MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

• Report: Union heads make six figures.As the standoff between unions and Wisconsin Republicans wages on, an analysis of the nation’s 10 largest labor unions shows some top leaders – the people being derided as “union bosses” – make six-figure salaries funded by members’ dues.Leaders earned between $173,000 and $618,000 at major unions, the Center for Public Integrity found in examining 2009 tax records, with some groups paying dozens of employees in the six figures. At the three major unions , which together represent more than 5.6 million public workers, presidents’ salaries ranged between $400,000 and $500,000 in 2009.Republicans have worked to separate union members from the leaders of their organizations, arguing that the “union bosses” who represent public workers aren’t looking after the best interests of their members. Salaries that are far larger for union leaders than for their members don’t convey the image that their leaders are on the side of workers, GOP lawmakers say.“When they say it’s about worker rights, it’s really about big union bosses running their own political dynasties,” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said last week. Union political action committees and employees spent $400 million in support of President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 and another $280 million supporting Democratic candidates in 2010.Last month, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that while his state’s unions “think I’m attacking them,” he’s not. “I’m attacking the leadership of the unions because they’re greedy, they’re selfish.”Hmmmm....Now who would have thought this?Read the full story here.

• 'This is my favourite killer outfit': Face of Kosovan Muslim alleged to have shot dead two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport.This is the face of the man suspected of killing two U.S. soldiers in Germany in an Islamist rage.The photo is from Arid Uka's Facebook page - once listed under his real name but changed recently to that of Abu Reyann, his chosen 'warrior' name.The site is littered with references to Holy War, hatred of 'non believers' and has his favourite saying - 'may the eyes of the cowards never sleep' - by Khalid Bin Walid, an ancient Islamic fighter who united Arabia for the first time.'This is my favourite killer outfit when rolling the dice on black ops,ha ha,' he boasts to his friends on the social networking site - probably more a reference to the computer game of the same name that he played avidly than any attack like that he carried out in Frankfurt which left two Americans dead and two severely wounded.'Way to go, you old killer!' posts friend Kastrijot Ferizi on the photo that was added to his page in December last year. Another writes that Abu Reyyan was his nickname that he knew him by.There are hate-filled rants against Jews and a cry to Jihad which said: 'If someone would call you to Holy War... yeah, and?'That is part of this beautiful religion. One is allowed to fight the unbelievers when attacked.'In August last year the 21-year-old answered an online question about what his favourite weapon was - it turns out to be a Barrett M82 sniper rifle.'The miserable non-believer' is an anti-western song on the website that he also makes reference to.'Germans are afraid of Islam and its spread and would rather we believe in Santa Claus,' he rambles.He calls Chancellor Angela Merkel an 'unbeliever' too, claiming she has sided with Israel which he described as 'a declaration of war'.German federal prosecutors said the attack appears to have been motivated by Islamic extremism.Prosecutors said in a statement today that 'because of the circumstances there is a suspicion that it was an Islamist motivated act'.Hmmmm.....Notice how Obama suddenly fell silent once the religious conviction of the shooter was Established ?Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.Thousands of Ethiopian Muslims Burn Down Five Churches, More Attacks Feared.Washington -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that in the past two days, thousands of Muslims have razed five churches and the homes of two evangelists in Asendabo, Ethiopia. Christian leaders are asking for protection after the Muslim attackers continued burning churches even after the federal police were sent to the town.The Muslims started the attacks yesterday after falsely accusing the Christians of desecrating the Qur'an. More than ten thousand Muslims shouted "Allah Akbar" (Allah is great) as they burned down five evangelical churches. The government sent the federal police force to protect the Christians after the Muslims burned down the first three churches. The Muslims overwhelmed the police force and burned down two more churches today.Speaking with ICC, Christian leaders expressed their fear that Muslims will start killing the Christians unless the government sends more security forces to contain the Muslim attackers.At the time of the writing of this report, none of the Muslim attackers have been arrested. The government officials detained some Christians and took them to the nearby Jimma town stating that they need to do that for their own security.Ethiopia is a Christian majority country and was one of the first nations to accept Christianity. However, in the areas of the country where Muslims are the majority, Christians face attacks."We urge Ethiopian government forces to send reinforcement to protect the Christians in the city of Asendabo from the Muslim attacks. We ask Christians around the world to prevent any further attacks by calling the Ethiopian officials in their countries and asking them to protect the Christians and their property," said ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, Jonathan Racho.Hmmmm.....No word from the selfconfessed 'Christian' champion of the oppressed?Read the full story here.

• Islamist Rally at White House ‘Postponed’. Radical Accuses West of Interfering With Mideast Embrace of Shari’a.An Islamic radical called off a pro-shari’a (Islamic law) demonstration at the White House on Thursday, saying he did not want it to divert attention from the “urgent” situation in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.Talking to CNSNews.com, the activist, Anjem Choudary, charged that Western powers were planning military intervention to ensure that popular uprisings do not give rise to shari’a-ruled states.“Their worst nightmare is for Muslims to rise up in the Middle East” and set up shari’a-ruled societies in countries stretching from North Africa to the Gulf, said Choudary.If that happened, it would be “the beginning of the end of capitalism” and lead inevitably to a huge, “boundary-less” Islamic region in which “the State of Israel will disappear” and the U.S. will be unable to maintain interests.Choudary said this warning about “a new form of colonialism” in the Middle East was the gist of a fatwa, or religious ruling, soon to be announced by Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Syrian-born cleric and longtime Choudary associate.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico.ATF agent says "Fast and Furious" program let guns "walk" into hands of Mexican drug cartels with aim of tracking and breaking a big case.WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen. Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States. "I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico. ATF named the case "Fast and Furious." Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles. So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.Hmmmm.....No wonder they don't want re-inforcements for border protection?Next time call the operation " U - Haul"?Read the full story here.

• Wisconsin Governor Says He Will Begin Issuing Layoff Warnings to Unions.CHICAGO — Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, said Thursday that he would begin issuing layoff warnings to unions representing 1,500 state employees on Friday if his bill to sharply reduce collective bargaining rights and benefits for public sector employees remained at an impasse in the Legislature. Republican leaders in the Senate, where the bill has been stalled since Senate Democrats left the capital two weeks ago to block a vote, passed a provision that they said allowed law enforcement officers to detain the missing Democratic senators if they were seen anywhere in Wisconsin and take them to Madison. In Indiana, where Republican leaders find themselves in a similar standoff over legislation, they approved on Thursday a still higher fine, $250-a-day, against Democrats, also missing to block votes from occurring. All along, Governor Walker has said that the cuts to the bargaining rights and benefits of public workers are desperately needed to close the state’s budget gaps. Without the savings he had assumed would be made immediately with the bill’s passage through increases in pension and health care costs for workers, Mr. Walker said Thursday that he had no choice but to begin issuing layoff warnings to unions, to be followed in 15 days by layoff notices to the 1,500 state workers. Officials from Mr. Walker’s administration have said limits were needed for safety and security after protesters began filling the building, and chanting, drumming and staying over. On Thursday, local police and government officials reported that live ammunition — so far unexplained — had been found outside on the grounds of the Capitol and inside a nearby city and county government building. Officials said damage inside the Capitol, in part from hundreds of anti-Walker signs now taped all over the marble, was expected to be in the millions of dollars. But others have vehemently objected to the limits. As cameras rolled, several Assembly Democrats moved their desks to the Capitol lawn for “office hours.”Hmmmmm.......Obama's "Kristal Nacht" Lite?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Congressman King: Subpoena the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA).Despite opposition from the usual alphabet soup of Muslim Brotherhood offshoot “advocacy” groups in the US, Congressman Peter King is forging ahead with planned mid-March hearings on what he terms domestic “Muslim radicalization.” In a December 19, 2010 Newsday opinion editorial Congressman King cited these eminently reasonable concerns as justification for the hearings : "As I became more immersed in attempting to unravel the radical Islamic threat to our nation and our civilization, it became more and more obvious to me that the moral myopia of Long Island’s Muslim leaders and their apologists in the media was the rule – and that there were few exceptions. Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or – in most cases – no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams…I also know of imams instructing members of their mosques not to cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating the recruiting of young men in their mosques as suicide bombers. We need to find the reasons for this alienation."We believe direct cross-examination of clerics from the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), including a frank discussion of their public “fatwas” (Islamic religious rulings), is essential to the Congressman’s critically important goal of understanding Muslim radicalization in America.Hmmmm.....Lets hope congressman King has what it takes to go to the bottom of this.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.A National ID Card For American Citizens? Get Ready – The Real ID Act Goes Into Effect On May 11.For a moment, imagine a future where you are not able to drive a car, get on a plane, get on a train, vote, enter a federal building, open a bank account or get a job without a national ID card. You don't think that could ever happen in America? Well, you might want to brush up on the Real ID Act because it is going to go into effect on May 11, 2011 unless something is done to stop it. When I first learned this, I was absolutely stunned. After all, wasn't the Real ID Act supposed to be "dead"? A few years ago state legislatures across the nation were in an uproar over this law. The Department of Homeland Security was forced to delay implementation of it several times. But now it is back. You see, this is what the federal government often does. They will try to push something very unpopular through, and if they meet resistance they will "play dead" until the uproar has died down and then they will come right back and implement it anyway. This is what is happening with the Real ID Act.Back in 2008, former U.S. Representative Bob Barr wrote the following about how not having one of these new national ID cards will automatically strip us of some of our most fundamental rights...."A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment."Of course the Department of Homeland Security insists that the Real ID Act is just here to "help" us and to make life "better" and "more secure". According to their website, some of the goals of the Real ID Act are "to help prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents."But is this really what we want America to become?If we put up with a national ID card, then the Obama administration will be emboldened to try to implement the "universal Internet ID" that they have been talking about.The sad truth is that America is no longer "the land of the free". The government has decided that in order to keep us "safe", everything that we do must be watched, tracked, traced, recorded and controlled.Hmmmm.....Welcome to the 'police state'.Read the full story here.

• Pakistan court orders US shooter trial to go ahead.A Pakistani court on Thursday said that the murder trial of a CIA contractor would go ahead, despite the insistence of the US government that he has diplomatic immunity.The hearing in the murder case against Raymond Davis took place amid high security in Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore where he is being held, and was adjourned until March 8.Davis has claimed he acted in self-defence when he shot dead two men in a busy Lahore street in January.The issue of his claim to diplomatic immunity is pending before the Pakistani High Court which is due to rule on March 14."The court passed an order today saying that he (Davis) had failed to produce any legitimate document proving his diplomatic immunity," the lawyer representing the families of the two men shot by him, Asad Manzoor Butt, told AFP after a closed-door hearing."The judge rejected his (Davis's) immunity claim after a lot of debate," Butt said.His lawyer pleaded that he could not be prosecuted by this court because of the diplomatic immunity issue was pending in Lahore High Court, Butt said."The judge replied that the Lahore High Court had not barred him to proceed on the murder trial," Butt said.Zahid Bokhari, Davis's lawyer, told AFP the judge had ordered the trial to continue because for the past one-and-a-half months no document had been produced in the court related to Davis's immunity."We will see the detailed written order by the judge and then will be able to tell whether he had rejected the claim of diplomatic immunity or not," Bokhari said.Hmmmm....A good thing Senator Kerry intervened it might have been worse?Read the full story here.

• Obama’s state of Islamic denial.Note to Barack HUSSEIN Obama : ‘Allahu akbar’ is a Muslim war cry.U.S. troops are gunned down by a shooter who screams “Allahu akbar!” before opening fire. Official statements are rushed out: The perpetrator was a lone wolf; his motive was unclear; there are no links to terrorism. Sound familiar? It should, because when Islam is the cause of American tragedy, President Obama hides his head in the sand. On Wednesday, a young Kosovar named Arif Uka opened fire on a bus load of U.S. Air Force personnel in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two more. Witnesses say he repeatedly shouted the jihadist battle cry, “Allahu akbar” as he emptied his weapon and screamed “Jihad! Jihad!” when tackled by German police. Uka’s victims had been heading to the fight in Afghanistan but because the jihadists have a global battlespace, the war came to them instead. The Obama administration’s knee-jerk instinct to deny reality in hopes it will go away is clearly not working. How many Americans have to die before Mr. Obama at long last admits the nature of the Islamist threat that killed them?Hmmmm....."I will stand with my Muslim brethren?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheTrumpet.An Islamic uprising in Pakistan would create a nightmare scenario for the Western world.If you think the violence and political chaos in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya is ugly, consider what’s brewing in nuclear-armed Pakistan.Yesterday, Islamic terrorists gunned down Pakistan’s sole Christian (Catholic) politician in broad daylight outside his mother’s home in Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti was Pakistan’s federal minister for minority affairs, a genuine moderate, pro-Western politician, and a leading voice in the now-shrinking movement to reform Pakistan’s government. Mr. Bhatti was murdered because of his brave and outspoken criticism of Pakistan’s hardcore anti-blasphemy laws, which are routinely used to persecute Pakistan’s non-Islamic minority communities.Lest there be any confusion about their motives, Bhatti’s assailants left pamphlets with the following message beside the dead body (emphasis mine throughout): "This is a warning from the warriors of Islam to all the world’s infidels, crusaders, Jews … and especially the head of Pakistan’s infidel system, [President Asif Ali] Zardari, his ministers, and all the institutions of this evil system. In your fight against Allah, you have become so bold that you act in favor of and support those who insult the prophet. And you put a cursed Christian infidel Shahbaz Bhatti in charge of [the blasphemy laws review] committee. This is the fate of that cursed man. And now, with the grace of Allah, the warriors of Islam will pick you out one by one and send you to hell, God willing." It was a public warning from radical Islam: Oppose us and you will die.The Islamists’ ferocious, take-no-prisoners tactics appear to be working. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani made it clear in a speech in Pakistan’s National Assembly that his government had no intention of amending Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws. Throughout Pakistan, lamented Syed Shamsuddin, coordinator of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “[a]ll those working for a tolerant society are in retreat because there’s no support from the government.”The extent of the government of Pakistan’s capitulation to radical Islam is also evident in the increasingly heated dispute between America and Pakistan over Raymond Davis, a former U.S. Special Forces officer and current U.S. government contractor. Davis was arrested, charged and imprisoned by Pakistani authorities in January for allegedly shooting two young Pakistani men—both armed and trailing him—at a busy intersection in the city of Lahore.Despite Davis having diplomatic immunity—and in spite of multiple calls from U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who traveled with a delegation to Pakistan to secure Davis’s release—Pakistani authorities continue to refuse to let him go.This is not because Pakistan’s moderate leaders are morally opposed to releasing Davis. It’s because these men value their own lives. As Joel Brinkley wrote earlier this month, no one inside Pakistan “wants to face the possible fate of Salman Taseer, the Punjab prosecutor, assassinated by his own bodyguard last month for standing up against Islamic militancy.”In reality, more is at stake than the lives of a few politicians.If Davis is released, Pakistan could become the next Egypt or Libya overnight. Liaquat Baluch, the deputy chief of the Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami, has promised “forceful protests” throughout Pakistan if Davis is released with a court order. On February 13, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (ttp), a branch of the Taliban, issued a statement demanding that Davis be executed or turned over to the ttp for punishment. The entire country, and especially Pakistan’s Islamic populace, is gripped by the Raymond Davis case. As Stratfor’s Scott Stewart recently wrote, this “complicates the position of the Pakistani government [and] raises the distinct possibility that there will be civil unrest if Davis is released” (February 16).Radical Islam has Mr. Gilani’s government over a barrel. If Davis is set free, Pakistan could erupt!In many ways, Pakistan is more vulnerable to radical Islam than Tunisia, Egypt or Libya!Prime Minister Gilani and the moderates in Pakistan are walking a tightrope. Radical Islamists have infiltrated nearly all the departments within the nation’s government. If Gilani continues to acquiesce to their demands, the Islamists will likely remain content for the time being—essentially creating a situation in which radical Islam is calling the shots, or at least all the important ones.Unlike the other countries, Pakistan has a significant cache of nuclear weapons!And its stockpile is growing. U.S. intelligence agencies recently reported that Pakistan has somewhere between 95 and 110 deployed nuclear weapons, and enough fuel to build a further 40 to 100. Two years ago Islamabad had roughly 75 nukes. In the past 24 months, Pakistan has managed to add another 20 to 30 nuclear weapons to its already significant stash. Meanwhile, radical Islam has tightened its grip on the country.This is what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his band of radical Islamic terrorists dream about at night: acquiring a pile of nuclear weapons and setting off a nuclear Armageddon!It’s a terrifying but entirely plausible scenario: Iran and radical Islam could soon dominate Pakistan—and exercise dominion over a stash of nuclear weapons! Hmmmm.....And tens of Billions of Dollars support from the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

• "Life or Death in Iran's prisons.59 political prisoners launch indefinite hunger strike in protest to repressive policies.The Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners – 59 political prisoners in Rajai Shahr ‘Gohardasht’ prison released a statement announcing that they have launched an indefinite hunger strike since Tuesday morning. The hunger strike is in protest to the suppression of the Iranian people’s righteous resistance and against the limitations imposed inside the prison.According to The Student Committee in Defense of Political Prisoners (SCDPP), the message of the political prisoners was delivered to the organization with great difficulty. In the message, the prisoners cited the following reasons for launching the indefinite hunger strike: the widespread crackdowns on political prisoners; the great limitations inside the prison; the severance of all contacts between prisoners and their families; the mistreatment, insults and disrespectful behaviour toward the prisoners; the brutal repression of the Iranian people’s resistance; and the arrest of the [opposition] political leaders.Based on the received information, the political prisoners in ward 4, the newly established special security hall of Rajai Shahr prison, are under strict control of the security organizations. All contacts between prisoners are severely repressed.The deputy security head of the prison Nabiollah Faraji is a former interrogator and torturer at Evin prison. He is supported by Ali Haj-Kazem, the director of Rajai Shahr prison, as well as judicial and security authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is assigned the responsibility of putting pressure on political prisoners held in the special security section. Additionally, he has several unresolved case files in connection to the torture of prisoners.Hmmmm.....No word from the defender of the oppressed?Read the full story here.

• Belgium - Enhanced pat downs cancelled at Airport!'Intimate' checks Zaventem suspended ,After the Brussels airport last week started testing a stricter way of searches,it started raining complaints to the staff of Brussels Airport. "This was way tooo far," said a security guard. The measure has been temporarily suspended.The stricter controls last week were tested a few days upon request of security firm Group 4. But after a storm of criticism was the measure temporarily suspended. It really rained complaints.Not so much from passengers, but from the airport staff who several times a day pass beyond the control and may be searched four to five times . "We have been asked to verify briefly the genitals," said several staff members who prefer to remain anonymous. "Our hand we had to raise as high as possible between the legs and secure with your other hand the venus mound while going over it.(...). We even had with the full hand search the breasts, including the nipples (...). As if we were forced to perform sexual acts. "Moreover, the international association of security firms at European airports unequivocal: "Between the legs searches like these who occured, do not pass," said spokeswoman Hilde De Clerck.Hmmm....At least we save our 'Dignity'.Read the full story here.(Google translate attempt).

• Why is Amnesty going soft and easy on Iran?Amnesty International, an organization lauded for promoting human rights worldwide, has a strong and consistent track record of calling for UN arms embargoes on governments that violate human rights abuse. As protector of human rights, Amnesty understand the merits of arms embargoes, a type of smart sanctions that avoid causing humanitarian harm often associated with comprehensive actions.But for some reason, for years Amnesty International has been singling Iran out and avoided calling for arms embargo as a response to Iran's extensive human rights violations. Why is Amensty going soft on Iran, one of the worst human rights violators today?The Iranian regime, whose hands are drenched in blood, is characterized by some of the most egregious human rights violations. Iran is one of the states with the “highest rates of executions” and is recognized as a certified serial breaker of not one but six principle human rights treaties, at least three U.N. Arms Embargo’s (Security Council Resolutions 1737, 1747, and 1803) and the U.N. Charter, Article 2.4 prohibiting threats of war. The U.S. declared Iran as being one of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism, an “identified part of an axis of evil” and added the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.No one should be above the law and the government of Iran needs to be held accountable for its human rights crimes on every aspect. By refraining from speaking out against every violation Iran commits; Amnesty International’s silence is enabling Iran to make a mockery of the organization, what it stands for and for the fight for freedom of human rights worldwide.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Iranian Journalist: According To IAEA Report – Iran Studying Nuclear Warheads.The editor of the Iranian magazine Hamshahri Diplomatic, Rahman Qahremanpour, said that the February 2011 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency notes explicitly, for the first time, that Iran conducted eight studies on attaching nuclear warheads to ballistic missiles.Read the full story here.

• Mubarak receiving treatment at Saudi hospital: report.A state-owned Egyptian newspaper on Wednesday said former president Hosni Mubarak was being treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, the latest media report about the ex-president's health that comes after the army denied earlier speculation.The army could not immediately be reached for comment on the al-Akhbar report. A military source had on Tuesday denied another media report that said Mubarak, 82, and his family tried to flee Egypt and afterwards Mubarak was hospitalized in Cairo.Wednesday's edition of al-Akhbar newspaper quoted "sources informed about the news" and said Mubarak was in Tabuk in Saudi Arabia receiving chemotherapy for one hour every five days for colon and pancreatic cancer. It reported his family was with him in the private wing of the military hospital.Hmmm.....Read the full story here.

• HT:Aina.1,400% Increase in 'Honor Killings' in Turkey.If you Google News “sharia” right now you will find a lot of leftist and mainstream media writing about Tennessee being ignorant for considering anti-sharia laws. However, if you change “sharia” to “honor killing” in your search you will quickly realize that as Sharia spreads, so do honor killings. We’ve seen more cases in America lately, and there is a near genocide of women going on in Turkey involving honor killings in pro-sharia communities.As Turkey tries to gain entry into the European Union, new stats reveal a frightening trend in the treatment of women in the Islamic majority nation. From 2002-2009, which is the most recent data available, cases of women being murdered in Turkey has grown 1,400%. There were 66 known cases in 2002 and 953 in 2009. And the vast majority of these cases are related to Muslim men punishing their wives, daughters, or sisters for shaming their religion. Even worse, other research shows up to 40% of Turkish women have been abused physically or sexually.Every day there are more horror stories, Hatice Firat is just one of the latest examples. The 19 year old girl ran away from home with her boyfriend about a month ago. Her family eventually located her and convinced her to come home. Shortly after, Firat’s brother took her for a walk on the beach, and then he plunged a knife into his sister’s chest 40 times. He was following the will of their family and what they believed was the will of Allah.Firat’s family would not bury their daughter or go to the funeral. Around fifty women paid for it and marched chanting for the end of such violence against women : "We are not going to be anyone's honor," "End honor killings," "Hands that hurt women should be broken."Stories like Firat’s are more than daily occurrences in Turkey,Pakistan, and many other parts of the Muslim world. And recent cases in the United States show it is a growing problem here too. But while women’s groups are becoming more outspoken in Turkey, feminist organizations are silent in America. And to make matters worse, our media continues to argue there is nothing to fear with the spread of Sharia.Europe is looking at Turkey and their own problems and our finally starting to see the dangers. When will America do the same? How many women will be abused or killed before we do?Hmmmm......Keep Turkey out of the European Union.Read the full story here.

• Turkey's first openly gay referee adamant to continue battle.Turkey’s first openly gay referee says he will not stop his legal battle against the national football’s governing body for blocking him from his profession as a match official.Former football referee Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ first became known to the public in 2008, when it emerged that the Turkish Football Federation, or the TFF, stripped him of his rights to officiate matches.Dinçdağ was then forced to leave his job because he had been excused from his compulsory military service on account of his homosexuality, which was documented in a medical report. According to the sport's regulations, anyone who fails to complete his military service for health reasons is unfit to perform as a referee.The 35-year-old filed a criminal complaint against the Turkish Football Federation and sought compensations up to 110,000 Turkish liras for damages.“First, I was forced to quit refereeing, which I love most. I also had to quit my job as a speaker at a radio station, which I was doing for 16 years. I have been unemployed for a long time and it hurt my soul very much. I even have trouble paying for the expenses of this tribunal.”“I will not back down from this legal battle, which I started to get my rights back,” he said. “I believe I am right and we will see it at the end of this case. But if the decision is made against me, I will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.”“Everybody knows that there are many gay referees in European football. It is sad to see it as a disaster in Turkey while it is normal in the world.”Hmmmm......Keep Turkey out of the European Union.Read the full story here.

• Tunisian Islamist leader embraces Turkey, praises Erbakan.Turkish political experience “inspires the Arab world,” the leader of Tunisia’s newly legalized Islamist movement “Ennahda” (Awakening) said Wednesday during a meeting with journalists in Istanbul.Rached Ghannouchi, who was in exile during the era of ousted Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, came to Turkey to attend the funeral Tuesday of the country’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan. He told the mostly Turkish and Arab journalists at the meeting that Turkey serves as an example for budding Tunisian democrats.“We are learning from the experience of Turkey, especially the peace that has been reached in the country between Islam and modernity; it is a true example [to the Arab world],” Ghannouchi said.His press conference took place at the Istanbul headquarters of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, a Turkish Islamic charity that led the Gaza-bound aid flotilla raided by Israeli commandos in May, an operation that resulted in the deaths of nine activists.Ghannouchi compared Erbakan to the intellectual forefathers and founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. “In the Arab world in my generation, when [people] talked about the Islamic movement, they talked about Erbakan. When they talked about Erbakan, it is comparable to the way they talked about [Brotherhood founders] Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb,” he said.Asked his thoughts on the two Brotherhood figures, Ghannouchi did not shed light on whether his ideological beliefs were close to theirs. “Hassan al-Banna and Yusuf al-Qaradawi [another theologian] are not the only believers [in Islam] in the world. There are 1.5 billion believers on Earth,” he said.In his remarks, Ghannouchi also touched on the freedom of the press, mentioning at least once that Turkey’s free press is an inspiration to the Arab world. “Freedom of the press is something we should nurture; protection of the news is a sort of liberation,” he said.Hmmmm....We're talking about the same Erbakan who claimed in an interview that Jews believe they "will destroy – Allah forbid – Al-Aqsa mosque and in its place build Solomon's temple,"and said the Muslims, by contrast, "became the masters. We [the Muslims] ruled for 11 centuries. But unfortunately, in the last three centuries the children of Israel have grabbed this material power. Now they control the world that we live in."Read the full story here.

• Turkish police detain 11 more journalists in coup probe.Turkish police detained an award-winning journalist Thursday in a fresh move against the media as part of a controversial coup probe, fuelling accusations of a campaign to bully government opponents.Armed with detention orders, police raided the homes of 11 people, most of them journalists, following a similar operation last month that sparked an outcry over press freedom in EU-aspirant Turkey and drew U.S. criticism, Anatolia news agency reported.The suspects included Nedim Sener, an investigative reporter for the Milliyet daily and author, who last year received the International Press Institute's "World Press Freedom Hero" award for a book that put blame on the security forces in the 2007 murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.Television footage showed police leading Sener into a car, as neighbors applauded the journalist in a protest at the operation.Following his colleagues' arrest, he wrote: "I am being told it is now my turn... How horrible! Has prison become the place for those who tell the truth and raise their voice?"Washington at the time expressed "broad concern about trends involving intimidation of journalists in Turkey."Three other newsmen, two of them writers of odatv.com, and a popular academic were detained as of Thursday afternoon after police completed a search at their homes in Istanbul and Ankara, Anatolia said."You touch them, you get burnt," journalist Ahmet Sik, who was working on a book critical of the police, shouted as officers led him out of his home, the agency reported.Hmmmm......Ghannouchi Turkey’s free press is an inspiration to the Arab world ,i wonder did he mean Iran by that?Read the full story here.

• France - Revolution coming soon to a neighbourhood near you?Questions are also emerging about whether the spirit of revolt might also take root among Europe-based Arabs, who often accuse their host countries of racism and blame the colonial past for many of their woes."All of these problems that led to revolutions in the Arab world are also daily life in France and are more and more unbearable," Yacine Djaziri, whose Bondy Blog chronicles life in immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs that exploded in riots in 2005, wrote recently."How do we fix it? Do we need to set ourselves on fire? Be resigned? Get angry? Revolt?"Balanced with fears are calls for hope and solidarity: some European officials on Monday proposed a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, drawing an explicit parallel to the continent's U.S.-funded reconstruction after World War II that testifies to the magnitude of the drama unfolding across the Mediterranean.But Europeans ask: who's going to pay when they're engulfed in a debt crisis that threatens to darken the future of an entire generation? "Germany pumps enough money into foreign countries already," said Marcel Mueller, 27, who works in the service industry.Hmmmm.......Not forgetting the 'Outreach to Muslims' in france by the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

• Police quiz Pakistani stepfather of missing California girl, 13, who fled her home in terror 'to avoid arranged marriage.A 13-year-old schoolgirl who was missing for more than a week ran away because she was terrified by her mother and stepfather's alleged plot to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, police claimed today.Jessie Bender's parents are accused of keeping their plan secret from detectives after reporting that she had disappeared from their California home.Their claim that Jessie was abducted by a Facebook predator was proved false after she was discovered hiding with a relative at a hotel about 30 miles from her home in Hesperia, California.Speaking to MailOnline, Hesperia Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Roxanne Walker said Jessie's stepfather, Mohammad Khan - who is from Pakistan - and her American mother, Melissa, were planning an arranged marriage for the teen.'There was something to that effect in the works and the daughter was scared. 'She was found with the uncle who was protecting her from the parents,' said Ms Walker.One line of inquiry is whether there was any intention to involve Jessie in an arranged marriage in Pakistan while she was under age.Police also slammed the Bender family for 'misleading' them over Jessie's disappearance, wasting time and resources.But as they came up with nothing, their suspicions grew that Jessie's disappearance had nothing to do with a Facebook friend. Then a relative, now known to be an uncle, led police to the Apple Valley hotel where Jessie was hiding, and the real reason for her disappearance was revealed. It is not clear what relatives Jessie has in Pakistan although it is believed her stepfather Mr Kahn may have connections there.Jessie and her three siblings have been taken to child protective custody by county social services, and no arrests have been made.Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Indian press go crazy on mega-bucks wedding.Groom gets copter as wedding gift, his barber gets $5,500.The groom wore a garland made of bank notes and received a helicopter as a gift, there were 18,000 guests - or perhaps it was 30,000 - and 1,000 workers took 40 days to prepare the venue.The exact details have been fiercely disputed, but Wednesday's newspapers in New Delhi were all in agreement that this had been one very big, very fat Indian wedding.Lalit Tanwar married his bride Yogita Jaunapuria at a family farmhouse near the city in a ceremony celebrated with 100 dishes, 12 giant TV screens to broadcast proceedings, and even a gift of $5,500 for the groom's barber.The Times of India calculated the cost of Tuesday night's extravaganza uniting two influential political families at one billion rupees ($22 million), while the Mail Today went for the less conservative figure of $55 million."I don't understand why there is so much hoopla about this marriage," the groom's father, Kanwar Singh Tanwar, told the Times. "All estimates of this marriage in the media are speculation."In the Indian Express, he was quoted as saying: "True, a Bell 429 helicopter was given but it was a simple wedding."The Hindustan Times reported that at a pre-wedding ceremony last week 2,000 guests were each given a silver biscuit, a safari suit and $500 in cash, while at a different ritual the bride's family welcomed the groom with gifts worth $5 million.The newly-weds, both 26, were heralded on Tuesday night by flowers and lights bedecking three kilometres (two miles) of roads leading to the function, where no meat or alcohol were served in line with Hindu tradition.Hmmmm.......One of the few things money can't buy is the gift of kindness,meet the other side of India!Read the full story here.