Lebanon: police arrest Omar Bakri Mohammed

Lebanese police officials say they have arrested a radical Muslim cleric who was sentenced in absentia last week to life in prison.

They said police arrested Omar Bakri Mohammed Sunday at his home in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Lebanese officials said Bakri was among 54 people sentenced Friday as part of ongoing trials of militants who fought the Lebanese army in 2007. Bakri was convicted of membership of an armed group aiming to commit “terrorist acts” and plotting to kill Lebanese soldiers.

It was not immediately clear why authorities did not arrest Bakri earlier. He appears regularly on television and does not live in hiding.

via Lebanese police arrest radical Muslim cleric after he is sentenced in absentia – Arts -Canada – World – The Telegram.

Don’t know what would be this detention’s outcome. Specially with the present situation in Lebanon.

Saudia Arabia: Facebook blocked for not conforming with values

Facebook, that vile and sexualising tool…

An official with Saudi Arabia’s communications authority said Saturday it has blocked Facebook because the popular social networking website doesn’t conform with the kingdom’s conservative values.

The official announced that Saudi’s Communications and Information Technology Commission blocked the site and an error message shows up when Internet users try to access it.

He explained that Facebook’s content had “crossed a line” with the kingdom’s conservative morals, but that blocking the site is a temporary measure.

via S. Arabia blocks Facebook for not conforming with values.

Oh, wow, only temporary. So that those infractor of Saudi values just consider how wrong they are behaving and end using it. At all or just in that way?

Egypt: cleric demands death penalty for importers of female virginity-faking device

Above all, proportion between “crime” and punishment. Of course, just consider if it’s a crime first:

A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.

Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.

The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night.

There is a stigma about pre-marital sex in conservative Arab societies.

The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East.

It is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab world.

The device is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15.

Professor Bayoumi, a scholar at the prestigious al-Azhar University, said it undermined the moral deterrent of fornication, which he described as a crime and one of the cardinal sins in Islam.

Members of parliament in Egypt have also called for banning import of the item.

via BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt anger over virginity faking.

UN: Iran, Turkey could be frontrunners for nuclear disarmament

No, don’t laugh, this is true:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Islamic Republic and Turkey have potentials to be forerunners of international nuclear disarmament, the local English language satellite Press TV reported on Thursday.”Iran and Turkey can be flag-bearers of nuclear disarmament in the globe to establish a world free from nuclear weapons,” Mottaki said in a meeting with head of Turkish Parliament’s Commission for Foreign Relations Murad Marjan in Tehran on Wednesday.

As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

via Report on Arrakis: Joke of the Day..

Well, yes, this is joke, but it surely isn’t funny…