WWH/CJE Sunday News Briefs
Fury over Mohammad video simmers on in Muslim world
(Reuters) – A wave of furious anti-Western protests against a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad abated on Saturday, but U.S. policy in the Muslim world remained overshadowed by 13 minutes of amateurish video on the Internet.
Washington ordered family members and non-essential staff to leave the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, which was attacked on Friday, after Sudan turned down its request to send Marines to bolster security.
In addition, it pulled non-essential personnel out of its embassy in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, also attacked on Friday, and urged American citizens to leave the city.
Marine platoons have been sent to U.S. missions in Yemen and Libya since the unrest erupted.
Elsewhere, riot police stormed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and rounded up hundreds of people after four days of clashes and demands from protesters for the U.S. ambassador to be expelled. More…
Mars rover finds strange spheres on ground
PASADENA, Calif., Sept. 14 (UPI) — NASA says researchers are struggling to identify and understand an image its long-lived rover Opportunity has returned of small spheres on the martian surface.
Spherical objects photographed at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules — nicknamed “blueberries” — the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations since, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Friday.
Preliminary analysis suggests the spheres, as big as 1/8 inch in diameter, do not appear to have the high iron content of martian blueberries, researchers said. More…
World’s tallest mohawk grown in protest
NEW YORK, Sept. 13 (UPI) — The Guinness World Record holder for the world’s tallest mohawk said while visiting New York to promote the record book he is protesting against conformity.
Japanese fashion designer Kazuhiro Watanabe, 40, has held the record since 2011. His hairstyle most recently measured 3 feet, 8.6 inches tall, He said he has been growing his hair out for 15 years to protest conformity in Japanese society, the New York Post reported Thursday. More…
Honour, rape and the right to abortion – Decapitation sparks debate over women’s rights in Turkey.What would drive a woman to shoot a man ten times, stab him and then behead him? In Turkey, Nevin Yildirim did just that to the man who allegedly raped her for eight months, in order to “save her honour”. Yildirim, now pregnant with his baby, is prohibited from having an abortion under Turkish law.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, head of a religious party governing a secular state, recently sparked protests after he called for laws to limit women’s access to abortion only in cases threatening the health of the mother.
In this episode of The Stream, we speak to Ömer Taşpınar (@BrookingsInst), Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Zehra Arat, professor at SUNY Purchase; and Ayşe Toksöz of the Socialist Feminist Collective (@sosfeminist).
What do you think? Have women’s rights become the fault line for Turkey’s culture war? Send us your thoughts and comments on Facebook or Twitter using #AJStream. More…
University protects US prairie landsSince white settlers arrived in the American heartland of Nebraska in the 19th century, less than one per cent of the original tall grass prairie has survived an onslaught of plowing and grazing.
The prairie is home to some rare species of endangered birds, flowers, and butterflies that do not flourish anywhere else.
Nebraska’s Nine-Mile Prairie was preserved by the Cold War, when its borders were nuclear weapons bunkers.
The prairie is now preserved by the University of Nebraska, Al Jazeera’s John Hendren reports from Lincoln.
Source: Al Jazeera
WOMAN TO LEAD AIR FORCE TRAINING AFTER SEX SCANDAL
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Air Force chose a woman Saturday to lead its basic training unit at a Texas base where dozens of female recruits have alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by male instructors within the past year.
Col. Deborah Liddick is taking command of the 737th Training Group, bringing a distinctly new face of authority to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Six male instructors have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to adultery, and there are others still under investigation.
The Air Force announced Liddick’s appointment in a statement that didn’t mention the sex scandal or highlight choosing a woman to lead a unit where the number of women identified by military investigators as potential victims is approaching 40. More…
