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Abu Heitham Qasqos, who was quoted by Al-Jazeera as an eyewitness to the Jisr al Shagoor killings, said that the network offered him $200 and a meal and asked him to say what they wanted him to say. Abu Heitham disclosed his allegations with regard to the bribe on 29th November 2011 in an interview with Iran's Fars newsagency. This is one of a number of allegedly false reports by Al Jazeera at this time.
See this link

There was an Afghan forum last Thursday in the House of Commons organised by Khalid Nadeem of the SOUTH ASIA & MIDDLE EAST FORUM. Hamad Ghailani, head of the Hadra sufi sect, was a speaker. His comments were fairly tame and largely supportive of Karzai. He claimed that the West had been wrong to make 2014 a date for troop withdrawal and that the National Dialogue (in which the major players are the Taliban and the Northern Alliance) was of some importance.
Tobias Elwood MP spoke rather better, talking of the importance of infrastructure. For instance the tarmac road to Lashkagar has made people in that region more prosperous to such a degree that the locals report I.E.D.s more readily. He views Herat and Kandahar as economic hubs. He says that economic development might make the difference - if Afghanistan had more credible politics. But to this day Afghanistan has no proper political parties and way too much power for the President. Tobias favours the Single Transferable Vote system rather than the current first past the post system for Afghanistan. But he laments the state of the Afghan armed forces with an army that is largely Tajik and Uzbek and a police force that is largely Pushtu.
We were reminded that the West currently has 130,000 troops in Afghanistan and intends to leave 20,000 behind after 2014.
Sabrina, an Afghan MP, reminded us of the importance of UN resolution 1325 (see below).
We were reminded that the USA does not want to stay in Afghanistan. Another questioner emphasised the importance of dealing with the warlords if you want to control drugs because they are the ones forcing the farmers to produce them,
The NCF suggested that the proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan had to end - and that meant resolving the Kashmir issue.

ON UNSCR 1325: PeaceWomen.org writes: The first resolution on women, peace and security, Security Council Resolution 1325 (SCR1325), was unanimously adopted by United Nations Security Council on 31 October 2000. SCR1325 marked the first time the Security Council addressed the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women; recognized the under-valued and under-utilized contributions women make to conflict prevention, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and peace-building. It also stressed the importance of women’s equal and full participation as active agents in peace and security. SCR1325 is binding upon all UN Member States and the adoption of the Resolution marked an important international political recognition that women and gender are relevant to international peace and security.

Iran's leadership confirmed to the NCF yesterday that the consortium deal is still on the table. This is a deal whereby Iran would place all nuclear enrichment in the hands of a Western consortium operating inside of Iran. What I can't understand is why the heck the West doesn't call their bluff?
IAEA chief urges Iran to cooperate with inspectors
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Khaleej Times - 28 January, 2012
The head of the UN’s atomic watchdog urged Iran to engage constructively with a team of inspectors heading to Tehran, after a damning report on Iran’s nuclear programme.
“The high-level team leaves today and starts work tomorrow,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said at the Davos forum.
“We hope they will take a constructive approach. We hope that there will be substantial cooperation.”
An IAEA team led by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and his number two, Rafael Grossi, was to head to Tehran later Friday.
In November the agency said it had evidence “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device”, a charge it denies.

29 January 2012: The Arab League has suspended its monitoring mission in Syria because of an increase in violence, a senior Arab League source in Cairo said earlier today.
The move comes days after President Bashar al-Assad's government agreed to a one-month extension of the mission, which began December 26.
The mission is part of a peace initiative in Syria. The 22-member Arab League has called on al-Assad's regime to stop violence against civilians, free political detainees, remove tanks and weapons from cities and allow outsiders -- including the international news media -- to travel freely in Syria.
The mission has been monitoring government activities in various hotspots. In the last two days, opposition activists reported scores of deaths, with one group, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, reporting 135 deaths Thursday and Friday.
Violence continued to rage Saturday as an "armed terrorist group" killed seven soldiers in an attack Saturday, state-run media reported.

Comment:
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This move is seen more as a ploy to put pressure on Syria and to respond to criticism of the its ineffectiveness, rather than any significant change in the security situation. While deplorable and spreading, the violence has remained at the same, high level for the past several weeks. End Comment.

Palestinian radical groups have been thinking for some time now of adopting a policy of non-violent protest. They are testing the water on 30th March with a march on Jerusalem. The $64,000 question is how both Israel and the Fatah controlled Palestinian Authority will react. Can they tolerate non-violent protest? Neither of them will like it.

See this link to a radical website >>>>>>>>> CLICK HERE

As Iran is getting closer to the March Parliamentary elections, press freedom standard is rapidly deteriorating in the country, with seven journalists arrested since the beginning of 2012. The last three, Marzieh Rasouli, Parastoo Dokouhaki and the photojournalist Sahamoddin Bourghani, worked for different reformist opposition newspapers and publications, and they have been imprisoned with the charge of acting against the national security of the Islamic Republic. Rasouli has long worked as a freelance journalist, notably for art and cultural publications. Parastoo used to work with Zanan Magazine, a reform-minded feminist magazine that was active for 16 years before being shut down by the authorities in 2008. Sahamoddin Bourghani, national press director for the Ministry of Culture under former president Mohammad Khatami, was also arrested Jan. 17. In the last years, it has been common for journalist in Iran to change continuously publisher, due to temporary closure of the newspaper by the government. Iranian authorities have adopted a policy of putting pressure on the journalist community with frequent arrests and newspapers closures. According to the Committee to Protect Journalist, 42 journalists were in jail at the end of 2011, and the recent increase is a sign of a worrying tendency for the following months. Moreover, 3 Web technologists have been recently sentenced to death. Among them, Saeed Malekpour has been accused of developing software used in porno websites, and he has been forced to confess his alleged crimes on state television. In addition to reduce freedom of press and speech in the country, proceedings against journalists and reformists are used by different factions in their struggle for internal power, especially on the eve of electoral terms. The March 2012 Parliamentary elections will be the first ones since June 2009, and are becoming a turning point for the internal political struggle among different conservative groups.

Two Sudanese private newspapers have been closed by the police in less than two weeks in January 2012. Alwan and Rai al-Shaab were two independent opposition dailies, published in Arabic: the first one was closed after having published an interview with a local religious leader, while the second was the official newspaper of the opposition group Popular National Congress. Khartoum authorities stated that the two dailies had violated the journalist ethical and professional standards, and this caused the closure. While asking to remove the block, Reports Without Borders denounces the deteriorating situation of press freedom in Sudan, and asked the President al- Bashir to stop his campaign against local newspapers and opposition media.

The owner of Express Newspapers and Channel 5 appeared in front of the Leveson inquiry on January 12, to face to charges of defamatory coverage of the Madeleine McCann case. According to the parent of the disappeared girl, several articles published on those newspapers were mistaken and defamatory. As the first newspaper owner speaking in the inquiry, Richard Desmond tried to downplay the accuses, stating that just a minor part of the articles had a negative stance against the McCann family, and this was reflecting the general perception of the British audience at that time. Mr Desmond apologized for the conduct of his newspapers, but accused the inquiry of using his newspapers as a “scapegoat”.

The first Western journalist has been killed in Syria on January 11, extending the list of media staff who gave life in reporting the events of the Arab spring in the last months. A France 2 channel reporter, Gilles Jacquier was reporting from the city of Homs, embedded to a government authorized group covering a pro-Assad manifestation. According to the Syrian official version, Jacquier was hit by a RPG launched by a protest group that was targeting Assad supporters, and the French reporter died on the spot. Doubts about the government reconstruction of the events have been erased by Syrian opposition groups and also international human rights associations. For sure, if the Syrian government would demonstrate that the situation was under its control, the attempt failed, as Guardian journalist Ian Black commented. While the situation in Syria is rapidly deteriorating and civil population is increasingly suffering the conflict escalation between different factions, journalists and reporters are paying a high price for covering the developments in the region.

A really hard 2012 start for Christian Wulff, President of Germany, who has been asked to resign after he tried to stop the publishing of a story about him. According to a journalist investigation, Christian Wulff accepted a £ 420,000 loan at a favorable interest rate from the wife of Egon Geekens, a German businessman. When Mr Wulff discovered that Das Bild was going to publish the story, he contacted the newspaper editor, threatening judicial consequences and a breach in the relations between the Presidency and the newspaper. His attempt was unsuccessful, and he later tried to excuse personally for his behavior, but the details about the whole story had already been released. Even if the loan was subscribed before he became President in May 2010, now he has to face increasing pressure, asking to clarify his position, while some people are expecting him to resign.

A Honduras lawyer was shot dead on January 17, after he had revealed to a local newspaper cases of police mistreatments of detainees in the prison of the city of Tela, North of Honduras. Jose Ricardo Rosales was killed three days later the story was published on El Tiempo. According to the newspaper, 74 lawyers have been killed in last three years in Honduras.

On the 18th January, prominent Egyptian activist, blogger and newspaper columnist, Nawara Negm, was attacked as she left work at the Nileside state television HQ.  Nawara works for the Egyptian Nile Television Network (NTN) as a translator and news editor. The attack was caught on video and uploaded to social networking sites, and showed a small crowd both physically and verbally assailing her.  A key figure in the 2011 uprising and a vocal critic of the military government, Negm's attack appears to be the latest in a string of violence against protest participants, including the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in December.  This trend is all the more worrying in light of a thinly veiled warning to anti-military activists by Egypt's milutary ruler, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.  In comments published on Wednesday, he said Egypt was facing "grave dangers" but assured the nation that the armed forces would protect it.  What this means for demonstrators will depend on what Tantawi's definition of 'protect'.  The attack on Negm is an indication that Egypt is certainly not through the woods, and the upcoming anniversary of the start of the uprising will prove to be telling.

British media authority Ofcom has revoked the licence to Iranian broadcasting channel Press TV on January 20, and the channel has been removed from Sky platform. The decision was taken after Press TV was found guilty of breaching rules of editorial control, and Press TV failed to pay a previous £100,000 fine imposed last year. The struggle between Ofcom and Press TV erupted in 2009, with the “Maziar Bahari case”: Maziar Bahari is a Newsweek and Channel 4 journalist who was interviewed by Press TV while detained in Tehran after the June 2009 elections. After investigations, Ofcom found that the real editorial control of the English channel of the Iranian TV was in Tehran, and accused Press TV of several breaches of UK broadcasting code. Press TV accused Ofcom’s decision to be just a move toward an UK attack against Iran, silencing an inconvenient voice of the British-American actions in the Middle East- Gulf area. After the expulsion of the Iranian representatives in November, now Tehran has to welcome back home also its journalistic staff, while international pressure is really increasing in the effort to stop its nuclear programme.

Two Swedish journalists have been sentenced to 11 years for terrorism activities by an Ethiopian court at the end of the last December. They had entered illegally the African country in Ogaden along with a Somali rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, which is considered a terroristic organization by Addis Adela. Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye are freelance journalist, publishing for several Scandinavian newspapers, and they were imprisoned after being discovered during a clash between government and rebel forces in the Ogaden area. During the process, the two recognized to had entered in the country illegally, but with the purpose of covering stories about human rights abuses and business involvement of Swedish companies in the exploitation of local oil resources. Despite the court rejected their claims, the judge had not sentenced them with the maximum of the penalty, which is 18 years, and this can be considered a good sign for the appeal phase. Living conditions in Ethiopian prisons are harsh, but the two are not considered in danger of life, and the staff of the Swedish Embassy is assisting them. Local activists have accused the ruling Ethiopian government to have organized a campaign against opposition groups and democracy in the country, and more than 150 arrests have been reported in 2011, counting several journalists.

Iranian state-owned Press TV is again accused for its conduct. After being fined £100.000 by UK Ofcom for a fabricated interview of a journalist in jail, now its reports of US drone strikes in Somalia are said false by many source. Since September 2009, the Iranian media group has reported more than 57 attacks, with more than 1370 victims in the local population. Given the high protests against the use of drone in other countries (especially Pakistan), these cases would support the position against the use of this un-man weapon in the American campaign against global terrorism. But many sources disavow Press TV’s claims. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism finds most of the Iranian reports uncompleted, with missing references and details. For instance, on September 15 Press TV reported the alleged killing of 9 women and children by a US drone strike on the outskirts of the Somali town of Kismayo: even if no on-the-field operator confirmed the event, some international organizations reported it as true. It has to be taken into consideration that the situation on the ground is much confused, and it is quite difficult to fund reliable source. According to US journalist Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, American attacks with other weapons could have been confused with other weapons, for instance with cruise missiles. Said that, the misreporting of drone attacks can be seen as a propaganda tool used by Iran in the struggle against the “Big Satan”, while the situation in the Gulf is increasingly dangerous. While the situation in the Horn of Africa is in need of great effort by the international community to find a way out, the US is primarily concerned with its own objectives – killing suspected terrorists – without a significant engagement in solving the problems of the area. For sure, reports of an alleged secret drone strike on the Iranian soil would have major consequences for the parties involved.

On Sunday 15th Jan.in the Gaga refugee camp in Eastern Chad, Radio Dua Longawas told that the Police could not confirm that the refugees asked for International bodies would protect them or move them to more secure camps.
This was because it was thought that that the girls were arrested and being raped systematically by the guards.
Why isn't something being done about this? How can we continue living in this world where this sort of thing goes on. Remember your wife and daughters and mother what group can we call on? Please stop this in the name of humanity!

The disagreement over the role that the United States will play within Afghanistan after their scheduled withdrawal in 2014 has become more pronounced recently, with some observers suggesting that advisors with ‘anti-western’ agendas are becoming more influential within the Hamid Karzai’s close circle.  A New York Times article published yesterday describes how the Parwan detention facility has become the latest focal point in the escalating war of words between the Afghan government and the United States. The issue revolves around the ‘sudden’ demand for the full transfer of the prison from US control to Afghanistan. This is despite the Americans’ claims that a programme specialising in the training of Afghan prison officers is behind schedule and that there is definite timetable for the handing-over of the prison.
The escalating tension over the future of Parwan can be seen as a metaphor for the issue of sovereignty in a post-US Afghanistan. Obama’s administration has been accused of interfering with sovereignty before, most notably by Pakistan, and it is now the turn of the Afghan government to blame the United States of sidestepping the correct diplomatic channels and making unilateral decisions about the country’s future. Allegations of torture at the base are being used as the primary reason for requesting it to be transferred to Afghan control, but the whole case is also being used as a political exercise by Karzai to show the US that he and his government are willing to go public if they feel that private negotiations are leading nowhere.
With a timetable for withdrawal finalised, the question of what the USA’s involvement in Afghanistan will be after 2014 needs to be answered. The ‘strategic partnership document’ that will be published at some point this year will go some way in describing how the United States will maintain a presence in the country that it has been in seemingly forever. How this document will be received by Karzai’s government, however, remains to be seen, and it will be of utmost importance to the Afghan administration that national sovereignty is not threatened.

The TV Islamic Channel is planning to set up an inquiry to investigate how British media cover Islamic and Muslim affairs, a sort of “Leveson inquiry” related to Islamophobia. According to a summer 2011 report commissioned by the UK Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, British people considered media the first responsible for the creation of climate of fear against Islam in the UK. The purpose of the panel is to investigate the possible consequences of media coverage on social perception of Islam in the UK, and the repercussions of the government policy towards British Muslims. Islamic Channel broadcasts in English all across the UK, Europe and the MENA countries; its owner is Mohamed Ali Harrath, a Tunisian refugee.