MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Japan 7.0 !  New zealand 5.1 !More info here.

• Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Without Trial Bill Into Law; Claims His Regime Won’t Use It.(Cryptogon).Whatever you say, Mr. Hopey Changey.Via: AFP: The measure, which passed by wide majorities in Congress, says the US military has the power to detain terror suspects without trial for as long as the US global anti-terror campaign is waged.Obama was particularly troubled by a section of the bill which appears to leave open the option that a US citizen who is considered a terror suspect could be detained indefinitely in military custody.“I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens,” Obama said.“Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”The new law revives debate over the complicated legal thicket surrounding the treatment of terror suspects and over rules hurriedly drawn up by the previous Bush administration after the September 11 attacks in 2001.Obama has sought to preserve the option of trying some terror suspects in federal courts, or for those accused of plotting new attacks against the United States to be processed through the civilian legal system.“I reject any approach that would mandate military custody where law enforcement provides the best method of incapacitating a terrorist threat,” Obama said in the signing statement.Hmmmm......Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) on Senate floor explaining it was Obama who requested the provision for indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial. Levin is a primary co-sponsor of the bill along with Sen. John McCain, and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Talk about major BS.Read the full story here.

• The President's Speech is Now Copyrighted?(JawaReport).Let me get this strait. Public speeches by public officials are now copyrighted? And who owns the copyright? The government or the official? Or is this just some spurious error produced by one of W's books or videos?Hmmmm.....For more info on this subject go to Political Speeches and the Public Domain.By Neda Ulaby.(NPR).Read the full story here.

• Israel during the eight days of Chanukah.(Ynet).Israel Has Bigger Problems - The Truth Behind the Recent Tumult in Israel.By Chagai Segal.During the eight days of Chanukah, three people were murdered in Israel and the murder of a child killed on the eve of the chag was solved. A resident of the northern “triangle area” was gravely wounded by assassins. Terrorists fired at an Israeli vehicle in Samaria.Elsewhere, Kassam missiles exploded in Gaza-region communities. Seven Jewish girls reported that they were abducted by Bedouins. Meanwhile, the massacre of civilians by their leaders near our northern border continued.Yet nonetheless, most attention here on Chanukah was dedicated to an eight-year-old girl spat on by a local idiot.The prime minister delivered two impassioned speeches against the spitting, the president expressed his presidential disgust, and even the IDF chief of staff was indirectly required to address the issue.The prime minister delivered two impassioned speeches against the spitting, the president expressed his presidential disgust, and even the IDF chief of staff was indirectly required to address the issue.The main headline of Lieutenant General Benny Gantz’s holiday interview with Army Radio did not deal with the Iranian issue or the Gaza problem, but rather, with the singing of women. The news about the boosted defense budget was cast aside in favor of two female soldiers who were prevented from singing solo during a Chanukah party.For a moment, the impression that was created is that military bands are the essence of the Israel Defense Force’s existence.Ladies and gentleman, you got carried away. The inflated preoccupation with the phenomenon of women’s exclusion does not only constitute a wild exaggeration and a cynical distortion of our priorities, it is also a lethal boomerang.The ultra-Orthodox community suspects that the major campaign against women’s exclusion is not premised on frank concern for women, but rather on deep hatred for charedim. Hence, instead of developing anger at the violent minority within it, the charedi community is developing a feeling of collective persecution. It feels that there is no point in protesting against the radicals, because in any case the outside world despises the radicals and the moderates equally.Regrettably, this is not a case of paranoia. The incidents of women’s exclusion are an effective secular means for slamming the charedim, just like the “price tag” acts are a leftist means for slamming the settlers.In both cases we are dealing with grave phenomena, yet certainly not ones that justify the overwhelming mass emotions of recent days. When one hits a nail with a hammer that is too big, the nail breaks.Read the full story here.

• Muslim Brotherhood to never recognize “raping, colonizing criminal entity” Israel.(BikyaMasr).CAIRO: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said on Sunday that they would “never recognize the Israeli entity” as it is a “raping, colonizing criminal entity.”Speaking in an interview with the pan-Arabic daily al-Hayat newspaper, the deputy to the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood said on Sunday that recognizing Israel is not a “term” to rule, adding that this is “unlikely under any circumstances” in reference to Egypt’s neighbor.The Freedom and Justice party, the political arm of the group, has already seen massive results in the ongoing parliamentary elections, earning nearly half of the votes in the first two rounds and getting closer to the group’s long dreams of reaching power in Egypt.The deputy, Rashad Baiyoumy continued to add that the peace treaty between Egypt and the Jewish state might be up for a public referendum, “giving the last word to the people,” however if this referendum would to take place in the future, people would vote in a land slide to cancel or repeal the 1979 treaty with Israel.“We will never sit with an Israeli in the future. I will not allow myself to sit with a criminal,” added Baiyoumy.“We will take the legal necessary procedures towards the peace treaty,” Baiyoumy added.The 1979 peace treaty between the two states has been at the center of many controversies in recent months, where it has been met with great public refusal and countless protests have expressed that desire to end relations with Israel.Last August, thousands of Egyptians gathered outside the residential building where the Israeli embassy is located and stormed the building, throwing some old documents from a window. Young men climbed the outside of the building in the Giza district of Dokki and took down the Israeli flag and placed an Egyptian one.Tensions have been high between the two countries since, yet the new political Islam player expressed their will to have talks with Israel. The al-Nour Party, a puritanical Salafist party announced that they would hold talks with Israel and respect all the treaties that Egypt has signed previously and its spokesman held a interview with Israeli Radio in December.On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood said that both parties have the right to review the treaty since the Egyptian people were never asked.Hmmmm......Obama's buddies and 'peace partners'.Read the full story here.

• Iran test-fires medium-range surface-to-air missile.(RaiNovosti).Iranian military has successfully conducted a medium-range surface-to-air missile test on Sunday, IRNA news agency reported."This medium-range surface-to-air missile is equipped with the latest technology to combat radar-evading targets and intelligent systems which try to disrupt missile navigation," IRNA reported, quoting Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi.The test was conducted during navy war games which take place near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.Iran has been holding naval exercises in the area since December 24 and are to continue for 10 days.The West, led by the United States, suspects Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program, but the Islamic Republic insists it needs nuclear power only for civilian purposes. Iran is already the subject of a wide range of international sanctions.On December 1 foreign ministers of the European Union blacklisted an additional 179 Iranian officials and institutions linked to the government over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.Read the full story here.

• Scholarly world abuzz over Jewish scrolls find in Afghanistan.(Jpost).The scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan’s Samangan province.If the scrolls are authenticated, they may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century, Channel 2 Arab affairs correspondent Ehud Ya’ari reported Friday.“We know today about a couple of findings,” Haggai Ben- Shammai, professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was quoted as saying.“In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg.”The scrolls, which were part of a geniza – a burial site for sacred Jewish texts – date from around 1,000 years ago and are in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and ancient Persian.One scroll, a replica of which was shown to the cameras, was apparently a dirge written for an important person whose identity has not been determined.“Where has he gone?” reads the text. “His family members are now alone.”Other texts said to have been found include an unknown history of the Kingdom of Judea, passages from the Book of Isaiah and some of the works of 10th-century sage Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon.In addition, rings with names such as Shmuel Bar-Yosef inscribed in Hebrew on them have surfaced.The area in which the scrolls were discovered is on the Silk Road, a trade route that connected eastern Asia with the Middle East and Europe, and that Jewish merchants often traveled.Ya’ari quoted sources as saying the scrolls had first been moved to Pakistan’s Peshawar province, and from there been sold to antiquities dealers in Geneva, London, Dubai and Jerusalem.He said the Prime Minister’s Office and several Jewish businessmen had expressed interest in buying the scrolls from dealers and collectors, but the process was in its early stages.The Cairo Geniza has produced 280,000 texts, providing a wealth of information on almost every aspect of Jewish history.Read the full story here.

• Iran will not close Hormuz.(BikyaMasr).Tehran (dpa) – An Iranian naval commander on Sunday said the country would not close the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf unless it was forced to do so.Around 40 percent of the world’s ship-borne crude oil passes though the strait.“We are after peace and security and free shipping and not after closing the Strait of Hormuz,” Deputy Navy Commander Admiral Mahmoud Moussavi told ISNA news agency.“But we have a share of the strait and if our interests were jeopardized, then the interests of others (Gulf Arab states) would be jeopardized as well,” he said.Moussavi is also spokesman of the ongoing naval exercises in the Gulf, which have been overshadowed by threats and US counter-threats regarding the Strait of Hormuz.There have also been contradictory reports about testing long-range missiles in the maneuver on Saturday, as previously announced by Moussavi, but the tests were reportedly postponed.According to official news agency IRNA, a medium-range missile was successfully tested on Sunday.The missiles test are supposed to be the final part of the maneuvers which will end on Monday.Read the full story here.

• Iraqi leader Moqtada al-Sadr: "Iraq Shiite militia offshoot backed by Iran".(AlArabiya).Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr sharply criticized an offshoot of his movement on Sunday, accusing them of killing Iraqi soldiers and policemen and being beholden to neighboring Iran.It is the first time Sadr, who is himself judged by critics as close to Tehran, has publicly stated that Asaib Ahel al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, is supported by the Islamic Republic.The cleric said that the Shiite militia, which is blamed for the killing of U.S. troops, had only recently decided to lay down their arms because a political standoff in Baghdad has raised the specter of early elections. The group was also behind the kidnap of a British IT consultant and his four bodyguards.“I have asked the people who are in charge of them in the Islamic Republic to change the name of Asaib, and change their dual leadership,” Sadr said in a written response to a letter from a follower, published by his office on Sunday. “But these people refused.”Washington has long blamed Iran for training and equipping Shiite militias, including Asaib Ahel al-Haq, that have carried out attacks against U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, charges Tehran denies.Sadr did not specify what he meant by the group’s “dual leadership” but Asaib Ahel al-Haq is jointly led by the brothers Qais and Laith al-Khazali.The cleric long ran his own feared Mahdi Army militia, and while that has been deactivated as a violent force, the offshoot Promised Day Brigade is seen as close to Sadr.“They (Asaib Ahel al-Haq) handed over their weapons to be part of the political process,” Sadr said, referring to Qais al-Khazali’s December 26 remarks that the group would join the political process.Sadr said those weapons were used to kill “honest people”, charging the organization with killing Iraqi soldiers and policemen, as well as Saleh al-Ogayly, an MP who was killed by a booby-trapped motorcycle in the Shiite bastion of Sadr City in Baghdad in October 2008.“Today, the opportunity of an election has come, and their intentions have become clear,” Sadr said.He was referring to political discord in Iraq between the Shiite-led government and the key Sunni-backed Iraqiya party, with several groups, including the parliamentary bloc loyal to Sadr, calling for early elections to resolve the standoff.Read the full story here.

• Iran announces it has produced its first nuclear fuel rod.(DocsTalk).Iran says its scientists have produced the nation's first nuclear fuel rod, a feat of engineering the West doubted Tehran was capable of.Sunday's announcement comes after Iran has said it was compelled to manufacture fuel rods on its own since international sanctions banned Tehran from buying them on foreign markets.Nuclear fuel rods contain pellets of enriched uranium that provide fuel for nuclear power plants. Iran's atomic energy agency's website says the first domestically made rod has already been inserted into the core of Tehran's research nuclear reactor.It is unclear if the rod contained pellets or was inserted empty, as part of a test.Meanwhile, in an earlier announcement made in the midst of a large-scale war game on Saturday, which included the launch of several land-to-sea missiles, Tehran said it was willing to renew talks with the West over its nuclear program.According to the semi-official Mehr news agency, Iran's ambassador to Germany, Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, said on Saturday that Iran's chief nuclear negotiator and former Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Jalili intends to formally turn to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to announce Iran's agreement to return to the negotiations table. According to Attar, "Jalili will soon send a letter to Catherine Ashton over the format of negotiations; then fresh talks will take place with major powers."Ashton's spokesman, Michael Mann, said the EU was willing to renew talks with the Iranians. "We continue to pursue our twin-track approach and are open for meaningful discussions on confidence-building measures, without preconditions from the Iranian side," Mann said.A U.S. administration official added, "We have indicated for years that we are willing to engage in talks with Iran, provided it is ready to engage in a meaningful and constructive fashion."Negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France - as well as Germany, stalled in January, and both the U.S. and Israel have not ruled out a military option if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.As it probes Western willingness to resume talks, Iran continued its 10-day naval war game, reportedly launching long-range missiles. The Iranian FARS news agency said that land-to-sea missiles with a range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles) were launched on the eighth day of the exercise. But Deputy Navy Commander Mahmoud Mousavi later went on the English language Press TV channel to deny they had in fact been fired, saying instead, "The exercise of launching missiles will be carried out in the coming days."Meanwhile, the U.S. announced on Friday the sale of $3.5 billion worth of weapons to Iran's enemy, the United Arab Emirates. Among the weapons purchased by the UAE is the THAAD anti-rocket system, marking the first time the U.S. has sold the system to another country. The THAAD is currently the only operational system that can intercept short and medium-range rockets.Keeping up the pressure on Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama also signed into law sanctions on Iran's central bank on Saturday, a move that Iran has said would be equivalent to a declaration of war.The defense funding bill, approved by Congress last week, aims to reduce the oil revenues that make up the bulk of Iran's export earnings. If strictly enforced, the sanctions could make it nearly impossible for most refiners to buy crude from Iran, the world's fourth biggest producer.However, Obama asked for some flexibility with which to apply the measures, and he will have the discretion to waive penalties. Senior U.S. officials said Washington was consulting with foreign partners to ensure the new measures did not harm global energy markets.The rising tensions are having an impact at home. Iran's currency has taken a nosedive in recent weeks as ordinary Iranians have moved money from savings accounts into gold or foreign currency. The price of staple foods has increased by up to 40 percent in recent months and many critics have put the blame on increasing isolation brought about by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic and foreign policies.Iran's massive media coverage of the naval maneuvers appeared to be an attempt by the authorities to strike a patriotic chord among ordinary Iranians worried about a military strike. "I have already witnessed a war with Iraq in the 1980s. I can hear the drumbeat of war," said merchant Mohsen Sanaie, 62, glancing over newspaper headlines at a central Tehran newsstand. "One stray bullet could spark a war."In response to the growing threat of war with Iran, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz on Friday told high school students in Be'er Tuvia [a moshav in the Southern District of Israel near the city of Kiryat Malachi] that Israel would be able to deal with Iran in a future confrontation. "Iran is working on a military-related nuclear program, which is cause for concern. Israel is the only country in the world being threatened with annihilation by a country working to make that happen, but the threat is against the entire region, and other parts of the world as well," Gantz said.Read the full story here.

• Iran increases pressure on Kuwait over gas field.(Alarabiya).Iran said on Sunday that it would launch full-scale unilateral development of the disputed offshore Arash gas field in the Gulf if Kuwait does not respond to its offer of joint development, according to the official IRNA news agency.“Our emphasis presently is on joint partnership strategy rather than competition, and we are hopeful to reach a conclusion with Kuwait over the development of the shared Arash field,” the agency quoted Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh, the head of state Offshore Oil Company, as saying.He said Iran’s policy on shared oil and gas fields is partnership rather than confrontation.But “if Iran’s positive diplomacy is turned down, we will be carrying on our efforts at Arash field unilaterally just as we did in Hengam oil field,” Zirakchianzadeh said, using stronger language than Iran has used previously in the dispute.Iran is developing its part of the offshore Hengam oil field, shared with Oman, on its own.Zirakchianzadeh said Iran has already launched its “operational activities” on the development and production at Arash and was not dragging its feet in anticipation of Kuwait's response.Arash gas field is located on Iran-Kuwait’s water border and it is called Dorra in the Kuwait part of the field.The field’s gas reserve is estimated at one trillion cubic feet along with some 310 million barrels of oil. Kuwait and its neighbor Saudi Arabia have protested to non-Arab Iran on its drilling for gas in the disputed field when the three states have not reached an accord on demarcating their sea borders in the northern Gulf.Iran has the world’s second largest gas reserves but has struggled for years to develop them due to tightening international sanctions that have kept away foreign energy firms with the capital and technology it needs.Foreign investors have treated Iran with caution because it has come under mounting international pressure over its nuclear program.The United States and its European allies fear Iran is trying to build bombs under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Tehran says its nuclear work is aimed at generating power to meet the country’s surging demand.Read the full story here.

• Dubai witchcraft and sorcery cases trebled in 2011.(Emirates).Witchcraft and sorcery cases in the emirate rose from two in 2010 to six in 2011, according to Lieutenant Colonel Salah Bu Aseebah, director of the Anti-Economic Crime Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department of Dubai Police.Bu Aseebah said this during the programme ‘Rouh Al Qanoon’ (Spirit of the Law) broadcast by the Noor Dubai radio station and presented on Monday evenings by lawyer Essa bin Haider.He said such crimes happen either because of the victim’s greed for money or due to his indebtedness.Bu Aseebah spoke about a number of such frauds, including a case of two Africans who tried to cheat a man by selling him a machine that they claimed can produce dollar currency notes on feeding it with blank white paper. To fool the victim, the fraudsters had pulled out a hundred dollars from the machine after putting white paper into it.Meanwhile, lawyer Essa bin Haider spoke about the evolution of the crime of witchcraft and sorcery. Earlier, such criminals appeared in tattered clothes and used to target ordinary people. But now, educated people are being targetted with SMS and e-mails claiming that they had won a large sum of money in a lottery and asking the potential victim to send some money to the fraudsters.He said, in one case, a woman who had marital problems was advised by a friend to go to a man who swindled a large sum of money from her. She realised that she was the victim of a scam only when he tried to touch her.He said the UAE was among the first countries to include witchcraft and sorcery in the crimes of fraud specified in Article 399 of the Federal Penal Code with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for a year.Lt. Colonel Salah Bu Aseebah urged the public to report any attempt to commit such crimes on the toll free phone number 8004888.Hmmmm.....When in doubt...Call Harry Potter for advise?Read the full story here.

• The tortured child bride: Horrific ordeal of Afghan girl, 15, rescued from toilet prison after husband's family mutilated her for refusing to work as a prostitute.(DailyMail).A teenage Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband's family for five months after she refused to become a prostitute, it emerged today.Sahar Gul, 15, was in critical condition when she was rescued from a house in northern Baghlan province last week, after her neighbours reported hearing Miss Gul crying and moaning in pain.According to police in Baghlan, her in-laws pulled out her nails and hair, and locked her in a dark basement bathroom for about five months, with barely enough food and water to survive. Her husband's family also burned the teenager with cigarettes and cut out chunks of her flesh with pliers.Despite being barely able to speak, Miss Gul managed to tell media about the terrifying ordeal.'For several months I was locked up in a toilet by my in-laws and particularly my mother-in-law,' she said. 'I was denied food and water. I was tortured and beaten.'Doctors say the youngster has suffered both mentally and physically and will need weeks of treatment in order to recover.'She was married seven months ago, and was originally from Badakhshan province. Her in-laws tried to force her into prostitution to earn money,' Rahima Zarifi, head of women's affairs in Baghlan told Reuters.Miss Gul is covered in scars and bruises, with one eye still swollen shut six days after her rescue.She is being treated in a government hospital in Kabul, but she may have to be sent to India, doctors said.'This is one of the worst cases of violence against Afghan women. The perpetrators must be punished so others learn a lesson,' health minister Suraya Dalil told journalists after visiting Miss Gul today with the women's affairs minister.Mohammad Zia, a senior police official in Baghlan, who helped to rescue the girl, said Miss Gul's mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been detained, but her husband and father-in-law had escaped.'We have launched a serious hunt to get her husband and the others involved,' Mr Zia said. Despite progress in women's rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban 10 years ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.However it can be hard for women to escape violent situations at home, because of huge social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.Running away from an abusive husband or a forced marriage are considered 'moral crimes,' for which women are currently imprisoned in Afghanistan.Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another 'moral crime.'Read and see the full story here.

• Saudi Arabia arrests foreigner for celebrating New Year’s with balloons.(BikyaMasr).DUBAI: A foreign resident in Saudi Arabia was arrested by the country’s religious police on New Year’s Eve for displaying balloons to celebrate the new year, the daily news website Sabq reported.According to the report, the man – described as an Arab expatriate living in the country – was arrested as he was walking though the streets in violation of the ban of celebrating the New Year in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom.In December, Sheikh Abdel Aziz bin Abdullah, the country’s top Muslim cleric, deemed celebrations of the New Year, birthdays and marriage anniversary un-Islamic.The arrest highlights the ongoing conservatism in the country, and comes after religious police have been cracking down on citizens for breaking “un-Islamic” laws in the country.Late last year, a report published by a leading Islamic scholar in the country warned that if women were given the right to drive it would lead to the end of virginity in the country, angering many activists who have called for greater freedoms in the country.“We have been fighting for our rights and these continued arrests show we have not gotten very far,” said Mona Abdullah Aziz, a 24-year-old Saudi activist living in Dubai. She told Bikyamasr.com that “the way the government arrests people, men and women, for wanting to live their lives is wrong on all levels.”Read the full story here.

• Arab Parliament calls on Arab League monitors to withdraw from Syria ‘promptly’.(AlArabiya).An Arab League advisory body called on Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the organization’s monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses.The Arab League has sent a small team to Syria to check whether President Bashar al-Assad is keeping his promise to end a crackdown on a nine-month uprising against his rule.The Arab Parliament, an 88-member advisory committee of delegates from each of the League’s member states, on Sunday said the violence was continuing to claim many victims.“For this to happen in the presence of Arab monitors has roused the anger of Arab people and negates the purpose of sending a fact-finding mission,” the organization’s chairman Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas said.“This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League,” he said.The Arab Parliament was the first body to recommend freezing Syria’s membership in the organization in response to Assad's crackdown.An Arab League official, commenting on the parliament’s statement, told Reuters it was too early to judge the mission’s success, saying it was scheduled to remain in Syria for a month and that more monitors were on their way.The parliament called on the League’s Secretary-General Nabil Elarabi to convene a meeting of Arab foreign ministers to adopt a resolution to withdraw the mission immediately.The continued abuse and killing of innocent Syrian civilians was a “blatant violation to the Arab League’s protocol”, Dekbas said.Read the full story here.

• We won't eat halal meat, say MPs and peers who reject demands to serve it at Westminster.(DailyMail). The Palace of Westminster has rejected demands to serve halal meat in its restaurants. Muslim MPs and peers have been told they cannot have meat slaughtered in line with Islamic tradition because the method – slitting an animal’s throat without first stunning it – is offensive to many of their non-Muslim colleagues. The stance has infuriated some parliamentarians who have eaten meat in the Palace’s 23 restaurants and cafes, having been assured that it was halal. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said: ‘I did feel misled. I think a halal option should be made available.’In 2010, The Mail on Sunday revealed schools, hospitals and restaurants were serving halal meat to unwitting customers.Alison Ruoff, a member of the Church of England, said: ‘It’s a bit hypocritical that the Houses of Parliament, which have allowed other people to provide halal food, have ruled it out on their own premises.’Spokesmen for the House of Lords and the House of Commons confirmed that halal meat was not served in their restaurants.Hmmmm.....Hear, hear.Read the full story here.

• Haredi use of Holocaust symbols denounced.(Ynet).The latest haredi protest in Jerusalem has caused a stir after kids participating in the demonstration were seen wearing yellow patches and striped pajamas like those Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate said in response: "I condemn the use of Holocaust symbols in a protest of any kind. This is reprehensible. The Holocaust is nothing like what goes on in Israel. " Shortly after the demonstration, Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef commented on violent acts by haredim in connection to women's exclusion and said, "There are people who do things which our Torah forbids and they must be condemned."He said that the Torah advocates peaceful behavior and not violence. Speaking in his weekly class, he said: "We do not hate seculars. On the contrary – we love them."He added: "The behavior of a handful of people who spread hate among haredim and non-haredim is an act of blasphemy." Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni also commented on the protest on her Facebook page. "There is no protest in the world that can justify this. Even within the debate we are holding there are boundaries that cannot be crossed. I hope that haredi leaders will condemn these acts."The protesters, on their part, claimed that they were the ones being victimized. "We are the ones who are afraid to walk down the street. We feel like in pre-war Germany in Israel," one protester told Ynet. "It was there too that the media started the incitement."Another protester added, "We live in the shadow of secular incitement. It hurts to wear the yellow patch. If our kids are being beat up don't be surprised we dress them with yellow patches. That's how we feel."One of the demonstrators was angry that the media fails to report incidents where haredim are being attacked. "I'm a haredi soldier. While on uniform I was attacked by seculars in the Central Bus Station a few days ago. They called me a 'smelly haredi.'"Many protesters defended the use of Holcaust symbols. "Maybe the use of children will irk the seculars," one of them said. However, not all endorsed the step. "In my opinion displaying the kids like that was wrong," one protester admitted. "Most haredi people don't want segregation. Those who organized the protest are only a handful. You can see that the majority of haredim don't have a problem with this. Whoever spits on a little girl has a mental condition, he's a deviant," Yehuda, a haredi man from Mea Shearim said.Read the full story here.