The bodies of nine gunmen killed during attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai a year ago are still awaiting burial.

The unclaimed bodies are lying in a local government hospital and Mumbai police say they have still to take a decision about their future.

Muslim clerics had denied permission to bury the bodies in Mumbai graveyards, saying the actions of the gunmen had "defamed" their religion.

Ten men attacked Mumbai on 26 November 2008, killing more than 170 people.

Only one gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, survived and he is currently facing trial.

'Un-Islamic'

The bodies are being kept in the morgue of Sir JJ Hospital. Officials say the area is secluded and guarded around the clock. The seal is checked every day.

The question of what should be done with the dead militants arose soon after the attacks.

Pakistan flatly refused to take them despite India's argument that they should go back to the country from which they originated.

After post-mortem examinations the bodies were taken to the hospital morgue as Indian Muslims said they would not allow the bodies to be buried in their cemeteries.

Ibrahim Tai, president of the Muslim Council Trust, says he opposes such burials as the gunmen's actions were un-Islamic.

Read more @ BBC News

Facebook has threatened legal action against a service that sells friends on the social networking site.

It said it would take the action against marketing firm USocial unless it stopped violating Facebook's rights.

Read more @ BBC News

Buying fake friends? is that not kind of... sad?

Egypt-Algeria World Cup anger turns violent in Cairo

Riot police in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, quelled a violent demonstration near the Algerian embassy in the early hours of Friday.

Egyptian protesters reportedly hurled firebombs at police protecting the embassy and overturned a police van.

Egypt's Interior Ministry said 35 people were injured.

The clashes stem from Egypt's defeat by Algeria in a World Cup qualifying match on Wednesday, securing Algeria the last African place for next year's finals.

On Friday Alaa Mubarak, the son of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak, made a rare public statement calling for a "tough stance" to be taken against Algeria.

"When you insult my dignity... I will beat you on the head," the businessman, who had attended the game in Khartoum, told a TV news programme.

Read more @ BBC News

Mother backs electric justice for unruly child

An Arkansas cop has been suspended after tasering a ten-year-old girl who repeatedly "screamed, kicked and resisted" when her mother attempted to get her to have a shower before bed.

Officer Dustin Bradshaw was called to a "domestic disturbance" in Ozark on 11 November, where he found the girl "curled up on the floor, screaming", according to his report.

Bradshaw wrote that the girl was "violently kicking and verbally combative", and noted: "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to."

Read more @ The Register

A police department in Texas in the US has released footage of an over-affectionate cat distracting a policeman trying to issue a ticket to a motorist.

The video, filmed by a camera in officer Keith Urban's patrol car, shows the cat crawling up his leg and then onto his head.

Captain Don Georgens from Taylor Police Department said the footage 'helped with our humour around the station'.

Watch video @ BBC News

Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 17 November 2009

EZBT ABBED RABBO, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza living in tents and damaged homes face a wet, cold and miserable winter as Israel's blockade of the coastal territory continues to prevent the importation of building and reconstruction material.

During the last few weeks Gazans were given a brief reprieve from the oncoming winter as an unseasonal snap of warmish, sunny weather held off winter rain and plummeting temperatures.

But, during a tour of northern Gaza last week, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Maxwell Gaylard, and the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) called on Israel to open its border crossings immediately to avert a further deterioration in the humanitarian situation on the ground.

"With winter rains and cold weather now imminent, the people of Gaza are even more desperately in need of construction materials such as cement, roofing tiles and glass to build and repair homes destroyed and damaged during the Israeli military offensive of 2008/2009," said Gaylard.

Read more @ Electronic Intifada

German prosecutors have charged a 90-year-old alleged former Nazi SS member with the killing of 58 Jewish forced labourers, officials say.

The man is accused of murdering the workers in Deutsch Schuetzen, a village in eastern Austria, at the end of World War II.

The court has identified the suspect only as a "retiree from Duisburg".

The victims' remains were found in a mass grave in 1995 by the Austrian Jewish association.

The German state court was told that on 29 March 1945, the accused and accomplices brought at least 57 Jewish forced labourers to a forest "where they had to give up their valuables and kneel by a grave".

"The accused and other SS members then cruelly shot the Jewish forced labourers from behind," a prosecution spokesman said.

Forced march

The 90-year-old man is also accused of shooting another Jew who could no longer walk during a forced march on the same day or the day after, the court was told.

The victims' mass grave is now marked by a plaque.

Prosecutors began investigating the case last year when they were alerted by an Austrian university student who had been researching the massacre, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Prosecutor Andreas Brendel told AP that three former members of the Hitler Youth had provided testimony in Austria.

A fourth former Hitler Youth member, now living in Canada, is being interviewed this week, he said.

A court in Duisburg now has to decide whether the trial of the man can go ahead. The defendant has two weeks to present evidence or to appeal against the case proceeding.

'Ex Nazi' charged with 58 murders

Gordon Brown is to apologise for the UK's role in sending thousands of its children to former colonies in the 20th century, the BBC has learned.

Under the Child Migrants Programme - which ended just 40 years ago - poor children were sent to a "better life" in Australia, Canada and elsewhere.

But many were abused and ended up in institutions or as labourers on farms.

Officials are consulting survivors of the programme so that a statement can be made in the new year.

On Monday, Australia's prime minister will apologise to the 7,000 UK migrants living there for the mistreatment.

He will deliver a national apology to the "Forgotten Australians" and recognise the mistreatment and ongoing suffering of some 500,000 people held in orphanages or children's homes between 1930 and 1970.

As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were told - wrongly - their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them.

Many parents did not know their children, aged as young as three, had been sent to Australia.

Care agencies worked with the government to send disadvantaged children to a rosy future and supply what was deemed "good white stock" to a former colony.

Read more @ BBC News

Activists break West Bank barrier

Palestinians and foreign peace activists have broken apart a section of the West Bank barrier.

They used ropes and at least one truck to pull down some of the concrete blocks forming the Israeli-built wall.

The activists carried out the protest to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The barrier, which separates Israel from the West Bank, is a mixture of fences, barbed wire, ditches and concrete slabs up to 8m (26ft) high.

Israeli armed police, who are reported to have arrived shortly afterwards, are believed to have used tear gas to force the activists to stop.

Read more and watch video @ BBC News

Two-year-olds at risk from 'gender-bending' chemicals, report says

#Two-year-old children are being exposed to dangerous levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals in domestic products such as rubber clogs and sun creams, according to an EU investigation being studied by the government.

The 327-page report says that while risks from "anti-androgen" and "oestrogen-like" substances in individual items have been recognised, the cumulative impact of such chemicals, particularly on boys, is being ignored.

...

Phthalates, one of the main anti-androgen chemicals, which are used as softeners in soap, rubber shoes, bath mats and soft toys, have been blamed for blocking the action of testosterone in the womb and are alleged to cause low sperm counts, high rates of testicular cancer and malformations of the sexual organs.

Research has suggested that male foetuses around 8-12 weeks after conception can be effectively demasculinised by exposure to such chemicals.

Read more @ The Guardian