President of Darfur Charged With Crimes Against Humanity

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges Monday against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.

The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the world’s first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges against a sitting head of state, but al-Bashir is unlikely to be sent to The Hague any time soon. Sudan rejects the court’s jurisdiction, and senior Sudanese officials said the prosecutor was politically motivated to file the charges.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked a three-judge panel at the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir to prevent the slow deaths of some 2.5 million people forced from their homes in Darfur and still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.

“Genocide is a crime of intention — we don’t need to wait until these 2.5 million die,” he told The Associated Press.

“The genocide is ongoing,” he added, saying systematic rape was a key element of the campaign. “Seventy-year-old women, 6-year-old girls are raped,” he said.

Moreno-Ocampo was undeterred by concern that his indictment against al-Bashir might ignite a storm of vengeance against Darfur refugees and spur Sudan to shut out relief agencies and possibly peacekeeping troops. Al-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party on Sunday warned of “more violence and blood” in the vast western region if an arrest warrant is issued against the president, state TV reported.

“I am a prosecutor doing a judicial case,” Moreno-Ocampo said. He filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. Judges are expected to take months to study the evidence before deciding whether to order al-Bashir’s arrest.

Al-Bashir “wants to end the history of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people. I don’t have the luxury to look away. I have evidence,” the prosecutor said in a statement after submitting his case to the judges.

One victim cited by prosecutors said rapes are woven into the fabric of life in Darfur.

“Maybe around 20 men rape one woman. These things are normal for us here in Darfur,” she said. “I have seen rapes too. It does not matter who sees them raping the women — they don’t care. They rape girls in front of their mothers and fathers.”

Moreno-Ocampo said the rapes were producing a generation of so-called “janjaweed babies” and “an explosion of infanticide” by victims.

The head of Sudan’s Bar Association and ruling party stalwart, Fathi Khalil told The Associated Press that Sudan was not a member of the International Criminal Court and was not bound by Moreno-Ocampo’s decision.

“The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court with his announcement demanding the arrest of President al-Bashir has proved that he is playing a political role, not a legal one,” Khalil said.

Khalil said the decision came after international pressure on the court, undermining its reputation and independence. He said neither the ICC nor the U.N. Security Council have the right to refer a country that is not a member to the ICC to the court.

The Sudanese Liberation Movement-Unity, a rebel group in Darfur, offered to help arrest and extradite any war criminals from Sudan.

If judges issue an arrest warrant, they will effectively turn al-Bashir into a prisoner in his own country. In the past, Interpol has issued so-called Red Notices for fugitives wanted by the court, meaning they should be arrested any time they attempt to cross an international border.

In the United States, which is not part of the ICC, American officials said they were examining the indictment.

“We make our own determinations according to our own laws, our own regulations with respect to who should be subject to war crimes, genocide related statutes. The ICC is a separate matter and we are not part of the ICC. All of that said, we certainly stand for accountability,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Moreno-Ocampo said most members of the three targeted ethnic African groups were driven from their homes by Sudanese forces and the janjaweed in 2004. Since then, the janjaweed have been targeting the camps aiming to starve the refugees.

“These 2.5 million people are in camps. They (al-Bashir’s forces) don’t need gas chambers because the desert will kill them,” Moreno-Ocampo said, drawing comparison’s with Nazi Germany’s most notorious method of mass murder during the Holocaust.

The refugees “have no more water, no more food, no more cattle. They have lost everything. They live because international humanitarian organizations are providing food for them,” he added.

An estimated 300,000 people have died in Darfur since conflict erupted there in 2003 when local tribes took up arms against al-Bashir’s Arab-dominated government in the capital, Khartoum, accusing authorities of years of neglect.

Moreno-Ocampo said the international community needs to act.

“We are dealing with a genocide. Is it easy to stop? No. Do we need to stop? Yes,” he told AP.

“The international community failed in the past, failed to stop Rwanda genocide, failed to stop Balkans crimes,” he added.

There are fears that the fresh Darfur case could spark a backlash against the 9,000-strong U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The prosecutor said it was up to the U.N. Security Council, which asked Moreno-Ocampo in 2005 to investigate crimes in Darfur, to “ensure compliance with the court’s decision.” Achieving unanimous backing for any action will be fraught with problems since two of the council’s members, China and Russia, are Sudan’s allies.

A spokeswoman for the force said it had not suspended any military operations.

“All essential peacekeeping operations are being carried-out by troops,” Shereen Zorba told The Associated Press in an e-mail from Khartoum.

However, she said: “a limited number of operations that carry security risk to civilian staff are temporarily restricted.”

Other international courts have indicted Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor of Liberia while they were in office. Milosevic died in custody in The Hague in 2006 shortly before the end of his trial, while Taylor is on trial for orchestrating atrocities in Sierra Leone.

Article by Mike Corder
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Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Bennett’s Idea To Abort Black Babies Missed Killing Obama

Degenerate gambler and CNN side kick Bill Bennett wrote an op-ed piece critical of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Simply based on Billy’s past racisit comments it’s safe to say the piece is derived from Bennet’s ethnic prejudice. Why is he on CNN? I’m fearful of that answer. If he wants to abort black babies to reduce crime he must just LOVE the thought of one of those poor innercity black babies growing up to be President Of The United States.

Wikipedia about Billy Bennett

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iNPLACENEWS Interview of Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello

Tom Morello, best known for his work as the founding member and guitar player for RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, AUDIOSLAVE, and Nightwatchman is interviewed by iNPLACENEWS’ Paul Stewart. In this interview, they discuss Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the war in Iraq, and the Presidential Elections. Also, he talks about his most recent tour with Nightwatchman, social responsibility of rockstars and other artists, as well his nonprofit organization Axis of Justice.

Here is what was found in Wikipedia about Tom:

Tom Morello was born in New York, New York. His mother, Mary Morello, who is part Irish and part Italian, is a founder of Parents for Rock and Rap, an anti-censorship group. She was also a teacher at Libertyville High School. His father, Ngethe Njoroge, a Kenyan, was the country’s first ambassador to the United Kingdom. Morello’s great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first president of Kenya.

Morello grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, at the time a virtually all-white suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School. He sang in the school chorus and was active in speech and drama club - a prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

He showed his political leanings early. Morello has described himself as having been “the only anarchist in a conservative high school”, but has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist. In the 1980 mock elections at LHS, he campaigned for a fictitious “candidate” named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place after Jimmy Carter at the overwhelmingly Republican school. Ronald Reagan won the mock election. He also wrote a piece headlined “South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support” for the school’s alternative paper, The Student Pulse.

At age 13, Morello joined Nebula, a Led Zeppelin cover band as lead singer. At this same age, Morello purchased his first guitar at Rigoni Music in Libertyville. He wanted a solid-body Ovation guitar, but he didn’t have the money to buy one. Instead, he purchased a Kay guitar. Wanting to learn how to play “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin, he took two guitar lessons, but instead was taught the C-major scale. He decided that playing the guitar was a waste of his time, so he placed it in his closet for the next three years.

Around 1984, Morello first started studying the guitar seriously. He had formed a band in the same year called the which featured future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass.

Few if any of the Sheep could really play an instrument at first, but the band was an impetus for Morello to start honing his skills. Instead of performing cover songs, the Sheep wrote original material that included politically charged lyrics. None of the songs composed by the Sheep contained solos; soloing was a skill that Morello began learning in college.

At the time, Morello’s musical tastes lay in the direction of heavy metal, particularly Kiss, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. Morello developed his own unique sound through the electric guitar. Later, his music—and musical politics—were greatly influenced by punk rock bands like The Clash, the Sex Pistols, and Devo.

Morello graduated in 1982 and began attending Harvard University. There, he made a point of practicing every day for up to eight hours without fail, no matter how much studying he had to do. He graduated in 1986 with an honors degree in political science. He moved to L.A., where he briefly worked as an aide to Senator Alan Cranston as he set about trying to join or start a band. Adam Jones moved to L.A. as well; Morello introduced Jones and Maynard James Keenan to Danny Carey, who would come to form the band Tool.

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Harry Potter Actor’s Murderer Charged

The British police charged a 21 year old man accused of stabbing the British actor Rob Knox, whose next role was in the not yet released Harry Potter film. Rob Knox was attacked when he tried to protect his younger brother in a bar in south London Saturday night. The charges include injurying five other people. Here is a startling figure: violent stabbings in London are frequent, and this was the 14th teenager to die due to violent stabbings.

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Harry Potter Actor Stabbed to Death

A British teenage actor playing a minor role in the upcoming “Harry Potter” film was stabbed to death during a brawl in London on Saturday, police said.

Rob Knox, 18, was stabbed after he got caught up in a fight outside a bar in southwest London early Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Knox plays Ravenclaw student Marcus Belby in the upcoming film “Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment of the popular series set for release in November.

Warner Bros., the studio that is producing the film, said it was shocked by the news.

Knox was one of five young men taken to various hospitals after the brawl, police said. Among them was a 21-year-old who has since been arrested on suspicion of murder.

The fight did not appear to be gang-related, police added, but it puts the number of violent teenage deaths in London at 14 so far this year.

Original story found @ CNN.com

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Teen Kills Family Then Goes to Get A Steak For Dinner

Nathan Dickson, who is accused of shooting his father, stepmother, stepsister and brother on Saturday morning, was arrested that evening outside friend’s, Brantley Creel, home. He had spent the day riding four-wheelers and hanging out wiht his friend after allegedly killing his family

When authorities arrived on the doorstep, the teens had just returned from getting the steaks for the cookout. They told Creel’s grandmother and her husband that four members of Dickson’s family had been killed, and Dickson didn’t know police were looking for him. In order to get the teens to return at the request of the police, Creel’s grandfather called his cell phone to say the four-wheelers needed to be returned and cleaned before it starts raining. Upon their return, Dickson was arrested.

“We were just cutting up and having fun all day,” Dickson’s 19-year old friend, Creel, told the Independent-Mail of Anderson.

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Grand Theft Auto IV… REVIEW

I was rolling through the neon deluge of a place very like Times Square the other night in my Landstalker sport utility vehicle, listening to David Bowie’s “Fascination” on the radio. The glittery urban landscape was almost enough to make me forget about the warehouse of cocaine dealers I was headed uptown to rip off…. (OH YEAH!)

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Rev. Jeremiah Wright Keynote Speech For NAACP (Entire)

“I’m not here for political reasons…. I’m NOT running for the oval office, I’ve been running for Jesus a long long time” and the tone in the room was AMEN.

The keynote speaker for the NAACP 2008 dinner was the passionate Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor who ruffled feathers with past sermons (which were NOT played in their entirety).

Rev. Wright explained “divisive” and “different” during his speech. He explained the many differences between blacks and whites using music and song as examples. His tongue was sharp, his tone was clear and passionate with many humorous moments. The speech was aimed at many people of different faiths.

People need to get over the drama and focus on the now… the recked economy and recked moral fiber of the nation. Rev. Wright has many points all which are spiritual, political and social. With the help of a leader such as Barack Obama now may be the time to risk social growth and advancement. Perhaps now is the time to care about something or someone further than an arms length.

Video provided by CNN.com

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Real House of Horrors Discovered in Austria

A 73 year old twisted man (we should say monster) in Amstetten, Austria has held captive and sexually abused his daughter for 24 years. Now under arrest the man has fathered six children by way of repeatedly rapping his daughter Elizabeth for more than twenty four years. Some of the children were also held in the hidden room while the others were raised as foster children. Elizabeth is now 42 years old and has been classified as “disturbed”. She may be disturbed after spending twenty-four years in a room under horrific abusive conditions. The man’s wife Rosemarie claims she knew nothing about the captive children.

According to Elizabeth her father, known only Josef, had been sexually abusing her since age 11. She recalled the day Josef lured her into the cellar, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.

These heinous crimes came to light when one of the man’s inbred children, Kerstin, who is 19 years of age, was hospitalized in serious condition.

Austrian police confirmed they had located the cellar where Elisabeth F, was held along with three of her children.

KEY FACTS IN CASE Elisabeth reappeared at home after disappearing 24 years ago Six children she says are hers have been found and placed in care One of the children, aged 19, is seriously ill in hospital Elisabeth’s father Josef, 73, has been arrested on suspicion of incest and abduction

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Bon Jovi Concert Bomb Threat

Fans at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Fl. were evacuated from last night’s Bon Jovi concert because of a bomb threat. Don’t worry — Tico Torres and company are just fine.

Several bomb-sniffing dogs were sent in after police received a phone call threatening to blow up the arena with two bombs. After determining the threat was a hoax, fans were let back in at 9:30 for the show.

The state of New Jersey can rest easy.

This was found @ TMZ.com

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