"I'm ready to become a suicide bomber": Chilling confession of 7/7 attacker's widow
Fugitive wife of Jermaine Lindsay reveals horrific plan in online poem where she says she is “breathing Jihad”
The fugitive widow of 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay is preparing to end her own life in a suicide attack.
Samantha Lewthwaite revealed her horrific plan in a chilling poem she posted online which tells how she is tired of life on the run and is “breathing Jihad”.
She writes: “I’d rather be receiving my martyrdom, think I’ll get ready... and buy a vest.”
The threat comes as police step up their search for Lewthwaite, 28, known as the White Widow, who has been missing for nearly a year.
The four Christians accusing their employers of discrimination
Four Christians who believe that they have suffered discrimination in the workplace because of their faith plan to take their legal fight to the European Court of Human Rights.
Nadia Eweida, 58, a check-in clerk at Heathrow Airport was sent home for wearing a small silver crossPhoto: HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY
Nadia Eweida, a British Airways check-in clerk, was suspended by BA in 2006 for breaching the company’s uniform code. Mrs Eweida, then 55, had been employed by BA for seven years when she was effectively forced to take unpaid leave after refusing to conceal the symbol.
BA said that Mrs Eweida was permitted to wear the cross if it was worn concealed underneath her uniform, as stated in its uniform policy.
Mrs Eweida lost an initial appeal to her employer, but in 2007 BA caved to pressure and dropped its ban on wearing crosses.
Seeking to recoup money lost during the period of her unpaid leave, Mrs Eweida took BA to an employment tribunal alleging religious discrimination, which she lost. After two further failed appeals, Mrs Eweida will finally be heard by the European Court of Human Rights.
In this Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012 photo, a woman throws her waste in a street in Cairo. (AP Photo)
CAIRO -- The pile of trash overwhelmed the median divider on Ahmed Zaki Street and spilled into oncoming traffic – egg shells, rotten eggplants, soiled diapers, bottles, broken furniture, junked TV sets. Flies swarmed and the summer sun baked up a powerful stench.
Then Kawther Ahmed and her mom came out to add their plastic bag of household trash. The garbage collectors hadn't been by for two days, said Ahmed, 25, and the metal trash bins in the lower-income Cairo neighborhood, called Dar el-Salam or "House of Peace," had disappeared, probably sold for scrap metal. "What can we do?" she asked.
Egypt's newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, is under growing pressure to answer that question.
Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsi is accused of stifling legitimate criticism of his regime.
Islam Afifi (left) and Tawfiq Okasha are facing trial after being arrested
Emma Hurd
Middle East Correspondent
Two Egyptian journalists are to stand trial accused of "inciting" against President Mohamed Morsi, in a sign of a growing crackdown against free speech.
Tawfiq Okasha, the host of a talk show on a privately owned TV station, is to face a charge of "incitement to murder" over his vocal opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood leader.
The editor-in-chief of the Al Dustour newspaper, Islam Afifi, will also face trial for "publishing false information" which was considered insulting to the President.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been accused by Egypt’s Journalists’ Syndicate of using the same repressive tactics as Hosni Mubarak’s regime to stifle the media and silence dissent.
Egypt President Mohammed Morsi picks a fall guy for Sinai attack
David Ignatius
IN firing Egypt's chief of intelligence for his alleged failings in Sinai, President Mohammed Morsi sacked a general who has won high marks from US, Israeli and European intelligence officials - and who, ironically, has been one of the Egyptians pushing for a crackdown on the growing militant presence in Sinai.
This week's shuffle is bound to raise concerns among US and Israeli officials about the security policies of Morsi's government, and its seeming mutual self-protection pact with the Egyptian generals who still hold considerable power through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF.
British court found Pakistani parents guilty of honour killing daughter, sentenced to life
A court has sentenced a Pakistani-born couple, convicted of the "honour killing" of their 17-year-old daughter, to life imprisonment, remarking that they had sought to keep the teenager in the "sealed cultural environment" of rural Pakistan rather than modern Britain.
By: Anugrah Kumar
For the convicts, 52-year-old Iftikhar Ahmed and his 49-year-old wife Farzana, their fear of losing "honour" in their community was greater than their love for their daughter Shafilea Ahmed, Britain's Telegraph daily quoted Chester Crown Court judge Roderick Evans as saying.
The Ahmeds tortured their westernized daughter for years. And then one day in 2003, when she refused to give in to their demand to get married, the couple stuffed a plastic bag into her mouth in front of their four other children at her home in Warrington, Cheshire. Her dismembered body was found on a riverbank in February 2004.
The trial went for nine years for lack of evidence until the victim's sister Alesha spoke up against her parents in court. Alesha told the court she couldn't speak the truth earlier as she feared for her life, too.
The parents will serve at least 25 years in prison, as per the sentencing.
The judge said the parents' expectation that she live in a "sealed cultural environment separate from the culture of the country in which she lived was unrealistic, destructive and cruel."
"You wanted your family to live in Pakistan in Warrington," the judge said. "Although she went to local schools, you objected to her socialising with girls from what has been referred to as the white community," he added. "You objected to her wearing western clothes and you objected to her having contact with boys. She was being squeezed between two cultures, the culture and way of life that she saw around her and wanted to embrace, and the culture and way of life you wanted to impose on her," the judge added.
Victim's close friend Melissa Powner said she hoped the conviction and sentencing of the Ahmeds would send out a strong message to others. "If there is one thing that we pray will come from this, it is that her beautiful face and tragic story will inspire others to seek help and make them realise that this kind of vile treatment, no matter what culture or background they are from, is not acceptable and there is a way out," she was quoted as saying.
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (photo credit: Amr Nabil/AP)
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Islamist president swore in his first new government Thursday, led by a devout Muslim and including five members of his Muslim Brotherhood in unglamorous but ideal ministries for a group whose long-term aim is to Islamize the most populous Arab nation.
The Cabinet is a far cry from the inclusive administration that President Mohammed Morsi has repeatedly promised. No other political factions came on board to join. Women and Christians received only token representation, and figures from the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak last year were left out.
US Lawmakers Clash Over Middle East Religious Minorities Bill
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) ripped into Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) on Thursday for holding up legislation to protect religious minorities that has bipartisan support.
Wolf's bill to create a special envoy to promote religious freedom of religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia despite the State Department's objection sailed through the House on a 402-20 vote one year ago and has been lingering in the Senate since January. After hitting an impasse with Webb, the co-chairman of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission publicly castigated him by publicly sharing a letter he'd sent to the senator Wednesday night.
