Ellison on the Judiciary Committee is extremely disconcerting.
Yep.
KABUL, Jan 10 - As many as 25 Taliban, including two mid-level officials of the ousted regime, have surrendered under the government-backed National Reconciliation Programme (NSP) in western Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday.
The two senior officials included Mullah Muhammad Gul, aide to the former governor of Herat and a key Taliban official Mullah Kherullah Kherkhwah, and Mullah Ziaul Haq, a district chief in the Taliban government before 2001.
Excerpted
http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=941147
Italy: MP Receives Death Threats Over Her Anti-Veil Battle
Rome, 10 Jan. - Italian conservative MP Daniela Santanche has received death threats over her opposition to the Muslim veil, Italy's leading paper Corriere della Sera reported in a front-page article on Wednesday. Santanche reportedly received a letter in Arabic and English at her lower house office Tuesday night with pictures of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, murdered in 2004 by an Islamist fundamentalist for his movie Submission, which denounced violence on women in Muslim countries, and Dutch MP Hirsi Ali, the film's author, who has also received death threats.
"This is the hour of my liberation...your time has come," the note said. The message also carried a paragraph from the BBC World website on 23 October, describing Santanche as an MP who "has said the veil is not required by the Koran" and has been described as "an infidel by an imam."
Santanche, a leading member of the right-wing National Alliance Party in Italy's opposition, has been under police escort since late October last year, when her criticism of the Muslim veil led to threats which were considered serious by security officials, including those of Muslim cleric Aby Shwaima, the imam of the mosque of Segrate in Milan and one of the founders of Italy's largest Muslim group UCOII, who slammed her as an "infidel" during a television show on Sky Italia on 20 October.
Shwaima's outrage was sparked by two television interviews given by Santanche in which she had said that the Muslim veil "is not a religious symbol and it is not required by the Koran" and that "it is not a symbol of freedom."
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.374993235&par=0