Pakistani actress Veena Malik, media Mogul and two others sentenced to 26 years prison for Blasphemy.

Pakistani actress Veena Malik, media Mogul and two others sentenced to 26 years prison for Blasphemy.(SP).

Four Pakistani media figures have been sentenced in a regional court after staging a TV wedding.

A court in Pakistan has sentenced the owner of Pakistan's biggest media group and three others to 26 years in prison and fines of 1.3 mln Pakistani rupees ($12,800) each, for airing a blasphemous program on Geo TV, part of Pakistan’s GEO and Jang media holding.

“The malicious acts of the proclaimed offenders ignited the sentiments of all the Muslims of the country and hurt the feelings, which cannot be taken lightly and there is need to strictly curb such tendency,” said the court in its verdict, according to AFP.

CaravanDaily.com reports that in May this year, Geo TV aired a live broadcast on its morning show, in which Pakistani actress Veena Malik and her actor husband Asad Bashir Khan took part in a mock marriage, to a backing of religious music. The show “featured Malik dancing with her new husband while a group of Sufi musicians sang a devotional song about the wedding of the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) daughter Fatima,” reports the South Asian website.

The judgment was handed down by  court in Gilgit, a city in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. The area is controlled by Pakistan, but its location in the Kashmir region means that India also lays claim to it. As a consequence, the verdict is unlikely to be enforced in the rest of Pakistan.

According to Dawn.com, in sentencing on Tuesday the judge convicted “the proclaimed offenders under sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997,” and ordered police in Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to arrest them and, in case of non-compliance, to seize their assets.

On May 26, Sunni cleric Himayatullah Khan registered the case in a Gilgit police station. AFP writes that Khan is deputy chief of Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, an anti-Shia organization, and that the charges are suspected to be politically motivated and in association with Pakistan's military establishment: “Similar routines by other channels in the past have largely gone unnoticed,” it reports.

According to Gulfnews.com, Malik has reacted with disbelief at the sentence: “26 years! Come on. 26 years is a lifetime … But I have faith in higher courts in Pakistan. When the final verdict comes, it will do justice to me. Nothing bad is going to happen,” she told an interviewer on Wednesday.

Along with Malik and Khan, Geo TV owner Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and TV host Shaista Wahidi were likewise sentenced to 26 years. The four were not in court to face sentencing and are currently residing out of the country, having faced threats from extremists.

Video - Pakistani Model and Actress Veena Malik in Support of Gay Rights.

Pakistani Model and Actress Veena Malik in Support of Gay Rights.Following are excerpts from a TV show, in which Pakistani model and actress Veena Malik participated. The show aired on Geo News via the Internet on October 14, 2012.

Veena Malik: I worked in Pakistan for seven years, and approximately 99.9% of the people who worked with me were gay. They would tell me how painful their lives were because of the many problems they faced.
Today, science has proven that it is one’s genes that determines whether one will be gay or lesbian.
I believe that all – whether animal, plant, or human being – should have the full right to lead their lives [as they see fit].
I would like to say today that every gay or lesbian – every living being – should have the right to lead their lives [as they see fit].

TV host: I did not ask whether gays or lesbians have the right to lead their lives. My question was directed to [you], a woman who has read a translation of the Koran. I asked whether you had consulted the Koran before giving a statement in support of gays and lesbians. Did you consult the Koran after that?
I am asking this because the Koran is explicit about the nation of Lot and what happened to them.

Applause from the audience.

Veena Malik: But that nation of Lot makes up a large part of our society today, and they should have the right to lead their lives the way they see fit. Source: Memri.

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• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation New Zealand 6.0 - 5.8 - 5.6 - 5.5 - 5.3 ; Philipines 5.4 - 5.3 ; Pakistan 5.1 !More info here.

• Cuban and Chinese Bloggers Speak on Havel’s Greatness, Kim’s Tyranny.(Heritage).The reaction of bloggers in two remaining communist dictatorships to the recent deaths of pro-freedom crusader Vaclav Havel and his polar opposite, North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il, tells you all you need to know about why communists can’t hold elections. In the restricted cyberspace afforded to Chinese and Cubans Havel is being hailed as a hero while Kim is derided for the evil he represented.In a roundup on Chinese cyber reactions to the two deaths, the BBC observed that contrary to China’s official stance, comments by Chinese microbloggers have been generally pro-Havel, the former dissident and writer who went on to become the leader of a free Czechoslovakia, and anti-Kim Jong-il, the paunchy dictator who inherited power from his father, another despot named Kim Jong-Il.“When Havel died yesterday, we were very sad. But after Kim Jong-il died, we are celebrating. It’s not because we don’t value life or don’t think life is equal, but that we know better the true value of life. Some people bring nothing but shame to life!” the BBC quoted well-known blogger Yang Hengjun as writing on the blog Sina Weibo.Liu Chun, vice-president of Chinese internet giant Sohu, wrote, “between the two people who have just passed away, Havel and Kim Jong-il, I cannot possibly like Kim no matter how hard I try, and I cannot dislike Havel no matter how hard I try.”A third blogger, Zhu Youke, culture editor of the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend newspaper, was quoted by the Beeb as saying: “Compared with Havel’s death, the death of Kim Jong-il was nothing but a senseless epilogue of a farcical performance.”In Cuba, which has accorded the Orwellian Kim three days of official mourning and which is, like China, another communist dictatorship that remained silent on Havel’s passing, bloggers have also drawn similar contrasts.The poor Cubans have only a fraction of the cyber freedom than even the Chinese have, but the country’s most famous blogger, Yoani Sanchez, wrote: The government of Raul Castro has still not made the most minor public mention of the death of the Czech democrat but has decreed three days of official mourning for the death of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. Of the latter, the official media of his country says he wrote more than 1,500 books in his life, but none of these is read by any of us today. However, the author of The Feast and The Temptation (Havel) is everyday better known and admired by us. Like missionaries of a peculiar relition, many today distribute and propagate his writings throughout the island.Many other Cuban bloggers echoed these sentiments.These reactions from Cuban and Chinese dissidents are a far cry from the opinion of Kim voiced by Wendy Sherman, the Obama Administration’s undersecretary of state for political affairs, who called Kim “witty and humorous” and “a quick problem-solver.” Kim, of course, ran a country which Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal referred to this week as “a vast modern-day Auschwitz.”Mr. Obama, unlike this peers in France, Britain and Germany, has decided to skip Havel’s funeral.Hmmmm.......You know a Communist by his speeches?Read the full story here.

• Obama Looking To Renew Nuke Scientist Exchange With China That Led To One of Worst Cases of Nuclear Weapons Espionage In U.S. History.(WT).Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman is working on a major Obama administration initiative that would renew scientist exchanges between U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and Chinese nuclear facilities.The idea is aimed at promoting openness and transparency by China’s military about its secret, large-scale buildup of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.Critics say the plan is similar to an exchange program in the 1990s that sent U.S. nuclear scientists to China and produced one of the worst cases of nuclear espionage. Secrets about every deployed warhead in the U.S. arsenal were compromised, including the W-88 small nuclear warhead deployed on submarine-launched missiles.“We’ve seen this movie before, and it has a bad ending,” one official said.Officials familiar with the plan told Inside the Ring that the initiative was discussed during a recent policy committee meeting of senior national security officials at the White House. The initiative is part of the administration’s arms-control-centered security policies. According to the officials, the administration hopes to coax the reluctant Chinese communist leadership and its military into engaging the United States in strategic nuclear talks, something China so far has refused.Hmmmm......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• RIA Novosti to cover Dec. 24 protest rally in Moscow in 7 languages – Special Media Advisory - Coverage plan for Moscow demonstration.(RN).RIA Novosti’s International News Service will cover Saturday’s protest rally in Moscow in English, Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Arabic and Persian languages. The coverage of the rally over alleged fraud at the December 4 legislative elections will include video reports in these languages from the site of the rally.English-language coverage on Saturday will include breaking news, a general news story updated periodically throughout the day, an analysis (shortly after the demonstration concludes), and many details from the venue.RIA Novosti’s Russian-language RIA.ru website will start online reporting from the site at 1:00 pm local time (09:00 GMT), one hour before the scheduled rally. The rally was authorized by the Moscow City Hall.Up to 50,000 people have signed up in social networks as of Friday to participate in the rally, the second of this kind in a month.The first such protest rally was held in central Moscow on December 10 and gathered 25,000 people, according to the Moscow police. Organizers of the rally claimed that at least 40,000 people showed up.Read the full story here.

• Iraq Plunges into Chaos as Obama Administration Celebrates End of U.S. Military Presence.(Heritage).The Obama Administration’s risky decision to seek the quickest possible exit from Iraq has contributed to a mushrooming political crisis there that is rapidly unraveling the hard-won gains of U.S. troops and threatens to plunge the country into a civil war that will greatly benefit Iran.Shortly after the December 15 end-of-mission ceremony for U.S. troops, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki purged many senior Sunni Arab political leaders from his fractious governing coalition. Maliki’s government, dominated by Shiite political parties of various stripes, also announced that it will prosecute Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a leader of the predominantly Sunni Arab Iraqiyah party, on terrorism charges. Hashemi, who denounced the allegations as propaganda cover for a political coup, has fled to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.Iraq’s fragile unity is now dissolving in growing political tensions between the leaders of the Shiite majority and Sunni minority and between the Shiite-dominated central government and the non-Arab Kurdish minority. But the Obama Administration, blindsided by simmering tensions that it had downplayed in its rush for the exit, appears to be on auto-pilot.The Administration gave a higher priority to domestic political considerations than to Iraq’s long-term security needs when it neglected to negotiate an extension of the U.S. troop presence past the end-of-year deadline set by the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement. Although the Bush Administration had envisioned a follow-on agreement to extend the military presence, and the Obama Administration had initially planned for a smaller residual force of military trainers and advisers, in the end politics trumped security in the White House’s deliberations.President Obama, who won office campaigning as an opponent of the Iraq war, treated Iraq as an inconvenient commitment that should be ended as soon as possible, not a war to be won. He made it clear that his Administration was eager to “turn the page” and leave Iraq as soon as possible.The Heritage Foundation warned repeatedly about the damaging consequences of an abrupt U.S. pullout from Iraq. We have stressed the need for strong American leadership to consolidate a stable peace in Iraq.But the Administration chose to disregard these and other warnings and pressed ahead to terminate the U.S. military presence. This removed a safety net below the Iraqi coalition government that now is disintegrating as rival leaders fall back on their own ethnic or sectarian camps to provide for their security. Iran, which has backed radical Shiite parties and fanned suspicions of the Sunni political leaders, is likely to emerge as the big winner.Hmmmm........A 'Community organiser' as commander in Chief, expect much, much worse in Afghanistan.Read the full story here.

• "Paging Dr.Dolittle" - Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Jerusalem City Can't Help Arabs With Dog Plague.(INN).Arabs in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat complained Thursday that they were experiencing a plague of wild dogs roaming the area, but a spokesperson for the municipality said that catching the dogs was complicated – because of the threat to the physical security of dog catchers who would normally be sent in to catch the animals. At least 150 wild dogs, many running in feral packs, have for months been roaming the streets of the Ras Hamis neighborhood, at the edge of Shuafat, itself a village within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. The city has a full staff of dog catchers, but because of security concerns, a municipal spokesperson told reporters, they could only be sent in to do their jobs with an IDF or police crew to protect them, because of the strong likelihood that they will be pelted with stones or beaten with metal pipes – or worse – as has occurred on numerous occasions in the past.As a result, residents of the neighborhood say they have taken to arming themselves with bricks and pipes to fight off the dog menace. The dogs, say the residents, are particularly vicious, and have chased and attacked many people, especially the elderly and children, who have a hard time outrunning them.Attorney Nasrian Alian from the Israel Civil Rights Association said that the problem was present in all Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. “In 2010 over 1,000 dogs were caught in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The city's Veterinary Service does not provide sufficient services for the neighborhood and does not even operate in some of them – and they fail to do the job properly in areas where they do operate,” she told reporters.In response, the municipality said that the IDF no longer permits municipal workers to enter some Arab neighborhoods without a security detail to protect them. Shuafat is one of those neighborhoods, the city said.Attacks on Israeli workers in Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods are not uncommon, and numerous workers have been badly injured when Arabs converged on them as they tried to undertake maintenance work in Arab areas.Hmmmm......Another bunch of 'Mossad trained Dogs' at work?Read the full story here.

• No Jail Time for Antisemitic Muslim Blogger.(Vinienco).A London blogger who wrote that Jews must be attacked wherever you see them on the Scotsman newspaper's website has escaped jail, after pleading guilty to posting the comments.Mohammed Sandia from Wembley said Jews were a genetically mutated inbred tribe. Jews are not fit to breathe our air and should be attacked wherever we see them. Throw rocks at their ugly, hooked-nosed women and mentally ill children, and light up the real ovens.He changed his plea to guilty after initially denying the charges in November 2010. Sheriff Gordon Liddell expressed regret he could not impose a longer custodial sentence, suggesting a short sentence would only have the effect of turning you, in your own eyes, and in the eyes of your supporters, into a martyr. I choose not to do that.Sheriff Liddell opted to defer sentencing for 12 months. Last week, Sandia appeared again in court, and was admonished leaving him with a criminal record but no substantive penalty.The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities director Ephraim Borowski welcomed the sentence as an outspoken condemnation of Sandia's outrageous and abhorrent postings on the Scotsman website, and a clear signal that the law will not tolerate the abuse of freedom of speech to spread hatred.Mr Borowski's deputy director, Leah Granat, said:The police and prosecutors have been fantastic this case breaks new ground in establishing that the distributed nature of the internet does not offer protection from prosecution. The Scotsman is in Edinburgh, complaints were made in Glasgow, and Sandia was posting in London.This required cross-border co-operation to track down the computer [of the poster] and who it was used by. The Scotsmans digital editor, Stephen Emerson, said that Sandia's posts had been removed five minutes after being posted.We make every effort to ensure offensive comments are removed promptly from the site, and co-operated fully with police throughout this investigation.Read the full story here.

• BREAKING: UNESCO stops funding children's Palestinian teen magazine following SWC protest.(SWC).A day after a protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to UNESCO's Director-General over a Palestinian youth magazine which published materials exalting Hitler, UNESCO has agreed that it "will not provide any further support to the publication in question."Zayzafouna, a magazine which supposedly promotes democracy and tolerance, published an article by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl who said that in her dreams, Hitler told her, “Yes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” The article was brought to the public's attention by Palestinian Media Watch.A letter from the office of UNESCO's Director-General read:

"UNESCO’s attention has been drawn to the February 2011 issue of the Palestinian children’s magazine Zayzafouna. This magazine is published by an NGO of the same name under the patronage of the Palestinian National Commission for UNESCO, which is the national body set up by the Palestinian Authority to facilitate its work with the Organization. The February issue features a story written by a 10-year-old girl in which Hitler is quoted by her as stating that he “killed [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who wreak havoc on Earth”. While UNESCO upholds freedom of expression as an integral part of its mandate, the inclusion in this publication of a statement that may be interpreted as an apology of the holocaust is contrary to UNESCO’s constitutional mandate and values. It is totally unacceptable. UNESCO supported the publication of three issues of the Zayzafouna Magazine six months after the February 2011 issue. The support was provided for these issues following agreement with the editorial board that they would focus on building greater appreciation amongst Palestinians for their heritage and culture. They were to open the way for positive dialogue aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Middle East conflict, and to fight against stereotypes that may be conducive to violence. It was UNESCO’s intention to foster a positive view ofPalestinian heritage based on the values of tolerance and UNESCO’s mandate of building peace in the minds of men and women. This vision guides all of UNESCO’s activities, and we urge all partners to work in this direction. UNESCO is shocked and dismayed by the content of the February issue, and has requested more detailed information and clarification from the editors of the magazine and to Palestinian Authority. UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO’s name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question.The Organization, which is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust, disassociates itself from any statement that is counter to its founding principles and goals of building tolerance in the full respect for human rights and human dignity."Read the full story here.

• Israel cancels defense deal with Turkey.(TodaysZaman).Israel has canceled a $141 million defense deal with Turkey, a reflection of the steep deterioration in relations between the former allies.Israeli officials said Thursday they are concerned that Turkey could deliver the state-of-the-art airborne intelligence units to third parties hostile to Israel. They said the deal was signed in 2008. Officials in Israel's Defense Ministry and Elbit Systems, the manufacturer of the system, confirmed the deal was called off. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter. There was no immediate comment from Ankara.Read the full story here, more here.

• Syria blames al-Qaeda for twin suicide attacks in Damascus; at least 40 dead.(AlArabiya).Suicide bombers blew up vehicles at two security service bases in the Syrian capital on Friday, state television reported while pointing the finger of blame at al-Qaeda.At least 40 people were killed and 100 others wounded in the twin bomb attacks, Reuters reported, adding that most of those killed were civilians.“Two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives targeted bases of state security and another branch of the security services,” the television said, after AFP correspondents heard two large explosions.“Initial inquiries hold al-Qaeda responsible,” it added.State television said that “several soldiers and a large number of civilians were killed in the two attacks carried out by suicide bombers in vehicles packed with explosives against bases of state security and another branch of the security services.A delegation of Arab League officials visited the sites of two explosions in Damascus on Friday to inspect damage, Syrian state television said.A member of the Arab League team, contacted by telephone by Reuters, did not give details of the group’s movements but did say members were holding meetings.Witnesses said the bombers struck in the Kfar Suseh neighborhood of the city. A car tried to ram its way into a state security compound, while another car exploded in front of a security service building in the same area.Syria’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has said Lebanon warned Damascus two days ago that al-Qaeda had infiltrated into Syria from its territory.“The Lebanese authorities warned us two days ago that al-Qaeda group infiltrated to Syria from (north Lebanon’s town of) Ersal,” spokesman Jihad Makdesi told Reuters in an email.“And today’s suicide bombers caused the death of around 40 and more than 150 injuries, all are civilians and military personnel. Freedom seekers should know that this is not the way to achieve democracy.”The blasts came as an advance team was in Damascus to prepare the logistics for an Arab League observer mission to oversee a plan to end nine months of unrest that has killed more than 5,000 people, according to the United Nations.Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he expects the observers to vindicate his government's contention that the unrest is the work of “armed terrorists,” not overwhelmingly peaceful protesters as maintained by Western governments and human rights watchdogs.A Britain-based rights group also reported Friday’s blasts.“Two blasts just rocked the Syrian capital Damascus, followed by the sound of heavy shooting in the vicinity of the general intelligence headquarters,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by AFP in Nicosia.The bombings in Damascus were the first of their kind since the 1980s when then president Hafez al-Assad, father of incumbent Bashar al-Assad, fought an armed uprising by the since banned Muslim Brotherhood.Meanwhile, the Syrian Revolution Council said 14 people were killed as security forces continue with its crackdown against protesters and dissents in the country.Read the full story here.

• Syria fires new Russian Yakhont missiles in exercise as ‘warning to Turkey and NATO’.(Stratrisk).NICOSIA — The regime of President Bashar Assad has displayed its new Russian-origin weapons during a military exercise.Western diplomats said Assad’s military fired new missiles and otherweapons acquired from Moscow in late 2011 during an exercise that took placeon Dec. 20. They said the new weapons included the P-800 Yakhont cruisemissile, which arrived in November.“This was a warning to Turkey and NATO to keep out of Syria,” a diplomat said.This marked the second major military exercise by Syria in less than a month. But the diplomats said the latest exercise was much larger than the first interservice maneuvers.“The demonstration was aimed at testing the combat capability and readiness of the air force and air defense to confront any possible aggression that might target Syria’s land and air space,” the official Syrian news agency, Sana, said.Sana said the exercise demonstrated a high level of interoperability in missile and other attacks. Sana, which did not identify the weapons, said the military’s special forces also conducted paratroop operations.Yakhont has been part of the Bastion coastal defense system supplied byMoscow. Diplomats said Syria received at least two Bastion systems, or more than 60 supersonic land-attack missiles.Syria has also received the Iskander-E long-range surface-to-surfacerocket from Russia. It was not clear whether Syria fired the Iskander duringthe latest exercise.“Marine and coastal missiles participated in the maneuver underconditions similar to a real battle, hitting the assumed hostile targetswith accuracy that reflected the high level of combat training the marinepersonnel had and their efficiency in using modern maritime weapons,” Sana said.Read the full story here.

• FIFA signalling compromise on hijab ban.(HurriyetDaily).FIFA has endorsed a proposal to lift a controversial ban on the hijab in a move that offers a resolution to demands of female football players who wear the religious headscarf.At its executive committee meeting in Tokyo, the world football body submitted the proposal brought forth by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Vice President and Jordanian Prince Ali bin al-Hussein to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the rules of association football. IFAB is expected to discuss the proposal that calls for the sanctioning of a safe, Velcro-opening headscarf for players and officials at its next scheduled meeting March 3.FIFA’s endorsement follows an earlier approval of the AFC proposal in a workshop convened in October in Amman by al-Hussein.The dispute over the hijab led to the disqualification of the Iranian women’s national team in June after they all appeared wearing hijab for a 2012 London Olympics qualifier against Jordan. Three Jordanian players wearing hijab were also barred.The Iranian team’s insistence on wearing hijab contradicted an agreement reached last year in Singapore between FIFA and the Iranian Football Federation (IFF), under which the Iranians agreed to wear a cap that covered hair but not the neck.The measures were taken on the grounds that FIFA bans all religious and political symbols on the pitch on the basis of IFAB’s Law 4, which only lists jerseys, shorts, socks, shin-guards and footwear as the sanctioned basic equipment for a player. Applying Law 4 is complicated because interpretation of the IFAB rule is left to referees, which has led to differing interpretations on the pitch. “This issue impacts millions of women worldwide and it is crucial to address, in the best possible way, the issue that ensures the safety of the players, respects culture and promotes football for all women without discrimination. This is a crucial step forward. Our goal at the end of the day is to ensure that all women are able to play football at all levels without any barriers,” al-Hussein said.A decision by the Amman workshop to view the hijab as a cultural rather than a religious symbol helped pave the way for the AFC and FIFA endorsement.“The hijab issue has taken center stage in football circles in recent years due to the increasing popularity of women’s football worldwide. It is a cultural issue that not only affects the game, but also impacts society and sports in general. It is not limited to Asia, but extends to other continents as well,” the executives and players said in a statement issued at the end of their meeting.By defining the hijab as a cultural symbol, the group, meeting under the auspices of the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP), an NGO founded by al-Hussein to advance grassroots, youth and women’s football, laid the groundwork for a compromise that acknowledges observant Muslim women’s cultural requirements and meets FIFA’s health and safety standards.IFAB’s adopting the FIFA endorsement would indeed solve the problem for Muslim women who want to play association football in a way that allows them to adhere to their interpretation of Islam, but it does not fully end Iran’s problem with FIFA. In Iran, the hijab is compulsory for female Iranian players and the country imposes wearing the hijab on foreign female teams playing in the Islamic republic. Iranian football officials have acknowledged that this was likely to remain an issue even if IFAB adopts the resolution. Iran is the only country that has made the hijab compulsory for its female players and for visiting female foreign teams.FIFA’s endorsement is based on the group’s suggestion the world football body should weigh lower safety risks against the greater health benefit of women playing football and that allowing the hijab or an equivalent would persuade more women to become players and empower them across cultures.Prominent football executives, female players and coaches, including the head of FIFA’s medical committee Michel D’Hooghe, AFC Vice President Moya Dodd, members of FIFA’s women’s committee and football body representatives from Jordan, Bahrain, Iran and England all attended the workshop earlier in October.England, alongside FIFA, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, form IFAB.Hmmm.....Make up your minds 'Cultural' or 'Religious'?Read the full story here.

• Only in West Java! Christians Wait Patiently for 'Permission' to Celebrate Christmas.(RRA).The Jakarta Post this week had a headline touting West Java as the ‘most intolerant’ province of Indonesia. Given its competitors for that scurvy title, like Banten, where the three Ahmadis were martyred by a mob of Islamist savages, and Aceh, infamous for its shariah floggings, that’s quite something.But tonight, it’s a hard act to follow, for a small Protestant congregation is waiting patiently and peacefully to see if the local Chief of Police will give them permission to celebrate the Birth of Jesus. Yes, of course, I’m talking about the Yasmin Church in Bogor, persecuted for years by evil Islamists, who have to ask the cops there if they’ll be ‘allowed’ to observe Christmas in their own building, sealed by a bigot mayor, and un-opened by those same cops who repeatedly refuse to enforce the Supreme Court ruling in the Protestant’ favour.As we type this, the decision on freedom of religion sits on the desk of the Head of West Java Police, Irjen Pol Putut Eko Bayuseno.I know, I’m accused of being repetitious on this, of banging on and on, and you’re darned right I do, and will, because this case is the most blatant affront to both common decency and Indonesia’s own laws that it’s possible to construct.Liputan6.com reported a few hours ago that their parent body, the Union of Christian Churches of Indonesia, has expressed its support for their beleaguered brethren..“We hope our Yasmin people won’t face obstruction in celebrating Christmas, and that GKI Yasmin, after two years, can celebrate Christmas with well-being and security,” said Secretary of PGI’s Gomar Gultom. He spoke to Liputan on the sidelines of a press conference on Freedom of Religion for Christians Worshipping in Indonesia, in the Office of PGI, Jakarta, Wednesday (21/12).Therefore, Gultom asserted, PGI is also asking the government to take firm charge in the decision. “Because the Supreme Court’s decision is final. In our conversation with the President on Friday last, the President made ​​clear that the Supreme Court decision is final and should not be overlooked,” he said.“And certainly the President can guarantee religious freedom in Indonesia because it is the duty of a president who has been authorised by the constitution to guarantee religious freedom, as mandated in the constitution,” he said. Okay, it’s over to Chief Putut Eko Bayuseno. What is he waiting for? Let them pray and sing carols on their church!Hmmmm.....Obama :"Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance."....yeah seems pretty obvious?Read the full story here.

• Flashpoint Falklands: Britain dusts off war plans amid calls to send a nuclear submarine after Argentina joins forces with Brazil and Uruguay to blockade islands.(Dailymail).Military chiefs are dusting off their plans for the defence of the Falklands after South American countries banned ships from the islands docking in their ports.Sources fear Prince William’s six-month deployment to the South Atlantic as an air-sea rescue pilot next year could provoke more sabre-rattling.Yesterday Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner claimed Britain was ready to use its military to steal natural resources ‘anywhere, anyhow’.She said: ‘They’re currently taking our oil reserves and fish stocks from the Falklands but when they need more natural resources they will come and use force to steal them wherever and however they can.Mercosur, the South American trading block which also includes Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay have agreed to ban boats sailing under the Falklands flag from docking at their ports – even though Paraguay does not even have a coastline.British diplomats in South America yesterday demanded urgent meetings with their host countries to assess 'what they think their action means'.Intelligence chiefs have told Mr Hammond and the National Security Council that there is currently 'no credible military threat' to the islands from the Argentine Navy or Air Force.But a senior official said: 'If there is a threat preparations would be made very quickly.'We are confident that the Argentinians could not land even a fishing boat on the islands.'But it's important to show we are serious about our obligations.'Read the full story here.

• Muslim body issues fatwa on Veena Malik.(IT).BHOPAL: The All India Muslim Tyohar (Festivals) Committee on Wednesday issued a `fatwa' against Pakistani actor Veena Malik and ex-communicated her for ``objectionable'' photographs on websites and degrading the sacred institution of ``Nikah'' by signing a contract to choose a groom at a TV reality show.After item girl Rakhi Sawant, former BJP leader Pramod Mahajan's son Rahul and TV serial actor Ratan Rajput, it will now be Veena Malik's turn to have her Swayamvar catch eyeballs on the idiot box next year. Veena has signed a contract with a television channel as the main protagonist for the fourth season of the reality show. Sources said complaints over this were accumulating with the Majlis-e-Shura - the 70-member supreme body of the All India Muslim Teohar Committee, in Bhopal.``We were getting complaints from concerned community members who said that the activities of this Pakistani female actor was sending a wrong message to our teenagers, especially girls' said Ausaf Shahmiri Khurram, chairman of the Majlis-e-Shura. ``The complaints said that there were offensive photographs of this woman all over the internet and that she was going to have a `swayamvar' on television. Islam has a certain procedure for a `nikaah'. We do not have `swayamvar'.'' He maintained.A two day meeting that started on Tuesday discussed the issue and the entire Majlis-e-Shura including ulemas, clerics and heads of the community unanimously ex-communicated Veena Malik on Wednesday and issued a `fatwa' ordering a social boycott of the Pakistani actor. ``She has been ex-communicated and no member of the community will entertain her from now onwards,'' Khurram explained.``The extreme step has been taken because the woman has openly revolted against the tenets of Islam and Prophet Mohammad. You are a Muslim only if you follow the rules of the religion. She has made a laughing stock of the community. The social boycott became necessary to stop our community girls from following her example,'' Khurram added.Read the full story here.

• Saudi books: Death to Jews.(DocsTalk).Report: Saudi textbooks teach annihilation of Jews - State-funded books in Saudi Arabia continue to teach kids that ‘hour (of judgment) won’t come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them,’ Fox News reports. Despite promises to clean up violent and xenophobic content from textbooks, recent editions in Saudi Arabia continue teach school children barbaric practices, Fox News reported.The news network, which was able to obtain translated copies of the recently-printed books from the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, DC, said that the books teaches ninth graders that the annihilation of Jews is imperative “The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,” one part reads. “There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”The reviewed editions were printed for the 2010-2011 academic year. Another book teaches 10th graders how to cut off the hands and feet of a thief.“This is where terrorism starts, in the education system.” Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, said, noting that the books were financed by the Saudi government.In addition to coaching kids to kill Jews and amputate body parts, the text books depict women as weak and irresponsible. Moreover, al-Ahmed said the textbooks call for homosexuals to be put to death “because they pose a danger at society, as the Saudi school books teach.”Suicide bomber education?Al-Ahmed, as Saudi national, predicted that the extremist education within the kingdom could have devastation implications on the world at large.“If you teach six million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers.”Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 23. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 23. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.2  ! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 115. Source : Here .

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

• There's a new "Player" in the Air,meet the Grimsvotn Volcano.By John Seach.(VolcanoLive)

64.42 N, 17.33 W - summit elevation 1725 m  - caldera

Read the full story here.Live webcam here and here.Google map location here.More info here.

• RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service Grimsvotn Volcano Info Situation Update No. 5  - On 23.05.2011 at 03:39 GMT+2.Source :Here .

• O'Bama? Oh puh-lease!(TheTelegraph).Ah Bejaysus and Begorrah! Oi’ll be swearin’ boi the auld shrine to the Vorgin with the shamrocks growin’ round it next to the hill where Cuchullain slew the Great Leprechaun of Kildare on St Patrick’s Day that Barack Seamus O’Toole Flaherty Joyce O’Bama is the most Irish US president that ever set foot on the Emerald Oisle, so he is, so he is.

Except, when he’s in Africa, of course, when he disappears into the dry ice and re-emerges with a grass skirt and a bone through his nose and declares himself to be Mandingo, Prince of the Bloodline of the Bonga People, Drinker of Cattle Urine, Father of A Thousand Warrior Sons, Keeper of King Solomon’s Mines, Barehanded Slayer of Lions, Undaunted Victim of the Evil Colonial British Empire.

And in the Middle East, where he is Al-Barak Hussein Obama, Protector of the Holy Shrine, Smiter of the Kuffar, Lion of the Desert, Tent-Loving-Aficionado-of-the-Oversweetened-Coffee, Chomper of Sheeps’ Eyeballs, Restorer of the Caliphate.Etc.

Tony Blair used to do this trick too, his accent mutating from broad Glaswegian to genteel Edinburgh to Mummerset to Estuary to Richard E Grant to Sarf London Grime – often in the course of one Downing Street reception – the better to persuade his target audience that he was their kind of guy. And it is, of course, the hallmark of an unutterable charlatan.I’ve argued before that Tony Blair and Barack Obama have an awful lot in common. Both are lawyers; both are snake-oil-salesman; both claim to be post-partisan, and Third Way and consensual; both play the acceptable, moderate-seeming public face of a regime chock full of Communists, class warriors, single issue rabble rousers, malcontents, communitarians and eco-loons hell bent on destroying every last vestige of what once made their country great. And both do (or did) the things dodgy political leaders always do when the going gets tough at home and their domestic audience finally wises up to how totally useless they are: they hop on the plane and pose as international statesman instead.Obama can’t stand Britain (his wife likes us even less): he made that clear enough when he sent back Winston Churchill’s bust and dissed our Prime Minister with those dodgy DVDS. He blames us for what happened to his grandfather during Mau Mau. He doesn’t believe in the Special Relationship. Are we honestly supposed to believe in that during the subsequent year in office, Obama has since acquired such wisdom and insight that he suddenly realises how special we are?Of course he hasn’t. Obama is just doing now what all bullies and losers start doing when they realise how unpopular they are and that everyone is abandoning them. They suck up to anybody and everybody. They whore themselves piteously before enemies they once considered beneath their contempt. Fain will they fill their bellies with husks that swine eat – but which no man will give them: and serve them jolly well right, too!By all means let us enjoy watching Obama smarm and grovel and ingratiate himself like some presidential Uriah Heep. But for heaven’s sake let us never give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a cold fish and would certainly never show any mercy towards us were the roles to be reversed.Hmmmm......“Hear, Hear, Hear!”Read the full story here.

• Muslim Cab driver from Irving arrested after bomb squad removes suspicious materials from home.(DallasNews)A cab driver from Irving was arrested Sunday after a bomb squad removed suspicious materials from his apartment.Sharif Ahmed Nour, 41, was initially going to be charged with possessing bomb-making components, but that was amended to possession of prohibited weapons, according to WFAA-TV (Channel 8).Irving firefighters found the unspecified items after extinguishing a small fire at Nour's home in the 3600 block of Brock Drive. The FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force have since joined the investigation."At this point we're taking every precaution necessary," Irving police Officer John Argumaniz told Channel 8. "That's why we've called in the joint task force to assist with the investigation."Nour is originally from Somalia and has been driving cabs at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for years, a friend told Channel 8.Hmmmm.....Another "Misunderstander of Islam" with a 'chemistry interest?And who scaled down the charges?Read the full story here.

• Barack Obama's trip to Ireland is naked electioneering.(The Telegraph).Barack Obama is no more O’Bama than I am O’Done. And the Irish know it. They’re watching, bemused, as the most powerful man in the world comes to visit their President and Taoiseach, then visit Moneygall, home of his great-great-great grandfather. They know it’s not their smiling eyes he’s visiting for – but for the 35,975,855 Americans who claim Irish roots. That’s a sizeable chunk of the electorate and geographically strategic, too: Irish-Americans are numerous in precisely those states, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, that often prove to be decisive during presidential elections.Obama’s O’Bama act will strike Irish Catholics on both sides of the Atlantic as highly hypocritical not only because, as his autobiography “Dreams from My Father” shows, his Kenyan heritage, not the Irish one, shaped his vision; but also because as President, Obama has pursued an anti-Catholic agenda that has been unapologetically pro-abortion and pro stem cell research. His stand on the death penalty is no different from previous administrations, and his U-turn on Guantanamo Bay betrays a disregard for human life that offends Catholic teaching. For Catholic Ireland, his trip is not so much the return of the Prodigal Son as the photo-op of the wayward cousin. What a contrast Obama’s electioneering provides to the Queen’s heartfelt and dignified state visit to Ireland last week. Hers was a profoundly moving gesture of reconciliation: after so much blood was spilled on both sides – not least that of one of her dearest relatives, Lord Mountbatten – Queen Elizabeth was making an effort to bridge two countries that for generations have been at war. Every ceremony, every state occasion was steeped in genuine emotion.I suspect Obama’s Machiavellian tactic will backfire. The Irish will spin it as a PR triumph capable of regenerating their tourism rather than as a politically momentous occasion; the Irish Americans will quite rightly view the trip as a desperate, last ditch appeal to them.O’Bama, oh why sink so low?Hmmmm.....As the Irish saying go's"May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight."Read the full story here.

• U.S. Objects to New Law on Clinics in Indiana.(NYTimes).WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is raising serious objections to a new Indiana law that cuts off state and federal money for Planned Parenthood clinics providing health care to low-income women on Medicaid.The objections set the stage for a clash between the White House and Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, over an issue that ignites passions in both parties. The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state. Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because Indiana is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures. If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money. The mere threat of such a penalty is often enough to get states to comply. Actually imposing the penalty would, in many cases, hurt the very people whom Medicaid is intended to help. Administration officials said the Indiana law imposed impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid recipients to choose health care providers. Indiana is one of at least a half-dozen states that have taken aim at Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions, about one-fourth of those performed in the United States. Without waiting for a decision from the federal government, Indiana has moved ahead. “The state law is in effect right now,” said Marcus J. Barlow, a spokesman for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. “Medicaid clients who went to Planned Parenthood will have to go to someone else. This is not a change in services. It’s a change in providers.” Most of the money at stake is federal. The federal government pays about 66 percent of the cost of most services covered by Medicaid in Indiana, but for family planning the federal share is 90 percent — an indication of the importance historically attached to such services by Congress. The United States House of Representatives voted 241 to 185 on April 14 to cut off federal money for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates. The Senate killed the proposal, 58 to 42. “It’s morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to subsidize the largest abortion provider in America,” said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana. Other states that have considered legislation to restrict payments to Planned Parenthood, under various programs, include Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin. Both houses of the Kansas Legislature have approved a 2012 budget bill that would redirect about $300,000 in federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood to state and local clinics. Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, is expected to sign it. Hmmmm......A step in the right direction.Read the full story here.

• Christianity: Growing, and Under Siege.(Aina).Around the world, and especially in Africa and Asia, Christian populations are suffering severe discrimination and brutal attacks. Thousands are being killed. Systematic campaigns are being waged against Christians simply because of their faith, and it is not too dramatic to suggest that these are forms of ethnic cleansing and genocide.Yet there is little awareness of these continuing atrocities in the West, and even less response.Christianity is no longer a predominantly Western religion. Since 1900, there has been a startling growth of Christianity in Latin America, Africa and Asia, to the point that now, 65 percent of the world's 2 billion Christians live on one of those three continents. Christians now constitute the largest single religious group in Africa. Close to 350 million Christians live in Asia. But this dramatic growth has also fanned the flames of religious persecution and hatred against them.In northern Nigeria, deadly religious violence occurs with regularity, killing hundreds at a time. Christians in Ethiopia have seen the destruction of 57 churches; thousands of Christians have been displaced, and some have been killed. In Sudan, the government has waged a decades-old war against Christians in southern part of the country. In Egypt, radicals now use the façade of democratic reforms to ramp up their continuing war against Coptic Christians, while the army looks the other way. Christians have lived in Iraq for 1,800 years, but recent violence threatens their very existence as a community. In Pakistan, religious violence and anti-blasphemy laws are used to suppress Christians, while prominent Christian politicians and their defenders are assassinated. In India, religious radicals attack Christian converts, while courts and political assemblies take away their rights. Religious violence against Christians occurs with depressing regularity in Indonesia, while the Chinese government cracks down on Christian churches, especially those that have chosen not to register with the communist government. In many countries around the world, anti-Christian activists have hijacked political processes to codify severe discrimination against Christians, making it illegal to convert to Christianity, while encouraging conversions from Christianity.If you were to read carefully in the media, it would be easy to compile a much longer list of outrages; many other incidents are never covered in the Western press. There is certainly enough evidence to suggest that there are organized campaigns of terror and death against Christians in Africa and Asia. Groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Al-Qaida in Iraq, the Taliban in Pakistan and Hindu fundamentalists in India (among others) openly admit their actions against Christian populations.Yet the silence from the world community is deafening. Occasionally the U.S. State Department will issue some toothless protest after a particularly egregious event, but nothing ever seems to change. The world community seems to notice little, and to care even less; many "moderates" in Asian and African countries seem cowed by the violence.Western countries seem to have a double standard when it comes to the rights of religious groups around the world, especially religious minorities. Just look at the widespread indignation that occurred when a lunatic pastor and his congregation in Florida threatened to burn a copy of the Qur'an. The media was (rightly) filled with denunciations. But a similar desecration of a Christian work or holy symbol is usually met with little or no response.The world, especially the West, has an exquisite sensibility to the rights of non-Christians around the world. But Christians are suffering daily in Africa and Asia. Where is the outrage?Hmmmmm........No...Why is the Pope not speaking up?Read the full story here.

• Outspoken Pakistani Actress Veena Malik Injured In Attack on Her Car.(Memri).Noted Pakistani actress Veena Malik, who confronted an Islamic cleric in a live debate on Pakistani television early this year, was injured when the car she was riding in was attacked while travelling from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to Lahore on the night of May 16, 2011.  Malik is a renowned Pakistani actress, model, social worker, and television anchor. She has played lead roles in a number of box-office hits produced in Urdu and Punjabi languages over the past decade in Lollywood, Pakistan's film industry. In recent years, she has hosted television shows on Pakistani and Indian television channels, becoming a household name across Pakistan and India as well as among the south Asian diaspora community in the United States.While initial Pakistani media reports said that Veena Malik was injured in a car crash, her publicist said that it was a deliberate attack. Her publicist Sohail Rashid said: "A speeding vehicle overtook Veena Malik's car, hit its side door and raced off. The car went off-balance and collided." "It seemed as if they deliberately hit our car. We couldn't see their faces. They hit us, and saw our car colliding. They would have stopped had they hit us by mistake," Rashid said, adding that Malik is now out of danger and her condition is stable.In an interview with The Herald magazine, of Pakistan's Dawn media group, Malik questioned the subjugation of women in Pakistani society, stating: "Why are only women responsible for upholding cultural norms?" The interviewer observed that Malik is now being seen in Pakistan as "a catalyst – of understanding; understanding, recognizing, and describing the demons that lurk among us today…"Amid the controversy surrounding her debate with Mufti Qawi, Malik spoke of how life is not easy for an attractive woman in Pakistani society, stating: "First, if you are an actress, you are a fair game. Everyone feels they have a right to abuse you, call you names. And this is particularly true in Pakistan. Anyone can stand up and judge you, when they do not even know you. But if there are 10 people calling you names, at least one person should stand up and question it. Okay, you abuse me because I am in the public eye, because you think I dress a certain way or talk a certain way. But what about the ordinary woman who wears a burqa? She also gets lashed."Malik has worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) for two years and sponsors children at the SOS Children's Village, an NGO in Pakistan. She has appeared on the reality show Big Boss 4 (the Indian version of Big Brother) and hosts television shows in Pakistan and India.Hmmmm......The Religion of Peace.Read the full story here.

• Free speech on Twitter faces test.(NDTV).San Francisco: What began as seamy gossip about an affair between a famous British soccer player and a reality TV star has quickly become another test over how far the rights to privacy and free speech extend online, where social media operate in countries with vastly different laws. The soccer player has been granted a so-called super-injunction, a stringent and controversial British legal measure that prevents media outlets from identifying him, reporting on the story or even from revealing the existence of the court order itself. But tens of thousands of Internet users have flouted the injunction by revealing his name on Twitter, Facebook and online soccer forums, sites that blur the definition of the press and are virtually impossible to police. Last week, amid growing outrage in Britain over the use of super-injunctions, the athlete obtained a court order in British High Court demanding that Twitter reveal the identities of the anonymous users who had posted the messages. A Twitter spokesman, Matt Graves, said the company could not comment on the court order or how it planned to respond. Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, said, "It's really going to the core of Twitter's service and trying to balance the speech of its users and the fact that countries have different laws and norms about speech." And while a debate centering on an athlete's love life might not seem to be the most pressing example of free speech online, there are broader and more urgent implications, analysts said. "If you step back, that same sort of protection is really vital to have in place when you're talking about the individuals involved in a revolution or a social movement like the Arab Spring," said Thomas R. Burke, a chairman of the media law practice at the firm Davis Wright Tremaine. In a company blog post in January, Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, and Alex Macgillivray, its general counsel, wrote, "Our position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users' right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their private information revealed." Twitter removes spam and illegal posts, they wrote, but tries to limit those exceptions. It releases information when required by law but notifies users before the disclosures unless it is legally prohibited from doing so.Jeremy Hunt, the British culture secretary, said at a forum last week that the Internet was making a mockery of the injunctions. "We have this very unfortunate and unsustainable situation where newspapers can't print things that are freely available on the Internet," he said. But there is support as well for the way British law tries to protect privacy. Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge, Britain's most senior judge, said in a report issued Friday that people who flout injunctions online could be liable. "Are we really going to say," he asked, "that somebody who has a true claim for privacy, perfectly well made, which the newspapers and media can't report, has to be at the mercy of somebody using modern technology?" But Charlotte Harris, a media lawyer who has represented both public figures seeking injunctions and people arguing against injunctions, said that could be extremely difficult. "When you sign up to most sites, you agree to terms and conditions that say you won't use them to break the law," she said. "The problem is that it's all so difficult to enforce. Where would you begin?" Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Palestinian Al-Jazeera Producer in Qatari Daily: Time For the End of the 'Great Lie' Israel.(Memri).Palestinian columnist and Al-Jazeera newsroom producer Samir Al-Hijjawi recently wrote an op-ed titled "Israel Is Surely Temporary," which was published in the Qatari daily Al-Sharq, and, in slightly modified form, in the Jordanian government daily Al-Rai. In it, he wrote, "It's time for Israel to go... It's time for the end of the great lie... It's time [for Israel] to go because the regimes protecting [it]... are toppling one by one." He added that the "Nakba Day" protests on Israel's borders were proof that the Palestinians and Arabs would never relinquish Palestine, the beloved waqf (religious endowment) of all Muslims.Following are excerpts from the op-ed:

"The Arab and Palestinian youth who gathered on the borders of Palestine on Nakba Day showed that Palestine resides in the hearts and minds of the Arabs, from the [Atlantic] Ocean to the Gulf, and that the attempts of the Zionist entity and the West, along with the official Arab regimes, to erase Palestine from memory have utterly failed."Israel – along with its allies, the official Arab regimes, including Mahmoud 'Abbas and Salam Fayyad's [Palestinian] Authority – has taken pains to remove Palestine from the school curricula and the mosques. The Zionist entity has attempted to oppose anything that might evoke Palestine – films, [television] shows, articles, poems, books, and lectures. Israel has raised hell following [the publication of] a [certain] article by a Palestinian intellectual, or poems like Mahmoud Darwish's 'Passers between the Passing Words.' [Israel has also] prevented the documentary about the Dir Yassin massacre from being screened at the U.N., and was enraged at the Turkish [television] series 'Valley of Wolves,' responding by brutally [rebuking] the Turkish ambassador [to Israel] to the point of humiliating him."Israel is not acting alone in this arena. It has help from institutions, lobbies, and movements, such as the secret Masonic movement [i.e. the Freemasons], as well as the clubs associated with it, and also from research centers, as they are called, and from associations, clubs, 'peace forums,' and other sham [organizations] whose only concern is to ensure support and protection for Israel. "The Arab and Palestinian youth have refused to be tamed, subjugated, and intimidated, and have proven that under no circumstances will they forget Palestine. The Arabs may be divided over any [other] matter, but not over Palestine. The sensitive Arab forgives whoever harms him, but cannot forgive the Israeli massacres of the Palestinians, nor the detention of 11,000 Palestinians in subhuman conditions, nor the siege on the Gaza Strip."It is no coincidence that the Arab and Palestinian youth in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria are gathering and setting forth for Palestine, standing on the border and throwing stones at the soldiers of the Israeli occupation, facing [their] bullets with bared chests. [It is] out of love for Palestine and its soil; for Jerusalem, for Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; for [the Prophet] Muhammad... and for [Jesus]... [It is] out of love of history, culture, honor, freedom, and nobility, and out of love for the land of the prophets, of [Muhammad's] ascension to heaven, and of the resurrection of the dead. Every Arab and Muslim considers Palestine his own land, and it is indeed the waqf of all the Muslims, even if it is [only] the Palestinians who live there."It's time for Israel to go, along with its tales and legends. It's time for the end of the great lie that has destroyed everything and poisoned relations between the Arabs and the West. It's time [for it] to go because the regimes protecting this entity are going; [indeed,] those that protect the borders of this artificial entity are toppling one by one. It has no choice but to go.Hmmmm......FACT "Palestine doesn't excist in history ,the invading Philistines excist they came into conflict with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael in the land of Israel".Al-Jazeera Obama's favorite channel.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.
• Updated !Aftershocks between 5,1 and 6 epicenters of four of them near nuclear plants more info here.MFS: Watching the chart of the last 24 hours i would say another mayor quake (7 Magnitude) might happen ,the chart indicates an increase of strenght of the tremors!

• Updated : Reuters . Japan agency: Onagawa plant functioning properly.- Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Sunday there was no problem with the cooling process at Tohoku Electric Power Co's (9506.T) Onagawa nuclear power plant and that a rise in radiation levels there was due to radiation leakage at another plant in a neighbouring prefecture.The agency said a report from Tohoku Electric shows that cooling systems at all three reactors at the Onagawa complex, which were automatically shut after a massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday, are functioning properly.Cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (9501.T) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were damaged by the quake and tsunami, forcing the power utility to let out air from reactor container vessels to reduce pressure built inside.Hmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Workers scramble to cool reactors; official says 2nd blast possible.Japanese efforts to prevent a nuclear meltdown by flooding reactors with seawater are a last-ditch attempt, but do not mean that a nuclear tragedy is imminent, experts said Sunday. Nuclear experts who have followed the developments at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan say that despite several setbacks, the possibility of massive radiation exposure remains low -- at least for now. Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan, where excessive radiation levels have been recorded following Friday's massive earthquake, the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency said Sunday. Authorities have told the agency that the three reactor units at the Onagawa plant "are under control.""I don't think we're really close to a meltdown," said Dale Klein, vice chancellor for special engineering projects at the University of Texas, referring to the Daiichi plant.The use of seawater shows that authorities are giving up future use of the Daiichi plant and are focusing solely on protecting people and the environment, experts said. "If they are (using seawater), it's because they have no other choice," said James Walsh, a research associate at the security studies program at MIT. "The last thing you want to do is pump seawater and boron into a reactor."The salt and boron will corrode the reactor, he said. "Essentially, they are saving the white flag and saying, 'This plant is done,' " Walsh said. "This is a last-ditch mechanism to try to prevent overheating and to prevent a partial or full meltdown." In addition, danger from any radiation that escapes would vary on a number of factors, including the type of radiation, the amount and geography, he said. A major explosion of a reactor at the Daiichi plant is "almost inconcievable," he said. "I think that worst-case outcome is unbelievably unlikely in this case."At the Daiichi nuclear plant, workers have been scrambling to cool off fuel rods at both reactors after the massive earthquake and tsunami disabled their cooling systems. Japanese authorities have said there is a "possibility" that a meltdown has occurred in the reactors.A meltdown is a catastrophic failure of the reactor core, with a potential for widespread radiation release.But Japanese officials stressed that there were no indications of dangerously high radiation levels in the atmosphere around the two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan. They said they were unable to confirm whether a meltdown had occurred because they cannot get close enough to the reactors' cores."We are continuing to monitor the radiation, but it is under control," Edano told reporters.The Tokyo Electric Power Company has been instructed to conduct three-hour rolling blackouts as the country faces a 10 million kilowatt shortage, officials said. Edano said doctors were examining nine people who tested positive for high radiation levels on their skin and clothing.Meanwhile, he said authorities were responding under the presumption that meltdowns had taken place in both reactors.If the effort to cool the nuclear fuel inside the reactor fails completely -- a scenario experts who have spoken to CNN say is unlikely -- the resulting release of radiation could cause enormous damage to the plant or release radiation into the atmosphere or water. That could lead to widespread cancer and other health problems, experts say."The bottom line is that we just don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of days and, frankly, neither do the people who run the system," added Dr. Ira Helfand, a member of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility. What we do know, he added, is that Japan's nuclear facilities are "way out of whack."Hmmm.....Bottomline "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst"?Read the full story here.

• Factbox: Experts on explosion at Japan nuclear plant.Japan was fighting to stop fuel rods in two earthquake-damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant from overheating after some controlled radiation leaks into the air to relieve pressure.The government said a building housing one reactor was at risk of exploding after a blast blew the roof off the first the day before at the complex, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.The fear is that if the fuel rods do not cool, they could melt the container that houses the core, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the wind.Here are comments from experts:"If there is a meltdown, which basically would mean the fuel inside the reactor becomes so hot that basically the cladding that holds it in place ... melts, that can release the radioactivity that comes from the fission cells.""That could only be released into the environment if that material gets out of the main pressure vessel of the reactor."He said there were only two ways that could happen; the first would be if a small amount of pressure in the vessel was vented to stop it exploding."The second one is if you had a really severe enormous over pressure that it blew the top of the reactor off the main vessel."That's what happened at Chernobyl that is not what has happened in the first reactor here," he said, adding the explosion there was caused by a build-up of super hot heated steam."That explosion is what blew away the outside of the first reactor but left the core of the main reactor effectively ... untouched. If that is the same for the second reactor, then (it) shouldn't be a huge problem."Hmmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Very Good article from BBC - Japan crisis 'worst since WWII'.The official line is that the reactor 1 explosion was caused by a build-up of hydrogen originally produced in the reactor, though this remains to be confirmed.Although visually spectacular, these explosions are not necessarily dangerous in terms of releasing radioactivity. The buildings are an external shell, with the task of sealing radioactive materials falling to a metal containment vessel constructed inside the concrete shell."The explosion... wasn't a terribly important event," according to Malcolm Grimston from the Energy Policy and Management Group at Imperial College, London."The building was designed to fall outwards" - preventing damage to the thick steel containment vessel inside.Meanwhile, monitoring around the site was picking up higher levels of radioactivity than expected, above safety limits; hence the evacuation of an estimated 170,000 people.What materials were involved in this is not yet entirely clear, although earlier reports referred to isotopes of caesium and iodine; and the company's bulletin also suggests the route out of the stricken reactors is not known."We will continue to monitor in detail the possibility of radioactive material being discharged from exhaust stack or discharge canal," it reads.Hmmmmm.............Read the full story here.

• IS JAPAN LYING ?The word "meltdown" goes to the heart of the big nuclear question - is nuclear power safe?The term is associated in the public mind with the two most notorious accidents in recent memory - Three Mile Island, in the US, in 1979, and Chernobyl, in Ukraine, seven years later.You can think of the core of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), such as the ones at Fukushima Daiichi, as a massive version of the electrical element you may have in your kettle.It sits there, immersed in water, getting very hot.The water cools it, and also carries the heat away - usually as steam - so it can be used to turn turbines and generate electricity.If the water stops flowing, there is a problem. The core overheats and more of the water turns to steam.The steam generates huge pressures inside the reactor vessel - a big, sealed container - and if the largely metal core gets too hot, it will just melt, with some components perhaps catching fire.In the worst-case scenario, the core melts through the bottom of the reactor vessel and falls onto the floor of the containment vessel - an outer sealed unit.This is designed to prevent the molten reactor from penetrating any further. Local damage in this case will be serious, but in principle there should be no leakage of radioactive material into the outside world.But the term "in principle" is the difficult one.Reactors are designed to have "multiply redundant" safety features: if one fails, another should contain the problem.However, the fact that this does not always work is shown at Fukushima Daiichi.The earthquake meant the three functioning reactors shut down. But it also removed the power that kept the vital water pumps running, sending cooling water around the hot core.Diesel generators were installed to provide power in such a situation. They did cut in - but then they cut out again an hour later, for reasons that have not yet been revealed.In this case, redundancy did not work.Whether a partial meltdown is under way at Fukushima Daiichi is not yet clear. The most important factor is summed up in a bulletin from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) that owns the facility: "Control rods are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status)."Meanwhile, a visually dramatic explosion in one of the reactor buildings has at least severely damaged the external walls.In principle, this should not cause leakage of radioactive material because the building is just an outside shell; the job of keeping dangerous materials sealed in falls to the the metal containment vessel inside.Chief cabinet secretary Chief Yukio Edano confirmed this was the case, saying: "The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn't explode."He attributed the explosion to a build-up of hydrogen, related in turn to the cooling problem."If any of the fuel rods have been compromised, there would be evidence of a small amount of radioisotopes in the atmosphere [such as] radio-caesium and radio-iodine," says Paddy Regan, professor of nuclear physics at the UK's University of Surrey."The amount that you measure would tell you to what degree the fuel rods have been compromised."It is an important question - but as yet, unanswered.HMMMMM........Hellooooo :"It was confirmed that radioactive caesium, one of the elements released when overheating causes core damage, had been detected around the plant."!Read the full story here.Much more details in the TRUTH : Emergency Core Cooling System ECCS failure predicted in 1971 here.

• Japan quake-tsunami death toll likely over 10,000.TAGAJO, Japan – The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast.Although the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000, it seemed overwhelmed by what's turning out to be a triple disaster: Friday's quake and tsunami damaged two nuclear reactors at a power plant on the coast, and at least one of them appeared to be going through a partial meltdown, raising fears of a radiation leak.The police chief of Miyagi prefecture, or state, told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Only 379 people have officially been confirmed as dead in Miyagi.The nuclear crisis posed fresh concerns for those who survived the earthquake and tsunami, which hit with breathtaking force and speed, breaking or sweeping away everything in its path."First I was worried about the quake, now I'm worried about radiation. I live near the plants, so I came here to find out if I'm OK. I tested negative, but I don't know what to do next," Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker, said at an emergency center in Koriyama town near the power plant in Fukushima.The U.S. Geological Survey calculated the initial quake to have a magnitude of 8.9, while Japanese officials raised their estimate on Sunday to 9.0. Either way it was the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan. It has been followed by more than 150 powerful aftershocks.Public broadcaster NHK said around 380,000 people have been evacuated to emergency shelters, many of them without power.Hmmmm.....Pray God this is the end of their ordeal and no more heavy quakes happen.Read the full story here.More here .

• Israel approves 500 new homes in West Bank settlements in response to Itamar attack.Ministerial committee on settlements with participation of Netanyahu and Barak approve further settlement building as response to the fatal stabbing in West Bank settlement in which family of five were slain.The approval of further settlement building follows several long months wherein no construction was approved. The move involves measured construction of several hundred housing units within settlement blocs.The prime minister's office notified the White House on Saturday night of Israel's intention to approve new settlement construction. A government official said that this was a strategic decision to build in settlements that will remain in Israel's control in any possible peace agreement with the Palestinians. Hmmmmm.....GOOD !Read the full story here.Yishai: Israel must build 1,000 new units in settlements for every person murdered full story here.

• IDF hunting for perpetrators of brutal Itamar killings. A mother, father and three of their children were stabbed to death late Friday night by at least one suspected terrorist who infiltrated the Itamar settlement southeast of Nablus.The killings occurred shortly after 10 p.m., when one or two attackers jumped the fence that surrounds Itamar and broke into the home of Ruth and Udi Fogel, aged 35 and 36, respectively. The attackers went room to room, stabbing the parents, a three-month-old girl, Hadas, and two boys, Elad, three, and Yoav, 11.Two other children – aged two and eight – were in a side room but were not attacked.The family’s oldest child, 12- year-old Tamar, was out of the house at the time.The IDF immediately launched searches in nearby Arab villages as Palestinians reported that a faction of Fatah’s al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade had claimed responsibility.Several dozen suspects were arrested in Awarta, Sanur and Zabada as soldiers conducted searches with the aid of unmanned aerial vehicles that provided surveillance from above.As the attackers used knives rather than rifles or pistols, and because of other characteristics of the killings, the IDF believes it was not carried out by an organized terrorist infrastructure but more likely was the work of one or two people who could, though, be affiliated with one of the larger Palestinian terrorist groups.The army urged the settler community to demonstrate restraint in the coming days.The IDF and the Israel Police deployed large forces in the area to prevent clashes between settlers and Palestinians.The suspected terrorists infiltrated the settlement close to 9:30 p.m. but did not carry out the attack until around 10:15.“The children were literally slaughtered,” an IDF officer said, describing the scene, including the children’s toys spilled out on the floor and covered in blood. “This is one of the most brutal attacks we have ever seen.”Defense Minister Ehud Barak convened top military and security chiefs on Saturday and urged them to take all necessary action to apprehend the killers.“This is a horrible attack that makes my blood boil, but I have no doubt that the perpetrators will be captured,” Barak said during a meeting with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.- Gen. Benny Gantz and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin. “We need to do everything so security and quiet can return to the area."OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi expressed condolences following the attack.“An entire family was killed by despicable and cowardly murderers who murdered children and parents for no reason,” he said.Mizrahi hinted that the IDF had a lead on the identity of the terrorists: “We are in the midst of pursuing the terrorists and I believe we will catch them very soon,” he said.Hmmmm....."Vengeance is mine says the Lord, the Bible also says that men are the tools of God."Read the full story here.More here .

• Netanyahu : " I noticed that some of the states that rushed to the Security Council to condemn Israel, the Jewish State, for planning to build a home somewhere, are slow in issuing a harsh condemnation over the murder of Jewish babies,"Officials at Prime Minister's Office may hand over shocking photos of Itamar massacre aftermath to foreign media.The images in questions are ones not usually published in Israel following terror attacks. Should officials decide to go ahead with the move, Israel's Government Press Office will hand over the photographs to global media outlets. According to sources familiar with the discussions, the purpose of publishing such photos would be to shock the world and prompt condemnation of the Palestinian Authority over its responsibility for incitement against Israel. "There' is no justification whatsoever, no excuse and no forgiveness for the murder of babies," the PM said. Hmmmm.....Where's Obama now?....Ah yes he can only bash Israel in favor of the Palestinians."They don't trust me because of my middle name".Read the full story here.

• HT:Giyus.Org.Boycott Israel? Actually, It’s Against the Law.For all the noise the Boycott Disinvestment Sanctions (BDS) movement is making lately it seems they are (intentionally?) forgetting to mention a tiny fact – it is illegal for US firms to boycott Israel and you could face up to 10 years in prison for violating the anti boycott laws.The antiboycott laws were adopted to encourage, and in specified cases, require U.S. firms to refuse to participate in foreign boycotts that the United States does not sanction. The law prohibits U.S. persons from taking certain actions in support of an unsanctioned foreign boycott against a country that is friendly to the United States.Those laws discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League, and certain Muslim countries, including complying with certain requests for information designed to verify compliance with the boycott.US corporations are required by law to report foreign calls to join a boycott or divestment campaign against a friendly country. Corporations are additionally required to file form 5713 with their IRS tax forms declaring international boycott associated taxes and income. The form even has specific reference to boycott of Israel.While the antiboycott laws apply to all boycotts imposed by foreign countries that are unsanctioned by the United States, the main boycott relevant today is the Arab league boycott of Israel.To that regard here is a clarification of what does the law prohibits:

Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.

Agreements to discriminate or actual discrimination against other persons based on race, religion, sex, national origin or nationality.

Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about business relationships with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.

Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about the race, religion, sex, or national origin of another person.

While the law above relates to US corporations, the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) requires any US person to report quarterly requests they have received to take certain actions to comply with, further, or support an unsanctioned foreign boycott.It seems that anyone involved with the BDS campaign against Israel should be aware of these legal requirements. We in Giyus.org call on the BDS movement to educate its followers and ensure they comply with US laws and regulations.They can use this video as reference.Read and see the full story here.

• For battered Japan a new threat: nuclear meltdown.170,000 people ordered to evacuate area covering Fukushima plant near Iwaki as Partial meltdown likely under way at second nuclear reactor, number of troops pressed into search and rescue work doubled.A partial meltdown was likely under way at a second nuclear reactor, a top Japanese official said Sunday, as operators frantically tried to prevent a similar threat from a nearby unit at the same facility following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that may have killed 1,000 people.Some 170,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the area covering a radius of 12 miles (20 kilometers) around the plant in Fukushima near Iwaki. A meltdown refers to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures. A complete meltdown would release uranium and dangerous byproducts into the environment that can pose serious health risks. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that a partial meltdown in Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is "highly possible." "Because it's inside the reactor, we cannot directly check it but we are taking measures on the assumption of the possible partial meltdown," he said.Edano said cooling operation at Unit 1 was going smoothly after sea water was pumped in. He expressed hope that it would keep the plant under control. Operators released slightly radioactive air from Unit 3 Sunday, while injecting water into it as an effort to reduce pressure and temperature to save the reactor from a possible meltdown, Edano said. He said radiation levels briefly rose above legal limits, but that it has since declined significantly. Also, fuel rods were exposed briefly, he said, indicating that coolant water didn't cover the rods for some time. That would contribute further to raising the temperature in the reactor vessel. Meanwhile, the government doubled the number of troops pressed into rescue and recovery operations to about 100,000 from 51,000.Read the full story here.

• HT:PajamasMedia.Addressing Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy.By N.M. Guariglia.There is one silver lining to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: it will eventually force the United States to adopt an international policy on Islam itself. Given his Cairo speech in 2009, littered with historical inaccuracies and undue politically correct praise of Islam, we shouldn’t expect President Obama to take upon himself this task. Perhaps another statesman will. But that it must be done — alas, ten years after 9/11 — is no longer a matter of debate.The national discourse is petty. Policymakers talk as though the problem were merely 500 terrorists cave-hopping around Waziristan. This is not so. The issue is societal. Europe is on the precipice of cultural implosion. The issue is also imminent. The entire Persian Gulf and Arab Levant is up for grabs. Atomic bombs are in question. Radical Islamists have entrenched themselves in the West’s political mainstream — even into the U.S. government. For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood has had more power within the United States than in Egypt.finally, we ought to devise a foreign policy whereby we officially oppose the inclusion of fascist theocratic movements in new democratic governments — whether Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — and proclaim our support for true freedom. As with Hitler’s Germany, democracies can easily be destroyed in their infancy through the tactic of “one man, one vote, one time.”There’s no need to be bigoted or mean-spirited. We can do this, as Reagan did with Soviet communism, with the confidence of a happy heart. Good humor, in fact, might go a long way. We should distinguish a doctrine from its adherents and respect the world’s Muslims enough to be honest with them. But first, we must be honest with ourselves. They’ll respect that more.Hmmmm......"If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. But, if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."Sun Tzu.Read the full story here.

• HT:EmergingCorruption.Activists in 23 States Coming Together in Texas to ‘True The Vote’.Patriots and activists from 23 states are about to gather together on March 25 and 26 in Houston, Texas to attend the True The Vote Summit, an effort to make “true” the electoral system in every polling place in the country, to stop voter fraud, and to quash the intimidation of voters. Organizers hope to make sure that we again have free and fair elections.A local Harris County activist group named The The King Street Patriots built the True The Vote Summit upon their experiences of attempting to “true” the 2010 election in Harris County, Texas.Back before the recent election, the KSP got together to try and find out what sort of shape the voting rolls were in Harris County, Texas were. What they found was shocking. Due to its investigation, an ACORN organizer was exposed for having registered over 23,000 fake voters in the county. The story made national news.Naturally the floodgates of hate were opened upon them. Leftist agitators let loose a smear campaign against these patriotic folks calling them haters, racists, and worse. The Black Panthers even came out in force to intimidate both the KSP and the voters they were observing.The attacks on the True The Vote Summit have also continued unabated by the left today. So we know how the left is worried about this movement. Vote fraud is almost exclusively practiced by Democrats and left-wing activists in this country, so an effort like this threatens their operations.Despite all the attacks they underwent, the King Street Patriots were buoyed by their success in stopping vote fraud during the 2010 elections and with that experience to guide them they now want to offer their assistance and to relay the tools they’ve developed to stop vote fraud to any and every state in the union. The result is the True The Vote Summit to be held March 25 and 26 in Houston, Texas.If you are ready to do your duty as an American to, as in Ben Franklin’s warning, “have our Republic and keep it” make haste to sign up to join the True The Vote Summit this month.Hmmmm.....And abolish electronic voting,it's way too easy to manipulate the outcome of the votes!Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes."I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us," the doomed man said, staring straight into the video camera. "And I am ready to die for a cause." Shahbaz Bhatti had no hesitation in his voice as he responded to a question about threats from the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "I'm living for my community ... and I will die to defend their rights." It was his last answer in a four-month-old self-produced video that was to be broadcast in the event of his death. But the radicals had the final say. On March 2, Bhatti, Pakistan's Minister for Minority Affairs, was shot dead in Islamabad. Pamphlets scattered on the ground claimed the act for a new alliance of "the organization of al-Qaeda and the Punjabi Taliban" and asserted that other infidels and apostates would meet the same fate.Within hours of Taseer's death, telephone text messages celebrating his assassination made the rounds. "Justice has been done," read one. "If you love the Prophet, pass this on." A Facebook fan page for assassin Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri garnered more than 2,000 members before site administrators shut it down. Even the leaders of state-funded mosques refused to say funeral prayers for the slain governor. When Qadri was transferred to a local jail, he was garlanded with roses by hundreds of lawyers — the vanguard of a movement that in 2008 helped unseat a military dictator — offering to take on his case for free.When a nation rises up in support of a murderer instead of his victim, it's hard not to believe it is heading down a dangerous path. "What is happening now won't matter in five years," says Shehrbano Taseer. "It will matter in 25 years. What we are seeing now is the fruit of what happened 30 years ago. If people had stood up against [Zia-ul-Haq], we would not be here today. Because of that silence we have madrasahs spewing venom, a true Islam threatened by the same people who claim to serve it, and a cowed majority too afraid to speak."President Asif Ali Zardari, an old friend of Taseer's, condemned the murders but didn't go to either funeral. After paying his respects to Taseer's family, Interior Minister Rehman Malik gave an impromptu press conference outside Taseer's house during which he announced that he too would kill any blasphemer "with his own hands." A few days later, the Prime Minister announced that he would drop the issue of the blasphemy laws altogether. Meanwhile, the government is under pressure to go through with Aasia's sentence, and now her two champions are dead. (Read: "In Pakistan, Christianity Earns a Death Sentence.")But is it? Two weeks after Taseer's murder, I visited Qari Muhammad Zawar Bahadur, the head of one of Pakistan's mainstream religious groups and a co-signer of a statement that advised Muslims not to show "grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the Prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy." For more than an hour, he justified his group's stance, telling me that the Koran was clear on the issue. I asked Bahadur to show me the exact verse that detailed the punishments for blasphemy. He mumbled that "there are several passages," as if there were so many, he couldn't decide which one to quote. When pressed further, he consulted a Koran and read aloud a passage that spoke of killing a man who had once harmed the Prophet.That verse has routinely been dismissed by leading Islamic scholars as referring to a specific case and having nothing to do with blasphemy. They say there is no definition of blasphemy in the Koran, nor any prescription for its punishment. "Nobody challenges these mullahs, and that is our problem," says Omar Fazal Jamil, who runs a p.r. firm in Lahore. "We can't invoke liberal secular values anymore. I have to have the knowledge to contradict these men who distort our religion for their own political gain. I have to be able to say, 'No, this did not happen, this is not right, and show me where it says in the Koran that blasphemers should be shot on sight.' "The Sin of Silence:In the absence of such challenges, those favoring religious intolerance will continue to have things go their way. In late 2007, Benazir Bhutto released an updated manifesto for her father's party. "The statutes that discriminate against religious minorities and are sources of communal disharmony will be reviewed," it said. Less than a month later she was dead, killed in a bomb attack just 13 km from where both Taseer and Bhatti were murdered. Her death was an opportunity to rally the nation against the forces of extremism. Instead the party focused on consolidating power. The manifesto remains an empty promise, and two more voices of tolerance have been silenced. For evil to prevail, goes the old aphorism, all that is required is for good men to do nothing.Hmmmm....."The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict."Martin Luther King, Jr.Read the full story here.

• HT:AhmadiyyaTimes.India, Pakistan test nuke-tipped missiles on same day.Balasore/Islamabad, March 11 (IANS) India Friday successfully test-fired its homegrown nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles Prithvi-II and its naval version Dhanush from different locations off the Orissa coast, on a day Pakistan too tested its nuclear-capable Hatf-II ballistic missile.The Prithvi-II was fired from complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Balasore district, about 230 km from state capital Bhubaneswar at 10.50 a.m.The Dhanush was launched at 10.03 a.m. from a warship anchored off the Puri coast in the Bay of Bengal.'Both were fantastic missions, 100 per cent successful' ITR director S.P. Dash told IANS, adding that the tests were carried out as part of training exercises of the armed forces.The two almost simultaneous user-tests come a week after India successfully tested its ballistic missile interceptor on March 6, as part of its efforts to develop a shield against enemy missiles.Prithvi II, a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 350 km, is a variant of India's first indigenously-built ballistic missile. It is one of the five missiles being developed under India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.The missile, with a flight duration of 483 seconds reaching a peak altitude of 43.5 km, has the capability to carry a 500 kg warhead.Prithvi, which has features to deceive anti-ballistic missiles, uses an advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring capabilities and reaches its target with a few metres of accuracy.Dhanush, with a range of 350 km, is a single-stage ship-based missile with a 500 kg pay-load and capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.The naval missile, with a liquid propellant, is designed to target both sea and shore-based targets. Though Dhanush had failed in its first test at take-off stage on April 11, 2000, its subsequent trials were successful. It was last successfully flight tested on March 27 last year from Indian warship INS Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal.Pakistan too successfully test-fired the Hatf-II (Abdali) short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile. The missile, with a range of 180 km, can carry nuclear and conventional warheads to the target.The test-firing was conducted at an undisclosed location and was witnessed by the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Shamim Hyder Wyyne, according to Xinhua. It is the second test of this kind by Pakistan in two months.Hmmmmm......All that is needed is Obama to sell more weapons to them as he already does to the Middle East?Read the full story here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad.European Council for Fatwa and Research: Women Can't Speak and Remember at the Same Time.The below translation comes from a section of a 2006 Arabic-language essay entitled "Women and Political and Democratic Participation" (see page 21), produced by the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which is presided over by the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. This is in the context of explaining some of the differences between men and women. This idea was also previously put forth by al-Qa'ida-linked Yemeni cleric 'Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani. And of course it's all based on Qur'an 2:282, as you'll read below, which stipulates that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man under Islamic law.Try this one on your wife or girlfriend: "Honey, just slow down and think for a second before you tell me, because I know you can't speak and remember at the same time." Let me know how that goes...[...] Time magazine, in its 31 July 1995 (pg. 39) publication, presented the results of a scientific study which displayed the image of a woman’s brain when she was engrossed in speaking and conversing. At that moment, both sides of the brain were completely occupied, being used to process speech. It also showed the image of a man’s brain when he was speaking, and only one side was being used. This makes him more precise (in speaking), because he uses the second side of his brain to remember, while the woman occupies both sides of her brain just to speak. This -- Allah knows best -- is the secret of the saying of Almighty Allah: “If there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” [Qur’an 2:282].Hmmmm..... "Woman's identity cannot consist in being a copy of man, since she is endowed with her own qualities and prerogatives, which give her a particular uniqueness that is always to be fostered and encouraged... To all in our age who offer selfish models for affirming the feminine personality, the luminous and holy figure of the Lord's Mother shows how only by self-giving and self-forgetfulness towards others is it possible to attain authentic fulfillment of the divine plan for one's own life."Pope John Paul II (1995) .Read the full story here.

• Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet, shifted Earth's axis.The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis."At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.Read the full story here.

• Did ‘supermoon’ cause the tsunami...And should we still be worried?Japan’s devastating earthquake comes just days after a warning that an extreme "supermoon" would spark chaos across the globe. On March 19, the moon will loom be at its closest distance from the Earth in 18 years. Weather bloggers noted there was a supermoon just before the last monster tsunami in Asia on Boxing Day 2004. Conspiracy theorists on the internet have made catastrophic predictions of tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Next week the moon will pass a mere 221,567 miles from our planet and some amateur scientists have been predicting extreme conditions all over the world. The event — known as a lunar perigee — happens when a full or new moon comes within 90 per cent of its closest approach possible. Those that come nearest to Earth are called extreme supermoons, just like the one expected next week. Blogger Daniel Vogler wrote on weather website AccuWeather: "The last extreme supermoon occurred on January 10th, 2005, right around the time of the 9.0 Indonesia earthquake. Previous supermoons were sighted in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005 — all years that had extreme weather events. The tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia happened two weeks before the January 2005 supermoon.Japan was struck by the catastrophe just three weeks after the earthquake which devastated Christchurch in New Zealand and killed hundreds.Hmmmm......Once is a coincidence,twice is unlucky ,but so many times i would say it's linked.Read the full story here.

• Poppy-burning Muslim’s father served 14 ‘proud’ years in the Navy.The father of a Muslim extremist who burned poppies on Remembrance Day served in the Royal Navy as a police officer for 14 years, relatives have claimed. Mohammed Gouse Miah, 85, is said to be devastated by the actions of his estranged son Emdadur Choudhury, who was fined a paltry £50 by a judge for setting light to poppies and yelling ‘British soldiers burn in hell’ during the two-minute silence on November 11 last year. Choudhury – who claims almost £800-a-month in State handouts – laughed off the fine, claiming he would pay more for a parking offence. Prime Minister David Cameron said Choudhury’s behaviour ‘has no place in a tolerant society’, while war veterans labelled it ‘disgusting’.In contrast with Choudhury’s apparent hatred for British troops, Mr Miah is said to be ‘proud’ of his time in the British military, as a Naval police officer in Singapore in the Fifties. A relative said: ‘He is very upset by it. He thinks what his son has done is crazy. He thinks his son has been brainwashed by extremists.’Relatives said that Mr Miah, who has three sons and a daughter, became concerned about Choudhury after he was radicalised by extremists. Choudhury left home two years ago after arguments with his father and lives in a nearby council flat with his wife and two young children.Relatives said that Choudhury, 26, is estranged from his extended family, whom he views as ‘kuffar’ (infidels) because they do not believe in his brand of radical Islam. His cousin, Azad Choudhury, 54, said: ‘This poppy-burning incident has not only shamed his family, but has shamed the whole Bangladeshi community and all those from the Indian subcontinent. This sort of actions can lead to racists launching violent acts against Asians.’Hmmmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Palestinians pass out sweets to celebrate the slaughter of an Israeli Family.Gaza celebrates; Fayyad condemns.Rafah residents hand out candy following murder of parents, three children in West Bank settlement of Itamar. Palestinian PM denounces act, says “we categorically oppose violence and terror, regardless of victims’, perpetrators’ identity”Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah on Saturday poured out on the streets to celebrate the terror attack in West Bank settlement of Itamar, in which five family members were murdered in their sleep.Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying their joy “is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.”"The report of five murdered Israelis is not enough to punish someone," said Hamas Spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, adding, "However; we in Hamas completely support the resistance against settlers who murder and use crime and terror against the Palestinian people under the auspices of the Israeli occupation soldiers." Hmmmm......These are the "people" that want to be 'recognised' by the UN?read the full story here.

• Is Turkey training a religious teachers 'army' to indoctrinate European Muslims even at 'kindergarten' level?Turkish students from abroad study theology in İstanbul.Semra Doğan is one of Polat’s classmates, and like him, was also born and raised in Belgium. She graduated with a degree in preschool education, but later thought about the idea of enrolling in the International Theology Program in Turkey, while searching for ways to become a teacher of religious culture in Belgium. In fact, it was with the encouragement of her father that she set out for Turkey. She will also be graduating from the program this year as well. Her greatest dream is to open up a crèche that offers religious instruction for the children of Muslim families.Another one of the Turkish students here at Marmara University who grew up in Europe is İbrahim Polat. He was born in Belgium and loves to read religious books and think about Islam from an intellectual perspective. In fact, he has been involved in voluntary efforts to help close the gap created by deficiencies in religious services in Belgium. One of these was to form a group connected to the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs that would sponsor activities that would help people, especially young people, become closer to their religion. After a while, this group managed to become influential not only in Turkish circles in Belgium, but with Muslims living in this country. This same group also formed a group in which religious topics could be discussed. It was later, while Polat was a student at Marmara University studying international communication-management that he decided to pursue an education in theology.Kürşat Karbaki is 21 years old. He is a first-year student at the International Theology Program and comes from Germany. He is incredibly excited to be here. He is also full of joy, seemingly incapable of standing still, and bursting to tell his story. He explains: “I was born in Germany. I grew up there. My mother is a very religious person and so she raised me to be religious, too. I received my religious education by regularly going to the mosque. In fact, I was even a muezzin for a while when I was in high school, since my voice was good. That’s when I decided to study theology. One day, the Düsseldorf religious attache came to our mosque, and told us about the international theology project. He said, ‘You should do it, you would be perfect for it.’ I started to research it. And since I knew that there is a lack of people who know about Islam in Europe, I said, ‘I will do this.’ In the end, I am here. The part of all of this that really excites me is that my religious education is composed of a Turkish-Islam synthesis.”Hmmmm......Keep Turkey out of the European Union and get them out of NATO!Read the full story here.

• HT:DerSpiegel.'You Are No Longer My Son'.French 'Refuge' Helps Muslim Gays.For many gay and lesbian young people in France, Le Refuge is a lifesaver -- literally. Since 2003, the organization has helped hundreds of desperate youths, most of them from Muslim families, who have been rejected by their families and forced onto the streets. But the charity is overwhelmed by the number of people seeking assistance.Amine (not his real name) cannot forget the last words he heard from his father. Six words that destroyed his life. "You are no longer my son."Amine's father had rejected him because he is gay. There was no way back.For up to six months, 18- to 25-year-olds can live in one of Le Refuge's homes in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, complete with educational, medical and psychological support. Here, they can finish their schooling, search for jobs and start to build a new life.Since its founding in 2003, Le Refuge has cared for about 200 young people, including 80 in the last year alone, says Nicolas Noguier, 33, who is the organization's founder. About 70 percent of the people living there are young men. Most come from Muslim families. While French society has become more open and liberal, homosexuality remains a taboo topic in many Muslim families. "It is exactly in this environment that homophobia is the most brutal for young people," says Nicolas Noguier from Le Refuge. "They expect support from their family, not rejection." The consequences are serious. Many young people withdraw from their surroundings, have low self-esteem or even become suicidal. "The suicide rate among homosexual young people is 13 times higher than among heterosexuals of the same age," says Noguier.Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.Clearing-up Obama Energy Lies.The President of the United States tried one again to mislead the public about domestic oil production and how much untapped oil is left in the ground. He said that domestic oil production is at the highest level in seven years and he indicated that American reserves are not adequate to help the US reduced its dependence on foreign oil. If Congressman Wilson was in the audience he might have repeated his famous shout “You Lie.”Domestic Oil Production.Obama commented that US oil production was at its highest point in seven years. That was both incorrect and misleading. Daily average production of oil last year 5,361,000 barrels/day the best since 2005’s 5,419,000/day. The real misleading fact about his statement, is that neither year is even close to levels seen only ten years before when production was 20% higher.The President mentioned 35 offshore contracts were awarded, hiding the fact that off shore oil production has been way down since 2005, and that production took a big drop as soon as Obama took office (even before BP).Domestic Supply The President grossly undersold America’s oil supply saying that we only have 2% of the worlds supply. OK he didn’t undersell, he lied big time. The number is America’s proven reserves where we are already drilling. It does not include the 10 billion barrels available in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It does not include most of the 86 billion barrels available offshore in the Outer Continental Shelf, most of which President Obama has placed under an executive drilling ban. And it does not include the 800 billion barrels of oil we have locked in shale in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Those shale resources alone are actually three times larger than the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia, so the claim that the U.S. only has 2% of the world’s oil is clearly false.A 2009 study by the non partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) sheds light on America’s energy resources. It shows show the U.S. supply of recoverable oil to be 167 billion barrels of oil, the equivalent of replacing America’s current imports from OPEC countries for more than 75 years. And that’s just the oil, when you include gas and coal, the U.S. has energy reserves the equivalent of 1.3 trillion barrels.Oil Companies Are Not Using The Leases They Have.The President said the “Industry holds leases on tens of millions of acres both offshore and on land where they aren’t producing a thing.” and he said he wants to “encourage companies to produce [on] the leases they hold.”If Obama is telling the truth, those oil companies must be run by idiots, paying for leases but not getting the product out of the ground so they can make money. Thankfully for those who hold stock in big oil, it isn’t that the oil companies are run by idiots its that the President thinks the American people are idiots and will believe that particular pack of lies.A lease is for exploration and production, not just production, and because oil is not equally distributed across the globe, one parcel of leased acreage may not hold any oil. Moreover, due to government red-tape, which has gotten more complected under the Obama administration, it can take years for companies who own a lease to complete their exploration activities. To get to the production phase, it could take as long as ten years. Ironically, President Obama wants to tax companies for not producing on their leases, even if the federal government’s refusal to grant permits is the reason why those companies are not drilling.The truth is, ever since Barack Obama took office the President has been making it more difficult to exploit our own energy resources, one of his first actions was having the Secretary of the Interior cancel leases to exploit our shale oil reserves in Utah. It seems as if President Obama’s energy policy consists of making America more dependent on foreign oil.Hmmmm......All this has nothing to do with the President's dream to sell every American an electric car who go's a full 47 Miles in winter and then only needs a FIVE hour 'quick' recharge?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Pakistan's Jewish Problem.By: Tufail Ahmad.This paper examines : 

a) the history of Jews in Pakistan.

 b) violence against Jews and their synagogues following the creation of the Islamic nation of Pakistan in 1947.

 c) contemporary protests by Pakistani Muslims against Jews and Israel; and d) Pakistani political and religious leaders' penchant for blaming most problems facing Pakistan on a U.S.-India-Israel axis.Looking at Pakistani media reports over the past few years, this paper outlines how Pakistani opinion makers – barring a small segment of liberal intelligentsia – are deepening the anti-Jewish mindset that is typical across the Islamic world. For the purposes of this analysis, this paper does not include statements, protests, editorials, cartoons or viewpoints of Pakistani leaders and the government that are deemed to be justified criticism of Israel over its policies regarding the Palestinian problem and the occupied territories.This paper does discuss the narrative of antisemitism in Pakistani society, examining how Israel is seen by Islamic scholars and political leaders in Pakistan as representing the Jews rather than the state and government of Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the context of this paper, a definition of antisemitism means political/religious/cultural attacks on Jews and Israel that are not related to the Palestinian problem but over supposed Jewish-Israeli involvement in international conspiracies.Read the full story here.

• Pakistan - Death threats for Pakistan actress.Veena Malik has incured wrath of clerics for intimate scenes on Indian reality TV show.A well-known Pakistani actress on Saturday said she had received death threats from militants after appearing on the Indian equivalent of hit reality television show "Big Brother".Veena Malik, 27, incurred the wrath of hardline Islamic clerics for her performance on "Big Boss", during which she indulged in several intimate scenes with Indian actor Ashmit Patel that included massaging his head and neck.Clerics accused her of shaming Pakistan in rival India and she also received a letter threatening to "punish" her."I am quite shocked after receiving this letter. First I got only verbal threats but now it is in writing," Malik told AFP by telephone from India, where she is hosting cricket World Cup show "Big Toss"."Security is a concern and the Pakistani government is responsible for my and my family's security. I hope that the government will provide me that security," Malik said.The actress said people with tight security details had been killed in Pakistan, referring to the January assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer over his opposition to a draconian blasphemy law."What can I say except that I have firm belief in God and life and death is in his hand," she said.Malik said she would return to Pakistan despite the threats.Sohail Rashid, Malik's media manager, said she had received a letter from the little-known Maulana Ahmed Masood, who claims to be a leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban, or the Taliban movement."The letter says that Tehreek-e-Taliban has taken a decision as a Muslim to punish Veena Malik soon," Rashid told AFP."We want our daughters and sisters in our homes only and Veena Malik, who is humiliating Pakistan's name in India, will be punished soon," Rashid quoted from the letter."We are soon going to punish Veena Malik so that our future generations may be afraid of going to India. It is the responsibility of all Pakistanis and Muslims, but now we are going to accomplish it," Rashid quoted the letter as saying.Hmmmm......Why in Gods name is the Obama Administration supporting Pakistan?Read the full story here.