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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant, pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organisation, on Monday in United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York. He was a part of the plot to detonate explosives in New York’s subway system in late 2009. He admitted participation in a suicide attack conspiracy led by the Al-Qaeda. According to him, this was in protest of US presence in Afghanistan. He will be sentenced on June 25 and faces a possible life term without parole.

Zazi said in court he was recruited by Al-Qaida in Peshawar, while on a visit to join anti-American insurgency in 2008 and went into a training camp in Waziristan. He refused to identify his trainers and recruiters. Zazi had decided “I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the U.S. military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan.”

He admitted receiving weapons training at the camp and knowledge about explosives. He tried to build homemade explosives using cosmetic products. Zazi then went to New York just before the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. He planned to assemble the bombs there and detonate them in the following days.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference that the Zazi case represented one of the most serious threats to the United States since the 9/11 attacks. “Were it not for the combined efforts of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, it could have been devastating,” he said. “This attempted attack on our homeland was real, it was in motion and it would have been deadly.”

Zazi, who was born in Afghanistan, raised in Pakistan and later attended high school in Queens, New York and lived in Colorado, had cooperated with the authorities in recent weeks and had worked out an agreement with them regarding his plea bargain.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about crises in Chad, Kenya, and the Sudan. The U.N. chief is recently back from Africa where he attended the African Union summit in Ethiopia and met with leaders in Kenya.

On rebel efforts to overthrow the government in Chad in recent days, the secretary-general welcomed an African Union initiative to have the leaders of Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo mediate the crisis. He says the United Nations will do its utmost to help resolve the crisis, urging the Security Council to act swiftly to help bring an end to the violence.

“It has devastating consequences not only for the people of Chad and Darfurian refugees seeking shelter there, but also for Darfur itself,” said Ban.

Mr. Ban told reporters the situation in the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan is no less troubling. He says the deployment of the AU-U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, must be sped up and urged member states to properly equip the troops.

“UNAMID still lacks required aviation and ground transportation – chiefly helicopters. Additional troops will not make up for this shortfall,” said Ban. “Those countries that called for intervention in Darfur are under special obligation to deliver on their promises.”

While at the AU summit, Mr. Ban says he discussed some of the outstanding issues affecting the deployment with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and he expects the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to be signed this week. But Mr. Ban remained vague on whether some of the agreement’s sticking points – such as night flights, land agreements, and advance notice of U.N. movements – had been settled.

On Kenya, Mr. Ban says he has been deeply engaged in the post-election crisis and told political leaders during his visit there that they bear particular responsibility for the future of Kenya.

“I stressed to all the Kenyan leaders the need to stop the unacceptable violence and killings, and to resolve their differences through dialogue and democratic process. I also appealed to all the political leaders to think beyond their individual interests or party lines and to look to the future of Kenya as one country,” he said.

Mr. Ban also met in Nairobi with his U.N. predecessor, Kofi Annan, who is leading the panel of eminent Africans trying to mediate the crisis, and said they discussed his roadmap for the talks.

Security of U.N. personnel in Africa and elsewhere has been high on the secretary-general’s agenda, especially in the wake of the December bombing in Algeria that killed 17 staff members. Mr. Ban announced that he is naming diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi to chair an independent panel on safety and security of U.N. personnel and premises. Brahimi is an Algerian, but Mr. Ban says he has no concerns about his fairness or objectivity in heading up the panel.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley East (Ward 33). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Zane Caplan, Shelley Carroll (incumbent), Jim Conlon, Sarah Tsang-Fahey, and Anderson Tung.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.