MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Christians, Muslims, NGOs mobilise for Asia Bibi, against “obscene” blasphemy law.Catholic and Protestant leaders as well as Muslim scholars and non-governmental organisations have slammed a court’s decision to impose the death sentence on Asia Bibi, a Christian women convicted on blasphemy charges. She is the first woman sentenced to death for such an offence, and many Pakistanis are pressuring the government to change or repeal the country’s “obscene” blasphemy legislation. Meanwhile, the woman’s lawyers visited her in prison to prepare her application for an appeal.The facts go back to June 2009. Asia Bibi, a farm worker, was asked to fetch water whilst out in the fields, working. A group of Muslim women labourers objected, saying she should not touch the water bowl because as a non-Muslim, she would make it impure.Later, some of the women tried to get Asia to forsake Christianity and convert to Islam. During the exchange, the Christian woman said that Jesus died on the cross for humanity’s sins, asking the Muslims women what Muhammad had done for them.A few days later, the Muslim women went to their local imam, and accused Asia Bibi of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. One of the women is the imam’s wife. The religious leader then went to the police to file a complaint. "The blasphemy law is absolutely obscene and it needs to be repealed in totality," Human Rights Watch spokesman Ali Dayan Hasan told AsiaNews. "It is primarily used against vulnerable groups that face social and political discrimination. Heading that category are religious minorities and heterodox Muslim sects," he said.“The Blasphemy law is often used as a tool to settle personal differences, 85 per cent of such cases are false cases,” Federal Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti said. Speaking to AsiaNews, he added, “Many innocent people have been victims in false blasphemy cases. The lower courts give their verdict, but such cases are never proven in higher courts.Read the full story here.

• Never forget: Shoah archives united.Brussels ceremony inaugurates new project combining Holocaust archives from 13 different countries. 'In order to tell the entire story, all the material must be brought together,' says director of Yad Vashem Archives.The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), which was expected to be inaugurated in Brussels on Tuesday afternoon, has been defined by senior researchers and politicians in Europe and Israel as "the most important project in the study of the Jewish people's Holocaust in the coming years." The project is aimed at combining all the European archives in Europe with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Europe under one technological infrastructure. Thirteen countries and 20 research institutes took part in this enterprise over the past four years, at an investment of some €7 million (about $9.5 million).A symbolic date was chosen for the inauguration ceremony in Brussels. Exactly 70 years ago, the Warsaw Ghetto was officially "sealed" and the hundreds of thousands of Jews in it were unable to get out. "This is not a general and vague project about 'the Nazis' victims during the World War,' but rather a specific project about the Jewish people's Holocaust, recognizing its uniqueness." He illustrated the project's importance through one of many cases – the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Its archive is scattered between Yad Vashem, the Theresienstadt memorial, and the Jewish Museum in Prague. There is also some information in Holland and Hungary. an example for the current difficulty to find information. "A researcher searches for information on Kristallnacht, and doesn't know whether to look under the date or under the German, English or Hebrew name… and the list goes on. With each option, the researcher may get different answers. At the end of the project being launched today, it will all be combined in one database and the differences will become tiny." Read the full story here.

• Iran kicks off air defense war games. Five-day exercise aimed at examining air defense system, simulating attack on country's borders and nuclear facilities. 'The Zionists are not a threat to us – they couldn't even defeat Hamas,' says commander of Air Defense Base. The exercise, dubbed "Defenders of the Sky 3", attempts to simulate an attack on the country's borders and nuclear facilities – in a clear message to Israel and the United States, which have not ruled out a military strike against the Islamic Republic.The Iranian news agency reported that homemade antiaircraft missiles systems would be tested during the five-day maneuver. It was unclear whether the Ayatollah regime would also test the Iranian-made antiaircraft system aimed at replacing the Russian S-300, after Moscow refused to act on the contract between the countries and hand the missile system over to Tehran.Hmm...the problem with war games is ....they don't shoot back with live ammo. Read the full story here.

• UK's Prince William and Kate Middleton engaged to be married.Got engaged last month during Kenya holiday in Kenya and are due to marry next spring or summer in London.Read the full story here.More here with video.

• HT:IMRA.You got to be kidding me!US Demands Tehran to Supply Gasoline to American Forces in Region. Washington has asked Tehran to supply gasoline to its forces deployed in the region, an Iranian official announced on Monday, reminding that the US has made the demand while it has recently passed a legislation to boycott global fuel supplies to Iran."A country which was the main actor behind fuel sanctions against Iran has now stretched its needy hand to Iran to purchase gasoline for its military forces in the region," Iran's Deputy Welfare and Social Security Minister Ali Yousefpour said.He said the demand indicates the weakness and failure of Washington in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reiterated that such failures show the astonishing demise of the so-called superpower in the world.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Issues Statement on Eid Al-Adha, Rejects Media Reports of Peace Talks as 'Baseless Propaganda' Aimed at 'Wrongfully Raising Hollow Hopes in the Hearts of… People'.On November 15, 2010, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who heads the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban’s shadow government in Afghanistan), issued a statement to mark the occasion of Eid Al-Adha, the Islamic festival of sacrifice falling on November 17. In the statement, Mullah Omar rejected all media reports about peace talks between the Taliban and the Karzai government as "baseless propaganda." The Taliban leader noted: "The enemy is retreating and facing siege in all parts of the country day in and day out. Their casualties of life are spiraling up. It is because of this pressure that the enemy has resorted to spreading the misleading rumors of peace talks."Read the full story here.

• ‘Death to America and Israel’ Slogans at Muslim Hajj Pilgrimage. Tens of thousands of Muslims chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” at the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which the Ayatollah of Iran called “a symbol of spirituality.”“Today the Zionist regime is no more the undefeatable monster of 30 years ago,” he said. ”The United States and the West are also no more the unquestionable decision-makers of the Middle East that they were two decades ago. Today the arrogant United States, the self-styled commandant of the Islamic region and the real sponsor of the Zionist regime, is bogged down in the quagmire of its own making in Afghanistan.”He began his speech by saying that “the growing wave of Islamic awakening heralds a glorious future for the Muslim community…The enemy's extensive propaganda campaigns to promote Islamophobia are hasty attempts at sowing discord among Islamic faiths and fueling factional prejudices.”Obama "Islam is a great religion".Wake up ,smell the coffee!Read the full story here.

• HT:Emerging Corruption.Obamacare Waivers Prove Policy is a Jobs Killer, Unions Benefit Most.111 companies and organizations were granted waivers by Obama’s Dept. of Health and Human Services so that they could get out of having to comply with Obamacare and unions were particularly well rewarded by the HHS with these waivers.Interestingly, there was no great announcement of these waivers issued to the press. The HHS buried the waiver announcement six layers deep on its webpage and posted them on Friday when they imagined no one would notice. It’s a typical Friday evening document dump so common when an administration wants to avoid the prying eyes of the people. So much for the “most transparent administration in history,” eh?One thing is sure about these waivers. Obama rewarded his union pals quite well. Some 15 unions and union healthcare or financial fund and insurance providers fill the list of companies and groups that will not have to operate under Obamacare’s destructive rules.Hmmm....."Ill make you an offer you can't refuse"?Read the full scam story here.

• Californian woman becomes fourth in last month charged with helping Somalian terrorist group with Al Qaeda links.A Californian woman has been charged with conspiring to provide money and manpower to help a Somalian terrorist group - with links to Al Qaeda - carry out killings in the African country.Nima Ali Yusuf, 24, allegedly plotted in Southern California and elsewhere to aid al-Shabab, a militia trying to create an Islamic state in Somalia. She is now being held without bail ahead of a hearing on Thursday.Yusuf is the fourth person charged in the past month in San Diego with helping al-Shabab - the others were accused of helping raise money and route funds to the radical Islamist group.She was arrested on Friday in San Diego and appeared in federal court yesterday, federal prosecutor Sabrina Feve said.Yusuf was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists; conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization; and making a false statement to an FBI agent and Customs and Border Protection officer when she allegedly denied sending money to anyone in Somalia in the past year.Read the full story here.

• Two Full-Time Obama Opponents Say Obama Should Pledge Not to Run Again.What would really help President Barack Obama through the current tough political spell? If he just gave up his foolish desire to be president and announced he would not seek reelection.That's what Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell suggested in the Washington Post yesterday. Obama should "seize the high ground," they wrote, by announcing that he will not run for reelection in 2012. We do not come to this conclusion lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed. The midterm elections were effectively a referendum on the Obama presidency. And even if it was not an endorsement of a Republican vision for America, the drubbing the Democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in Obama and his party. The president has almost no credibility left with Republicans and little with independents.Read the full story here.

• HT:FiveThirtyEight.As full-body scanners come into more widespread use in American airports (they will be phased in soon at the three major airports in the New York City metro region), they are also coming under more frequent criticism.The objections are coming from many different quarters.My first experience with the full-body scanners, on a flight back to Kennedy Airport from San Diego last month, was also a negative one. I had assumed that, whatever their other faults, the full-body scanners would at least speed up the process of going through the security line; I supposed I imagined something like this scene from the movie Total Recall, in which passengers literally don’t even have to pause to go through security as their bodies are scanned while they walk toward the departure gate.Instead, the lines were quite slow — possibly because the machines were coming up with a lot of false positives, myself included.Hmmm...i've said it before and i'll keep saying it "The weakest link is the staff working at the airport"!In my opinion if there will be an bomb on a plane it will be planted in this way.Read the full story here.

• Israeli student attacked by Palestinians in Italy.Student in Italian university threatened by Palestinian students, one of whom was armed. Police fail to apprehend suspects. Israeli: They shouted 'slaughter the Jews'.An Israeli student at the University of Genoa in Italy was harassed and threatened by Palestinian students last Tuesday, only to be ignored by the police. Assaf, a 26-year-old Israeli architecture student, was eating at the cafeteria when Ibrahim Haji, a student from Gaza, came and began taunting him. "He came towards me, punched me and said 'why are you looking at me?' I told him I wasn't looking at him, and asked him to let me eat in peace," Assaf said. "A minute later he was back, swinging a fork, and called me in front of everyone to come outside while cursing Israel and declaring his intention to kill. I understood that I have to avoid this dangerous situation. I told my Italian friends, who were eating with me, that I'm going back to my room so as not to respond to this provocation. On my way out I turned to the cashier and told her, 'Call the police. You heard the man threatening to kill,' and she responded, 'It's not my job to separate Jews and Arabs.'"For Assaf, life has yet to return to normal. "Only one lone Italian student came up to me and said that he was willing to testify to the police about what happened. All the rest – even the guy who shares my dorm room and witnessed the incident – saw everything but are afraid to be associated in the case. The house mother at the dorms came up to me and said, 'why are to turning to the police? It will ruin his life.' In her opinion, if I'm kicked out of the dorms it would be the best solution." "We are taking action along with the local authorities to make sure that the Israeli students can continue to study in Genoa safely," a security officer at the Israeli Embassy in Rome responded.Hmmm...we are back to 1939 and we all know who gave to go ahead sign for this hydra to rise again.Read the full story here.

• Napolitano: ‘Adjustments,’ ‘More to Come’ on Women in Hijabs Undergoing Airport Full-Body Pat-Downs. When asked today if she will insist that Muslim women wearing hijabs must go through full body pat downs before boarding planes, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano did not say yes or no, but told CNSNews.com there will be “adjustments” and “more to come” on the issue.“On the pat downs, CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] has recommended that Muslim women wearing hijabs refuse to go through the full body pat downs before boarding planes,” CNSNews.com asked Napolitano at a Monday press conference. “Will you insist that they do go through full body pat downs before boarding planes?”“Look, we have, like I said before, we are doing what we need to do to protect the traveling public and adjustments will be made where they need to be made,” Napolitano responded. “With respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come. But, again, the goal here, you know, we’re not doing this just to do it. We’re doing it because we need to keep powders and gels and liquids off of planes that are unauthorized just as we need to keep metals off of planes.Hmmm....it's no problem to pat down everyone else including Sikhs their turban so why the secrecy?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri. Video : Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowment Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: Wearing the Niqab Is Forbidden in Islam.Read and see the full story here.

• Many Supporters of U.N. Resolution against ‘Blasphemy’ Have Terrible Record on Religious Freedom. A group of nations on the State Department’s watch list for violations of religious freedom will vote at the U.N. General Assembly in December on a resolution to combat “defamation of religion.” This is the sixth consecutive year in which the General Assembly will vote on the resolution, which is being pushed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).The resolution “urges all States to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs and the understanding of their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance.”However, about a quarter of the OIC nations are on the United States Coalition on International Freedom’s (USCIRF) list of the worst nations when it comes to religious freedom. The USCIRF is a commission established by Congress to monitor the religious freedom policies of other nations and to suggest action in response to these policies.Also, Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the conservative Hudson Institute and a commissioner of the USCIRF, said that the OIC-backed resolution does the opposite of advancing religious liberty.Shea said the motive of the OIC is to “create a new norm” of upholding Islam.Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Video - Interview: Hillel Neuer blasts Saudi Arabia's selection to UN Women's Rights Agency.This interview was broadcast on Canadian radio on Saturday.Read and see the full story here.

• Muslim students' female-only swim at GWU makes waves.Colleges strive to create welcoming, inclusive communities for students from every background. But a new effort at George Washington University has scores of critics and supporters abuzz with heated comments that continue to pour in on various blogs and news articles.A few highlights from Internet comments on The Washington Post's and TBD's recent coverage of the swim hour: "Should a minuscule minority force the overwhelming majority [to] abide by their rules or should it be the other way around?" "Western society should not accommodate to Islam on this point; it is Islam that should change." And in rebuttal: "Come on, folks. An hour a week — what's the big deal?" "It's not an unreasonable request. 'Women' is like half the population.""The university might have a plausible defense that while this would technically be a form of gender discrimination, that they're doing it to accommodate a student's religion," Buzuvis said. "If that weren't an issue, I would say a female-only swim hour would be highly questionable under Title IX."Read the full story here.

• Indonesian leader condemns maid 'torture' in Saudi Arabia.Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday demanded justice for what he described as the "extraordinary torture" of an Indonesian maid in Saudi Arabia.Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, is in a stable condition in a hospital in Madinah, where she has been receiving treatment since November 8 for wounds including gashes to her lips and face caused by scissors, officials said.An angry Yudhoyono said he would dispatch a team to Saudi Arabia to follow up on the case, a day after the Indonesian government summoned the Saudi ambassador to express its deep concern. "I want to convey the very shocking news about what happened to an Indonesian in Saudi Arabia," Yudhoyono told a cabinet meeting. "I have instructed the foreign minister to handle it seriously. Sumiati was subjected to extraordinary torture. I want justice to be upheld. I want all-out diplomacy," he said.Sumiati was allegedly cut with scissors and burned with an iron by her employers, in the latest in a string of abuse cases against Indonesian workers in the Middle East and neighbouring Malaysia.An Indonesian consulate official in Saudi Arabia was quoted in the Jakarta Globe newspaper as saying the jealous wife of Sumiati's employer was suspected of inflicting the injuries."From the picture on her passport Sumiati is pretty. The wife tortured her because of jealousy," the official, Didi Whayudi was quoted as saying.. "The victim was not treated in an Islamic way."Hmmm....Read the full story here.

• HT:Imflippintheraya.Home Hardware Canada advertising on jihadi YouTube channel.Home hardware and Hamas. brought together by Google on YouTube.Read and see the full story here.

• HT:refugeeresettlementwatch.Time magazine: Sweden deporting Iraqi Christians.But, how many???With numerous attacks against Iraq’s Christians in recent weeks — including a Halloween day massacre in a Baghdad church, which left 52 dead — the country’s religious minority fears for its survival within the boundaries of the Middle Eastern nation. Yet, a long way from their native land, many Iraqi Christians are also living in terror in a far more serene place: Stockholm.Swedish immigration officials have been deporting Iraqi refugees to Baghdad on flights about every three weeks, declaring that some of them have no legitimate claim to political asylum in Sweden. That includes Iraqi Christians — a category that does not automatically imply a risk of persecution, according to Swedish guidelines. Of the 80,000 or so Iraqi refugees in Sweden, about 6,000 of them are Christian, according to estimates by the Syriac Orthodox Church in Stockhold.O.K. so there are 6,000 Iraqi Christians and 74,000 Iraqi Muslims in Sweden, but I cannot see where the article says how many of each batch of deportees are truly Christians. I’m so cynical I think the Christians supposedly deported are used as a PR tool to stop all deportations. Someone in Sweden, please give us the facts.Read the full story here.

• US refuses to confirm offer of 20 F-35 fighter jets. P.J. Crowley says US is "committed to maintaining Israel's qualitative edge in region"; suggests 1-year deadline is flexible. The United States on Monday refused to confirm a key component of the security guarantees it reportedly offered Israel in exchange for a 90-day freeze on new settlement construction in the West Bank.Supporters of the freeze have cited the US offer to give Israel 20 F-35 joint strike fighter jets worth $3 billion as a critical reason to support the deal; the initial details of which were hammered out last Thursday between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Crowley said it was important to reassure Israel that the peace process would improve their security.“We also are very conscious of the fact that there is at least one country in the region that is committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth,” Crowley said.No really??You better get their promises carved in granite,with matching fingerprints!Read the full story here.

• IDF chief predicts Hezbollah takeover in Lebanon after probe.Ashkenazi tells Canadian hosts Nasrallah may seize power in Lebanon following publication of Hariri probe findings; says current PM, Jumblatt in survival mode.The IDF chief said a small group within the Lebanese Army is assisting the Shiite group, adding that recent visits by Lebanese PM Saad Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to Syria for talks with President Bashar Assad were aimed an ensuring their "survival."Ashkenazi said the "radical axis" in the Middle East is gaining strength, and praised Canada for training Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. On Monday the IDF chief is expected to observe a training exercise of Canada's special forces. He is due to arrive in the US later in the week for talks with his American counterpart and senior Obama administration officials.Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.Pakistan: Interfaith couple in hiding amid death threats."Muslim men, particularly my in-laws have threatened to kill me, my wife, and even our daughter. Separately they have also spoken of launching a criminal case against me on charges of apostasy under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws".A Christian worker, his Muslim wife and their baby remained in hiding Sunday, November 14, nearly a month after some 20 armed Muslim gunmen allegedly attacked their rented house in an area of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.Javed said he was unable to contact local police because they allegedly support legal procedures against him and his wife over recanting Islam. Police had no comment. "I hope that Western Christians and organizations will pray for us and support our case," Javed told BosNewsLife."Interfaith dialog at it's best?"Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.'Hookers for Jesus' Tries to Save Las Vegas Prostitutes.Meet Annie Lobert -- a former prostitute with a singular mission: saving Las Vegas hookers.Lobert, and her faith-based mission -- which she calls "Hookers for Jesus" -- are the focus of "Hookers: Saved on the Strip," a three-part series premiering Dec. 8 on Investigation Discovery.Lobert, 43, is from Minnesota. She worked as a Las Vegas hooker for over 10 years, finally leaving the life behind after a near-fatal overdose and repeated physical abuse from violent pimps.She started Hookers for Jesus in 2006, and eventually began working with The Church of South Las Vegas, whose pastor, Benny Perez, helped Lobert start Destiny House -- a shelter for ex-prostitutes that helps prepare them for life in the straight world (finding jobs, apartments, etc.).Read the full story here.