Anti-Muslim producer
due in LA court next week
The California filmmaker who produced the anti-Muslim movie
that sparked uproar across the Muslim world is due to appear in a federal court
in Los Angeles on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing, Reuters reported. The
hearing will establish whether he violated the terms of his probation over a
2010 bank fraud conviction. Mark Basseley Youssef, previously known as Nakoula
Basseley Nakoula, was barred from using computers or the internet, except with
the permission of his probation officer.
Philippines, Muslim
rebels agree on peace deal
Philippine President Philippine President Benigno Aquino III
stated that preliminary peace agreement has been reached with the country’s
largest Muslim rebel group, marking a major development in decades-long
conflict, AP reported. Peace pact consists of a roadmap for creating an
autonomous region to be administered by minority Muslims in the largely-Roman
Catholic country’s south. The deal is expected to be signed in a few days and
will specify issues such as the extent of power, revenues and territory of the
autonomous region.
Women protest against
Sharia law in northern Mali
Two hundred Malian women came out to protest in the city of
Timbuktu, northern Mali, against Islamists calls requiring them to wear veils,
AP quotes a source as saying. Shots into the air were fired to disperse the
women, who argue they have been subjected to abusive arrests since Islamists
began enforcing their own interpretation of the Islamic Sharia law. Reportedly,
new rules such as curfews, public whipping for failing to wear a veil and
inability to walk around without a male relative have all been implemented.
Meningitis outbreak
claims 7 lives across US
The death toll from an outbreak of meningitis linked to
contaminated steroid shots has risen to seven, US medical officials reported on
Saturday. It’s believed that the infected injections were administered by a
Massachusetts pharmacy. The deadly infection has so far spread to nine states
with 65 cases reported. The latest deaths were in Michigan, Reuters reports
citing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meningitis is an
infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.
Obama campaign raised
$181 million in September
President Barack Obama’s campaign raised a record US$181
million in September. "Some amazing
news this morning: 1,825,813 people came together to raise $181 million for
this campaign in September," the campaign said on its Twitter. The donors
were apparently energized by the Democratic convention that rallied to the
president's cause. The total, which includes money raised jointly with
Democratic Party affiliates, far surpasses anything Obama or his Republican
rival Mitt Romney have raised in any prior month of the 2012 election cycle,
the Wall Street Journal notes.
Naked student shot
dead by police in Alabama
A student was shot dead by a police officer at the
University of South Alabama on Saturday, AP reports. According to authorities
the incident happened early Saturday morning, when the officer went outside a
police station to investigate a banging noise at a window. After confronting a
naked man acting erratically and charging him, the officer pulled his gun and
retreated several times in an attempt to defuse the situation. When the student
made a final charge, the officer shot him once in the chest. Gilbert Thomas
Collar, 18, died from the wound, a university spokesman said. Local prosecutors
are investigating the shooting. The officer who fired the shot has been placed
on paid administrative leave.
US voices concern
over Turkey-Syria clashes
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has expressed concern that
the continued exchange of artillery fire between Syria and Turkey could lead to
further escalation of the conflict and may spread to neighboring countries, AP
reports. Panetta said Saturday that the US is using its diplomatic channels to
relay worries about the fighting in the hopes that it will not broaden. The
comments by the defense secretary come as Turkish and Syria again exchanged
fire on Saturday following a similar incident on Friday. The tensions between
the neighbours grew significantly when Turkey fired back at Syria after Syrian
mortar bombs killed five people and wounded eight, in a Turkish town near the
border on Wednesday. On Friday, Turkish Prime Minster, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
warned Syria that future attacks on his country’s territory would be a “fatal
mistake,” adding that the two countries are “not far from war.”
American Airlines
cancels dozens of flights over loose seats
American Airlines canceled 50 flights Thursday and 44 Friday
after passenger seats popped loose on many of its Boeing 757 planes. Thousands
of passengers were inconvenienced while the airline removed and reinstalled
seats on 42 of 48 of its planes. AA claims a combination of wear, poor design
and spilled drinks caused the seats to loosen during flight, but did not
explain why the malfunctions appeared simultaneously in such large numbers. “My
question is, why haven’t we seen this before?” professor Bill Waldock told CNN.
“Did the gunk start building up and decide to falter in the planes at the same
time? I kind of doubt that honestly.”
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