Google rejects White House request to remove anti-Islam film clip

San Francisco: Google Inc rejected a request by the White House on Friday to reconsider its decision to keep online a controversial YouTube movie clip that has ignited anti-American protests in the Middle East.

The Internet company said it was censoring the video in India and Indonesia after blocking it on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya, where U.S. embassies have been stormed by protestors enraged over depiction of the Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and philanderer.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in a fiery siege on the embassy in Benghazi.

Google said was further restricting the clip to comply with local law rather than as a response to political pressure.

"We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these two countries," the company said. "This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007."

White House officials had asked Google earlier on Friday to reconsider whether the video had violated YouTube's terms of service. The guidelines can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines.

Google said on Wednesday that the video was within its guidelines.

U.S. authorities said on Friday that they were investigating whether the film's producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year old Egyptian Coptic Christian living in Southern California, had violated terms of his prison release. Basseley was convicted in 2010 for bank fraud and released from prison on probation last June.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

Libya attack: Tried to revive US envoy for 90 minutes, says doctor

Tripoli, Libya: The Libyan doctor who treated US ambassador Chris Stevens says the diplomat died of severe asphyxiation and that he tried for 90 minutes to revive him.

Ziad Abu Zeid told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Stevens was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans the night before, with no other Americans and that initially no one realized he was the ambassador.

Abu Zeid said Stevens had "severe asphyxia," apparently from smoke inhalation, causing stomach bleeding, but had no other injuries.

Stevens and three American security guards died when the US Consulate in Benghazi came under attack from a mob angry over an anti-Islam film made in the US. The crowd fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades and set fire to the consulate.

The film that stoked Mid-East violence has murky parentage

Los Angeles: The film that set off violence across North Africa was made in obscurity somewhere in the sprawl of Southern California, and promoted by a network of right-wing Christians with a history of animosity directed toward Muslims. When a 14-minute trailer of it - all that may actually exist - was posted on YouTube in June, it was barely noticed.

But when the video, with its almost comically amateurish production values, was translated into Arabic and reposted twice on YouTube in the days before Sept. 11, and promoted by leaders of the Coptic diaspora in the United States, it drew nearly one million views and set off bloody demonstrations.

The history of the film - who financed it; how it was made; and perhaps most important, how it was translated into Arabic and posted on YouTube to Muslim viewers - was shrouded Wednesday in tales of a secret Hollywood screening; a director who may or may not exist, and used a false name if he did; and actors who appeared, thanks to computer technology, to be traipsing through Middle Eastern cities. One of its main producers, Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran whose son was severely wounded in Iraq, is notorious across California for his involvement with anti-Muslim actions, from the courts to schoolyards to a weekly show broadcast on Christian radio in the Middle East.

Yet as much of the world was denouncing the violence that had spread across the Middle East, Mr. Klein - an insurance salesman in Hemet, Calif., a small town two hours east of here - proclaimed the video a success at portraying what he has long argued was the infamy of the Muslim world, even as he chuckled at the film's amateur production values.

"We have reached the people that we want to reach," he said in an interview. "And I'm sure that out of the emotion that comes out of this, a small fraction of those people will come to understand just how violent Muhammad was, and also for the people who didn't know that much about Islam. If you merely say anything that's derogatory about Islam, then they immediately go to violence, which I've experienced."

Mr. Klein has a long history of making controversial and erroneous claims about Islam. He said the film had been shown at a screening at a theater "100 yards or so" from Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood over the summer, drawing what he suggested was a depressingly small audience. He declined to specify what theater might have shown it, and theater owners in the vicinity of the busy strip said they had no record of any such showing.

The amateurish video opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Coptic Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug.

Even as Mr. Klein described his role in the film as incidental, James Horn, a friend who has worked with Mr. Klein in anti-Muslim activities for several years, said he believed Mr. Klein was involved in providing technical assistance to the film and advice on the script. Mr. Horn said he called Mr. Klein on Wednesday. "I said, 'Steve, did you do this?' He said, 'Yep.' "

As the movie, "Innocence of Muslims," drew attention across the globe, it was unclear whether a full version exists. Executives at Hollywood agencies said they had never heard of it. Hollywood unions said they had no involvement. Casting directors said they did not recognize the actors in the 14-minute YouTube clip that purports to be a trailer for a longer film. Production offices had no records for a movie of that name. There was a 2009 casting call in BackStage, however, for a film called "Desert Warrior" whose producer is listed as Sam Bassiel.

That name is quite similar to the one that Mr. Klein, in the interview, said was the director of his film. He spelled it Sam Basile, though he added that was not the director's real name. Mr. Klein said he met Mr. Basile while scouting mosques in Southern California, "locating who I thought were terrorists."

An actress who played the role of a mother in the film said in an interview that the director had originally told cast members that the film was "Desert Warriors" and would depict ancient life. Now, she said, she feels duped, angry and sad. "When I looked at the trailer, it was nothing like what we had done. There was not even a character named Muhammad in what we originally put together," said the actress, who asked that her name not be used for fear of her safety.

She said she had spoken on Wednesday to the film's director, whose last name she said was spelled Basil. She said he told her that he made the film because he was upset with Muslims killing innocent people.

The original idea for the film, Mr. Klein said, was to lure hard-core Muslims into a screening of the film thinking they were seeing a movie celebrating Islam. "And when they came in they would see this movie and see the truth, the facts, the evidence and the proof," he said. "So I said, yeah, that's a good idea."

Among the film's promoters was Terry Jones, the Gainesville, Fla., preacher whose burning of the Koran led to widespread protests in Afghanistan. Mr. Jones said Wednesday that he has not seen the full video.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Mr. Jones on Wednesday and asked him to consider withdrawing his support for the video. Mr. Jones described the conversation as "cordial," but said he had not decided what he would do because he had yet to see the full film.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said Mr. Klein taught combat training to members of California's Church at Kaweah, which the center described as a "a combustible mix of guns, extreme antigovernment politics and religious extremism" and an institution that had an "obsession with Muslims."

Warren Campbell, the pastor of the church, said that Mr. Klein had come to the congregation twice to talk about Islam. He said the law center's report on his church was filled "with distortions and lies." The center also said that Mr. Klein was the founder of Courageous Christians United, which conducts demonstrations outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. Mr. Klein also has ties to the Minuteman movement.

Mr. Horn said Mr. Klein was motivated by the near-death of his son, who Mr. Horn said had served in the United States Army in Iraq and was wounded in Falluja. "That cemented Steve's feelings about it," he said.

Although Mr. Horn described Mr. Klein as connected to the Coptic community in Los Angeles - and Morris Sadek, the leader of a Washington-based Coptic organization, had promoted the film on the Web - Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles said he did not know of Mr. Klein. "We condemn this film," he said. "Our Christian teaching is we have to respect people of other faiths." 

© 2012, The New York Times News Service

US missions attacked in Egypt, Libya; one American official dead

Cairo: Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked U.S. diplomatic missions on Tuesday, leading to the death of an American staffer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after fierce clashes at the compound, a Libyan official said.

"One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes," Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee, said, adding he did not know the exact number of injured or what the cause of death was.

The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt where protesters scaled the walls of the Cairo embassy and tore down the American flag and burned it during protests over what demonstrators said was a U.S. film that insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

On Tuesday, Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and seat of Sunni learning condemned a symbolic "trial" of the Prophet organized by a U.S. group including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Koran.

Jones said that on Tuesday's anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he had released a video promoting a film that portrayed the Prophet in a "satirical" manner. Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet offensive.

Gunmen in Benghazi attacked the compound on Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces, officials said. "There is a connection between this attack and the protests that have been happening in Cairo," Hurr said.

The U.S. State Department did not refer to any deaths, but said in a statement: "We can confirm that our office in Benghazi, Libya, has been attacked by a group of militants. We are working with the Libyans now to secure the compound. We condemn in strongest terms this attack on our diplomatic mission."

Among about 2,000 protesters gathered in the Egyptian capital was Ismail Mahmoud, who, like others, did not name the film that angered him, but called on President Mohamed Mursi, Egypt's first civilian president and an Islamist, to take action.

"This movie must be banned immediately and an apology should be made," said the 19-year-old Mahmoud, a member of the "ultras" soccer supporters who played a big role in the uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak last year.

Once the U.S. flag was hauled down in Cairo, some protesters tore it up and displayed bits to television cameras. Others burned the remnants outside the fortress-like embassy building in central Cairo. But some protesters objected to the flag burning.

BENGHAZI CLASHES

In Benghazi, Reuters reporters on the scene could see looters raiding the empty U.S. consulate's compound, walking off with desks, chairs and washing machines.

Unknown gunmen were shooting at the buildings, while others threw handmade bombs into the compound, setting off small explosions. Small fires were burning around the compound.

Passersby entered the unsecured compound to take pictures with their mobile phones and watch the looting.

No security forces could be seen around the consulate and a previous blockade of the road leading to it had been dismantled.

"The Libyan security forces came under heavy fire and we were not prepared for the intensity of the attack," Hurr said.

In Washington, a U.S official who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "We have no reason to believe, at this time, that the Cairo protests and the attack in Benghazi are connected in motive."

Libya's interim government has struggled to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups that have refused to lay down their weapons and often take the law into their own hands.

A number of security violations have rocked Benghazi, Libya's second biggest city and the cradle of last year's revolt that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The breaching of the U.S. Embassy walls in Cairo comes at a delicate time in U.S.-Egyptian relations, and as the United States appeared to be easing its caution over Mursi.

Last week, U.S. officials said they were close to a deal with Egypt's government for $1 billion in debt relief. Washington had also signaled its backing for a badly needed $4.8 billion loan that Egypt is seeking from the International Monetary Fund.

"I would urge you not to draw too many conclusions because we've also had some very positive developments in our relationship with Egypt," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"One of the things about the new Egypt is that protest is possible," she said. "Obviously we all want to see peaceful protest, which is not what happened outside the U.S. mission, so we're trying to restore calm now."

Washington has a large mission in Egypt, partly because of a huge aid program that followed Egypt's signing of a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The United States gives $1.3 billion to Egypt's military each year and offers the nation other aid.

Following the protest, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said it was committed to giving all embassies the protection they needed.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

Indian couple's custody battle in US: Govt asks for report

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has asked the Indian embassy  in the United States to report on an Indian couple's battle for custody of their child.

The couple ,who is originally from West Bengal, has been given limited access by American authorities to their one-year-old son after he underwent surgery for an injury.

Nirmal and Sonarani Saha, the grandparents of Indrasish, said he fell from a bed on August 9 at the couple's New Jersey home when his mother Pamela was cooking and his father Debas was in office.

Indrashish was immediately rushed to a state-owned hospital where he was admitted by doctors and underwent a surgery.

After he recovered, his parents wanted to take him home but child welfare services alleged that he was not being cared for by his family.

Indrashish's grandfather said that he has appealed to the President, the Prime Minister and the West Bengal Chief Minister for help.

In May, two Indian children in Norway were taken into foster care by Child Protection Services who said that Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya  -were unfit to look after two-and-half-year-old Abhigyan and five-month-old Aishwarya.

The custody battle became a diplomatic stress point; the Indian government intervened on behalf of the Bhattacharyas and finally, the children were sent to India in the custody of their uncle,  Arunabhas Bhattacharya.

(with PTI inputs) 

Barack Obama accepts party's nomination for second term

Charlotte, North Carolina: His re-election in doubt, President Barack Obama conceded only halting progress Thursday night toward fixing the nation's stubborn economic woes, but vowed in a Democratic National Convention finale, "Our problems can be solved, our challenges can be met."

"Yes, our path is harder - but it leads to a better place," he declared in a prime-time speech to convention delegates and the nation that blended resolve about the challenges ahead with stinging criticism of Republican rival Mitt Romney's proposals to repair the economy.

He acknowledged "my own failings" as he asked for a second term, four years after taking office as the nation's first black president.

"Four more years," delegates chanted over and over as the 51-year-old Obama stepped to the podium, noticeably grayer than four years ago when he was a history-making candidate for the White House.

The president's speech was the final act of a pair of highly scripted national political conventions in as many weeks, and the opening salvo of a two-month drive toward Election Day that pits Obama against Republican rival Romney. The contest is ever tighter for the White House in a dreary season of economic struggle for millions.

Vice President Joe Biden preceded Obama at the convention podium and proclaimed, "America has turned the corner" after experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Obama didn't go that far in his own remarks, but he said firmly, "We are not going back, we are moving forward, America."

With unemployment at 8.3 percent, the president said the task of recovering from the economic disaster of 2008 is exceeded in American history only by the challenge Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced when he took office in 1933.

"It will require common effort, shared responsibility and the kind of bold persistent experimentation" that FDR employed, Obama said.

In an appeal to independent voters who might be considering a vote for Romney, he added that those who carry on Roosevelt's legacy "should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington.

He said, "The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over the decades."

In the run-up to Obama's speech, delegates erupted in tumultuous cheers when former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, grievously wounded in a 2011 assassination attempt, walked onstage to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. The hall grew louder when she blew kisses to the crowd.

And louder still when huge video screens inside the hall showed the face of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind killed in a daring raid on his Pakistani hideout by U.S. special operations forces" on a mission approved by the current commander in chief.

The hall was filled to capacity long before Obama stepped to the podium, and officials shut off the entrances because of a fear of overcrowding for a speech that the campaign had originally slated for the 74,000-seat football stadium nearby. Aides said weather concerns prompted the move to the convention arena, capacity 15,000 or so.

Obama's campaign said the president would ask the country to rally around a "real achievable plan that will create jobs, expand opportunity and ensure an economy built to last."

He added, "The truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over a decade."

In convention parlance, both Obama and Biden were delivering acceptance speeches before delegates who nominated them for new terms in office.

But the political significance went far beyond that - the moment when the general election campaign begins in earnest even though Obama and Romney have been pointing toward a Nov. 6 showdown for months.

To the cheers of delegates, Obama retraced his steps to halt the economic slide, including the auto bailout that Romney opposed.

"After a decade of decline, this country created over a half million manufacturing jobs in the last two and a half years," he said.

Turning to national security, he said he had promised to end the war in Iraq, and had done so.

"We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014 our longest war will be over," he said.

"A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al-Qaida is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead," he declared, one of the night's repeated references to the special operations forces raid that resulted in the terrorist mastermind's demise more than a year ago.

He lampooned Romney's own economic proposals.

"Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning," he said.

Mocking Romney for his overseas trip earlier this summer, Obama said, "You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally." That was a reference to a verbal gaffe the former Massachusetts governor committed while visiting London.

The hall was filled to capacity long before Obama stepped to the podium, and officials shut off the entrances because of a fear of overcrowding for a speech that the campaign had originally slated for the 74,000-seat football stadium nearby. Aides said weather concerns prompted the move to the convention arena, capacity 15,000 or so.

Obama's campaign said the president would ask the country to rally around a "real achievable plan that will create jobs, expand opportunity and ensure an economy built to last."

Biden told the convention in his own speech that he had watched as Obama "made one gutsy decision after another" to stop an economic free-fall after they took office in 2009.

Now, he said, "we're on a mission to move this nation forward" from doubt and downturn to promise and prosperity. ... America has turned the corner."

Delegates who packed into their convention hall were serenaded by singer James Taylor and rocked by R&B blues artist Mary J. Blige as they awaited Obama's speech.

There was no end to the jabs aimed at Romney and the Republicans.

"Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off than four years ago," said Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who lost the 2004 election in a close contest with President George W. Bush. It was a mocking answer to the Republicans' repeated question of whether Americans are better off than when Obama took office.

The campaign focus was shifting quickly " to politically sensitive monthly unemployment figures due out Friday morning and the first presidential debate on Oct. 3 in Denver. Wall Street hit a four-year high a few hours before Obama's speech after the European Central Bank laid out a concrete plan to support the region's struggling countries.

The economy is by far the dominant issue in the campaign, and the differences between Obama and his challenger could hardly be more pronounced.

Romney wants to extend all tax cuts that are due to expire on Dec. 31 with an additional 20 percent reduction in rates across the board, arguing that job growth would result. He also favors deep cuts in domestic programs ranging from education to parks, repeal of the health care legislation that Obama pushed through Congress and landmark changes in Medicare, the program that provides health care to seniors.

Obama wants to renew the tax cuts except on incomes higher than $250,000, saying that millionaires should contribute to an overall attack on federal deficits. He also criticizes the spending cuts Romney advocates, saying they would fall unfairly on the poor, lower-income college students and others. He argues that Republicans would "end Medicare as we know it" and saddle seniors with ever-rising costs.

After two weeks of back-to-back conventions, the impact on the race remained to be determined.

You're not going to see big bounces in this election," said David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser. "For the next 61 days, it's going to remain tight as a tick."

Romney wrapped up several days of debate rehearsals with close aides in Vermont and is expected to resume full-time campaigning in the next day or two.

In a brief stop to talk with veterans on Thursday, he defended his decision to omit mention of the war in Afghanistan when he delivered his acceptance speech last week at the Republican National Convention. He noted he had spoken to the American Legion only one day before.

Romney's campaign released its first new television ad since the convention season began.

It shows Clinton sharply questioning Obama's credibility on the Iraq War in 2008, saying "Give me a break, this whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen." Obama was running against Hillary Rodham Clinton at the time for the Democratic nomination.

It will likely be a week or more before the two campaigns can fully digest post-convention polls and adjust their strategies for the fall.

Based on the volume of campaign appearances to date and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent already on television advertising, the election appears likely to be decided in a small number of battleground states. The list includes New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa, as well as Florida and North Carolina, the states where first Republicans and then Democrats held their conventions. Those states hold 100 electoral votes among them, out of 270 needed to win the White House.

Money has become an ever-present concern for the Democrats, an irony given the overwhelming advantage Obama held over John McCain in the 2008 campaign.

This time, Romney is outpacing him, and independent groups seeking the Republican's election are pouring tens of millions of dollars into television advertising, far exceeding what Obama's supporters can afford.

From: NDTV

Range Rover: What's new, what's different, when in India

It's too early to call it a triumph. But it's certainly the most important milestone for JLR since the British company passed into the hands of Tata Motors.

The fourth generation of the iconic flagship of the Land Rover brand will be available to customers in the UK and USA by December. The rest of the world gets it in the first quarter of 2013. The new Range Rover has grown in size and possibly stature too. It attempts to offer new levels of luxury while also trying to stay green. For the first time the Range Rover will use an all-aluminium frame which reduces weight by 180 kg. And despite the slight increase in dimensions. It is 27 mm longer than its predecessor, and yet stays overall shorter than rivals like the Audi Q7 or Mercedes-Benz GL.

So while it is the world's first SUV with an all-aluminium construction, it's also now going to be the first Land Rover offering to feature a hybrid variant. And it's a diesel hybrid by the way - which attempts to cash in on diesel's higher efficiency over petrol to begin with - and enhancing that by throwing in a 50 KW electric motor. Land Rover claims that the addition of the hybrid system, heavy battery included, doesn't change the go-anywhere credentials that are the hallmark of the Range Rover brand. The hybrid variant will be offered only in select markets though, later in 2013.

Of course besides that the company is offering one supercharged petrol V8, and two turbo diesel options - one V6 and one V8.

The company has spent £ 1 billion on the entire project. This is because the new Range Rover's new architecture demanded technology enhancements for the manufacturing processes too. So the Solihull facility that makes this car has also been upgraded to meet the new production requirements at an expense of £ 370 million. The company hopes to make good on the high investment by using some of the facilities and processes - as also the vehicle's platform - for future products.

Most Range Rover Variants will likely breach £100,000 here in the UK, but interestingly its entry variant starts at £72,000 - the same price as the outgoing Range Rover.

Land Rover has unveiled its most important car yet. The market launch will happen at the Paris Motor Show where no doubt the car will be one of the most anticipated debuts - along with sister brand Jaguar's massive model debut too - the two-seater spots car F-Type. Development on both models has also been watched very closely by Tata Group Chairman, Ratan Tata, and will be the last two products launched before he steps down in December. Expect the new Range Rover to be offered in India by mid-2013.