November 22, 2007
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi gang rape sentence ‘unjust’, BBC, November 21, 2007
A lawyer for a gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail says the punishment contravenes Islamic law.
The woman was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man’s car at the time of the attack.
When she appealed, judges doubled her sentence, saying she had been trying to use the media to influence them.
Her lawyer has been suspended from the case and faces a disciplinary session.
November 22, 2007
Iraq, Haunting Images
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2005 Pulitzer Prizes-BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY, Works
Najaf - U.S. soldiers take cover in a fortified position after a second week of fighting against Shiite militiamen in the holy city. (Photo by Jim MacMillan, August 20. 2004.)
Baghdad - The mother of Samah Hussein grieves over the body at a Baghdad morgue. The boy was among 12 people reportedly killed by a suicide car bombing outside the U.S. military’s Camp Cuervo. (Photo by Samir Mizban, June 13, 2004.)
Baghdad - Mohammed Saleem, 18 months, lies in a coffin at a Sadr City morgue. Relatives said the boy and four other family members were killed in their car when U.S. forces opened fire overnight. (Photo by Karim Kadim, June 6, 2004)
November 22, 2007
Iran and Israel
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Leon Hadar, Look Who’s Downplaying Iran’s Nuclear Threat, AW, 11/22/2007
Indeed, according to a report published in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions with other top Israeli officials that in her opinion Iranian nuclear weapons “do not pose an existential threat to Israel” (Ha’aretz, “Livni behind Closed Doors,” October 25, 2007). In their report, which received very little attention in the United States, Gidi Weitz and Na’ama Lanski noted that “Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb,” claiming that he was “attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” Mmm … sound familiar?
Ha’aretz also reported in October that former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy told an audience that even if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would not pose an “existential” threat to Israel. During a lecture last month in Jerusalem, Halevy – who, like Livni, is regarded as a “hawk” on Israeli security – said that “the State of Israel cannot be destroyed” if Iran went nuclear. He also called on the government to follow Washington’s lead and offer Iran a diplomatic option as part of a strategy to foil Tehran’s nuclear plan.
November 22, 2007
Iraq
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Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S., New York Times, November 22, 2007
In contrast to the comparatively small number of foreigners, more than 25,000 inmates are in American detention centers in Iraq. Of those, only about 290, or some 1.2 percent, are foreigners, military officials say.
They contend that all of the detainees either are suspected of insurgent activity or are an “imperative threat” to security. Some American officials also believe that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that claims a loose allegiance to Osama bin Laden, may by itself have as many as 10,000 members in Iraq.
About four out of every five detainees in American detention centers are Sunni Arab, even though Sunni Arabs make up just one-fifth of Iraq’s population. All of the foreign fighters listed on the materials found near Sinjar, excluding two from France, also came from countries that are predominantly Sunni.
