Results tagged “saudiarabia”

Thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents compiled by lawyers for 9/11 victims' families probably won't be admissible in court. But they were passed along to the NY Times, which reports that they show Saudi "support for terrorist organizations" at least through 2006. Some documents, obtained from the Treasury Department through the Freedom of Information Act, include sworn statements from various witnesses detailing the transfer of millions of dollars from prominent Saudi charities to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. At least one charity is controlled by members of the royal family, and another witness said in a sworn statement that he witnessed an emissary for a leading Saudi prince, Turki al-Faisal, hand a check for one billion Saudi riyals (now worth about $267 million) to a top Taliban leader in '98. The Justice Department, which recently urged the Supreme Court not to hear a lawsuit brought by families against the Saudi royal family, is now fighting to keep other leaked classified documents from surfacing in court.

Less than a week before President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, the Justice Department has filed a brief before the Supreme Court urging justices not to hear a lawsuit brought by families of some of the 9/11 victims against the Saudi royal family. The lawsuit, which was formally filed by the families' insurance companies, contends that members of the House of Saud helped finance Al Qaeda preceding the 9/11 attacks. A district court threw out the lawsuit, finding that the Saudi royal family has legal protection under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. The Justice Department says their filing had nothing to do with the President's upcoming visit, and was just "coincidental." (A spokesperson explains that the brief had to be filed soon because the Supreme Court is deciding whether to hear the case before their June recess.) Kristen Breitweiser, a leader of the families, tells the Times, "I find this reprehensible. One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration, and you wonder what message this sends to victims of terrorism around the world."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person fatally injured under a train at 77th St. in Manhattan, a shooting at Neptune Ave and West 35th St. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on 133rd Ave. in Queens.
• A 24-year-old man killed his mother and brother and then dumped them in the Harlem River.
• Young teenagers are clamoring to learn about sex.
• Mayor Bloomberg feels that city parking placards are being abused and will start cracking down on their gratuitous use.
• A case 20 years in the making––the so-called "Pizza Connection"––was derailed and dismissed after decades of work. The prosecution of the $1.5 billion case was ruined when the defense revealed that all of the taped audio and video evidence was wiped clean.
• An investment group from Abu Dhabi has become the largest shareholder in Citigroup, following a large transaction approved by federal regulators. The middle eastern group replaces another individual as the largest stakeholder in the banking-investment firm: Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.
• They negotiated all night for 13 hours, but the union and producers could not come to an agreement. The Broadway strike continues. "Boo, Hiss!"
• Brooklyn goes Hollywood and Brownstoner.com has video.

Volatile Dutch actor Youssef Sjoerd Idilbi did two things that are almost unheard of during a Sunday performance of the play Is.Man at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The first warms our heart: He stopped his performance to confront an audience member about a ringing cell phone. His second move brazenly defied the theatrical tradition of ‘the show must go on’. Technical problems with the sound board had caused the cancellation of the previous night's performance; when those glitches resurfaced 20 minutes into the Sunday show, Idilbi tore off his microphone and stormed out of the theater. Awkward!

EVENTS: Both Open House NY and The New Yorker Festival are upon us. You can check out more of OHNY's event here, and The New Yorker Festival here. Some picks:

Representatives Anthony Weiner and Jerrold Nadler announced that they are introducing legislation to block a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Sun reports the pair stood in front of the Saudi Consulate, questioning the logic of the Bush administration's plan. Nadler said, "The folly of this arms deal is beyond belief. Saudi Arabia is the no. 1 exporter of terrorism in the world today."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an EMT was assaulted on Hazen St. at Rikers Island, a dead body in the water off Emmons and Ocean Aves. in Brooklyn, and another dead body in the water off Manhattan's Pier 11.
• The doctor taped swearing allegiance to Al Qaeda claims that his trip to Saudi Arabia to treat injured terrorists was actually just a ruse. He wanted to go to the Middle East to find out more about polygamy, so he could convince his objecting wife to let him marry some more women.
• The doctor who testified for the defense of Peter Braunstein, asserting that the fake firefighter rapist's brain is broken, is the same expert witness who said that mobster Vincent Gigante was probably suffering from dementia. After his conviction, Gigante admitted that he'd been faking it for 20 years.
• Another person was struck by a subway train this morning, and Brooklyn-bound 3 trains were halted between 148th St. and 96th St. in Manhattan while police conducted their investigation.
• Students at the International Leadership school are learning some type of lesson, as the charter school seems to have descended into anarchy. Four of eight original teachers were fired by the school's principal this year, another three teachers quit last week, and students conducted a walkout despite the principal's attempt to lock them in the school.
• The New York State Comptroller says that the state's budget does not add up and that spending is actually growing faster than Gov. Spitzer reported. Aides to Spitzer are saying that, as the new guy, the Comptroller just doesn't know how the budget in Albany works.
• National Guard Troops will soon be deployed to patrol PATH stations in New York and New Jersey. Rather than have permanent positions, Guard soldiers will pop up at random throughought the PATH system.
• When Brooklyn bloggers aren't blogging about their borough, they're meeting and talking about blogging about Brooklyn. And by extension, we've just added blogging about Brooklyn bloggers meeting and talking about blogging.

There are few birthdays we look towards with dread (ok, maybe our 30th). But as AIDS hits its 25th year since being discovered in the 1980s, detection, treatment, and understanding of the disease has come a long way yet has miles to go. There were 25 million new infections in the past 5 years with 15 million deaths over the same period. Currently 38.6 million people worldwide are infected (which is up from 37.3 million in 2005). Some drops in prevalence of the disease in Africa suggests that the rate of infection is slowing.

As you may or may not know, we love the show How I Met Your Mother (one character even has a blog - not an entirely new idea, but we like it). Last week two of the characters on the show went to a lazer tag park and declared that the game was totally making a comeback within 2 months. So we wanted to get prepared, because we actually think lazer tag could be fun!

Before he was even sworn in, the FDNY's newest muslim chaplain resigned yesterday amid concerns over a statement he made to Newsday reporter. When asked for his thoughts on 9/11 Imam Intikab Habib, 30, remarked that he doubted that hijackers could have brought about that kind of destruction that quickly and implied a larger conspiracy. Habib, who was born in Guyana, trained in Saudi Arabia and until recently taught in Queens, was due to be sworn in yesterday. However once the comments he made to Newsday were verified by the FDNY he was asked to resign or be fired.

If any of you were worried that the world might actually be getting to be a safer place now that we've laid down the law in Iraq, have fear. Apparently, there are still at least three al Qaeda cells operating in Saudi Arabia. We know this because they managed to pull off three simultaneous suicide bombings. But wait, there's more: as of today, the State Department is closing our embassies in Saudi Arabia due to the heighted threat. And all of this comes we announced that we will be pulling our troops out of the Kingdom, which is what al Qaeda said they wanted in the first place.

Creative Commons is a public domain content project that is launching in the next two weeks. I've always felt strongly that US copyright laws are way too restrictive, and are generally unfair to both the artist and the consumer. Some people out there are trying to change this, before the super-powered media conglomerates pass laws making downloading mp3s punishable by death. Just like in Saudi Arabia. Creative Commons » Home