Malaysia becoming "a handmaiden to 'Islamist' Turkey's repression"?

Screenshot of Wisma E&C's security footage showing the men who allegedly abducted Turgay Karaman.

Malaysia becoming "a handmaiden to 'Islamist' Turkey's repression"? (Nst).

KUALA LUMPUR: Two Turkish nationals who went missing in Malaysia have been arrested as a security threat, the police chief announced Wednesday, but a rights group raised concerns of possible pressure from Ankara for the detentions.

National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar tweeted that Turgay Karaman and Ihsan Aslan were arrested "because they threatened the security of Malaysia."

No further details were provided by authorities and the Turkish embassy refused to comment.

Local media reports had been circulating allegations that both men had been abducted.

Another Turkish national Suheyl Ozcelik on Tuesday lodged a police report saying he had seen CCTV footage of five men abducting Karaman, a physics teacher, at a Kuala Lumpur carpark.

"The CCTV recordings clearly showed the faces of these five unknown men who blocked Mr Turgay's (Karaman) face from the camera," he said in the police report seen by AFP.

Ozcelik also said two of his Turkish friends were abducted last year and deported to Turkey.

"I am very afraid for my safety and scared that my Turkish friends who are kidnapped and sent to Turkey will be tortured and killed," he said in his police report, without indicating possible reasons.

Media reports say the other arrested Turk, Ihsan Aslan, is a businessman.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the national police chief should grant the two men immediate access to their lawyers and families and give details of how they posed a threat to Malaysia.

He said Malaysia should not become "a handmaiden to Turkish repression".

"They should not be taking the word of the Turkish government as their only source of information on Turkish nationals overseas," Robertson told AFP.

"The Turkish government is on a witch hunt against the perceived enemies of President Erdogan."

The crackdown focuses on alleged supporters of the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed for the failed coup. Read the full story here.

New 'Modus Operandi for ISIS members. Instead of heading home, going to a third country.

New 'Modus Operandi for ISIS members. Instead of heading home, going to a third country.(Straitstimes).

A 31-year-old north African man was detained after operating for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group in Malaysia for about a year.

The man, who entered the country using a forged student visa in March last year, obtained the visa from a syndicate operating in the Klang Valley.

Sources revealed that the suspect purchased the forged visa for RM5,500 (S$1,960).

"This is a new modus operandi for ISIS members. Instead of heading back to their home countries, these fighters are going to a third country like Malaysia for multiple reasons," a source told The Star yesterday.

Among the reasons were: to set up a base of operations, become the link man for other operatives and to recruit more members.

Tan Sri Khalid added that the man had managed to gain entry into Malaysia by using a forged student visa in March last year.

He added that the suspect had been deported to his home country on Wednesday. Hmmm.........Catch and release....what could go wrong? Read the full story here.

Missing Malaysian Airlines plane could have flown into Taliban-controlled Pakistan.

Missing Malaysian Airlines plane could have flown into Taliban-controlled Pakistan.(RT).

Citing sources, UK newspaper The Independent reported that Malaysian investigators had requested permission from the Pakistani government to follow up a theory that the missing passenger jet had landed close to the border with Afghanistan.

The Boeing 777, carrying 239 people, disappeared from radars last week on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Since then, authorities have been unable to ascertain the whereabouts of the plane, and have not found any wreckage from a crash.

The Pakistani government says it has no record of the craft entering its airspace, but has told the Malaysian investigators it is ready to share all available information. In addition, The Kazakh Civil Aviation Committee has said that although the Malaysian Airlines plane could have reached Kazakhstan, their radars would have picked it up.

"No information about the Malaysian plane is available at our radar as it has not entered our airspace," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told reporters when asked to comment on the Malaysian government's request. “Our radar system has no information about the Malaysian aircraft as it has never contacted our control tower.”

Pakistan is now one of 25 countries participating in the search for the missing plane.
The Malaysian authorities are investigating a myriad of theories of how the plane disappeared and have not ruled out a possible terrorist attack.

On Saturday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that investigators had reliable information that someone on the plane had “deliberately disabled” communications systems before the plane vanished.

Furthermore, investigators said that it would have taken someone with pilot training to be able to switch off the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS. This system automatically sends engine data and other information to the airline.

The Hill:
A former military officer is claiming the U.S. government "knows a lot more" than it is publicly revealing about the Maylasian jetliner that went missing more than a week ago.

Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney said on Fox's "The Kelly File" Friday night that he suspects some type of criminal behavior and that it is possible the plane landed somewhere. He said all airfields in the area should be checked, including in Pakistan and in eastern Iran.

"I know the U.S. government knows a lot more than they're talking about. And clearly, the NSA has a lot of data they're going through now...I'm confident that the U.S. government has a much better picture than the Maylasian government and the Chinese government," McInerney said.

McInerney served as a pilot, commander and strategic planner in the U.S. Air Force.

Malaysia says missing plane may have turned back.

Pictures tickets for missing Malaysian Boeing, bought with stolen passports

Malaysia says missing plane may have turned back.(Ahram).

Malaysia on Sunday said a missing airliner carrying 239 people may have inexplicably turned back, as authorities launched a terror probe into the plane's sudden disappearance, investigating suspect passengers who boarded with stolen passports.

The United States sent the FBI to investigate after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished from radar early Saturday somewhere at sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, but stressed there was no evidence of terrorism yet.

Indications that the plane may have deviated from its route only compounded the anxiety of relatives, many of them Chinese, desperate for news of their loved ones.

"There is a distinct possibility the airplane did a turn-back, deviating from the course," said Malaysia's air force chief, General Rodzali Daud, citing radar data.

But Malaysia Airlines (MAS) chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the Boeing 777's systems would have set off alarm bells.

"When there is an air turn-back the pilot would be unable to proceed as planned," he said, adding authorities were "quite puzzled" over the situation.

Malaysian authorities have expanded their search for wreckage to the country's west coast after initially concentrating to the east in the South China Sea.

A total of 40 ships and 34 aircraft from an array of Southeast Asian countries, China and the US were involved in the hunt, with two Australian surveillance aircraft due to join in.

An AFP photographer on board a Vietnamese military aircraft saw what appeared to be oil slicks in the sea off the country's coast and dozens of ships searching the area.

Some of the ships could be seen sailing parallel to each other in an apparently coordinated search. It was not clear which countries the ships belonged to.

However, as darkness fell on day two of the international effort, there were no confirmed reports of any wreckage being found.

After it emerged that two people boarded the flight with stolen European passports, Malaysia's transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he was looking at four suspect passengers in all.

He said authorities were examining CCTV footage of the two with fake passports.

"We have managed to get visuals of them," he said, adding that Malaysia was liaising with other countries' intelligence agencies on the findings. He gave no more details.

He also confirmed the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was dispatching personnel to Malaysia.

"At the same time our own intelligence has been activated, and of course, the counter-terrorism units... from all the relevant countries have been informed," Hishammuddin said, refusing to rule out the possibility of a hijack.

A Malaysian civil aviation official said authorities still so far believe only two passengers had used stolen passports.

Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted by The Star newspaper saying the government would review and enhance airport security protocols, if needed.

Update:

Rescuers find what could be missing Boeing’s debris

Hypocrite 'Moderate' Iran warns Malaysia against hanging Iranian women.

Woman execution in IRAN.

Hypocrite 'Moderate' Iran warns Malaysia against hanging Iranian women. (Taz).

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Hassan Qashqavi, said on Wednesday that execution of two Iranian women in Malaysia would leave negative impacts on bilateral relations, IRNA news agency reported.

Qashqavi said that the main reason Iranians were pronounced guilty in Southeast Asia was possessing drugs.
He commented on current condition of Iranians jailed in the Asian and Malaysian jails and said unfortunately, major portion of the executions and imprisonment of Iranians in Southeast Asia are for possessing drugs and such an issue would not end up by execution of two Iranian girls.

He underlined that absolutely, the ruling for execution cannot be justifiable, adversely affecting Iranian relations with them.
"Execution of foreign nationals has always been a bad signal for bilateral relations and no government can claim overlooking mutual relations in doing such things."

He deplored execution of two Iranian nationals in Malaysia and said, "Our advice to Malaysian government is that they must prevent such measures if they heed friendship and fraternity between Iran and Malaysia."
He said following up case of Iranian prisoners in Malaysia is a routine job of the Foreign Ministry staff and officials.

He said that extradition of prisoners should fall within framework of mutual agreement and unfortunately no agreement to this effect has yet been signed between the two countries.
Qashqavi said that Iran has always been ready to ink agreement on extradition of prisoners, however, Malaysia has not usually felt any obligation in that regard.Hmmmm....It's ok for us to hang them but not for others?

Malaysia’s ruling party says LGBT community “of the devil” - "LGBT is haram in Islam."

Malaysia’s ruling party says LGBT community “of the devil” - "LGBT is haram in Islam.".(BM).KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s ruling party, at its national conference, continued to attack the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, much to the anger of human rights activists in the country. The Umno, in ending its final assembly gathering ahead of elections that must take place before April next year, said that anti-Islamic elements threaten the country, singling out homosexuality and those who promote liberalism in “mainly Muslim Malaysia.”
One delegate called for a rehabilitation center for the LGBT community to “re-educate” them and bring them back to society. “We want to transform them from zaman kejahilan (dark age of ignorance),” Tanjong representative Mohd Shaharudin Mohd Hasan Tajudin told the over 2,000 delegates at Umno’s cavernous Putra World Trade Center (PWTC). Shaharudin also suggested that high school students be taught to reject the LGBT lifestyle — along with pluralism and liberalism — in their religious education.
Another delegate, Ariffin Mohd Arif from Kimanis, called for an official sanction against those who spread pluralism and liberalism, which he called a “teaching of the Devil.” “Just like al-Arqam … we must take action against these people. Our actions must be strict, and we must not budge,” Ariffin said. The religious issues elicited animated responses from the delegates, with Shaharudin exclaiming that Umno fighters shall be “bathed in blood” should anyone mock Islamic principles. “This LGBT is haram in Islam. (But the opposition) is making LGBT halal … they even said that the law on sodomy is obsolete,” said Pendang delegate Mohd Kamal Saidin, who accused Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim as the man responsible for the promotion of “vice.”
The ruling coalition and the opposition have been at loggerheads on the issues of LGBT, pluralism and liberalism, which are deemed sensitive in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
Earlier in the week, Muhyiddin Yassin had revealed that Prime Minister Najib Razak had objected to the inclusion of LGBT rights when signing ASEAN’s first human rights charter recently, saying Malaysia could not accept principles that go against the order of human nature.
The deputy prime minister took a swipe at Anwar when warning him against legitimizing these “twisted practices” just because they were accepted by western nations, suggesting that it was the opposition leader’s “hobby”.
The Malaysian government recently came under heavy fire again when it was reported to have endorsed a list of identifiable gay and lesbian traits for schools and parents, purportedly to prevent the spread of the phenomenon among teenagers, especially students.
In October, the country’s education minister said that being gay leads to HIV. Mohd Puad Zarkashi lashed out at a few campaigns that jokingly criticized the governments recent efforts to “educate” parents on how to catch “symptoms” of their children being gay or lesbian. He said that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues int he country “should not be a joking matter.” He was commenting on the recent campaigns that saw a local restaurant offer discounts and free biryani to men wearing V-neck t-shirts after the government labeled that one of the tell-tale signs of a potential gay child.
He added that his ministry is determined to push forward to “curb the trend of LGBT” in Malaysia’s schools.
He said this “trend” appears to be prevalent in society and popular media, making it imperative for the government to prevent it from penetrating schools.”
LGBT activists have laughed at his comments, but told Bikyamasr.com that the reality is the government continues to attack something as if it is a disease, “instead of understanding that it is not a choice.”
But the minister was obstinate.
“It is not prevalent in school yet but preventive action is needed to ensure that it does not spread among students,” he said.
When asked how prevalent the phenomenon is in schools, he said the ministry has no data currently.
“I don’t know because we don’t have the facts. We don’t have the data to show how serious it is,” he told the Sunday Star.
He added that when the issue “exploded” – specifically the disputed LGBT-symptom guidelines – he received a lot of criticism, but it has only made his belief that the LGBT lifestyle “is not a healthy way of life.”
“There are two reasons: it is the biggest cause of HIV after drugs. It also causes a lot of social problems such as broken marriages. That is why we need to nip it in the bud,” he said, even though international health professionals have dispelled the myth that being gay or lesbian is a cause of HIV.
Activists in the country have repeatedly spoken out against the continued crackdown on the LGBT community, which has seen ministers and officials level accusations against the community over the past few months ahead of a general election.
Reiterating the government’s commitment to its project, the minister stressed that it is crucial for parents to get exposure and knowledge of the LGBT trend so that they can be more vigilant of the signs and tackle the threat early.
However, he declined to elaborate on what action would be taken to “correct” or “prevent” LGBT in schools, arguing instead that the “science of it is debatable.”
“I don’t want to be drawn into the debate of whether it (LGBT) is a lifestyle or natural instinct. That is why we want to bring it out in the open because it can be debated on. However, it is not something that should be joked about,” he continued.Hmmmm.......Next they will be screening the movie "OutBreak of the LGBT Viurus"?Read the full story here.

Beware of the 'rainbow' virus? - Malaysia schools to get sex education to combat LGBT “dangers”.

Beware of the 'rainbow' virus? - Malaysia schools to get sex education to combat LGBT “dangers”.(BM).KUALA LUMPUR: In an effort to boost awareness among young people in Malaysia, the education ministry announced a new initiative to introduce Social and Reproductive Health Education (PKRS) into schools. However, the aim is to combat the “dangers and threats” of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population, the deputy minister Puad Zarkashi said in comments published by Bernama news agency. “In the past, sex education was taught indirectly through other subjects, but now the government feels that PKRS needs to be a special subject to tackle the rise in social problems among teens,” he began. “We cannot wait longer to implement this because according to our studies, many teens in the country do not know the function and importance of healthy interaction among guys and girls,” he told reporters after launching the state-level Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) Excellence Award Day.
It comes as the government here continues its attacks on the LGBT community. According to a government statement in late June, the government views the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-sexual (LGBT) issue “seriously” and is “controlling its spread” through prevention efforts and legal enforcement, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mashitah Ibrahim again reiterated. She said these efforts were done with the help of the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and State Religious Department (Jain) through programs such as the BEST! Tour which aimed to educate teenagers on social ills such as HIV Aids caused by homosexual lifestyles. “A series of rehabilitation and treatment courses will also be given to Muslims who have deviated from societal norms, while Jakim and Jain have conducted a Mukhayyam program with repented transsexuals to obtain positive feedback from them,” she said in reply to an original question from Datuk Mohd Jidin (BN-Setiu) who wanted to know the government’s seriousness in tackling LGBT issues in the country. In terms of enforcement, she said laws clearly stated in the Syariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997 (Act 559) can only be enforced on Muslims. Mashitah said the government and state religious authorities will take legal action against any Muslims involved in LGBT and who flout laws in each state. There are no legal and religious provisions in Malaysia that allow homosexuality, free sex and same-sex marriages, she added.Read the full story here.

Malaysia charges Borders manager with selling Canadian Muslim lesbian activist Irshad Manji 'banned book'.

Malaysia charges Borders manager with selling Canadian Muslim lesbian activist Irshad Manji 'banned book'.(BP).Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, who manages the bookstore chain outlet in the capital Kuala Lumpur, is accused of distributing Irshad Manji's "Allah, Liberty and Love." The Home Ministry banned the book last month after it was deemed offensive to Islam, contained "elements that could mislead the public," and was "detrimental to public order". According to Manji's website, the book "shows all of us how to reconcile faith and freedom in a world seething with repressive dogmas". Nik Raina faces up to two years in jail and a fine if the Islamic court finds her guilty, her lawyer Rosli Dahlan said. No plea was recorded Tuesday with the next court date set for September 19. Rosli said Islamic officials raided the store before the book ban was officially announced, and the shop had filed a court case to declare the raid illegal. Rosli added that Nik Raina had no authority over deciding which books to sell and was being singled out because those in charge of merchandising were ethnic Chinese non-Muslims. Non-Muslims cannot be charged in Islamic courts. Malaysia has a system of Islamic courts that run parallel to the country's civil courts and administer civil matters for Muslims who make up some 60 percent of the country's 28 million people.New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on the government to reverse the book ban, saying it was "old-fashioned state repression" and "cowardly".Hmmmm..........Sounds like 'life and times' of Tomás de Torquemada.Read the full story here.

Malaysia government "LGBT not protected by Federal Constitution".

Malaysia government "LGBT not protected by Federal Constitution".(FMT).Kuala Lumpur: The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is not protected by clauses in the Federal Constitution that protects Malaysians against discrimination, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mashitah Ibrahim told the Dewan Rakyat today. Mashitah said that Article 8 of the constitution, which talks about equality, has never been interpreted to mean sexual preference and only applies to gender. “Article 8 of the Federal Constitution says there must be no discrimination of citizens in terms of religion or sex. ‘Sex’ has never been interpreted to mean sexual orientation; it has always been interpreted to mean either male or female, and they are [the only ones] protected by the constitution,” said Mashitah.
Clause 1 of Article 8 states that “all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law”.
Clause 2 states that “there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, place of birth or gender”. She said this in reply to a supplementary question from Ngeh Khoo Ham (DAP-Beruas) during question time this morning. Ngeh had asked whether it was right for the government to respond to the LGBT issue based on religious doctrine.
Mashitah earlier said that the government is serious in tackling the issue of LGBT as it went against the constitution of the country, which states that Islam is the official federal religion. She said that through the many government initiatives, including rehabilitation and other programmes, “many have returned to the path [pangkalan]“.
“We see that LGBT happens following what is happening in Europe. It is not only individual but a movement. They are being mobilised to come out, as if they have been oppressed, on the excuse that their human rights have been taken away. “We are against the mobilisation of this movement to spread this ideology,” she said. Ngeh had also asked if any study had been done to show that the person is born this way or if it was a choice of lifestyles. “It is wrong for the government to state that it is western problem, because this was even present in Malaysia 50-60 years ago,” he said.
Mashitah said that such studies were not done in Malaysia but an Australian study had stated that LGBTs were not born with their sexual preferences, but “it is more the tendency to be this way”. Answering another supplementary question from Mohd Jidin Shafee (BN-Setiu), Mashitah said that Malaysia does not allow men or women who change their sex via surgical operations to also change their gender in registration documents. She said sex-change operations have been declared haram in syariah by the Fatwa Council in an edict.Hmmm........Study Says Lesbians and Heterosexual Men Are the Same in Their Perception of Smells.So much for the 'ideology' thesis.Read the full story here.

"The War On Religion" has come to the Soccer Field - Malaysia clerics say no to Portugal, Man Utd, Brazil jerseys.

"The War On Religion" has come to the Soccer Field - Malaysia clerics say no to Portugal, Man Utd, Brazil jerseys.(BM).MELAKA, Malaysia: The small street seller had all the European club jerseys ready for sale on Saturday evening, as passersby wanted to grab their favorite international shirt ahead of this month’s Euro 2012. But for Portugal fans, the jersey was nowhere to be found. “We are not allowed to sell the jersey because it shows a cross,” the shopkeeper told Bikyamasr.com. “I still love Portugal and will be rooting for them, but we are an Islamic country and don’t want to get people angry,” he added. While it is not officially banned in the country, a number of Islamic clerics have voiced their concern over the jersey, which has a large cross on the front, highlighting Portugal’s Catholic faith.
But in Malaysia, symbols often find themselves under attack by the country’s virulent Muslim clerics. However, one fan, who recently returned from a short trip to Thailand sports his Ronaldo jersey with pride. “I don’t care what those people say, this is just football and not religion,” he said. Portugal is not the only jersey to be pulled from the shelves. Brazil, which also boasts a large cross, has been barred by clerics. Manchester United, the world’s most popular club team, has also sparked the ire of clerics in the Southeast Asian country over its nickname, the Red Devils. Despite the Old Trafford side having an estimated 81 million followers in Asia, one senior cleric said: “You are only promoting the devil.” “This is very dangerous. As a Muslim we should not worship the symbols of other religions or the devils,” another added, in a Forbes report. “It will erode our belief in Islam. There is no reason why we as Muslims should wear such jerseys, either for sports or fashion reasons.”Hmmmm...........Read the full story here.

Irshad Manji, a Canadian Muslim gay activist launches book in Malaysia despite ‘ban’.

Irshad Manji, a Canadian Muslim gay activist launches book in Malaysia despite ‘ban’.(AA).A Canadian Muslim gay activist launched her controversial new book on liberal Islam in Muslim-majority Malaysia Saturday despite a government minister’s attempts to shut down the event. Irshad Manji launched “Allah, Liberty and Love” at a hastily arranged event in the capital Kuala Lumpur after two other venues pulled out of hosting her, according to local publisher ZI Publications. “Fantastic event in KL! Great energy ̶ except 4 cops who told latecomers that event is banned. Didn't stop us. Congrats 2 all,” Manji wrote on Twitter. Jamil Khir Baharom, minister in charge of Islamic affairs, had said Islamic officials and the Home Ministry would not allow the author’s roadshow in the country following complaints. He was quoted by national news agency Bernama as saying earlier Saturday that the book was offensive to Muslims as was Manji’s ideology and openly gay lifestyle, which was deemed to be against Islam.
According to her website, the book, now available in the local Malay language, “shows all of us how to reconcile faith and freedom in a world seething with repressive dogmas... This book is the ultimate guide to becoming a gutsy global citizen.” The book has not been officially banned. Manji was due to fly to New York City late Saturday. Her previous internationally acclaimed book, “The Trouble with Islam Today,” is already banned in Malaysia, ZI Publications said. Manji also faced problems while touring Indonesia before coming to Malaysia. Police shut down several events after the Islamic Defenders Front group held violent protests condemning her liberal views on Islam and her homosexuality. It is also not the first time a foreign act has run into trouble in Malaysia. In February, Malaysia banned a show by American singer Erykah Badu after a photo of her with body art including the Arabic word for “Allah” was published in a daily newspaper.Read the full story here.

Malaysia Islamic body calls Jews “main enemy,”.

Malaysia Islamic body calls Jews “main enemy,”.(BM).KUALA LUMPUR: At this young cafe, most of the Malaysians give little credence to statements being made by the government’s official Islamic body. They argue it has little to do with reality and is an attempt to get support from the Islamic world as a whole. “We know what they want to be,” said Marin, a 22-year-old university student in the capital. “And they want to be seen and heard, that’s all.” But on March 30, the government’s official national sermon that was aired at mosques across the country called Jews the “main enemy.” For Marin’s girlfriend, an Arab-Malaysian Yousra, told Bikyamasr.com, “we all don’t like the Israelis and what they do to Palestinians, but most Malaysians understand the difference and we don’t think all Jews are the enemy.” The sermon, prepared and distributed by the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department and delivered on March 30, said that “Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behavior and murders performed by them.” It also called on community leaders to increase the awareness and understanding of the importance of Jerusalem, referring to it by its Arabic name, al-Quds. “The honor of al-Quds and the al-Aksa mosque must be defended by all Muslims, as it is holy land that must be blessed,” the sermon said. The sermon “makes a mockery of Malaysia’s Constitution, which promises that religions other than Islam may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement published by most Jewish news agencies. “Further, it puts to the lie the repeated calls in international bodies by Malaysia’s prime minister, Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib, for religions to forsake intimidation and violence. It threatens the few Jews in Malaysia and millions beyond its borders.” The following day, an officially sanctioned state seminar, “Strengthening the Faith, the Dangers of Liberalism and Pluralism and the Threat of Christianity towards Muslims. What is the Role of Teachers?” was convened by the Johor Education Department and the Johor Mufti Department, which required 55 schools to send two religious teachers each to deal with the “threat” of Christians to Malaysian Muslims. For Marin and Yousra, the reality is that across the Muslim world tension is high. And they say it is understandable.Read the full story here.

Malaysia professor wants “Gay cure” group established: "They deteriorate further by abandoning Islam".

Malaysia professor wants “Gay cure” group established: "They deteriorate further by abandoning Islam".(BM).KUALA LUMPUR: The two girls steal kisses in the corner of this dimly lit cafe in Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Their hands poke each other routinely. Life is good for Isa’a and Rina, two college girls who have found young love.“Life is good,” Isa’a, the more outspoken of the two, told Bikyamasr.com. “We live together as roommates, our families don’t know and we can just enjoy ourselves.”
But they are worried about the new push in the country to crackdown on the LGBT community. “Yes, it is very scary. I mean can you imagine if our parents found us in bed together? It would be the end of us, really,” said Rina, her activist side coming out.
But for the two youthful girls of 19-years-old, if Assistant Professor of Psychology at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysi Meriam Omar Din found out about the two lesbians, she would attempt to put them through what he is calling an “Islamic core group” to deal with homosexual relationships.
According to her, the new “group” would aim to “guide Muslims inclined towards same-sex relationships, such as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals (the LGBT community) back to the right path.”
She argued that more Muslims in the country are “engaging in unnatural sexual activities.”
The girls laugh the professor off. “She probably just is unhappy with her husband, or doesn’t have someone to love and that is why she is so angry. Or she is a lesbian and can’t admit it,” argued Isa’a, with her partner Rina laughing.
Omar Din, however, seems quite serious about “battling” the LGBT community, which in recent years has become more open and public with their life.“The core group could somewhat curtail the trend. From what I gathered through communicating with LGBT, not all of them are happy with the life they are leading.“They were drawn into the situation because of sexuality problems, low self-esteem and immoral lifestyle,” she told Bernama here.
She said society had been tolerant towards the community which comprised some very talented people in the arts, as could be seen by the willingness of relevant agencies to employ them.
“Getting them closer to Islam is an appropriate approach to detach them from same-sex dependence,” she said, dismissing social websites as a factor.“Unnatural sex was already rooted before the existence of social websites. In the past, those who suffered from an identity crisis would run away from home and go to Chow Kit because they knew there is a group there that would accept them.”The professor said the LGBT would stay away from mainstream society and join the cluster that they believed could accept and support them.“They rebel collectively against society by wearing clothes or do things against the norm.“They deteriorate further by abandoning Islam because they know their activities are against the religion’s teachings and as such, it is a cause for anxiety among religious circles, as well as Muslims,” she added.
What’s ironic is that both Isa’a and Rina said they were devout Muslims who attend mosque regularly and often find themselves together, studying their faith.“You know, there might be a lot of LGBT who are anti-religion, but I find no contradiction to our lifestyle and our live in the Qur’an, so we are happily Muslims and proud,” added Rina.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Morning  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 14. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 14. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 14 . Here. (Al-Jazeera).

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

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 129.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 On 14.06.2011 at 03:43 GMT+2
  
  The death toll in Germany's killer E.coli outbreak has risen to 36, one day after authorities said more fatalities could not be ruled out. Meanwhile, Taiwan has suspended the import of German bean sprouts. The number of people who have died in the outbreak of the virulent E. coli strain in Germany has risen to 36, health officials confirmed Monday. Germany's national disease agency, the Robert Koch Institute, said 3,228 people had fallen ill from the EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli) bacteria or from linked kidney problems (haemolytic uraemic syndrome or HUS). However, the RKI said there were signs the rate of infection was slowing. "For many days the number of new infections from EHEC or HUS has declined in the country," the agency said in a statement that confirmed the new number. The increase in the death toll comes one day after German Health Minister Daniel Bahr told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that "more fatalities cannot be ruled out.Source.

• FLOTUS tells of Obama's worry.(Politico).First lady Michelle Obama on Monday told a fundraiser in Southern California of the toll the presidency has taken on her husband Barack Obama. "I see the sadness and worry that's creasing his face," she said to a crowd of about 500 at the Pasadena luncheon organized by the Southern California Women For Obama. She described his worth ethic as “tireless,” according to pool reports. "He reads every word, every memo, so he is better prepared than the people briefing him," she said. "This man doesn't take a day off." She said the next two years of campaigning would be difficult for the Obamas and their supporters. "It is not going to be easy, and it is going to be long," she said. "Now more than ever we need your help to finish what we started." She also mentioned health care reform, the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. She praised "justice" in the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the withdrawal of troops from overseas. Guests paid $1,000 per ticket to attend the event. This evening, she will speak at another fundraiser in Westwood.Read the full story here.

• Obama tells Jews that Arabs deserve another try at Six Day War (5 June 1967).(Dangerous).The old 'drive them into the sea' plan backfired... again... But today Barack Hussein Obama(D) tells the Jews that if they don't retreat to the sea and recreate the circumstances, that he won't help them in the UN. Hhhmmm... didn't the Six Day War happen BECAUSE LBJ(D) wouldn't help the Jews? So this time the Jews just need to trust Barack Hussein Obama(D) because this time it will be completely different? Read the full story here.

• CAIR-Led Group Demands “Islamophobic” Republicans Refrain From Talking About Islam During GOP Presidential Debate.(WZ). The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT*), a national coalition of major Muslim organizations, today called on Republican presidential candidates to repudiate growing Islamophobia in American society during tonight’s GOP debate in New Hampshire.In a statement, AMT said:

“We call on all the participants in tonight’s GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire to state clearly that they will not promote or exploit growing anti-Muslim sentiment to gain political advantage.“While appealing to fear and religious intolerance may score some cheap political points with a vocal minority in American society, our nation and its values of diversity and inclusion are harmed in the process.AMT says several of those taking part in tonight’s debate hold Islamophobic views or promote unconstitutional measures targeting American Muslims. . . .AMT is an umbrella organization that includes: American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), Muslim American Society-Freedom (MAS-F), Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), National Association of Imams (NAIF), United Muslims of America (UMA)SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations.Hmmmmm.......It's "Islamosophia".It means: "wise to the ways of Islam and no longer taken in by the pretty-sounding deceits."
Read the full story here.

• AP Report Shows States Have $1.1 Trillion In Unfunded Public Worker Pensions, Health Care Obligations.(AP).At statehouses around the country, the Great Recession is far from over: It could take years for many states to climb out of the hole and return to pre-downturn spending levels.An Associated Press examination of 50 balance sheets shows state budgets and bank accounts still ravaged by a drop in tax revenue. Many states are also facing enormous long-term pension and health care obligations. At the same time, the payout of stimulus money from Washington that helped many states in their darkest hours has come to an end.While some states saw a modest jump in tax collections this spring, the combined revenue projected by the 50 states in the coming fiscal year – $734 billion – is still down by about $34 billion, or 5 percent, from the 2007-08 fiscal year, when the recession began.

Some states are in far worse shape. New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois and Louisiana reported deficits that are more than 20 percent of the state general fund.

- 12 states started the year with deficits that were equal to 15 percent or more of their general fund, a state’s main checkbook for paying day-to-day operations.

- States with the highest per capita number of Medicaid recipients were among those with the largest budget deficits, as a percentage of general fund revenue.

- Seven states are spending 10 percent or more of their general funds to pay for their prison systems.

- The average general fund amount dedicated to colleges and universities was 11.6 percent but varied greatly among states.

- All 50 states have a combined $689.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health care obligations. Five states have unfunded public employee pension liabilities of $50 billion or more.Read the full story here.

• LA Times Gives Platform for Hamas, Still Hasn’t Released Obama-Khalidi Video.(BigPeace).At The Corner this morning, Andy McCarthy points out the LA Times’ “mainstreaming of the Muslim Brotherhood” by providing a forum for Mousa Abu Marzook—at one time the most senior Hamas operative living in the US:

This was akin to giving equal time to the director of the FBI and the head of Cosa Nostra. Marzook is the most important Muslim Brotherhood operative ever stationed in the U.S. I discuss him in some detail in The Grand Jihad. During his 14 years here, which ended when he was deported in 1994, he actually ran Hamas (the terrorist organization that is the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch) from his home in Virginia.This was in the early 90s, during the Intifada. He also had a hand in the establishment of many of the Islamist organizations with which we are familiar today. The Islamist infrastructure he helped build here was the foundation of the Justice Department’s successful terrorism financing prosecution against the Holy Land Foundation for funneling millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists.This weekend, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft at Human Events put the exuberance with which the release of Sarah Palin’s emails were covered in the context of the LA Times’ ongoing embargo of a potentially damaging video of Barack Obama with notorious anti-Israel academics Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said. When will we see that video?Read the full story here.

• US Is in Even Worse Shape Financially Than Greece: Gross.(Cnbc).When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries, Pimco's Bill Gross told CNBC Monday.Much of the public focus is on the nation's public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn't include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes to close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.Taken together, Gross puts the total at "nearly $100 trillion," that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won't find a solution overnight."To think that we can reduce that within the space of a year or two is not a realistic assumption," Gross said in a live interview. "That's much more than Greece, that's much more than almost any other developed country. We've got a problem and we have to get after it quickly.""We've always wondered who will buy Treasurys" after the Federal Reserve purchases the last of its $600 billion to end the second leg of its quantitative easing program later this month, Gross said. "It's certainly not Pimco and it's probably not the bond funds of the world."Pimco, based in Newport Beach, Calif., manages more than $1.2 trillion in assets and runs the largest bond fund in the world."Why wouldn't an investor buy Canada with a better balance sheet or Australia with a better balance sheet with interest rates at 1 or 2 or 3 percent higher?" he said. "It simply doesn't make any sense."Should the debt problem in Greece explode into a full-blown crisis—an International Monetary Fund bailout has prevented a full-scale meltdown so far—Gross predicted that German debt, not that of the US, would be the safe-haven of choice for global investors.Read the full story here.

• Did anyone happen to find 3 C-130 aircraft full of $ 100 bills?Pentagon Loses Track Of $6.6 Billion.(Judicial Watch).In a mind-boggling example of government corruption, billions of dollars flown to Iraq for post-invasion “reconstruction” have vanished and may never be recovered. Bundled in chunks of $100 bills, the cash was sent from the U.S. to Iraq in turboprop military cargo planes known as C-130 Hercules. About $2.4 billion fit in each aircraft and 21 flights made trips, transporting a total of $12 billion in American currency to Iraq by 2004.For years federal audits have determined that more than half the money cannot be accounted for but there seemed to be some hope that some of the funds could be retrieved. However, this week the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Stuart Bowen) essentially confirmed that $6.6 billion in cash was likely stolen and may never be recovered. Bowen referred to it as "the largest theft of funds in national history," in a newspaper report that points out the missing money is enough to run a major public school district for an entire year. The story also says that the mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, which has long asserted that it could track the cash if given the time to do it. This is simply the latest of many reports documenting the pervasive fraud and waste in Iraq reconstruction efforts, which have received more than $100 billion from U.S. taxpayers. In the last few years Inspector General audits have exposed the sordid details of costly projects that never got completed or are rife with excessive delays and shoddy work.Read the full story here.

• E.P.A. Delays Rule on Power Plant Emissions.(NYTimes).The Environmental Protection Agency, facing intense opposition from Congressional Republicans and industry over a broad range of new air quality regulations, said Monday that it was delaying by two months the release of a proposed rule on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other major pollution sources.The delay of the rule, which will have a major impact on the nation’s efforts to reduce emissions of gases blamed for the warming of the planet, is the latest step by the E.P.A. to slow the issuing of regulations that its critics claim will hurt economic growth, drive up energy costs and cut employment. The delay is a tacit admission that the regulations pose difficult political, economic and technical challenges that cannot be addressed on the aggressive timetable the agency set for itself early in the Obama administration.The agency said it was pushing back the new greenhouse gas proposal to the end of September to allow more time to consider input from power companies, environmental advocates and others. Officials said they still expected to have a final rule in place by May 2012.Scott Segal, a utility industry lobbyist in Washington, said that the E.P.A.’s caution signaled an understanding that the new rule would have a profound impact on the price, supply and reliability of the electricity by forcing extensive modifications to, or the shutdown of, dozens of older power plants.He noted that the agency had several other major rules pending that would affect power plant operators, including rules covering coal ash disposal, power plant cooling water, ozone and toxic air emissions from generating stations.The E.P.A. is also working with the Department of Transportation and the state of California to develop a new mileage and emissions standard for cars and light trucks covering the years 2017 to 2025.Read the full story here.

• Liberal Politico Says Obama’s Claims Of Creating 225K “Green Jobs” Are Bunk.(politico).President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy.The catch? Nearly three years into Obama’s presidency, the White House can’t point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.Monthly Labor Department employment reports say nothing about the new clean energy workforce, while an effort to document how many Americans actually make a living in the “green collar” field may not be done by November 2012.Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers suggests 225,000 clean energy jobs were either created or preserved through the third quarter of 2010 thanks to more than $80 billion in the economic stimulus package. But those are estimates at best.Read the full story here.

• Civil war in Syria?Assad defies global outcry against savagery.(Al-Arabia).Syrian troops pursued a scorched earth campaign in the northern mountains, but refugees who had fled to Turkey said some soldiers had revolted in a bid to defend civilians. Condition deteriorated to a point of nothing short of civil war.President Bashar Al Assad continued to defy—and ignore—international calls to cease savage attacks on unarmed pro-democracy protesters.State media said two top officials were being investigated for their role in a previous crackdown, as international leaders continued to denounce the government campaign against protesters.Some of the thousands of refugees to have fled into neighboring Turkey said troops were burning crops and slaughtering livestock in villages near the border, according to Agence-France Presse.State television said the army was pursuing “armed gangs” into the woods and mountains around Jisr Al Shughur after storming the town, which had been a centre of protest, over the weekend.Human rights activists reported heavy gunfire and explosions in the town throughout Sunday as troops backed by helicopter gunships and around 200 tanks launched a two-pronged dawn assault.And on Monday, they reported intermittent gunfire as troops launched search operations in the village of Uram Al Joz, east of Jisr Al Shughur and in the Jebel Al Zawiya mountains further south.But most of the town’s 50,000 residents were long gone, having fled during the week-long build-up to the crackdown.But fighting had also broken out among the troops on Sunday as soldiers bent on destroying the area were confronted by others trying to defend the townsfolk, the refugees added, according to AFP.Elements from one tank division had even taken up positions by bridges leading into the town in a bid to defend it, they said.“The troops are divided,” said 35-year-old Abdullah, who fled Jisr Al Shughur on Sunday and sneaked over the border into Turkey to find food.“Four tanks defected and they began to fire on one another,” he added.Another Syrian refugee, Ali, who made it to Turkey, told a similar story.“There is now a split within the army and you have a group who are trying to protect the civilians,” the 27-year-old told AFP.More than 6,800 of Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the town, Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported. Another 5,000 have fled into Lebanon, the United Nations said.Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed since the start of the uprising. One group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed, according to Reuters.President Assad, 47, who inherited power when his father died in 2000, has offered some concessions aimed at appeasing protesters, lifting a 48-year state of emergency and promising a national dialogue, but many activists have dismissed those steps.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at Argentina’s Foreign Ministry on Monday, said the Syrian government had responded with “horrific attacks” to people’s desire for change and the situation was “very worrisome.”Hmmmm......"Reformes in motion"?Read the full story here.

• UK - Arab Migrant ‘killed three-year-old as he drove unlicensed Jaguar’.(DailyMail).An Arab living in the UK on a temporary visa has denied causing the death of a three-year-old boy while driving a Jaguar.Ahmed Aldubaili, 30, is charged with causing the death of three-year-old Henry Blacklock who suffered fatal injuries when his father’s car was involved in a crash.Aldubaili, who is from the United Arab Emirates, is also charged with death by driving when unlicensed and driving while uninsured after the crash with Martin Blacklock’s Renault Clio.Henry died at the scene of the collision on the B1063 in Ashley, near Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, on October 23 last year.Aldubaili has pleaded not guilty to death by dangerous driving but admitted he did not have a licence or insurance to drive.The case has been adjourned until September when it will be decided if he is fit to stand trial.Aldubaili’s six-month visitor visa expired in March this year and he has now surrendered his passport as part of the legal proceedings.He failed to turn up at a previous hearing because he was in a clinic, according to the Daily Telegraph, and medical reports are being prepared ahead of his next hearing.Following Henry’s death, his mother, Clare Seager of Red Lodge, Suffolk, said: ‘Henry was a little boy with a big heart, who was, and is, loved by everyone who knew him.‘For a three-year-old lad he didn’t know the meaning of fear or danger.Hmmmm.....Amazing how many of these 'cases' are 'unfit'.....Genetics perhaps?Read the full story here.

• Obedient Wives Club sparks debate in Malaysia.(HurriyetDaily).Social ills such as prostitution, domestic violence and divorce can be cured by urging women to be submissive and keep their men happy in the bedroom, according to the Obedient Wives Club of Malaysia.The club aims to educate wives on how to keep their husbands sexually satisfied in order to avoid infidelity. The club’s vice president, Rohayah Mohamad, said wives must go beyond traditional roles as good cooks or good mothers and learn to “obey, serve and entertain” their husbands to prevent them from straying or misbehaving.“This way, the family institution is protected and we can curb social ills,” said Rohayah, who is also one of the club’s founders. She claims that “disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world” because men are not happy at home and their minds and souls are disturbed.Launched on June 4, the Obedient Wives Club currently boasts some 800 members in Malaysia and is looking to expand to Singapore. Though the club was founded by a fringe Islamic group known as Global Ikhwan, it is open to wives of all races and religion.Global Ikhwan spokesperson Siti Maznah Mohd Taufik also said domestic abuse happens when wives do not obey their husband’s orders. When asked if a wife should shoulder the blame when abused, she said: “Yes, most probably because she didn't listen to her husband.”Siti Maznah believes that women have the duty of staying attractive and providing their husbands with a satisfying sex life so that they will not stray or turn to prostitutes. She herself is a second wife and a mother of five, with a total of 16 children in her household.“Wives should welcome them with sexy clothes and alluring smiles when in the privacy of their homes,” Siti Maznah said, adding that she and everyone in the club practiced what they preached. “My husband is a happy man, you can see it from his actions,” she said.The launch of this club has generated angry responses from politicians and women’s rights groups in Malaysia, a Muslim majority country where women are still victims of gender bias despite holding high posts in the government and corporate world and outnumbering their male counterparts at higher level institutions.“Unfortunately even today, there are still many Muslim women who are ignorant of their rights or culturally inhibited to exercise their rights in full,” said Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the minister of Women, Family and Community Development.“To hinge fidelity, domestic violence and the fulfillment of a husband's responsibilities purely on a wife's capacity to be obedient and to stimulate sexual arousal is not only demeaning to wives, but to husbands as well.”The Malaysian women’s group Sisters in Islam said Islam advocates marriages based on mutual cooperation and respect. “Domestic violence happens regardless of women’s behavior,” it said. “Communication, not submission, is vital to sustain any healthy relationship.”Read the full story here.

• Iranian Majlis Member: Khamenei Rejects Ahmadinejad's Terms, Suggests He Resign.(Memri).In a speech in the city of Bushehr, Iranian Majlis member Gholam Ali Meigolinejad said that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had rejected the terms that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had set for his return to office during their recent confrontation.Ahmadinejad's terms included: firing Khamenei's deputy chief of staff, Asghar Hejazi; firing Khamenei's representative in the Revolutionary Guard's intelligence service, Hossein Taeb; appointing Rahim Mashai as vice president; and temporarily reinstating Heydar Moslehi as minister of intelligence.According to Meigolinejad, Khamenei responded to the president's threats that he would resign with the offer that the latter draft a resignation letter immediately.The website Alef claimed that Ahmadinejad has denied rumors that he threatened to resign.Read the full story here.

• Taliban admit killing Bamiyan council head Jawad Zahak.(BBC).Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have admitted killing Jawad Zahak, head of the Bamiyan province council.Mr Zahak, an ethnic Hazara, was kidnapped on Friday while travelling with his family to the capital, Kabul. On Monday his beheaded body was found in the mountainous Ghorband valley. The Taliban denied they had beheaded him. President Hamid Karzai blamed "the enemies of Afghanistan" for his death. Bamiyan is one of many areas due to be handed over in July to Afghan forces.Mr Zahak's death is one of many high-profile killings ahead of the planned transition and peace talks with the insurgents. Afghan officials say insurgents with intelligence about Mr Zahak's movements had forced him out of his vehicle.Soon afterwards police surrounded the insurgents and, in the ensuing gun battle, two policemen were killed. Mr Zahak fought against the Taliban in Bamiyan and was a close aide to Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari, killed by insurgents in the mid-1990s.Read the full story here.

• Erdogan says his victory is a victory for Gaza, Palestine, and "al-Quds".(StopTurkey).The party emerged from the Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary Turkey, ensuring a third consecutive term, after the counting of nearly all ballots.After counting 99% of the votes, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Erdogan, in power since 2002, won 50% of the vote, according to the TV.This party will be able to form a government only because it has largely absolute majority of 550 seats in parliament with 326 deputies.This party won 47% of the vote in 2007 parliamentary and won 341 seats in Parliament. In 2002, his score was 34%.“Today once again democracy, national will have won,” shouted Mr. Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine, from the balcony of his party headquarters in Ankara to address a crowd of several Thousands of people waving the flags of the AKP.Erdogan, a former Islamist activist, also said that with the victory of the AKP, “Gaza, Palestine and Jerusalem were also won,” showing once again his sympathy for the Muslim world, especially because PA. [...]Erdogan didn't say "Jerusalem"; he said "Kudüs" -- that is, "al-Quds," the Islamic name for Jerusalem.Hmmmm......Obama's buddy Erdogan.Read the full story here.

• 100 jailed Islamic fanatics will be out on the streets of Britain in time for the Olympics.(TheSun).THESE ten Islamic terrorists - shown below - are among 100 jailed fanatics who will be out on the streets of Britain in time for the Olympics. They include extremists with convictions for bomb plots and conspiracy to murder. Two evil recruits from one of the most dangerous al-Qaeda gangs uncovered in the UK will walk free before the London Games start next July 27. Government security chiefs have warned that terrorism remains the greatest threat to events expected to attract 500,000 spectators. There are fears of attacks by chemical and biological devices - with public transport a likely target.Most of the men due for release are in their 20s and 30s. MI5 chief Jonathan Evans said: "We know some of them are still committed extremists likely to return to their terrorist activities."Harry Fletcher, of probation officers' union NAPO said: "Many are still seen as a high risk. Budget cuts mean fewer trained staff are available for supervision."Hmmmm......So why in Gods name release them?Read the full story here.

• Woman held for walking without abaya.(Emirates247).Defiant Saudi wife tells police head cover is symbol of backwardness.Saudi Arabia’s feared Islamic police briefly arrested a national woman for defying local rules by walking in a public place without the traditional Saudi gown and head cover. The arrest made her even more defiant, when she branded the head cover a symbol of backwardness.The 27-year-old Saudi wife was strolling at dawn on the sidewalk in the western town of Makkah when members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice seized her and took her to their centre.Sabq newspaper said a Saudi man had phoned the Commission and told them about a woman walking in tight pants and white tops without her gown or head cover. The man said he was worried the woman might be kidnapped by men.The paper said the unnamed woman told Commission members at the centre that she went to stay at her family’s house after an argument with her husband but that they refused to receive her and told her to return home.“The woman said she then decided to go for a walk at dawn to have some fresh air and release her pent-up feelings and deprivation,” the paper said.“She said what she had done is normal and that the gown and head cover are symbols of backwardness….she also told the Commission members that man had reached the moon and ‘you come and tell me don’t drive….don’t go out shopping…cover you face…be careful…etc..”Sabq said the woman was later handed over to her family after she was made to write a statement not to repeat what she had done.Hmmmm......."Religion does not require women to veil their hands, feet and faces or enjoin any special type of veil. Tribal custom must not impose itself on the free will of the individual."Amanullah Khan - King of Afghanistan (1919-1929).Read the full story here.

• IHH sends 'no violence' message to Israel.(Ynet).Flotilla organizers ask Turkish Jews to tell Israeli government they are willing to subject vessels to international inspection before heading to Gaza in late June. Meanwhile, Turkish government officials vow to stop flotilla from departing.Sources linked to the Jewish community in Istanbul say that leaders of the IHH organization have approached them with a request to send a message to Israel saying they are not interested in a violent clash with the IDF, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday. Senior elements within the Jewish community in Turkey have conveyed this message to Israeli representatives.The IHH heads propose that the vessels taking part in the upcoming flotilla will be checked by an international team in a third country such as Cyprus. According to the proposal, the ships will be allowed to head for Gaza only after it is confirmed they are carrying nothing but humanitarian aid. The IHH is thereby meeting a condition set by Israel stipulating that humanitarian aid can only be transferred to Gaza subject to inspection. It should be noted that Israel considers the IHH a terrorist organization and has no known intention of negotiating with it directly. Jerusalem is trying to reach understandings with the Turkish government before the flotilla arrives. It is unclear whether the IHH proposal had been coordinated with the Turkish government but it does fit it with the change in Ankara's stance. Turkish government officials announced Monday that Ankara will try to stop the flotilla as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan prefers focusing on the Syrian crisis, rather the Palestinian issue. Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu urged the IHH to postpone the sail.The defense establishment has meanwhile suspended procedures meant to outlaw several Turkish organizations for the purpose of arresting their members on board the ships. The freeze is meant to prevent what could appear as a provocation vis-à-vis Turkey and allow it to prevent the flotilla's departure.Hmmmm......Farmer guard your eggs,when the fox preaches the Gospel.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Afternoon Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 14. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 14. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 4.7 activity. More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 109.Source : Here .

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

• Watch Live: Army Corps of Engineers to Open the Morganza Floodway at 4:30 (ET) to Ease and Direct Mississippi River Flooding in La.Here.

• Gingrich : Obama ‘food stamp president’.(WashingtonPost).MACON, Ga. — Newt Gingrich opened his presidential campaign here Friday night by introducing a jobs plan that would slash taxes and repeal an array of bureaucratic regulations.Returning to the state where he launched his political career more than three decades ago, the Republican former House speaker presented himself in sharp contrast to President Obama, whom he derided as a “food stamp president.” Gingrich sounded a hopeful tone as he pledged that a Gingrich administration would reaffirm American exceptionalism.“My theme is going to be: Together we can win the future. The right policies lead to the right results. And I’m going to argue that President Obama will lose the future because the wrong policies lead to the wrong results,” Gingrich said in a dinner speech before hundreds of activists at the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention. He also signed his official statement of candidacy at the event.Gingrich, who has written more than a dozen non-fiction books — he plugged his latest, “To Save America,” on bookshelves now — opened his 30-minute address with a long rumination on American history. He predicted that the 2012 presidential election will be the most consequential since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860.“We’re at the crossroads,” Gingrich said, repeatedly sniffling from allergies. “Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud, solid, reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.”Central to that promise, he said, would be eliminating the capital gains and estate taxes and reducing the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 12.5 percent. Those tax cuts, as well as freezing the personal income tax rates at their current Bush-era levels, is critical to creating jobs and spurring innovation, he said.“The most important social welfare program in America is a job,” Gingrich said.Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. “President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history.”Less than two weeks after Obama led a successful raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Gingrich said Obama “does not have a clue” about foreign affairs.Gingrich said the United States should reevaluate its diplomatic ties with Pakistan since bin Laden was found to have been living there for several years.“I was trying to figure out what the word ally meant,” he said. “I know what the word sucker meant. How stupid do you think we are?” Hmmmm......Dictatorship or Democarcy.Read the full story here.

• IMF boss Strauss-Kahn pulled off plane, arrested in oral sex probe.(NYPost).The French political bigshot who heads the International Monetary Fund was arrested for allegedly sodomizing a Manhattan hotel maid today — getting hauled off an Air France flight just moments before takeoff from Kennedy Airport, police sources told The Post.Three Port Authority detectives pulled Dominique Strauss-Kahn from the plane’s first-class cabin just two minutes before it was due to depart for Paris, the sources said.Strauss-Kahn, 62, was turned over to NYPD officers from the Midtown South precinct, and the case is being investigated by the Special Victims Unit.The trouble began around noon today, when a housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel on West 44th Street.Strauss-Kahn was in his bathroom, said sources. He emerged from the bathroom naked, said the sources, and grabbed her.Then, Strauss-Kahn allegedly threw the housekeeper on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said the sources.Strauss-Kahn let the maid leave — and soon afterward, headed off to Kennedy Airport for his flight to Paris.The NYPD’s special victims unit is investigating the case, the sources said.His arrest tonight could force him to postpone a planned meeting in Berlin on Sunday with German chancellor Angela Merkel.Strauss-Kahn, a leader of France’s Socialist Party, is the leading rival to President Nicholas Sarkozy in the 2012 election.Sarkozy was said in a news report yesterday to have begun a smear campaign against his rival that focused on his lavish lifestyle — including Strauss-Kahn’s purchase of suits from the same tailor who clothes President Obama.But Strauss-Kahn seems able to find trouble on his own. In 2008, he publicly admitted to "an error of judgment" for having an affair with an IMF subordinate.Hmmmm......Talk about getting a 'raise' in hard currency?Read the full story here.

• Misreading Obama.A must read!(EmergingCorruption).By Jack Cashill.From the moment Barack Obama took center stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the world has been busily trying to decipher the man. No one has been more busy reading Obama in the years since than the chair of the Harvard History Department, the esteemed Dr. James Kloppenberg. At numerous symposia, on both sides of the Atlantic, he has shared his distinctive insights on our 44th president.In his new book, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition, Kloppenberg has assembled his insights into a misreading of Obama so sincere and so profound that it causes one to doubt the entire academic enterprise. In the heat of the 2008 campaign, a book like this would have been understandable. No one seemed to know much about Obama. Two years into the presidency, one marvels at how much information the author, his readers and editors had to ignore to allow this book to go to press.Working from Obama’s early articles, his later columns in the Hyde Park Herald, his key speeches, and his two books, the 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father and the 2006 policy brief Audacity of Hope, Kloppenberg finds in Obama a philosophical pragmatist with a “firmer grip on America’s past” than any president since Woodrow Wilson.To arrive at this understanding, Kloppenberg had first to convince himself that Obama actually wrote his own material. This was not difficult, at least not for the good professor. “But since I began investigating Obama’s ideas,” he observes, “no one who knows him has expressed any doubt to me that both books are his work.” For Kloppenberg, this was proof enough. Immured in his academic keep, he apparently sheltered himself from the 20,000 or so words I had already put into cyberspace establishing that Obama had substantial help with everything good that he has ever said or is alleged to have written.Kloppenberg’s enthusiasm leads him to overlook the cautions of his own ideological allies as well. This was most evident in his discussion of Obama’s March 2008 Philadelphia speech, “A More Perfect Union.” As the reader will recall, Obama delivered this stem-winder to distance himself, without exactly disowning, the suddenly toxic Rev. Jeremiah Wright.For the Philadelphia speech, according to Kloppenberg, Obama “did not need the assistance of his speech writer Jon Favreau.” This one he wrote from the heart. Jonathan Raban, the esteemed British travel writer and novelist, suspects otherwise. Although once as blind to Obama’s limitations as Kloppenberg, Raban was “disconcerted” to learn that Obama used a speechwriter at all. He was more troubled to learn that the speechwriter in question, Favreau, was a video-game whiz whom Obama had recruited in 2004 when the lad was just 22 years-old.Raban traces his awakening to Obama’s 2009 inaugural address, one that, in his words, suffered from “moth-eaten metaphors,” “faux-antique dialect,” and jarring semantic errors like Obama’s use of the word “forbearers” when he meant “forebears.” Raban felt even more “let down” upon discovering that the “More Perfect Union” speech was “a joint Obama/Favreau production.” Kloppenberg apparently has not yet made this discovery.Read the full story here.

• Eager to recuperate votes Obama shifts on domestic drilling.(TheHill).The White House will take a series of steps — including expediting drilling plans on government lands in Alaska — designed to show that the administration is serious about expanding domestic oil production and lowering gas prices.President Obama announced Saturday the government would hold annual onshore lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve; extend the life of leases in the Gulf of Mexico and in some areas off the coast of Alaska for one year; speed up ongoing Interior Department testing in the mid- and south-Atlantic to gauge the level of resources; and establish an interagency task force to coordinate permitting for offshore drilling in Alaska.The White House is making the policy shifts after taking intense criticism from Republicans in recent weeks over energy policy as gas prices have topped $4 per gallon in some parts of the country.Many of the proposals are incremental expansions of existing policies and had been set in motion prior to Saturday’s announcement. It’s also unclear by how much the plan will increase domestic oil production.In his weekly radio address, Obama said his administration is working to “increase safe and responsible oil production here at home,” while also pushing his previously stated support alternative fuels and eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for oil companies.The president acknowledged that there are “no quick fixes” to high gas prices and stressed that price spikes “are often temporary,” but he outlined a series of steps meant to show that the administration is taking action to help consumers.Hmmmmm.....Once re-elected all these measures can and will be turned back,so that i can finish my electric car dream?Read the full story here.

• You're Nuts !Federal gun legislation would greatly expand who qualifies as mentally ineligible from owning a gun.(DailyCaller).Recently introduced federal gun legislation would codify and greatly expand the definition of those barred from owning a gun because they suffer from broad, umbrella-like definitions of mental health problems. Mental health advocates, however, say legislators reacting to “deranged” people going on shooting sprees are “completely missing the point.”Last week, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy introduced the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011, a nearly-identical resolution to that introduced in the Senate in March by her New York colleague, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. Both bills include a section dedicated to further codifying in federal law what it means to be “adjudicated as a mental defective.” The proposed change would label any person a “mental health defective” who appears to “lack the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs,” or is “compelled” to receive counseling or medication.Other, seemingly more obvious, definitions of a “mental health defective” include anyone who has been found criminally insane, found incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of mental deficiencies.According to the legislation, decisions of whether someone is of subnormal intelligence, competency and/or mental illness are to be decided by a “court, board, commission, or other lawful authority.” No medical qualifications or background in psychological sciences are specified as necessary for such lawful authorities.Read the full story here.

• Bill Clinton: Create Internet agency.(Politico).Bill Clinton doesn’t like all the misinformation and rumors floating on the Internet. And he thinks the United Nations or the U.S. government should create an agency to do something about it.“It would be a legitimate thing to do,” Clinton said in an interview airing Friday on CNBC.The agency, Clinton said, would “have to be totally transparent about where the money came from” and would have to be “independent” because “if it’s a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the internet.”“Let’s say the U.S. did it, it would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn’t think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out,” Clinton said.“That is, it would be like, I don’t know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors” he said. “And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it’s a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money.”At the same time, though, political figures in other countries “will be careful what they say to America’s representatives around the world for a while because they’ll have bad memories of the, you know, the leaked memo,” he said.Stressing the dangers of putting some information online, Clinton said that he and his wife keep hard copies of their living wills that can’t be tampered with.Hmmmm......."Bill Clinton doesn’t like all the misinformation and rumors floating on the Internet" one name:Monica Lewinsky.Read the full story here.

• Osama Bin Laden porn Movie titles released.Here.

• "Change" there was a time the best qualified got the job offer.Chicago Ordered to Hire 111 Black Firefighters.(NYTimes).CHICAGO — The City of Chicago must hire 111 black firefighter applicants who were passed over for jobs years ago and pay tens of millions of dollars in damages to about 6,000 other black candidates under a ruling issued on Friday by a federal appeals court. The decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is only the latest in a legal battle that began with a written employment test for firefighters more than a decade ago, wound its way to the United States Supreme Court by last year and remains a matter of division and concern among the city’s firefighters. “For some of the people involved, this is a very emotional moment,” said Joshua Karsh, a lawyer who represented black applicants who accused the city of employment discrimination. “The city could have cleared this up a long time ago.” In 1995, 26,000 people took an employment test to become firefighters. The city said anyone who had scored above 65 was considered “qualified,” but chose its initial hires from random sets among candidates who scored 89 or better, a group it deemed “highly qualified,” court documents say. But after complaints were filed, the city conceded that the 89-point cutoff created a “disparate impact” against black candidates — 6,000 of whom had gotten qualified scores — compared with white candidates, the documents show. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 last year that despite claims by the city, the group of black job candidates had not waited too long to file its lawsuit. Still uncertain on Friday was precisely how the court’s decision would be carried out. Among the 6,000 black candidates who sought jobs, 111 of them — it is unclear for the moment which ones — will be given jobs after receiving physical tests and training. Those who do not seek the jobs will split back pay that would have gone to the 111 had they been hired years ago. Jennifer Hoyle of the Chicago Department of Law estimated that cost to be $30 million. Mr. Karsh said he expected that the amount would be larger.The costs come at a difficult time for the city, where some people are predicting a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars next year. A spokesman for Rahm Emanuel, who is to be sworn in as mayor on Monday, declined to comment on the ruling.Hmmmm......The end of 'common sense as we know it'.Read the full story here.

• UN: Iran, N.Korea traded technology.(YNet).Diplomats say technology exchange, which violates UN sanctions, was enacted through China.North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions, according to a confidential United Nations report obtained by Reuters on Saturday.The report also said that the illicit technology transfers had "trans-shipment through a neighbouring third country." That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The report was submitted to the UN Security Council by a UN Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with UN sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The UN sanctions included a ban on trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea, as well as an arms embargo. The UN measures also banned trade with a number of North Korean firms and called for asset freezes and travel bans on a number of North Korean individuals. "Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air," the report said.Several Security Council diplomats said that China was unhappy about the report. Beijing has prevented the publication of expert panel reports on North Korea and Sudan in the past. Earlier this week, Russia took similar steps to suppress an equally damning expert panel report on Iran.Hmmmm.....Sanctions that 'Byte"?Read the full story here.

• Tenerife beheading victim is retired female, British Norfolk County Council road safety officer.(edp.)Jennifer Mills-Westley, a retired Norfolk County Council road safety officer, was brutally killed whilst holidaying on the island.Her family paid tribute to her and said they were devastated by her death.Her daughter Sarah said: “Mum retired a number of years ago and was fully enjoying her retirement travelling between Tenerife and France where she spent time visiting her daughter and grandchildren, and her other daughter in Norfolk.“She was full of life, generous of heart, would do anything for anyone.“We now have to find a way of living without her love and light and we would ask at this difficult time for some privacy as we try to come to terms with our loss.”The 60-year-old was originally from Norwich, Norfolk, before retiring from her job as a road safety officer with Norfolk County Council and leaving the UK.A spokesman from Norfolk County Council said: Our deepest sympathies go to Jenny’s family and friends following this terrible news. “Jenny was a popular and well respected member of staff, who during her time with Norfolk County Council worked as a Road Safety Officer - working with many schools and children to teach cycling training and make Norfolk’s roads safer.”She had two daughters and five grandchildren.She died horrifically yesterday when a man attacked her in the Valdes shopping centre on Avenida Juan Carlos in Los Cristianos.Witnesses spoke of their horror and disbelief after she was stabbed and decapitated in a supermarket.The suspect, who was arrested. was named in reports as Deyan Valentinov D - with Spanish police only providing the first initial of his surname.He is believed to be 28 and a homeless Bulgarian with a police record.Police are investigating the man’s movements leading up to the killing and studying CCTV and witness statements to establish precisely what happened.The suspect was alleged to have carried Ms Mills-Westley’s head outside and was reportedly saying “God is on earth’’.Hmmmmm......Islam is the largest minority religion in Bulgaria. According to the 2001 Census 12.2% of the populationis Muslim.Most of the Muslims in Bulgaria are Sunni Muslims as Sunni Islam was the form of Islam promoted by the Ottoman Empire during their five-century rule of Bulgaria.Read the full story here.

• Is Bahrain the fuse in the Middle Eastern "Powderkeg"?Malaysia offers to send troops to Bahrain.(Al-Arabiya).Prime Minister Najib Razzak of Malaysia has offered to send his country’s troops as part of a peacekeeping force to help “de-escalate tension” in Bahrain. Mr. Razzak also backed Saudi Arabia’s efforts in resolving regional unrest, according to Agence-France Presse. Bahrain was rocked by protests in March when demonstrators took to the streets demanding greater personal liberties in the Shiite majority kingdom ruled by Sunnis.In March, at the request of the Bahrain government, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent their troops to quell the protests and restore calm. “Malaysia stands ready to contribute peacekeepers to Bahrain, if invited to do so by the leadership,” Mr. Razzak said in a statement late Friday following a meeting in Riyadh with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.“Malaysia will consider it a great honor to offer assistance in this noble effort,” the prime minister said.He said his country, where Malay Muslims dominate a population consisting also of Chinese and Tamils, “supported the national dialogue process launched by Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa in a bid to de-escalate tension in the country,” reported the AFP.Hmmmm.....Something tells me this will just escalate.Read the full story here.

• According to Al-Jazeera Bahrain is targeting Shia religious sites.(Al-Jazeera). The Bahraini government has destroyed a number of mosques in continuation of its aggressive crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, a special Al Jazeera investigation has revealed.At least 28 mosques and Shia religious institutions have been destroyed in the Gulf state since the crackdown on Shia-led protests began in Mid-March, the opposition group, Al Wefaq, told Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford.The Justice Ministry, however, said it was tearing down the mosques because they were not licensed."It is a war against identity," one man told our correspondent. "This Sunni government of Bahrain is fighting the Shia, destroying their places of worship and holy places."Adel Al-Moawda, deputy chairman of the Bahraini parliament, denied the report that mosques were being destroyed."The mosques that have been demolished, most of them are not mosques," Al-Moawda told Al Jazeera. "There were only expansions of mosques in some private territories. Very few numbers of mosques, which are illegally built, have been demolished."He said Sunni mosques were also among these few that had been demolished. "What is happening in Bahrain now ... everybody is following the law and order, that is all," he added.Earlier, Al Jazeera revealed that medics who worked to assist wounded protesters have been targeted, with hundreds facing arrest and investigation by the regime.Bahraini police also carried out raids on girls' schools, detaining and beating them, during its crackdown, secret filming by Al Jazeera's Stratford revealed.The government denied this report. "The allegations made by Al Jazeera English are totally baseless and without credibility," sources quoted by the Bahraini news agency said.Al-Moawda repeated the denial, saying "there is a big exaggeration in some of what I have just heard now about torturing doctors and nurses".Hmmmm....."We must cut off the head of the snake"?Read the full story here.

• Arabian Gulf or is it Persian Gulf?Prominent UAE businessman urges UN to identify the Gulf as Arab.(Al-Arabiya).If prominent UAE businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor has his way semantics will be the next battleground in escalating tensions between Iran and the Gulf states.Mr. Habtoor has asked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) counterparts, Amr Moussa and Abdullatif Al-Zayani, in a letter obtained by Al Arabiya to officially refer to the Gulf as the Arabian Gulf.In making his request, Mr. Habtoor appears to be seeking to rekindle a long-standing dispute between Iran and the Gulf states over the correct reference to the region. The dispute has persuaded much of the world over the years in deference to the controversy to back away from calling the region the Persian Gulf and instead simply referring to it as the Gulf.Mr. Habtoor argued in his letter that reference to the region as the Persian Gulf was obsolete. “I think most members of the council agree about this,” he wrote. “We rely on present facts and realities that reflect history. The vast majority of Gulf people are Arabs, both from the Arab countries overlooking the Arab Gulf or from the areas controlled by Iran,” he added in a reference to the Iranian province of Khuzestan that is predominantly populated by Iranians of Arab origin.Mr. Habtoor’s proposal is likely to be politely rejected by Mr. Ban. The United Nations has enough Middle Eastern issues on its plate, including Iran’s nuclear development and the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in various Arab states, to want to take on another hot potato.GCC leaders like Mr. Habtoor are well aware that terminology in the Middle East almost always reflects a political view. If the identification of the Gulf is controversial so is the naming of Palestinians territories: to Palestinians the West Bank is occupied territory and part of Palestine; to many Israelis it’s Yehuda and Samaria, names that indicate that Israel too has Biblical claims to the land.As a result, GCC leaders despite their charges that Iran instigated the turmoil in Bahrain and ran a spy ring in Kuwait may not want to expand their dispute into the realm of semantics.In his letter, Mr. Habtoor argues, however, that that is the very reason why the GCC should take semantic action. It would constitute a response to “Iranian ambitions that exceed the bounds of reason,” he says. Mr. Habtoor argued that identifying the Gulf as Arab was “necessary to confront Iranian ambitions and reveal some truths and intentions of Iran to control the region and interfere in Arab countries’ domestic affairs and damage their social fabric.”Mr. Habtoor’s suggestion certainly taps into a widespread emotion across the Gulf. Yet, if adopted, it is unlikely to persuade Iran to change its views or policies. If anything, it would spark a war of words that would more likely than not clutter debate about the real issues that divide Iran and the Gulf states. The Gulf has sufficient burning issues that need to be resolved and is better off without distractions that may produce a feel good effect but no real solution.Hmmmm......The 'ball' is now in the Iranian camp.Ahmadinejad speech in 3....2....1?Read the full story here.

• Erdogans buddy and 'reformer' Assad breaks promises as more blood of pro-democracy protesters is spilled in Syria.(Al-Arabiya).President Bashar al-Assad of Syria keeps on breaking his promises to be conciliatory as more pro-democracy protesters fall dead because of the authoritarian regime’s brutal crackdown. On Saturday, fresh blood was spilled in the western border town of Tall Kalakh, close to Lebanon. A witness told Agence-France Presse that troops fired into a swarm of demonstrators, killing three people and wounding several others.“The security forces, who had been encircling Tall Kalakh since the morning, fired machineguns. At least three people were killed and several were wounded,” the witness told AFP.On Friday, at least six people were killed in protests in cities of Homs, Damascus and Deraa on Friday.A leading human rights activist told the Associated Press that three people were killed in Homs, two in Damascus and one in a village outside Deraa, the southern city where the revolt began two months ago.“At first they opened fire in the air, but the people continued on their way, and then they shot directly into the crowd,” an eyewitness said by telephone from Homs.Activist Louay Hussein said President Assad’s adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told him in a phone call on Thursday that “definitive presidential orders have been issued not to shoot demonstrators and whoever violates this will bear full responsibility.”Mr. Hussein was among four opposition figures that saw Ms. Shaaban this month and presented demands that included an end to violent repression of protesters and the introduction of political reform in the country, ruled by the Assad family since 1970, according to Reuters.The meetings were the first between the opposition and senior officials since demonstrations calling for political freedom and an end to corruption erupted in the southern city of Deraa on March 18.“I hope we will see (no firing at demonstrators) tomorrow. I still call for non-violent form of any protest regardless of the response of the security apparatus,” Mr. Hussein said in a statement sent to Reuters.Read the full story here.

• Woman held for wearing 'tight' pants ... even under a gown.(Emirates247).Police ran after woman to arrest her as she walked in a park in Dammam.Saudi Arabia’s most feared Islamic police arrested a woman while she was doing a walking exercise with tight pants worn under her gown, a local newspaper reported on Saturday.Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stopped the woman as she was doing her regular exercise in a park in the eastern town of Dammam.“At first she ignored them when they shouted to her to stop,” Sharq Arabic language daily said. “They then ran after her and arrested her for wearing a tight pants under her gown.”Hmmmmm........Feel free to fill in the dots,it's getting beyond words!Read the full story here.

• Cairo, take two: Chairman President Obama to deliver second major Middle East speech.(DailyCaller).The president will deliver a second major speech on the Middle East to reset his foreign policy following the changes that have swept through the region since his much-lauded June 2009 Cairo speech.The contents of the planned Thursday speech are being closely held by administration officials, who only offer generalities, both off and on the record. “I’m sure that it will be a fairly sweeping and comprehensive speech about what we’ve all been privileged enough to witness since January,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Friday. “I’m not going to say too much because I obviously want the president to have the field,” he added.The timing of Obama’s address is puzzling, because turmoil in the Arab countries — dubbed “the Arab Spring” — may rapidly invalidate any speech, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the president of the GOP-affiliated American Action Forum, a libertarian-minded think-tank. “We’re still in spring, we’re not even in summer — why do you really want to talk in the middle of that?”The rapid pace of change was underlined Friday, when the president’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resigned, citing personal reasons. The envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, announced he was stepping down shortly before the president’s scheduled meeting with Israel’s visiting prime minister.The president is the chief author of the policies and words that will go into the the speech, which is to be delivered at the U.S. Department of State, said administration officials.He “has really been the central intellectual force in these decisions, in many cases, designing the approaches,” Thomas E. Donilon, the White House’s national security adviser, told the New York Times. The same article reported that the president “often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab affairs or regional news sites to get a local flavor for events … [and] has sounded out prominent journalists like Fareed Zakaria of Time magazine and CNN and Thomas L. Friedman … [and] ordered staff members to study transitions in 50 to 60 countries.”The president should use his official staff to gather needed information, said Holtz-Eakin, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005. “That’s why they’re there. [He should] ask them, and they’ll go find out,” he said.Obama’s emphasis on his personal role creates political risks. For example, Obama overrode his advisers and pushed for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February, partly because he wanted to aid Westernized activists, including Google executive Wael Ghonim, the New York Times’ report said. But Ghonim has since been sidelined by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group, and has signed a contract to write a book.Hmmmm....Sounds pretty dictatorial to me ...one man deciding a country it's future?Chairman Obama hasn't done such a good job so far,what's the next Obamination recognising the Palestinian state?Read the full story here.

• U.S. imams arrested for alleged Pakistani Taliban links.Miami (CNN) -- Two South Florida imams and a third family member were arrested Saturday on charges of providing support to the Pakistani Taliban, the Justice Department said.In addition, three others in Pakistan were also indicted on the same charges.FBI agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar Khan in South Florida, the department said. They are expected to make their initial court appearance in federal court on Monday.Another of Hafiz Khan's sons, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles and will appear in court there.Also charged are three Pakistani residents: Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb, and Amina Khan. Amina Khan is Hafiz Khan's daughter, and Zeb is his grandson.The four-count indictment alleges that all six defendants conspired to provide material support to a conspiracy to kill, injure and kidnap people abroad, and that they provided support to the Pakistani Taliban.Hafiz Khan is the imam at Flagler Mosque in Miami. Izhar Khan, is an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Florida."Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace. Instead, as today's charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming," U.S. Attorney Wilfredo A. Ferrer said. "But for law enforcement intervention, these defendants would have continued to transfer funds to Pakistan to finance the Pakistani Taliban, including its purchase of guns."The indictment describes a number of occasions where Hafiz Khan transferred money to Pakistan, and where money was withdrawn once there."Khan solicited and distributed funds for the Pakistani Taliban, both personally and on behalf of others, and worked with the co-defendants and others to support the Pakistani Taliban's jihad," the indictment states.The elder Khan also built a madrassa in Pakistan's Swat Valley that provided shelter for the terrorist group, the indictment states.The Pakistani Taliban represent a confederation of Taliban groups in northwestern Pakistan, where they are based, said Bill Roggio, military-affairs analyst who is managing editor of The Long War Journal.Those fighters attack targets in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.The group, which is headquartered in Quetta, is different from the Afghan Taliban, which has been focused on re-establishing the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.Both groups swear allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and have close ties to al Qaeda, he said.Hmmmm....Two years After the Cairo speech the Middle East is even more negative towards the US than before!No More 'outreach'.Read the full story here.

• Russian sects: from Rasputin to the 'Jesus of Siberia'.(Telegraph).Russia has spawned a number of bizarre sects since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as ordinary Russians have struggled to make the transition from state-sponsored atheism to a society where the Russian Orthodox Church is again in the ascendancy.Experts say there are as many as 700 sects in Russia attracting between 600,000 to 800,000 followers. The latest sect to make the headlines is an all-female group, which believes that Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, is a reincarnation of early Christian missionary Paul the apostle. Read the full story here.

• Cops increase security for Bintan bikini beach party.(JakartaPost).Police will deploy extra security measures for a so-called Bikini Beach Party on Bintan in Riau.Islands on Saturday that will be broadcast by Fashion TV, following protests from hard-line Muslim groups.Police said the theme of the event did not violate the anti-pornography law as alleged by opponents.Bintan Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Dwi Sulistiyono told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the event, which would be held at the Nirwana Garden Resort in the Lagoi International Tourism Zone, would go on as scheduled.“In response to objections by a number of groups, the police will increase security for this events,” Dwi said.He added that it was normal for people to wear bikinis on the beach.“Furthermore, we were told that the event is not open to the public. The large signboards [advertising the party] are just to enliven the event,” he said.Dwi added 100 police officers would be deployed at the event.The head of the Riau Islands branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Tengku Azhari Abbas, told the Post on Thursday that the MUI was shocked to learn the event would be held on Bintan, despite the fact that the ethnic Malays in Bintan and the Riau Islands are mainly Muslim.He claimed the event would have a negative effect on the public, so the MUI was strongly opposed to it.Event organizers expressed confidence the event would take place as scheduled despite the protests. They said the exclusive nature of the venue was added value as it prevented disturbances.Event organizers expressed confidence the event would take place as scheduled despite the protests. They said the exclusive nature of the venue was added value as it prevented disturbances.Nirwana Garden Resort general affairs and administrative director Anton told the Post that those invited to the event had been told the dress code was white bikinis.Fashion TV booked all 400 rooms at the Nirwana Garden Resort. The event is expected to draw 800 people. Fashion TV had requested a venue that could hold 1,000 guests.“All the rooms are fully booked for tomorrow’s event. Guests who are not accommodated here can stay in other resorts in Lagoi,” Anton said.Read the full story here.