MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 06. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 06. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 06 . Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 4.8 ! Activity in Turkey.More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 128.Source : Here .

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Europe - Latest official Situation Update on E-Coli epidemic. On 06.06.2011 at 08:33 GMT+2
  
  A farm in northern Germany has been identified as the most likely source of many of the infections in the E. coli outbreak that has left 22 people dead. The farm, producing beansprouts, is located in Uelzen, south of Hamburg, the epicentre of the outbreak that has also made more than 2,000 people ill. German officials were awaiting results of tests on the farm's produce that would offer more conclusive proof. The farm has been closed and Germans advised to stop eating beansprouts. The agriculture minister for Lower Saxony, Gert Lindemann, said: "Further evidence has emerged which points to a plant nursery in Uelzen as the source of the EHEC cases, or at least one of the sources," he said. Definite proof would depend on test results, but "a connection has been found involving all the main outbreaks". The farm is about 100km (62m) south of Hamburg and supplies restaurants and markets in the city and neighbouring German states. Mr Lindemann said the farm grows a wide variety of beansprouts from seeds imported from different countries. The beansprouts include adzuki, alfalfa, broccoli, peas, lentils and mung beans, all grown in the nursery for consumption in salads. Mr Lindemann said the sprouts produced there are grown in temperatures of about 38C, "which is ideal for all bacteria".
  
  The BBC's Stephen Evans in Berlin says the announcement may cause embarrassment to German authorities, who had earlier pointed to Spanish farms as the source of the outbreak. More than 2,150 people in Germany have been infected by enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) bacteria. Many have developed haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can be fatal. Cases have been concentrated in Hamburg, with infections in 12 other countries linked to travel in Germany. An employee holds petri dishes with bacterial strains of EHEC bacteria at the University Clinic Eppendorf in Hamburg, 2 June 2011. The E.coli strain is an aggressive hybrid form toxic to humans Twenty-one of the victims have died in Germany, and one person in Sweden. Scientists say the new E.coli strain is an aggressive hybrid form toxic to humans and not previously linked to food poisoning. German Health Minister Daniel Bahr said it was not yet safe to give the all clear. "We still have to expect more cases of HUS. We continue to recommend that people do not eat raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce in northern Germany," he said. Mr Bahr said hospitals in northern Germany were overwhelmed by the outbreak, though he said medical workers were doing "everything necessary" to help patients. Hamburg's senator for health, Cornelia Pruefer-Storcks, said there were indications the outbreak was slackening. Doctors in the city's hospitals said a large number of patients were showing signs of improvement. EU health ministers will discuss the outbreak at their meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.Source.

• Missing :Congressman answers to the name "WIENER".(NY Daily News) — Rep. Anthony Weiner ditched the Israel Day parade for the first time in years as the ballooning boxer brouhaha continues to dog him.Several of his fellow Democrats and political rivals questioned why the congressman was nowhere to be seen.“It has become a huge distraction,” said former city Controller William Thompson Jr., a likely Democratic mayoral contender.“It has become a circus. Every answer raises another question.”U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Weiner should have attended the parade up Fifth Ave.“I’d like to see him here,” he told reporters before marching. “He cares about Israel and [is] very active in the Jewish community and he ought to be here.”Hmmmm.......Consulting divorce lawyer?Is there's a bun in the oven?Read the full story here.

• Weinergate Bombshell: New Woman Comes Forward Claiming Cache of Intimate Photos and Online Communications with Beleaguered Congressman.(BigGovernment).A new woman has come forward with what she claims are photographs, chats, and emails with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). These appear to undermine severely Rep. Weiner’s explanations that he was the victim of a “prank” or a “hack.”The detailed new information suggests that the Brooklyn- and Queens-based representative and the young woman in question were involved in an online, consensual relationship involving the mutual exchange of intimate photographs.BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com were approached regarding this information more than a week prior to the separate, independent event of Friday, May 27, 2011, when a link to the now-infamous “gray underwear” photograph appeared publicly on Rep. Weiner’s Twitter feed.We will be updating BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com throughout the day with photographs, timelines, and other clarifying details. However, we will not be releasing all of the material because some of it is of an extreme, graphic nature.Read the full story here.

• Keep The Change: 20 Ways That The U.S. Economy Has Gotten Worse Since Barack Obama Became President.(AmericanDream).By almost any measure that you can think of, the U.S. economy has gotten worse since Barack Obama became president. Unemployment is higher, the cost of food and gas are skyrocketing, the number of Americans living in poverty has spiked dramatically, the housing market is in nightmarish shape and our national debt has absolutely exploded. Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to prance around the country declaring that "we can live out the American dream again" and that what we are experiencing right now are simply "bumps on the road to recovery". But such mindless platitudes are of little comfort to the millions of American families that are slowly descending into poverty or the tens of millions of American families that are already there. If this is the "change" that Barack Obama was promising then he can just keep the change.Barack Obama is proving to be one of the worst presidents in all of U.S. history. Perhaps when it is all said and done he will be recognized as the absolute worst. Not that George W. Bush was much different. In fact, the Republican Party will not regain much credibility with the American people until it admits that George W. Bush was an absolutely horrible president. Sadly, the truth is that we have not had a decent president in decades. This statement is going to upset almost everyone that is still trapped inside the false left/right political paradigm in this country, but I am not here to pander to the political establishment.Barack Obama is a horrific president.So was George W. Bush.That is the truth.Not that it is our presidents that actually run our economy. As far as the economy is concerned, the U.S. Congress deserves as much (or more) of the blame as the executive branch does.However, if you really want to point fingers at someone, then you should place the most blame on the Federal Reserve. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve has more power over our economy that any other single institution....So exactly what is the Federal Reserve? Most people would say that it is an agency of the federal government. But that is absolutely not true. In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is not an agency of the federal government. Rather, the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the U.S. Congress. This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy, it has never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and it is not accountable to the American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.But the mainstream media rarely points fingers at the Fed, and the truth is that when election 2012 arrives, the American people are going to judge Barack Obama primarily on how the U.S. economy is performing.By just about any measure you can name, the U.S. economy has gotten much worse since Barack Obama became president. Of course it is glaringly obvious by now that Barack Obama is completely clueless when it comes to economics. In fact, Obama surrounded himself with economic advisers such as Larry Summers who actually were highly instrumental in getting us into this mess.So should Barack Obama be held accountable for this economic disaster?Yes.But so should Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., the entire U.S. Congress and the Federal Reserve.The economic decline we are experiencing now has taken decades to build, and what we are experiencing now is simply an acceleration of the long-term economic trends that are destroying this country.The following are 20 ways that the U.S. economy has gotten even worse since Barack Obama became president....Read the full story here.

• 40 UK universities are now breeding grounds for terror as hardline groups peddle hate on campus.(DailyMail).England's universities have become a breeding ground for extremism and terrorist recruitment, according to a disturbing government report. Officials have identified 40 English universities where ‘there may be particular risk of radicalisation or recruitment on campus’. A soon to be published Whitehall report – seen by the Daily Mail – will point to a string of examples of students going on to commit terrorist acts against this country or overseas.Alarmingly the Prevent review says that ‘more than 30 per cent of people convicted for Al Qaeda-associated terrorist offences in the UK . . . are known to have attended university or a higher education institution. ‘Another 15 per cent studied or achieved a vocational or further education qualification. About 10 per cent of the sample were students at the time when they were charged or the incident for which they were convicted took place.’The report, prepared by Home Office officials, warns of hardline Islamic groups specifically targeting universities which have large numbers of Muslim students in order to peddle a message of hate. Students are even ‘engaging in terrorism or related activities while members of university societies’.But it says the universities are not doing enough to respond to this threat to national security. Fewer than half of universities are engaged with the police. Home Secretary Theresa May will demand universities do more to confront this threat. She also wants more action to deport preachers of hate.The universities which have given places to fanatics include some of our most prestigious institutions.The report will say that terrorists who have attended English universities include Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, the Stockholm suicide bomber who had a BSc in sports therapy from the University of Luton, now the University of Bedfordshire.The alleged Detroit underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, studied mechanical engineering at University College London between 2005 and 2008.Two of the fanatics convicted of the transatlantic liquid bomb plot – ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar – attended City and Brunel Universities respectively.The review says the Department for Business, which is in charge of universities, has identified about 40 English universities where there may be a particular risk. Some now have a dedicated police officer to advise on tackling radicalisation.The document raises particular alarm about the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS). It says there are ‘several examples of students engaging in terrorism or related activities while members of university societies affiliated to FOSIS. Such extremists must have no part in any organisation that wishes to be recognised as a representative body.’The finger of blame for radicalising students is pointed at Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which David Cameron promised to ban in opposition, and off-shoots of a fanatical group once run by preacher of hate Omar Bakri.One section warns: ‘We believe there is unambiguous evidence to indicate that some extremist organisations, notably Hizb-ut-Tahrir, target specific universities and colleges (notably those with a large number of Muslim students) with the objective of radicalising and recruiting students.’Universities UK says that universities ‘are places where ideas and beliefs can be tested without fear of control’, and that they act as a safeguard against ideologies that threaten Britain’s open society.The worries about the lax attitude of some universities is combined with concern about the student visa route. Ten of the 11 Pakistani nationals seized on suspicion of plotting an atrocity in the North-West in 2009 had student visas. The alleged ringleader of this plot – Abid Naseer – was a computer studies student at Liverpool John Moores University. Mrs May is determined to crack down on the abuse of the student visa route. However, she has faced opposition within government from Michael Gove’s Education Department and Business Secretary Vince Cable.Meanwhile, Whitehall officials are said to be concerned that Mr Gove’s flagship ‘free schools’ policy – where parents can obtain state funding to open and run their own schools – could be targeted by extremists.Security officials working in a dedicated unit are expected to vet the backgrounds of all would-be applicants for evidence of extremism or radicalisation.The Prevent strategy is said to have caused behind-the-scenes rows within the Government.Mr Gove is understood to have argued that the Government should not engage with groups which hold any extremist beliefs – even though these are the ones most likely to attract would-be terrorists.Four months ago, in a major speech in Munich, the Prime Minister signalled an end to ‘passive tolerance’ of extremist Islamic organisations which foster hatred against the West and radicalise young Muslims.Hmmmm.....Better late than never?Read the full story here.

• Muslim women's group launches 'jihad against violence'.(Guardian).Inspire's campaign aims to combat all forms of violence but with an emphasis on crimes justified in the name of Islam.A British Muslim women's group has launched a "jihad against violence", in a bid to reclaim the term jihad from extremists.The campaign, launched by Inspire at City Hall in central London on Sunday, aims to combat all forms of violence but with an emphasis on crimes, including terrorism, domestic abuse and female genital mutilation, that some perpetrators attempt to justify in the name of Islam.Although jihad means a struggle in the way of God, it has been hijacked by extremists, who have attempted to use it to justify holy war, the group says."People think 'jihad against violence' is a contradictory statement but our jihad is for peace," said Inspire's director, Sara Khan. "Islam has become synonymous with all things violent and the repression of women. We thought we couldn't sit back and stay silent while our religion is being used to carry out acts of violence." Khan has previously advised the government on tackling radicalisation and was critical of the government's Prevent programme for combating extremism for not including enough input from women.Inspire intends to make information refuting the arguments of those who purport to use the Qur'an to justify terrorism and domestic violence against women and children more widely available – information it says is lacking in many Islamic bookshops. It also wants to put pressure on Muslim leaders to confront what Khan says are currently "taboo" subjects and is encouraging organisations and individuals to sign up to the declaration of jihad against violence on its website.Read the full story here.

• Syrian opposition: Anti-Israel rioters paid $1,000.(Ynet). Protestors at northern border promised $1,000 reward by Assad's regime,Reform Party of Syria claims.Protestors for hire? Demonstrators along the Syria-Israel border were paid thousands of dollars by President Bashar Assad's regime to take part in Sunday's riots, Syrian opposition activists charge.Israeli officials later reinforced the claims, accusing the Syrian regime of encouraging protests along the northern border.Sunday’s riots were an attempt "to divert attention away from the massacre in Syria,” one official charged. "The Syrians will be held accountable for these events.”Late Sunday, Syrian officials claimed that 23 people were killed and 350 were wounded after the IDF fired at protestors aiming to rush the border fence earlier in the day. However, the army dismissed the figures, claiming that they were inflated.Washington-based members of the Reform Party of Syria said intelligence sources close to the Syrian government in Lebanon informed them that the protesters on the Syrian side of the Druze community of Majdal Shams were in fact poverty-stricken farmers paid by the Assad regime.According to the sources, the farmers migrated over the last few years from drought-stricken northeast Syria to the south. They reached the Israel-Syria border on Sunday in the aims of reenact "Nakba Day" events, the sources said. The Syrian opposition group claimed that each farmer was promised $1,000 for showing up at the rally and $10,000 to their families if they are killed by IDF fire. According to the report, the average salary of a Syrian citizen is about $200 per month, meaning that participation in Sunday's demonstration could provide a protester and his family with five months worth of financial relief.Opposition activists noted that such tactics were previously used by Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein when the Ba'ath Party leader offered a $25,000 reward to the families of Palestinians who died while hurling stones at Israelis during the Intifada. Reform Party members added that Assad's payments were aimed at diverting attention away from his regime's barbaric oppression of opposition members in the last three months and the killing of more than 1,000 citizens.The opposition group stressed that while it believes that the Golan Heights belong to Syria, it wishes to return the land through peaceful negotiations. "If Assad really wanted the Golan Heights, he would walk the same peaceful path Anwar Sadat walked long before him," the group said in a statement. IDF officials said that forces along the Syrian border showed restraint Sunday during clashes with rioters aiming to breach the border fence.“We could have taken the easier route of uncontrolled fire, but we decided to operate in a very limited manner,” one army official said. Meanwhile, army officials fear that the border with Syria will turn into a regular protest and riot site, similar to weekly Palestinian and leftist demonstrations at West Bank villages.Military officials say that should riots continue in the area on a regular basis, the IDF will have to change its deployment in the region. “At this time already we have several regiments that are here instead of following their regular plans,” a military source said.Notably, the border area with Syria also offers greater operational challenges in containing riots compared to similar events in Judea and Samaria. For example, the firing of tear gas across the border is limited by law and cannot be used as a collective means of crowd control.Read the full story here.

• Obama Inspired Ship to Join IHH Gaza Flotilla.(INN).A ship flying US colors and carrying 34 passengers is set to joint this year's Gaza-bound, IHH-sponsored “Freedom Flotilla 2” in June, the New York Times reported.This year's American vessel, named The Audacity of Hope after US President Barack Obama’s best-selling book, is being organized by an American group called “US Boat to Gaza.”Obama links to the Audacity do not end there, however. Prof. Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a friend from Obama’s time in Chicago, is among the supporters of an appeal launched by the group last week.“We must raise at least $370,000 in the next month,” a statement on US Boat to Gaza’s Web site read indicating it doesn't have the money needed to sail yet.“These funds will be used to purchase a boat large enough for 40-60 people, secure a crew, and cover the licensing and registering of the boat. Together we will contribute to the great effort to end the blockade of Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine.”Khalidi, an outspoken critic of Israel, garnered attention in 2008 when his friendship with Obama became a point of controversy during the US presidential campaign.Sen. John McCain, Obama’s opponent during the campaign, portrayed Khalidi as a Hamas sympathizer.Khalidi’s involvement in organizing a US boat for the flotilla project has gained significant attention from conservative bloggers and media personalities in America.While Khalidi will help raise money for the initiative, he said he does not plan to sail on the ship.Khalidi wrote in an e-mail over the weekend that while he had not known that Obama’s book would be the inspiration for the ship’s name when he signed on as a sponsor, he does not view it as a potential embarrassment for Obama.“If the name is a problem for the administration it can simply insist publicly that Israel lift the siege: end of problem, end of embarrassment,” Khalidi wrote in the e-mail .Hmmmm.....US Administration allows US ship,pretends to stop Turkish ship?Yeah pretty obvious by now.Read the full story here.

• Iran has secretly stocked enriched uranium for four nuclear bombs.(Debka).The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, American's scientific watchdog on world nuclear weapons production, estimates that by Dec. 2008, Iran had accumulated enough U-235 to fuel one nuclear bomb; by 2009, enough for a second, by August 2010 material for a third bomb and by April 2011, enough enriched uranium for a fourth bomb.These estimates presuppose an Iranian decision to further process low-enriched material to weapons grade - a process taking no more than a couple of months.Iran, says the Wisconsin Project, is consolidating its status as a "virtual" nuclear weapon state – meaning it can set about building a bomb whenever its rulers so decide.In its twice-annual report published Thursday, June 2, Wisconsin revealed three further developments in Iran's nuclear drive:

1. Since November 2010, when Iran stopped enriching uranium in all cascades at the Natanz plant for about a week (the report does not give the reason for the stoppage – possibly a Stuxnet virus invasion of its computer control system), the enrichment rate has increased. The 5,000 centrifuges spinning in February 2011 increased to nearly 6,000 in May 2011.debkafile's Iranian sources add: Prof. Ferei-doon Abbasi Davani has taken over as director of the enrichment complex at Natanz. He was formerly in charge of combating the Stuxflex worm. Last November, Prof. Abbasi Dayani escaped with light injuries from an attack by a pair of motorcyclists who attached a sticky bomb to his car. It occurred near the Imam Hossein University in Tehran where most of Iran's secret nuclear labs are located.

2. Wisconsin quotes the International Atomic Energy Agency's May 2011 report that one of its seals was broken in the "feed and withdrawal area" of the Natanz enrichment plant.This means that Iran took action to conceal the real amount of is enriched uranium stockpile from the nuclear watchdog and the fact, as Wisconsin reports, that it has accumulated enough material for building four nuclear bombs. Its steady progress will go undetected until the next IAEA inventory in October or November.The controversy around his comments reflects a similar argument afoot in US political and defense circles over whether the time has come to smash Iran's nuclear capability or stand by and let the Islamic Republic becomes a "virtual nuclear weapon state."In the last three years, the two schools of thought for and against military action against Iran have been joined by a third, which affirms that the US and Israel can live with an Iran armed with one or two nuclear bombs because this number would be dwarfed even by Israel's reputed stock let alone the American arsenal. Therefore, until Iran stockpiles a serous arsenal of weapons, it does not constitute an existential threat to Israel.The Wisconsin Project's latest report explodes this argument because it exposes the steady accumulation of materials for four bombs in two-and-a-half years and Iran's dogged advance toward a serious arsenal unless it is stopped.That is the reason why the military option is back on the table in Jerusalem.Read the full story here.

• Watch: Syrian troops make jokes over corpses.(Ynet).Online clip shows soldiers making snide comments about bodies of civilians killed by gunfire.A new online video has the Syrian opposition up in arms. It shows a group of soldiers making jokes over the dead bodies of civilians killed by fire from security forces. Opposition members claim that the clip, of unknown origin, was filmed on the roof of a mosque in the southern town of Dara'a, where anti-government protests first erupted.The full-length film, which is not shown here, includes horrifying footage of soldiers entertaining each other with snide remarks. "Your father told you to watch out, but you didn't," one soldier says to a corpse of a man who apparently took a bullet to the head from close range.Another soldier tells the man filming the video he wants a copy of the tape. "The committee will come and film this," says another. Al-Arabiya aired parts of the clip, with the victims' faces blurred and a disclaimer regarding its origins. But the full-length clip has already received 20,000 hits on YouTube. Meanwhile, Syrian activists are accusing security forces of murdering the victims "in cold blood", the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Monday. The film "proves these people belong to armed gangs," the report cites activists as saying. However it also proves that there is discord among the troops and that some are refusing to go along with the regime's orders, they added. Defense Minister Ehud Barak predicted that Syrian President Bashar Assad has been irreparably weakened by the popular uprising. "I think Assad will fall," Barak told Israel Radio on Monday.Read the full story here.

• Sociologist: Every 5 Minutes a Christian Is Martyred.(Zenit).Speaks of Emergency in Religious Discrimination.ROME, JUNE 3, 2011 .- A sociologist representing a European security organization says that the number of Christians killed each year for their faith is so high that it calculates to one martyr's life being taken every five minutes.Massimo Introvigne of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported this data at a conference on Christian-Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue, which concluded today in Hungary. The conference was sponsored by the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union, and included a variety of high-level representatives from the three monotheistic religions, as well as political and social leaders.Introvigne reported that Christians killed every year for their faith number 105,000, and that number includes only those put to death simply because they are Christians. It does not count the victims of civil or international wars."If these numbers are not cried out to the world, if this slaughter is not stopped, if it is not acknowledged that the persecution of Christians is the first worldwide emergency in the matter of violence and religious discrimination, the dialogue between religions will only produce beautiful conferences but no concrete results," he stated.Egyptian diplomat Aly Mahmoud said that in his country laws have been passed that will protect Christian minorities, for example, prosecuting those who give speeches that incite hatred and banning hostile crowds outside churches."However, the danger is that many Christian communities in the Middle East will die from emigration, because all Christians, feeling threatened, will flee," he said.The diplomat suggested Europe prepare for "a new wave of emigration, this time from Christians fleeing the persecutions."For his part, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, chairman for the Russian Orthodox patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations, reminded that "at least 1 million" Christian victims of persecutions are children.Hmmmmm.........Read the full story here.

• Muna Khan: The curious case of the woman who thinks sex slaves will stop Arab men from committing adultery.(Al-Arabia).Salwa Al Mutairi is very concerned about male adulterers. And why should she not be given the scandals to have rocked the western world in the last few months—be it the former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn charged with sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper in New York City or California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who admitted to infidelity and having a child out of wedlock as the reason behind the dissolution of his marriage. This is but just two examples of high profile marriages going bust which even prompted the bastion of weekly newsmagazines Time to ask why men cheat.While Ms. Al-Mutairi’s worries may not concern matters on Western shores—she is a Kuwaiti activist—she does offer a novel proposition to curb the cheating of men: legalize sex slavery. No, this is not a case of something being lost in translation, nor am I making it up. The one-time candidate for Kuwaiti Parliament and TV show host said that a legislative act sanctioning enslaved female concubines would “protect” men from committing adultery or corruption. I thought concubine was struck out of the dictionary because Oxford had to make room for couch surfer, la-la land and muffin top to name but a few—I am also not making this up—but it’s alive and well.But there’s nothing funny about slavery. And I’m not the only one who thinks that Ms. Al Mutairi does no great service to her gender with such preposterous views. Twitterverse was outraged, disgusted and tweeple keen to point out that she does not represent all Kuwaitis. Ms. Al Mutairi would have us believe that men’s desires need to be constantly catered to—so much for women’s liberation. She also said—and rather seriously too in her online video broadcast which was reported by Kuwait Times on Sunday—that she’d been informed that “affluent Muslim men who fear being seduced or tempted into immoral behavior by the beauty of their female servants, or even of those servants ‘casting spells’ on them, would be better to purchase women from an ‘enslaved maid’ agency for sexual purposes.”Since there are agencies to help us find domestic staff, the “activist” wants to see something similar for concubines. Hey, maybe we can throw in summer specials: Buy one-get-one-free. Maybe GroupOn wants to get in on this. Ms. Al Mutairi’s genius knows no bounds because she suggests that maids/concubines could be “brought as prisoners of war in war-stricken nations like Chechnya to be sold on later to devout merchants.” I’m pretty certain the Chechens have a thing or two to say about this offer. “Errr, no thanks” pretty much should sum it up.Or, as Mona Eltahawy tweeted: “Wonder how Salwa Al Mutairi would’ve felt if during occupation by Iraqi forces, she was sold as “war booty” as she advocates 4 [sic] Chechen women.” The icing on the cake is when Ms. Al Mutairi says that the idea doesn’t go against the tenets of religion. Perhaps she skipped class the day they taught the story about how the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) freed slaves. Or laid down pretty strict rules against adultery, like don’t do it. It’s easy to dismiss Ms. Al Mutairi as a “joke”—I’m assured that many Kuwaitis see her as an embarrassment, as “our own Ann Coulter” tweeted one man—but it’s still baffling that she would espouse such notions in this day and age. How does sex slavery prevent adultery? (I thought wanting to stay in a monogamous marriage prevented adultery.) How can there be anything remotely dignified about the word slavery in this day and age? The only connection one can even make with slavery is rape—and there’s plenty of evidence to attest that girls and women are being sold into slavery and forced into all sorts of professions against their will. For Ms. Al Mutairi to even suggest that owning a concubine would prevent a man from becoming corrupt is downright irresponsible and simply shameful. It is almost as idiotic as the Malaysian venture, “The Obedient Wife Club,” launched on June 3 to teach women how to care for their husbands better so they don’t—you guessed it—stray. Apparently these women are concerned by the increase in divorces in Malaysia and feel that by asking women to be more obedient to their husband, they will have fewer problems in society. Why do women like Ms. Al Mutairi and the Malaysians behind the wives club feel the onus of adultery or men behaving badly lies with women? Why is there no responsibility placed on the man?It’ll be nice for men to step forward and rubbish such views in a public domain. Until then I’m happy to keep poking fun at the likes of men and women who want us to return to antiquated and warped values packaged in the name of religion.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Video - Egyptian Security Expert Rushdi Ghanem: Britain, the US, and Israel Are the Great Satan of the World, But the Great Satan of the Middle East Are Saudi Arabia and Qatar.Read and see the full story here.