?So horrific that it's hard to believe?: Amnesty International launches ...

Amnesty International has?launched a petition calling on the Maldivian government to overturn a court ruling sentencing a 15 year-old rape victim to 100 lashes for an unrelated fornication offence.

The story of the girl from Feydhoo in Shaviyani Atoll, who was convicted of premarital sex in the Juvenile Court February 26 and sentenced to 100 lashes and eight months of house arrest, has been reported by media around the world and been widely condemned by international NGOs and embassies.

?It?s so horrific that it?s hard to believe it?s true: a 15 year old rape survivor has been sentenced to 100 lashes for ?fornication? in the Maldives,? stated Amnesty International, which has followed the case since January.

?The traumatised girl was allegedly sexually abused by her step-father for many years. He has since been charged with sexually assaulting a minor. During the investigation however, authorities came across evidence to support separate charges of fornication against the girl for pre-marital sex,? Amnesty stated, demanding the government overturn the ?disgraceful? sentence.

The Maldivian government ? which is currently vying for re-election to the UN Human Rights Council, launched its?campaign in Geneva on February 28 on a platform of ?women and children?s rights and the rights of persons with disability? ? expressed ?deep concern? at the decision to prosecute the girl.

?Though the flogging will be deferred until the girl turns 18, the government believes she is the victim of sexual abuse and should be treated as such by the state and the society and therefore, her rights should be fully protected,? said the President?s Office in a statement.

?The government is of the view that the case merits appeal. The girl is under state care and the government will facilitate and supervise her appeal of the case, via the girl?s lawyer, to ensure that justice is done and her rights are protected,? the statement added.

Amnesty International welcomed the government?s stated commitment, but noted that ?at this stage she is still facing flogging. We need to keep the pressure up to remove flogging as a form of punishment in her case and all cases in the Maldives.?

Foreign Minister Dr Abdul Samad Abdulla meanwhile announced on state broadcaster Television Maldives (TVM) that the girl had post traumatic stress disorder and certain medical issues, according to local media.

?The girl was abused since she was 12 until she turned 15, so multiple times for three years. She was abused by her stepfather. She has said that her baby was murdered. You can imagine the mental status of a child in this situation. She suffers from this condition,? local media reported Dr Samad as saying.

According to Sun Online, Dr Samad said the international community was not fully informed about the reason for the girl?s sentence, which was not due to her abuse by her stepfather, but her confessed fornication with another man.

He also warned that a failure to unite as a country during times of such international criticism would provide opportunities for ?groups that want to harm the country,? Sun reported.

The government?s denouncement of the sentence is meanwhile at odds with its endorsement by the Adaathath Party, members of which make up the majority of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

?The purpose of penalties like these in Islamic Sharia is to maintain order in society and to save it from sinful acts. It is not at all an act of violence. We must turn a deaf ear to the international organisations which are calling to abolish these penalties, labeling them degrading and inhumane acts or torture,? the party said in a statement.

?Furthermore, Allah has decreed that expressing disapproval of issues such as this contradicts with faith in Islam,? the statement continued, quoting verses from the Quran.

?Allah has also commanded that we show no kindness when implementing these penalties,? the party added.

Flogging and politics

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay in an address to the Maldivian parliament in November 2011 urged the government to issue a moratorium on sentencing women to flogging for extra-marital sex.

?This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,? Pillay stated.

Her comments were condemned by religious groups in the Maldives, with protesters urging authorities to arrest the UN High Commissioner and?gathering outside the United Nations carrying signboards with slogans such as ?Islam is not a toy,? ?Ban UN? and ?Flog Pillay?.

A presidential state apology for allowing Pillay to speak to parliament was one of the five demands of the December 23 coalition [of 2011], a mass gathering in the capital Male? that saw the fractured opposition unite against President Nasheed on the pretext of protecting Islam.

Following the fall of Nasheed?s government on February 7 2012, government-aligned Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) MP Abdul Azeez Jamal Abu Bakr withdrew the Pillay apology petition in parliament.

Amnesty International?s petition:

Source: http://minivannews.com/politics/so-horrific-that-it%E2%80%99s-hard-to-believe-amnesty-international-launches-petition-to-overturn-disgraceful-flogging-sentence-53919

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Will One Direction Kick It Old-School With The Jacksons?

'Those boys remind me of ourselves,' says Jackie Jackson, who's written a few tracks that he hopes 1D will record.
By Jocelyn Vena

One Direction
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702851/one-direction-the-jacksons.jhtml

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An Interview With Andrew Mason - Business Insider

Just two weeks ago, then-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason did an interview with analyst Greg Sterling in which he showed no sign of concern about his job.

"My intuition has always been starting with the customers and building something that optimizes not for 2-3 months, but 2-3 years or even 20-30 years," he told Sterling during the interview, which was conducted on February 19. "And being convicted about those principles and being unwilling to stray from them is the difference between success and failure."

It may well have been the last time Mason did an interview with a member of the media. (Fast Company writer Elizabeth Spiers met with Mason in Silicon Valley in January; her interview, while not the last interview Mason conducted, is a must-read.)

Sterling's interview will be published on Monday by Yext, a local-information software company, on Monday in its Yext Quarterly, a publication it's creating for its business customers to educate them about trends in the market. With Yext's permission, we're publishing it here.

The story of Groupon is well documented. Born out of an earlier social-action startup called The Point, Andrew Mason launched Groupon in Chicago in 2008. The company quickly attracted investment and became the fastest-growing startup in internet history, expanding in the US and internationally through organic growth and acquisitions. Mason led the company to a highly anticipated IPO in November 2011.

More impressively, Groupon accomplished all this in the very challenging local and small business market, effectively bringing e-commerce at scale to local businesses for the first time. Now, in its post-IPO period, Groupon is diversifying beyond deals and seeking to become ?the Local Commerce Operating System? for small business. In addition to deals the company now provides a point of sale system, electronic and mobile payments, scheduling and inventory management to local businesses.

In the following interview with Yext, Mason offers his reflections on the digital challenges facing small businesses, what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur in local and what the market will look like five years from now.

Yext: What is the greatest challenge local merchants face in today?s evolving digital landscape?

Andrew Mason: We?ve found that local businesses aren?t early tech adopters. They are people who want problems solved for them. Evaluating all these different tools that are available to them, especially as we transition to mobile and tablets, is a real challenge.

Yext: How do they evaluate these competing sales propositions, channels, devices coming at them?

AM: They?re busy and they?re happy to rely on tried and true methods for marketing and tools to run their business. In order to understand the virtues of Groupon, we?ve had to hold merchants? hands through the process of getting signed up, and have built a massive sales force to do so.

Yext: How have SMBs taken to adopting new marketing and advertising tools?

AM: Groupon is a form of advertising for SMBs. They measure the success too often by the size of the last tip that came through the door using Groupon, rather than a holistic analytical approach. We?ve found we have to coach them through how to evaluate the profitability of a Groupon campaign.

They know they need tools that help them improve their marketing and grow their business, but they will gravitate to the ones that will help them do it in a predictable way.

Yext: What has changed in local since Groupon was founded?

AM: I think for sure, mobile, that?s no surprise. Our business just in the last year has gone from 22% mobile, which was already doubling from the year prior, to 39-40% mobile this year.

In the same way that broadband facilitated the move of video from offline to online, mobile is doing so for local commerce. And it?s also enabling local ecommerce similar to how Amazon did for the move of product from offline to online.

Yext: What role will ?Big Data? play in local?

AM: In our case, we can use just a few data points to help us find patterns and understand what consumers are looking for. We can also use it to help drive the right kinds of customers to a local business when they most need them. We?re just beginning to scratch the surface on how to use the data to build a local ecommerce ecosystem. The possibilities are endless.

Yext: What are the success factors for startups and digital media companies in the local market today?

AM: I was very deliberate when starting Groupon to make sure I had a model that did not have a chicken and egg problem ? it had to work effectively at a small scale. Instead we actually had the opposite issue, it worked very well at small scale and, as we grew, we ran into issues bringing businesses too many customers. And we?ve had to innovate out of that problem.

They should also find a win-win-win model, where the business wins when consumers and merchants win. It?s unpleasant to have a business where you?re constantly forced to make tradeoffs between the best interest of the business and the best interest of the customers.

All of our success happens when we ruthlessly adhere to our values, which are to start with the customer and work backwards.

Yext: Five years from now, what problems in local will have been solved?

AM: The way people buy locally is going to be fundamentally different. There hasn?t been real tech innovation in local since the invention of the credit card, and mobile has catalyzed the disruption wave.?Once we get the infrastructure to plug local businesses into the web, the innovation will exponentially increase.

Yext: What?s one thing you wish you would have known before you started Groupon?

AM: We didn?t just create a business; we created a category. Four and a half years later we are doing $5 billion in sales in 48 countries. The thing has grown massively and it continues to evolve at a similar rate. But you don?t have to be that smart to do well in business, you just have to have the courage to follow your intuition.

My intuition has always been starting with the customers and building something that optimizes not for 2-3 months, but 2-3 years or even 20-30 years.

And being convicted about those principles and being unwilling to stray from them is the difference between success and failure.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-andrew-mason-interview-yext-2013-3

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Turkish PM blasts 'Zionism,' complicating Kerry's Mideast trip

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that comments by the Turkish prime minister equating Zionism to a crime against humanity complicate the efforts to find peace in the Middle East.

Speaking at a news conference in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Kerry stressed the "urgent need to promote a spirit of tolerance, and that includes all of the public statements made by all leaders."

Kerry said he had raised the comments "very directly" with Davutoglu and would do the same when he saw Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later on Friday.

Addressing the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna this week, Erdogan complained of prejudices against Muslims. He said Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity "just like Zionism, like anti-Semitism and like fascism."

Kerry said the on the U.S. side, "we not only disagree with it, we found it objectionable."

He added: "I believe there is a way forward, but it obviously gets more complicated in the aftermath of a speech such as the one we heard in Vienna."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also sharply condemned the remark late Thursday, calling it a "dark and mendacious statement, the likes of which we thought had passed from the world." The United Nations joined the criticism.

Davutoglu at the news conference with Kerry denied that Turkish officials were uttering hostile or offensive language. He repeatedly referred to the deaths of nine civilians at the hands of Israeli commandos aboard a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship in 2010.

He added: "If Israel wants to hear positive statements from Turkey, it needs to review its attitude. It needs to review its attitude toward us, and it needs to review its attitude toward the people in the region and especially the West Bank settlements issue."

Kerry said that despite the comments, he was hopeful Turkey and Israel could eventually find a way to restore their previously close relations.

The uproar has overshadowed Kerry's previously planned visit to the Turkish capital, where he had hoped to spend much of his time discussing the crisis in neighboring Syria and coordinating plans with the Turks to assist the Syrian opposition, which is fighting to oust President Bashar Assad.

The deterioration of Turkish-Israel relations has been a matter of deep worry for the U.S., which has unsuccessfully sought to push the two countries to get back on friendly terms.

Turkey and Israel were once important allies, but relations deteriorated sharply after the 2010 raid.

Turkey is a co-sponsor, along with Spain, of the U.N. initiative to promote tolerance and understanding between various religions.

A U.N. statement said: "If the comment about Zionism was interpreted correctly, then it was not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based."

The statement said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon "believes it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership."

Turkey's state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported Erdogan's remarks on Wednesday but removed the reference to "Zionism" in a correction sent out an hour later. It said the correction was "made by the source" but gave no other explanation.

Erdogan, whose ruling party has roots in Turkey's Islamic movement, frequently criticizes Israeli actions against Palestinians but rarely speaks out against Zionism. In November, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an "attempt at ethnic cleansing," a euphemism that describes using violence to force a population to flee an area.

?Kerry is in NATO ally Turkey on the fourth leg of a nine-nation dash through Europe and the Middle East that is his first official overseas trip as secretary of state. Kerry has spent much of his time at his first three stops ? Britain, Germany and Italy ? focusing on the conflict in Syria.

Kerry's first stop in Ankara on Friday was the U.S. Embassy where he spoke at a memorial service for a local Turkish security guard who was killed in a Feb. 1 suicide attack at the embassy gates. Kerry presented the man's family with an award for heroism.

?From Turkey, Kerry will travel to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar before returning to Washington in the middle of next week.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-turkish-comments-complicate-mideast-process-160237937.html

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Obama, congressional leaders fail to reach deal on sequester (Washington Post)

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Playing politics with forced cuts (CNN)

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Key military players in Syria's civil war

BEIRUT (AP) ? A list of key military players in the Syrian civil war:

?SYRIAN REGIME: Despite major defections and the loss of significant territory to rebels, the Syrian military remains a potent force against a poorly armed opposition. President Bashar Assad's inner circle has largely remained cohesive and united, avoiding high-level defections that sapped the strength of other regimes, such as Moammar Gadhafi's in Libya, during Arab Spring uprisings. Assad's closest advisers include his younger brother, Maher, who commands forces protecting the capital, as well as the heads of four intelligence agencies that are playing key roles in the government's crackdown.

?PRO-REGIME MILITIAMEN: Shadowy fighters, known as shabiha, recruited from the ruling elite's Alawite sect operate as hired muscle for the Syrian regime. They are believed to be carrying out some of the most brutal attacks of the conflict, allowing Assad's government to deny direct responsibility for them.

?SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL: Syria's main rebel units, known together as the Free Syrian Army, regrouped in December under a unified rebel command called the Supreme Military Council, following promises of more military assistance once a central council was in place. The Western-backed council is headed by Gen. Salim Idriss, who defected from the Syrian army, and a 30-member group of senior officers. Idriss spent 35 years in the Syrian military and is seen as a secular-minded moderate. The non-lethal aid the U.S. pledged Thursday in Rome will be directed to the military council.

?LOCAL BRIGADES AND MILITARY COUNCILS: Local units made up of tens of thousands of autonomous rebel fighters have very little, if any, central organization or command structure. Many of the fighters defected from the military; others are Syrian citizens who took up arms against the regime.

?JABHAT AL-NUSRA: An Islamist extremist group that has been behind some of the rebels' most significant battlefield successes. The U.S. has designated al-Nusra a terrorist organization, saying it is affiliated with the al-Qaida network. Al-Nusra has claimed responsibility for most of the deadliest suicide bombings targeting regime and military facilities. The presence of Islamic extremists among the rebels is one reason the West has not equipped the Syrian opposition with sophisticated weapons, such as anti-aircraft missiles. Al-Nusra has gained popularity among some rebels for its effectiveness while alienating other, more secular-minded fighters.

?FOREIGN FIGHTERS: Syria has become a magnet for foreign fighters and jihadists who also flocked to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. No credible count of them exists, but anecdotal evidence suggests fighters from Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, the Netherlands and Britain are fighting against Assad's regime. Rebel commanders downplay the presence of foreign fighters, saying the conflict is purely a Syrian uprising.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/key-military-players-syrias-civil-war-143738925.html

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