New IAEA report on Iran

Link to the new IAEA report on Iran, released on Nov,8th ,2011

http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_8Nov2011.pdf

NDP leader passed away, Jack Layton's last letter to Canadians

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.



August 20, 2011

Toronto, Ontario

Dear Friends,

Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,

Jack Layton

The Telegraph-Mir-Hossein Mousavi 'involved in massacre', says report

Mir-Hossein Mousavi 'involved in massacre', says report

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leader of Iran's opposition green movement was involved in the massacre of more than 10,000 political prisoners in 1988, according to a report.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Iran opposition leader Photo: REUTERS

By Con Coughlin

10:00PM BST 08 Jun 2010

Mr Mousavi, the defeated candidate in last June's presidential election, served as Iran's prime minister when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime's spiritual leader, issued a fatwa that sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death without trial, according to the report by one of Britain's leading human rights lawyers.

Mr Mousavi is one of several prominent Iranian politicians who are accused of implementing the order. According to a detailed report published by Geoffrey Robertson QC, who specialises in human rights law, the prisoners were executed for refusing to recant their political and religious beliefs.

"They were hung from cranes, four at a time, or in groups of six from ropes hanging from the stage of the prison assembly hall," the report states. "Their bodies were doused with disinfectant, packed in refrigerated trucks, and buried by night in mass graves."

Mr Robertson compares the mass executions in Iran with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian civil war, in which an estimated 8,000 people died.

He is now calling on the UN Security Council to set up a special court to try those responsible "for one of the worst single human rights atrocities since the Second World War".

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Apart from Mr Mousavi, the report accuses other prominent members of the Iranian regime, such as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's current Supreme Leader, and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, of being involved in the mass executions, which took place following the end of Iran's eight-year war with Iraq.

"There is no doubt they have a case to answer," said Mr Robertson, who has served as an appeal judge for the UN and was asked to investigate the mass executions by the Washington-based Boroumand Foundation, a human rights organisation funded by Iranian exiles. "There is a prima facie case for their complicity in mass murder."

In an interview given to Austrian television in December 1988, Mr Mousavi tried to defend the mass executions of the prisoners, many of whom were members of the Marxist "Mojahedin Khalq" organisation, which opposed the Islamic regime established by Khomeini following the 1979 Iranian revolution.

"We had to crush the conspiracy," said Mr Mousavi. "In that respect we have no mercy."

Many of those executed had already served their prison sentences and been released, but were recalled to prison on Khomeini's orders and executed. Women who were suspected of opposing the regime were ordered to be whipped five times a day until they agreed to accept the Islamic revolution "or else died from the lash", the report states.

Publication of the report is deeply embarrassing for Mr Mousavi, who has tried to position himself as a moderate who is opposed to the hardline policies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But critics claim his past involvement with the regime should disqualify him from membership of Iran's green movement, which is campaigning for greater freedom and democracy in Iran.

Nelson Mandela, a man of arm struggle and peace

Biography of Nelson Mondela:>>http://www.biography.com/articles/Nelson-Mandela-9397017