Pictures and Posts

Morocco 'Facebook prince' pardon

2008-03-22T16:27:00.002Z

A Moroccan man jailed for pretending to be the brother of the king on the social networking site Facebook has been given a royal pardon.

Fouad Mourtada's lawyer said his client had left the Casablanca jail where he was serving his three-year sentence.

He had been arrested at the beginning of February for "usurping the identity of Prince Moulay Rachid".

Mr Mourtada had insisted his internet entry was a bit of fun, and a campaign was launched in his support.

Mr Mortada's brother Ilyas told the BBC that Fouad was in good health, and was delighted to be free.

His lawyer said Mr Mourtada was still trying to come to terms with what had happened to him.

Religious holiday

His release has delighted Moroccan human rights organisation, international pressure groups and internet users around the world who had campaigned for his release.

The king granted the pardon just before the anniversary of the birth of the prophet Mohammed, a public holiday in Morocco, and a date on which pardons are often announced.

But the BBC's James Copnall in Rabat says the case shows that the royal family remains a taboo subject in Morocco.

He says Moroccan journalists and others have learnt that harsh words about the king, or Islam, or Morocco itself, can lead to trouble.

The journalist and editor Ahmed Benchemsi faces up to five years in jail over an article he wrote about a speech made by King Mohammed VI.

His trial has been adjourned until September.

The Islamist leader Nadia Yassine is also facing trial for saying she is in favour of Morocco becoming a republic.

Untouchable

The Moroccan establishment is keen to stress the progress it has made in opening up the country, particularly since Mohammed VI came to the throne nearly 10 years ago.

Under his father, Hassan II, Morocco had an appalling human rights record.

Political opponents and human rights activists, among many others, faced terrible conditions in Moroccan jails, often merely for objecting out loud.

But while most people agree society is more open now, Moroccans know the king and the royal family remain almost untouchable.

King Mohammed VI is regarded as a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad, and to question his authority is seen as a challenge to his religious role as the Commander of the Faithful.

America poising Americains

2008-03-11T04:41:00.002Z

Michigan chemtrails by Timothy Borgman On January 15 and 18 of 2008, four white unmarked 747s repeatedly laid down criss-cross pattern chemtrails over the city of Battle Creek, Michigan for nearly 5 hours This was my and my roommate's first direct encounter with this strange phenomenon। Although we had seen footage of it on the Internet many times it still somehow left us in amazement and awe that the government could orchestrate such a vast program such as this in plain sight and yet continue to deny its involvement। The purpose of this program cannot be good if the government wishes to deny its culpability on this subject. Are we slowly being poisoned in order to decrease the size of the population? Whatever it is, it is definitely a reality! The contrail explanation just doesn't hold water. As my roommate and I witnessed this scene in the parking lot of a local supermarket we also noticed that other people around us going into the store could have cared less. This is disturbing in itself for many reasons...but most notable is the lack in curiosity or interest in something so strange as these big planes creating criss-cross patterns in the air and not following direct plane routes. Where were these planes coming from? Who is piloting them? Why are they unmarked? Since this event, we witnessed it again a few days later...and again no one seemed to take notice. Research that I have conducted since that time seems to point to Lockheed Martin as having a hand in these operations to some degree. The Department Of Defense is at the center of it, and it appears to be a weather modification experiment in order to mitigate the effects of global warming.

2007 Casablanca bombings: three minors get up to 15 years in prison

2008-03-10T22:18:00.001Z

Salé (Rabat-twin city), Mar.10 - The first instance court of Salé on Monday handed down prison sentences ranging between ten and fifteen years against three minors involved in March and April 2007 bombings in Casablanca. The court sentenced, in a closed hearing, Youssef Khoudri to fifteen years in jail, while Othman Raydi and Abdelhali Raibi got ten years' prison term each. The defendants were sued on charges of "setting up a criminal gang with the aim of preparing and carrying out terrorist acts, part of a collective project to undermine the public order", "participating in making explosives", "holding non-authorized public meetings", "carrying out activities within an unauthorized association", and "fundraising to finance terrorist acts". The events date back to March 11 when Abdelfettah Raydi, older brother of Youssef, blew himself up in a cyber café in the neighborhood of Sidi Moumen in Morocco's economic city, Casablanca. On April 10, Ayoub Raydi detonated his charge in the neighborhood of El Farah in the same city. March and April bombings left seven people dead: five terrorists who blew themselves up, another one who was shot dead by the police as well as a policeman, and more than 20 other people were injured. These bombings occurred four years after 12 suicide-bombers blew themselves up in Casablanca (May 16, 2003), killing 33 other people.

Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear

2008-03-10T21:46:00.000Z

The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa. The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest. All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb. “Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interest [in using] nuclear power primarily for desalination purposes,” Tomihiro Taniguch, the deputy director-general of the IAEA, told the business weekly Middle East Economic Digest. He said that they had held preliminary discussions with the governments and that the IAEA’s technical advisory programme would be offered to them to help with studies into creating power plants. Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was clear that the sudden drive for nuclear expertise was to provide the Arabs with a “security hedge”. “If Iran was not on the path to a nuclear weapons capability you would probably not see this sudden rush [in the Arab world],” he said. The announcement by the six nations is a stunning reversal of policy in the Arab world, which had until recently been pressing for a nuclear free Middle East, where only Israel has nuclear weapons. Egypt and other North African states can argue with some justification that they need cheap, safe energy for their expanding economies and growing populations at a time of high oil prices. The case will be much harder for Saudi Arabia, which sits on the world’s largest oil reserves. Earlier this year Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister, told The Times that his country opposed the spread of nuclear power and weapons in the Arab world. Since then, however, the Iranians have accelerated their nuclear power and enrichment programmes.

Constitutional America?

2008-03-10T04:30:00.003Z

16 minute trailer to share with everyone you know. America Freedom to Fascism will open as a mainstream theatrical release on July 28. We ... all need to pack the theatres where it shows with lines around the block. The power they understand is the Power of BoxOffice.

Morocco's unlikely group of terrorism suspects

2008-03-10T04:17:00.002Z

The 35 recently netted in raids include professionals and politicians, with influences said to be both Sunni and Shiite.

By Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer February 27, 2008

RABAT, MOROCCO -- They are politicians and businessmen, bureaucrats and pharmacists, a police commander and a TV journalist. Police arrested them and seized an arsenal in nationwide raids this month, the biggest crackdown in Morocco since suicide bombings killed 45 people, including the 12 bombers, in Casablanca five years ago. During the last week, Moroccans have clustered on rainy mornings around kiosks along this capital's colonnaded downtown avenues, marveling at the latest newspaper reports on the case. The profile of the 35 suspects contrasts sharply with the Casablanca bombers, a dozen young men from a slum who assembled homemade explosives and died wearing identical wristwatches that were a last gift from their handler. The recently arrested alleged leader of the group was a well-off Moroccan immigrant in Belgium who is accused of financing his activity with multimillion-dollar hold-ups and committing assassinations in that European country dating back 20 years. Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said in an interview that the group plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers, military chiefs and Jewish leaders to destabilize this moderate Muslim nation. Benmoussa and other investigators say the alleged plot helps illustrate threats converging here.Morocco finds itself in the eye of a storm radiating across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. "The leaders of this network had the opportunity to train in Afghanistan, to meet leaders of Al Qaeda, and to go to Algeria to train in [rural outposts] in 2005," Benmoussa said. Some aspects of the case against the suspects perplex analysts. The three politicians arrested belong to small parties that mix Islamist and leftist ideologies. Their defenders say they are moderates. Their longtime ties to Shiite Muslim movements, including Hezbollah, may have been a factor in their arrests. Sunni Muslims are the majority here, but authorities worry about the danger of extremism among the small Shiite minority and sympathetic Sunni radicals. Sunni and Western governments fear that the recent assassination of a Hezbollah military chief in Syria could foment Shiite-inspired violence around the world, says Abdellah Rami, an expert on Islam at the Moroccan Center for Social Studies. But Rami sees contradictions in the official version alleging that the Moroccan group of suspects was influenced by both Sunni-led Al Qaeda and Shiite Hezbollah. "I find it hard to believe that all these movements were mixed together in the same cell," said Rami, who knows the jailed politicians. Authorities say they have documented connections, such as attempts to arrange training with Hezbollah in 2002. The jailed journalist, Abdelhafid Sriti, was a correspondent for Hezbollah's Al Manar network. Al Manar has been banned from broadcasting in France, Spain and the U.S., which accuse it of airing extremist and anti-Semitic programming. Western security experts agree that there are unanswered questions. "It's a real mix of things, kind of bizarre, but if everything is confirmed I think it is a big, big affair," said Claude Moniquet, director of a Brussels think tank who works with the Moroccan government. Morocco is relatively open and democratic, modernizing quickly and trying to reduce inequality. The monarchy promotes a tolerant Islam in which the king is the leader of the faithful, an effort to maintain a bulwark against extremism. But its geography makes it a gateway to Europe and a crossroads for migration, crime and extremism. "The Moroccans have worked hard since Casablanca so they haven't had more attacks," said a Belgian anti-terrorism official who knows North Africa well. "But they have a lot of radicals to watch, guys going to Iraq who could come back. And there are all the problems [in countries] around them, like a sandwich effect." On the east, Algeria has endured a campaign of suicide bombings by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a network also blamed for recent gun attacks to the south in Mauritania on French tourists and the Israeli Embassy. The threat of extremist violence caused the cancellation last month of the annual Dakar Rally off-road race to have run from Portugal to Senegal. Next year it will be held in South America instead. Meanwhile, Moroccan militants flow abroad for training and combat. Some fight in Iraq; some trek to clandestine training outposts in the deserts of southern Algeria and northern Mali, the vast and lawless Sahel region. "We know that there are several pipelines that connect to Iraq, others to Algeria, others to the Sahel," Benmoussa said. "Some of these pipelines function with the goal of creating a reserve of fighters down there. And others with the idea of training them to come back to Morocco. . . . What is going on in the Sahel worries us a great deal." Extremists benefit from a boom in Europe-bound cocaine along traditional smuggling routes, said Benmoussa, 49, who is an MIT graduate.

Al Quaida daying financial in North Africa

2008-03-10T04:12:00.002Z

Just Some Months after launching a new version of al Quaida in north Africa, it seems that the organisation is dieing in this part of the world, in a radical forum, Al Quaida post a message asking people to gave money.

Al othmani.the spokesman for al Quaida in north Africa said: "We need money,It's a matter of life or death for the organisation"he launch this message from Algeria,and he said the economic situation in Algeria make less people participate by the money,also he said "we have fighters,the number we need"

It seems for me there is a lot of problem in al Quaida,in morocco,even many treats from the organisation but the intelligence services keep arresting more members,and the organisation is an able to make any terrorist operation in this country,its not the same situation in Algeria or Mauritania.

Bush, Veto and Torture

2008-03-10T04:05:00.003Z

Bush veto keeps torture techniques on the boardtitle from "theage.co.au" that's a new hot topic,i will not say more than this title and the image,and you can say what do you think about this decision US protesters demonstrate waterboarding on a volunteer.

The true Islam

2008-03-10T04:00:00.002Z

This is my 1st post,called the "The True Islam",proposed by my friend Justin. The point of posting this not convert poeple to Islam, but to show you a side you never see in the US media about Islam.