What women think of bearded men

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden

Men feel other men look better with a beard, but women prefer men sporting nothing more than heavy stubble, according go Australian researchers.

Researchers from The University of New South Wales, Australia, quantified men and women's judgments of attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities for photographs of men who were clean-shaven, lightly or heavily stubbled and fully bearded.

They also tested the effect of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive use on women's ratings.

The results, reported in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, showed that women judged faces with heavy stubble as most attractive and heavy beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces as similarly less attractive.

In contrast, men rated full beards and heavy stubble as most attractive, followed closely by clean-shaven and light stubble as least attractive.

Men and women rated full beards highest for parenting ability and healthiness. Masculinity ratings increased linearly as facial hair increased, and this effect was more pronounced in women in the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, although attractiveness ratings did not differ according to fertility.

The findings confirm that beardedness affects judgments of male socio-sexual attributes and suggest that an intermediate level of beardedness is most attractive while full- bearded men may be perceived as better fathers who could protect and invest in offspring, the researchers concluded.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle

Hate speech: Court issues NBW against Akbaruddin

A local court today issued a non-bailable warrant against Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi for allegedly making a "hate speech" against a particular community.

Based on a private complaint of Kashimshetty Karunasagar, a practising advocate, the VII Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court here issued the non-bailable warrant with a direction to Maddannapet police to produce Akbaruddin before it on May 9.
Akbaruddin's counsel Mohd Azim filed an application in the court seeking recall of the non-bailable warrant.

"We have filed an application seeking to cancel the NBW. The court has posted the matter for tomorrow," Azim told PTI, adding that his client was ready to appear before the court.

Karunasagar had filed a complaint on December 28 last year in the court seeking registration of a case against Akbaruddin under Section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion) and other relevant sections of the IPC.
He had alleged that he saw an online video wherein Akbaruddin, who represents Chandrayangutta Assembly seat, was seen using inflammatory and derogatory words against a particular community, while addressing a public meeting at Nirmal town.

Earlier, the Second Metropolitan Magistrate of Ranga Reddy district had issued a non-bailable warrant against Akbaruddin on April 16 after he failed to appear before it in a hate speech case lodged against him at Nirmal town in Adilabad district.

Courtesy: Deccan Herald

Maryland Death Penalty Repeal Signed Into Law By Martin O'Malley

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Opponents of capital punishment marked a milestone Thursday as Maryland became the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to abolish the death penalty.

The passage was a significant victory for Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Roman Catholic who opposes capital punishment and is considering seeking the 2016 presidential nomination. Death penalty opponents said the governor helped maintain the national momentum of repeal efforts by making Maryland the sixth state in as many years to abolish capital punishment.

"I don't know exactly what the timing is, but over the longer arc of history I think you'll see more and more states repeal the death penalty," O'Malley said in a brief interview after the bill signing. "It's wasteful. It's ineffective. It doesn't work to reduce violent crime."

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous, who worked to get the repeal bill passed, noted the significance of a Democratic governor south of the Mason-Dixon line with presidential aspirations leading an effort to ban capital punishment. Jealous noted that in 1992, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton left the presidential campaign trail to oversee the execution of a man who had killed a police officer, a move widely viewed as an effort to shed the Democratic Party's image as soft on crime.

"Our governor has also just redefined what it means to have a political future in this country," Jealous said. "You know, it was just 20 years ago that a young governor with possibilities below the Mason-Dixon stopped during his presidential campaign" to oversee an execution.

Maryland is the 18th state to abolish the death penalty. Neighboring Delaware also made a push to repeal it this year, but the bill has stalled.

Diane Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Maryland is keeping the momentum going for other states to follow.

"It doesn't always happen overnight," Rust-Tierney said. "The more people study it, the more people understand it. This was a seven-year effort here in Maryland."

Supporters of capital punishment said the governor was taking away an important tool to protect the public. Del. Neil Parrott, a Washington County Republican, criticized the governor for moving ahead with banning the death penalty during the same session as he pushed for a gun-control bill to restrict firearms access to law-abiding citizens. Parrott said he is considering launching a petition drive to put the death penalty ban on the ballot for voters to decide in 2014.

"We are thinking about it," Parrott said, noting that an announcement could come as soon as Friday.

State Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and constitutional law professor who opposes the death penalty, said he believes pressure is building around the country to focus law enforcement resources on things that are proven to lower the homicide rate.

"The trend lines are clear," Raskin said. "There's nobody who's adding the death penalty to their state laws. Everybody is taking it away."

Opponents of capital punishment also noted that the state won't have to worry about potentially putting an innocent person to death. Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man who was the first person in the U.S. freed because of DNA evidence after a conviction in a death penalty case, attended the news conference.

The bill will not apply to the five men the state has on death row, but the governor can commute their sentences to life without parole. O'Malley has said he will consider them on a case-by-case basis.

The state's last execution was in 2005, when Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich was in office.

Last year, the Death Penalty Information Center said in an annual report that just four states carried out more than three-fourths of the executions in the United States last year, while another 23 had not put an inmate to death in 10 years. 

Courtesy: Huff Post Politics

Carr Urged To Oppose PNG Death Penalty

AUSTRALIAN Foreign Minister Bob Carr is being urged to speak out against Papua New Guinea's planned implementation of the death penalty during his visit to the Pacific Island nation on Friday.

The government of Peter O'Neill announced this week a plan to activate PNG's dormant death penalty sentence for violent crimes such as murder, and said cabinet had discussed introducing death by firing squad as a humane method of execution.

The policy announcement comes after a public outcry in PNG and internationally following a spate of murders and rapes across the country.

Senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre Daniel Webb says the strict penalty will not deter violent criminals.

"Governments will not stop violence by perpetrating it themselves," he said in a statement on Thursday.

"Capital punishment is a violent and ineffective response to crime. For precisely these reasons, the international community continues to progress towards its abolition. Australia should be adding its voice to this push wherever and whenever it can."

Mr Webb said Australia's recent election to the UN Security Council was based on the promise to be a "principled advocate of human rights for all".

"Minister Carr should leave his PNG counterpart in no doubt that Australia is opposed to the death penalty at home and abroad," he said.

Senator Carr made his first trip to PNG in December last year, taking a trip to the Highlands with PNG foreign minister Rimbink Pato, as well as participating in ministerial talks between governments.

Saying he respected PNG's independence, he likened the relationship between the two countries to that of old friends.

"Old friends are the best friends and you have no older friend or better friend than Australia," he said at the time.

Among Mr O'Neill's proposed legal changes - which he said could be described as "draconian" - are life without parole for rape and strict minimum sentences for gun, drug and alcohol offences.

The legislative package - expected to be brought to parliament in mid-May - will also see the repeal of PNG's controversial sorcery act.

In early February 20-year-old mother Kepari Leniata was accused of witchcraft, stripped and burned alive in front of a crowd outside PNG's third largest town, Mt Hagen.

In April an elderly woman was beheaded after being accused of black magic.

Also in April, Australian Robert Purdy, 62, was murdered and his friend sexually assaulted by a group of men.

Just a week later a US Academic was pack raped after her husband and their guide were ambushed on an island.

While PNG law allows for hanging, it has not been used on anyone.

There are currently 10 people on death row in PNG.

Courtesy: News.com.au

Bill to make divorce easy, women-friendly approved

[Editor: This bill makes a mockery of the gender equality in India, like many of the women friendly (and biased against males) bills which were passed earlier. All the political parties are responsible for creating these kinds of gender aberrations, though it is understandable that many in the ruling and the opposition parties do not advocate the same, but is forced by the likes of wooly headed Sushma Swarajs. This is what they gifted to Indian men/males who fought Indian Independence so bravely. Next time Indian men should think twice before they vote an women candidate in elections and send her to the Parliament or state assemblies. Indian men are being reduced to puppets by "Indian Political Class", on the instigation of the Feminists. If Indian men do not fight these Feminists, with strong hands, then we might see a severe Gender War erupting in future]

The Union cabinet on Friday approved a set of key recommendations by a parliamentary panel to make divorce proceedings for unhappy couples easier and women-friendly.

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, approved by the cabinet, will provide women with a share of their husband’s property if they opt for divorce. It also seeks to give adopted children the same rights as those of biological children.

The bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha in August 2010, and later referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice.

The committee supported the bill, which sought to make “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” a new ground for grant of divorce, but opposed doing away with the prevailing waiting period before moving a joint motion for annulling marriage.

Partially accepting the recommendation, the government left the decision of waiving off the cooling-off period for the courts.

According to the redrafted bill passed by the cabinet, adopted children will have rights on a par with the biological offsprings of a couple, in case the parents opt for divorce.

The government has also accepted the recommendation of the committee that a woman should have a share in the property of her husband in case of a divorce, and the quantum of division would be decided by the courts.

Moreover, while a wife can oppose a husband’s plea for divorce under the new “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” clause, the husband will have no such right if the wife moves the court on the same grounds.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times

As world dials back death penalty, Japan heads in opposite direction

~~By Justin McCurry, Correspondent

Two gangsters were hanged in Japan last week. More executions are likely under new Prime Minister Abe, who has expressed strong support for the death penalty – and says the public backs him.

Japan's hawkish prime minister, Shinzo Abe

May 1, 2013: Few Japanese are likely to have mourned the deaths of Katsuji Hamasaki and Yoshihide Miyagi. In 2005, the two members of the gangster underworld conspired to shoot dead two rivals in a restaurant, jeopardizing the safety of bystanders. The men hanged for their crimes in Tokyo last Friday, as Japan conducted its fourth and fifth executions of the year.

Newspapers announced the demise of the hardened gangsters, sent to the gallows for their “heinous and brutal” crimes. But human rights groups have voiced concern that Japan’s renewed enthusiasm for the death penalty is leaving it increasingly out of touch with the rest of the world.

The conservative administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been in office only two months before his justice minister, Sadakazu Tanigaki, ordered the executions of prisoners, including the killer of a 7-year-old girl, in February.

After the most recent hangings, Mr. Tanigaki cited clear public support for capital punishment and said he would not hesitate to sign more execution orders.

"It was an extremely vicious and cruel crime, and carried the risk of involving ordinary people," he told reporters. "And many people in Japan say we need [the death penalty].”

Attacks feed support

Public support for the death penalty hardened after a series of high-profile crimes that forced Japanese to question their country's reputation for safety. The March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, in which 13 people died, was a rare incident of indiscriminate mass murder, and left a nation traumatized. Similarly shocking crimes were to follow: in 1998, four people died and dozens were made ill in Wakayama after a housewife laced curry with arsenic at a local festival; and in 2001, a man burst into an elementary school in Osaka and fatally knifed eight pupils to death.

Last week's executions drew criticism from Amnesty International, which noted a “chilling” escalation in the use of the death penalty since Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] returned to power in December last year. (Japan has company in that regard. Read the Monitor's report on Amnesty International's global findings.)

“This chilling news appears to reinforce our fears that the new government is increasing the pace of executions at an alarming rate,” Catherine Baber, the organization’s Asia Pacific director, said in a statement.

“With five executions already this year, it seems clear the government has no intention of heeding international calls to start a genuine and open public debate on the death penalty, including its abolition.”

In executing its most wicked killers, Japan is further isolating itself internationally. It is one of 58 countries, including the US, China, and Iran, that retain capital punishment, while more than 140 other countries, including all members of the European Union, have abolished it in law or practice.

Last week’s executions mean there are now 134 inmates on death row in Japan, the highest number since records began in 1949.

But campaigners say they fear that a slew of executions is imminent, as Abe attempts to shore up public support before crucial upper house elections in July.

Victory for the LDP would give it control of both houses of Japan’s Diet, or parliament, ending years of political deadlock.

“We’re very worried that these recent executions could open the floodgates to even more in the near future,” says Hideki Wakabayashi, executive director of Amnesty International Japan. “I believe there will be at least one more hanging before the elections.”

Japan’s previous government, led by the left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ], had raised hopes that it was moving towards abolition – a trend seen in other parts of the world, including in a growing number of US states.

No one was sent to the gallows under DPJ rule in 2011, the first time a year had passed without a single hanging for 19 years. But after an 18-month hiatus, executions resumed in March 2012.

“What we need now is a national debate, and to look sensibly at the pros and cons,” Mr. Wakabayashi says. “At the moment, the debate is media-driven and too emotional. We need to remind people that two-thirds of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty. Even the United States is moving in that direction.”

Tokyo, though, appears oblivious to the global trend toward abolition, ignoring a UN resolution adopted last December calling on it and other countries to impose a moratorium on executions and make the handling of death row inmates more transparent.

Typically, Japan’s condemned prisoners are given only a few hours’ notice of their execution; their relatives and lawyers are informed only after it has been carried out.
Some question depth of public support

Despite international criticism, a government opinion poll conducted in 2009 showed support for the death penalty at 86 percent. Campaigners say the poll is misleading, since it includes the 34 percent of respondents who nominally support capital punishment but would like to see it abolished under certain conditions.

The government can always point in support of its stance to Shoko Asahara, the leader of the doomsday cult that carried out the sarin gas attacks in Tokyo.

Death-penalty opponents believe that Mr. Asahara, now on death row, could soon be put to death. “Parts of the media have been calling for Asahara to be executed as soon as possible,” says Yoshihiro Yasuda, a former lawyer for the cult guru and a member of the abolitionist group Forum 90, said recently.

“I believe that there is a great risk that [Justice minister] Mr. Tanigaki will respond to that by implementing the death penalty. Many people say that his political status will rise if he goes ahead and signs the execution order.”

Abe’s record on executions during his first stint as prime minister lends weight to speculation that Japan’s executioners will be called upon again this year: During his year in office from September 2006, 10 people were put to death.

“Mr. Abe says he wants Japan to play a bigger role in the international community as a member of the G8, but he still insists that capital punishment is a strictly domestic issue,” Amnesty's Wakabayashi says. “That said, the fact that he and Tanigaki have to keep saying this shows that there is some anxiety within the government about international opinion.”

Courtesy: The Christian Science Monitor

Singapore court to reconsider death sentence for Indian convict

The Singapore High Court will hear arguments from lawyers of an Indian national and a Malaysian on death row under a revised law that gives judges discretion to impose either death penalty or life imprisonment on certain categories of murder.

Indian national Bijukumar Remadevi Nair Gopinathan was sentenced for killing a Filipino prostitute in a Singapore hotel in 2010.

As per the previous provisions, the law stipulated mandatory death sentence for all categories of murder, The Straits Times said.

Similarly, Malaysian Jabing Kho was sentenced to death for the murder of a Chinese national in 2008.

The two are first from the death row to have their cases heard by the High Court under the revised law.

With the beginning of review of the law in July 2011, hangings for the condemned prisoners were put on hold.

As of October last year, 34 prisoners were given a lifeline under the revised law, the daily said.

Amid no objection from the prosecution, lawyers for these two convicts applied separately to the Court of Appeal yesterday for their cases to be sent back for re-sentencing.

The High Court will hear their arguments on whether they should be handed the death sentenced penalty at a later date, and the decision is open for appeal.

Death penalty under the revised law is only mandatory for Section 300 (a) under the revised law, compared to being mandatory for any categories of murder previously.

37-year-old Bijukumar was sentenced to death for the murder of Roselyn Reyes Pascua, 30, in a hotel in 2010 under Section 300 (a) and (c).

However in September last year, his conviction under Section 300 (a) was quashed by the Court of Appeal.

26-year-old Kho had killed 40-year old Chinese national Cao Ruyin while robbing him in 2008. He was convicted in 2010 and his appeal was dismissed in 2011.

Courtesy: NDTV Ltd

Pakistan Must Improve Protection For Indian Prisoners In Wake Of Jail Attack

Pakistani authorities must protect Indian prisoners from violence in the country’s jails, Amnesty International said today after an Indian death row inmate died following an attack in a Lahore jail.

Sarabjit Singh was reportedly beaten with bricks and iron bars by other inmates while walking in the grounds of Kot Lakhpat prison on Friday. Singh’s lawyer said the jail authorities had been warned that he had recently received death threats.

Singh was sentenced to death in 1991 for involvement in bombings that killed 14 people, although his family maintain he is innocent. He is the second Indian national to die in a Pakistani jail this year.

“Pakistani prison authorities have seemingly failed in their duty to protect Sarabjit Singh, despite him apparently receiving death threats,” said Polly Truscott, Amnesty International’s Deputy Asia Pacific Director.

“The government must now carry out a an impartial, public investigation into this horrific attack and ensure that those responsible are promptly prosecuted in fair trials – including prison staff if the evidence shows their negligence may have helped facilitate the attack.”

Political tensions between India and Pakistan put prisoners in both countries’ jails at risk of attack by other inmates or prison wardens.

Sarabjit Singh’s lawyer said he had been receiving death threats from inmates since India executed Kashmiri Afzal Guru in February over a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.

Sources say Sarabjit Singh was held together with other Pakistani death row inmates instead of being kept separately in a high level security ward.

He had been in a coma in a Lahore hospital since the attack on 26 April, but died yesterday from his injuries.

So far, two inmates have been charged with murder over the attack and jail staff, including the head warden, have been suspended for negligence.

Singh’s family say he is a farmer who accidentally strayed into Pakistani territory while working.

Another Indian prisoner convicted of spying, Chamel Singh, also died in Kot Lakhpat jail in January.

A fellow inmate said he witnessed Chamel Singh being beaten to death by prison staff, while an autopsy found his body bore signs of torture.

Jail authorities claimed he had died from natural causes after suffering a stroke, but there has been no comprehensive inquiry into the death.

Hundreds of Indian and Pakistani prisoners have been transferred between the two countries under an agreement reached by the two governments in September 2012.

However, hundreds of others still languish in jail, including traders, farmers, fishermen and soldiers detained as “prisoners of war”. They are often detained on charges of spying and later sentenced to prison or even death.

Relatives and lawyers often complain that Indian and Pakistani authorities do not provide them with adequate access to these prisoners.

“Indian and Pakistani authorities must ensure that relatives and lawyers have adequate access to prisoners,” said Polly Truscott.

“As promised in April this year, Indian and Pakistani authorities should promptly repatriate prisoners charged with minor offences like overstaying visas or caught fishing in the other country’s waters, as recommended by the Indo-Pak Judicial Committee on prisoners.

“The Pakistani and Indian governments must also immediately commute all death sentences and establish an official moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”

Pakistan resumed executions in November 2012, when military authorities executed soldier Muhammed Hussain for the killing of a superior officer and two others.

His was the first execution since 2008. India resumed executions the same month, hanging Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in the country’s first execution in more than eight years. 

Courtesy: Amnesty International

Ohio Executes Man Who Killed, Raped 6-Month-Old

One family wept loudly and another family cheered Wednesday as a man was executed for killing a 6-month-old as he raped her.

Steve Smith, 46, was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Lucasville in southern Ohio for the 1998 killing of his live-in girlfriend's daughter, Autumn Carter, in Mansfield.

Smith had recently tried to get his sentence reduced to life in prison, arguing that he was too drunk to realize that his assault was killing Autumn and that he didn't mean to hurt her. The Ohio Parole Board and Gov. John Kasich turned him down unanimously.

In the 25 minutes between when Smith walked into the death chamber flanked by prison guards and when the lethal injection killed him, his only child, 21-year-old Brittney, and his niece sobbed and shook with grief.

Smith declined to say any last words, then looked at Brittney sitting behind a pane of glass.

"I love you," Brittney said as she wept.

Smith turned his head away and appeared to be struggling not to cry, his chin shaking.

As the lethal injection began, Smith took several heavy breaths before he closed his eyes. He was pronounced dead at 10:29 a.m.

Less than 3 feet away from Brittney and separated by a wall, Autumn's mother — Kesha Frye — watched Smith quietly. After he was dead, Frye's sister pumped her fists in the air.

"I'm glad he's dead, and I hope he burns in hell," Frye said surrounded by her family after the execution.

Frye's father and Autumn's grandfather, Patrick Hicks, said Smith's execution was too good for him.

"Because of him, Autumn never had a chance to take her first step, she never had her first birthday or a first day of school," he said. "It's just unfortunate that this man gets to die a peaceful death after the torture he put Autumn through."

Days before the execution, Brittney Smith said that she has never believed her father killed Autumn and that he had only admitted to it because he had given up hope.

"I know my dad's innocent," she said. "I do not believe he did this, and you know, he raised all my cousins, my sister before I was even born, and he never did anything (sexually)."

After the execution, Smith's attorney, Joseph Wilhelm, said that his client "felt great remorse for the tragic and shocking crime he committed."

"He was well-behaved and sober while in prison, causing no problems in the institution and living each day with the guilt and grief caused by his alcohol-fueled crime," said Wilhelm, who also witnessed the execution. "While some may trumpet his execution as appropriate revenge for his crime, Ohio is no safer having executed Steven Smith than had he lived the remainder of his natural life in prison."

Back on the night of Sept. 29, 1998, Frye was awoken by Smith, her live-in boyfriend of four months.

Smith, who was drunk and naked, laid a naked and lifeless Autumn on Frye's bed, according to court records.

Frye rushed the baby and her other 2-year-old daughter to a neighbor's house and called 911. Autumn was pronounced dead after doctors tried to revive her for more than an hour, and Smith was arrested.
The baby was covered in bruises and welts and had severe injuries showing she had been brutally raped, though no semen was present.

At the home, there was no sign of forced entry, and police found a large amount of white cloth that came from Autumn's diaper strewn about; police found the rest of the diaper in a garbage bin outside, along with 10 empty cans of beer.

 At the time, Smith told police that he "didn't do anything."

"I'm not sick like that," he said.

At trial, Smith didn't testify in his own defense on the advice of his attorneys, even as prosecutors repeatedly referred to him as a "baby raper," showed pictures of Autumn's battered body and told jurors that her assault lasted up to a half-hour.

Expert witnesses for Smith testified that he might have accidentally suffocated the girl within three to five minutes of the assault.
The jury found Smith guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced him to die.

At an April 2 hearing in which Smith sought to have his death sentence reduced to life in prison, Smith told the Ohio Parole Board that he was sorry and wished he could ask Autumn for forgiveness.

Smith spent his last night eating pizza, fried fish, chocolate ice cream and soda, listening to the Cincinnati Reds play the St. Louis Cardinals, mailing letters and visiting with his daughter and niece, prison officials said.

Smith became the 51st inmate put to death in Ohio since it resumed executions in 1999. The state has enough of its lethal injection drug, the powerful sedative pentobarbital, to execute two other inmates before the supply expires. Eight more inmates are scheduled to die from November through mid-2015.

Courtesy:

Varun Gandhi favours Rajnath Singh as BJP PM candidate

Bareilly: Varun Gandhi today gave a new twist to the Prime Ministerial candidate race in BJP, comparing party president Rajnath Singh to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and saying he has the ability to bring together people of different religions and castes.

"His (Vajpayee's) thoughts were so great that every child in the country remembers his rule. I can say with full confidence that if there is any individual in the country who has that ability to bring together people of different religions and castes, then it is our honourable Rajnath Singh," he said speaking at a public meeting in the presence of the BJP chief.

"There are no two views on it... there is an reflection of Atalji in Rajnath Singhji," Varun Gandhi said while addressing a party rally' in Devsara Mandi in the Aonla Lok Sabha constituency represented by his mother Maneka Gandhi "Singh is a leader with a clean image and a son of Uttar Pradesh. It is the duty of the people of UP to support him so that people with clean image can come to power," Gandhi said.

Heaping further praise on Singh, Gandhi said at the meeting "if there is any one person who can make India, it is Rajnath Singh. Even after being in politics for 40 years, there has not been a blemish on him."

Varun Gandhi's words in support of Singh, who elevated him to the post of General Secretary and included him in his new team of office-bearers, came at a time when there is a growing chorus within BJP for making Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi the party's prime ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha elections.

But Modi's detractors in BJP and allies like JD(U) insist he is a divisive figure due to the 2002 post-Godhra riots taint on him.

Asked about Gandhi's comments, BJP Vice -President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said "Vajpayee is an inspiration for all of us. We have moved ahead in life with his inspiration."

A senior BJP leader, however, was not impressed with Varun Gandhi's comparison of Singh with Vajpayee. "He had compared Singh's predecessor Nitin Gadkari and senior leader Sushma Swaraj too with Vajpayee at different public meetings in the past," the leader said.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle

Iran Continues Crackdown on Sufis

Iran continues to arrest Sufi mystics. The victims of state suppression represent the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi order, the main body of traditional metaphysical Muslims in the country. On April 20, Abdolghafour Ghalandari Nejad, a webmaster for the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi site Majzooban Noor (The Alluring Light), was detained in the south Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.

Situated on the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas is a source of anxiety for the Tehran clerical dictatorship. Dozens of Sufis joined Ghalandari's family in front of the local office of Iran's Ministry of Internal Security. They demanded to know the details of Ghalandari's case. They warned against his possible transfer to a prison run by the Iranian Cyber and Information Exchange Police, known by its Farsi-language initials as FETA. The FETA detention center is a place feared greatly by Iranian dissidents.

Ghalandari was allowed to speak to his mother by celphone and said his physical condition was good but that he was being interrogated and had no idea where he was. His captors promised that a formal charge would be issued and that he could be visited while in custody. These legal rights have been denied generally to other Gonabadi-Nimatullahis, confined in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison and jailed in the city of Shiraz. Ghalandari was previously arrested last year, but released.

The protestors in Bandar Abbas dispersed after Ghalandari communicated with his mother. Yet no indictment has been issued and his location remains undisclosed.

Iran is the greatest of all Muslim lands in the history of Sufi mysticism. It is often asserted that the Sufi author Jalalad'din Rumi (1207-73 CE) is the most widely-read poet in the U.S. Rumi is among the supreme literary figures for Iranians. He is joined in the Iranian consciousness to such Sufis as Bayazet Al-Bastami (804-874), Husayn bin Mansur Hallaj (858-922), the great Al-Ghazali (c. 1058-1111) -- known as the Muslim equivalent of Thomas Aquinas, Faridud'din Attar (12th-13th centuries), Saadi Shirazi, from the generation after Attar, Hafez Shirazi (1325/26-1389/1390)... the list is spectacular in its extent.

Western enthusiasm for Sufis like Rumi is not new. The philosopher G.W.F. Hegel was influenced by Rumi. In America, Ralph Waldo Emerson became a lover of Saadi Shirazi, describing him as "like Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne ... perpetually modern."

Henry David Thoreau, our great idealist, was also devoted to Saadi Shirazi, writing of him in 1852, "A single thought of a certain elevation makes all men of one religion; I know, for instance, that Saadi entertained once identically the same thought that I do, and therefore I can find no essential difference between Saadi and myself. He is not Persian, he is not ancient, he is not strange to me. By the identity of his thought with mine he still survives."

Walt Whitman was similarly affected. He began his poem "A Persian Lesson," "For his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi,/In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air/On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden..."

It is tragic, however, to observe the current Iranian clerical dictatorship pursuing a ferocious anti-Sufi campaign. Sufis are attacked in many Muslim countries, most violently in Pakistan, where many have been killed, but harassed most consistently, by the state authorities, in Iran. Iran is ruled by clerics who claim the Sufi legacy for themselves alone.

Persecution of the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi Sufis has been relentless. The motive for the Iranian government assault on them is simple: They are blunt critics of the theocracy. Last month, Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh, the most active Gonabadi-Nimatullahi public representative -- forced into exile in Europe -- commented, "in 1963 the Shah of Iran wanted to grant women the right to vote. In response to this, Ayatollah Khomeini made himself heard as an Islamic authority, and said that it is against Islam to let women vote and a transgression of the religion of Islam. When the Shah left the country in 1979 one of the first things Khomeini did was to say that Islam authorizes women to vote and to become members of the parliament. He was manipulating Islam. He used the name of Islam to manipulate the mind of the masses."

The International Organization for the Preservation of Human Rights in Iran (IOPHRI) has tried to draw the attention of the world to the official cruelties perpetrated against the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi Sufis. The campaign of brutalization against the contemplative Muslims began in earnest with the ascent to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005.

In 2006, as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a Sufi meeting house in the theological center of Qom was leveled by the political militia known as the Basij. In that incident, some 1,200 Sufis were arrested after fighting to defend the structure. The next year saw the burning down of a Sufi building in the western Iranian town of Boroujerd, followed by obliteration of the ruins using bulldozers.

The year 2009 produced one of the most scandalous anti-Sufi acts by the Iranian rulers. In Isfahan, another theologically distinguished metropolis, the mausoleum of the Sufi poet and enlightener Nasir Ali, who lived in the 19th century, was devastated, again with bulldozers, and the adjoining Sufi prayer house was obliterated.

With the emergence in 2009 of the dissident Green Movement in Iran -- which the Gonabadi-Nimatullahis supported vigorously -- the revenge of the regime was intensified. Since then, lawyers, webmasters and ordinary adherents of the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi order have been imprisoned, tortured and killed.

The rulers of Iran are worried about a resurgence of reformist protests, with Ahmadinejad termed out this year and presidential elections scheduled for June 14. A revival of the reformist Green Movement, in which Gonabadi-Nimatullahis and millions of other Iranian Sufis would surely be prominent, is possible. The Iranian Sufis -- pride of the global Muslim esoteric tradition -- may be more vulnerable to suffering and martyrdom than ever.

This article is based on material supplied by the International Organization for the Preservation of Human Rights in Iran (IOPHRI) and the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi website Majzooban Noor (The Alluring Light).

Courtesy: Huff Post Religion

Ignoring Al-Qaeda, Iran Links 'Extraordinarily Foolish'
~~By Andre Mayer, CBC News
2-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden

RCMP arrested Raed Jaser on April 22 for allegedly conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack on a Via passenger train, leaving many observers surprised given the suggestion that the plot had connections to al-Qaeda in Iran. RCMP arrested Raed Jaser on April 22 for allegedly conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack on a Via passenger train, leaving many observers surprised given the suggestion that the plot had connections to al-Qaeda in Iran. (Alex Tavshunsky/CBC )

Given the ideological differences between the Sunni militant group al-Qaeda and the theocratic Shia government in Iran, recent allegations that the two groups had conspired in a foiled attack in Canada struck many observers as odd.

But two years after the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, experts in security and Islamist radicalism say Western intelligence agencies can't afford to discount this possible connection.

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of the book Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, says that by dwelling on the inherent differences between fundamentalist Sunnis and Shias, Western governments and media have overlooked an obvious similarity.

Radicals on both sides believe "that the world should be under a caliphate," or Islamic state, he says.

"The difference is, will it be under the Islamic doctrines of the Shia or the Sunni? That's a long-term division. But both agree on the doctrine of jihad."

Last Monday, the RCMP arrested Chiheb Esseghaier of Montreal and Raed Jaser of Toronto, accusing them of planning an attack on a Via passenger train and alleging that the plotters had support from al-Qaeda in Iran.

Over the years, the Iranian government has been implicated in attacks carried out by Shia extremist groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, but many commentators expressed disbelief that Iran would ever collaborate with a Sunni group such as al-Qaeda.

"I think it would be extraordinarily foolish to ignore the obvious manifestations and likelihood of further co-operation between the Iranian regime and Sunni Islamic extremists, including al-Qaeda," says David Harris, an Ottawa-based lawyer and director of Insignis Strategic Research.
The Sunni-Shia schism

The roots of the Sunni-Shia schism lie in the question of succession after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.

Shias maintain that by not choosing the Prophet's son-in-law, Ali, as successor, Sunnis had defied the Prophet's will, and thus do not represent true Islam.

Because Saudi Arabia houses the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina, it is considered to be the spiritual home of Sunnis, while Iran serves the same function for the Shia. This also largely explains the historic enmity between the two countries.

Examples of Islamic sectarian violence can be seen in places such as Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain and especially Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s persecution of Shias during his 24-year reign led to reprisals against Sunnis under Nouri al-Maliki’s Shia government, and produces sectarian attacks on an almost weekly basis.

Noomane Raboudi, an Islamic expert who teaches in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, says he has trouble believing there is any collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda.

"For the jihadists, the Shia are not even Muslims — [al-Qaeda] almost have the same political view of the Shia as they do of Western people," says Raboudi.

Fatah says that many people in Western institutions such as government, academia and the media have fallen for the "narrative" that because of a history of sectarian bloodshed, radical Sunnis and Shias couldn't possibly collaborate.

He says it's true, for example, that bin Laden viewed the Shias as non-Muslims, but bin Laden also considered the establishment of a global Islamic state more important than dwelling on sectarian differences, which is why he never fought the Iranians.

"Osama might never have collaborated with Iran, but the Iranians were co-operating with al-Qaeda," Fatah says. In an effort to root out the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. declared war on Afghanistan in 2001. As a result, a number of senior al-Qaeda members who had been the guests of the Taliban in Afghanistan took refuge in neighbouring Iran, according to Seth Jones, author of the book Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al-Qaeda since 9/11.

As further proof of Iranian co-operation with al-Qaeda, Fatah cites an example involving Ahmed Said Khadr, the late father of Canadian-born extremist Omar Khadr and a known al-Qaeda operative. According to Michelle Shepherd’s 2008 book, Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, Ahmed drove his daughter, Zaynab, to Tehran so she could marry another al-Qaeda member.

In an article for the U.S. news site PJ Media in 2011, former CIA operative Brian Fairchild wrote, "One of the key aspects of Iran's foreign policy has been to undermine the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East by supporting Sunni terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."

Despite some philosophical ideological differences, Harris says that Iran and a group such as al-Qaeda have a common cause in their defiance of the West and opposition to the state of Israel.

The fact that Iran may be close to having developed a nuclear bomb would also be of great interest to al-Qaeda, says Harris.

He says if the Shia Islamists that head up the theocratic regime in Tehran "feel they’re in a cosmic battle" against the West, then "it's not surprising that they might link up with the dreaded Sunni in order to fight the first round — and then maybe do in the Sunnis at an appropriate moment."

Courtesy: CBC News

Khurshid to visit Iran May 3

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid is visiting Tehran on Friday for talks with his Iranian counterpart during which the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project and development of the Chabahar port that would become a gateway to Central Asia are likely to figure.

"The external affairs minister is going to Iran on May 3," an official source told IANS.

Khurshid is to attend the India-Iran Joint Economic Commission meeting. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi would head the Iranian side at the talks to be held in Tehran.

Six memoranda of understanding in various economic sectors are likely  to be signed during the joint commission meeting, Iranian Ambassador to India Gholamreza Ansari has said earlier.

The two foreign ministers are also to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the commission.

The issue of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline is also set to be raised at the meeting.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister M. Veerappa Moily had said in March that the 2,775-km pipeline project to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India was "beneficial" and New Delhi was discussing the issue with Tehran and Washington.

Khurshid had also said in January that issues about cost with India needed to be sorted out and the matter would be taken up at the joint commission meeting. The IPI project with India has been stalled over the cost of gas as well as security of the pipeline, 1,000-km of which is to pass through Pakistan.

Iran and Pakistan have already signed pacts to implement the project on a bilateral basis. India has said it would pay for the gas only at the India-Pakistan border and not the Iran-Pakistan border. The last trilateral meeting was held in 2007.

Development of the Chabahar Port is also likely to figure in the talks. The port would provide India a vital link to transport its goods to Afghanistan with Pakistan continuing to deny India transit access to that country.

The Chabahar Port would also provide a link throughout Central Asia.

India's moves on the Chabahar Port follow Pakistan handing over Gwadar Port to the Chinese earlier this year.

Afghanistan is also likely to figure in the talks with the international forces set for a drawdown next year.

India and Iran plan to reach $25 billion in annual bilateral trade in the next four years.

Courtesy: The New Indian Express

Iran-backed Hezbollah warns it may intervene in Syria war
~~By Zeina Karam, The Associated Press

Pro-Syrian-government fighters from Lebanon stand guard at the border of the two countries on April 12. The head of Lebanon-based Hezbollah has threatened that his heavily armed group, backed by Iran, may become further involved in the battle against forces trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

BEIRUT -- The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group said Tuesday that Syrian rebels will not be able to defeat President Bashar Assad's regime militarily, warning that Syria's "real friends," including his Iranian-backed militant group, were ready to intervene on the government's side.

Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite Muslim group, is known to back Syrian regime fighters in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border against the mostly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad. The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah were the strongest indication yet that his group was ready to get far more involved to rescue Assad's embattled regime.

"You will not be able to take Damascus by force and you will not be able to topple the regime militarily. This is a long battle," Nasrallah said, addressing the Syrian opposition.

A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country

"Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel."

Hezbollah and Iran are close allies of Assad. Rebels have accused them of sending fighters to assist Syrian troops trying to crush the two-year-old anti-Assad uprising, which the U.N. says has killed more than 70,000 people.

Deeper and more overt Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian conflict is almost certain to threaten stability in Lebanon, which is sharply split along sectarian lines, and between supporters and opponents of Assad. It also risks drawing in Israel and Iran into a wider Middle East war.

Nasrallah said Tuesday there are no Iranian forces in Syria now, except for some experts who he said have been in Syria for decades. But he added: "What do you imagine would happen in the future if things deteriorate in a way that requires the intervention of the forces of resistance in this battle?"

Hezbollah has an arsenal that makes the group the most powerful military force in Lebanon, stronger than the national army. Its growing involvement in the Syrian civil war is already raising tensions inside the divided country and has drawn threats from enraged Syrian rebels and militants.

Nasrallah also said his fighters had a duty to protect the holy Shiite shrine of Sayida Zeinab, named for the granddaughter of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and located south of Damascus.

He said rebels have captured several villages around the shrine and have threatened to destroy it.

NBC's Chuck Todd examines the White House's response to allegations that Syria is using chemical weapons.

"If the shrine is destroyed things will get out of control," Nasrallah said, citing the 2006 bombing of the Shiite al-Askari shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra. That attack was blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq and set off years of retaliatory bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite extremists that left thousands of Iraqis dead and pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

In recent weeks, government troops have overrun two rebel-held Damascus suburbs and a town outside the capital. They also have captured several villages near the border with Lebanon as part of their efforts to secure the strategic corridor running from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, which is the heartland of the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Courtesy: NBC News

In Saudi Arabia, advocating peaceful change leads to lengthy prison terms for two dissidents
~~By Roy Gutman — McClatchy Newspapers

ISTANBUL — Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court, created five years ago to handle terrorism suspects, would seem a strange venue to try two of the country’s foremost human rights champions. The case against them reads not like a terror plot but a mission statement for a civil liberties group.

But the court ruled last month that their Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, which called for peaceful

change, the rule of law, free elections and a parliament, was “like al Qaida” because it challenged the legitimacy of the absolute monarchy.

It sentenced Mohammed al Qahtani and Abdullah al Hamid to 10 years and 11 years, respectively, in prison, to be followed by long bans on travel outside Saudi Arabia. It also ordered the closing of their group.

Such sentences would be a big setback for any human rights movement. But the two defendants, both university professors with doctorates, were prepared to go to jail to focus attention on the need for peaceful political reform in their homeland. Their strategy was to put the special court, which they say operates under the Interior Ministry, on trial – by challenging its every move and using social media to keep followers abreast of every turn in the investigation.

On hearing the verdict, the two men embraced. Qahtani, 47, called his sentence “a badge of honor,” and Hamid, who’s 75 and has been jailed seven times, said the trial proved his longstanding contention that the Saudi judiciary is “not independent.”

“We are proud of our sentences,” he added.

Now that they’re behind bars, held in the Ha’ir prison with accused murderers, rapists and drug dealers, the party that seems to be tied up in knots is the Saudi government. It took Judge Hammad al Omar until Tuesday, more than six weeks after jailing the two men, to deliver the written verdict.

Qahtani’s attorney rejected the 100-plus-page ruling April 17 because pages were missing and the judge demanded that it be kept secret.

The trial, which began in June, casts a harsh light on America’s most important ally in the Persian Gulf, the world’s biggest oil producer and the home country of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers who staged the 9/11 attacks.

It raised a basic question: Can an absolute monarchy defeat terrorism by jailing the advocates of peaceful reform – as if they were terrorists – or does the suppression of civil society encourage far more radical behavior?

The human rights case also is a sign that the Arab Spring is still alive and on the move in places where it might least be expected.

Qahtani, who received his graduate education in the United States, at Temple and Indiana universities, said he was inspired by George Washington and Martin Luther King.

His wife, Maha, 40, who now lives in Rochester, N.Y., with their children, where she’s pursuing an undergraduate degree at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said Qahtani was able to stay out of jail as long as he did because he had a political strategy to be polite.

“He said all the time it was like a game. You have to understand the game. Don’t make everyone the enemy. Try to give advice. Choose the one who’s responsible. Tell them, ‘We’re with you,’” she told McClatchy.

When Qahtani and Hamid founded the human rights group, which uses the abbreviation ACPRA, in 2009, their first target was the government’s decision to hold secret trials under a terrorism law, rather than undertake political reform. The two dissidents drew a connection between the Saudi system of government and al Qaida’s 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“When government alienated people from the political process and acted unilaterally, without social consensus . . . the tragic incidents of 9/11 took place,” they wrote.

They sought, but never received, permission for their group to be legally recognized. But their operating style – sending long, thoughtful letters with gentle but sober advice to King Abdullah – may have thrown the government off-guard.

In October 2009, after the Red Sea port of Jeddah was hit by flash floods, killing as many as 500, ACPRA said the absence of a sewage system was because of “political corruption.” A great deal of public money “is going into private accounts and depriving citizens of basic services,” they wrote. They warned that the only way to prevent a repetition of the Jeddah disaster was to have “popular participation in political decision-making.”

An elected government “is the cure for political corruption and the only guarantee of transparency, monitoring, accountability and integrity,” they wrote.

The tone sharpened early in 2010 when they wrote the king that the mistreatment of a fellow human rights advocate arrested three years earlier violated Saudi law. Sheikh al Rashoudi had spent 31 months in solitary confinement, an action by the Interior Ministry that “causes the citizen to lose faith in the laws of the country and its institutions,” they said in the public letter.

After the Arab Spring toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt, the Saudi government in July 2011 tightened its laws to prevent anything like that from happening there. Qahtani publicly called for King Abdullah to open proceedings against the interior minister, whom he blamed for the new law, under which anyone questioning the king’s integrity could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Prince Naif bin Abdul-Aziz, then interior minister, offered an amnesty if they would stop their work, according to an ACPRA web posting. The two men responded defiantly that they would not stop their work until the ministry stopped violating human rights and an independent commission was set up to investigate those violations.

The letters kept coming, along with the not-so-gentle advice: fire the interior minister – Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, who took the post in June following Naif’s death, and Muhamed bin Nayef, who succeeded him in November.

As the investigation proceeded, Qahtani turned to social media, routinely mocking the regime on Twitter, where he has 71,500 followers, and producing a series of lectures that can be downloaded from YouTube.

In the run-up to the sentencing, Qahtani warned on Jan. 21: “Arab despot regimes must come to their senses, end political stagnation before the people enforce it upon them.” He frequently condemned the Saudi interior minister, Nayef. “There would come a day in Saudi Arabia where Riyadh Executioner (Nayef) and his top Saudi MOI (Ministery of Interior) lieutenants would be detained & tried in court.” And on March 5, he tweeted that when asked by an interrogator: “Do you discuss Saudi regime change into a constitutional monarchy?” he wrote that his response was “of course, I consider myself advocate of CM.”

Hamid in an earlier trial session – a furtively photographed YouTube video emerged in mid-April – was every bit as defiant. “Whether we are imprisoned or not, the state cannot shut up all the people calling for human rights,” he told the judge. “Human rights activists . . . are like starfish. If the starfish loses a leg, it grows another one.”

Two days before their sentencing March 9, the two men issued another letter, calling for the immediate dismissal of Nayef, formation of an independent body to investigate him, the cancellation of all sentences passed in secret trials, the invalidation of all confessions obtained under duress or without a lawyer, and the abolition of the Specialized Criminal Court.

The trial showed the regime’s anxiety. With plainclothes and uniformed police packing the courtroom, human rights activists and friends could enter only after signing in, showing their national identity cards, and leaving pens, notepads, phones and recording devices behind.

The two men were accused of describing the Saudi system as a “police regime that carries out injustice and repression” and defaming senior Wahhabi clerics by claiming they supported regime-issued laws in exchange for monetary and moral support. They were accused of inciting public opinion by accusing the security services of repression, torture and assassinations, setting up an unlicensed society and using it to spread disunity and division, and publishing accusations against the judiciary and the executive.

In reading his judgment, Omar made clear that calling for democracy was illegal. He declared Qahtani and Hamid guilty of calling for rule by elected officials, not Islamic scholars, and describing detainees in Saudi prisons as innocent.

Special correspondent Paul Raymond in Istanbul contributed.

Email: rgutman@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @RoyGutmanMcC

Courtesy: Tri City Herald

Saudi Arabia reportedly sent written warning to US about Boston Marathon bombing accused Tamerlan Tsarnaev 

• Official says Saudi Arabia warned US about Tamerlan Tsarnaev
• Refused entry into Saudi Arabia in 2011 over security concerns
• Tsarnaevs scored $100k in welfare

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was reportedly refused entry to Saudi Arabia
in 2001. Picture: AP/Julia Malakie Source: AP

SAUDI Arabia reportedly sent a written warning to the US about Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev last year and refused him entry to the country over security concerns.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wrote to the US Department of Homeland Security about the older Tsarnaev brother in 2012, a senior Saudi official says.

The official told the Daily Mail the warning was based on intelligence from Yemen and was separate to concerns raised by Russian intelligence.

He also revealed Tamerlan was refused an entry visa into Saudi Arabia for the Mecca pilgrimage in December 2011.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 and his younger brother Dzhokhar are accused of carrying out the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three and wounded more than 264 at one of the world's premier sporting events.

The Saudi official said the warning, which was also shared with the UK Government, was "very specific" and warned "something was going to happen in a major US city".

Courtesy: The Telegraph

Flash floods in Saudi Arabia leave 13 dead

In 2009 flash floods killed 123 people in the Red Sea port of Jeddah

At least 13 people have died and four other are missing in flash floods in Saudi Arabia.

Deaths were reported in the capital Riyadh, Baha in the south, Hail in the north and in the west of the country

The Saudi Civil Defense Authority urged people to avoid valleys and plains that have been flooded by the heavy rainfall that began on Friday.

Saudi television showed footage of people clinging to trees and cars trapped by water.

The rain is said to be the heaviest experienced by the desert kingdom in more than 25 years.

On Sunday the Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammad Bin Nayef called on civil defence authorities to coordinate their efforts and provide assistance to people affected by rain and flooding. The minister was described by a spokesperson as "closely monitoring the situation".

Saudi authorities have been criticised in the past for lack of preparedness in coping with flooding. Flash floods in the Red Sea port of Jeddah killed 123 people in 2009 and 10 in 2011.

The inability of Jeddah's infrastructure to drain off flood waters and uncontrolled construction in and around the city were blamed for the high number of victims in 2009.

At the time King Abdullah promised action saying "we cannot overlook the errors and omissions that must be dealt with firmly".

However critics have said that despite the promises little has been done to alleviate the dangers posed by flash floods.

Courtesy: BBC News

Seven Prisoners Hanged In Iran-One Hanged in Public

Iran Human Rights, April 30: According to the Iranian state media seven prisoners have been executed in three different Iranian cities in the past days.

Four prisoners hanged in the prison of Kerman on April 26:

According to the state run Iranian news agency Aftab, four prisoners were hanged in the prison of Kerman Friday April 26.

Two of the prisoners were convicted of participation in armed smugling of 263 kilograms opium and 243 kilograms of crack, while the other two prisoners were convicted of armed smuggling of 188 kilograms of crack, said the report.

None of the prisoners were identified by name.

Four other prisoners convicted of drug related charges were hanged in the prison prison of Kerman a week earlier.

Two prisoners were hanged in the prison of Varamin (near Tehran) Sunday April 28

According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars two prisoners were hanged in the prison of Varamin early Sunday morning April 28. The prisoners were identified as Ghasem B. charged with possession and trafficking of 400 grams, and Hadi Kh. charged with possession and trafficking of 547 grams of crack, said the report.

One prisoner was hanged publicly in Kazeroun (southern Iran)

According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA one prisoner was hanged publicly in Kazeroun (Fars Province, southern Iran). The prisoner was identified as S. A. and was convicted of sodomy rape.

 

Courtesy: Iran Human Rights

SC Commutes Death Penalty Of Murder Convict

[Editor: What the CNN IBN Report misses is that although capital punishment by definition is reserved for "The Rarest of Rare" cases, the one imposed on Devender Pal Singh Bhullar by the Supreme Court in 2002 stands out even among them. He is the only one to have been on death row even after he was actually acquitted by the presiding judge of the Supreme Court bench, Justice MB Shah. It is not uncommon for judges of the same bench to differ on the application of death sentence or for acquittals in lower courts to turn into death sentence in the apex court. But this is the only recorded case where two judges of the apex court imposed death penalty on the accused person despite his acquittal by the presiding judge of their bench. So, the question now arises is that how does the judges of Honourbale Supreme Court differ so much? Were the two judges having a pre--conceived view on this case as it involved an act of terrorism?  
2ndly, his extradition from Germany, where there is no provision for Death Sentence, was NOT given due consideration by the Honourable Supreme Court. If the terrorism is the only criterion to declare a case to be "Rarest of Rare" then the government of India should come up with a white paper on the same---"Anyone having links with terrorists will be hanged". And in that case, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur could also be hanged---it is a matter of concern that the Hindu zealots shout and make blind statements without thinking of consequences. The point of the matter is that: an Engineer should be put to an effective use by the government of India instead of murdering him. Also, the Supreme Courts' taunt on Human Rights Activists have pained many from this fraternity. The efforts should be made to reduce the crime, instead of clamoring for the death of someone, convicted of a serious offense. Moreover, it is unfortunate to note that a Mechanical Engineer and a teacher, is facing the noose, and this might again be the 1st of its kind in India]

Photo, Courtesy: CNN IBN

The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to murder convict M.N. Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by then President Pratibha Patil.

A bench headed by Justice G.S. Singhvi allowed the plea of Das, who had approached the Supreme Court for commutation of his death sentence on the ground that the President had taken eleven years to decide his mercy plea.

The Supreme Court, which had refused to grant a similar relief to Khalistani terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar on the ground of delay in deciding mercy plea, however, commuted death sentence of Das to life imprisonment.

Das, while out on bail in another case, had beheaded one Harakanta Das at Fancy Bazaar in Assam and surrendered with the victim’s head on April 24, 1996 and in 1997, the sessions court there had sentenced him to death.

His conviction and sentence was subsequently upheld by the Gauhati High Court in 1998 and the Supreme Court in 1999.

He had moved in 1999 a mercy plea, which remained pending for eleven years before the President and was rejected in 2011.
Das had then filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court pleading for commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment since he had already spent about 14 years in jail during the disposal of his petition seeking presidential clemency.

He is currently lodged in Jorhat Central Jail in Assam.

Courtesy: The Hindu