UN approves nuclear free resolution

The United Nations has approved a draft resolution proposed by the Islamic Republic of Iran on destruction of nuclear weapons under international supervision.

The resolution was ratified at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly despite the opposition of the United States and its allies.

Based on the resolution, the UN General Assembly calls upon all nuclear countries to comply fully with all commitments made regarding nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation and not to act in any way that might compromise either cause or lead to a new nuclear arms race.

It also asks member states to take the necessary measures to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects and to promote nuclear disarmament, with the objective of eliminating nuclear weapons.

The assembly stressed that Israel join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allow its nuclear installations to come under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The United State, France, United Kingdom and Israel voted against the resolution.

Mozambique votes in national election

Wed Oct 28, 2009

(PressTV) Mozambique people have gone to polls in elections for a new president, parliament and regional assemblies for the fourth time since the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1994.

The presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections are widely expected to be won by the ruling party Frelimo and incumbent President Armando Guebuza.

Frelimo, which has ruled Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975, will be helped along by a recent split in long-time opposition movement Renamo, which saw the breakaway Democratic Movement of Mozambique form in March.

Seventeen political parties and two coalitions are competing for the ballots from Mozambique's almost 10 million registered voters.

"It is important to vote because it is to decide the future of the country, to give my opinion about how I want the future of the country to be," said Vasco Munguambe, who had been waiting outside a Maputo station.

Early results from more than 12,000 polling stations are expected to trickle in after the closing of polling stations on Wednesday evening.

'Israel systematically targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque'

Palestinian legislator Jamal al-Khudari says the frequent Israeli assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque are not just efforts by extremist Zionist groups or individuals but rather a systematic policy pursued by Tel Aviv.

"This dangerous policy requires concerted efforts by Arab and Muslim governments, institutions, and peoples to help the Palestinian people face the Zionist dangers threatening the occupied city of Jerusalem (al-Quds)," al-Khudari was quoted as saying on Monday by the Palestinian Information Center.

He also called on Arab and Muslim officials to support the Palestinians' efforts to maintain their presence in Jerusalem (al-Quds).

Israeli forces invaded the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday morning, firing rubber-coated bullets and teargas canisters at Palestinian worshipers.

At least 30 Palestinians were wounded and up to 20 others arrested during fierce clashes between Palestinian activists using stones, shoes, and bare fists and armed Israeli troops in and around the sacred site.

Muslims consider the frequent Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to be part of a Judaization campaign targeting the holy city of Jerusalem (al-Quds).

Algeria Threatened By Youth Unrest

CAIRO [MENL] -- Algeria, apparently successful in foiling the Islamic insurgency campaign, faces another threat -- rising unrest by the vast numbers of unemployed youth.

Algerian security forces have been bracing for violent protests by the nation's young unemployed. The anger was said to have been exploited by Al Qaida, which has blamed the joblessness on the huge expatriate labor force in Algeria.

Damaged Gaza schools need windows before winter

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Oct 26, 2009 (Reuters) - Gaza schools damaged by Israeli bombing will be exposed to the cold and rain this winter unless Israel relaxes its blockade to permit the import of windows, doors and building materials, officials said.

Officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and Gaza's Education Ministry say thousands of pupils face "darkness and cold" this winter in poorly lit and sparsely furnished schoolrooms.

Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi said more than 170 schools that suffered some damaged in the three-week Israeli offensive from Dec. 27 to Jan. 18 had not yet been repaired.

"The extent of the damage makes these schools unfit to face winter. Thousands of our children will have to study in rooms without electricity or heating," Radi told Reuters.

"Many will sit at broken desks next to windows without glass."

Israel restricts the import of cement, steel and other materials that could be used for military purposes by Gaza's Islamist rulers, Hamas, who refuse to recognise the Jewish state and remain committed to armed struggle against it.

RECONSTRUCTION STILL WAITING

UNRWA runs nearly 200 schools in the Gaza Strip, educating about half of the enclave's 450,000 students.

The agency said it had managed to obtain materials locally to repair most of the 50 schools damaged by bombs and artillery but some still need glass, cement and steel.

UNRWA Gaza adviser Adnan Abu Hasna said plans to build 100 new schools in Gaza to alleviate overcrowding in classes had been put on hold due to the Israeli blockade.

In one U.N.-run school in Jabalya refugee camp, home to more than 100,000 people, 14-year-old Ola Atteya said cracked walls and a roof of metal sheeting would make her classroom uncomfortable when the rains arrive.

Abu Hasna said efforts to convince Israel to allow essential building materials had so far been "useless".

"We are in need of everything: cement, steel, glass, windows, wood, all sorts of building materials. They are promising us, but nothing is coming into Gaza," he said.

Israel launched its offensive with the stated aim of stopping Hamas rocket and mortar fire at its southern towns. Thousands of houses, factories and government buildings were destroyed, including Gaza's main cement plant.

Donor countries in February pledged more than $4 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza. But organized reconstruction remains on hold because of the Israeli blockade.

Israel wants Hamas to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit before it makes any concessions. He has been held for three years.

Sporadic rocket fire has continued since the offensive ended and Israeli air strikes have pounded smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza which bring in all sorts of goods. The U.N. earlier this summer predicted it would take a year to clear some 420,000 tonnes of rubble left over from the three-week blitz, but Gazans deprived of concrete are recycling it as building material.

U.S. Forcibly Deported Islanders And Gassed Their Dogs To Make Way For Diego Garcia Military Base

By Sherwood Ross

October 26, 2009

In order to convert the sleepy, Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a dominating military base, the U.S. forcibly transported its 2,000 Chagossian inhabitants into exile and gassed their dogs.

By banning journalists from the area, the U.S. Navy was able to perpetrate this with virtually no press coverage, says David Vine, an assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of "Island of Shame: the Secret History of the U.S. Military on Diego Garcia(Princeton University Press)."

"The Chagossians were put on a boat and taken to Mauritius and the Seychelles, 1,200 miles away, where they were left on the docks, with no money and no housing, to fend for themselves," Vine said on the interview show "Books of Our Time," sponsored by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

"They were promised jobs that never materialized. They had been living on an island with schools, hospitals, and full employment, sort of like a French coastal village, and they were consigned to a life of abject poverty in exile, unemployment, health problems, and were the poorest of the poor," Vine told interview host Lawrence Velvel, dean of the law school.

Their pet dogs were rounded up and gassed, and their bodies burned, before the very eyes of their traumatized owners, Vine said.

"They were moved because they were few in number and not white," Vine added. The U.S. government circulated the fiction the Chagossians were transient contract workers that had taken up residence only recently but, in fact, they had been living on Diego Garcia since about the time of the American Revolution. Merchants had imported them to work on the coconut and copra plantations. Vine said the U.S. government induced The Washington Post not to break a story spelling out events on the island.

"Through Diego Garcia," Vine pointed out, "the U.S. can project its power throughout the Middle East, and from East Africa to India, Australia and Indonesia. With Guam, the island is the most important American base outside the U.S." He said U.S. bases now number around 1,000, including 287 in Germany, 130 in Japan and Okinawa, and 57 in Italy.

"Bases have been essential tools of U.S. military and economic power since not long after independence," Vine pointed out. "We had bases all the way to the Pacific. After the Civil War, the U.S. began to acquire coaling bases in the Pacific."

Although the Chagossians were forcibly removed in 1971, they still hope to return, Vine says, and refer to their period of exile as one of "profound sorrow." Vine says they would be happy to live on the unused eastern portion of the island and work at the base but the U.S. instead "imports contract labor from other areas so they can send them home when the job is done." The island’s exiled survivors and their descendants today number about 5,000.

Long off limits to reporters, the Red Cross, and all other international observers and far more secretive than Guantánamo Bay, many long suspected the island was a clandestine CIA "black site" for high-profile detainees, Vine wrote in a related article. Journalist Stephen Grey's 2006 book "Ghost Plane" documented the presence on the island of a CIA-chartered plane used for rendition flights. On two occasions former U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey publicly named Diego Garcia as a detention facility. And a Council of Europe report named the atoll, along with those in Poland and Romania, as a secret prison.

The island became "a major launch pad" for the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, Vine said. In addition to its capacious harbor, the island readily supports some of the largest U.S. warplanes, including Air Force B-52s, B-1Bs and B-2s. Two years ago, the Pentagon awarded a $32 million contract to add a submarine base to the island’s arsenal.

Diego Garcia had been a British possession until 1966, when London allowed the U.S. to use it as a military base in exchange for canceling a $14-million British debt for a military hardware purchase. Some idea of the size of the base may be conveyed by the fact it is said by the Pentagon to contain 654 buildings.

In a related article about Diego Garcia, Vine has written: "With support for the Chagossians' struggle growing in both the United States and Britain at the same time that revelations about a secret CIA prison are spreading, the United States must finally act to remedy the damage done by another Guantánamo damaging too many lives and undermining its international legitimacy. The United States must allow the Chagossians to return and assist Britain in paying them proper compensation; the United States must close the detention facilities and open Diego Garcia to international investigators; the United States must end the painful irony that is a base the military calls the 'Footprint of Freedom.’"

UN, in the Claws of the Colonialists

Afghan Resistance Statement
UN, in the Claws of the Colonialists
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

October 26, 2009

The UN has completed 64 years since its establishment. A few days ago, world Heads of States and envoys celebrated the 64th anniversary of the United Nations, calling it a common home.

In his audacious speech to the UN General Assembly, Moamar Al-Gaddafi said that 65 wars and battles have taken place since the formation of the United Nations but UN has not played any role to thwart them—rather its role has been very negative in this regard. The reason behind the failure of the World Body to help nations achieve their rights; to raise above discriminations to represent the oppressed people of the world and as a common house of the people on the planet, live up to its name, is that, that unfortunately, this Organization has remained in the grips of a few countries who arrogantly have kept it under their belly. The right of a veto by the 5 member countries of the Security Council is a wicked instrument which they use it time and again against the remaining members of the United Nations. Thus they have deprived other nations of their rights; hurled stumbling blocks in the way of development and prosperity of people and have denied them participation in the process of decision making.

The United Nations is now not a conduit to strive for realization of national independence and aspirations of people as per its Charter. It has not helped nations to prevent foreign aggressions but contrarily, this august World Body has supported foreign invasions; cooperated with them and has worked as a facilitating instrument for the invaders. The examples on hand are the issues of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. The UN has sided with the arrogant and the murderers, brazenly calling those who resist the invasions, as aggressors.

If we take a quick look at the military aggression against the sovereignty of Afghanistan by America under unjustified and ambiguous pretexts and mull over the casualties, torture and prosecution of the Afghans at the hands of the invaders and the negative role being played by the United Nations in this regard, we easily reach the conclusion that putting great expectation on this Universal Body is just a mockery and illusion.

Former US president, George Bush, in his speech to the General Assembly on 12 September 2002, severely marred the dignity and reputation of the UN. He said, UN was only a venue of rhetorics and words, not a place of actions and decisions. He went on to say, if the UN is not going to disarm Iraq, America will do so. He did what he said in contravention of all international norms and rules and killed nearly one million Iraqis during the past six years.

They destroyed Iraqi institutions, infrastructures and damaged economic and social values ironically under the very eyes of the UN but this World Body instead of taking proper steps to prevent the destruction of the basic social and economic institutions, have only limited itself to issuing statistics of the destroyed facilities.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers the speech of the Libyan president Moamar Al-Gaddafi in UN General Assembly as a pragmatic and realistic speech, which pointed out the weakness and inadequacy of the United Nations. We hope other rulers of the world should show enough determination and toughness to restore to this World Body its lost status. They should try to release the UN from the claws of a few usurpers who have their hold on the United Nations or at least, try to weaken their grip on this International Body.