October 2011 - USA and Egypt simultaneous protests

CAIRO: Egyptians and Americans are looking to join forces for multiple protests in October for social justice. According to a press release from the newly formed October2011.org protests, prominent activists and social justice advocates from Egypt and the United States are planning two protests, one at Washington DC's Freedom Plaza and a second at Cairo's fabled Tahrir Square.

According to the group, Egyptians Asmaa Mahfouz and April 6 Youth Movement founder Ahmed Maher will participate with Americans Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges for the October 2011 protests.

In the US, the activists are hoping for a nonviolent takeover of the Freedom Plaza beginning on October 6.

"While our nations face many different challenges and remain thousands of miles and cultures apart, we find that we share many of the same concerns within our respective countries," protest organizers said in a prepared statement.

"Both the people of the United States and Egypt require real democracy so that the views of the people are represented," it added.0

The October2011.org protests, described on their website as a movement supporting "human needs, not corporate greed," intends to consolidate "leading progressive activists in the United States into a viable umbrella coalition that can work together towards principles of peace [as well as] social, economic, and environmental justice" that are supported by "super-majorities of Americans" yet get compromised due to political and economic pressures.

"Inspired by the courageous, nonviolent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Greece, Spain, and elsewhere, people in the United States have come together to form the October 2011 Movement," said the organizers on their website.

The US movement comes on the heels of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations that aimed to protest corporate greed. The Freedom Plaza protesters believe they can draw attention to Congressional budget talks, which they say emphasize "wasteful military-industrial spending and corporate handouts over social programs or more sensible foreign policy positions."

In their solidarity statement, both October2011.org leaders and Egyptian activists indicated the aspects of their struggles which require mutual and transnational coordination among protesters in order to achieve reform.

"Even USAID funds to Egypt have strings attached," the organizers write, "as 85% of USAID Egyptian funds since January 25 went to US organizations, with only a small fraction going to civil society organizations in Egypt."

Organizers are calling for concurrent Tahrir Square protests on the same weekend as the onset of the October2011.org occupation, as part of an binational affirmation that the United States needs to "stop leveraging its economic power to bribe other countries, [or] to force them to follow US wishes."

Given the influence that the US "will undoubtedly wield in future Egyptian aid and development efforts in the next few months, and given the potential influence that it might try to wield in electoral politics," organizers said that the need "for transnational partnerships against hegemony were especially necessary at this time."

Joseph Mayton   27 September 2011

Lloyd's insurer sues Saudi Arabia for 'funding 9/11 attacks'

Lloyd's insurer sues Saudi Arabia for 'funding 9/11 attacks'

By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter

Monday, 19 September 2011

A Lloyd's insurance syndicate has begun a landmark legal case against
Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of indirectly funding al-Qa'ida and
demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11
attacks.

The Brighton-based Lloyd's 3500 syndicate, which paid $215m
compensation to companies and individuals involved, alleges that the
oil-rich Middle Eastern superpower bears primary responsibility for
the atrocity because al-Qa'ida was supported by banks and charities
acting as "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state.

The detailed case, which names a number of prominent Saudi charities
and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family,
will cause embarrassment to the Saudi government, which has long
denied claims that Osama bin Laden's organisation received official
financial and practical support from his native country.

Outlined in a 156-page document filed in western Pennsylvania, where
United Airlines flight 93 crashed on 9/11, the claim suggests that the
nine defendants "knowingly" provided resources, including funding, to
al-Qa'ida in the years before the attack and encouraged anti-Western
sentiment which increased support for the terror group.

The legal claim states: "Absent the sponsorship of al-Qa'ida's
material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named
therein, al-Qa'ida would not have possessed the capacity to conceive,
plan and execute the 11 September attacks. The success of al-Qa'ida's
agenda, including the 11 September attacks themselves, has been made
possible by the lavish sponsorship al-Qa'ida has received from its
material sponsors and supporters over more than a decade leading up to
11 September 2001."

The Lloyd's syndicate is known as a "run-off", meaning that it does
not accept new premiums on the Lloyd's of London insurance market and
instead deals with historic claims. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks,
its members settled a raft of multimillion-pound claims from affected
businesses, including airlines, airports and security companies, as
well as injured individuals and relatives of those killed.

Its complaint, which quotes heavily from US diplomatic cables released
by WikiLeaks detailing investigations by the US authorities into
al-Qa'ida, attempts to establish funding links between some Saudi
charities, and the terror group, and implicate the Saudi government in
that funding through its support of the charities.

The case singles out the activities of a charity, the Saudi Joint
Relief Committee for Kosovo and Chechnya (SJRC), which was alleged by
UN officials to have been used as a cover by several al-Qa'ida
operatives, including two men who acted as directors of the charity.
It is alleged that at the time the SJRC was under the control of
Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, half-brother of King Abdullah and
the long-standing Saudi Interior minister. The claim states: "Between
1998 and 2000, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the SJRC, diverted
more than $74m to al-Qa'ida members and loyalists affiliated with SJRC
bureaus. Throughout this time, the Committee was under the supervision
and control of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz."

The Saudi embassies in London and Washington did not respond to
requests from The Independent for a response to the allegations in the
claim. The 9/11 Commission, America's official report on the attacks,
found that there was no evidence that the Saudi government or senior
Saudi officials individually funded al-Qa'ida.

Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks showed that American officials
remained concerned that the Saudi authorities were not doing enough to
stop money being passed to the terror group by Saudi citizens.