Google Co-founder Donates $1 Million To The Hebrew National Immigration Society

Saed Bannoura

October 28, 2009

IMEMC, Jewish Billionaire, Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, donated $1 million to the so-called Hebrew national Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which heavily encourages Jews around the world to immigrate to Israel and the United States.

The organization is one of the biggest supporters of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In 1979, Brin, at age 6, emigrated with his family from the former Soviet Union to the United States.

He said that HIAS helped his family leave the Soviet Union, and that his donation comes on the thirtieth anniversary of leaving Russia.

His current wealth is estimated by $16 billion.

Yet, the HIAS was not pleased by the donated amount and described it as "a small donation when compared to the wealth of Brin".

But Brin said that this donation is the beginning of a commitment he and his wife made to be more involved in 'humanitarian issues’.

HIAS said it helped some 4.5 Million Jews around the world, and that without it Google would probably have not existed as it attributes the existence of Google to "saving the family of Brin" by moving them to the United States.

Brin stated that he so far donated more than 30 million US Dollars. "But this is not a big amount comparing to my wealth", he added

It is worth mentioning that U.S. president, Barack Obama, will be speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which will be held in Washington in November.

The decision was seen as a good step towards continued U.S. support to Israel, Jewish organizations and lobbies in the United States.

The Global News Service of the Jewish People stated that the Jewish community 'got two big gets, Obama and Brin".

First African-American senator gets highest congressional honor

Washington - Edward William Brooke, the first African- American popularly elected to the US Senate, was given Congress' highest award on Wednesday. President Barack Obama, who broke the highest glass ceiling for African Americans by capturing the presidency last year, said it was Brooke who blazed a trail that he and other black politicians followed.

Brooke, 90, was "a man who has spent his life breaking barriers and bridging divides across this country," Obama said at a ceremony awarding him the Congressional Gold Medal on Capitol Hill.

Brooke, who grew up in an era of segregation in Washington, was elected to the Senate in 1966 by Massachusetts voters and remained in the chamber until 1975. A Republican, Brooke earlier served as Massachusetts' first African American attorney general.

Former president George W Bush in 2004 awarded Brooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor.

Brooke spent much of his Senate career seeking more equality for minorities in the United States, but he was also respected for taking a moderate approach that sometimes put him at odds with other African-American politicians.

Brooke declined to join the Congressional Black Caucus when it was founded in 1971. But he was instrumental in convincing his Senate colleagues to designate Martin Luther King Jr's birthday a national holiday, after the civil rights leader's assassination in 1968.

UN re-evaluates Afghan mission after bloody attack

By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – Traumatized U.N. staff in Afghanistan were under orders to stay home Thursday, one day after Taliban militants stormed a guest house in the capital and killed eight people in a brazen attack that is forcing the world body to re-evaluate its mission in the war-ravaged nation.

The attack underscored the risks facing U.N. and Afghan officials in organizing a runoff election following the fraud-marred first-round vote Aug. 20, and the massive challenge for the U.S.-led military force in curbing the determined Taliban insurgency. NATO said two members of its military operation in Afghanistan were killed in bomb blasts in the south Wednesday, including one American.

The guest house assault, which left five foreign U.N. staff and three Afghans dead, demonstrated the ease with which Taliban militants can penetrate the relative safety of Kabul. A Taliban spokesman said the attack was aimed at undermining the Nov. 7 presidential election runoff; the target was a small hotel home to the largest concentration of U.N. staffers working on the election.

U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique said at least nine U.N. staff who survived the two-hour assault on the Bakhtar guest house will be evacuated to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.

The U.N. has ordered its employees to remain "on lockdown," with their movements restricted, Siddique said Thursday, declining to give details for security reasons. Another U.N. staffer said that meant most staff were staying home.

An internal U.N. memo ordered restrictions on movement for the rest of the week and said U.N. departments will be reviewing lists of critical and nonessential personnel, suggesting some people may be moved out of the country for their own safety.

Siddique, however, said "our work continues, and in terms of the elections, preparations are already well advanced. But the impact this will have needs to be evaluated over the coming days, and it's too early to make any judgments."

The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the U.N. to pull out of Iraq for several years.

An umbrella group of more than 100 local and international aid agencies said aid organizations in Afghanistan "have been subject to increasing numbers of attacks, threats and intimidation by both insurgent and criminal groups."

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said attacks on aid groups are "higher now than in the last six years." Wednesday's violence brought to the number of aid workers killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 23, the group said. Fifteen more have been injured since the start of the year.

"This situation has forced many aid agencies to restrict the scale and scope of their development and humanitarian operations," the group said. "Deteriorating security conditions continue to jeopardize the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance and threaten the livelihoods of the most vulnerable."

The five U.N. staff killed Wednesday were from Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, the Philippines and the United States, Siddique said. The nine wounded suffered mostly cuts and bruises as they tried to escape, he said.

Afghan police and U.N. officials said two security guards and the brother-in-law of one of Afghanistan's most powerful governors, Gul Agha Sherzai, were also killed, in addition to the three attackers.

The two-hour assault on the guest house began shortly before 6 a.m. when three gunmen wearing green uniforms and suicide vests broke into the three-story residential hotel. The crackle of gunfire echoed across the city and explosions set fire to the building, filling the lobby and the upper floors with smoke. Terrified U.N. workers scrambled over the roof or leapt from windows to escape.

About a mile (nearly two kilometers) away from the guest house, one rocket struck the "outer limit" of the presidential palace but caused no casualties, presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said. Two more rockets slammed into the grounds of the luxury Serena Hotel, favored by foreigners, filling the lobby with smoke and forcing guests and employees to take refuge in the basement.

The election pits President Hamid Karzai against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and Washington sees it as crucial to restoring legitimacy to the corruption-riddled government. U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot because of fraud, pushing Karzai's totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first-round victory.

NASA rocket launched successfully

NASA's Ares I-X test rocket has successfully lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a day after bad weather delayed its launch.

The US space agency (NASA) launched the 100-meter-tall rocket 15:30 GMT (11:30 EDT) Wednesday for a two-minute powered flight.

The flight test took about six minutes from its launch until the splashdown of the rocket's booster stage.

The launch had been originally scheduled for Tuesday, but was delayed because of bad weather.

For the first time in more than a quarter century, a new vehicle and not a space shuttle was sitting at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The test flight of the Ares I-X rocket will provide NASA an early opportunity to test and prove hardware, models, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I launch vehicle.

The prototype rocket was designed to replace NASA's aging space shuttle. The Ares I-X aimed to test technology for the development of a future manned launch vehicle.

The $450m project is what NASA describes as a 'Pathfinder' vehicle.

UN team tight-lipped after Iran visit

Upon their return to Vienna, UN inspectors say they are going to analyze the data they gathered on Iran's Fordo enrichment plant during their four-day visit.

"We had a good trip," Herman Nackaerts, head of the four-member mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told reporters upon arrival at Vienna airport on Thursday.

"We visited the Fordo enrichment plant. Now we are going to analyze the data. And the DG (Director General Mohamed ElBaradei) will report in due course," he added, without making further comments.

The UN experts traveled to the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday and inspected the Fordo enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom during their four-day stay.

This was the first visit by an IAEA team to Iran since September when Tehran informed the UN nuclear watchdog that it has a new site under construction.

Iran announced the existence of the Fordo nuclear plant 12 months sooner than the IAEA requirements.

The Fordo site is the country's second nuclear plant, after the Natanz facility in central Iran, which will enrich uranium to the 5 percent level suitable for power plant fuel.

Iran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has stressed that its nuclear program is aimed at the civilian applications of the technology, and has called for the removal of all weapons of mass destruction from around the globe.

Spain to exhume poet Lorca's body

A team of forensic experts has begun to excavate a mass grave in southern Spain thought to contain the remains of poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca.

Lorca was killed by Fascist soldiers loyal to General Franco during the early weeks of the Spanish civil war. His literary work and his left-wing views made Lorca a target of Franco's regime.

His remains have rested in an unmarked grave in the area since August 1936.

Historians think he was buried with at least three other men. A victim's family has asked for exhumation and identification of the remains.

Relatives of the poet oppose the exhumation as a disrespectful action to other families who have relatives buried in the area.

Some of his other relatives, however, have expressed willingness to donate DNA samples to aid the identification process.

The project will be held camera free to prevent any publication of unauthorized photographs to protect the families' privacy.

Israel denies illegal diamond trade

Israel has criticized a UN report which accuses Tel Aviv of involvement in illegal diamond trade from the Ivory Coast that could be helping re-arm rebels there.

Israel's Diamond Controller Shmuel Morderchai dismissed the accusations in a Wednesday statement, insisting Israel has never dealt in diamond trade with the Ivory Coast.

"We are shocked by these false accusations and completely refute them," he said.

The experts report was presented to the UN Security Council on international compliance with sanctions imposed by the international body on the Ivory Coast

The UN sanctions on the African nation's diamond trade came four years ago, after rebels took control of the country's north in a deadly civil war.

The world body's investigation team on Tuesday urged Israel to 'investigate fully the possible involvement of Israeli nationals and companies in the illegal export of Ivorian rough diamonds'.

The panel also named the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Guinea and Liberia as some of the countries that needed to step up efforts to enforce the embargo on buying rough diamonds mined in the Ivory Coast.

But Israel insisted it had never imported conflict diamonds from the Ivory Coast or any other countries that are not members of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS).

The watchdog was set up in 2003 in a bid to stem the trade in 'blood diamonds' in the wake of civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, which were largely financed by illegal diamond trade.

Israel has threatened to lodge an official complaint about its inclusion in the UN report at the upcoming meeting of Kimberley Process members scheduled for November 2-5 in Namibia.