here's an update on lubna ahmed al-hussein and our sisters in

sudan. it's not good nor is it pretty. we (here) take certain things for granted. can you imagine being dictated to - what you can wear and what you can't wear? i sure can't (discounting things like dress codes at work). she wasn't the first, she'll not be the last. but we should all honor her. our sister lubna ahmed al-hussein (and her sisters in sudan) are some brave women


the following is an associated press article they're being bio-tches about someone (even with credit posted) using their 'words'. so you'll have to click if you want the story (you should be clinking on my links anyway. i only publish a few words and expect you to read the rest at the link)

Police beat women opposing Sudan dress code trial

here's ANOTHER hero

standing up for her beliefs. making a mark. thinking of others. being selfless. forging a path. making it easier for those who will come later


Sudan trouser woman 'ready for 40,000 lashes'
AFP

A Sudanese journalist facing 40 lashes for wearing "indecent" trousers vowed on the eve of her judgment that she is ready to be whipped 40,000 times in her bid to change the country's harsh laws.

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who works for the media department of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, is to be judged on Tuesday after waiving the immunity granted to UN workers.

She is to be judged under Article 152 of Sudanese law, which promises 40 lashes for anyone "who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing."

Hussein, who is in her 30s and whose husband died of kidney failure, told AFP in a telephone interview: "I'm ready for anything to happen. I'm absolutely not afraid of the verdict.".........

AFP/Getty Images

don't name a teddy bear after a prophet

of course it's ok to name YOURSELF after a prophet (i never got that part. i'm NOT just talking about islam here. there are people of ALL religions named after 'their' prophets).

now this in my most humble opion was an error in judgement by the teacher. WHO by the way may be subject to LASHES for naming that bear WHAT HER STUDENTS VOTED TO NAME THAT BEAR, muhammad

Sudan Accuses Teacher of Islam Insult
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 26 — The Sudanese police arrested a British schoolteacher and accused her of insulting Islam after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, Sudanese officials said Monday.
The teacher, Gillian Gibbons, was arrested Sunday in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, after a number of parents complained, said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman. “How can you call a bear Muhammad?” he said. “Muhammad is the holy prophet of Islam.”
Dr. Rabie said the authorities had obtained a letter Ms. Gibbons sent home with students explaining that her primary school class was doing a project on animals and had adopted a teddy bear named Muhammad.
“Her letter said there was an intelligent bear named Muhammad, and the letter instructed parents to take pictures with this bear,” Dr. Rabie said. “This is not acceptable, according to the general opinion of our society.”.............

he IS a murderer AND a terrorist

and it is BEYOND ME (oil i'm sure) why he is now our bud. he's pure evil. yet we seem to be embracing him with open arms.

hey peeps, HE'S STILL A CRAZY KILLER. no ifs ands or buts
Gadhafi's role in Darfur talks sets back new image as statesman
By Shashank Bengali McClatchy Newspapers
TRIPOLI, Libya — He's been crossed off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, has won a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council and is slowly opening his oil-rich economy to an eager West.
But longtime Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi showed last week that his evolution from strongman to statesman still has a way to go.
On his biggest stage in years — launching new peace talks for Sudan's Darfur region in his home city of Sirte, Libya — Gadhafi delivered a meandering and often insulting monologue, declaring the negotiations a lost cause and assailing Western countries for meddling in African affairs.
"I always say leave these problems to their own people," Gadhafi said. He later added, "I feel this conference of ours should stop at this point." After the speech he vanished from the conference altogether, leaving the work of solving one of the world's deadliest and most intractable conflicts to the U.N. and African envoys he'd just criticized..........

i love

jimmy carter

can you see king george fighting for someone ELSE'S human rights?

Jimmy Carter gets in shouting match in Sudan
Angry ex-president is prevented from visiting part of Darfur refugee camp

hey peeps, he's 83!!!
shout out to richard branson and graca machel too!

thursday spotlight on nadra mahdi

young woman reporter from sudan

Mahdi Covers Native Sudan With Passionate Purpose

By Meghan Sapp WeNews correspondent
Nadra Mahdi is part of a surge of young Sudanese female journalists covering the country's struggles. Assignments take her from Darfur in the west to desertification in the east to city streets where female tea-sellers fight to subsist.

WOMENSENEWS)--In daily newspapers across the world, stories are filed from foreign correspondents on assignment in war-torn Darfur in Western Sudan while London or New York analysts propose solutions to a conflict they'll never see.
But on the ground, from Khartoum to Kordufan to the center of Darfur in El Fasher, local female journalists are telling the story to their own people. With an influx of female university graduates in all fields from agriculture to engineering, journalism is open to them as long as they can pass the national journalism accreditation exam.
With new newspapers starting up across the country, both supporting and criticizing the government, there are more opportunities for young women in the field than ever before.
Writing for the Arabic daily newspaper Al Watan, "Our World," one of them is Nadra Mahdi, who has spent her short but vibrant journalism career bringing the stories of suffering women to the forefront of Sudanese society.........

......A Personal Fight
The same problems repeat themselves for people in other regions, even in the capital Khartoum. One of her personal fights is for the female tea-sellers in the street, often harassed by police despite having nowhere else to go.
"Most of these women lost their husbands in the war or they have a disability. But the police don't let them sell the tea in the streets, and they don't know what to do. I write about them in my pages so they can find help. Sometimes from ministers, sometimes from businessmen who let them sell clothes or Sudanese perfume," she says.
Her passion for women's issues led the editor in chief to assign her as editor of Al Watan's women's page, which covers substantive news and opinion......

i have a friend in the service who was stationed in sudan (she's been a ton of places including iraq. she's now left africa and is in a place that is a WHOLE HELL OF A LOT SAFER - well at least i think it is). as coincidence would have it, yesterday, i received a package from her. it contained an incredibly lovely eithopian scarf AND some tea. the tea wasn't from sudan but close - addis ababa. i've not tried it yet, but will today.

insane lunatic ass who is threatening us with no more COLA

just like the rest of 'em. they really ARE insane.

what the f**k are we doing allowing him to be for ONE SECOND in america? he's a representative of despots. GET HIM THE F**K OUT and let's send our troops over to sudan to help save THOSE people

Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their Coca-Cola

By Dana Milbank

The Iraq war gave us Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi information minister who, while American troops patrolled nearby streets, held a defiant news conference to proclaim that there were no U.S. forces in the city.
Baghdad Bob, whose real name is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, earned a place among the ranks of colorful propagandists such as Hanoi Hannah and Tokyo Rose. Now, the genocidal Sudanese government has an entry in this category. Let's call him Khartoum Karl..........

..............Genocide in the Darfur region? "The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext."
Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? "See how many people are dying in Darfur: None," he said.
And the 2 million displaced? "I am not a statistician."...........

............I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola...........

through a coincidence

i became friends with a member of our deployed troops in iraq. she is career military and has been all over the world, more than once. i 'met' her while she was serving in iraq. i started up a correspondence with her (both snail mail and emails) and on occasion send a care package. i just knitted her up some lovely wrist warmers and a matching scarf. i have never once told her about how i feel about the iraq war. she (nor anyone else i correspond with that is over there), don't need to hear how i feel about them HAVING to be there. i DO tell them we all thank them for their service. we appreciate all they are doing. i say it and i mean it. i DO thank them. i DO keep them in my thoughts and prayers daily. them, their friends and family (yes, i pray. even though i am rather pagan/wiccan/stregha, i pray. guess that comes from being raised catholic.)

she was VERY recently sent to sudan for a bit. i will be keeping a good thought and prayer out for her AND the people there.

please don't ever forget what is happening in THAT region either

A Darfur Village Bears Up Under Janjaweed Yoke


By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, March 24, 2007; Page A01
KUTERI, Sudan -- The men with rifles lounged on a carpet in the sand. The five of them had come to the village that morning from the crumble of mountains nearby, and now the afternoon sun was blasting. Some sipped tea.
Since arriving four years ago in a herd of horses and camels and guns, the militiamen known as Janjaweed have killed several of the 500 people who live here, villagers said, beaten others and generally menaced the population into believing that their village could be destroyed at any moment, like hundreds of others across the Darfur region of western Sudan...............

............At least 450,000 people have died from disease and violence in the conflict, and more than 2.5 million -- around half the area's entire population -- have fled to vast displacement camps whose numbers continue to swell.............