Dear Friends,

We’ve got about a month to go before the big International Day of Climate Action on October 24, and just in case you needed a little motivation we’ve got a video to show you, from one of the braver world leaders we know.

Watch the President of the Maldives’ brave call for emergency action on climate change–and add your voice to his call for 350

www.350.org/pledge

Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the Maldives, isn’t just brave because he endured five years as a political prisoner before finally ousting the country’s longtime ruler in an election last fall. He’s brave, too, because he’s confronting head-on the question of the country’s survival, instead of simply focusing on easier issues.

It’s entirely possible that the nation of the Maldives-where people have lived for thousands of years, their lives built around an ecologically sustainable fishery-simply won’t be there before long. Take a moment and try to imagine that–your home, your neighborhood, or your city being completely wiped off the map.  Imagine your country’s flag being lowered at the UN headquarters because your country quite literally does not exist.

President Nasheed faces this reality every day. That’s why he’s become an outspoken advocate for 350.

Yesterday, Nasheed joined world leaders in New York at a landmark meeting which is supposed to break the climate deadlock that could threaten the crucial UN meetings set for Copenhagen this December. While President Obama was there issuing a fairly tame call for “an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions…and [an] agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet,” the Maldivian president was out in front of the curve.  In unequivocal terms, President Nasheed said the following:

If things go business-as-usual, we will not live, we will die. Our country will not exist. We cannot come out from Copenhagen as failures. We cannot make Copenhagen a pact for suicide. We have to succeed and we have to make a deal in Copenhagen.

But President Nasheed is just one man, and his call will be ignored without a movement to support it. Take 90 seconds to watch President Nasheed’s call to action and sign the 350 pledge for a safe climate future.  Members of the 350.org crew are in New York this week for the UN Climate Meetings, delivering the 350 message in person–and they can use all the support you can muster.

And while you’re signing the pledge, listen to the President’s words carefully. In case you think he’s just talking, note that he’s planning to personally put on his scuba gear and lead the world’s largest underwater demonstration on Oct. 24, with 350 Maldivians bringing their signs and banners down to the sea floor to make the point that every corner of our planet is threatened.  So signing the pledge is the first step–and joining the world on October 24 will really make your commitment count.

350 is gaining more and more momentum every day, and I hope President Nasheed’s call will help this movement grow further and faster than it has before. The 350 message needs to come from every part of the globe on Oct. 24-from small countries like the Maldives that haven’t caused the problem but will suffer its consequences, and from big countries like the United States that have done so much of the damage.

Please sign on today and join the growing global stand for 350–the world needs you now more than ever.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben

Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

“The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat,” Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

“We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat,” he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

Source: Yahoo News

Images taken from a protest held in Maldives capital Male’ on Friday 9th of Jan 2009 to condemn the inhumane acts of Israeli troops on Gaza killing several children and women.

The protest was attended by several political figures of the Maldives from almost all the registered political parties and also members of different NGOs. Some key figures who attended the protest include human rights commissioner Ahmed Saleem and human rights ambassador Mohamed Latheef (Gogo Latheef). Also includes the DRP parliamentary leader Aneesa Ahmed. Several citizens also joined the protest with boards and banners condemning Israel.

The participants who addressed the crowd called for a boycott of all Israeli and American products and urged the government to denounce the attack at the rally. Also the speakers called for a ban of all Jewish investments in the Maldives. A fund was also opened in order to provide financial help to the Palestinians.

Source:  CNN iReport

One could not imagine the current life of the people of Gaza, without electricity, without drinking water, without food, without medical facilities, watching their kids dying, helpless. Witnessing their mothers and fathers die, wives and beloved people slaughtered. It is saddening the loss of life in Gaza. It is saddening the world is almost silent on the issue, particularly the Islamic World!

The war on Gaza is such a cowardly act by the Israeli forces. Fighting with and killing powerless people with high class weapons! What a shame! This war needs to be brought to an end. Justice should be served; the responsible should be sentenced to the maximum. May God support the believers, and may God bring harmony and peace to the land of Gaza.

-thadu-