England: 17-year-old married Muslim jailed for raping and impregnating a 12-year-old girl behind his wife's back

His excuse? He thought she was 13 and that she gave him her consent.

(NPT) A perverted teenager caged for impregnating a 12-year-old girl behind his wife’s back within a year of entering an arranged Muslim marriage has failed to win a cut in his sentence.

The 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named, said he thought his victim was 13 and had consented to sex after tests proved her unborn baby was his.

He was jailed for seven years at Peterborough Crown Court in January after he pleaded guilty to rape of a child under 13 and two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs.

Senior judges at London’s Court of Appeal rejected a sentence challenge saying his punishment was “in no way” excessive.

Mr Justice Openshaw said: “At the time of the offence the youth was aged only 16. Despite his youth he had been married under Muslim law.”

Within months, however, the 12-year-old girl told her family she had been made pregnant by him. She went through the painful experience of an abortion and DNA tests proved the youth was indeed the father, the appeal judge added.

The Peterborough youth was arrested and admitted sexual contact with the girl, but claimed to have believed she was 13 and said no force or threats were used on her. However, Mr Justice Openshaw observed: “A 12-year-old girl cannot give consent.”

The youth ultimately admitted rape and the drugs offences, which related to two occasions in August, last year, when he was caught by police with heroin.

In an application to challenge the sentence, the youth’s barrister, Ayaz Qazi, argued that the balance of mitigating and aggravating factors merited a shorter jail term.

But the appeal judge, sitting with Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice Stewart, concluded: “The approach to sentencing in this case was carried out with conspicuous care and we are not able to say that the sentence is in any way excessive and the application fails.”

Turkey: Erdogan rules out early elections as tens of thousands defy call to end protests

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party on Saturday ruled out early elections as tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators defied his call for an immediate end to protests.

Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) Party founded by Erdogan just over a decade ago, said local and presidential elections would be held next year as planned, and a general election in 2015.

"The government is running like clockwork. There is nothing that necessitates early elections," he told reporters after a meeting of the party's executive committee in Istanbul.

"The world is dealing with an economic crisis and things are going well in Turkey. Elections are not held because people are marching on the streets."

A few kilometres away, tens of thousands of Turks defied Erdogan's call on Friday for an immediate end to anti-government demonstrations, massing again in the central Taksim Square, where riot police backed by helicopters and armored vehicles first clashed with protesters a week ago.

Tourists and curious locals swelled their numbers around a makeshift protest camp in Gezi Park, a leafy corner of the square where activists have been sleeping in tents and vandalized buses, or wrapped in blankets under plane trees.

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War casualties: Syrian girls bought for sexual pleasure by wealthy old Saudis

BEIRUT, Lebanon (WND) – Rich Saudi Arabian men – some of whom are closely associated with the Saudi royal family – have been purchasing for their sexual pleasure Syrian girls and young women from among the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war conflict to Lebanon and Jordan, evidence suggests, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Most of the Saudis suspected of such atrocities are in their 60s and 70s. When they tire of the girls, these Saudi men often hand them off to other men, or the girls somehow just disappear, witnesses say.

“They come into Lebanon and Jordan and go to the Syrian refugee camps where the Syrian families there have nothing,” one Lebanese source said. “The Saudis then offer $200 for girls aged nine to 14 years and take them from their families. Because the families are so desperate for money, they give in to the temptation.”

Local Lebanese sources say that it is the Sunni Saudi men who make such overtures. Shiite Iranian men do not engage in such activities. However, Qatari men reportedly also have engaged in such activities with the young Syrian girls, but less so than the Saudi men.

Similarly, rich Saudi men will come into Syria, approach a family with a young woman and offer as much as $250,000. They then take her back to Saudi Arabia where they then will share her with other men once the purchaser has become tired of her.

“Given the influence the United States has over Saudi Arabia, why hasn’t your president confronted the Saudis about this?” one Syrian asked. “Sometimes, the girls are returned to their families, but they won’t have a future” in a society that protects girls and young women who later want to get married.

Sources say that the Saudis are especially fond of the Syrian girls because they speak Arabic and are attractive. [...]

“This is going on at every Syrian refugee camp,” one source said.

Devout Allah followers hiding weapons inside coffin kill 13 people in northeast Nigeria

Happened on Friday, that famous Muslim holy day.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) – Witnesses say Islamic extremists who hid their weapons inside a coffin shot and killed 13 people in a northeast Nigeria city.

The attack happened Friday in Maiduguri, the spiritual home of the extremist network Boko Haram. Witnesses told an Associated Press reporter that the attack appeared to be in retaliation for a local vigilante group pointing out Boko Haram members to the military there. They say eight Boko Haram fighters were killed in the attack.

A security official says soldiers and police killed another eight suspected Boko Haram members in a gunfight Thursday in the city. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists. An AP reporter saw the corpses Saturday left in a ditch in the city.

Qaradawi says “every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that [must] make himself available” for Jihad against Assad and Hezbollah in Syria, calls Hezbollah the “party of Satan”

(Al Arabiya) Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh hailed on Thursday senior Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi’s stance against Iran and Hezbollah, Al Arabiya television reported.

Sheikh Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, criticized last Saturday the Lebanese Shiite militia group for its military intervention in Syria and called for Jihad against it.

Qaradawi, a Sunni cleric, said in a speech in the Qatari capital Doha that “every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that [must] make himself available” for Jihad against Assad and Hezbollah in Syria, AFP quoted him as saying.

“Iran is pushing forward arms and men, so why do we stand idle?” he asked, describing Hezbollah, which means the party of God in Arabic, as the “party of Satan.”

“The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis... Now we know what the Iranians want... They want continued massacres to kill Sunnis,” Qaradawi said.

“How could 100 million Shiites [worldwide] defeat 1.7 billion [Sunnis]? Only because [Sunni] Muslims are weak.”

Sheikh Qaradawi said he was mistaken in his previous support of Hezbollah and Iran, in front of Saudi clerics.

“I defended the so-called Nasrallah and his party, the party of tyranny... in front of clerics in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“It seems that the clerics of Saudi Arabia were more mature than me,” Qaradawi added, according to AFP.

Belgian Wahhabis Filmed Themselves Beheading a Shiite Man in Syria

Belgian Wahhabis Filmed Themselves Beheading a Shiite Man in Syria

A new video has surfaced filmed in Syria that shows a group of Wahhabi jihadists, some of them speaking Dutch (Flemish) and French, using a large knife to behead a Shiite man.

The rebels, chanting "Allahu Akbar (Allah is greater)" first try to slice the man's head off, but then begin hacking at his throat after failing to make a clean cut.

The Flemish- and French-speaking Belgians, who may be among the hundred or so Belgians believed to have joined the fight against Syria's government, are heard complaining that the knife is dull, according to a translation of the video.

The video emerges as EU ministers on Friday discussed the potential security threat posed by the hundreds of young Europeans fighting alongside the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) terrorists in Syria.

Source: RTL TVI

Warning: Some footage might be graphic (18+, not for shock, only aimed at documenting crimes of the FSA terrorists and foreign jihadists in Syria)

Aren't you just feeling that loving multicultural glow?

These homegrown jihadists will reek havoc upon their return to their European dar al harbs.

Syrian forces capture final rebel stronghold in Qusair region

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government troops backed by Hezbollah guerrillas seized the western village of Buwayda on Saturday, ending rebel resistance around the town of Qusair in a fresh success for President Bashar al-Assad.

The swift fall of Buwayda came just three days after rebels were swept out of Qusair, denying them an important supply route into neighbouring Lebanon and giving renewed momentum to Assad's forces battling a two-year civil war.

Several opposition activists confirmed Buwayda was in government hands and said dozens of rebels, including a number of foreign fighters, had been captured alive. There was no immediate word of their fate.

"We can now declare Qusair and the surrounding area to be a fully liberated area. We will go after the terrorists wherever they are," an unnamed, senior Syrian army officer told state television from the rubble-filled streets of Buwayda.

Fighting flared elsewhere in Syria, including close to the capital Damascus and in the northern Aleppo province, which is expected to be the focus of renewed attack by Assad's forces following the collapse of the Qusair rebel front.

In Syria's third city Homs, an epicenter of the anti-government revolt, a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives in a pro-Assad neighborhood, killing seven people, Syrian television reported.

Three women were among the dead and at least 10 people were wounded, with the video showing pools of blood on the ground and at least one badly charred body.

The report could not be independently verified as the Syrian government restricts access to independent media.

The United Nations estimates at least 80,000 people have died in the conflict. U.N. humanitarian agencies launched a $5 billion appeal on Friday, the biggest in their history, to cope with the fallout from the fighting that has sent some 1.6 million refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries.

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Wounded... and dangerous: "Israel cannot be lured into complacency by Kerry’s buffoonery or Obama’s apparent political weakness"

(JPost) US Secretary of State John Kerry looks like a bit of an idiot these days. On Monday he announced that he will be returning to Israel and the Palestinian Authority and Jordan for the fifth time since he was sworn into office on February 1. That is an average of more than one visit a month.

And aside from frequent flier miles, the only thing he has to show for it is a big black eye from PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

When Kerry was here last month he unveiled a stunning plan to bring $4 billion in investment funds to the PA. If his plan actually pans out, its champions claim it will increase the PA’s GDP by a mind-numbing 50 percent in three years and drop Palestinian unemployment from 21 to 8 percent.

Standing before world and regional leaders on May 26, Kerry said plaintively, “This will help build the future. Is this a fantasy? I don’t think so.”

Abbas and his underlings wasted no time, however, in demonstrating that indeed, Kerry’s plan is fantasy. Abbas appointed Rami Hamdallah, a Fatah apparatchik with perfect English, to replace America’s favorite moderate Palestinian, Salam Fayyad, as PA prime minister.

As The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh has pointedly explained, Hamdallah was appointed for two reasons. First, to facilitate Fatah’s absconding with hundreds of millions of dollars in donor aid to the PA and to Palestinian development projects precisely of the type that Kerry hopes to finance with his $4b. grant. The second reason Abbas appointed Hamdallah the English professor from Nablus was because his language skills will enable him to make American and European donors feel comfortable as his colleagues in Fatah pick their taxpayer- funded pockets.

Aside from mooning Kerry in the middle of his speech in Jordan, Abbas couldn’t have thought of a more graphic way to show his contempt for Kerry and the Obama administration.

But that wasn’t the only thing the Palestinians did. Again, as Abu Toameh has reported, the popular Palestinian response to last week’s World Economic Forum in Jordan, where Abbas and Kerry rubbed elbows with President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, was to attack the businessmen who accompanied Abbas to the conference. Their crime was meeting with Israeli businessmen who came to the conference in Peres’s entourage. Led by Fatah activists, Palestinian writers, unions and others also went after Palestinian businessmen from Jenin who went to Haifa to meet with Israeli businesspeople at the invitation of Haifa’s Chamber of Commerce. The “anti-normalization” crowd is calling for Palestinians to boycott Palestinian businesses that do business with Israelis.

And again, that isn’t all. At the PLO’s birthday celebrations this week, Abbas said that the group’s 1964 charter reflects the will of the Palestinian people. That charter calls for the destruction of Israel. It was written three years before Israel took control of Judea, Samaria and northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem.

But wait, there’s more. The Palestinian leadership attacked Kerry personally and his plan as an attempt to bribe them. They promised that while they will happily take the money, $4b. measly dollars won’t convince them to moderate one iota. They still demand that Israel release all Palestinian terrorists from its jails, agree to its demographic destruction through the so-called “right of return,” or unfettered immigration of millions of foreign Arabs to Israel, and the surrender of all of Judea, Samaria and northern, southern and eastern Jerusalem to the PLO as a precondition to beginning negotiations.

And for all that, Kerry responded by applauding Hamdallah’s appointment and announcing he will return here next week and is planning to roll out his own comprehensive peace plan very soon.

Israeli leaders for the most part have reacted to Kerry’s constant harping by rolling their eyes. He seems like a complete lunatic. Obviously he will fail and the best thing we can do is smile and nod, like you do when you are dealing with a crazy person.

Even when Kerry claimed that the reason Israelis aren’t interested in peace is that our lives are too happy, we didn’t take offense. Because really, why take anything he says seriously? And aside from that, they ask, what can the Obama administration do to us, at this point? Every single day it becomes more mired in scandal.

The Guardian’s revelation Wednesday that the US government has been confiscating the phone records of tens of millions of Americans who use the Verizon business network since April is just the latest serious, normal-presidency destroying scandal to be exposed in the past month. And every single scandal – the IRS’s unlawful harassment and discrimination of conservative organizations and individuals, the Justice Department’s spying on AP journalists and attempt to criminalize the normal practice of journalism through its investigation of Fox News correspondent James Rosen – makes it more difficult for President Barack Obama to advance his agenda.

As for foreign policy, the whistle-blower testimony that exposed Obama’s cover-up of the September 11, 2012, al-Qaida attack on the US Consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi has caused massive damage to Obama’s credibility in foreign affairs and to the basic logic of his foreign policy.

Ambassador Chris Stevens was tortured and murdered by al-Qaida terrorists who owed their freedom of operation to the Obama administration. If it hadn’t been for Obama’s decision to bring down the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, who had been largely harmless to the US since he gave up his illicit nuclear weapons program in 2004, those al-Qaida forces probably wouldn’t have be capable of waging an eight-hour assault on US installations and personnel in Benghazi.

With the Benghazi scandal hounding him, the Syrian civil war and, for the past week, the antigovernment protests in Turkey all exposing his incompetence on a daily basis, these Israeli leaders take heart, no doubt in the belief that Obama’s freedom to attack us has vastly diminished.

Although this interpretation of events is attractive, and on its face seems reasonable, it is wrong.

And it would be a devastating mistake for Israeli leaders to believe it.

Since he entered office, Obama has responded to every defeat by doubling down and radicalizing.

When in 2009 public sentiment against his plan to nationalize the US healthcare industry was so high that Republican Scott Brown was elected senator from Massachusetts for the sole purpose of blocking Obamacare’s passage in the US Senate, Obama did not accept the public’s verdict.

He used a technicality to ram the hated legislation through without giving Brown and the Senate the chance to vote it down.

And now, as his Middle East strategy of appeasing Islamists lies in the ruins of the US Consulate in Benghazi and in the cemeteries interning the Syrians murdered in sarin gas attacks as Obama shrugged his shoulders, Obama is again doubling down. On Wednesday he announced that he is elevating the two architects of his policy to senior leadership roles in his administration.

Obama’s appointments of UN Ambassador Susan Rice to serve as his national security adviser, and of former National Security Council member Samantha Power to serve as ambassador to the UN, are a finger in the eye to his critics. These women rose to national prominence through their breathless insistence that the US use force to overthrow Gaddafi in spite of clear evidence that al-Qaida was a major force in his opposition.

Power is reportedly the author of Obama’s policy of apologizing to foreign countries for the actions of past administrations. Certainly she shares Obama’s hostility toward Israel. And she has been outspoken in expressing her negative opinions.

In a nutshell, Power’s vision for US foreign policy is a noxious brew of equal parts self-righteousness, ignorance and prejudice. And now she will be responsible for defending Israel (or not) at the most hostile international arena in the world, where Israel’s very right to exist is subject to assault on a daily basis.

Obama’s decision to appoint Rice and Power in the face of the mounting scandals surrounding his presidency generally and his foreign policy particularly is not the only reason Israeli leaders should not expect for his weakened political position to diminish Obama’s plan to put the screws on Israel in the coming years. There is also the disturbing pattern of the abuse of power that the scandals expose.

To date, all administration officials questioned have denied that Obama was in any way involved in directing the IRS to use the tax code to intimidate with the aim of discrediting and destroying conservative organizations and donors. Likewise, they say he played no role in the Justice Department’s espionage operations against American journalists, or in the intentional cover-up of the al-Qaida assault on US installations and personnel in Benghazi. But mounting circumstantial evidence indicates that this is not true. White House visitor records show that IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman visited Obama’s White House 157 times. His predecessor Mark Everson who served under president George W.

Bush only visited the White House once.

So, too, as Andrew McCarthy reported last month in National Review, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted that Obama spoke with then secretary of state Hillary Clinton at 10 p.m. on September 11, 2012, during the al- Qaida assault in Benghazi.

It was after that phone conversation that the administration changed its talking points about the nature of the assault, purging details on the identity of the perpetrators and blaming an unrelated Internet movie trailer for inciting the attack.

The one thing all the scandals share is a singleminded willingness to pursue radical goals to the bitter end. The IRS’s targeting of conservatives was an appalling abuse of executive power, unlike anything we have seen in recent history. The passage of Obamacare in the face massive public opposition was another means to the end of destroying his opponents. The cover-up of the Benghazi attack was a bid to hide the failure of a policy in order to double down on it – despite its failure. The only reason you would want to double down on an already failed policy is if you are ideologically committed to a larger goal that the failed policy advances.

The similarities of the pattern of behavior in all of these actions, as well as the circumstantial evidence already unearthed, indicate strongly that despite the denials, Obama was in fact involved and may have directed the actions of all of his underlings in all of the scandals now unfolding.

What this means for Israel is we cannot be lured into complacency by Kerry’s buffoonery or Obama’s apparent political weakness. This is a man who is most dangerous when attacked. And this is a man who is absolutely committed to his ideological agenda. We had better be ready, because if we are not, we won’t know what has hit us.

Paris: Government subsidized museum opens an 'art' exhibition featuring photos of Palestinian suicide bombers, calls them 'martyrs'

(JTA) — A Paris museum subsidized by the French government opened an exhibition of photos of Palestinian suicide bombers, which the museum calls freedom fighters.

The exhibition of 68 photos entitled “Death” by Ahlam Shibli opened on May 28 at the Jeu de Paume museum of contemporary art in Paris.

The museum’s website describes suicide bombers as “those who lost their lives fighting against the occupation,” and the exhibition as being about “the efforts of Palestinian society to preserve their presence.”

According to CRIF, the umbrella body of French Jewish communities, the people commemorated in the photos are “mostly from the [Fatah-affiliated] al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades [of Hamas] and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” All three are designated by the European Union as terrorist groups.

One of the photos is of Osama Buchkar, a PFLP operative who killed three people and wounded 59 in a terrorist attack he carried out at an open market in Netanya on May 19, 2002. The caption to his picture says he “committed a martyr mission in Netanya.”

In a letter Wednesday to France’s Culture and Communications Minister, Aurélie Filipetti, CRIF President Roger Cukierman said that it was “particularly lamentable and unacceptable that such a display should justify terrorism from the heart of Paris.”

'Uhhh…Uh…Uhhh….People!' Obama at Total Loss for Words When Staff Forgets His Speech

(Fox Nation) President Obama strolled out to the podium today in San Jose, CA and was immediately at a loss for words. Not only did the President not have teleprompter, his aides forgot his speech.

“My remarks are not sitting here,” the President declared awkwardly. “I’m uhhh….people….oh goodness….uhhhh...folks are sweating back there right now.”

President Obama, who’s often mocked for an over-reliance on scripts, shifted uncomfortably smiling for several moments buying time. An aide sprinted out with a hard copy of the speech, tripping at one point, adding to the drama.

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In other words, he was just being a doofus that he is in real life.

Saudi cleric: Prohibit women from using air conditioning because it may lead to moral depravities

Welcome to the wonderful world of Islam.

(WT) A man who claimed to be a Salafist-Wahhibist cleric put the word out on Twitter that women should not flip on air conditioners at home because it sends the signal they’re home and that could lead to moral depravities.

The alleged cleric said “turning on the cooler ventilator is prohibited for women in the absence of their husbands [because] the woman’s act is very dangerous, and may bring about immorality in the society. When she turns the cooler on, someone may notice her presence home, and this might bring about immorality,” International Business Times reported.

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Israel Brings Relief to Victims of Oklahoma Tornado; Canada's Aid Blocked by Obama

Go Israel!Does Canada count? @genemcvay Aid was sent, stopped at border by Obama #USDA fireandreamitchell.com/2013/06/02/can…
— angelique (@angeliquerene) June 6, 2013

@angeliquerene Yes, I just learned that Canada was locked out by Obama.Thank you Canada, I am sorry about our leadership.
— ✯✯Gene McVay✯✯ (@GeneMcVay) June 6, 2013

(The Jewish Press) Galit Cohen of IsraAID, an Israeli humanitarian organization working all over the world, speaks to United With Israel about IsraAid’s relief efforts in Oklahoma to provide assistance and aid to victims of the recent tornado.

United With Israel recently interviewed Galit Cohen. Galit Cohen is a staff member of IsraAID, an Israeli humanitarian organization, that is presently working on the ground in Moore, Oklahoma, helping American tornado victims by providing disaster relief and counseling. Although IsraAID was also active in the Oklahoman towns of Bethel and Little X, IsraAID decided to focus on Moore because it was hit the worst. IsraAID is the only international humanitarian organization providing disaster relief assistance to Oklahoma at this time.

Presently, the situation is quite dire in the areas where IsraAID is operating. According to Cohen, “It’s extremely bad. It’s shocking. You have cars where you can’t see that it was a car until you see the tires.” She described a trailer park where only 5 out of the 30 trailers survived and how homes were transformed overnight into piles of wood and bricks. Cohen claims that the devastation was so bad that it will take years to fix it. The situation is particularly bad for communities in Oklahoma that lacked insurance to cover the cost of damages.

Cohen told United With Israel that every day, IsraAID is given a new assignment and they go wherever the victims are to help them salvage and rebuild their lives. Once they cleared a park that was full of fallen wood. Most of the time, they help families clear the debris from their homes and their yards, and to rescue whatever small items that they can, before the bulldozers come in to tear down the wreckage. Cohen claimed that in most instances, there was not much left for them to rescue because of the damage incurred by the tornado, yet at times, some families are lucky enough to salvage some things. For example, one woman just wanted to be able to save her sons ring from his football team and with the help of IsraAID, she was able to do so.

In addition, IsraAID has been providing counseling to the local population in tornado affected areas in Oklahoma, who were traumatized in the wake of the natural disaster. According to Cohen, “We had a specialist in trauma management and counseling and she worked in Little X with the Red Cross and with the victims of the tornado and tried to calm them down. She worked with a woman who lost all her clothes except one outfit and all she wanted was a plastic bag for what was left of her house. A counselor helped her. This is the level of devastation.”

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Saudi Arabia bemoans shortage of trained sword executioners for death row inmates

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Saudi Arabia is governed by Sharia and people sentenced to death are executed with a sword in accordance with Islamic law. However, fewer people are interested in a "career" in executing others, a task that requires a lot of cold blood and a lot of training in how to swing properly the sword. In fact, a memo from the Saudi Justice Ministry is bemoaning a labour shortage in people trained to use the blade.

Within the kingdom, courts are forced to compete for executioners, who must travel around the country to carry out sentences. This is slowing down the justice system. To speed matters up, the Justice Ministry has issued an order allowing courts to shoot prisoners on the grounds that this method is not unIslamic.

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Video: Turkish Revolution - police brutality

House rejects Obama policy on illegal immigrant teens

WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House voted Thursday to reject President Barack Obama's policy to end deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the country illegally who were brought to the United States as children.

The 224-201 vote broke along party lines and comes as Congress is working on overhauling the much-criticized U.S. immigration system. The measure came as the House completed action on the Department of Homeland Security spending bill.

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Obama Gives Saudi Arabia “Open Access” to American Skies

(FPM) Since Saudi Arabia already has open access to our government and immigration system, why not our skies as well. What’s the worst that could happen?

The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed an Open Skies agreement that will “permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory.”

The agreement means Saudi airlines may fly from any point in the kingdom to any point in the United States, and that U.S. airlines may fly from any point here to any airport in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was signed May 28 in Jeddah by U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith and Dr. Faisal bin Hamad Al-Sugair, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Director of the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked and crashed American planes on Sept. 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia.

Other things that Obama recently did for Saudi Arabia included trashing the last post 9/11 visa restrictions.

Diplomats said the administration of President Barack Obama has removed most restrictions on the entry of Saudis to the United States. They said the percentage of visa approvals for Saudis has reached unprecedented levels.

“The United States aims to raise the number of visas that it issues annually, particularly to Saudi nationals, who represent an important group,” Joseph Hood, U.S. consul-general in the Saudi city of Dhahran, said.

No treason to see here.

Turkey: Erdoğan Threatens Vigilante Justice as Protests Spread to 80 Cities and Towns

(Commentary Magazine) Anger continues to rise in Turkey, where protests now rock more than 80 Turkish towns and cities. Like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh before him, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears defiant in the face of the protestors’ demands. At its core, Erdoğan and his supporters justify their actions in the fact that he won 50 percent of the vote in the last elections. In his mind, therefore, he has a popular mandate for anything he does—from meddling in an essentially local matter like the paving over of Gezi Park, to imprisoning opposition parliamentarians, to confiscating newspapers and television stations.

Alas, while fellow analysts like the Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven Cook argue that Erdoğan is likely to survive the protests (and I largely agree with him), Erdoğan’s own statements suggest the worst may yet be to come. While Erdoğan has pushed less volatile AKP members like President Abdullah Gül and Erdoğan’s radical but more polite deputy Bülent Arınç in front of the cameras in recent days, their attempts to mollify the demonstrators have been overshadowed by Erdoğan’s barely concealed threat that he was “barely holding back the 50 percent” that voted for him from coming onto the street to take on the pro-democracy protestors.

Indeed, it appears that some AKP members are already taking to the streets to confront violently those protestors who seek a more liberal and/or secular Turkey. After videos emerged in Izmir of police grabbing and handing protestors to others dressed in civilian clothes that would proceed to beat them, the governor of Izmir explained that the videotaped civilians were actually undercover police, but they had simply forgotten to bring their “police” vests which they are supposed to wear in such cases. Such an explanation does not seem credible, however, since those beating the demonstrators were not using batons, but crude wooden sticks, and many of them wielding the sticks and pipes against the protestors seemed to be no more than 16 or 17 years old. One of the so-called undercover police was further identified as a member of an AKP youth wing who had recently been ousted after tweeting, “One day we will bring down Ataturk’s Tomb, inshallah.”

Two years ago Cengiz Çandar, a pro-AKP journalist known to carry water for Erdoğan, criticized me harshly for referring to “Erdoğan’s Brownshirts,” and declared, “Freedom of speech is part of the daily routine in Turkey. Western attacks on the Turkish government smack of a dubious agenda.” Mr. Çandar, if you doubt Erdoğan’s Brownshirts exist, perhaps it’s time to hop out of the government car and turn on the television. In any dictatorship, there are—unfortunately—no shortage of journalists who will protect rulers who in turn privilege them.

Fortunately, such journalists often keep one finger to the wind to make sure they can ingratiate themselves. Çandar today is comparing the Taksim protestors to a “velvet revolution.” Let us hope that as the edifice of fear crumbles, other journalists will also prioritize truth over privilege. Not only will the Turkish people be better off, but so too will be the state of Turkish journalism.

4,000 Hezbollah jihadists reach Aleppo, say "Free Syrian Army" al Qaeda jihadists

What could be better than a good old-fashined Muslim-on-Muslim jihadist slaughter?

(The Commentator) Over 4,000 fighters from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have reached the northern Syrian city of Aleppo as part of military preparations to retake the rebel-held city, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army told The Daily Star today.

“The number of Hezbollah members who have entered Aleppo has exceeded 4,000,” Louay Meqdad, the FSA spokesman, said.

“They are stationed at the Military Engineering Academy in what seems to be preparations for an attack on the city of Aleppo,” he added.

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Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Hasan says he killed US soldiers "to prevent the imminent death of Taliban fighters"

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) – A judge says she won't decide whether to delay the Fort Hood shooting suspect's trial until he provides evidence to support his defense strategy — and she might not accept it.

Maj. Nidal Hasan said Tuesday his defense will explain that he killed 13 people in the 2009 shooting rampage because soldiers were about to deploy to Afghanistan. He says he was trying to prevent the imminent death of Taliban fighters.

A "defense of others" strategy requires defendants to prove they killed a person or people to protect others from immediate danger or death.

Hasan, who's representing himself at his murder trial, is seeking a three-month delay. The judge may rule Wednesday, delaying jury selection until at least Monday.

He faces the death penalty or life without parole if convicted.

APNewsBreak: Iran's reactor said damaged by quakes

(AP) Several countries monitoring Iran's nuclear program have picked up information that the country's only power-producing nuclear reactor was damaged by one or more of several recent earthquakes, with long cracks appearing in at least one section of the structure, two diplomats said Tuesday. [...]

Reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency in February and May said the agency had been informed by the Iranians that the facility was shut down, without specifying why.

Kuwait and other Arab countries are only a few hundred kilometers (miles) away from Iran's Bushehr reactor, which is on the Persian Gulf coast, and are particularly worried about the safety of the Russian-built reactor. Saudi Arabia mentioned Bushehr as a safety concern on Tuesday at a session of the Vienna-based IAEA's 35-nation board.

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Syria War Crimes Go from Bad to Worse to Even More Awful

(The Atlantic Wire) As the Syrian civil war drags on into its third summer, the conflict only grows larger and more vicious, with Hezbollah, Israel, Turkey, Russia, and even the North Koreans joining in the fight. Both the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have released new reports on the carnage created by the rebellion and they paint a frightening picture of a conflict that seems further than it has even been from a peaceful reconciliation. The U.N. report accuses both sides of committing war crimes, including "crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations" such as summary executions and attacks on civilians.

The U.N. also claims that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that chemical weapons have been used at least four times during the war, but much like earlier reports from American officials, they refuse to confirm who might be behind it. Because U.N. experts have not been allowed into the country to investigate, they say that they can't rule with any degree of certainty about who was behind the attacks, suggesting that even the rebels could be behind them.

But in another report that is arguably more disturbing than the chemical attacks, Human Rights Watch claims that 147 bodies have been found the river running through the city of Aleppo between January and March of this year, and that all appear to have been executed by government forces or their supporters. More than 230 bodies have actually been recovered but HRW was only able to positively identify 147 of the victims, some as young as 11. The river in question has become the unofficial dividing line of the city, separating the government controlled areas, from those neighborhoods currently in the hands of rebels.

Most disturbingly, these "official" crimes only seem to scratch the surface of the atrocities being committed everyday across the nation. The rest either go unreported or are impossible to verify, despite being chronicled on blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. One of the most recent and disturbing, was posted just yesterday. It shows a woman who allegedly raped, then shot by an Assad solider and left in the street as bait for rescuers, who were then killed by snipers as they tried to save her.

Part of the reason for the increased brutality is that Syria has become more than just a war between Assad and his people. Hezbollah, which has always positioned itself as a anti-Israeli resistance movement has wholeheartedly joined the fight on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, hoping to preserve their alliance with Syria and Iran. The Lebanese Shiite group fears a future Syria dominated by Sunni rebels (making the conflict a more sectarian battle every day), but should Assad fall, the repercussions will be felt in Lebanon and beyond. Their involvement also threatens to pull in Israel, as well, sparking fears of a larger regional war.

And finally, even North Korea can't resist getting involved. Rebel groups claim that more than a dozen officers from Pyongyang's army have been spotted in Syria assisting the regime plans. (Although Russia has denied earlier claims that their surface-to-air missiles had been shipped to Damascus.) It seems everyone has a stake in the outcome of this war, which probably explains why it's nowhere close to being resolved.

Turkey: Erdogan Blames "Extremists" for Protests as Two Are Killed

Looks like Obama's good buddy is having a few dictatorial problems.

ISTANBUL (NYT) — As protests continued for a fourth day in major Turkish cities on Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the demonstrations were the work of extremists led by political opponents trying to overthrow his government. But Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, called for calm from all sides and said that protests and demonstrations were a natural part of democracy.

Protesters gathered again in Istanbul and other cities Monday evening, after security forces used tear gas and water cannons overnight on crowds of mostly youthful demonstrators in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir who were calling for an end to Mr. Erdogan’s more than 10 years in power.

For the first time, deaths were reported at two demonstrations: one protester died in Ankara after a vehicle slammed into a crowd there late Sunday night, The Associated Press reported, citing a medical official. And in the southern border town of Hatay, an opposition party deputy reported on the Web channel Halk TV that a 22-year-old man whom he identified as Abdullah Can Comert was struck in the head by at least one of four bullets fired from an armored police vehicle. Mr. Erdogan accused the main opposition party of using the demonstrations, which flared into a widespread confrontation with security forces on Friday, for political gain.

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Hezbollah promises many more dead Muslims in Syria

(Business Insider) Thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah militants are amassing around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in preparation for an assault on the city, Loveday Morris of The Washington Post reports. The deployment demonstrates the group's complete commitment to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and may profoundly affect the 26-month conflict.

“The Aleppo battle has started on a very small scale; we’ve only just entered the game,” a senior Hezbollah commander told The Post. “We are going to go after strongholds where they think they are safe. They are going to fall like dominoes.”

The commander had been overseeing five units in Qusair, a town near the Syria-Lebanon on border where Hezbollah has been spearheading a regime offensive to retake the town for the last three weeks.

The increased presence of the militant group, in addition to the arrival of sophisticated military technology such as Iranian surveillance drones and Russian anti-mortar systems, has helped solidify recent gains made by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah's preparations to attack Aleppo, which is nowhere near the Lebanon-Syria border, significantly raises the stakes in the war.

“A deployment so deep into Syria and in such a crucial place would be a clear indication that Hezbollah’s role in Syria was never limited to defensive aims but is geared toward helping Assad score major victories,” Emile Hokayem, a Middle East-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Post.

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IRS' Lois Lerner personally approved and backdated Obama's Kenyan brother's fake charity

(NRO) We have the president of the United States’ word as a gentleman that he knew nothing about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of his enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”

Furthermore, although the commissioner of the IRS, Douglas Shulman, visited Obama’s White House no fewer than 157 times, which is 156 times more than his predecessor Mark Everson ever visited the White House, we know that this was for legitimate Easter-egg rolls, as he testified to Congress, and meetings to discuss Obamacare. The Easter Bunny, one should note, visits the White House two to four times as often as the average IRS commissioner did before Mr. Shulman came along. But you can’t make a health-care omelet without breaking Easter eggs: It is one of the many distinctive features of Obama-style “health” “care” “reform” that, while it has not led to the hiring of a single additional doctor, nurse, or hospital janitor, it did require the biggest expansion of the IRS since the Second World War. So, when he wasn’t rolling Easter eggs and advising the moppets on whether they needed to declare the luxury Belgian white chocolate balls with praline filling, he was participating in vital meetings on how many extra SWAT teams he was going to need to enforce the new colonoscopy non-compliance penalty.

Let us also overlook the excellent treatment received from the IRS by members of the president’s family. Although acting commissioner Steven Miller apologized for the “horrible customer service” conservative taxpayers had gotten, a gentleman by the name of Malik Obama received impeccable, express service when he took the precaution of mailing in his non-profit application from N’giya, Kenya, rather than notoriously slower mail processing centers such as Phoenix and Dallas. Malik, the brother of President Obama, runs the Barack H. Obama Foundation, named for the president’s father. On May 30, 2011, they applied for tax-exempt status, and had their approval signed less than a month later by Lois Lerner herself, and conveniently backdated by Lois to cover the two-and-a-half years the enterprising Malik had already been raking in “tax-deductible” donations from Americans. The Washington address of the Barack H. Obama Foundation appears to be bogus, and it’s not clear whether the funds are being used back in Kenya for anything other than supporting the famously lavish lifestyle of Malik and his twelve wives. Given that the IRS is not shy about asking American conservatives for Facebook posts and lists of who attends their meetings, Ms. Lerner surely would have been within her rights to ask Malik Obama about the “exclusive” photographs currently displayed on the Barack H. Obama Foundation website of a recent meeting in Sudan, one of only four countries the U.S. government designates as a “terrorist state,” and the Foundation’s apparently extensive association with the Sudanese president and blood-soaked genocidal war criminal Omar al-Bashir. Given that the IRS likes to ask conservative taxpayers whether their friends and relatives are planning on running for office, Ms. Lerner might like to ask Malik Obama when his friend President Bashir is planning on leaving office. After another quarter million corpses?

Whatever. Let’s take it as read that, when U.S. taxpayers wind up giving tax breaks to an entity linked to the butchers of Darfur, it’s pure coincidence that the racket turns out to be run by the president’s brother. Let’s accept that Malik Obama just got lucky that his letter landed on the desk of Lois Lerner, and that, when she backdated his application for two-and-a-half years, she’d momentarily forgotten that it’s illegal for her to backdate it more than two-and-a-quarter years. Indeed, let’s take the president at his word that the existence of this shadowy IRS entity working deep within the even shadowier U.S. Treasury planted in deep cover within the shadowiest conspiracy of them all, this murky hitherto unknown organization called “the Executive Branch,” that all this was news to him. What that means then is not that this or that elected politician is corrupt but that the government of the United States is corrupt.

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Israeli Medical Team Saves Life of 10-Year-Old Arab Boy by Performing Kidney Transplant

In Syria, that kidney would not have been wasted on such a nonsense... they would have fed it to jihadists.

(INN) A ten-year-old Palestinian Authority boy “received new life thanks to an Israeli kidney transplant,” according to a statement released by the spokesman of the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva.

The medical team operated on a boy who suffered from kidney dysfunction, was undergoing dialysis and had been waiting for a kidney transplant.

The boy is recovery in the ICU. He is in stable condition.

While Israel regularly conducts such operations on Arabs, the Jewish state is seldom recognized for such efforts.

The father of the boy said that he “had no words to thank the Jewish donor's family” and merely noted that, after many years waiting for a transplant, his son was receiving new life, according to the statement released by the medical center.

Tens of thousands take part in Celebrate Israel Parade in New York, more than a million line up the route

Security was tight amid concerns about avoiding a possible Muslim terrorist attack. But it was fun, and even Anthony showed up with his Weiner.

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Tens of thousands of people from the Tri-State Area celebrated the 65th anniversary of the creation of Israel Sunday, at a parade down Fifth Avenue that had some of the tightest security measures ever seen.

As CBS 2 Political reporter Marcia Kramer reported, spirits were high on Fifth Avenue at the 2013 Celebrate Israel Parade. Thousands of children were among the 35,000 marchers who took part, and, 17 bands and 30 floats marched up Fifth Avenue for the annual parade, 1010 WINS’ Glenn Schuck reported.

More than a million flag-waving spectators lined the parade route, CBS 2′s Janelle Burrell reported.

“Everyone feels so connected. Nobody even knows each other really but everyone just feels united and connected,” one woman told Schuck.

“We love Israel!” some paradegoers shouted.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the mayoral hopefuls were all on hand for the celebration of Israel.

“Everyone feels so connected. Nobody even knows each other really but everyone just feels united and connected,” one woman told Schuck.

“We love Israel!” some paradegoers shouted.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the mayoral hopefuls were all on hand for the celebration of Israel.

The NYPD put in place an amazing array of security initiatives, including police helicopters with special sensors to detect radiation on the ground, a counterterrorism car with a 360-degree camera to search for suspicious packages, and bomb-sniffing dogs all along the route to check for explosives on parade watchers.

Video cameras mounted in the NYPD’s Eyes in the Sky were used to send a continuous feed to the Security Coordination Center.

And a new double-barricade system was also in place, with an extra lane on each side of the street between participants and spectators. The new chasm made it nearly impossible for politicians to do the grab-hands act with paradegoers.

There were also a lot of extra police officers, in uniform and plain clothes.

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Palestine - Pouring Money Into A Bottomless Pit

(CFP) US Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan this week proposed investing another four billion dollars in trying to resolve the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Why these billions would succeed - when tens of billions given at previous international aid meetings failed - remains a mystery.

The belief that economic prosperity for the Arabs living in the West Bank will bring a lasting end to the conflict has proved worthless in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

When the international community pledged $7.4 billion dollars at the Paris Donors Conference in December 2007 to achieve the creation of the two state solution by the end of 2008 - my article in this journal headlined - “Paris Produces Palestinian Funding Frenzy” - made the following observations:

“Creating two separate States for one Arab population living in the territorial boundaries of former Palestine always was an artificial invention that had no basis in history, geography or demography. It was a fiction contrived by the international community at a particular time to solve a particular problem

There are two questions that remain unanswered - when will the international community stop pursuing this fiction and when will they turn off the money tap trying to make it happen

Solutions - other than another Arab State - are possible and achievable.

Pursuing those solutions - and throwing money at them in amounts similar to the Paris pledges - have a far better chance of success than the continued promotion of a 70 years old concept that has well passed its 1967 expiry date

Surely the time is fast approaching for these donors to cut their losses and simply say “enough is enough”.

The Paris Conference final communique declared:

“The Paris Conference has made evident the high degree of confidence of the international community in President Abbas and PM Fayyad’s reform and development programme”

Arafat has since then repudiated the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap.

Fayyad is no longer Prime Minister - having left his reform and development programme in tatters as the International Monetary Fund makes clear in its report released in Brussels on 19 March 2013:
” the economy has deteriorated markedly and the public finances are on an unsustainable track. Economic growth has weakened, the unemployment rate has increased, and the fiscal position has deteriorated to the point where core government functions have been affected, with ongoing cash rationing eroding public financial management institutions. Unsustainably high fiscal deficits combined with aid shortfalls are resulting in a large buildup of arrears and increased bank borrowing in the context of a slowing economy. Worryingly, with donor aid receding, the government‘s ability to finance large deficits is becoming more and more circumscribed. Thus, arrears, many with private suppliers, are causing them to become progressively more reluctant to provide the PA with goods and services while also causing distortions in the private sector. Arrears in the form of delayed or partial payment of wages risk social unrest and strikes, while additional recourse to the banks would further increase banking sector vulnerabilities.”

Yet just two months after this alarming IMF report - Secretary of State Kerry and the 300 Israeli and Palestinian industrialists and entrepreneurs gathered at the World Economic Forum are still prepared to keep this rapidly sinking fiction afloat - no matter how much it costs.

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Hamas loses Iran funds for backing Syria rebels

Is there no honor amongst terrorists?

Gaza City: Iran has cut up to £15 million (Dh83.7 million) a month in funding for Hamas as punishment for the movement backing the uprising in Syria, the Palestinian Islamist group’s leaders have admitted.

The two once-close allies have also ceased military cooperation, effectively ending a warm relationship in which Tehran provided weapons, technical know-how and military training to Hamas fighters.

The rupture has been caused by Hamas’ refusal to toe the Iranian line by supporting President Bashar Al Assad, whose Alawite regime has a loose religious relationship to Iran’s ruling theocracy. Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has sided with its Sunni co-religionists who are trying to unseat Al Assad, in common with other mainly Sunni countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Gazi Hamad, Hamas’ deputy foreign minister, frankly described relations with Iran as “bad”. Asked about Iranian funding, he said: “I can say it is not like the past. I cannot give you the exact amount. For supporting the Syrian revolution, we lost very much.

“I cannot deny that since 2006, Iran supported Hamas with money and many [other] things. But the situation is not like the past.” He added: “I cannot say there is military cooperation.”

While Hamas officials have previously said they would not retaliate on Iran’s behalf if Israel attacked the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities — citing disagreements over Syria — they have previously been coy about funding from a country that is Shiite and non-Arab.

Iran gave Hamas an estimated £13-15 million a month after its victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections — enough to cover its governing budget, said Dr Adnan Abu Amer, assistant professor of political science at Gaza City’s Ummah University.

Tehran still sends a “tiny amount” to maintain ties and keep its support of the Palestinian cause alive, he said.

But relations are all but severed. Hamas’ bureau in Tehran — long treated as a de facto embassy — no longer has a permanent representative and is run by a skeleton staff.

“The Iranian support for [Al] Assad was the kiss of death to the relationship,” said Dr Abu Amer, who is close to Hamas.

Ahmad Yousuf, an adviser to Esmail Haniya, Hamas’ prime minister in Gaza, said: “We never expected Iran, which talked about oppressed people and dictatorial regimes, would stand behind a dictator like [Al] Assad.”

Turkish Protests Expose Obama’s Hypocrisy

(Commentary Magazine) One of the keynotes of President Obama’s foreign policy throughout his first term has been an attempt to pay lip service to the Arab Spring protests against authoritarian regimes throughout the Muslim world. Those sentiments were not matched with strategies that were designed to enhance the efforts of those who were advocating more freedom or even to ward off the unintended consequences of the unrest, such as the rise of Islamist parties like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Yet in spite of those failures the president has never stopped trying to pose as a friend of Arab liberty even if he did nothing to help that cause. But the recent demonstrations in Turkey have exposed Obama’s policies in a way that perhaps no other development has done.

By continuing to support the Turkish ruling party, as it now becomes the subject of anger from its citizens, the administration is showing its true colors. If Obama is not prepared to criticize his friend who heads up the government in Ankara the way he has done other regimes that came under fire, then it shows that the talk about democracy was just so much hot air and that when push comes to shove, the president would rather befriend an Islamist ruler than embrace the pleas of the Turkish people for change.

Let’s specify that America’s attitude toward Turkey is complicated. First of all, it is a NATO ally and a nominal democracy. The United States also needs Turkey to be a responsible actor in a region where even more hostile powers, such as Iran and Russia, are creating havoc. It is also true that Turkey is key to efforts to oust the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and in any hope of preventing Iran and its Hezbollah allies from consolidating its axis of power there.

But some of the same things—at least insofar as regional stability is concerned—could have been said about the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt. But in that case the president lost no time in throwing a longtime American ally under the bus. I am not one of those who blame the president for Mubarak’s fall. The longtime dictator could not have been saved even with energetic American support and there was a good argument to be made that what the U.S. needed to do was to get out in front of the problem and support Egyptian moderates and to encourage the army to do a deal with them to bring about a peaceful transition to a new government. But instead of doing that, the U.S. encouraged the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and used its economic leverage to prevent the army from stopping the Islamists from taking power.

But in Turkey, the Islamists are already in power and have spent, as our Michael Rubin has documented many times, the last several years transforming an imperfect democracy into an authoritarian state. Yet it is the person who has been the architect of that depressing move away from freedom, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who seems to be President Obama’s favorite foreign leader. Erdoğan was recently in the U.S. for meetings in Washington and got his customary warm welcome from his pal in the Oval Office. The U.S. has worked hard to get the Turks to back away from open conflict with Israel. But even though an Israeli apology solved the flotilla controversy, the Turks continue to be ardent supporters of Hamas and therefore part of the problem rather than the solution.

Yet with the Turkish people beginning to push back against the seemingly inexorable drive of Erdoğan’s AKP to Islamicize what was once a thoroughly secular country, surely what is required from the president of the United States is more than a hug for his friend in Ankara. An American government that did not hesitate to embrace the Tunisian and Egyptian protests yet which stayed silent when demonstrators took to the streets in Istanbul—just as it did when Tehran was the scene of massive protests against another Islamist regime in 2009—has opened itself up to charges of hypocrisy as well as incompetence.

Americans cannot be guardians of the freedom of all other nations, but surely the U.S. government must be a friend to the cause of liberty if it is to keep faith with the values that have sustained our nation. No one should have any illusions as to the AKP relinquishing power simply because the Turkish people have taken to the streets. But if this episode passes without an expression of American support for those seeking reform in Turkey, then it will confirm that the Obama administration’s version of realpolitik has more to do with the president’s level of comfort with Islamist regimes than it does with American strategic interests.

British police tell shopkeeper to remove ‘obey our laws’ T-shirt or be arrested for inciting 'racial hatred'

(Wales) A NEWPORT shopkeeper has been forced by police to remove a T-shirt from his shop window because they felt it “could be seen to be inciting racial hatred.”

Matthew Taylor, 35, the owner of Taylor’s clothes store on Emlyn Walk in the city, printed up and displayed the T-shirt with the slogan: “Obey our laws, respect our beliefs or get out of our country” after Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, was killed in near Woolwich barracks in London last week.

But following a complaint from a member of the public, police came to his store and threatened to arrest him unless he removed the Tshirt from sight.

Mr Taylor said: “I had a visit from two CSOs (community support officers) because it has been reported by someone who felt it was offensive.

“It’s not meant to be offensive.

I didn’t produce it to be offensive. It’s what I believe.

“At the end of the day if you don’t like the way a country is run and don’t like our beliefs then go somewhere else, don’t go killing people.

“I don’t care if you Welsh, Scottish, English, go somewhere else if you don’t like it.”

Mr Taylor said obviously the killing of Drummer Rigby had been in his mind, but having lived in Chepstow close to Beachley barracks for a number of years the armed forces were particularly close to his heart.

He said the T-shirt seemed to have gone down well.

“I had one person shout that it was ‘disgusting’ but on the whole most people have reacted positively to it,” Mr Taylor said.

“I think the person who reported me was a bit too sensitive and hasn’t read it properly.

“I don’t see it as racist. I took it down because it is meant to be a statement about any race. Any colour.

“I’m offended I have had to take it down. I can’t see why I can’t share my beliefs,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Gwent police confirmed: “ We did have a call from a member of the public. We visited the shop and asked him to remove it (the T-shirt) as it could be seen to be inciting racial hatred.”

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Headline of the day: Syrian rebels, Hezbollah in deadly fight in Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah guerrillas fought a deadly battle with Syrian rebels in Lebanon's eastern border region early on Sunday, security sources said, in the latest eruption of Syria's conflict on Lebanese soil.

Lebanese security sources said at least 12 rebels were killed in the fighting east of the Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek, but the toll would not be clear until bodies were retrieved from the remote and rugged border area. One Hezbollah fighter also died, they said.

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Tony Blair's epiphany: 'There is a problem within Islam'

(Daily Mail) Tony Blair today makes his most powerful political intervention since leaving Downing Street by launching an outspoken attack on ‘the problem within Islam’.

The former Prime Minister addresses the shocking killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich by going further than he – or any front-rank British politician – has gone before over the issue of Muslim radicalism.

Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, he departs from the usual argument that Islam is a peaceful religion that should not be tainted by the actions of a few extremists.

Instead, Mr Blair urges governments to ‘be honest’ and admit that the problem is more widespread.

‘There is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology which is a strain within Islam,’ he writes.

‘We have to put it on the table and be honest about it. Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.’

He adds: ‘At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit. So by and large we don’t admit it.’

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Comedy gold: Syria rebukes Turkey over protest violence, says Erdogan must resign

"If Erdogan is unable to pursue non-violent means, he should resign," says Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi.

You just can't make this stuff up.

BEIRUT (JPost) - Syria gleefully turned the tables on Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday over his response to anti-government demonstrations, calling on him to halt the violent repression of peaceful protests or resign.

Erdogan, a former ally of Bashar Assad, turned against him after the Syrian president sought to crush largely peaceful protests which broke out in March 2011 and have since descended into a brutal civil war that has left at least 80,000 dead.

Syrian state television broadcast hours of live footage from Istanbul, where thousands of protesters clashed for a second day with riot police who fired teargas and water cannons.

The unrest was triggered by government plans for a building complex in Istanbul's Taksim Square, long a venue for political protest, but widened into a show of defiance against Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

"The demands of the Turkish people don't deserve all this violence," Syrian television quoted Information Minister Omran Zoabi as saying. "If Erdogan is unable to pursue non-violent means, he should resign."

"Erdogan's repression of peaceful protest ... shows how detached he is from reality."

The Turkish prime minister turned against Assad after he said the Syrian leader had rejected Ankara's advice for political reform in response to protests which erupted in Syria two years ago, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

It now hosts Assad's political and military opponents, infuriating Damascus which accuses Erdogan of fueling the bloodshed in Syria.

Muslims combating anti-Semitism gather in Jerusalem

Kasim Hafeez

At Jerusalem conference, British-born Muslim compares KKK rallies in US to anti-Israel protests in London. 'During my visit I saw Israel wasn't some apartheid state,' he says.

(Ynet) A small, but increasingly vocal number of Muslims are rejecting radical hate speech and combating anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. In the recent Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism held this week in Jerusalem, Palestinian Media Watch director, Itamar Marcus and Dr. Boaz Ganor organized a panel discussion with Muslim activists actively rejecting hate rhetoric.

Two of the panel speakers included Kasim Hafeez, a British Muslim who runs The Israel Campaign and Rev. Majed El Shafie, a human rights advocate originally from Egypt. Ahmad Mansour, a Palestinian living in Berlin, who is a policy advisor for the European Foundation for Democracy, was also scheduled to speak but was unable to attend.

"When people say that anti-Semitism exists in the Muslim world because of Israel, that is simply an excuse," says Kasim Hafeez, born in Britain to a Pakistani Muslim family.

"People here (in Israel) get Islamic anti-Semitism. In Europe, we deny it," Hafeez expounded.

"As a university student, I would attend radical anti-Israel rallies in Trafalgar Square. Here I am standing in London in the middle of a European capital - chanting 'death to Israel' and nothing was ever done."

He compares those rallies with the Ku Klux Klan. "An Al-Quds Day rally in London is equivalent to a KKK rally in the US," he stressed.

Hafeez told Tazpit News Agency that he began to change his thinking when he read A Case for Israel, by Alan Dershowitz.

Hafeez explains that he read the book in order to learn how to further deconstruct Zionist propaganda. "But I began to see that I could no longer support my convictions because I had no answers to the arguments that were made for Israel," he explains.

"I found that the radical Islamic doctrine that I grew up with and my own belief in violent jihad could no longer support the truth I once believed in."

That realization prompted Hafeez to visit Israel. "I kind of hoped that the visit to Israel would be a negative experience, that it would enable me to go back to my former beliefs," he told Tazpit News Agency.

But the visit was eye-opening for Hafeez, who says he fell in love with Israel during his first trip. "It's hard not to support Israel," says the soft-spoken Hafeez, who recently participated in the Jerusalem Marathon. "I encountered Israelis who weren't anti-Arab, or anti-Islam and saw that this wasn't some apartheid state."

However, coming out in support of Israel hasn't been easy. Hafeez has become isolated from his friends. "It's a lot of hassle – it really disrupts your life when you become vocal and open about your support for the Jewish state."

"What people don't understand, is that it doesn't matter if you bend over backwards for radical Islamists. If you are Jewish, they will hate you no matter what," Hafeez said.

Rev. Majed El Shafie, the founder of One Free World International (OFWI), a leading organization which advocates for religious minorities globally, echoed similar sentiments. A Muslim who converted to Christianity, he found political asylum in Canada and believes that the silence of moderate Muslims is more dangerous than the rise of extremists.

“They (moderate Muslims) must speak up,” says Rev. El Shafie. “Anti-Semitism is everyone’s problem. The moderate Muslims don’t understand that after the radical Muslims finish with the Christians, Bahai, and Jews, they will come after them. The minute we stop fighting for each other, we lose our humanity,” he added.

Rev. El Shafie believes that education is the solution to radicalization and is the only way to bring forth democracy in the Middle East. "The Arab Spring is a cold deadly winter. Whoever came up with the term 'Arab Spring' must have been a guy in a suit behind a desk who had no idea what was really going on."

"Today all these dictatorships that have been overthrown are filled with extremist governments. There is no separation of religion and state and no freedom of religion in the Middle East. Education must come before democracy"

As for Israel, Rev. El Shafie declares that there are two things that the Jewish state cannot be questioned for. "When Israel's right to exist and Israel's right to defend itself, come into question, a line has been crossed," he stated. "The new anti-Semitism today is to hate Israel."

16 rockets fired from Syria at Hezbollah in Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) — More than a dozen rockets and mortar rounds fired from Syria struck eastern Lebanon Saturday, security officials said, as tensions rise in the two countries' borderlands where Hezbollah militants are playing a bigger role in Syria's civil war.

The Lebanese security officials said the Baalbek region was struck 16 times, igniting fires in fields but causing no casualties. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Syrian rebels have fired dozens of rockets on Lebanon's northeastern region of Hermel over the past weeks but Saturday's attack was the first on Baalbek, a stronghold of Hezbollah. The Lebanese group is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces against rebels who aim to overthrow him.

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Yemen: Two drone strikes kill 7 al Qaeda terrorists; al Qaeda kills 2 high ranking security officials

ADEN (Reuters) - Two drone strikes killed seven suspected al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen on Saturday, a local official said, nine days after U.S. President Barack Obama said he would only use such strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent".

In two separate attacks, militants believed to be linked to al Qaeda killed two senior police officers in the eastern part of the country, a local security official said.

Washington views al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as the movement's most dangerous wing after it attempted to launch bomb attacks on international airliners.

The official said the seven were travelling in two cars on Saturday morning in the al-Mahfad district of Abyan Governorate in southern Yemen where the Islamist militant group has a strong presence, when the drones struck.

In eastern Yemen, Colonel Abdel-Rahman Bashkeel, head of the criminal investigation department in the city of Seyoun in the Wadi Hadramout area, was killed on Saturday afternoon by a bomb placed in his car, a local security official said.

Militants on a motorbike also shot and killed Brigadier-General Yahya al-Omaisi, commander of the police force at the Seyoun airbase, the official said.

He said both attacks carried the hallmarks of al Qaeda, which is believed to be behind a spate of recent attacks on senior police, security and army officers, including at least three incidents last week.

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Turkey: Thousands clash with riot police protesting "dictator" Erdogan

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan made a defiant call for an end to the fiercest anti-government demonstrations in years on Saturday, as thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Istanbul and Ankara for a second day.

The unrest was triggered by government plans for a replica Ottoman-era barracks housing shops or apartments in Istanbul's Taksim Square, long a venue for political protest, but has widened into a broader show of defiance against Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Police fired teargas and water cannon down a major shopping street as crowds of protesters chanting "shoulder to shoulder against fascism" and "government resign" marched towards Taksim, where hundreds were injured in clashes on Friday. [...]

Stone-throwing protesters also clashed with police in the Kizilay district of central Ankara as a helicopter fired tear gas into the crowds. Riot police with electric shock batons chased demonstrators into side streets and shops.

Protests also broke out in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir late on Friday.

Erdogan said the redevelopment of Gezi Park was being used as an excuse for the unrest and warned the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which had been given permission to hold a rally in Istanbul, against stoking tensions.

But the protests included a broad spectrum of people opposed to Erdogan and were not organized by any political party.

CHP officials called on its members not to take party flags with them to the protests, apparently concerned they would be held responsible for the violence, and party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of behaving like a dictator.

"Tens of thousands are saying no, they are opposing the dictator ... The fact that you are the ruling party doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," he said.

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UN: 1,045 killed in Iraq in May, up from 712 killed in April

"... we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq... And we are ending a war not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home."
~Barack Obama, December 14, 2011.

BAGHDAD (AP) – The United Nations mission to Iraq says more than 1,000 people were killed in violence in the country last month — the highest monthly death toll in years.

The figures released Saturday showed 1,045 civilians and security personnel killed in May. That surpassed the 712 killed in April, the deadliest month recorded since June 2008.

More than half of those killed were in the capital district of Baghdad.

Tallies of Iraq casualties have long been the subject of debate, and the UN total is considerably higher than that reported by news agencies in the country. The Associated Press counted at least 578 Iraqis killed in May, based on reports from Iraqi officials.

The UN says its totals are based on direct investigation and accounts from credible outside sources.