MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• UN to help Lebanon with sea borders for gas finds.United Nations official says organization will help Lebanon demarcate maritime border with Israel in order to ensure its gas reserves remain protected.A United Nations official says the international body is willing to assist Lebanon demarcate its naval border with Israel to protect the country's gas reserves.Michael Williams says Lebanon has every right to benefit from its potential off shore oil and gas resources.His comments in Beirut Monday followed a request by Lebanon for the UN to protect the country's gas reserves along the maritime border with Israel, after a huge gas field was discovered off the coast.The appeal was part of a growing dispute between the two warring countries over natural resources beneath the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon has accused Israel of drilling in fields that extend into its waters, an allegation Israel denies. There is no official naval border separating the two countries.Read the full story here.

• HT:DougRoss.Curious: Rep. Giffords' Official YouTube Channel Subscribes to Only Two People: Rep. Ike Skelton and... Jared Lee Loughner.Perhaps Sheriff Dupnik could take a few moments away from his busy television schedule to investigate the following odd connection between the Giffords campaign and her accused shooter?An anonymous tipster writes:Don't know if you saw this or not.Her [Giffords'] Youtube page has only two subscriptions, one links to the shooter's page (lower left corner, name classit10)Now, her own political page links back to this youtube site, so it must be hers.I don't know if someone has hacked this page or what. Strange to say the least.Indeed. But I'm sure Sheriff Dupnik is well ahead of us and is actively attempting to figure out the tie.Hmmmm....I'm still saying he shot her for being Jewish.Since when was he subsribed to her you tube channel?Read and see the full story here.

• HT:Matzav.Clinton Dismisses Outgoing Mossad Chief’s Assessment About Iran Nuclear Program.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed on Sunday Israeli assessments of delays in the Iranian nuclear program and called for more work on sanctions to bring Tehran to heel.Clinton, on a tour of Gulf Arab countries to shore up support for pressure on Iran, arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. She will also visit Dubai, Oman and Qatar on the five-day trip.Global powers are preparing for another round of talks with Iran this month over its nuclear program.Clinton said a recent assessment by the retiring chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service that Iran would not be able to build an atomic bomb until at least 2015 should not undercut international determination to keep the pressure on Iran through sanctions and other means to come clean about its atomic work.“The timeline is not so important as the international effort to try to ensure that whatever the timeline, Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons,” Clinton told reporters on her plane as it arrived in Abu Dhabi.“I don’t know that it gives much comfort to somebody who is in the Gulf, or who is in a country that Iran has vowed to destroy, that it’s a one-year or a three-year timeframe.”Hmmmm.....Sanctions?What sanctions?You have a so called "Ally" Turkey working closely together with all the ennemies of both the US and Israel.That three year timeline is only correct if sanctions work,as it is now it's a joke.Read the full story here.

• HT:BarracudaBrigade." Unabomber/Oklahoma City Bomber's Lawyer, requested by AZ. authorities; for Gabby's attacker--wtf !!!This morning I don't have the magic pill, I don't have the Scripture... I can't wrap my head around this," said the church's Rev. Mike Nowak, his strong preacher's voice wavering. Authorities weren't saying late Sunday where Loughner was being held, and officials were working to appoint an attorney for him. Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender in Arizona, said they're asking that San Diego attorney Judy Clarke be appointed. Clarke, a former federal public defender in San Diego and Spokane, Wash., served on teams that defended McVeigh, Kaczynski and Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons in 1994. Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. More charges are expected.Hmmmmm......Why do i still have that bad gut feeling?Read the full story here.

• Flashback !Nov 05 2010:Mark Penn Says Obama Needs ‘Similar Event’ to Oklahoma City to Reconnect with Voters.Mark Penn, Democratic strategist and former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, let out the kind of doozy, on last night’s Hardball, that must be seen to be believed. Comparing Obama’s current situation to the aftermath of the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” Penn noted that it took the Oklahoma City tragedy in order for President Clinton to “reconnect” with the American people.He then stepped off the cliff by saying that President Obama needed a “similar event” to achieve that reconnection following his party’s midterm losses.Hmmmm............"SAME LAWYER"both cases.Read the full story here.

• HT:RefugeeResettlementWatch.Is there a conspiracy by NGO’s to bring asylum seekers to US borders?Last March (March 16th to be precise) I attended the 30th Anniversary “celebration” of the passage of the Kennedy/Biden Refugee Resettlement Act (signed by Jimmy Carter) at Georgetown University with Human Rights First! in Washington, DC. This is just one post I wrote at the time.Note there are a few lines in that post that have been rattling around in my mind on and off ever since.Expressing gratitude for being granted asylum in the US an African young man from Sierra Leone described how he somehow (mysteriously) got a plane ticket to the US and ended up in NYC. He was placed in detention for 4 months, but also mysteriously was visited by a lawyer from Human Rights First who helped him through the asylum process.I was also struck at the conference by how much emphasis the pro-refugee, pro-open borders activists and speakers were placing on our asylum program. They wanted to educate more asylum lawyers and hire more asylum judges (apparently the refugee program itself wasn’t bringing immigrants in fast enough!). One speaker even said that the original idea behind the program was to rescue the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from some repressive regime, but had now expanded to thousands every year.Last night as I began reading all of my backed-up articles on refugees, two jumped out at me, both are about Somalis arriving at our borders and being granted asylum. Both stories involve young Somalis, supposedly running from Al-shabaab and who mysteriously had the resources to trek across the world and just happened to end up on our borders where they then knew enough to immediately ask for asylum. Come on folks, we all know that some poor third worlder who knows only an obscure African language could not manage such a thing without enormous amounts of help.Where are they getting their help? I don’t know but maybe that’s where Mr. Foster, the RICO lawyer could help.Below are the stories I came across that set off my warning bells. Both, of course, are meant to be feel-good stories. The first article is from the Las Cruces Sun News and it highlights a Somali woman recently granted asylum:Asha Omar, a native of Somalia, spent almost a year looking for safety, away from the Islamic militants who murdered most of her family.Late last year, she found it in El Paso.In November, a federal immigration judge granted Omar’s application for asylum based on her fear of being persecuted in her home country.At least two other Somalis are in El Paso seeking asylum, said Louie Gilot, executive director of Las Americas.Nationwide, more than 300 Somalis requested asylum in 2009. Almost 200 were granted their requests.Now this is the sentence that jumped off the page:She managed to make her way to Cuba and then flew to Mexico. At the San Ysidro port of entry in California, she requested asylum, and she was taken to the El Paso Immigration Detention Center while her application was processed.She MANAGED! She MANAGED to make her way to Cuba and then flew to Mexico! Some 19-year-old shy third worlder MANAGED to get to Cuba! How many of you adults reading this could manage to get yourself to Cuba!But there's more !Now go and read the full story here.

• Video :Rep. Michele Bachmann: House Republicans Should ‘Fully Defund Obamacare’ Under Congress’ ‘Power of the Purse’. Given that House Republican efforts to “completely” repeal the health care law will face hurdles in the Democrat-controlled Senate or a presidential veto, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com that Republicans should use Congress’ “power of the purse” to “fully defund Obamacare.”CNSNews.com asked Rep. Bachmann whether she agreed with Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) proposal to include specific language in appropriations bills passed by the GOP-led House to prohibit the funding of the health care law.Read and see the full story here.

• Fears of higher petrol prices as major BP pipeline in Alaska is shutdown after leak.Motorists could face even higher prices at the pumps after the shutdown of a major BP pipeline in Alaska that carries around 12 of America's oil output.The Trans-Alaska pipeline system, which transports oil from the Prudhoe Bay field, was closed on Saturday following the discovery of a leak.This morning shares in BP - the largest shareholder in the Alyeska Pipeline Service company which runs the pipeline - fell 2.5 per.Prudhoe Bay is America's largest oil reserve, producing around 630,000 barrels of oil a day – equivalent to around 40 per cent of the UK's daily consumption.The leak occurred at a pumping station at Alaska's North Slope, and forced oil production to be cut by 95 per cent. With the price of a barrel of US crude oil rising by almost one per cent to $89.92 in early trading, motorists could soon pay the price on garage forecourts.A BP spokesman based in America told the Guardian the leak was "a significant event" and it is not clear how long it will take to restart production.The shutdown is the latest setback for the 33-year-old pipeline , which is becoming more expensive to maintain as it ages. It currently handles less than a third of the oil it did at its peak in the 1980s..BP Pipelines owns nearly 47% of Alyeska, with ConocoPhillips Transportation owning 28%, ExxonMobil Pipeline owning 20%, and smaller shareholders controlling the remainder.There have not been any reports of environmental damage because of the leak. Alyeska said yesterday that around 10 barrels of oil had been recovered from the basement of a booster pump room, and that around one barrel of oil remained.Alyeska president Tom Barrett said: "Our goal is to engineer and implement a solution so that we can safely return the pipeline to service as quickly as possible."Hmmmm......Now just try to imagine if America was completely depending on foreign oil,something Barack Hussein Obama might just do one day.Read the full story here.

• Iceland summons US envoy over demand for MP's Twitter details.Reykjavik calls for explanation of Justice Department's move to access account of politician caught up in WikiLeaks inquiry.The American ambassador to Iceland has been summoned to explain why US officials are trying to access the Twitter account of an Icelandic MP and former WikiLeaks collaborator.Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, revealed last week that the US justice department had asked Twitter to hand over her information. The US authorities are trying to build a criminal case against the website after its huge leaks of classified US information."[It is] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," the interior minister, Ogmundur Jonasson, told Icelandic broadcaster RUV. "This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.Iceland's foreign ministry has demanded a meeting with Luis Arreaga, the US ambassador to Reykjavík. No one at the US embassy in Reykjavík was available for comment.She said she was talking to lawyers at the Electronic Freedom Foundation and would attempt to stop the justice department's move.Read the full story here.

• Related : US subpoenas Wikileaks tweets, and why this could affect you.Mark Stephens on the BBC News also makes clear that the court order will also cover the “600,000 odd followers that Wikileaks has on Twitter“.The order asks specifically for names of those attached to selected accounts, user and screen names, and any registered mailing or postal addresses. It also asks for email addresses, credit card details where possible, and even content relating to connected mobile phones.The server logs which could identify the computer and geographical location of where even private messages were sent from have also been ordered to be handed over.Twitter is in a difficult position. Considering their stance during the Iranian elections supporting the freedom of speech, it will appear as if the company is backtracking or giving into pressure by handing over details of its users to its government.Jónsdóttir retweeted a message purporting Twitter’s efforts, however, in bringing this subpoena into the public domain.This case should resonate with younger users especially, as prolific social network users, that US law can apply to users of social networking sites to users outside the United States, as seen in this case.Though datacenters are held worldwide in different locations to allow network load balancing, locale reliability and data backups, the organisations which provide these services are based mostly in the US. Both Twitter and Facebook are based in California, as are many startup and social media companies.For example, if one publishes a threatening tweet from the UK to a service based in the US, this can be used in a UK or US court of law if the company is subpoenaed.Hmmmmm....."Policestate or Big Brother in overdrive"?Read the full story here.

• HT:ElderOfZion.Egyptian TV: "Roman Wars against Cleopatra Instigated by the Jews".Following are excerpts from an interview with Wael Ramadhan, creator of an Egyptian-Syrian TV series about Cleopatra, which aired on Egyptian TV on November 18, 2010:Wael Ramadhan: The [Roman] war against Cleopatra was Jewish in essence, and history repeats itself. The Romans had no territorial aspirations in Egypt in those days, and this is ignored by history and by many historians. The Romans were at war with the Parthians and the remnants of the Persian Empire, but they had no intention of waging war against Egypt.But the Jews harbored resentment and pain, because of their expulsion from Egypt – when they were still called "Hebrew" – and they wanted to return to Egypt by force, in order to establish their presence there, but they did not have an opportunity to do so until that moment. So they recruited the help of the Romans.This part of history is not mentioned in any Arab history book, but is the outcome of research I conducted myself, and this is my own perspective, which is unique and true. Interviewer: Especially since it is based on sources that are...Wael Ramadhan: On very important sources. [The Jews] financed the Romans, distracted them from their wars, and diverted them to Egypt. They failed in their attempt to get Julius Caesar to defeat Cleopatra. They failed to get Mark Antony to defeat Cleopatra. They had also financed the Mark Antony campaign. They failed in their efforts to completely control that region.To this moment, they continue to try. History repeats itself. That is what should have been called the history of Cleopatra, and this was my approach when I made the "Cleopatra" series.Hmmmmm....You got to be kidding?Next they're going to say Attila the Hun and the Black Plague was their doing also?Read the full story here.

• South Sudan: 20 Police Die in Attack by Arab Tribe.Arab tribesmen accompanied by a Khartoum-backed militia killed 20 policemen in Sudan's disputed region of Abyei, a southern military spokesman said Monday, raising concerns of violence as the south carries out a weeklong independence referendum.A tribal leader, though, said that police had killed 10 herders in the area. The reported attacks came Sunday, the first day of Southern Sudan's self-determination vote, which is widely predicted to break Africa's largest country in two. The referendum was promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended two decades of civil war.Jubilant voters flooded polling stations for a second day on Monday. The seven days of balloting are likely to produce an overwhelming vote for independence, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will let the oil-rich south secede peacefully.But Abyei is still a major sticking point, and officials from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to Sudan activist and actor George Clooney have warned that Abyei holds the potential to send the north and south back to conflict.Abyei, which straddles the north-south divide and holds oil deposits, had been promised its own self-determination vote, but now its future will be decided by north-south negotiations that have so far made little progress.Col. Philip Aguer, the spokesman for Southern Sudan's army, said that the Misseriya -- an Arab tribe that moves its cattle herds through Abyei -- attacked the village of Maker-Adhar on Sunday with anti-tank weapons and artillery. Aguer said he believes the attack was planned."They were not with cattle, they were coming for (an) attack," Aguer said.Independence won't be finalized until July, and many issues are yet to be worked out. They include north-south oil rights, water rights to the White Nile, border demarcation and the status of the contested region of Abyei, a north-south border region where the biggest threat of a return to conflict exists.Most of Sudan's oil is in the south, while the pipelines to the sea run through the north, tying the two regions together economically.Read the full story here.

• UK: Sikhs, Hindus say girls are targeted by Muslims for sex,conversion.UK: Sikhs, Hindus say girls are targeted by Muslims for sex, conversion.Unlike previous discussions on this topic, they blame Islam.A day after UKs' former home secretary Jack Straw blamed some Pakistani Muslim men for targeting "vulnerable" White girls sexually, UK's Hindu and Sikh organizations also publicly accused Muslim groups of the same offence.Feeling emboldened by Straw's statement, UK's Hindu and Sikh organizations have also come in open and accused some Pakistani men of specifically targeting Hindu and Sikh girls. "This has been a serious concern for the last decade," said Hardeep Singh of Network of Sikh Organizations (NSO) while talking to TOI on Monday.Sikhs and Hindus are annoyed that Straw had shown concern for White girls and not the Hindu and the Sikh teenage girls who have been coaxed by some Pakistani men for sex and religious conversion."Straw does other communities a disservice by suggesting that only white girls were targets of this predatory behaviour. We raised the issue of our girls with the previous government and the police on several occasions over the last decade. This phenomenon has been there because a minority of Islamic extremists view all 'non believers' as legitimate targets," said director NSO Inderjit Singh.Targeted sexual offences and forced conversions of Hindu and Sikh girls was not a new phenomenon in the UK, said Ashish Joshio from Media Monitoring group."This has been going on for decades in the UK . Young Muslim men have been boasting about seducing the Kaffir (unbeliever) women. The Hindu and the Sikh communities must be commended for showing both restraint and maturity under such provocation," he added.Read the full story here.

• Azerbaijan - Higher fines for people who meet to pray or read religious texts.Azerbaijan has increased fines for religious believers who meet to pray without authorisation. Six Jehovah’s Witnesses are sentenced to prison for practicing their faith.Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev on 29 December signed into law a bill adopted by parliament on 8 December without public debate. The new legislation increases fines for offences related to the right to exercise religious freedom as described in Articles 299 and 300 of the country’s Administrative Code. Under the new rules, anyone involved unauthorised religious activity is punished. This includes leading unregistered religious groups, meeting for prayers, and importing and distributing religious texts or documents not approved by the country’s rigid censorship board. Foreigners who visit the country to speak about their faith are also severely punished. Proselytising and teaching children catechism also require an authorisation.Although prison is excluded as a form of punishment, fines are increased between 16 and 20 times. This means that offenders could lose their property or be thrown into poverty.Eldar Zeynalov, head of the Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan, told Forum 18 that if a peasant family of five is found in possession of “illegal” religious literature, each member could be fined 2,000 manat, 10,000 for the whole family (US$ 12,500), representing “the entire value of the family's assets, including their home”.“These Articles punish what can be considered as normal religious activity," Zeynalov explained. “Any religious activity, however small-scale, such as meeting for worship in a private flat, talking about one's faith on the street, or handing out a book or even a leaflet, is subject to prosecution.”At the same time, the new rules are very vague about what constitutes illegal religious activity, which gives police and the authorities a great deal of discretionary power. Although the government appears be motivated by a fear of Islamic radicalism, the new rules apply to every religion. In fact, on 18 December, police burst into a private home in Gyanja and took into custody about 50 Jehovah’s Witnesses who were brought to a local police station.Hmmmmm.....Art 18 of the Charter of Human Rights "Freedom of religion" an empty statement.Bashing Israel is off course much more popular at the Islamic United Nations. Read the full story here.

• South Sudan: Emancipated Nation.Most people can think of a day that changed their lives. I can think of two. The first happened twenty four years ago, when at the age of seven I became a slave; the other is coming up in less than a month. It is a day when my people will be free.On May 15 of 1986, when I was seven years old, my mother sent me to a marketplace in the town of Nyamlell, South Sudan to sell peanuts and eggs. The market was filled with people, sounds, and smells, with half naked children running, smiling, pushing each other. I was happy; I wanted to make my mother proud by selling as many eggs as possible. Suddenly, something happened. We looked up to see cloud of smoke rising from the direction of Gourion, my village. I heard gun shots and stomping of horses’ feet coming fast from the distance. Everybody around me began running in all directions. A wall of dust preceding their arrival, an Arab militia stormed the market.What followed was a scene of panic, terror and confusion. The Arabs, some on horses, some on feet, were mercilessly killing all the men, shooting some and decapitating others with a single swipe of their swords. Children around me were screaming and crying in horror; the market place was filling with the bodies of the dead. I tried to run but one of the Arabs grabbed me and loaded me into a basket on his donkey. I was soon joined by other kids. A little girl, who looked no older than twelve, was executed by a point blank shot to her head in front of my eyes. Her crime? She could not stop crying. After the loading was over we began riding into darkness.That was the beginning of my journey into slavery where for the next ten years I was forced to serve a family of a wealthy Arab Muslim living in North Sudan. Giemma Abdullah, his wife and his children made my life hell during these ten years. They not only made me perform hard labor and sleep with animals, but they also tried to destroy my identity as a Dinka, my tribe. I was given an Arab name and under the threat of death was forbidden to speak the Dinka language. I was forced to perform Islamic prayers and was constantly taunted as “abeed,” Arabic for “black slave.” After two unsuccessful attempts, I managed to escape and made my way to America. A year later, I joined the modern-day abolitionist movement.On the day I escaped I did not become a free man. Images of other children still serving masters chained me to my captive nation.Read the full story here.

• The case for Israel.Op-ed: Our roots here traced back to 13th Century BC, 3,350 years before PLO’s creation.Since Oslo, 1993, the case of the Jewish State has highlighted Israel's pursuit of peace and security, while downplaying the right/deed of the Jewish People to its historical homeland. A resounding rebuke of David Ben Gurion, the Laborite Founding Father of the Jewish State and its first prime minister, who stated: "He who abandons his past forfeits his future.” The claim of national sovereignty and the level of steadfastness in face of adversity are derivatives of the attachment to the territorial cradle of history and national security requirements.Nations which highlight their non-conditional attachment to their territorial cradle of history (irrespective of diplomatic, security and economic considerations) enhance steadfastness and gain strategic respect. On the other hand, nations which consider their cradle of history a negotiable-real-estate may gain short-lived popularity, but undermine their attachment to the land, lose long-term strategic respect and erode their own posture of deterrence.A nation which negotiates away its cradle of history is giving away its future.Prof. (emeritus) Menasheh Har-El, a leading expert on the history and geography of the Land of Israel, a recipient of the Israel Prize and author of 13 books, documents national Jewish roots in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as early as the 13th century BC: 2,000 years before the appearance of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, 3,200 years before Arabs from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon migrated to the Land of Israel and 3,350 years before the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization. According to Professor Har-El's 55 years of research, the Jews were the first to coalesce the various regions of Canaan into a unified country. They settled in the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria rather than along the coastal plain, introducing agricultural innovations into barren, rugged mountains, developing irrigation systems, establishing stone and metal shops, ushering advanced architecture and construction, building roads from the Mediterranean to Jerusalem, which became the crown jewel of the Jewish people.Read the full story here.

• 'Attack a Teacher Day': Six schoolgirls aged 12 and 13 arrested for encouraging friends to sign up to group on Facebook.Six schoolgirls have been arrested after students were invited to sign up on Facebook for ‘Attack a Teacher Day’.The twelve and thirteen-year-old girls all attended two middle schools in Carson City, Nevada.One was accused of sending out messages asking 100 classmates on the social networking site to target teachers.Police questioned the other five girls over specific online threats they made against particular teachers.The girls – all A-grade students – claimed it was all a joke, but they were arrested before the event that was planned for last Friday.‘School shootings really happen. That's why we took it seriously,’ said Dan Sadler, principal of Carson Middle School attended by five of the girls.‘It's not OK, and it's not funny in this day and age if you're going to make a threat against a teacher.’He pointed out that last Wednesday – on the day of the arrests – a suspended 17-year-old pupil in Omaha, Nebraska, shot dead an assistant principal and wounded his principal.Eighteen students accepted the invitation to participate in the attacks at the two schools, which had been set to take place from 7am to 9am last Friday.A parent brought the posting to the attention of authorities, Sadler said.Classes took place Friday without incident at both schools after students were earlier notified of the arrests and parents of the students who were arrested or accepted the invitations were contacted by authorities.
  Hmmmm.....Where will this mad world stop?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Video : Jamal Al-Din Ibrahim, Self-Proclaimed California University Toxicologist: Multiple Sex Partners Make a Woman's Immune System Crash; Eating Pork Weakens One's Ability to Think.Hmmmm....Is there any insanity in your family?Read and see the full story here.

• Iran bans "tight jeans", tattoos at some universities.TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has enforced a stricter Islamic dress code at a number of universities including a ban on female students wearing long nails, bright clothes and tattoos, a local news agency reported on Monday.The semi-official Fars news agency published a list of universities around Iran that were given a note outlining the code but did not say on what basis they were selected.The new rules ban women from "wearing caps or hats without scarves, tight and short jeans, and body piercing", except earrings, Fars said.It said tattoos, long nails, tooth gems, tight overcoats, and bright clothes were also banned.Iran has been waging a country-wide campaign against Western cultural influences. Under Islamic law imposed after the 1979 revolution, women have to cover their hair in public and wear long, loose-fitting clothes.The new code also bans male students from dying their hair, plucking eyebrows, wearing tight clothes, shirts with "very short sleeves" and jewellery, Fars said.The authorities usually intensify efforts ahead of hot summer months when women tend to wear lighter clothes and brightly coloured scarves, often pushed back to expose hair.The authorities usually intensify efforts ahead of hot summer months when women tend to wear lighter clothes and brightly coloured scarves, often pushed back to expose hair.In recent years crackdowns have extended into winter fashion as well including a push against women's trousers seen as too tight, as well as men with spiky "Western-style" hairstyles.Hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on "immoral behaviour" since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005 promising a return to the values of the revolution.Young women, particularly in wealthier urban areas, often challenge limitations by wearing tight clothes and colourful headscarves that barely cover their hair. The rules remain less challenged in poor suburbs and rural regions.Hmmmm........."Temporary Marriages "Yes -  fashion No?Read the full story here.

• 'Band of Brothers'Dick Winters dies. WWII hero commanded 'Band of Brothers'.Dick Winters, a decorated Army officer whose World War II service was recounted in the best-selling book and HBO mini-series "Band of Brothers," died Jan. 2. News reports listed his age at 92.Based on the 1992 book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, the HBO mini-series came out in 2001 and was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.The story follows the tragedies and triumphs of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, E Company.To Mr. Winters, these citizen-soldiers came to be known as the men of Easy Company -- paratroopers who jumped into combat on June 6, 1944 above Normandy, France.According to Ambrose's account, Easy Company suffered 150 percent casualties throughout the war.One of the soldiers who served in Easy Company, David Webster, once wrote that among his colleagues the Purple Heart "was not a decoration but a badge of office."Mr. Winters, who separated from the Army at the rank of major, and his men fought together through D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge and later occupied Adolf Hitler's mountainside retreat, the Eagle's Nest, near Berchtesgaden.A charismatic officer who led by example, Mr. Winters received the Distinguished Service Cross, the country's second highest decoration for valor, while conducting combat operations on D-Day.A true American patriot and here passed away.Read and see the full story here.More here.

• HT:IslamInEurope.Netherlands: Situation of Turkish youth is alarming.The position of Dutch-Turkish youth in society is particularly worrying, according to a letter published in Dutch newspaper Volkskrant by ten Dutch-Turkish professionals, researchers, teachers and policy advisers. The sharp social climate and the lack of leadership in the Turkish community, lead the youth to apathy and to feel less connected to Dutch society. They are therefore more susceptible to crime and Muslim radicalization."All in all, there's starting to be a growing group of youth who are feeling out of place," according to the writers of the manifest. "they don't feel welcome in Dutch society. Some withdraw into their own (religious) community, others isolate themselves and are at threat of becoming lonely, developing seriously psychological problems or becoming susceptible to the seduction of radicalism or crime."The ten professionals call the government, industry, educational and Turkish organization to give higher priority to the youth problems. "they should get the feeling that their future is in the Netherlands," they say.The Alliance of Turkish immigrants in Holland (Inspraakorgaan Turken in Nederland) says it generally agrees with the manifest. "What they say is mainly right," says policy adviser Harm van Zuthem. "The analysis that many youth will turn their backs on society and will thereby lack opportunities, is right."According to the recently published annual report on integration by Statistics Netherlands, Turkish-Dutch youth are behind in many fields. In the 2009-2010 school-year, 80% of the Turkish youth in their 3rd year of secondary education were in the vocational track. 20% were in the academic track.In 2009, 18% of Turkish-Dutch aged 15-25 were unemployed. 40% of the Turkish youth aged 12 in 1999 were suspected of a crime between 1999 and 2007.Turks are the largest immigrant group in the Netherlands. In 2010 there were 384,000, 49% of which were 2nd generation.Hmmmm....." The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers".The schools are our downfall?Read the full story here.

• Asylum seeker who claimed to have been gang-raped and witnessed family's murder in Somalia exposed as £250k benefit fraudster.An asylum seeker who claimed she had been gang-raped in Somalia was jailed today for swindling more than £250,000 in a 'professionally planned' benefit scam.Amina Muse, 38, also conned Swedish authorities out of £50,000, spending the money on luxury living and holidays in Africa.While she claimed asylum in the UK based on 'appalling atrocities' committed against her in Somalia, investigators found she was living in Sweden at the time.Handing her a four-and-a-half-year prison term at Harrow Crown Court, in north London, Judge Stephen Holt told her: 'One of the most serious aspects of this case is your cynical, dishonest manipulation of the whole system of asylum.'Muse, a mother of six, who also went by the name of Ayan Abdulle, sought refuge in Britain after moving to Sweden in 1995 where she was granted citizenship and enjoyed a 'comfortable' life.On her UK asylum application, disclosed today, she claimed militiamen stormed and looted her family home in war-torn Somalia on December 1, 1998, because she was a member of a minority group.'They opened fire at us and then broke into our house by force,' she said. 'They shot dead my brothers Asad and Burhan. They died instantly in our presence.'But investigators, who suspect the Muse to be of Kenyan descent, found this to be the date on which she gave birth to a child in Sweden.Between June 2004 and May 2010, Muse, from Neasden, north-west London, claimed a total of £261,358.14 in income support, disability living allowance for one of her children and carer's allowance for herself. This included child benefit, child tax credits and housing benefit from various local authorities.She received a total of £112,985.51 from the borough of Camden where she lived in a four-bedroom property.Condemning her deceit, Judge Holt said: 'In my view it was fraud from the outset. It was professionally planned.'Read the full story here.

• Eight arrested in Hong Kong in connection with the smuggling of young Chinese man disguised as an old white man. Hong Kong authorities have arrested eight people suspected of helping to smuggle a young Chinese passenger onto a flight to Canada wearing a Hollywood-style disguise of an elderly white man.The man, believed to be in his 20s, sought asylum after arriving in Vancouver on October 29.He is suspected of traveling to Hong Kong with genuine Chinese travel documents, then swapping them for fake papers and donning the remarkably detailed silicone mask to change his appearance before boarding the Air Canada flight.Canadian authorities said the man removed the mask in a washroom mid-flight.Hong Kong officials arrested five men and three women in connection with the case, Elly Au Yeung, an information officer for the Hong Kong Immigration Department, told The Associated Press on Monday.She said a member of the Hong Kong International Airport ground staff and two former employees were among the arrested suspects.The eight are suspected smugglers who supplied the passenger with his new travel papers at the Hong Kong airport, Au Yeung said.Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Indian bride discovers husband is a woman.Indian bride lived with her husband for a year before discovering the painful truth.Her beloved he was really a she.Minati Khatua, aged 26 old, of Orissa, India, and her family were completely fooled by the groom, Sitakant Routray, who received a substantial dowry as is traditional in India composed of an Indica car, gold ornaments and more than £350 (about US $575) in cash.“He had impressed everyone in my family and they willingly agreed to our marriage,” said Khatua.No matter how much she wanted to believe her new husband, she grew more and more suspicious after the wedding when he constantly avoided any physical contact with her using the pretext of a religious vow.“I would try hard to find out and confirm his gender but failed repeatedly… One day I managed to force open the bathroom door when he was having a bath and my worst fears became true. He was a woman,” she told the press.Local police are investigating the most bizarre case.The bogus groom is nowhere to be found at the present time, having absconded with a car and a jeep, which were bought with loans acquired from an account in Ms Khatua’s name.Hmmm....So they were sleeping separately for a year?Read the full story here.