[Al Arabiya Latest] Indonesian film producers said Friday they had withdrawn a horror-comedy movie about a menstruating ghost from cinemas due to threats from religious hardline.
"We did this because the reaction to the film is outrageous. The situation is still tense," K2K production house manager Evelin Hutagaol told AFP.
"Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan" (The Menstruating Ghost of Puncak) was screened to a selected audience in Jakarta earlier this week and was due for general release on Thursday.
The producers said they made significant cuts to the film before it was approved by the mainly Muslim country's censorship board, including most of the sex scenes.
But uncensored clips on YouTube have caught the attention of Muslim clerics and radical youth groups, who appear not to understand that the edited version is different.
Habib Salim Alattas of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a Muslim vigilante group which has ordered its members to attack cinemas showing the film, admitted he had only seen clips on the Internet.
"We don't want the movie to be viewed by Indonesians because it contains illicit and pornographic scenes," the FPI chairman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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It will be replace by something G-rated. Like a beheading video or some-such light entertainment.
[Maghrebia] Most of the radical Islamist inmates who participated in Mauritania's first-ever "spiritual dialogue" with Islamic scholars have signed a "renunciation of violence", Journal Tahalil reported on Thursday (February 4th). "The young people have largely abandoned their ideas based on extremism, violence and takfir", said Mohamed El-Moctar Ould M'Balla, spokesman for the commission of theologians. All but 3 of the 67 inmates who attended the recent talks at Nouakchott's central prison repented when the imams showed them errors in their understanding of the religious concepts that underlay their actions, Ould M'Balla told the press.
Suspects in the 2007 ambush slaying of a French tourist family in Aleg and the fatal shooting of an American teacher last year in Nouakchott are among the 67 alleged jihadists awaiting trial who attended the landmark dialogue. Inmates who signed the renunciation of violence could reportedly receive a presidential pardon.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations food agency said on Friday a lack of funds had forced it to cut back rations for around one million people in Yemen, despite growing chronic hunger.
The United Nations earlier warned in a Reuters interview that a lack of donor support was threatening life-saving programs in Yemen while the West discusses how to help as part of its fight against terrorism.
"We don't physically have enough food to give everybody a full ration. That means we are reducing the rations to stretch it out and make it last as long as possible," said Emilia Casella, spokeswoman of the World Food Program (WFP).
The WFP aims to feed 1 million people a month in the Arab world's poorest country, where families are struggling to meet higher food prices, she told a news briefing.
They include 250,000 people who have fled their homes during the five-year conflict in the north between government forces and al Houthi rebels, and Somali refugees and school children.
Rations were cut in February to 1,700 kilo calories per person from 2,100 and may have to be reduced further if donors don't provide funding, Casella said.
The top United Nations aid official John Holmes warned on Thursday in an interview with Reuters that the humanitarian situation in Yemen was worsening, yet donors were shunning the country, thereby jeopardizing life-saving programs.
The United Nations appealed for $177 million in humanitarian aid for Yemen during 2010. It is only 0.4 percent funded. "If we don't get some money, the aid pipeline will run out," he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Yemen's government at a conference in London last week to push through reforms to tackle the root causes of poverty and instability that are fuelling militancy.
The latest food cuts come on the heels of a WFP survey that revealed that one out of every 3 Yemenis, or 7.5 million people, suffer chronic hunger, Casella also told Reuters.
The WFP needs $30 million for the next six months to cover foods needs in Yemen, she said. As a "stop-gap" measure, it had used an internal loan of $4 million which has to be repaid.
"If donor funds are not found in the next weeks it is likely it will lead to further ration reductions and even the possible suspension of a number of programs by the end of June," Casella said.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday that a shortage of funds is hampering its ability to register people fleeing the fighting and could delay building a third refugee camp at Al Mazrak for displaced people from Saada.
"We are facing a dramatic funding situation in Yemen and may be forced to scale down our operations for refugees and internally displaced people there if we do not receive fresh contributions very soon," said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.
Conflict in Somalia continues to drive more Somali refugees towards Yemen, which hosts 170,000 refugees in all, she added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
It's either cut food to refugees or cut beluga from the UN workers' menu.
#3
I dunno, UN, it seems like the solution to the problem with food and poverty are clearly laid out in this article;
Islamic fundamentalist problem #1) ...they include 250,000 people who have fled their homes during the five-year conflict in the north between government forces and al Houthi rebels; and,
Islamic fundamentalist problem #2) Somali refugees and school children.
Properly addressing the problem will go a long way to addressing a proper solution. A UN High Commission on Islamic Terror, which should be funded, executed, and policed by the muslim nation/states would be a great beginning...
You knew this was coming.
The Hamas government in Gaza has distanced itself from an earlier statement in which it expressed regret for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks.
Posted by: ed ||
02/06/2010 09:01 ||
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#1
Considering that their earlier statement was essentially "sorry, those weren't the Jews we meant to kill", it really wasn't so much of an apology as an admission of incompetence.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Hamas, in an unusual move that seems unlikely to herald a change in tactics by the Islamist group, has expressed regret for the deaths of Israeli civilians in Palestinian rocket attacks during fighting in Gaza a year ago.
Israel, where Hamas suicide bombers have killed hundreds of civilians over two decades, dismissed any apology for the three non-combatants hit by rockets from Gaza in the war as insincere.
In a report by a committee set up by Hamas to examine U.N. allegations of war crimes by its fighters, which was delivered to the United Nations this week, the authors said: "We regret any harm that may have befallen any Israeli civilian.
"We hope the Israeli civilians understand that their government's continued attacks on us were the key issue and the cause," added the report, of which Reuters obtained a copy.
In response, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Friday: "For years Hamas has boasted about deliberately targeting civilians, either through suicide bombings, by gunfire or by rockets. Who are they trying to fool now?"
At least one senior Hamas official, who declined to be named, said the movement remained ready to conduct "martyrdom operations" -- suicide bombings of Israeli buses, cafes and the like, which have not, however, been seen for several years.
The Hamas report, after listing Palestinian grievances such as the Israeli embargo on Gaza, reaffirmed comments by officials of the 22-year-old Islamist movement that its improvised rockets were fired purely defensively and were aimed at Israeli military targets. They simply lacked the necessary accuracy, Hamas said.
"It should be noted that the Palestinian resistance ... is not an organized army that possesses developed technological weapons," the report said. "It may target a military site or a tank position and their fire goes astray ... and hit a civilian location, despite their efforts to avoid hurting civilians."
Israel and independent rights groups say Hamas has broken the laws of war by indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets and mortars around Israeli towns, notably Sderot, close to the Gaza border in the years since the group won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized full control in Gaza in 2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
"we're sorry there weren't more"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/06/2010 0:10 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cast doubt Friday on the credibility of Israeli and Palestinian investigations into U.N. allegations of war crimes during the 2008-2009 war in the Gaza Strip.
In a cautiously worded message to the U.N. General Assembly, Ban acknowledged Israel and the Palestinian Authority were looking into the behavior of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants as demanded by a resolution the 192-nation assembly approved in November.
But Ban withheld judgment on whether the probes were "independent, credible and in conformity with international standards."
"No determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned," Ban said in the letter that accompanied the documents given to him by the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority about their investigations.
Last Friday, the U.N. chief received a 46-page report from Israel in which the Jewish state denied violating international law, but admitted "tragic results" due to the "complexity and scale" of conducting a military operation in a heavily populated area.
In his report, Ban highlighted Israel's assertion that two of its senior officers -- a brigadier general and a colonel -- were disciplined for the firing of white phosphorous shells toward a U.N. compound during the Gaza war.
Also last Friday, the U.N. secretary general was handed a preliminary report from the Palestinian side in which it said a commission of five well-known judges and legal experts had been set up to look into allegations that Palestinian militants committed war crimes during the conflict.
Ban on Thursday recalled that he had on several occasions urged all the parties "to carry out credible domestic investigations into the conduct of the Gaza conflict."
"I hope that such steps will be taken wherever there are credible allegations of human rights abuses," he added.
A U.N. spokesman said the General Assembly would meet in the near future to weigh Ban's Gaza report.
A U.N. study authored by South African judge and former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone last September accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in the Gaza war. It recommended that its findings be passed to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague if Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers fail to carry out credible independent investigations of the claims.
Israel launched its 22-day onslaught on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27, 2008 with the stated goal of halting rocket firings from the Islamist-run territory into southern Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
It's long past time to bring accountability into the lives of these (NGO, UN, etc...) people.
Iran's claims to be close to an agreement on its nuclear program have yet to be backed up by any concrete actions, top Western officials said Saturday, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it may be time to take a "different tack" with Tehran.
U.S. and European officials at a gathering of the world's top defense officials in Munich rejected statements from Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki late Friday that Tehran was "approaching a final agreement." Mottaki pointed out that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this week suggested he would at last agree to export a significant amount of uranium for processing.
Posted by: ed ||
02/06/2010 08:59 ||
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Iran playing Lucy..again ..and again...and
Iran's foreign minister has said it is closing in on a deal with world powers over its nuclear programme. In Germany, Manouchehr Mottaki said a deal to send enriched uranium overseas in exchange for nuclear fuel could be reached in a "not too distant future".
China, opposed to imposing new sanctions against Tehran, said talks with the international community had reached a "crucial stage".
There was no reaction to Mr Mottaki's comments from Western delegates.
The BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, reporting from London, says the strong suspicion is that the Iranian remarks are just another attempt to fend off new sanctions being proposed by the United States.
Mr Mottaki made his comments after deciding to join the Munich conference - a major international gathering of security officials - at the last minute. He told a late-night audience that "conducive ground" on a nuclear fuel deal had been reached.
"Under the present conditions that we have reached, I think that we are approaching a final agreement that can be accepted by all parties," he said. "[The] Islamic republic of Iran has shown it is serious about doing this, and we have shown it at the highest level."
But Mr Mottaki did not mention the key issue of timing and insisted that the quantity of fuel involved should be up to Iran.
In January, diplomats said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it did not accept the terms of a deal agreed in October by Iran, the IAEA and the so-called P5+1 - the US, Russia, China, UK and France plus Germany.
In response, the US, Britain and France have been pressing for more sanctions and earlier this week circulated a discussion paper on further possible measures against the country.
The move came despite recent comments by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicating that the country would have "no problem" sending much of its low-enriched uranium abroad so it could be processed into fuel - an arrangement envisaged by the October agreement.
Western diplomats reacted warily to Mr Ahmedinejad's comments.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The head of a United Nations probe into the murder five years ago of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri said on Friday there were "no deadlines" in issuing indictments in the case, calling it highly complex.
"All acts of terrorism are much more complicated than war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide," Antonio Cassese of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon told AFP during his first visit to Beirut.
"We cannot set deadlines," he added.
Cassese, who arrived in Lebanon on Monday on a week-long visit, said that unlike other crimes, political assassinations were harder to crack given the layers of secrecy involved.
"Terrorist acts involve secret cells. There's no clear chain of command or hierarchy," he said. "Most of the time those involved will not confess because they risk being killed by their accomplices."
Cassese and his deputy, Ralph Riachy, briefed senior officials including President Michel Suleiman on the tribunal's progress during their visit.
They did not meet Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, son of the murdered prime minister, or Defense Minister Elias al-Murr "because of the personal link they have with cases that may fall under the tribunal's jurisdiction," Cassese's office said in a statement before his visit.
Murr was also a minister in Rafiq Hariri's cabinet.
The Hague-based tribunal was set up by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2007 to try suspects in the murder of Hariri, killed in a massive bomb blast on Beirut seafront in February 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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The Leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has expressed his support for Syria's anti-Israeli stance.
According to Nasrallah, Syria's stance against Israel is of great significance in the current situation of the region.
The comments came after Israeli officials threatened Syria with war.
On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," Lieberman said. "There must be a correlation, because unfortunately, until now a military defeat did not mean a loss of power," he added.
The remarks came three days after Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Syria should clinch a peace deal with Israel or it would find itself in a "full-fledged war" with Tel Aviv.
Nasrallah also pointed out that Washington and Tel Aviv had a hand in Wednesday's major blast in Karbala.
A bomb planted on a parked motorcycle exploded on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 23 Shia pilgrims and leaving more than 147 others wounded amid tight security before the huge religious procession on Friday.
The bomb exploded at about 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) in an area known as Ibrahimia, near the east entrance into Karbala, about 80 km (50 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
In another incident on Monday, at least 41 people were killed in northeast Baghdad when a bomb was detonated in a crowd of pilgrims heading to Karbala.
They were among hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who are walking to Karbala this week to observe the 40th day after the anniversary of Imam Hossein's (PBUH) death.
For the commemoration, the pilgrims will converge on the city where Imam Hossein is buried after being slain over thirteen centuries ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah speaking from his bunker has expressed his support for Syria's anti-Israeli stance.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations food agency said on Friday a lack of funds had forced it to cut back rations for around one million people in Yemen, despite growing chronic hunger. 
The Leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has expressed his support for Syria's anti-Israeli stance. 
