London am

[Coop2004]

Re: London am

Well, it's good to hear that both Rich and *Cinders* are safe!!

[Richt]

Re: London am

Wow, what a shocking 24 hours this last day has been.

We now know that there are a minimum of 50 people who have been killed. When I first heard the news yesterday morning the powers that be thought it was a electric fault! My, how a lot has changed since then.

I am fortunate that I live about 100 miles away from London, but a couple of my friends work there. I was worried about them for quite a while especially as the phone lines were down in the city.

Fortunately my friends are ok, but Its a shame that the same cant be said for everyone. My heart goes out to all of the people who arent as lucky as myself, cinders, labarum and Ellizien.

Thanks for you concerns

Rich

[Labarum]

Re: London am

This sad London Times article about a Muslim girl missing in the London bombs could mean that the terrorists will have defeated their own objectives by firming up the opposition to them by British Muslims - most of whom have no sympathy for them anyway.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...686687,00.html

Happy in a hijab or high heels, a very British Muslim is missing
By Liz Chong and Rajeev Syal


HER family says that she embodies multicultural London in so many ways: a beautiful Muslim woman, as comfortable in high heels and jeans as a traditional shalwar kameez. Now the family of Shahera Akther Islam, 20, fear that she has been murdered in the name of the religion that she loved by terrorists determined to destroy her very British way of life.

“She enjoyed fashion, loved to shop in the West End and would usually carry her Gucci or Burberry handbags. But she was also a practising Muslim. She lives her life to the full,” he said. She defies many of the stereotypes of a Muslim woman, he said, by refusing to be demure and always speaking her mind.

“Anyone and everyone who knows her falls in love with her because she is such a bubbly person,” said Mr Hasan, a trainee actuary. The fact that she may have been murdered by people acting in the name of Islam has devastated Shamsul and Romena Islam, her devout parents, he said.

“The people who committed this outrage are not human beings. They are terrorists, pure and simple,” Mr Hasan said.

Ms Islam, from Plaistow, East London, has always been proud to call herself a real East Ender. She was born at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. She would occasionally wear the traditional hijab, or headscarf, for visits to the East London Mosque in Whitechapel. Like thousands of other Londoners, Ms Islam, the eldest of three children, left her family home on Thursday morning with plans of taking her usual journey to Islington, North London, where she works as a bank clerk.

Wearing her Co-Operative Bank uniform of blue trousers and a white shirt, she said goodbye to her family, before walking to Plaistow Tube station.

Mr Hasan, 25, said that he believed his niece was on the Circle Line train travelling to Liverpool Street at 8.51 when a bomb exploded. An hour later, she appears to have tried to call his mobile telephone but he failed to answer it in time.

“I received a call from her telephone, which I missed. I tried to call back but her phone is going to voicemail,” he said.

Since then, the family has been frantically trying to locate her in hospitals. “We have registered her with the police as missing but we have no information,” Mr Hasan said.

Mr Hasan said that he had been to eight London hospitals looking for his niece. “I am hoping she is in hospital somewhere,” he said.

Her mother, Romena, is racked with guilt because she persuaded Ms Islam to go to work that day, even though she had been planning to take time off.

“She wanted to stay at home, because she had a dental appointment in the afternoon, but her mother told her that she should go to work anyway. It is awful,” he said.

Mr Hasan said that Ms Islam would have been filled with despair at the bombings. “She would have been horrified and questioned the logic of some of these people. Like most other Londoners, she would have been filled with anger towards the bombers. She loved London, and Britain, to the core,” he said.

[Squeaker]

Re: London am

My brother-in-laws penfriend is over from Singapore - a devout muslim and University lecturer she was supposed to be teaching in London on Friday.
She spent the whole of last night in tears about all this. A lovelier sweeter girl you couldn't possibly meet. I sincerely hope there's no backlash against the Muslim population in this country, there is absolutely NO reason why the many should be held respsonsible for the acts of a few loonies.

[Labarum]

Re: London am

Keep a stiff upper lip chaps!

The British Army is kick-a$$...they know how to handle adversity.

The BBC Article below reports Prime Minister Tony Blair saying very much what I was saying yesterday - only to be rubbished!



Blair pays tribute to resilience
Prime Minister Tony Blair has paid tribute to the "great resilience" of the British people in the wake of the London bombings. He told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme Londoners' response had been "extraordinary" and that they would not be "terrorised by terror".

He said the government would act with caution and not bring in strict new laws to boost security.

"The British have a very great inner resilience," he said.





"Several of the leaders at the (G8 summit commented to me how remarkable the British people are that they are simply not going to be terrorised by terror in this way," Mr Blair said.

"I think that we will continue with our way of life, I genuinely believe that.

"Even as we mourn the lives of those people killed so brutally and unnecessarily the sense, I think, and I hope, within the country, is to pull together and to make sure people can't divide us."

Security measures alone cannot protect the UK from attack and the underlying causes of terrorism must be "pulled up by the roots", Mr Blair said.

"All the surveillance in the world" cannot stop people going on a bus to blow up innocent people.

He said the "dreadful perversion of the true faith of Islam" must be tackled.

And he argued the "worst terrorist atrocity" - the 11 September attacks - came before the Iraq war.

Liberal society

The prime minister returned to Downing Street from the G8 summit on Friday evening to chair a meeting of Cobra, the government's emergencies committee.

In the interview, broadcast at 0810 BST on Saturday, he said it was inevitable terrorists would try to attack the UK.

"It's just tragic that they have succeeded," he says.





He praised the resilience of Londoners who pulled together as they mourned those killed in Thursday's blasts.

Mr Blair said the terrorists would have won if the UK became an illiberal society.

Instead, it was proud of being open, liberal, multi-racial and multi-religious, with strong restrictions on government powers.

'Perversion'

The prime minister said debate will continue on measures such as identity cards to help counter illegal immigration and crime.

But he argues: "Probably with this type of terrorism the solution cannot only be the security measures. I have never really doubted that myself."

Ultimately, the government had to protect people but "the underlying issues have to be dealt with too in terms of trying to get rid of this dreadful perversion of the true faith of Islam."

That meant people within the Muslim community standing up and saying they abhorred violence which was "wholly inconsistent" with their faith, he said.

He welcomes the fact that such efforts are already taking place.

Iraq questions



Mr Blair says there also has to be a drive to create a fairer and more just world and to foster peace in the Middle East.

Respect MP George Galloway has said Londoners have "paid the price" of the government failing to heed warnings that military action in Iraq and Afghanistan would increase risks of an attack on the UK.

But Mr Blair said the bombers in Madrid had been planning further attacks before they were caught even after the government had changed.

And the 11 September attacks in America had been the reason for the war in Afghanistan.

After high of winning the Olympics and the tragedy of the blasts, Mr Blair says he has gone through an "extraordinary gamut of emotions".

He says there is nothing more awful than seeing death and destruction - not just because he is a national leader but because of thoughts for grieving families.








Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...cs/4666311.stm