States is the only country to use the weapons — two bombs dropped on Japan to force its surrender in World War II.

The high-flying ambition, which the president admits probably will not be reality in his lifetime, began a year ago in Prague when he laid out plans for significant nuclear reductions and a nuclear-weapons-free world.

In the meantime, he has approved a new nuclear policy for the United States, promising last week to reduce America’s nuclear arsenal, refrain from nuclear tests, and not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them. North Korea and Iran were not included in that pledge because they do not cooperate with other countries on nonproliferation standards.

That was Tuesday, and two days later, on the anniversary of the Prague speech, Obama flew back to the Czech Republic capital where he and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a new treaty that reduces each side’s deployed nuclear arsenal to 1,550 weapons. Medvedev also arrives Monday to sign a long-delayed agreement to dispose of tons of weapons-grade plutonium from Cold War-era nuclear weapons — the type of preventive action Obama wants the summit to inspire.

Throughout the two-day gathering, Iran will be a subtext as Obama works to gain support for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to shut down what the United States and many key allies assert is a nuclear weapons program. Iran says it only wants to build reactors to generate electricity.

In an interview on ABC’s "Good Morning America," Medvedev agreed that Iran’s nuclear program must be watched closely, but he said sanctions on the regime would have to be smart and effective because they often don’t work.

"They should not lead to humanitarian catastrophe, where the whole Iranian community would start to hate the whole world," the Russian president said.

He rejected the idea of imposing sanctions on Iran’s petroleum industry.

"I don’t think on that topic we have a chance to achieve a consolidated opinion of the global community," Medvedev said.

JERUSALEM — Court documents released Monday show that a former Israeli soldier admitted stealing classified military secrets to reveal Israeli "war crimes" against Palestinians.

Anat Kamm, 23, has been charged with passing information to a journalist with the intent of harming national security. Her lawyers deny that was her intention.

Her case drew wide attention because a court gag order kept her arrest out of Israeli publications, while world media were reporting it freely. The gag order was partially lifted last week.

The newly released court documents say that Kamm told investigators she wanted to disclose certain Israeli military operations to the public and provide evidence of "war crimes."

The Israeli Justice Ministry said more than a year ago saying that an investigation showed military actions disclosed in the documents did not violate the law or court decisions.

The indictment against Kamm alleges that she copied more than 2,000 classified military documents and relayed them to a journalist from the Haaretz newspaper. Some 700 were classified as "top secret" and are said to include sensitive military plans.

"When I copied the material, I thought that history has shown people who have raised an alarm over war crimes were forgiven," Kamm is quoted as saying in the documents.

The new court documents also show that one of the CDs Kamm burned has "disappeared" and that she doesn’t remember where she put it.

Prosecutors allege Kamm was the source for a Haaretz story accusing the military of killing Palestinian militants in violation of a Supreme Court ruling.

Uri Blau, the journalist who wrote the story, fled to London, fearing arrest. On Monday, two bodies representing Israeli journalists called on Blau to return all the stolen documents and on the government not to prosecute him.

Kamm has been under house arrest since December, and much of the case remains under wraps by the gag order.

Israel‘s targeted killing policy was one of its most contentious in facing a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. Dozens of militants, including Hamas leaders, were killed by missile strikes and other means.

In late 2006, Israel’s Supreme Court set strict restrictions on assassinations in the West Bank, limiting them to extraordinary cases.

The Haaretz report cited a document from March 2007 that included an order from the Israeli commander in the West Bank, permitting firing on three top Palestinian militants even if they did not threaten soldiers.

Israel’s attorney general at the time, Meni Mazuz, concluded all three killings were conducted in line with the Supreme court ruling.

AMNESTY

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AMNESTY

After you watch this video http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/17260182…e/ftc-vi26.wmv

By: Jim Meyers

Sen. Joe Lieberman says the world is at a "turning point in history," and the United States should begin preparing plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program — and use that option if all diplomatic and other means fail.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax, the Connecticut independent discloses that he probably will run for re-election in 2012, most likely as independent, and eschew the Democratic and Republican lines, although he notes that “anything is possible.”

He also says Sarah Palin has become a spokeswoman for disaffected Americans – and maintains that the Obama administration has made a mistake in vowing not to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear entity.

In the interview, Newsmax chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler noted that a recent CIA report said Iran is capable of starting the development of nuclear weapons at any moment, and asked if the time has come to use military force to halt that development.

Story continues below.

“I don’t think it’s time to use military force against Iran, but I certainly think it’s time for the United States to have plans that will enable us to use force to stop the Iranian nuclear program if the president orders such an attack,” says Lieberman, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“And I think it’s deeply important that the fanatical leadership in Iran understands that we are very serious about their nuclear weapons program, and when we say it’s unacceptable for Iran to go nuclear, we mean it — that we can and will do everything to stop Iran from going nuclear.

“The next step is tough sanctions, economic sanctions. Frankly it’s a last chance for Iran to avoid giving the rest of the world, including the United States, a hard choice between allowing Iran to go nuclear and using military power to stop them from doing that.

“I cannot stress enough that this is a turning point in history. If we allow Iran to become a nuclear power, the world becomes terribly more unsafe for everybody. It’s the end of the global nuclear nonproliferation attempts. All the work that President Obama’s doing on the START treaty, trying to keep nukes from terrorists — if Iran goes nuclear, that’s over.”

Chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians would also be over, Lieberman adds, “because the clients of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, strengthened by an Iranian nuclear umbrella, will turn more ferocious, not just against Israel but first against their enemies among the Palestinians, which is the current leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

“We’re going to be tested here. All the world is going to be tested, and it’s a test that will affect the future of our children and grandchildren and everybody all around the world.”

Lieberman takes issue with the Obama administration’s declaration that the United States would not use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with biological or chemical weapons if the attackers do not possess nuclear weapons.

He says he prefers the “appropriate ambiguity” that has been U.S. policy until now.

“Anyone contemplating an attack against us, a nation or a non-state attacker like al-Qaida, wouldn’t quite know how we would respond,” he tells Kessler. “In other words, we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response if the attack by biological, chemical or anything else was bad enough.”

But he says the administration’s new stance is “a little bit like Swiss cheese — it’s full of so many holes that if some country attacked us, a serious biological terror attack, there would be plenty of reasons an American administration could find to use nuclear weapons.

“I want any nation thinking about doing anything as extreme as to attack America with biological or chemical weapons to fear that we would respond with a nuclear attack. I hope we never get to that point, but I want our enemies to be uncertain and afraid.”

Kessler asked Lieberman about the Obama administration’s decision to remove the term “Islamic extremists” from the official U.S. National Security Strategy and use “violent extremists” instead.

“I don’t understand it. I think it’s fundamentally dishonest,” the senator said. “I don’t think it gains us anything in the Muslim world. In fact, I think it probably loses us some support in the Muslim world.

“We’re in a war not with some nebulous group of violent extremists. We’re not in a war with environmental extremists or white extremists. We’re in a war with violent Islamist extremists and terrorists. The people who attacked us on 9/11 were not just violent and extreme, they were motivated by an ideology of Islamist extremism which took the religion of Islam and essentially transformed it into a radical political ideology.

“And if we don’t call it what it is, first off we’re violating the first rule of war, know your enemy. Secondly, how do you defeat your enemy unless you describe it as what it is? And third, in many ways this is an ideological conflict between one set of values and this violent Islamist extremist ideology. Most people in the Muslim world reject this ideology. But if we don’t say there’s a difference between most Muslims in the world and the violent Islamist extremists and terrorists, I think we’re disrespecting most of the Muslims.

“Frankly, I think our enemies among the Islamist extremists must be laughing at this word game, and our friends in the Muslim world can’t be encouraged by it.”

Regarding Israel, Lieberman says some of the steps Obama has taken, such as demanding a freeze on the building of Israeli settlements, don’t help the peace process and are in fact “missteps.”

He referred to a speech that Vice President Joe Biden recently gave in Israel, in which Biden pointed out that the only time progress toward peace has been made between Israelis and their Arab neighbors is when there has been “absolutely no space” between the United States and Israel.

“I’m afraid that now there is some space,” Lieberman says.

“And it’s in the interests of the United States and Israel and our Arab allies to close that space, particularly because all of us have a much larger common enemy — and that is Iran with a nuclear weapon.”

Lieberman says Democrats appear to be in trouble with respect to the November elections, because independents who largely supported Obama in 2008 have turned against him due to concerns about the deficit and the economy.

Things could change between now and November, he adds, but he acknowledges that the “momentum” is with the Republicans right now.

Asked by Kessler about the success of Sarah Palin in galvanizing a following, Lieberman responds: “I got to know her a little bit during the 2008 campaign when I was campaigning for John McCain. She’s a very warm and likable person.

“I think Sarah Palin for a lot of people has become a spokesperson. People worried that government has forgotten them, has grown too big, that the deficit is growing too large, and in some sense that we’re not being as strong as we should be in the world — Governor Palin has spoken to those concerns as much as anyone.

“I do disagree with her on some of the specifics that she has said, but I think anybody who underestimates Sarah Palin as a political force in America does so at some peril, because she is speaking for a lot of people out there.

“I don’t know what her future is, but I’m just saying everybody should listen.”

Kessler asked the senator, who lost the Democratic primary in 2006 and was elected as an independent in the general election, whether he could see himself running as a Republican.

“I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I got rejected by the Democratic Party in 2006 and went on as an independent, and thank God and the people of Connecticut, I got re-elected.

“So I’m up again in 2012. I probably will run again. I’ve got to make that decision by the end of this year, I would say. You know, it’s possible. I haven’t decided what banner I would like to run under. Probably independent is the one that suits me best, because that’s what I am.

“In this very partisan time, it’s not my nature or my philosophy to just walk down one party road whether I think it’s right or not. I’m going to, like a lot of Americans, decide what makes the most sense on issue to issue and do what I think is right.

By: Edward Koch

I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.

For me, the situation today recalls what occurred in 70 A.D. when the Roman emperor Vespasian launched a military campaign against the Jewish nation and its ancient capital of Jerusalem.

Ultimately, Masada, a rock plateau in the Judean desert, became the last refuge of the Jewish people against the Roman onslaught. I have been to Jerusalem and Masada. From the top of Masada, you can still see the remains of the Roman fortifications and garrisons, and the stones and earth of the Roman siege ramp that was used to reach Masada.

The Jews of Masada committed suicide rather than let the Romans take them captive.

In Rome itself, I have seen the Arch of Titus with the sculpture showing enslaved Jews and the treasures of the Jewish temple with the menorah, the symbol of the Jewish state, being carted away as booty during the sacking of Jerusalem.

Oh, you may say, that is a far-fetched analogy. Please hear me out.

The most recent sacking of the old city of Jerusalem — its Jewish quarter — took place under the Jordanians in 1948 in the first war between the Jews and the Arabs, with at least five Muslim states — Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — seeking to destroy the Jewish state.

At that time, Jordan conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank and expelled every Jew living in the Jewish quarter of the old city, destroying every building, including the synagogues in the old quarter and expelling from every part of Judea and Samaria every Jew living there so that for the first time in thousands of years, the old walled city of Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank were "Judenrein," a term used by the Nazis to indicate the forced removal or murder of all Jews.

Jews had lived for centuries in Hebron, the city where Abraham, the first Jew, pitched his tent and where he now lies buried, it is believed, in a tomb with his wife, Sarah, as well as other ancient Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs.

I have visited that tomb and at the time asked an Israeli soldier guarding it (so that it was open to all pilgrims, Christians, Muslims, and Jews) “where is the seventh step leading to the tomb of Abraham and Sarah,” which was the furthest entry for Jews when the Muslims were the authority controlling the holy place?

He replied, “When we retook and reunited the whole city of Jerusalem and conquered the West Bank in 1967, we removed the steps, so now everyone can enter,” whereas when Muslims were in charge of the tomb, no Jew could enter it.

And I did.

I am not a religious person. I am comfortable in a synagogue, but generally attend only twice a year, on the high holidays.

When I entered the tomb of Abraham and Sarah, as I recall, I felt connected with my past and the traditions of my people. One is a Jew first by birth and then by religion.

Those who leave their religion, remain Jews forever by virtue of their birth. If they don’t think so, let them ask their neighbors, who will remind them.

I recall the words of the columnist Robert Novak, who was for most of his life hostile to the Jewish state of Israel, in an interview with a reporter stating that, although he had converted to Catholicism, he was still a cultural Jew.

I remain with pride a Jew both by religion and culture.

My support for the Jewish state has been long and steadfast. Never have I thought that I would leave the U.S. to go and live in Israel.

My loyalty and love is first to the U.S. which has given me, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, so much. But, I have also long been cognizant of the fact that every night when I went to sleep in peace and safety, there were Jewish communities around the world in danger. And there was one country, Israel, that would give them sanctuary and would send its soldiers to fight for them and deliver them from evil, as Israel did at Entebbe in 1976.

I weep today because my president, Barack Obama, in a few weeks has changed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel from that of closest of allies to one in which there is an absence of trust on both sides.

The contrast between how the president and his administration deals with Israel and how it has decided to deal with the Karzai administration in Afghanistan is striking.

The Karzai administration, which operates a corrupt and opium-producing state, refuses to change its corrupt ways — the president’s own brother is believed by many to run the drug traffic taking place in Afghanistan — and shows the utmost contempt for the U.S., is being hailed by the Obama administration as an ally and publicly treated with dignity.

Karzai recently even threatened to join the Taliban if we don’t stop making demands on him.

Nevertheless, Karzai is receiving a gracious thank-you letter from President Obama. The New York Times on April 10 reported, "Mr. Obama had sent Mr. Karzai a thank-you note expressing gratitude to the Afghan leader for dinner in Kabul. ‘It was a respectful letter,’ General Jones said.”

On the other hand, our closest ally, the one with the special relationship with the U.S., has been demeaned and slandered, held responsible by the administration for our problems in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The plan, I suspect, is to so weaken the resolve of the Jewish state and its leaders that it will be much easier to impose on Israel an American plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leaving Israel’s needs for security and defensible borders in the lurch.

I believe President Obama’s policy is to create a whole new relationship with the Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, and Iraq as a counter to Iran, the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the Muslim world, which we are now prepared to see in possession of a nuclear weapon.

If throwing Israel under the bus is needed to accomplish this alliance, so be it.

I am shocked by the lack of outrage on the part of Israel’s most ardent supporters. The members of AIPAC, the chief pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington, gave Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a standing ovation after she had carried out the instructions of President Obama and, in a 43-minute telephone call, angrily hectored Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Members of Congress in both the House and Senate have made pitifully weak statements against Obama’s mistreatment of Israel, if they made any at all. The Democratic members, in particular, are weak.

They are simply afraid to criticize President Obama.

What bothers me most of all is the shameful silence and lack of action by community leaders — Jew and Christian. Where are they?

If this were a civil rights matter, the Jews would be in the mall in Washington protesting with and on behalf of our fellow American citizens.

I asked one prominent Jewish leader why no one is preparing a march on Washington similar to the one in 1963 at which I was present and Martin Luther King’s memorable speech was given.

His reply was, “Fifty people might come.” Remember the 1930s? Few stood up. They were silent.

Remember the most insightful statement of one of our greatest teachers, Rabbi Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

We have indeed stood up for everyone else. When will we stand up for our brothers and sisters living in the Jewish state of Israel?

If Obama is seeking to build a siege ramp around Israel, the Jews of modern Israel will not commit suicide. They are willing to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians, but they will not allow themselves to be bullied into following self-destructive policies.

Though President Obama is considering as many as 10 candidates, most observers and some insiders put the odds on his selecting from a short list of established legal minds, all well-respected and accomplished jurists who will likely deflect inevitable claims that they are outside the mainstream of legal thought.

Just like that, Justice John Paul Stevens is on his way out, and the Supreme Court replacement machine has begun to churn. On the Sunday shows this week, everyone took their places. Senate Democrats spoke of a quick, orderly confirmation process, while Senate Republicans broached the dreaded F-word — "Filibuster" — with lots of added talk about the U.S. Constitution being on the brink. "I’m hearing a lot about that, frankly, all over as I travel my state and in airports — that people believe that we’re losing our constitutional respect, that our government is overreaching, and they’re concerned about it," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

His comments, filled with conservative buzzwords, signaled what everyone already expects. The coming fight in the Senate will be at least as much about base politics as the legal qualifications of the nominee. (See pictures of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.)

A letter to President Barack Obama from two unlikely congressional allies urging strong action against Iran has gained wide support on both sides of the aisle.

The letter was originally signed by Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois and House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana and circulated in late March.

The letter to the president begins, “We are writing you out of our concern that Iran is growing ever closer to nuclear weapons capability, a fact demanding immediate action on the part of the United States . . .

“Iran’s nuclear weapons program represents a severe threat to American national interests. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons could lead to the proliferation of these weapons throughout the Middle East and beyond, destabilizing the global non-proliferation regime and greatly increasing the likelihood of such weapons falling into the hands of terrorists . . .

“It would undercut prospects for peace between Israel and her neighbors, with emboldened Iranian surrogates enjoying the strategic backing of an Iranian nuclear umbrella. And it would pose an existential threat to the State of Israel . . .

“Mr. President, you have stated this issue is a priority for your administration. You have attempted to engage the Iranian regime for over a year. You have gone to the United Nations Security Council in an effort to impose tough new sanctions on Iran. But time is not on our side . . .

“Accordingly, we urge you today to reaffirm boldly and unambiguously that the U.S. can and will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. We call on you to fulfill your June 2008 pledge that you would do ‘everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.’

“Certainly, one way to begin would be to reverse the practice under which the U.S. government has awarded at least $107 billion over the past decade in federal contracts to companies investing in or doing business in Iran. We urge you to join with those allies who are prepared for action to immediately impose crippling sanctions on Iran . . .

“We can do this by imposing punishing measures on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, rocking Iran’s banking system, and dramatically impacting Iran’s ability to import or refine petroleum.”

In December, the House approved a measure enabling Obama to ban foreign firms that supply Iran with refined petroleum from doing business in the U.S. The Senate passed its own version of sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector on Jan. 28.

But as the Insider Report disclosed two weeks ago, Democratic leaders have not taken steps to reconcile slight differences in the House and Senate bills, reportedly because the Obama administration has asked them to hold off so he can maintain “flexibility” in dealing with other countries in confronting Iran.

The letter from Reps. Jackson and Pence concludes: “We urge you to move rapidly to implement your existing authority on Iran and the legislation we send you, and to galvanize the international community for immediate, devastating steps. The hour is late. Now is the time for action.”

The letter quickly gained support from other members of Congress, and by April 1, 76 Democrats and 138 Republicans had signed on to the letter.

“The broad, bipartisan backing reflects a clear-eyed, rock-ribbed commitment in Congress to do what is necessary now to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability,” Rep. Jackson told The Hill newspaper.

Another letter with bipartisan congressional support was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month, stressing the importance of American-Israeli relations.

“We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension,” the letter begins.

Referring to the announcement during Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel that Israel would build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, the signees state: “We are reassured that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s commitment to put in place new procedures will ensure that such surprises, however unintended, will not recur.”

The letter, dated March 19, was signed by three Democrats — House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland; Howard Berman of California, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs; and Gary Ackerman of New York, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

Three Republicans also signed the letter: Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs; and Dan Burton of Indiana, ranking Republican member on the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

Ben Stein: Steele Must Go
Sunday, 11 Apr 2010 04:13 PM

Conservative commentator Ben Stein’s message for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is short and sweet: Resign.

Steele, who has come under heavy criticism lately for his leadership of the RNC and questionable spending practices, admitted Saturday night in a speech at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans that he has "made mistakes."

But in a commentary Sunday for CBSNews.com, Stein said he can’t keep donating money to the Republican Party as long as Steele is in office.

"Stories are pouring out of the RNC to the effect that Mr. Steele is demanding the Committee get him a private jet. …

"Mr. Steele is running up fantastic tabs at super-expensive hotels and restaurants, including some near me in Beverly Hills. Just recently it was revealed that the RNC had been billed nearly two thousand bucks for ‘entertainment’ at a West Hollywood strip club called Voyeur. …

..

Pretoria schoolgirl stabbed to death, hands hacked off

Posted by Europe on Mar 26, 2010 | 24 Comments

A Pretoria schoolgirl who stayed at home with an ear infection was stabbed to death and had her hands chopped off, reports Beeld newspaper.

The father of the 17-year-old Anika Smit found her naked body at their home at Theresa Park in northern Pretoria on Monday afternoon when he returned from work.

“When I saw the overturned chairs in the dining room, I knew something was wrong. I called her, but she did not answer,” said Johan Smit, 54.
Moments later he found his daughter’s body in her bedroom.

“She was lying on the floor, without clothes. Both her hands were cut off and gone, they must have taken it with them.”

“The police told me she was stabbed six times in the neck. They are investigating the possibility that she was raped,” said Smit.

Police spokesman Constable William Mahlaole said a post mortem would be conducted to find out if she was raped.

Smith lived alone with his daughter, who was a Grade 11 pupil at Hoërskool Gerrit Maritz in Pretoria.

This happened just days after Julius Malema (ANCYL) sang” Shoot the boers, they are rapists”

“It is our understanding that the Youth League claims this song should be seen within a political context and that it has no physical or emotional affect on whites or Afrikaners,” Roets said.

AfriForum was therefore providing the list of victims to show that singing the song may have consequences.

“This is not a game of cowboys and crooks. People are being murdered while Julius Malema is singing and sipping champagne.”

South Africa is in a state of siege with regards to crime with more than 18 000 murders a year. Just consider the following on farm attacks: From 1991 until March 2010 there were 2538 farm attacks in which 1396 people died.

Pretoria schoolgirl stabbed to death, hands hacked off | EUTimes.net

..

PTA girl stabbed to death, hands hacked off – Times LIVE

Snippet:

” I was very happy at the idea of meeting Lazar but when I got out of the plane, I was stunned to see a man I didn`t recognize at all, who didn`t even speak Hungarian and who was speaking English in a strong French accent… so, our meeting was over in about ten minutes. As a goodbye gift, the man gave me a book titled “Night” of which he claimed to be the author. I accepted the book I didn`t know at that time but told everyone there that this man was not the person he pretended to be!”

Sweden’s reputation as a tolerant, liberal nation is being threatened by a steep rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the city of Malmo.

By Nick Meo in Malmo, Sweden

Published: 7:30AM GMT 21 Feb 2010

Judith Popinski: Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes
Judith Popinski: Judith Popinski pictured next to the White Bus at the Red Cross museum in Malmo, Sweden Photo: SCANPIX

When she first arrived in Sweden after her rescue from a Nazi concentration camp, Judith Popinski was treated with great kindness.

She raised a family in the city of Malmo, and for the next six decades lived happily in her adopted homeland – until last year.

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In 2009, a chapel serving the city’s 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.

"I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway," Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.

"This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now."

Malmo’s Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country’s Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them.

Mr Reepalu, who is blamed for lax policing, is at the centre of a growing controversy for saying that what the Jews perceive as naked anti-Semitism is in fact just a sad, but understandable consequence of Israeli policy in the Middle East.

While his views are far from unusual on the European liberal-left, which is often accused of a pro-Palestinian bias, his Jewish critics say they encourage young Muslim hotheads to abuse and harass them.

The future looks so bleak that by one estimate, around 30 Jewish families have already left for Stockholm, England or Israel, and more are preparing to go.

With its young people planning new lives elsewhere, the remaining Jewish households, many of whom are made up of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, fear they will soon be gone altogether. Mrs Popinski, an 86-year-old widow, said she has even encountered hostility when invited to talk about the Holocaust in schools.

"Muslim schoolchildren often ignore me now when I talk about my experiences in the camps," she said. "It is because of what their parents tell them about Jews. The hatreds of the Middle East have come to Malmo. Schools in Muslim areas of the city simply won’t invite Holocaust survivors to speak any more."

Hate crimes, mainly directed against Jews, doubled last year with Malmo’s police recording 79 incidents and admitting that far more probably went unreported. As of yet, no direct attacks on people have been recorded but many Jews believe it is only a matter of time in the current climate.

The city’s synagogue has guards and rocket-proof glass in the windows, while the Jewish kindergarten can only be reached through thick steel security doors.

It is a far cry from the city Mrs Popinski arrived in 65 years ago, half-dead from starvation and typhus.

At Auschwitz she had been separated from her Polish family, all of whom were murdered. She escaped the gas chambers after being sent as a slave labourer. Then she was moved to a womens’ concentration camp, Ravensbrück, from where she was then evacuated in a release deal negotiated between the Swedish Red Cross and senior Nazis, who were by then trying to save their own lives.

After the war, just as liberal Sweden took in Jews who survived the Holocaust as a humanitarian act, it also took in new waves of refugees from tyranny and conflicts in the Middle East. Muslims are now estimated to make up about a fifth of Malmo’s population of nearly 300,000.

"This new hatred from a group 40,000-strong is focused on a small group of Jews," Mrs Popinski said, speaking in a sitting room filled with paintings and Persian carpets.

"Some Swedish politicians are letting them do it, including the mayor. Of course the Muslims have more votes than the Jews."

The worst incident was last year during Israel’s brief war in Gaza, when a small demonstration in favour of Israel was attacked by a screaming mob of Arabs and Swedish leftists, who threw bottles and firecrackers as the police looked on.

"I haven’t seen hatred like that for decades," Mrs Popinski said. "It reminded me of what I saw in my youth. Jews feel vulnerable here now."

The problem is becoming an embarrassment for the Social Democrats, the mayor’s party.

Their national leader Mona Sahlin – the woman who is likely to become the next prime minister after an election later this year – last week travelled to Malmo to meet Jewish leaders, which they took to be a sign that at last politicians are waking to their plight. After the meeting, the mayor, Mr Reepalu, also promised to meet them.

A former architect, he has been credited with revitalising Malmo from a half-derelict shipbuilding centre into a vibrant, prosperous city with successful IT and biotech sectors.

His city was – until recently at least – a shining multicultural success story, and has taken in proportionally more refugees than anywhere else in Sweden, a record of which it is proud.

Sweden has had a long record of offering a safe haven to Jews, the first of whom arrived from the east in the mid-nineteenth century. Today the Jewish population is about 18,000 nationally, with around 3000 in southern Sweden.

The mayor insisted to The Sunday Telegraph that he was opposed to anti-Semitism, but added: "I believe these are anti-Israel attacks, connected to the war in Gaza.

"We want Malmo to be cosmopolitan and safe for everybody and we have taken action. I have started a dialogue forum. There haven’t been any attacks on Jewish people, and if Jews from the city want to move to Israel that is not a matter for Malmo."

Sweden has had a long record of offering a safe haven to Jews, the first of whom arrived from the east in the mid-nineteenth century. Today the Jewish population is about 18,000 nationally, with around 3000 in southern Sweden.

“Jews came to Sweden to get away from persecution, and now they find it is no longer a safe haven,” said Rabbi Shneur Kesselman, 31. “That is a horrible feeling.”

One who has had enough is Marcus Eilenberg, a 32-year-old Malmo-born lawyer, who is moving to Israel in April with his young family.

"Malmo has really changed in the past year," he said. "I am optimistic by nature, but I have no faith in a future here for my children. There is definitely a threat.

"It started during the Gaza war when Jewish demonstrators were attacked. It was a horrible feeling, being attacked in your own city. Just as bad was the realisation that we were not being protected by our own leaders."

Mr Eilenberg said he and his wife considered moving to Stockholm where Jews feel safer than in Malmo. "But we decided not to because in five years time I think it will be just as bad there," he said.

"This is happening all over Europe. I have cousins who are leaving their homes in Amsterdam and France for the same reason as me."

Malmo’s Jews are not the only ones to suffer hate crimes.

At the city’s Islamic Centre, the director Bejzat Becirov pointed out a bullet hole in the window behind the main reception desk.

Mr Becirov, who arrived in 1962 from the former Yugoslavia, said that windows were regularly smashed, pig’s heads had been left outside the mosque, and outbuildings burnt down – probably the acts of Neo-Nazis who have also baited Jews in the past.

He said that the harassment of Jews by some young Muslims was "embarrassing" to his community. Many of them are unemployed and confined to life on bleak estates where the Scandinavian dream of prosperity and equality seemed far away.

For many of Malmo’s white Swedish population, meanwhile, the racial problems are bewildering after years of liberal immigration policies.

"I first encountered race hatred when I was an au pair in England and I was shocked," said Mrs Popinski’s friend Ulla-Lena Cavling, 72, a retired teacher.

"I thought ‘this couldn’t happen in Sweden’. Now I know otherwise."

The two British citizens Steven Martin, 56, and Stephen Hampston, in his mid-40s, were arrested at the Radisson Hotel in Delhi on Monday evening on suspicion of monitoring flights using sophisticated surveillance equipment.

The Britons were carrying equipment, including high-powered binoculars, cameras and a gadget used to monitor air traffic and capture details of any plane in the air at any time.

"They were picked up on the basis of suspicion but nothing incriminating has been found," Rajan Bhagat, a Spokesman for Delhi Police, told The Times.

Google maps of Indira Gandhi International Airport, which is near the hotel, were also found on a laptop being used by one of the men.

The British High Commission in Delhi has confirmed the arrest of the two men, saying it was providing consular assistance.

"We are aware about the detention of two Britons and we are offering them consular access," a spokesman for the British High Commission said.

The detention of the two Britons comes as another British citizen, Andy Pag, awaits trial in the north Indian state of Rajasthan on terrorism charges for possessing a satellite telephone without a license.

Indian intelligence agencies are on high alert after the deadly bomb blast in Pune, near Mumbai, on Saturday night.

In 2001, fourteen Britons were charged with espionage after they were arrested outside an air base in Greece whilst plane spotting. They were later acquitted on appeal.

MVZ/DT

The fight was reported between the US ambassador to Qatar and an advisor to the Turkish prime minister at the end of a 20-minute meeting between Clinton and Erdogan on Monday.

The altercation took place after the US envoy entered the room to remind those present to close the meeting as the time was over.

In response, Erdogan’s adviser said, "It is not for you to judge the importance of our meeting, you offend our country," the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported.

The quarrel led to physical confrontation and the two diplomats were separated with difficulty.

Militant spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the militants blew up a vehicle with hundreds of kilos of explosives targeting US-led troops in the area.

A Press TV correspondent in Kandahar said local sources had confirmed the report. According to the sources, the bomb exploded around noon killing many troops in the Lakno area, in the suburbs of Khost city.

The US-led force has not commented on the report.

A similar attack last night injured five American troops in the neighboring Paktia Province.

After more than eight years of US-led military involvement in Afghanistan, violence continues to spread in the war-torn country.

February 9, 2010 at 9:40 am (Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Israel, Palestine)

British academics ask Elton John to read Goldstone

British Committee for Universities of Palestine send open letter to singer asking that he cancel summer concert in Israel, refer him to Goldstone Report. ‘You’re behaving as if playing in Israel is morally neutral,’ they write.

LONDON – ”Political or not political, when you stand up on that stage in Tel Aviv, you line yourself up with a racist state,” wrote a group of British academics in an open letter to Elton John on Monday. The group, the British Committee for Universities of Palestine, seek to convince the singer to cancel his upcoming performance in Israel this June.

“Dear Elton John: Like much of the world, we think you’re a good bloke. You came out when it was difficult; you admitted your addictions were stronger than you were; you’ve poured money into AIDS research. Oh, and then there’s the music – not bad at all.

“But we’re struggling to understand why you’re playing in Israel on June 17. You may say you’re not a political person, but does an army dropping white phosphorus on a school building full of children demand a political response? Does walling a million and a half people up in a ghetto and then pounding that ghetto to rubble require a political response from us, or a human one?” they quipped.

“You’re behaving as if playing in Israel is morally neutral – but how can it be? How can the cruelties Israel practices against the Palestinians – fundamentally because the Palestinians are there, on Palestinian land, and Israel wants them to go – be morally neutral?” claimed the authors of the letter.

“Okay, you turn up in Ramat Gan, and it gets to that ‘Candle in the Wind’ moment, and thousands of lighters flicker – but there won’t be any Palestinians from the Occupied Territories swaying along with the Israelis – the army won’t let them leave their ghettoes.

A full report can be read HERE