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Here’s the trailer for the documentary, directed by Jihan El-Tahri about the ANC. It’s opening tomorrow at selected cinemas in South Africa:
South African private security guard, Faisul Nagel, and his team, were the heroes in the Taj Mahal Hotel last night. Five hours after gunshots broke out, Nagel said that he and his team evacuated 12 guests. (He is 4th from the left in the AP picture above.)
Nagel, who was on the 25th floor of the hotel when the attack began, told AFP that “We heard some gun shots. We barricaded the restaurant and we moved everybody into the kitchen.”
Sapa reports that as gunfire and explosions rattled the five-star hotel, he and the six others who came here from South Africa on his team rushed the guests from the posh dining room lined with windows and glass doors.
“We heard some loud noise, so we opened up the window and we saw people running all around the place,” Nagel told AFP by telephone in Johannesburg. “We realised there was a terrorist threat.” His team, which had come to India to provide security for the Indian Premier League’s cricket championships, led the guests into the kitchen and later into a conference room that provided better safety. Read More…
Flames seen and gunshot heard from an upper floor at the Trident-Oberoi hotel in Mumbai.
India Times is reporting that:
Gunshots have been heard from inside the old building of Taj, according to sources. An employee of Taj Hotel comforts foreign guests in Mumbai following terror strikes.
A little earlier, Maharashtra police chief A N Roy said all hostages at Taj hotel here have been rescued, but there could be some still trapped at Trident hotel and Nariman House where operations were on to flush out terrorists, said today, ruling out any negotiations with the ultras.
All people trapped in Taj Hotel in Mumbai rescued. No hostage-like situation there right now, said Director General of Police (DGP) A N Roy. “There are still guests in the rooms, but we won’t be able to give you a number,” he said.
More bodies have been found inside the hotel, reports suggest.
Four suicide bombers have reportedly been killed in the Taj hotel.
Indian children hold candles as they pay tributes to the victims of terrorist attacks in Mumbai at a school in Ahmadabad today.
An AP describes how a woman found and ran away with a young boy in the Jewish centre in Mumbai. I hate to think what happened in the house:
Twelve hours after gunmen stormed a Jewish centre in Mumbai, Sandra Samuel heard the cries of a small child outside the room in which she had barricaded herself.
She opened the door, grabbed a 2-year-old old boy and ran outside with another centre worker. They are the only ones to have emerged from the house run by the ultra-orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch. “I took the child, I just grabbed the baby and ran out,” said Samuel, 44, who has worked as a cook for the centre for the last five years.
The boy, whom she identified as Moshe Holtzberg, the son of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, was unharmed — but his blood-soaked pants spoke of the horrors inside. Holzberg is the main representative at Chabad house. Samuel, who was looking after the boy at a nearby police station, said that as she ran out, she saw four people lying on the floor, apparently “unconscious.”Chabad spokesman Moni Ender in Israel said there were eight Israelis inside the house, including Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife.
Dozens of Indian commandoes have surrounded the five-story building, where heavy curtains hung behind windows broken by gunfire. Outside the centre, thousands of people stood in the narrow alleyways watching the standoff.The gunmen stormed the building Wednesday night during a series of coordinated attacks across this seaside city that have killed at least 100 people. A group of suspected Muslim militants claimed responsibility.
This is on the Huffingtonpost.com:
The Indian navy says its forces are boarding a cargo vessel suspected of ties to the Mumbai attacks that killed 101 people.
Navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar said Thursday that the ship, the MV Alpha, had recently come to Mumbai from Karachi, Pakistan.
Nambiar says the navy has “located the ship and now we are in the process of boarding it and searching it.” He gave no other details on the ship.
More than 100 people were killed and 300 injured when suspected Islamic militants attacked 10 sites in Mumbai.
The Obama regime is really starting to look and sound like a Hollywood dream movie. Yesterday the president-elect spoke about bank executives not taking Christmas bonuses to save jobs. He and his family handed out food parcels to the poor in Chicago. And then he hired this lovely young man as his Director of Speechwriting. No, it’s not Ben Affleck.
Jonathan Favreau, not related to the film director, is 27. He first met Obama when was 23, a recent graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.
In a New York Times article the journalist describes Obama and Favreau’s first meeting:
Mr. Obama was rehearsing his 2004 convention speech backstage, when Mr. Favreau, then a member of John Kerry’s staff, interrupted him: the senator needed to rewrite a line from his speech to avoid an overlap.
“He kind of looked at me, kind of confused — like, ‘Who is this kid?’ ” Mr. Favreau recalled.
Mr. Obama became his boss the following year. Mr. Favreau had risen to a job as a speechwriter on the Kerry campaign, but by then was unemployed. He was, he said, “broke, taking advantage of all the happy-hour specials I could find in Washington.”
Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama’s communications director, had known Mr. Favreau during the Kerry campaign, and recommended him as a writer
This was sent to me from Obama’s office:
Jon Favreau served as Director of Speechwriting during the 2008 presidential campaign. He has worked for President-elect Obama since February 2005, when he joined Obama’s United States Senate office as Speechwriter. Previously, Favreau served as Deputy Director of Speechwriting on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. A resident of North Reading, Massachusetts, Favreau received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the College of the Holy Cross in 2003.
CNN is reporting that a new blast was heard from deep inside the Oberoi hotel.
A fresh explosion has rocked a Mumbai hotel as Indian police battle to release hostages the day after gunmen carried out attacks across the city, killing more than 100 people.
A standoff continued at the Oberoi Hotel, where about 100 members of a specialized unit of the Indian police undertook an operation to rescue four to five foreigners hostages on the 19th floor. CNN producer Phil O’Sullivan reported a “very loud explosion came from right deep in the hotel.”
At the nearby Taj Mahal hotel, police had rescued most of the hostages and evacuated dozens of guests.