Titles
- UK: Muslim women who refused to take full-body scan are barred from flying
- Dutch anti-Islam leader is major winner in polls
- U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia
- Astonishing number of birth defects reported in Fallujah
- That was a war council in Damascus
- Ensure Pakistan does not use military aid against us: India
News Detailes:
UK: Muslim women who refused to take full-body scan are barred from flying
Two Muslim women have become the first passengers to refuse to subject themselves to controversial 'naked' full body airport scans. The pair - who security officials insist were selected at random - opted to miss their flight to Pakistan and forfeit tickets worth £400 each rather than be screened. One of the women refused to go through the full-body scanner at Manchester Airport on religious grounds while her companion also declined for 'medical reasons'. The women were travelling together to Islamabad when they were selected to pass through the controversial security screen after checking-in at Terminal Two at the airport. An estimated 15,000 people have already passed through the scanners, with the pair the first passengers to refuse a scan.
Dutch anti-Islam leader is major winner in polls
Dutch anti-Islamist leader Geert Wilders scored major gains in local authority polls Thursday, making him a serious challenger for power in a June national election, preliminary results showed. In the first test of public opinion since the collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's coalition government last month, Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV) led in the city of Almere and was second in The Hague. The results came on top of an opinion poll showing that the PVV, which campaigns against Muslim immigration as its main platform, would win the most seats -- 27 in the 150-member Dutch parliament -- in the June 9 election. The popularity of Wilders, who compares Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf," has dented the image of the Netherlands as a country that has often portrayed itself in the past as a bastion of tolerance. The PVV has been pitching its policies to a nation of 16 million that is turning increasingly inward as the economy struggles and social tensions rise. There are nearly 1 million Muslims in the Netherlands. "The leftist elite still believes in multi-culturalism, coddling criminals, a European super-state and high taxes," Wilders told cheering supporters at a rally in Almere after polling ended Wednesday. "But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice," he said.
U.S. Wages Food War Against Somalia
While nearly half the population of Somalia teeters at the edge of starvation, the U.S. is preventing the United Nations from delivering desperately needed food. According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the Americans demand that aid agencies guarantee that no fees are paid "at roadblocks, ports, warehouses, airfields or other transit points" controlled by Shabab resistance fighters. Since the Shabab and other militias control more than half of the area in conflict, United Nations compliance with U.S. conditions would mean starvation for about three million people.Indeed, if international aid were restricted to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed puppet regime, only a few neighborhoods in Mogadishu, the capital, would be fed. As the Americans' Somali puppets' position becomes more untenable, the U.S. squeezes the UN's food delivery system, in effect punishing the entire Somali people. U.S. food relief to the UN's Somali operations in 2009 was only half that of 2008. In 2007, United Nations officials declared Somalia the "worst humanitarian crisis in Africa...worse than Darfur," as a result of the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in late 2006. Thus, the United States has been waging continuous war against the people of Somalia, directly or by proxy, for over three years under the guise of the "war on terror."
Astonishing number of birth defects reported in Fallujah
Doctors are investigating reports of a very high rate of birth defects in a city of Iraq that was often the scene of heavy fighting involving U.S. troops. The BBC reported the residents of Fallujah are seeing birth defects, including heart problems, at a rate of 95 in every 1,000 births. The report said that represented 13 times the number of similar birth defects in Europe. A doctor told the BBC she is seeing two or three cases every day of birth defects, including paralysis, brain damage and cardiac problems. Data indicate prior to 2003, doctors would have seen perhaps one such case every two months. Local officials have advised woman in Fallujah not to have children, the BBC said. Residents link the timing of the surge in defects with about a year after a U.S. military-led offensive in Fallujah in 2004 and suggest armaments used in the fight may be to blame for their children's problems. Military officials told the BBC they had received no official reports of an increase in birth defects in the area but that exploded ordnance is a "recognized hazard." One researcher said she had seen "footage of babies with an eye in the middle of the forehead, the nose on the forehead."
That was a war council in Damascus
The three-party meeting that took place in Damascus on Friday gathering the Syrian president Bashar al Assad, the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was a war council to devise counterattack plans and assign tasks in the event of an Israeli offensive on one or all parties, wrote Abdelbari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi. "The timing of the meeting, the way it was undertaken and the ensuing press conference that was held at its conclusion, all point to a strategic coalition being reinforced. This is the build-up of a new front that will spearhead the confrontation with the US-Israeli alliance and whichever Arab countries that may, expressly or implicitly, be affiliated with it."The Iranian president said he expects war to break out somewhere between spring and summer of this year.
Ensure Pakistan does not use military aid against us: India
Raising concern over the reported decision of the United States to supply sophisticated arms to Pakistan, New Delhi on Thursday said Washington should ensure that the military aid was not used against India. Defence Minister A.K. Antony expressed concern over the move to supply a whole array of sophisticated laser guided bomb kits, surveillance drones and latest-model F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. In a statement here, Mr. Antony said: "Given our bitter past experience of how Islamabad used such aid against India, Washington should ensure that the latest tranche of military aid is used only for the purpose of countering al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and not against India." Pentagon also decided to refurbish and expand the F-16 fighter jets Pakistan has been using since the 1980s. It also has got Cobra attack helicopters and C 130 transport aircraft from the U.S. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was expanding weapon sales to India and Pakistan "in a bid to forge closer ties with each country, while creating new opportunities for American defence firms." It said that while India paid for its own weapons, Islamabad used American grants to fund most of its arms purchases. During the visit of U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates to Pakistan, there were reports of Pentagon willing to offer surveillance drones to Islamabad, now used in the frontier areas. The U.S. annual military aid to Pakistan is now around $3 billion.
