Saudi Diplomat Under Investigation For Alleged Gang-Rape, Torture of servants.

Saudi Diplomat Under Investigation For Alleged Gang-Rape, Torture of servants.(NDTv).

Gurgaon: A Saudi Arabian diplomat is being investigated after two Nepalese women rescued from his home in Gurgaon have alleged gang-rape and repeated assault.

"We were treated like animals," one of the women told NDTV.

On Monday, 40 policemen arrived at the fifth floor flat of the diplomat to find the women being beaten by two Saudi women, who allegedly spat on the police and assaulted them.

In an FIR or police complaint that does not mention the diplomat's name but only "Saudi Arab Ke Admi (people from Saudi Arabia)", the women have given the police a disturbing account of gang-rape, torture and slavery.

"We have established the identity and have enough proof against the flat owner, but diplomatic immunity is involved and we will get back to the foreign ministry," said Navdeep Singh Virk, the Gurgaon police chief.

The Saudi Arabian embassy, however, denied called the allegations false and unproven, and lodged a protest with India on the "police intrusion into a diplomat's house against all diplomatic conventions."

The two women had been working with the family as domestic helps for four months. The torture allegedly began in Jeddah and continued in Gurgaon.

The women were allegedly raped and tortured by different men who visited the house. "They raped us, kept us locked up, did not give us anything to eat," one of the women told NDTV.

One of them, a 50-year-old from Morang in Nepal, had divorced recently. The other woman, 30, has two little children in Nepal's Baglung, and a husband who has cancer.

They both took the job in desperation but were never paid.

They said they were afraid to tell anyone because they were beaten and threatened, sometimes with a knife.

The horror in that household was exposed when a newly hired help ran away after seeing the wretched condition of the women. She contacted a non-profit - Meitei India - which went to the police.

German judge declares Al-Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour's arrest legal, extradition to be assessed

German judge declares Al-Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour's arrest legal, extradition to be assessed.(AA).

A judge in Berlin Sunday formally evaluated the case of Ahmed Mansour and declared his arrest legal, ordering the well known Al-Jazeera journalist to be kept in detention pending enquiries into his possible extradition to Egypt.

Mansour was detained by German police at Berlin's Tegel Airport Saturday as he was about to board a plane to Qatar. Mansour was detained based on an international arrest warrant issued by Egypt.

The charges against Mansour are still unclear, with the German police not listing any specific accusations so far. His lawyer, Fazli Altin, told AP that he is accused of harming Egypt's reputation and of committing torture, while Al-Jazeera has claimed that abduction and rape are among the charges.

The prosecutor general of Egypt, meanwhile, reportedly called on Interpol Sunday to hand over Mansour to Egyptian authorities. A formal extradition request has been submitted to the German authorities as well.

The Berlin high court, or Kammergericht (KG), will evaluate this request Monday, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports. According to the paper, obstacles to extradition would include the possibility of applying the death penalty or torture in this case, as well as strong hints of political motivations behind the case.

The fact that Egypt and Germany do not have an extradition treaty is not a major hindrance, an Egypt foreign ministry spokesman told AP.

In practice, German courts assess extradition requests by examining the political situation in the country concerned. The German foreign ministry, the justice ministry and occasionally the chancellory are also asked to provide statements.

Even if the KG approves extradition, the German government could still veto the procedure for various "overriding" reasons, FAZ noted. Read the full story here.

Video: Al-Jazeera’s Ahmed Mansour in the torture video of a lawyer in 2011?

Hmmm....A Voice analysis would quickly determine if it is Ahmed Mansour in the video below, this is up to the courts.

VID #Mansour is seen complicit in interrogation of a lawyer in 2011 #MB #Egypt http://t.co/AdnVdpK60Z pic.twitter.com/ASUSk6nMbT Journalist??

— Karina Loren (@miskelayla) June 21, 2015

@Muschelschloss looks pretty similar to me, but courts have to decide this ----> http://t.co/4gmM9JZVhc

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) June 22, 2015

Ahmed Mansour

INTERPOL hatte #Mansur noch vor 6 Monaten informiert, dass der ägyptische Haftbefehl ungültig ist cc @mathieuvonrohr pic.twitter.com/CrPQq7VBcb

— Tilo Jung (@TiloJung) June 21, 2015

Iran: State TV broadcast ‘confessions’ by 11 jailed for online jokes about Khomeini

Iran: State TV broadcast ‘confessions’ by 11 jailed for online jokes about Khomeini. (NCRI).

State-run TV in Iran broadcast the "televised confessions" of 11 people jailed for posting jokes about Khomeini, the clerical regime’s founder, on social networking site.

The Iranian regime's Revolutionary Guards Corp Commander Esmaeel Mohebipour declaring their arrest in late September said the individuals had published comments insulting Khomeini on WhatsApp, Viber, Tango and Telegram.

The news of arrests come a day after Iran’s Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei issued a one-month ultimatum for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to ban the applications WhatsApp, Viber and Tango.

Mohseni Ejei said the offensive comments under the guise of jokes about Khomeini had been widely circulated on the Viber, Tango and WhatsApp networks in recent weeks.

The video aired showed 11 young man whose faces are blurred stating that by posting jokes about Khomeini, they wanted to have fun and they "did not know about the severity of such act."

Extracting "televised confessions” from prisoners under torture and duress is a common method that the clerical regime has used over the past 30 years.

This regime practice is hated by the Iranians. Several former political prisoners who were forced to make such ‘confessions’, when released said that the false confessions were extracted under torture.

In the same broadcast Esmail Mohebbi-Pour, the commander of the IRGC in Fars province (southern Iran) said that" sophisticated tracing techniques "were used to identify and arrest these individuals.

During the televised confessions, one of those arrested said that often he transferred SMS he had received from other people, without taking the time to read the content of the SMS.

Kamal Hadifar, the head of the Iranian regime Cyberpolice responsible for monitoring activities on Internet, said Sunday, Oct. 12 that the departments under his authority control all users’ activities in social networks including "Viber" and "WhatsApp".

Scores of online activists, users and bloggers have been jailed and tortured and killed for comments about Iran's ruling dictators, which have always been a common way to express their dissent.

The jokes about Khomeini reflect common criticisms of the regime’s policies and hollow promises, including his pledge to provide free water and electricity.

One joke said 'Khomeini comes home and sees bills for water, electricity, and gas on the ground. He asks, 'Weren’t these free?’


The joke concludes: “Forgetfulness was one of Imam’s weaknesses.”

Another Saudi woman tortures Asian maid to death.

Another Saudi woman tortures Asian maid to death.(E24/7).A Saudi woman tortured her Asian housemaid to death and police said the employer confessed to having used violence against the maid. The maid was admitted dead to the hospital in the northwestern town of Al Jouf and doctors discovered bruises all over her body. "Her employer confessed to having caused those bruises by using violence against the maid,” police spokesman Brigadier Daman Al Diran said without identifying the Saudi woman and the victim.Read the full story here.

Syria - Assad's troops plant landmines along border to stop refugees fleeing to Turkey: official.

Syria - Assad's troops plant landmines along border to stop refugees fleeing to Turkey: official.(AA).(TheDailyMail).As the Syrian revolt entered its second year on Thursday, around 1,000 refugees crossed into Turkey in one day, Turkish officials said.
Turkey said 1,000 refugees had crossed into Turkey from Syria in the last 24 hours, bringing the total of registered Syrian refugees in Turkey to some 14,000.An official said: “We expect this to continue as long as the operation goes on in Idlib.”
Troops have planted landmines along routes used by people trying to flee President Bashar Assad's regime, it has been claimed.Activists said government forces laid the banned weapons, which they fear will hurt citizens for 'years to come', in areas close to the Turkish border.
The shocking new tactic was revealed as it was confirmed Syria would be sending a team to this summer's Olympics in London, and they will compete under the existing national flag.
New York-based Human Rights Watch's Steve Goose said the mines were planted in the past few days, and added: 'Any use of anti-personnel landmines is unconscionable.
'There is absolutely no justification for the use of these indiscriminate weapons by any country, anywhere, for any purpose.'
The continuation of violence came as the International Olympic Committee today said a small group of Syrian athletes could qualify for the Games.
The United Nations estimates that more than 8,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting. Some 230,000 Syrians have been displaced from their homes, including 30,000 who have fled abroad, raising the prospect of a refugee crisis.
In Syria, the official media announced that government forces had cleared “armed terrorists” from the northwestern city of Idlib and said supporters of President Bashar al-Assad would hold rallies across Syria.
But opponents of Assad’s regime show no sign of backing down and there were reports of continuing clashes in areas around Idlib, as well as close to the central city of Homs, which has been pummeled by the army in recent weeks.
Syrian state television said there would be a “Global March for Syria” to honor those killed by the rebels and video footage showed crowds gathering in a central Damascus square.
The government has blamed foreign powers and “terrorists” for the chaos and say 2,000 soldiers have died in the conflict.Assad confidently predicted at the start of 2011 that Syria was immune from the “Arab Spring,” in which the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen were swept from power.
But on March 15, a few dozen protesters braved the streets of Damascus to call for more freedom. Days later riots broke out in Deraa, on the border with Jordan, to protest against the torture of local boys caught writing anti-government graffiti.
Syrian forces are carrying out more than 30 types of torture on prisoners, a report claims.
Amnesty International said civilians held by security forces in the crackdown on anti-government protests were being horrifically abused.The torture methods include crucifixion-type beatings, electric shocks and rape, according to a report based on accounts from Syrians who had fled to Jordan.
A contact in Deraa told Reuters most schools and shops in the main commercial area were closed on Thursday, with hundreds of security forces patrolling the streets. State employees were being ordered to stage a pro-Assad rally, residents said.
A coalition of 200 human rights watchdogs urged Russia to back U.N. action to end the bloodshed in Syria, in a joint statement issued on Thursday marking one year since the violence erupted.“A coalition of 200 NGOs from 27 countries... is demanding that the U.N. Security Council immediately unite and pass a resolution calling on the Syrian government to stop indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighborhoods and other violations of international law, stop arbitrary arrests and torture and grant urgent access to humanitarian workers, journalists and human rights monitors,” the statement said.
The call for the international community to “Unite for Syria: Stop one year of bloodshed” was backed by activists across the world, as well as celebrities including British actor Stephen Fry and Canadian singer Nelly Furtado.
“For a full year, the death toll in Syria has escalated to the horrifying total of more than 8,000 dead, including hundreds of children. Isn't it time for the world to unite behind effective steps to stop this now?” said Ziad Abdel Tawab of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights.
The Institute signed the statement along with the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Christian Aid, CIVICUS and the International Federation of Human Rights.
“Russia and China have twice blocked Security Council action, a defense of Assad that he has interpreted as a licence to kill,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“Moscow and Beijing should stop providing diplomatic cover for Syrian atrocities, and start demanding an end to indiscriminate shelling and attacks on peaceful protesters,” he said, quoted in the statement.The NGOs called on the U.N. Security Council to demand the Syrian regime stop shelling protesters; urged the international community to back envoy Kofi Annan; demanded humanitarian access to areas in need of aid; and appealed for the “Friends of Syria” coalition to uphold its aid pledges.Read and see the full story here.More here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan 4.7 and 4.8 in Chili and Guam  ! More info here.

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

• Breaking - Blast rocks nuclear plant in France.(RT).At least one person has been killed and three more wounded in an explosion which rocked on Monday a nuclear power plant in Marcoule, southern France.According to emergency services, there is a risk of a radioactive leak after the blast. Meanwhile French nuclear authorities say there is no leak “at this time”.All of the plant's reactors have been shut down following the incident. There is no clear information immediately available as to how much risk the incident poses.The site is involved in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, and operates a pressurized water reactor used to produce tritium.Sources say the blast happened in one of the workshops where nuclear waste is disposed of.Le Figaro newspaper reports that there was also a fire in the storage site where explosion set off.Read full story here.

• The Secret Blue State Plan To Steal The 2012 Elections.(JosuahPundit).The deep Blue states above all have something in common. They're all ruled by solid Democrat majorities in their State Legislatures and they've all passed legislation designed to favor Democrat urban strongholds, disenfranchise less populated Red States and have a decisive effect on the 2012 election.And very few people know about it.The legislation is known as The National Popular Vote bill, and there's an ongoing attempt to get it passed in as many states as possible. It's mainly being championed by Democrats, with a sprinkling of Republicans to give it the aura of 'bi-partisanship'.The states above control 138 electoral votes. Because they've all signed on to The National Popular Vote Act, those electoral votes will automatically go to the candidate who gets the most popular votes nationally - regardless of how the citizens of these states actually vote.For instance, let's say that in 2012 the largely Republican voters in downstate Illinois and some of the suburbs manage to outvote the Democrats, corpses, illegal aliens and vagrants put together by the ward bosses and the machine in Chicago and Cook County. Because the Democrats in the Illinois Legislature have managed to push the National Popular Vote Act through, Illinois' 20 electoral votes would go not necessarily to the Republican candidate the majority of voters in the state chose but to whichever candidate got the majority of votes nationally. If Barack Obama were to win the popular vote nationally by even as little as 100 votes, Illinois' 20 electoral votes will automatically go him.This scenario is also known as Al Gore's wet dream.

None of these states held a referendum on this. It was all done by legislative fiat.It's also interesting to look at some of the people behind this.The Chairman, Dr. John Kozas of Los Altos California is a wealthy lefty who made his money from co-inventing the scratch-off lottery ticket and then lobbying state governments to sell them. Among many other far Left and socialist groups and candidates he's supported as a donor and/or bundled for is Howard Dean's Democracy For America ( DFA) political organization, Berkeley nut case Rep. Barbara Lee, Senator Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, The Democratic Farmer/Labor Party, the DNC, Senator Boxer's PAC for a Change, and of course, Barack Obama. The list is a long one.Tom Golisano is a prominent business man with deep pockets who was the co-counder of the Independence Party of New York, a party split between Perotistas and a strong Marxist element. He was also a Kerry donor. Forbes estimates his personal wealth at $1.2 billion.Barry Fadem, the president, is a long-time Democrat operative in California, who worked for Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally arguably one of the most incompetent and perhaps racist public officials in state history. He's another Boxer donor, as well as to ActBlue, an organization that seeks to organize boycotts to penalize businesses thought to be too 'Republican'.Jason Roe was a Republican operative in the northeast with all that implies until he got a little too close to Jack Abramoff.National Popular Vote Secretary Chris Pearson is another long time far Left Democrat operative who worked with admitted socialist Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Party.Larry Sokol is a longtime Democrat legislative staffer and lobbyist in California. His connections were instrumental in shepherding the Nation Popular Vote Bill through the California Legislature.Former Minnesota GOP Representative Laura Brod is something of the odd person out here.While the cast of the group is overwhelmingly Left- leaning, Brod says there is a conservative argument for NPV.She claims that this is a state's rights prerogative according to Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, that the current system means that national candidates spend their time and resources and craft policy based on the needs of battleground states while ignoring states with little electoral clout and states they feel they have no chance of carrying. Brod's argument is that NPV will make every vote count and force National candidates to campaign in every state. These arguments all have some validity. Democrat nominees usually give Utah and Texas a pass and Republicans do the same to Connecticut and Massachusetts.Where she's mistaken, in my opinion is the ultimate outcome. Widespread adoption of the NPV would simply give the Democrats an opportunity and the incentive to build up huge vote tallies in the corrupt urban strongholds they control by means fair or foul in an attempt to simply overwhelm voters in smaller Red states.Voting illegal aliens, dead people, 'activists' being carted from state to state taking advantage of same day registration and felons in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City and similar areas wouldn't just affect those states anymore...it would infect the voting process throughout the country and ultimately make the Electoral college irrelevant.This is a Trojan Horse. And that's exactly why this group is mainly led by Left wing Democrats and why legislatures dominated by Democrats in Blue states are in love with it.Make no mistake about it. This is a well-funded, highly organized group and could have a major impact in 2012. And hardly anyone knows about it.Hmmmm....Democracy or Dictatorship?Read the full story here.

• Crowd Cheers Bush at Ground Zero… Silence For Obama Video.(BarracudaBrigade).During the ceremonies today at Ground Zero on the 10 year anniversary of the attacks, the crowd was noticeably silent when Obama walked to the microphone. But the reaction was entirely different for Bush.Read and see the full story here.

• How Harvard Remembered 9/11.Hint: their Middle East program is funded by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.(PajamasMedia).While most of the nation was commemorating the fallen of 9/11 with sadness and resolve to understand the ongoing threat of Islamic extremism, arguably the nation’s foremost institution of higher learning approached the tenth anniversary from a very different perspective.At Harvard, the theme was — you guessed it — “Islamophobia.” From Harvard’s introductory declaration for its “campus-wide panel”:Today marks the anniversary of the horrific attacks of September 11th, 2001. As Americans reflect and mourn the loss of nearly 3000 people, Muslim Americans not only share their grief, but also express their own challenges amidst stereotyping, discrimination, racial profiling and hate crimes.Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the event’s producer, declined to invite a single representative from any victims’ groups. There were no speakers from the September 11th Families Association, 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, Uniformed Firefighters of Greater New York, or Tuesday’s Children (a support group for those who lost relatives on that day).Thanks in great measure to Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Islamic Studies Program, there were — in abundance — plenty of academics obviously recruited to remind students of their take on the real tragedy surrounding 9/11: the racism, bigotry, and, of course, Islamophobia inherent in American society.It was the deep-pocketed prince whose $10 million “donation” to the Twin Towers Fund was summarily refused by then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Having been rebuffed, the prince quickly dropped $20 million into the laps of Harvard and Georgetown shortly thereafter — no refusals there.And what a bounty those riyals have yielded. The prince knew precisely where to monetize Saudi influence at the two most prestigious academic factories supplying the State Department. At Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the prince’s suggestion that the United States “re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinians” has produced results. For a decade, Harvard has presented a wildly skewed lineup of jihadist apologists and anti-Israel academics, from discredited charlatans like Ilan Pappe to spokesmen like Mustafa Abu Sway — who likes to remind us that “terror is the weapon of the weak.”The session’s components were designed not to commemorate the dead and to discover the role played by al-Qaeda and its jihadist antecedents, but to examine the ingrained bigotry of non-Muslim white Americans. The CMES sought to reduce the murders to a PC lesson plan for high school teachers:What role do you think Muslim artists and authors might play in dispelling stereotypes about Islam?In keeping with banishing the victims to the shadows, educational gobbledygook reigned supreme, again highlighting the nastiness of America and its fundamental bias against Muslims:How do the notions of uniforms and the flags inform our idea of identity? Of “other?”Is there/who is the implied “other” in both of these images?Other PowerPoint slides revealed a distinct absence of attention to human suffering, focusing more on the mechanics of destruction:The Facade Falls: The latticework facing of the south tower came tumbling to earth upon impact of the hijacked plane.Were the authors cleverly trying to insinuate their views of America’s “facade” of tolerance?Overseeing the apologist gala was Professor Jocelyne Cesari, the French Algerian-born political scientist, recently of — where else? — Columbia University, and director of Harvard’s “Islam in the West” and “Islamopedia” programs. Among other brilliant observations, Professor Cesari has dubbed the misogynistic, Jew-hating, homophobic (to the point of extermination) Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi “not a radical.”Other faculty advisers included Duncan Kennedy, Carter professor of General Jurisprudence at Harvard Law School, whose attention for many years has been focused less on general jurisprudence and more on the delegitimization of Israel. Following Operation Cast Lead in 2008, Kennedy convened a discussion/tribunal declaring Israel guilty of violating basic tenets of international humanitarian law. They barely mentioned Hamas.The historical reality of the theory and practice of jihad was not a welcome concept at this event. The word was virtually unutterable. In a brief glossary, however — apparently provided by another happy recipient of Prince bin Talal’s largesse, John Esposito of Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding — jihad is described this way:Jihad may refer to a defensive military action undertaken to protect a Muslim community from an armed aggressor, generally understood to be non-Muslim
Aggressive jihad, it would seem, does not exist and has never existed. Were the 19 terrorists performing a “defensive military action” on 9/11?Hmmmmm......The Institution who 'produced' Barack HUSSEIN Obama.Read the full story here.

• Saudi  Prince Turki Al Faisal threatens the United States on Palestinian veto exactly ten years after 9/11.(NYT).The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people. Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy. Like our recent military support for Bahrain’s monarchy, which America opposed, Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so. The Saudi government might part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well. The Palestinian people deserve statehood and all that it entails: official recognition, endorsement by international organizations, the ability to deal with Israel on more equal footing and the opportunity to live in peace and security. Israel should see the Palestinian bid for statehood not as a threat, but as a chance to return to the negotiating table and prevent further conflict. Recent polls show that up to 70 percent of Palestinians say they believe there will be a new intifada if the deadlock is not broken shortly; this should encourage Israel to seek peace with the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The Obama administration has had ample opportunities to lead Israelis and Palestinians into bilateral peace talks, but American policy makers have unfortunately been more preoccupied with a deteriorating domestic economy and a paralyzed political scene than with finding a workable solution to this epic injustice. Because Washington has offered no viable new proposals, the least it can do is step aside and not hinder Saudi, European and moderate Arab efforts to advance Palestinian rights at the United Nations.Today, there is a chance for the United States and Saudi Arabia to contain Iran and prevent it from destabilizing the region. But this opportunity will be squandered if the Obama administration’s actions at the United Nations force a deepening split between our two countries. Although Saudi Arabia is willing and able to chart a new and divergent course if America fails to act justly with regard to Palestine, the Middle East would be far better served by continuing cooperation and good will between these longstanding allies. American support for Palestinian statehood is therefore crucial, and a veto will have profound negative consequences. In addition to causing substantial damage to American-Saudi relations and provoking uproar among Muslims worldwide, the United States would further undermine its relations with the Muslim world, empower Iran and threaten regional stability. Let us hope that the United States chooses the path of justice and peace.Hmmmm.......Obey......or else.Hmmmm……Is this the same Prince Turki al-Faisal that met with Osama Bin laden in in June 2001 in a hospital in Dubai?Prince Turki Al Faisal had confirmed meetings with the Bin Laden Group and Osama bin Laden himself, several times in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan before he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. In July 1998, as the lawsuit said, Al Faisal met Taliban leaders in Kandahar, Afghanistan and reached agreement on fresh aid from Riyad. “Prince Turki also promised to provide oil and generous financial assistance to both the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the meeting, 400 new pick-up trucks arrived in Kandahar for the Taliban, still bearing Saudi Arabia license plates.Read the full story here.

• GOP Rep. Peter King To Testify Before British Parliament On Muslim Radicalization.(AFP)Washington - Republican Representative Peter King will become the first member of the US Congress to testify before a British Parliamentary hearing this week when he talks to MPs in London about Muslim radicalization, his office said.King, who chairs the key House Committee on Homeland Security, will testify in London on Tuesday about the radicalization of Muslims in US communities and the west, his office said Monday.The House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs has launched an inquiry entitled the “Roots of Violent Radicalisation,” similar to a line of inquiry King has taken in US House hearings.According to researchers from both the US Congress and the House of Commons, King will be the first member of Congress to testify before a parliamentary hearing, his office said.“While I have consistently stated the overwhelming majority of Muslim-Americans are outstanding people, the reality is that radicalization within the Muslim-American community by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates is a real threat to the security of our homeland,” King said in a statement.“I am honored to have been invited” to the parliamentary hearing, he said, noting that “as our vital ally, the United Kingdom, struggles with this same threat within its own borders.”In a statement, British MP Keith Vaz, who launched the Home Affairs Committee inquiry, said he was “delighted” King had accepted the invitation to testify.Read the full story here.

• Report: Turkey to defuse Israeli Navy weapons.(Ynet).While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to arrive in Egypt for a historic visit, daily newspaper Sabah on Monday reported that the Turkish Navy is preparing to deploy three warships in the Mediterranean Sea, in order to "safeguard the freedom of navigation." According to a report, Turkish navy echelons decided that if one of its ships crosses paths with an Israeli vessel outside of the latter's territorial waters, it will be instructed to come within 100 meters of the ship and neutralize its weapons system.Over the weekend, Erdogan ruffled feathers in Israel after he was quoted as saying that Turkish warships will protect boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza moving forward. "Turkish warships, in the first place, are authorized to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza," Erdogan was quoted as saying. "From now on, we will not let these ships to be attacked by Israel, as what happened with the Freedom Flotilla.The next day, Ankara issued a clarification, claiming the published quotes failed to correctly interpret Erdogan's intention."It appeared as if we were offering to have warships escort every aid vessel. This is not true. Turkey will defend the rights of its citizens only when Israel chooses to intervene and prevent free movement in international waters," an official source said.Hmmmm.....Does all this happen with Obama's and Clinton's their approval in view of the frequent contacts with Turkey?Read the full story here.

• Egypt threatens to use live rounds in security crackdown.(Guardian).Egyptian authorities have detained a further 92 people and vowed to use live ammunition to protect key buildings following the storming of the Israeli embassy last week, which left three protesters dead and provoked the worst crisis in Israel-Egypt relations for a generation."We won't allow anyone to attack the interior ministry or any police station," the interior minister, Mansour al-Essawy, told state TV. "According to the law, we will resist … If there is a danger to a building or those present inside the building, we will confront with bullets."The latest crackdown brings the total number of arrests from Friday's protests to 130, and comes as Turkey's prime minister prepares to fly into the Egyptian capital on Monday night, to begin a four-day tour of north Africa.Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is embroiled in his own diplomatic row with Israel over the killing of pro-Palestinian Turkish activists by Israeli soldiers on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara aid flotilla ship last year, will address the Arab League on Tuesday. He is expected to outline Turkey's new "regional foreign policy vision", promoting closer ties with revolutionary Arab countries and sidelining their one-time ally Israel.The trip will involve high-level talks with the de facto Egyptian leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and the interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf, with discussions focused on the forthcoming Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN, which both countries support, and the development of closer business links between the two nations. Turkey's trade with the Arab world has increased six-fold under Erdogan's rule – an indication of the country's shifting diplomatic and economic priorities in the Middle East.Erdogan's rhetoric is likely to resonate strongly in post-Mubarak Egypt, where anger has been mounting in recent weeks over Israel's blockade of Gaza and a recent border incident that left six Egyptian soldiers dead at the hands of Israeli military forces.The latest developments have left Egypt's military junta in a tricky position, as it seeks to appease public anger while reassuring foreign allies that it will carry on meeting its international obligations under the Camp David peace treaty with Israel.Friday's clashes in and around the Israeli embassy come at a critical time for Egypt, as the trial of the former president Hosni Mubarak gathers pace and preparations continue for the country's first democratic elections in November. On Sunday, Tantawi rejected a summons to give evidence at Mubarak's court case, claiming he was too busy dealing with the ongoing security situation in the capital.Tantawi is now scheduled to attend the trial in late September, along with several other key witnesses including Mubarak's former spy chief and vice-president, Omar Suleiman, the army's chief of staff, Sami Anan, and the current and former interior ministers. The judge has declared that testimony will be given in private, with television cameras barred from the courtroom.Hmmmm.....Erdogan escalating the situation in the Middle East ,looking for war with Israel, all actions against the UN Charter.Read the full story here.

• Saadi Qaddafi flees to Niger; Libyans prepare to form transitional government.(AlArabiya).One of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s sons, Saadi Qaddafi, arrived Sunday in Niger, a government spokesman said, as the National Transitional Council says a transition government will be formed within 10 days.“Today, September 11, a patrol of the Nigerien armed forces intercepted a convoy in which was found one of Qaddafi’s sons,” Marou Amadou said.It was Saadi Qaddafi, “the footballer,” said Amadou, who is also Niger’s justice minister. “At this moment the convoy is en route to Agadez (northern Niger). The convoy could arrive in Niamey between now and tomorrow,” he added.Saadi, 38, the third of Qaddafi’s seven sons, is known as a playboy who renounced a football career in 2004 to join the army, where he led an elite unit.Niger vowed Friday to respect international commitments if wanted Libyans entered its territory, and confirmed that three Qaddafi-era generals, including his air force chief, al-Rifi Ali Al-Sharif, had arrived in Agadez.Niamey has confirmed allowing in a dozen Qaddafi aides, including his internal security chief Mansour Daw, for “humanitarian reasons”.They are being held under house arrest in Niamey, in a tightly guarded state-owned villa on the banks of the Niger river.Sources said more Qaddafi loyalists in a dozen vehicles arrived in Agadez Friday, escorted by Nigerien troops.Niamey has denied that Qaddafi himself was on its soil.Saadi Qaddafi said on August 21 he was ready to give himself up “if my surrender stops the spilling of blood.”Officials of Libya's new ruling council gave assurances at the time that his life would be safe if he gave himself up.The whereabouts of Muammar Qaddafi and his pre-revolution heir apparent Seif al-Islam remain unknown since the fall of Tripoli last month.The International Criminal Court has issued warrants for the two men and other Qaddafi loyalists for alleged crimes against humanity.Meanwhile, the deputy chief of the National Transitional Council told reporters that a new transitional government will be formed in Libya within 10 days.“A new government will be formed within one week to ten days,” said Mahmud Jibril, who serves as the “prime minister” of the NTC, the political wing of the rebellion that overthrew strongman Qaddafi.“This new government will include representatives from different regions in Libya,” Jibril said.Rebel forces are still “in the process of liberating Libya, and revolutionary combatant are still on the fronts,” Jibril added, referring in particular to Bani Walid and Sirte, where regime loyalists are still holding out.He said that another government will be formed once “Libya is liberated.”Jibril also hailed the “liberation of Tripoli without bloodshed” last month.“We were expecting a bloodbath, but this was prevented by the maturity of the revolutionaries who were able to secure the capital,” he said.Read the full story here.

• Gay Iranians launch online campaign.(Ynet).Video - The gay community in Iran has launched a Facebook campaign against the Iranian regime that views their sexual identity a crime punishable by death. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iranians have posted videos of themselves online in an attempt to tell the world about the discrimination they suffer from, the Guardian has reported.Despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim in 2007 by which there are no gays in Iran, so far, over 1,600 have joined the page, titled 'We are everywhere'. Iranians who posted their stories online made efforts to hide their identity fearing they would be exposed, while some Iranian expatriates spoke freely of their sexual preferences."As a gay person, my biggest problem in Iran is that I cannot be my real self," said an Iranian gay man, only identified as Mehdi, who has posted a video online from inside Iran. "I always have to play a role. I always have to suppress my own existence and part of my identity and hide myself in fear from the society and potential problems that I might face." In the video, Mehdi's face was only shown from the mouth down. "Like this video, I always have to hide a part of myself from others in my life," he said.In another video of a gay Iranian living outside of Iran, a man is seen filmed at chest level with his message written on paper towel. "I am an Iranian gay. I fear to show my real face, I fled Iran, I escaped from my own family, I was driven away from my country. Now, I am a gay refugee in Turkey and count the days, we are everywhere."As a neighboring country, Turkey serves as a refuge for many gay Iranians who escape from Iran through the mountains. However, they complain that they experience homophobic treatment in Turkey as well.Read and see the full story here.

• Iran - Dr. Maleki’s letter to Ahmed Shaheed: I testify to 32 years of crime.(Persian2English).In a letter to Ahmad Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, Dr. Mohammad Maleki, the first president of Tehran University after the Islamic revolution, declared that he is ready to reveal the crimes he has witnessed over the past 32 years in Iran. Maleki was recently summoned to appear before the court.“I am ready to reveal the facts I have witnessed in the Velayat-e Faghih prisons and pay the price for it.”An excerpt of the letter: “I am one of tens of thousands of Iranians whose human rights have been frequently violated by the authoritarian and despotic rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past 32 years, and I have witnessed many crimes in Iranian prisons.”The retired university professor added, “I shall testify how, during the 1980s, each night after being severely tortured, young prisoners and students, both male and female, were taken for execution by tens or hundreds. They walked toward their destiny while singing chants along the way.”Dr. Maleki mentioned instances of torture in the Islamic Republic prisons and said: “During this period I was treated in the cruelest ways possible, including: being lashed with a cable wire on the soles of my feet and other parts of my body; being hung from the ceiling; my head being smashed against the wall; and being punched and kicked, which led to my blindness in the left eye and my right wrist to break…and all other kinds of torture. The signs of some of these tortures are still evident on my body.”Read the full story here.

• Relations with Israel and the Kurdish question.(HurriyetDaily).The rising tension between Turkey and Israel is not the only a problem of confrontational regional relations, but it may also have serious implications on domestic politics. All countries in the region used to manipulate anti-Israeli feelings as a useful tool to hide their authoritarian politics. Anti-Israeli rhetoric is not only the official discourse in Iran and Syria, but in all Arab countries, all sorts of regimes use this rhetoric to fill the gap of oppositionist energies. Moreover, it is also useful to suppress criticism by labeling it as an “Israeli conspiracy.” Now, as tension with Israel rises, Turkey seems to undergo a similar process. Many times, pro-government writers hint that any opposition to the present government may be related to the “Israeli lobby” since the new Turkish government policy dares to challenge Israel bravely.Recently, the conservative media started to portray the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as an “Israeli pawn.” In the dark days of the 1990s, the PKK was portrayed as collaborating with Armenian ASALA and PKK members were often presented not as Kurds but as Armenians. In fact, it is an old and major problem to avoid recognizing the Kurdish problem in all its aspects. In the past, the main problem was not to differentiate Kurds and the PKK and justify suppression of Kurds as fighting with PKK. Now it is the opposite, now the PKK has considerable social support, but this time the Turkish state and government want to differentiate the PKK to justify suppression and avoid any chance of negotiation for a peaceful solution.Those who portray the PKK as an Israeli pawn either must be seriously deluded concerning the Kurdish problem or must be thinking about killing two birds with one stone by despising Israel and the PKK at the same time. Nevertheless, such rhetoric risks the democracy in Turkey in two ways. Firstly, it further hinders chances of political negotiations for a democratic solution and social peace, by “evilizing” the Kurdish enemy. Secondly, the anti-Israeli feeling and its anti-Semitic implications are being enforced with the rhetoric of “war on terror” against the PKK.Anti-Semitism is not as popular in Turkey as it is in many Muslim countries, yet the danger exists. Unfortunately, most Turkish intellectuals are not concerned, but there is a tradition of anti-Semitism especially among conservative circles (and now among secular nationalist circles) in Turkey. Many intellectuals define anti-Semitism only as “hostility toward Jews” and underestimate the fact that anti-Semitism is also a kind of “reaction toward modernity,” so therefore an essential aspect of almost all authoritarian politics.When anti-Kurdish feelings meet anti-Semitism, one must say farewell to democracy. I hope we do not come to this point.Hmmmm......Farewell.Read the full story here.

• US is considering Turkey’s request to base a fleet of Predator drones on Turkish soil to use in the fight against terror.(HurriyetDaily).Turkish officials said Sunday that they were in talks with the United States over deployment of a fleet of Predator drones on its soil, an unmanned aircraft system seen crucially important in Turkey’s fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, confirming a Washington Post report.“Our interest in acquiring Predator drones is known,” a Turkish diplomatic source told the Hürriyet Daily News on Sunday, without giving details of the content of the negotiations between the two allies.According to the Washington Post, Washington is still considering Turkey’s request to base a fleet of drones on Turkish soil. Citing an unnamed senior military official, the Post said the Obama administration has not made a decision on the Turkish request.Turkey officially requested acquisition of six MQ-1 and MQ-6 Predator drones from the U.S. in mid-2009 but the request faced opposition from the U.S. Congress over Ankara’s policies regarding Iran and Israel. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan raised the issue during a meeting with U.S. President Barak Obama during a meeting in Canada in 2010 but what he heard about was congress’s negative attitude toward Turkey.The U.S. military has flown the unarmed Predators from Iraqi bases since 2007 and shared the planes’ surveillance video with Turkey as part of a secretive joint crackdown on the PKK. Unless a new home for the Predators is found, however, the counterterrorism partnership could cease by Dec. 31, when all U.S. forces are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq.Turkey asked the Obama administration this year to relocate the Predators to Incirlik Air Base, a joint U.S.-Turkish military installation, according to a senior U.S. military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks have not been made public. “They want to base them in Turkey and allow us to fly them across the border into Iraq,” the official said.It’s unclear whether U.S. or Turkish officials are seeking formal permission from Iraq to continue the drone flights, or whether Baghdad would simply turn a blind eye to the Predators when they cross into northern Iraq.If Iraq objected to the drone flights as a violation of its sovereignty, the unmanned aircraft could hover in Turkish airspace and use cameras to peer miles across the border. There is little to prevent the Predators from making incursions, however; Iraq has only a fledgling air force to patrol its skies.U.S. military officials favor the drone agreement with Turkey as a way to prevent conflict with the PKK from spiraling out of control. They say U.S. cooperation has restrained Turkey from launching bigger offensives into northern Iraq to try to wipe out the PKK.Hmmmm.....Goodbye Geneva convention....Judge, Jury and executioner?Would be usefull against Israel as well?Read the full story here.

• ‘Palestinians wait for Turkish PM’.(HurriyetDaily).The head of the Palestinian administration in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said they were making preparations for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s possible visit to Gaza and that the people of Palestine want the chance to show how much they love Turkey.In an interview in Gaza, Haniyeh defined the U.N. report on Israel’s deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship that killed nine Turks, as “terrible.”“The report has legitimized massacring Palestinians and the piracy staged on the Mavi Marmara aid ship. As the Palestinian people and their government, we do not accept the report and support Turkey’s position in not accepting it either,” said Haniyeh calling on the U.N. to bring certain Israeli generals to court for war crimes.“With efforts made in the region, Turkey tried to show that the superior power in the region is the Arabs and the Islamic world,” Haniyeh said. “As the people of Palestine, we support every step Ankara takes to end the embargo on Gaza.”Turkey’s downgrading of diplomatic relations and suspension of all military relations with Israel was a great support to the Palestinian people, Haniyeh added.Hmmmm....Anyone taking a bet Erdogan will show up in Gaza?Read the full story here.

• Related - Gaza is no ‘national cause’.(HurriyetDaily).By Kadri Gürsel.We, in fact, are discussing neither about Israel nor about Gaza but about Turkey. Israel and Gaza constitute not the subject but the object of the discussion.The subject of the discussion is Turkey’s torn identity and her tattered spirit.If we are looking for a national cause, we could hardly find one that is truer and more urgently in need of a solution. After all, the cause is about who defines what constitutes “national.” This cause is about our future. This cause is related to whether Turkey will emerge with a new social contract through a period marked by a clash of values and whether it will be able to move ahead without being physically fragmented.Will Turkey succeed in advancing its secular democracy and spread it to the masses while repairing its democratic roof? Or, in the end, will it be a country that is neither secular nor democratic? Personal rights and liberties, the rule of law, the freedom of faith, the liberty of expression, press freedoms and pluralism...These constitute our true national cause; our cause lies within ourselves.Now, let’s look at this issue from the point of view of how Turkey is defined by whether Gaza constitutes a national cause or not...If you define Turkey and her foreign policy within the parameters of the values of either classical or neo – Islamist ideology...And if you happen to be looking at Gaza through the prism of the “Sunni Islamic Ummah,” then it is natural for you to see a “national cause” or even the subject of a “jihad” here.In that case, it is also natural for your foreign enemy number one to be none other than Israel.Your despotic and anti-democratic political culture would also easily allow you to see as the “enemy within” those who criticize you for the true meaning of your perspective on Gaza. In other words, those people represent for you “the advocates of the archenemy Israel,” “those who fill the vacuum left behind by Israel’s ambassador.” That is how a vital debate that needs to be conducted within the framework of fairness and mutual respect for our democracy’s future gets drowned by means of such fascistic style. It is also because you look at your own citizens through the prism of the Sunni Islamic Ummah that you see “sectarian solidarity” behind dissident and contradictory views over Syria that require democratic tolerance. Those who are not of your own sect, on the other hand, or those whom you do not count from among the ummah are also equal citizens of this country whose rights are constitutionally ensured.Do you not end up dividing your own countrymen and countrywomen, and sow discord among them by throwing sectarian discrimination into the whole affair?Speaking of countrymen and countrywomen... They live on this “country.”Had you looked at Gaza not through the prism of the ummah, but through the prism of the country, you were not going to see any “national causes.”And you were not going to attempt moves that could incur great economic, political and military costs that also include the potential for armed conflict with another country’s army.For those who see Gaza through the prism of the “country,” no direct, vital, clear or present threat exists toward the country’s soil, borders and the security and well being of the people who live on it.Seeing the problem of Gaza not as a “national cause” but as a humanitarian tragedy experienced by a people living under embargoes and blockades, and who are close to us both geographically and historically, as well as culturally, would not require Turkey to get involved in this matter anyway.If you ask about the cause of the nine activists massacred by Israel...It is the obligation of the Turkish Republic to settle the account of her citizens killed in international waters by the security forces of another state by utilizing to the full all rights and authority granted upon her by international laws.“Nine martyrs”... Agreed.But I would also remind you of our armed citizens who roam the mountains of this country wearing a different uniform than that of the state and martyr more than nine people every week, as well as the cause of our citizens wearing official uniforms who kill just as many of these citizens of ours as a “requisite for being a state.” And that a certain section of our society sees those killed by the state as “martyrs”.I also believe that far greater causes could befall upon this country as you consume this nation’s energies and resources on causes that are, in fact, nonexistent, without solving this real cause through this country’s prism.Kadri Gürsel is a columnist for daily Milliyet in which this piece was originally published Sunday.Hmmm.....Hear,hear.Read the full story here.

• Video - Zaid Hamid’s “Final Call” to Hindus – Convert Or Get Killed!(Guppu).In the latest video series of self proclaimed defence analyst Zaid Hamid, he is seen giving a final call to Hindus to convert to Islam. He also tells Hindus not to blame him for the consequences. So what’s claimed to be a peaceful call to Islam, seems more like a threat.He says this is the message to be conveyed to all the Hindus and “Hindu Pandits” who deliberately hide the true message of Islam from the masses. He also equates Hindus with the Jews. Zaid Hamid openly threats the Hindus that if they don’t convert and accept Islam, they will be responsible for their ill-fate themselves.He pretended to be speaking on behalf of all the Muslims and acted as the supreme leader of the Muslim ummah.Hmmmm....."The religion of peace".Read the full story here.

• Turkey - PM Erdogan says flotilla raid was 'cause for war'.(HurriyetDaily).Turkey's prime minister has said Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year was "cause for war" but that his country showed "patience" and refrained from taking any action. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Al-Jazeera television in a recent interview that the Israeli attack that killed nine activists occurred in international waters and was therefore "unlawful." His comments were carried by Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency late Sunday. Erdoğan said "It is a cause for war, but we decided to act in line with Turkey's grandeur and showed patience." Israel insists its naval commandos acted in self-defense after being attacked by some of the activists. A U.N. report into the raid said Israel's naval blockade was legitimate but that it used "excessive and unreasonable" force.Hmmmmm.....Now that i control the Army lets go to war?"Get Turkey out of NATO now!Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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