Afghanistan: Obama Condemns Killings of UN Staff
BBC: President Barack Obama has described as "outrageous" the killings in Afghanistan triggered by the burning of a Koran in the US last month.

Mr Obama said the desecration of any holy text was "an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry", but it did not justify killing innocent people.

An attack on a UN base on Friday in the city of Mazar-e Sharif killed 14 people, seven of them UN staff.

A top UN official has blamed the pastor who burnt the Koran for the violence.

At least 10 people were killed and many more were injured in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday in a second day of protests.

'No justification'

During a service at the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida on 20 March, Pastor Wayne Sapp soaked a Koran in kerosene, staged a "trial" during which the Islamic holy book was found guilty of "crimes against humanity", and then set it alight.

The incident took place under the supervision of Pastor Terry Jones, who last year drew condemnation over his aborted plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

In a statement published on Saturday evening, Mr Obama extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters in Afghanistan.

"The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry," he said. "However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity.

"No religion tolerates the slaughter and beheading of innocent people, and there is no justification for such a dishonourable and deplorable act." » | Sunday, April 03, 2011

Binyamin Netanyahu Calls on World to Act after Killing of Jewish Settlers
THE OBSERVER: Israel's prime minister demands international condemnation after murder of five members of West Bank settler family

Israel's prime minister demanded international condemnation of the murder of five members of a Jewish settler family that Palestinian militants said was in reprisal for Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Binyamin Netanyahu's robust statement placed what he described as a despicable act – which shattered the relative calm in the West Bank over recent months – at the centre of strenuous efforts by the US and European countries to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli soldiers mounted a massive search in the West Bank after a mother, father and three children, aged between three months and 11, were attacked with knives in their house in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, near the Palestinian city of Nablus. It was believed that two of the dead had their throats cut. >>> Harriet Sherwood in Itamar | Sunday, March 13, 2011

Netanyahu Blames Palestinian Incitement for Deadly Attack
Mar 12 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Palestinian incitement for a lethal West Bank attack that killed five members of an Israeli family. Jon Decker reports

REUTERS: Jewish couple and three children killed in W.Bank: A Jewish couple and three of their children were stabbed to death in bed in a West Bank settlement in what Israeli officials said on Saturday was an attack by one or more Palestinians who broke into their home. >>> Rami Amichai | ITAMAR | Sunday, March 13, 2011

Egyptian Christians Riot after Fatal Shooting
THE GUARDIAN: Churchgoers targeted after Coptic Christmas Eve mass in apparent payback for alleged rape of Muslim girl by Christian

Clashes between thousands of protesters and riot police shook Egypt today after six Coptic Christians were murdered, prompting some of the worst sectarian violence the country has seen.

The victims were gunned down in a drive-by shooting as they emerged from church in the early hours of this morning following a Coptic Christmas Eve mass. Egypt's interior ministry said it believed the attack, in the southern town of Naga Hammadi, 40 miles north of Luxor, was in revenge for the alleged rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man last year. A Muslim security guard was also killed.

"It is all religious now," said the church's Bishop Kirollos. "This is a religious war, about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt." >>> Jack Shenker in Cairo | Thursday, January 07, 2010

Tel Aviv: Why Did a Lone Gunman Shoot 13 People in Cold Blood in One of the World's Gay Capitals?
THE INDEPENDENT: At 10.20pm on Saturday 1 August 2009, a man walked along Nachmani Street, a residential road in central Tel Aviv. He went into the apartment block at number 28 and down a flight of steps to the basement flat, where a song by Blur was playing on the stereo amid the sound of laughter and conversation. There, the man shot 13 people, killing 26-year-old Nir Katz and 16-year-old Liz Trobishi, before returning up the steps and disappearing into the promenading crowds. His identity remains unknown.

Understanding what happened that night is not easy. It might be tempting to assume that such an attack – unprovoked, apparently indiscriminate – was political, somehow connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it was not, for the basement flat at 28 Nachmani Street is the headquarters of the Aguda (Hebrew for "association"), otherwise known as Israel's National Association of LGBT, representing the country's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities.

As such, this appears to have been a hate crime directed against one of the city's minority groups – but if so, Tel Aviv offers plenty of simpler pickings. Two blocks away on Yavne Street, for instance, is Evita, the city's most prominent gay bar, very loud, very proud, with arty pornography playing on screens visible from the street and an open pavement terrace. By contrast, the Aguda is virtually anonymous. No signs are posted, no rainbow flags fly. A couple of small stickers, on the communal post-box and on the door of the flat itself, say "The Aguda" in Hebrew, with a rainbow flash.
To find it, you'd have to know it was there.

"One morning I stood in front of the mirror shaving, looked myself in the eyes, and told myself: 'Face it: you're gay.'" Mike Hamel, chair of the Aguda, half-smiles at the memory. We're sitting in the basement flat at 28 Nachmani Street. The place is done up like a student dive, with tinsel, dog-eared posters and a shop mannequin. Hamel, his plaid shirt open one button more than might be usual in Britain, talks slowly and carefully as he describes growing up in Tel Aviv in the 1960s. "When it came to building a family, automatically that happened with a woman. The possibility of a deep emotional relationship with a man never crossed my mind.” >>> Matthew Teller | Saturday, December 05, 2009

Explosions Rock Baghdad

Bomb Blast Rocks Ingushetia – August 17, 2009

Iraqi Gay Men Face 'Lives of Hell'
BBC: Grainy footage taken on a mobile phone and widely distributed around Baghdad shows a terrified young Iraqi boy cowering and whimpering as men with a stick force him to strip, revealing women's underwear beneath his dishdasha (Arab robe).

Mobile footage of gay men being abused is being widely circulated in Iraq. Photo courtesy of the BBC
"Why are you dressed as a girl?" roars one of the men, brandishing his stick as the youth removes his brassiere.

The sobbing boy, who appears to be about 12, tries to explain that his family made him do it to earn money, as they have no other source of income.

The scene, apparently filmed in a police post, reinforced reports of a campaign against gay men in Iraq which activists say has claimed the lives of more than 60 since December.

In the latest manifestation of the campaign, posters have appeared on walls in the poor Shia suburb of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, listing alleged homosexuals by name and threatening to kill them.
Those named have gone underground, while gay men throughout the city and in some other parts of the country also live in fear. >>> By Jim Muir, BBC News, Baghdad | Saturday, April 18, 2009

Watch BBC video: Jim Mui’s report >>>