MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 16. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 16. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 16. Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.1 ,increased activity in Turkey! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 131.On 15.06.2011 at 19:17 GMT+2
  
  Two minke whales hunted off Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido were found to be contaminated with radioactive caesium. The whales were harpooned 650 km north-east of a nuclear plant damaged by the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that struck last March. Researchers examined six of the 17 whales in Hokkaido’s Kushiro city and found 31 Bq and 24.3 Bq of radioactive caesium per kg in the two whales, reports SAPA. The limit for radioactive substances is of 500 Bq per kg, such that the whales’ caesium content is far below Japan's maximum safe limit for marine products. "There is no data available to compare whether the readings for radioactive materials are higher than normal," a fisheries agency official said this week, reports Times LIVE. "We will continue to monitor the development, as we do for all seafood and marine life caught in the Pacific." Officials from the country's Fisheries Agency blamed the contamination on the ongoing radioactive crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which continues to leak radioactive substances into the surrounding environment, including the Pacific Ocean. The latest results on caesium come just days after strontium was found in groundwater near the plant's Number One and Number Two reactors. The compound can build up in bones and cause bone cancer and leukemia; it has been confirmed that strontium up to 240 times the legal limit was found in ocean waters adjacent to the plant, reports ABC News. This month, radioactive caesium was detected in leaves at a tea factory in the city of Shizuoka some 360 km from the stricken plant in Fukushima. Moreover, conservation group Greenpeace last month communicated findings of massive levels of radioactive contamination in seaweed and other marine life in the Pacific roughly 20 km off Fukushima. The high levels of radioactive caesium and iodine were 50 times higher than official limits. 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 - 55 Source.

• Al-Zawahiri named new al-Qaeda chief.(Al-Jazeera).(Video) - Group's second-in-command appointed leader following killing of Osama bin Laden.Al-Qaeda has named Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group has said in a statement issued in the name of the group's general command."The general command of al-Qaeda announces, after consultations, the appointment of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the group," the statement, posted online on Thursday, said.US special forces killed bin Laden in a raid on the Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2.Al-Qaeda under the new leadership of al-Zawahiri will pursue its fight against the US and Israel, the group said in the statement."We seek with the aid of God to call for the religion of truth and incite our nation to fight ... by carrying out jihad against the apostate invaders ... with their head being crusader America and its servant Israel, and whoever supports them," it said.Al-Zawahiri has been al-Qaeda's number two for years.His whereabouts are unknown but he is widely believed to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States is offering a $25m reward for any information leading to his capture or conviction."Only a few weeks ago when the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was here in Pakistan she reportedly gave Pakistan what's been described as a hitlist", Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said."It listed five names and Zawahiri's name was on the list. Whether that means the new al-Qaeda leader is here we don't know for sure, but it certainly raises some questions".Believed to be in his late 50s, al-Zawahiri met bin Laden in the mid-1980s when both were in Pakistan to support fighters battling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.Al-Zawahiri, who was born in Egypt, vowed earlier this month to press ahead with al-Qaeda's campaign against the US and its allies, in what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death."The Sheikh [bin Laden] has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," he said in a video message posted online."Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group ... but a rebelling nation which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance challenging it wherever it is."In Thursday's statement, al-Qaeda voiced its "support [to] the uprisings of our oppressed Muslim people against the corrupt and tyrant leaders who have made our nation suffer in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya Yemen, Syria and Morocco."The group urged those involved in the uprisings to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries."Read and see the full story here.

• Rep. King Files Amendment to Block Pigford II Funds.(BigGovernment).Congressman Steve King (R-IA) released the following statement after filing an amendment today to H.R 2112, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012, that prevents any funds appropriated under the act from being used to settle claims associated with the controversial and fraud-plagued Pigford II program.“In the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress limited taxpayers’ exposure to the Pigford II settlement program at $100 million, a figure that was deemed sufficient to resolve the racial discrimination claims leveled against the United States Department of Agriculture by black farmers,” said King. “Since that time, a lame-duck Democratic Congress agreed to President Obama’s request to pump an additional $1.15 billion into the Pigford II settlement program, doing so even though the program is rife with credible allegations of massive fraud that have not been fully investigated. This was an irresponsible act, and it violated Congress’s responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money.”“The new majority in the House of Representatives should not ratify the lame-duck Congress’s decision to increase American taxpayers’ exposure to Pigford II fraud. I believe that an investigation into the program will reveal that the majority of the claims that have been filed are fraudulent, and Congress should not turn a blind eye to the real possibility that the money is being used primarily to build political goodwill for the President instead of being used to properly redress the much smaller universe of people who have actually suffered harm. If passed, my amendment would put the brakes on Pigford II funding, and it would prevent the Secretary of Agriculture from paying fraudulent claims one $50,000 check at a time.”Hmmmm.......A whole lot a stench coming from this heap.Read the full story here.

• Weiner’s In-Laws and the Secret Muslim Brotherhood Connections Revealed.(floydreports).Was Huma Abedin, the wife of Anthony Weiner and the Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton, unaware that her mother was reported as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is it possible she does not know that her brother is tied to the Brotherhood’s radical leadership? Did Western media miss what has been revealed in several Arab newspapers, which has remained secret in American government circles?Neither Huma nor any major Western media outlet even mention what is common knowledge in the Arab world. Yet, Arab sources have confirmed that Huma Abedin has a brother named Hassan Abedin who works at Oxford University. Oxford University, which has long been infiltrated by Islamists who founded the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), lists Huma’s brother as a fellow and partners with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members on the Board, including al-Qaeda associate Omar Naseef and the notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi; both have been listed as OCIS Trustees. Naseef continues to serve as Board Chairman.In 2009, Qaradawi’s role within Oxford and the Muslim Brotherhood was championed by the notorious Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi of Al-Nahda – a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate now active in Tunisia. OCIS has even presented an award for great scholarly achievement to Brotherhood member Shaykh Abd Al-Fattah Abu Gudda, whose personal history goes back to the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna.Even the Sunday Times acknowledges that the cradle of Islamic Jihad – Al-Azhar University – actively attempts to establish links with OCIS, where Huma’s brother serves.Was Huma unaware of all this as she accompanied Hillary Clinton to the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia? Huma’s mother is the co-founder and a Vice Dean at the college and an active missionary on issues regarding Muslim women. The “Women’s Division” can be found at the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website; an excerpt from its goal, translated from Arabic, states:The Womens Organization’s goal in accordance with the Muslim Brotherhood rules, is to gain and acquire a unified global perception in every nation in the world regarding the position of women, and the necessity of advocacy work at all levels in accordance with the message of the Brotherhood as written in Women in Muslim Society, and the rearing of women throughout the different stages of life.True to this cause, another member listed as belonging to the Sisterhood mentioned by Al Jazeera is Suheir Qureshi. She spoke alongside Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was brought in due to her connection with Huma. All three women spoke on issues of women in Muslim society. An Arabic news report of what happened during Hillary’s visit stated:Suheir Qureshi spoke of how elated she was of Hillary’s historic visit…Saleha Abedin spoke after Suheir Qureshi and beamed in the presence of Secretary Clinton. Saleha’s speech preceded the former First Lady’s. Then Hillary stood. She donned a broad smile as she approached the podium… Clinton started with a strong word and she spent a long time complimenting Dr. Saleha Abedin regarding her daughter. Hillary explained that Huma holds an important and sensitive position in her office. She ended her speech by speaking of Saleha Abedin’s daughter (Huma), that a person must be happy if mentioned in a positive light but there is no happiness that equals the compliment given to children in front of a parent.It is sacrilege in Islam for Huma’s mother to accept the reality that her daughter is married to a Jew. Yet, neither Saleha nor Huma’s brother Hassan have denounced her marriage to Weiner, although it is considered null and void by some of the highest authorities on Islamic Shari’a rulings.Huma’s brother has been key in furthering the Islamic agenda and has worked with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on a program of “spreading Islam to the West.” A detailed report from 2007 shows that Naseef was identified as the likely force behind the Abedin family’s departure from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia circa 1977 – the same year that the Muslim Sisterhood was established.Strangely, Hillary Clinton signed a document less than one month prior to her trip to Saudi Arabia with Huma that lifted the ban on Tariq Ramadan, allowing him entry into the United States. Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna and has ties to Islamic terrorist groups.Huma Abedin’s charm, family connections and access to highly sensitive state secrets (as Hillary has admitted), can have significant consequences. What absolutely must be known is if our distinguished public servants were made aware of all these ties to potential enemies of the State.Hmmmm......."The philosophy of our service is that we open a house somewhere and, with the patience of a spider, we lay our web to wait for people to get caught in the web; and we teach those who do."Read the full story here.

• Who Checked Out Leon Panetta?(Aim).In a new revelation in the Panettagate scandal, CIA Director Leon Panetta inserted a tribute in the April 11, 1984, Congressional Record to one of his constituents, Lucy Haessler, calling her a “woman of peace” for her work in the pro-Soviet Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). This is when Panetta was a California Congressman representing Santa Cruz.Panetta declared that Haessler participated in “peace conferences” sponsored by the Women’s International Democratic Federation “in France, the Soviet Union, Poland, and East Germany.” One has to wonder about the “peace conferences” being held in such places as the Soviet Union. But Panetta put the tribute in the record without displaying any indication of its Soviet sponsorship or casting doubt on the organization’s commitment to “peace.”Panetta’s praise for Haessler got the attention at the time of Human Events, the national conservative weekly, which noted that WILPF “appears to take the Soviet line on virtually every issue that comes up, ranging from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and yellow rain [communist chemical warfare] to the issue of new U.S. missiles in Europe.” The Women’s International Democratic Federation was an outright Soviet front organization.Panetta told Human Events that he was unaware of the extremist nature of the WILPF and other groups, but indicated it wouldn’t have mattered that much to him anyway. He said, “Let me tell you something. I don’t know if you know about Santa Cruz, but Santa Cruz is a center for people who’ve been real activists in all kinds of organizations. If I started doing those kinds of checks on people who help out…I’d never stop. It’s just that kind of place.”But his tribute to identified Communist Party member Hugh DeLacy, inserted into the Congressional Record in 1983, suggests that Panetta did have keen knowledge of these “real activists,” by virtue of his praise for DeLacy’s stand against “McCarthyism.” Hence, it appears that Panetta did indeed “check” on these people, completely understood they had been accused of membership in the Communist Party or having communist sympathies, and found them totally acceptable and praiseworthy.After visiting Nicaragua, Panetta declared (Congressional Record, October 3, 1984) that he and his fellow members of Congress saw “real accomplishments” under the communists and that “The goal of the U.S. Government should be to normalize U.S.-Nicaraguan relations…” Panetta denounced what he called the “counter-revolutionary groups,” the Marxist term for those Reagan had praised and supported as “freedom fighters.”After Reagan liberated Grenada from a band of communist thugs and rescued American students on the island, Panetta said in the Congressional Record (November 2, 1983) that support for the action from the American people should not be seen as a “blank check” and that it should remain “limited.” Panetta said that he was very concerned that the Reagan Administration had dispatched a U.S. naval task force to the vicinity of Cuba as a show of force. Hence, Panetta was clearly concerned that the U.S.-backed forces of liberation would undermine and threaten the Castro dictatorship.The lines were drawn and they were clear: Panetta was on the other side—the wrong side—of the historical struggle between freedom and communism. This tendency was reflected in his tribute to Lucy Haessler, who with her husband Carl Haessler were sponsors in 1966 of the Herbert Aptheker Testimonial Dinner. Aptheker was a leading theoretician of the Moscow-funded Communist Party USA.Had Panetta “checked out” the IPS? He most certainly did. But who “checked out” Panetta when he was nominated by Obama for CIA director? And who will check him out now that the full Senate is on the verge of voting on his nomination as Secretary of Defense?It is natural that The Washington Post and other liberal media would protect left-wing nominees like Panetta. But how does one explain the silence of the conservative media? Do they fear being charged with McCarthyism for telling the truth?Hmmmmm.......Dictatorship or democracy?Read the full story here.

• Oh my: Dem caucus meeting turns angry over Weiner.(HotAir).That’s the good news. The better news? They’re meeting again tomorrow and may call for a vote to strip him of his committee assignments, which will only further antagonize the left’s dumb “you’re only hating on Anthony because he stands up for our ideals” wing.Hopefully he’ll find comfort in the fact that some people are giving his ideological “package” due credit.Those tensions spilled out in a private Democratic Caucus meeting Tuesday when New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell laid out his views on the right and wrong ways to handle allegations of wrongdoing by a member of the caucus. He said he understands the need for certain Democrats — party leaders and those whose reelections could be affected by the scandal — to call on Weiner to resign, but then, by implication, scolded Pennsylvania Rep. Allyson Schwartz for jumping ahead of leadership last week when she told POLITICO that Weiner should step down and followed up with a round of national television interviews…It grew so heated that many lawmakers left the meeting voluntarily, and aides were kicked out to try to prevent leaks…Schwartz, the clear but unidentified target of Pascrell’s remarks, rose to defend herself during the meeting. She explained that she had been in a lawyer’s office in New York, dealing with her recently deceased father’s will, when she heard that Weiner had acknowledged “sexting” with six women over the course of three years. Schwartz, who is an advocate for women’s rights, was disgusted by Weiner’s behavior and felt he should resign. Without checking in with House leaders, she said, she decided to make her feelings public.That made Pascrell even more upset: He would have preferred coordination — at least an effort to make sure it was the message party leaders and Weiner’s rank-and-file colleagues wanted.National Journal looked at his financial disclosures tonight and concluded that the poor guy is sufficiently bad off that he can’t cruise into early retirement. He needs to work, assuming he can find a job in Hopenchange America. Which makes me wonder: Isn’t there a mutually satisfactory solution in the offing here? The Democrats want him out of Congress; Weiner wants a steady income. There’s one person who’s perfectly positioned to cut a check and make both sides happy. How about it, Nancy?Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.

• Levin: Obama only president not to comply with War Powers Act.(TheRightScoop).Levin acknowledges that no president since the veto of Richard Nixon has believed that the War Powers Act is constitutional, but they still complied with it. But Obama is fighting the War Powers Act saying that they are operating under the United Nations and he has the authority to continue it. He’s trying to sidestep Congress.Levin says he is the only President not to comply with it and is clearly undermining our constitutional system, all while the left stays quiet.Hmmmm......I'm the 'Messiah' laws don't apply to me?Read and see the full story here.

• O Canada!Former American radical Bill Ayers again denied access to Canada.(NationalPost).Mr. Ayers was scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Worldview Conference on Media and Higher Education this Thursday in Toronto. Conference organizers say Mr. Ayer’s refused entry should “should raise red flags for citizens concerned with free and open debate.”“Bill Ayers is a respected academic, and in no way a threat to the peace and security of Canada. There is no reason why he should be kept out,” said Mark Langer, President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA), who is hosting the event.Mr. Ayers was barred from entering Canada in 2009 after touching down at Toronto City Centre Airport. At the time, he said he had entered Canada dozens of time before without incident.Mr. Ayers has hired Canadian and American lawyers in unsuccessful attempts to lobby the Canadian Border Services Agency for passage into the country. Advised by his lawyers that he would likely be held at the border, he did not attempt a crossing this time around.In the late 1960s, Mr. Ayers co-founded the Weather Underground, a radical group that collaborated on a series of bombings aimed at banks, monuments and government buildings, including the Pentagon and US capitol.Nobody was killed in Weather Underground attacks, although members did paralyze at least one man.Mr. Ayers was never convicted of any felony related to the group’s activities.During the 1990s, Mr. Ayers was involved in educational reform in Chicago.According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, foreign nationals are barred from entering Canada if they were involved “in criminal activity, in human rights violations or in organized crime.”During the 2008 presidential campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was criticized for once serving on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers. Then-Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin accused Mr. Obama at the time of “palling around” with an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.””I don’t regret setting bombs,” said Bill Ayers in a New York Times interview, coincidentally published on September 11, 2001. He added that he would not “discount the possibility” of doing it again.In a later statement, Mr. Ayers maintained that he was not a terrorist. “We were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends,” he wrote.Read the full story here.

• Syria Pursues Scorched Earth Policy, Amid Rumors Of U.S. Military Intervention.(BigPeace).As thousands of families in northern Syria flee from their homes, many across the border into Turkey, army tanks widened the military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad, according to Reuters. More than 8,500 Syrians have now fled to refugee camps in Turkey.According to an analysis by Debka, an analyst group that has contacts within Israeli and American intelligence but sometimes gets things wrong, the deployment of the Monterey in the Black Sea is just one part of a major realignment of American forces in the region. The purpose of this redeployment is to be prepared in case a decision is made at some point in the future for U.S. military intervention in Syria.“debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report that Monday, June 13, the US deployed the USS Bataan amphibian air carrier strike vessel opposite Syria’s Mediterranean coast with 2,000 marines, 6 war planes, 15 attack helicopters, including new V-22 Ospreys, and 27 choppers for landing forces aboard.Also this week, US naval units went operational in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas as part of the joint US-Ukrainian Sea Breeze 2011 exercise. …This huge concentration of naval missile interceptor units looks like preparations by Washington for the contingency of Iran, Syria and Hizballah letting loose with surface missiles against US and Israeli targets in the event of US military intervention to stop the anti-opposition slaughter underway in Syria.”According to the analysis, the threat of US military intervention in Syria is being taken seriously by Iran and by Hizbollah, Assad’s two major allies in the region. Furthermore, although Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan does not wish to be seen working closely with the U.S. military, it’s believed that Washington is coordinating its military movements with Turkey, and that Erdogan quietly agreed to place Turkish bases at US disposal for an operation in Syria.Soooooooooooooo, where is all this going? Barack Obama promised us that if he were elected President, then he would make sure that we would no longer be fighting in two foreign wars. As we appear to be approaching war number 4, it looks like that campaign promise is being kept.Read the full story here.

• Bedouin sheikh jailed for imprisoning, raping girl.(Ynet).Uncle who kidnapped girl to punish her for violating 'family honor' said to be a champion of women's rights, sent to jail for five years. The Beersheba District Court on Wednesday sentenced a Bedouin sheikh to 13 years in prison for imprisoning, raping, and beating a teenage girl because she violated "family honor". The girl's uncle, convicted of kidnapping her, was sent to prison for five years.The indictment against the two says that in 2008 the Bedouin girl, a twelfth-grader, began to date a man against her family's orders. The girl ran away from home, but was soon found by police and transferred to the care of social workers. The authorities then passed her on to a local sheikh, who eventually returned her to her family. She continued to meet with the young man she had been seeing, to her family's ire. Eventually she ran away again. According to the indictment, her uncle found her together with the aforementioned sheikh, and the two interrogated her on her relationship with the young man. One of them told her he would "burn her" if she didn't tell the truth. The two then passed the girl on to the convicted sheikh and his wife, who imprisoned her in a cave for two months. During this time her hands and feet remained tied with chains, and the sheikh periodically raped, abused, and performed indecent acts on her, the indictment says. It adds that the sheikh's wife beat her when the girl tried to report the abuse. Occasionally her uncle would also visit, and attempt to force her to marry someone else. During the sentencing hearing the prosecution demanded a harsh sentence for the men. "Violations carried out due to 'family honor' are serious crimes that harm women's rights in society and oppress them," the prosecution claimed, adding that a harsh sentence would serve as deterrence. However the uncle's attorneys claimed that he saved the girl's life by setting up her marriage to another man. They added that the defendant is a known women's rights activist in the Bedouin sector. The sheikh was sentenced to 13 years in prison because "instead of protecting the complainant he took advantage of his proximity to her in order to violate her," the judges wrote in their verdict. He was also ordered to compensate her with the amount of NIS 50,000 ($14,700).The sheikh's wife, a Palestinian woman, was sentenced to one year suspended prison sentence for attacking the girl and preventing her from escaping. The sheikh who helped the girl's uncle kidnap her was also sentenced to one year in prison. His attorney said he, too, is known in the Bedouin sector as a champion of liberalism and women's rights. "These acts were committed in a gray area," the defense stated.Hmmmmm........."champion of liberalism and women's rights"....yeah whatevah.Read the full story here.

• IHH may not take part in flotilla.(Ynet). Turkish organization announces it will make final decision by end of the week, but other groups slated to take part in Gaza sail determined to go. The Turkish IHH organization is rethinking the Gaza-bound flotilla set to depart later this month while other participating groups remain determined to set sail as planned. On Wednesday, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that the IHH is considering canceling the flotilla following developments in the region, particularly in Syria. "We think we can achieve our goals regardless of whether we send the Marmara ship to Gaza or not. We shall make a final decision by the end of the week," the IHH spokesman said.IHH senior official Hussein Uruç confirmed the report saying the group is rethinking the departure date but that preparations are still underway. "Tomorrow we shall make a final decision on the matter, but right now there is still one date and there are no problems with the flotilla," he said.Israeli expat Dror Feiler, who heads the Gaza movement in Sweden, stressed that despite the IHH's statements the other organizations participating in the flotilla have no intention of postponing it. "The IHH have their own reasons, internal reasons. It won't stop us from going. We're going because we think it's important, not because of any organization," he told Ynet.He stressed that the members of the IHH, a Muslim organization which Israel considers a terrorist group, continues to support the flotilla and wish to make the journey to Gaza. "We shall be sorry if they can’t go, but it doesn’t pose a threat to the flotilla. "Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Thus far Israel has claimed that the Turks are terrorists. What will they say now – that the Swedes, Danes, Americans and all the world's nations are all terrorists?"Feiler, who took part in the previous flotilla, said that the IHH had shared its problems with the other groups meant to take part in the sail. "We knew there were question marks, we've been working together for more than a year and a half, we count on each other. We may come from countries with different cultures but we're all working toward the same goal. We won't give up."Others in the Free Gaza movement were however surprised to hear of the IHH's announcement. Adam Shapiro said: "This is news to me. I shall talk to Hussein and get an update," he told Ynet. "We still don't know what we'll do if they decide not to participate." Read the full story here.

• Women drivers to circle Washington Saudi embassy in protest.(Ynet).Unusual Washington rally remonstrates Saudi Arabia's opressive ban on female drivers.An unusual protest is planned for Washington as women plan to drive around the Saudi embassy to protest the kingdom's ban on female drivers. The Institute for Gulf Affairs, which is sponsoring Wednesday's rally, accuses Saudi Arabia of practicing a system of gender apartheid that oppresses women – most noticeably by refusing to allow women behind the wheel.The protest will run from noon to 4 pm outside the embassy in Washington. It is designed to support a protest planned for Friday inside the kingdom itself.Senior Saudi clerics have issued fatwas, or religious edicts, banning women from driving, claiming it protects against the spread of vice and temptation because women drivers would be free to leave home alone and interact with male strangers.Read the full story here.

• French flotilla ship won't sail.(Ynet).Members of Jewish community in France band together, send 500 letters of protest against Gaza flotilla, effectively preventing ship bought by organizers for €530,000 from docking in Marseille. One of the ships slated to participate in the flotilla to Gaza later this month will not set sail, Ynet has learned, less than a day after the Turkish IHH organization announced it was reconsidering its participation in the flotilla as well. The ship was to set sail from the port of Marseille, but a lengthy battle by the French Jewish community has apparently succeeded in preventing it.Organizers of the flotilla issued a statement thanking participants Wednesday and urging them to seek other transportation, such as on ships departing from Greece and Turkey. The French ship – one of 15 participating in the flotilla – was intended to carry a few dozen activists. Organizers bought the vessel for €530,000. Ynet learned Wednesday that the ship was being prevented from docking in France thanks to pressure applied by parliament members and organizations on insurance local companies and authorities. The vessel is currently anchored in waters outside of Marseille, where it has been for the past four days. "It's fantastic. Even we didn't believe this battle would lead to victory," a member of the French Jewish community told Ynet. He said he and other Jewish representatives had decided to join together to try to prevent the flotilla, and subsequently wrote letters of protest to 500 MPs and organizations. On Tuesday the battle came to a hilt when Jewish MP Jacques-Alain Bénisti but a query to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, asking to learn France's official position on the flotilla. The move was said to have put pressure on local insurance companies and helped to cancel the French ship's participation. "We feel great joy, but we know that this is just a small battle in a larger war. There are many battles left until September. We must not claim victory, only rejoice in the united front we have presented and move on," a source from the Jewish community said. "The next goal is to take control of the online field, appeal to youths, explain to them our position, and offer incentives to work with us."Hmmmm........How about the US position on "The Audacicity of Hope"?Read the full story here.

• Iranian female University Student Writes on Violence Against Women: “Invisible Wounds”.(Persian2English).You know, violence is not always about swollen eyes, broken teeth, and bloody noses. Violence can be the humiliation that comes from a dirty look; when a man looks down upon the fallen collar of a woman’s shirt while she is serving tea or the look of a brother when his sister is laughing out loud at a dinner party. These are looks that are invisible to us. We have no idea what [these looks] lead to once we leave the dinner party. Violence is the fear that has slowly crept into the psyche of women. It is a silent violence void of any physical contact. It is when the man opens the door and the woman becomes agitated at once and becomes sad. She doesn’t know why. It’s as if she is uneasy in the presence of her man. It’s as if she is not herself. She has the fear of not being able to live up to his expectations. She thinks less of herself; perhaps she needs to be skinnier or fatter or more beautiful or happier or more conservative or sexier or more of a homemaker…or wiser.

Violence is what a woman thinks she should be rather than what she actually is. Violence is a mask that the woman wears so that she can be something different than what she is; something that satisfies her man. A man can crush a woman without even touching her; without even intending to crush her. This is the heritage passed down to men from their fathers and grandfathers: violence, harassment, and humiliation are continuations of common profanities directed toward someone’s mother and sister; be it vocalized in a serious or joking tone. This is when we teach our children to not “cry like a woman”.

Violence, harassment, and humiliation begin when a man asks her not to wear something or not to socialize with certain people…just because! This is considered ‘love’; a ‘love’ that soon turns into a tool to control. The result is women who lack self-confidence and feel, powerless, sad, humiliated, fearful, dependent, and threatened to be left alone. These women may also get beaten up. The women believe that these wounds are wounds of love. They believe a loving man must create wounds and wounds will heal over time. A man’s violent behaviour is often legitimized by stating that he was drunk. When a man harasses, humiliates, and beats up a woman, being drunk is used a good excuse.

You know, physical abuse is not the worst type of violence against women. Swollen body parts, physical wounds, and broken bones heal with time. But the power, liveliness, and self belief that is taken away from women may never heal.Violence is the heavy hand of a father that is raised against his nine-year-old daughter but never comes down on her. Violence is the bullying by a brother who forever puts a stop to the innocent love of a neighbour’s boy; frustrating his sister of pure neighbourly love. Violence is when a man burps out loud instead of thanking his wife for imprisoning herself in a kitchen all day to cook a delicious meal. Laws which enable a grandfather to inherit all of a woman’s inheritance when her father passes away are violence. The mother’s rights are ignored. Violence is when a brother inherits twice the inheritance of his sister and she is expected to appreciate the fact that he is the bread winner of the home.Violence is about all of us women who accept all of the [above] without even protesting. And when one of us does protest, we ridicule her and call her names. We, ourselves are the embodiment of violence and we have no one to blame.Read the full story here.