The court of appeal has quashed the conviction of a former police chief who was found guilty by a jury of framing a man.

Former Scotland Yard commander Ali Dizaei was jailed for four years in February 2010 for abusing his office after a row in a London street with Waad al-Baghdadi, who was the main prosecution witness.

The court of appeal has ordered a retrial.

Read more @ The Guardian

Eye-for-an-eye punishment of Majid Movahedi put on hold despite calls by his disfigured victim, Ameneh Bahrami, for retribution

[size=10]Ameneh Bahrami holds a photo showing herself before she was blinded with acid by Majid Movahedi. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images[/size]

Iran has postponed blinding a man with acid following an international outcry over the retributive punishment imposed after he was found guilty of doing the same to a woman who refused to marry him.

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, Majid Movahedi was scheduled to be rendered unconscious in Tehran's judiciary hospital today while his victim, Ameneh Bahrami, dropped acid in both his eyes.

But Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported that officials had postponed the sentence on Friday night and not indicated when the punishment might be carried out in future.

Bahrami, who had asked for an eye-for-an-eye retribution in a criminal court in Tehran, was not informed of the postponement.

Read more @ BBC News

By Mustafa Akyol

“Allah, Syria, Freedom - nothing else!” That is the slogan peaceful protestors are chanting on the streets of Syria these days, challenging the classical pro-regime slogan "God, Syria, Bashar - nothing else!" Yet the “security forces” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are brutally crushing this most justified yearning for liberty. It is reported that the thugs of the regime have killed at least 850 people in the past few weeks, whose only crime was to ask for the end of the Baath dictatorship that has ruled the country for more than four decades. Thousand have been reported to be arrested, and tortured, while troops supported by tanks are raiding towns and homes. The regime of Mr. Assad is simply killings its own people.

The Baath bloodshed

Here in Turkey, we are watching all this with great concern – and great contempt. It is true that some among us are fooled by the Baathist propaganda – that this is all the work of “terrorists” and evil outsiders who support them. It is also true that our government has been trying to go a bit easy on Syria, which has been the beacon of Ankara’s successful “zero problem with neighbors” policy. Yet still the Turkish government is raising the tone of its criticism against the Syrian regime day by day, while many here want even stronger condemnations of the regime’s crimes against its own people. We just cannot sit down and watch a massacre on our borders, on the very people that are our friends, relatives and brothers.

In fact, the Baath regime in Syria, like its bygone counterpart in Iraq, has always been brutal. The massacre of at least 10,000 people, mostly civilians, in Hama in 1982, was an act of evil we always mourned and never forgot. The culprits were Hafez al-Assad and Rifaat al-Assad, the father and the uncle of the younger Assad who is ruling Syria now. Since the latter came to power in 2000, with a more smiling face and more reasonable rhetoric, we believed that the dark days of Hama are gone and a new era is at hand in Syria. But those hopes are being shattered these days, as Bashar al-Assad is proving not much different from his bloody predecessors.

There is discussion here in Turkey on whether Mr. Assad is happily ordering the ongoing massacres, or whether he is manipulated by an evil establishment who knows nothing other than killing, torturing, or spreading fear. Personally, I don’t know the answer. But I don’t also care. The only person whom we can appeal to is the one whose posters hang on almost every official wall in Syria: Bashar al-Assad. If he is good-willed but weak, then he should show some guts, take matter at hands, and stop the onslaught against peaceful protestors. If he is strong and ruthless, then he should tremble before God, or, at least, see that his regime’s brutality is terribly wrong even for Machiavellian reasons.

So, as a fellow Muslim, and a concerned citizen from friendly country, here is my call to Mr. Assad: Just stop killing your people. Order your troops not to fire a single bullet at peaceful protestors. Let your people say what they want to say, and ask for the democracy they deserve.

Tear down this wall

Ultimately, Mr. Assad, just tear down this wall of tyranny, and open up your regime. Human beings have something called dignity, and hence you can’t expect them to bow down to the dictates of tyrants. In the past, maybe they looked as if they did, but that was because there was no way for them to raise their voices. But now we live in a different world, a much open and transparent one, and the aspiration for freedom cannot be crushed as it was done in the past. If you insist doing so, then you will be on not just the wrong but also the losing side of history.

So, Mr. Assad, just go out and promise democracy for Syria, giving a clear roadmap for political participation, including free and fair elections. That will be much better than telling us childish stories about how the West or Israel are working against you behind-the-scenes. I, too, have my strong opinions about Israel’s 44-year-long occupation of Arab lands. But I am also sick of seeing Arab dictators using Zionism as a straw man to frighten their populations and as a conspiracy theory icon to justify their faults and crimes.

And finally, to those noble Syrians, who, despite all the state terror unleashed on them, keep on changing, “Allah, Syria, Freedom!” Please know that there are millions in the world, who honor your cause, respect your courage, and pray for your success. Here in Turkey, too, we worry about your lives, pray for your well being, and hope for the democracy you deserve. May Allah be with you, indeed.

I forgot to post this on the forums when it arose like a week or two ago, but its still recent enough and a topic that is bound to excite conspiracy theorists and deniers that say that the suicide bombings in Pakistan and elsewhere are actually a western led conspiracy:

An al Qaeda "assassin" accused of bombing Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan was working for British intelligence at the same time, according to leaked files.

Sky News

An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military's Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

The Guardian

First they banned the veil.

Then they evicted Roma people from France going counter to the EU enlargement agreement and process.

Next they almost tore up the Schengen Agreement over border controls when Migrants from Tunisia went into Italy and wanted to move up into France. They still want to tear it up actually.

Now it is suggested that major figures wanted to limit the number of coloured players - people of African or Arab heritage. It is suggested that this has gone as far as youth training academies limiting their quotas of ethnic players to less than a third. The website breaking this news had the following to say as the view of those involved:

"For the top brass in French football, the issue is settled: there are too many blacks, too many Arabs, and not enough white players in French football,"

When can we suggest that France has major problems with racism?

A Massachusetts woman has been convicted of attempted murder for withholding cancer drugs from her son.

Kristen LaBrie's son Jeremy Fraser, who was autistic, died in 2009 at age nine of leukaemia, the court heard.

BBC News

Sometimes mother doesn't know best.

Leprosy has officially been eliminated in India, yet 130,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Richard Cookson and Seyi Rhodes report on the plight of the patients shunned by society

Narsappa was just 10 years old when he was told he had leprosy, but the news changed the course of his life forever. People in his Indian village immediately began to shun him and told his parents that he had to leave. He says his mother started grieving for him "as if I was already dead". Shortly afterwards, his father took him to a hospital two hours away from home and left him there. No one ever came to visit him and Narsappa never went home again.

Now 42, he now lives in a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad and campaigns on behalf of people affected by the disease. "I lie awake at night thinking about how I was treated and how I can stop others from going through the same thing," he says.

Read more @ The Guardian

The UN has backed all necessary measuers short of a full on occupation force to help defend the civilians in Libya and air strikes could start against government targets within hours.

Good news or bad?

Gaddafi needs to go but I dont think there should be outside meddling. I may be wrong on this though, and maybe the world will unite under genuine grounds and not turn this into another Iraq from 20 years ago.

Then again I wouldn't be too angry about a single missile strike that takes out Gaddafi. I doubt that will happen though.