Iranian Parliament wants Opposition Leaders to be Executed

Hardline Iranian lawmakers called on Tuesday for the country's opposition leaders to face trial and be put to death, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left one person dead and dozens injured.

Hundreds of thousands of people turned out for the opposition rally Monday in solidarity with Egypt's popular revolt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years in power. The demonstration was the first major show of strength from Iran's beleaguered opposition in more than a year. 1,500 people have allegedly been arrested.

At an open session of parliament Tuesday, pro-government legislators demanded opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami face be held responsible for the protests.

Pumping their fists in the air, the lawmakers chanted "death to Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami."

"We believe the people have lost their patience and demand capital punishment" for the opposition leaders, 221 lawmakers said in a statement.

huffingtonpost.com

Bahrain Protest

Bahraini women participate in an anti-government demonstration in the village of Duraz, Bahrain, outside the capital of Manama on Monday. Demonstrations broke out nationwide in response to protest calls on social media sites and many, including the one in Duraz, were dispersed by riot police firing tear gas and chasing demonstrators. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)

All Eyes photo blog

Silvio Berlusconi faces Ruby sex charge trial in April

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has been indicted to stand trial on charges of paying for sex with an under-age prostitute and abuse of power. Examining judge Cristina Di Censo said the process would start on 6 April, after prosecutors in Milan asked for an immediate trial.

Mr Berlusconi denies paying for sex with Karima El Mahroug when she was 17. He also rejects claims that he abused his power by seeking her release when she was detained in another case.

He has called the accusations "groundless" and dismissed the case as a farce. Mr Berlusconi does, however, acknowledge that he called the police while she was being held on suspicion of theft. He said he was doing a favour for the then-Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak, because Mr Berlusconi was told the girl was Mr Mubarak's granddaughter.

If convicted, the prime minister could face up to 15 years in prison.

More on BBC News

Life According To The US Government

visionvictory

Argentina accuses US of trying to smuggle weapons into country

Relations between the US and Argentina have deteriorated after Buenos Aires lodged a formal complaint over a US military plane that landed late last week carrying guns, drugs and satellite phones.

The Argentinian government claimed the US was trying to sneak the weapons into the country, though it didn't offer an explanation of why Washington might want to do this.

The US state department said the consignment was intended for a police training programme in Argentina.

Officials from Argentina and the state department have been in talks aimed at resolving the row.

The relationship between the two countries has been poor since Barack Obama released details of a Latin American tour next month that includes Brazil, Chile and El Salvador but not Argentina.

The Argentinian foreign ministry, in a statement on Sunday night, said "sensitive material" had been seized that had not been declared on the inventory submitted by the US embassy, including weapons, GPS equipment and drugs such as morphine.

More on The Guardian

Tal al-Molouhi, a 19-year-old female blogger in a Syrian jail for almost a year

Tal al-Molouhi, a Syrian blogger, was arrested by Syrian state security agents for posting poems about Palestine on her blog.
Tal, who is 19 years old secondary school student, was arrested on the 27th of December 2009 by the Syrian state security agents, they had her computer confiscated. Till now she is detained with no charges and no trial, whereabouts unknown, that her mother has appealed the Syrian president for her release.

A video was made by Syrian activists calling for her freedom:

Global Voices Advocacy - FreeTal.com

Cult Of The Dead Fish Commercial

The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Full article on NPR

Millions of Egyptians live in cemeteries

Millions of Egyptians living in abject poverty are the inhabitants of a macabre quarter not far from the capital's Liberation Square which has become the symbol of Egypt's popular revolution.

The poor in the Egyptian capital's urban slums live in almost the same manner as they did under the pharaohs, a Press TV correspondent reported Sunday.
There are over 50 cemeteries in Cairo, Muslim and Christian, and all of them are inhabited by several million people who constitute the absolute bottom of Egypt's social structure, the report added.
The five major cemeteries in the capital include the Northern Cemetery, Bab el Nasr Cemetery, the Southern Cemetery, the Cemetery of the Great, and Bab el Wazir Cemetery. They are known as the “City of the Dead.”

See PressTV for more

Executed man's mother urges ban on exports profiting from death penalty

The mother of a US death row inmate who was executed with British-supplied drugs is to call for a ban on exports that support capital punishment overseas when she appears before MPs.

Patches Rhode believes her son, Brandon, died in agony from a lethal injection in a Georgia prison because the UK-sourced anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, appeared not to have been effective.

Her grief has been sharpened by the revelation that the drug which enabled the execution to go ahead was sold by a small-scale pharmaceutical wholesaler, Dream Pharma, that operates out of a driving school office in the west London suburb of Acton.

"I was under the impression that Great Britain is against the death penalty and that any exports [aiding it] would be illegal," she said. "I didn't know that [the government] allowed such drugs to leave the country."

Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions who is chairman of the anti-capital punishment charity Reprieve, is demanding legislation to block exports that profit from or help deliver the death penalty.

More on The Guardian

Bahrain promises media freedoms amid protest calls

Bahrain's leaders promised Sunday to expand media freedoms in another apparent attempt to quell plans for the first major anti-government protests in the Gulf since the uprising in Egypt.

The tiny kingdom of Bahrain is among the most politically volatile in the Gulf and holds important strategic value for the West as the home as the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Bahrain's majority Shiites have long complained of discrimination by the ruling Sunni dynasty, whose crackdown on dissent last year touched off riots and clashes.
Shiite-led opposition groups and others have joined calls for demonstrations on Monday - the anniversary of Bahrain's 2002 constitution that brought some pro-democracy reforms such as an elected parliament.

More on Al-Arabiya

Tea Party ignores slavery in African-American history again

"Other than Native Americans who were here, all of us have the same story," US Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told the National Press Club at a "Tea Party Express Forum" Tuesday.

She went on to insist that all Americans are descendants of "a risk-taker from their home country, doesn't matter what the country is, but they took a risk, and they came here."

"And they knew when they came here they weren't coming for a welfare state," Bachmann continued. "They were coming here for the thrill of writing their own ticket. Who did we attract? People that wanted a better life and were willing to do what it took to get it."

Bachmann's remarks completely ignored the fact that the ancestors of today's African-Americans were brought to the United States involuntarily as slaves. One of the framers, Thomas Jefferson, famously fathered children with Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves.

Full story on The Raw Story - More info at US National Slavery Museum.org

Now Al Jazeera push for change in Algeria

Algerian security forces and pro-democracy protesters have clashed in the capital, Algiers, amid demonstrations inspired by the revolution in Egypt.

Heavily outnumbered by riot police, at least 2,000 protesters were able to overcome a security cordon enforced around the city's May First Square on Saturday, joining other demonstrators calling for reform. Earlier, thousands of police in riot gear were in position to stop the demonstrations that could mimic the uprising which forced out Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's long-serving president.

Security forces closed all entrances to Algiers and arrested hundreds of protesters, sources told Al Jazeera. Elias Filali, an Algerian blogger and activist, said human rights activists and syndicate members were among those arrested at the scene of the protests. "I'm right in the middle of the march," he told Al Jazeera. "People are being arrested and are heavily guarded by the police."

Officials banned Saturday's opposition march but protesters were determined to see it through

Eye on Algeria on Al Jazeera

China Produces “Rice” Made From Plastic

China’s history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy.

Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam.

The “rice” is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked.

From Disinformation

Jim Jefferies On Religion

WARNING: Highly likely to offend die hard religious types. Lots of foul language. Jim Jefferies Website

Arrest Warrant for Pakistan's Musharraf

An anti-terrorism court judge issued an arrest warrant Saturday for former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, state-run television reported.

The warrant is the latest legal trouble to face the retired general, a one-time U.S. ally who left Pakistan for Britain in 2008 after being forced out of the presidency he secured in 1999 military coup. Despite his promises to return to Pakistan and lead a new political party, court motions against the former ruler make it increasingly unlikely he will.

From FoxNews.com

Sout Al Horeya

‘Sorry about the banner in the first 30 seconds, But it was a rush job :)’

A solidarity protest song titled Sout al Horeya, 'the sound of freedom', by Moustafa Fahmy, Mohamed Khalifa, and Mohamed Shaker.  Afro-Europe International Blog

Egypt's Wael Ghonim of Google

As many honest people are still confounded over the true nature of the Egyptian protesters occupying Cairo's Tahrir Square, yet another hero lifted up by the globocrat controlled mainstream media has turned out to be linked, knowingly or unknowingly, to a foreign plot.
Google marketing executive Wael Ghonim had gone missing on January 28, 2011 after taking part in organizing the first of the protests just days earlier. When he was freed two weeks later he was exalted a hero and served as a catalyst both in Egypt and worldwide to try and reinvigorate the faltering protest.

While Wael Ghonim is portrayed as a passionate activist fighting for the Egyptian people, his allegiances are much more specific. Having been living abroad in Dubai, his Facebook page didn't pop-up overnight, it was actually created nearly a year ago in tandem with Mohamed ElBaradei's arrival in Egypt during February 2010. Ghonim also created ElBaradei's official campaign website. Ghonim and ElBaradei then concurrently campaigned for the coming November 2010 Egyptian election and built up an opposition network in support for ElBaradei. This network included the April 6 Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the independent labor unions now making up the bulk of the protests.
After ElBaradei's predictable loss, Ghonim shifted from campaigning to protesting. Contrary to popular belief, the protests weren't spontaneous or even tipped off by high food prices, but rather meticulously planned by Ghonim and the "Revolutionary Youth Movement," with members drawn from the opposition network ElBaradei had been busy building since early 2010. The date January 25, 2011 was specifically picked after the uprising in Tunisia played out.
The Wall Street Journal reported in detail how organizers selected spots where multiple protests would begin, the routes they would travel and where they would ultimately meet. They even walked the routes at different paces to calculate the time it would take to travel them. They hoped that their movement would spur others to join in before they all moved to Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Land Destroyer

First Netherlands, then Sweden. Now Austria witnesses rise of far right

After the Netherlands and Sweden, another stunning electoral surge for the extreme right in Vienna, a city where the centre-left views governance as its birthright.

"Red Vienna" has been a socialist and then social democratic stronghold since the 1920s. There was never any chance of Michael Häupl, the incumbent and long-serving SPÖ (social democratic) mayor, losing his job. But the customary absolute majority in Vienna's gargantuan mock-gothic town hall is gone, perhaps for a long time. That makes yesterday's vote a bit of a watershed.

Former dental technician Heinz-Christian Strache, the loud extreme right leader who is heir to the late Jörg Haider, was the real winner of the poll. He came second with a staggering 27% to the SPÖ's 44%. That is the social democrats' worst result since 1996, when Haider was in his prime, and the second worst result ever.

More on guardian.co.uk

WikiLeak about Omar Soliman

S E C R E T TEL AVIV 001984 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/29/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER EG KPAL IR IS SUBJECT: DEFENSE MINISTER BARAK'S DISCUSSIONS IN EGYPT FOCUS ON SHALIT, TAHDIYA, ANTI-SMUGGLING, AND IRAN

¶5. (S) In terms of atmospherics, Hacham said the Israeli delegation was "shocked" by Mubarak's aged appearance and slurred speech. Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a "hot line" set up between the MOD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use. Hacham said he sometimes speaks to Soliman's deputy Mohammed Ibrahim several times a day. Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated. (Note: We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.)  Cable Viewer

More about Soliman here and on Wikipedia

And see The Torture Career of Egypt’s New Soon-to-be-Ex Vice President

Hosni Mubarak resigns as president

Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has resigned from his post, handing over power to the armed forces.

Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, announced in a televised address that the president was "waiving" his office, and had handed over authority to the Supreme Council of the armed forces.

Suleiman's short statement was received with a roar of approval and by celebratory chanting and flag-waving from a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as well by pro-democracy campaigners who attended protests across the country on Friday.

The crowd in Tahrir chanted "We have brought down the regime",  while many were seen crying, cheering and embracing one another.

Al Jazeera

Russian Police

Clashes between South Sudan army & rebels kill 105

Clashes between rebels and south Sudanese troops in troubled Jonglei state have killed 105 people, a southern army spokesman said on Friday, a dramatic jump from an earlier death toll of 16. "On the side of the military that includes the SPLA, the police and the prison services, 20 were killed in Fangak town, while 30 of Athor's men were killed," said Philip Aguer.

He was referring to renegade southern general George Athor whose supporters launched a spate of attacks on troops of the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army on Wednesday, shattering a "permanent ceasefire" they signed just last month. Al Arabiya

Fox News "was a Stalin-esque Mouthpiece for Bush"

A former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.  

“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”

And that’s the word from inside Fox News.

Full story at AlterNet and Media Matters

'Farewell Friday'

Pro-democracy activists in the Egyptian capital marched on the presidential palace and state television buildings, while many also gathered at Liberation Square, on Friday, the 18th consecutive day of protests.

At the state television building, thousands have blocked people from entering or leaving, accusing the broadcaster of supporting the current government and of not truthfully reporting on protests.

Al Jazeera

Egypt's President Mubarak Leaves Cairo Amid Massive Protests