We have an update on the love life of Demi Lovato. First, the singer and new X Factor judge sat down with E! News and denied that she’s in a relationship with Niall Horan of One Direction, even though the singers were spotted at dinner last Thursday following the MTV Video Music Awards. “There is nothing going on. Niall’s my friend,” Lovato said . “I’m just focusing on my work right now, and that’s pretty much that.” But is that pretty much it? The Daily Mail reports that Lovato dined with former flame Wilmer Valderrama at upscale restaurant El Torito in Sherman Oaks on Sunday night. Dressed in a short skirt and ankle boots, Lovato was photographed alongside the actor and serial dater, who donned a skin-tight T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Moreover, according to witnesses, Demi and Wilmer didn’t simply eat dinner together. They wet back to the singer’s place afterward for what we can only presume was desert… of the naked variety! [Photo: WENN.com]
Pat Robertson is at it again. The controversial televangelist suggested that a caller move to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly so he can legally beat his non-submissive, disrespectful spouse. On Monday’s broadcast of his show The 700 Club , viewer Michael asked for marital advice, as his wife “has no respect for me as the head of the house.” Robertson’s take: “Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her.”
The Master , the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix , have captured the zeitgeist of Venice Film Festival talk in the first half of the festival, but perhaps more quietly, director Haifaa Al Mansour is making celluloid history with her film Wadjda . Al Mansour is Saudi Arabia’s first female director, in a country that forbids movie theaters. The film follows the story of a determined 10 year-old girl living in the country’s capital, Riyadh. Shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, according to the director, the film follows young Wadjda as she lives her life trying to dodge the strict rules of Saudi society both at home and school. According to a profile of the film in Reuters , she is disciplined for not wearing her veil, listening to pop music and not “hiding in front of men.” But her sites set on a green bicycle that she decides to raise money to get it. Her plan is to learn Koranic verses and take part in a religious competition at school. If she can raise the money, she will buy the bike. And in the meantime, she will – at least temporarily – show herself as a renewed pious girl. “It’s easy to say it’s a difficult, conservative place for a woman and do nothing about it, but we need to push forward and hope we can help make it a more relaxed and tolerant society,” she said after her film premiered in Venice, speaking to reporters in English, according to Reuters. She added that the restrictive kingdom has started to open up for women, noting that female athletes traveled to London for the recent Olympics and that its monarch, King Abdullah has opened up better educational opportunities for women and they now can vote in municipal elections. “”It is not like before, although I can’t say it’s like heaven,” she said. “Society won’t just accept it, people will put pressure on women to stay home, but we have to fight.” Still she did encounter some social-stigma while filming in the country’s capital despite having received permission. Locals in some more conservative areas of the city did not like seeing a female filmmaker directing with men on the set and at times used a walkie-talkie in order to give instruction to her male actors. Wadjda is playing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. [ Source: Reuters ]
Here is the latest pronouncement from Pat Condell. A rant on Saudi Arabia. The Sandbox itself. Home of Jihad. Home of inbred stupidity. The Gay Capital of the World. A kingdom with 1 King and Millions of Queens. Kingdom in the closet http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet… Saudi Arabia is ‘biggest funder of terrorists’ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-is-biggest-f… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Monkey in the Middle Discovery Date : 02/05/2012 17:22 Number of articles : 2
The Muslim group waging jihad in Nigeria gave its first ever interview to ……. pro-jihad The Guardian. (Whom would you expect? Israel National News’) And as you can see, it’s all of a piece. The devout Muslim group Boko Haram’s mission matches that of the jihadists in Egypt, Europe, Africa, and America to the letter. The media ignores this, thinking, what? That if they pretend it doesn’t exist it… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Atlas Shrugs Discovery Date : 27/01/2012 18:35 Number of articles : 2
Nearly all U.S. troops will be home for the holidays, president promises. By Gil Kaufman President Barack Obama announces the end of the Iraq War on Friday Photo: Win McNamee/ Getty Images President Obama made good on one of his campaign promises Friday (October 21) when he announced that he plans to bring nearly all U.S. troops home from Iraq by year’s end. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said during a press conference, according to CNN . “The coming months will be a season of homecomings. Our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays.” By December 31, all but 150 of the 39,000 troops remaining in Iraq will be home, bringing an end to a lengthy battle that has taken 4,478 American lives , injured more than 32,000 and cost the nation more than $752 billion. Ending the war in Iraq was one of the goals Obama set for himself when running for president in 2008, and Friday’s announcement brought both relief and a twinge of nervousness to Middle East watchers. While the U.S. counterinsurgency policy has appeared to tamp down violence lately, allowing the majority of the once-peak 180,000 troops to come home, there is still anxiety about whether Iraqi forces are stable enough to provide for their own security. The war was launched by former President George W. Bush on March 20, 2003, on the premise (later proven to be false) that late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was stockpiling and planning to use weapons of mass destruction. The U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical and biological warfare programs in 1991 and did not have an active program scheme at the time of the U.S. invasion. While the war led to the toppling, capture and execution of Hussein, experts also later determined that the insufficient amount of troops and planning left the U.S. unprepared for the sectarian violence that gave rise to a deadly insurgency that bogged American troops down in a guerrilla-style war. Iraq veteran Tom Tarantino told MTV News on Friday that he was elated by the announcement. “It’s really excellent news for members of the military and their families around the country,” he said. “Especially since it’s happening around the holidays, which is a nice symbolic gesture.” Tarantino, a senior legislative associate for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, served in Iraq in 2005-06 as a cavalry and mortar platoon leader with the 11th armored cavalry regiment, leading patrols through Baghdad and earning a Bronze Star for his service. Whatever you felt about the war, Tarantino said the news is a great opportunity to remind the American people about the several million young veterans who are in desperate need of good health care and who are coming home to record levels of suicide and unemployment. Watching the attention paid to the demands of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York and around the globe, Tarantino, 33, said he hopes the movement will remind the nation of its responsibilities to a generation of warriors who logged time in Iraq and inspire similar protest. “We should let these men and women come home with honor and make sure the promises we made to them when they went off to war are kept,” he said. The decision to bring the troops home came after Obama spoke with Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki in a video conference Friday, and both men said they were comfortable with the plan. Obama promised that the new partnership with Iraq would be “strong and enduring. … The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their head held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.” The announcement of the end of the war in Iraq comes at a time of rapid, earthshaking change in the Middle East. In just the past six months, the U.S. and its allies have overseen efforts that have resulted in the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Anwar al-Awlaki, and, on Thursday, the killing of feared Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi. Those deaths came amid a summer of massive change in the Arab world (dubbed the “Arab Spring”), when protests and demonstrations — many of them led by young revolutionaries — in countries such as Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon have led to the ouster of a number of repressive leaders. Share your thoughts on the president’s announcement in the comments below.
Not that we’re surprised, but those folks not F’in with us at ALL! The hope that the Arab world had not long ago put in the United States and President Obama has all but evaporated. Two and a half years after Obama came to office, raising expectations for change among many in the Arab world, favorable ratings of the United States have plummeted in the Middle East, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation. In most countries surveyed, favorable attitudes toward the United States dropped to levels lower than they were during the last year of the Bush administration. The killing of Osama bin Laden also worsened attitudes toward the United States. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, 30 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of the United States (compared with 41 percent in 2009), while roughly 5 percent said the same in Egypt (compared with 30 percent in 2009). “The very high expectations that were created in 2009 – there’s been a letdown since then,” said James Zogby, the president and founder of the Arab American Institute, of which the foundation is an affiliate. Fewer than 10 percent of respondents described themselves as having a favorable view of Obama. The president’s ratings were the lowest on “the Palestinian issue” and “engagement with the Muslim world,” as the categories were described in the survey. To his credit the man conducting the poll, James Zogby, had this to say about the POTUS: “He didn’t get a magic wand when he took the oath office,” Zogby said. “They handed him a shovel to get out of a deep hole.” Ok so we’re not at the top of the Arab nations’ “most favorite” list. All we’re saying is, don’t start none, won’t be none… Source
“All governments lie.” You can add to that great quote “and all newspapers lie, too.” -American journalist I. F. Stone. Knowing the truth matters in a democracy because without the truth citizens can’t make informed decisions about government policies that impact their lives. It is not possible to consciously answer fundamental societal questions like “should we go to war?” without a firm grasp of all the facts at hand. When independent journalists fail to provide the simple and straightforward facts to the public, they become complicit in government murder and fraud, and deserve even more ridicule than dishonest government officials and government-owned journalists. 11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real Al-Qaeda is either one of these things, or it is a combination of them: a) a completely fake threat; the organization does not exist, b) an organization that exists in small numbers but was created by the CIA to serve a corrupt U.S. foreign policy, and remains a U.S. intelligence asset in the manufactured global war on terrorism, or c) a small organization that exists independently of the U.S. government but its strength and influence in the Middle East is exaggerated by radical policymakers and officials in Washington. Out of all three statements the first and second deserve the most serious attention because they are supported by the evidence listed below. #1. Radical American cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was ordered to be assassinated by President Obama, met with top military officials at the Pentagon months after the 9/11 attacks. #2. CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed in June 2010 on ABC’s This Week that there are less than 100 Al-Qaeda members in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. #3. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), one of the world’s leading security think tanks, published a report this year which said that the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban is exaggerated by Western policymakers. #4. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview to the Los Angeles Times’s Patt Morrison in October 2010 that Al-Qaeda doesn’t exist. #5. The U.S. government created, and funded Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s to be used to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, and bleed it to death in a costly and unwinnable war. #6. Robin Cook, who served as a British MP for 22 years and as Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, wrote an article for the Guardian in July 2005, a month before his death, called “The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means.” #7. A BBC article from July 2004 called “Al-Qaeda’s origins and links” reveals that Osama Bin Laden was a CIA agent in the 1980s. #8. J. Michael Springmann, a 20 year foreign service official, and a former Consulate officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has publicly stated for many years that the CIA brought over Muslim radicals to the United States for secret terrorist training. #9. Germany’s Der Spiegel’s published an article by Siegesmund von Ilsemann called “Arming the Middle East: The Checkered History of American Weapons Deals” in June 2007. The article backed up the reporting done by the BBC, and elsewhere that the United States government “supplied Afghan freedom fighters in the 1980s with money and arms for their struggle against occupying Soviet troops. One of the best customers for the CIA back then was Saudi millionaire Osama Bin Laden.” This account is only half-true. The CIA funded and trained a network of Muslim fighters not to liberate Afghanistan from corrupt Soviet influence, but to create havoc and instigate a Soviet invasion so that it would drain itself of blood and treasure. Once the objective of bringing down the Soviet Union was achieved, the stage was set for the United States and the West to invade Afghanistan and take advantage of the country’s vast resources, from oil to heroin. #10. Selig Harrison, a current member of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, a former senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and an expert on South Asia, said in March 2001 at a conference called “Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia,” that the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI helped create the backward and tyrannical Taliban. #11. The September 11, 2001 attacks, which serve as the basis for America’s wars in the Middle East, were committed by the United States government with assistance from the government of Israel. This is an indisputable fact added by: maasanova
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Biography for Maggie Wilson Born Margaret Nales Wilson March 15, 1989 (1989-03-15) The Philippines Other names Maggie No. of films Let the Love Begin (2005) Height 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) Weight 122 lb (55 kg) Measurements 34-24-35 in Hair color Black Eye color Brown Title(s) Bb. Pilipinas-World 2007 Major competition(s) Bb Pilipinas 2007 (winner) Miss World 2007 Margaret “Maggie” Nales Wilson (born March 15, 1989 in the Philippines but raised in Saudi Arabia) is a British-Filipino beauty
Wikileaks: Saudis 'chief funders of Sunni militants' The cables said militant groups had used front companies in Saudi Arabia to fundraise Continue reading the main story Wikileaks Revelations US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned last year in a leaked classified memo that donors in Saudi Arabia were the “most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”. She said it was “an ongoing challenge” to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. The groups funded include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, she added. The memo, released by Wikileaks, also criticised efforts to combat militants by the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. Meanwhile, a lawyer for the founder of the Wikileaks website said he was holding back secret material for release if anything happened to him. He told the BBC that a rape case being prepared in Sweden against Julian Assange, an Australian national, was politically motivated. 'Dependent on CIA' In one classified cable sent in December 2009, Mrs Clinton urged diplomats to redouble efforts to stop funds reaching militants “threatening stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan and targeting Coalition soldiers”. “While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) takes seriously the threat of terrorism within Saudi Arabia, it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority,” she wrote. Large sums are raised by militant groups during the annual Hajj pilgrimage, US diplomats believe The Saudi government had begun to make important progress, but “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”, she added. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba “probably raised millions of dollars” annually from Saudi sources, often during the Hajj – and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, she alleged. Mrs Clinton said reforms to criminalise terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities had been effective, but that they did not cover equally suspect “multilateral organisations”. sources and more on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11923176 added by: alexandrek
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