Rapper helps- down suicidal man from a skyscraper...[ 1890 ]

Rapper T.I. talks down suicidal man from Atlanta skyscraper

Police have released the mugshots of rapper T.I. and his wife Tameka 'Tiny' Cottle after their arrest for allegedly possessing a controlled substance. T.I. - real name Clifford Harris - and his wife were arrested on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood on September 1. - Splash News

By Graeme Massie Oct 17, 2010, 11:26 GMT (Splash News)

Rapper T.I. has been credited with helping talk down a suicidal man from an Atlanta skyscraper.

The hip-hop star stepped in after joining a crowd watching the drama unfold outside a 22-storey building in the Georgia city.

T.I. - whose real name is Clifford Harris - then told police officers he wanted to help get the man to safety.

Authorities say that the man agreed to come down in return for a few minutes with the rapper.

A spokesman for T.I. says the rapper went to the scene when he heard about the suicide threat on his car radio.

Israel : "Lebanon is becoming an Iranian satellite",.[ 1889 ]

Lebanon becoming Iranian satellite, Netanyahu warns

By JPOST.COM STAFF  .,, Sunday.,,10/17/2010 18:26

 

Photo by: AP

Lebanon is quickly becoming an additional Iranian satellite, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the country.
"This is a tragedy for Lebanon, but we in Israel will know how to defend ourselves and continue to build our country," Netanyahu said during a special cabinet meeting in honor of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the first Kibbutz at Degania Alef.

Netanyahu's remarks came after Ahmadinejad again predicted Israel's destruction during his visit to Lebanon just a few kilometers from the Israeli border.

"Just as we have done so since Degania was founded, since the State of Israel was founded, we extend a hand to those of our neighbors who want peace with us," Netanyahu continued.

The prime minister continued with the theme of Kibbutzim and said "we will succeed in building up the communities, towns and cities of the State of Israel in order to ensure our future in our homeland."

Earlier in the day captive soldier Gilad Schalit's grandfather, Zvi Schalit, and hundreds of protesters arrived at the Kibbutz and called for for the government to bring about Gilad's release.

Zvi Schalit, said that "a prime minister that doesn't bring about Gilad's release - is killing him," in an interview with Israel Radio on Sunday.

Iraq : Al Qaeda. and the Sahwa fighters,..[ 1888 ]

Report: Sunni Allies in Iraq Quit to Rejoin Al Qaeda

Published October 17, 2010

  FoxNews.com

Hundreds of members of the Awakening Councils, a collection of United States-allied Sunni sheiks and their militia forces, have quit or been dismissed from their positions in the past few months, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Sahwa fighters in Iraq

Iraqi government officials say that the fighters, known as Sahwa, have left as a result of an intensive recruiting campaign by the Sunni insurgency and rejoined Al Qaeda.

Many have extensive knowledge of the U.S. military, the Times said, adding that it is possible that thousands of the fighters who are working for the government are simultaneously assisting the insurgency.

The Sahwa joined forces with U.S. troops against Al Qaeda in 2006 and helped turn the tide of the Iraq war. Since then, the fighters have become frequent targets of insurgent attacks.

While the U.S. military initially supervised and paid the salaries of the Sahwa fighters, whose numbers peaked to about 100,000 in 2008, the Iraqi government took over the Sahwa from the Americans last year, agreeing to give at least 20 percent of the fighters police and government jobs and to pay the rest to maintain security in Sunni areas. Other fighters simply returned to their old jobs.

“The Awakening doesn’t know what the future holds because it is not clear what the government intends for them,” Nathum al-Jubouri, a former Awakening Council leader in Salahuddin Province who recently quit the organization, told the Times.

“At this point, Awakening members have two options: Stay with the government, which would be a threat to their lives, or help Al Qaeda by being a double agent,” he said. “The Awakening is like a database for Al Qaeda that can be used to target places that had been out of reach before.”

The defections appear to confirm suspicions from August that the terror network was attempting a comeback in Iraq. Reports from Sunni tribesman and Iraqi government officials claimed that Al Qaeda was offering cash to lure back former Sunni allies who were angry with the government. Winning back the Sahwa increases the extremist group’s chances of rebounding as a significant threat.

Al Qaeda has exploited continuing Sunni resentment over their second-class status in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein — particularly in Baghdad, which had been a Sunni-dominated city for 1,000 years.

A combination of a lack of government support and increased Al Qaeda pressure has lead to many of the defections, the Times reported, though the article said that there were no exact figures for how many members of the Awakening Council have returned to the insurgency.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Merkel : multicultural society has failed:..[ 1887 ]

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel

BBC., 16 October 2010 Last updated at 20:51 GMT

German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "lmmigrants should learn to speak German"

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

In a speech in Potsdam, she said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work.

Mrs Merkel's comments come amid recent outpourings of strong anti-immigrant feeling from mainstream politicians.

A recent survey showed that more than 30% of Germans believed Germany was "overrun by foreigners".

The study - by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think-tank - also showed that roughly the same number thought that some 16 million of Germany's immigrants or people with foreign origins had come to the country for the social benefits.

Foreign workers

Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at "the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country... We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality.

"And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."

In her speech, the chancellor specifically referred to recent comments by German President Christian Wulff who said that Islam was "part of Germany" like Christianity and Judaism.

Mrs Merkel says Islam is part of Germany but more must be done on integration

While acknowledging that this was the case, Mrs Merkel stressed that immigrants living in Germany needed to do more to integrate, including learning to speak German.

"Anyone who does not immediately speak German", she said, "is not welcome".

By speaking now, Mrs Merkel has now joined the increasingly hot debate on multiculturalism, coming down on the side of those who are uneasy about immigration, says the BBC's correspondent in Berlin, Stephen Evans.

Her comments come a week after she held talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which the two leaders pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany's estimated 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.

Earlier this week, Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, said about integration that it was "obvious that immigrants from different cultures like Turkey and Arab countries, all in all, find it harder".

"'Multikulti' is dead," Mr Seehofer said.

In August, Thilo Sarrazin, a senior official at Germany's central bank, said that "no immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime". Mr Sarrazin has since resigned.

Such recent strong anti-immigrant feelings from mainstream politicians come amid an anger in Germany about high unemployment, even if the economy is growing faster than those of its rivals, our correspondent says.

He adds that there also seems to be a new strident tone in the country, perhaps leading to less reticence about no-go-areas of the past.

Obama's half brother is a polygamist Muslim..[ 1886 ]

Barack Obama's half brother in Kenya marries teenager

President Barack Obama's polygamist half brother in Kenya has married a woman who is more than 30 years younger than him.

 

Telegraph co. uk.,Published: 10:40PM BST 15 Oct 2010

Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under religious or cultural traditions Photo: AP

The 19-year-old's mother told The Associated Press on Friday she is furious that her daughter quit high school and married the 52-year-old.

Mary Aoko Ouma says her daughter tried to marry Malik Obama two years ago, but the mother says she would not give permission.

 

Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under religious or cultural traditions.

In an interview broadcast by Kenya's NTV that was filmed without his knowledge, Malik Obama says he married the 19-year-old but didn't say when.