democracy might be a dead man walking in a large part of the world right now. Wait for it.

A BRITISH court has convicted three men of conspiring to murder hundreds of people in a terrorist attack.
Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan and Waheed Zaman were found guilty at London's Woolwich Crown Court and could face life imprisonment.

The three men were among eight tried in connection with a 2006 plot to detonate homemade liquid bombs on seven transatlantic jets.

The discovery of the plot led to strict new rules about carrying liquids on commercial flights.

They were cleared by a jury of their role in targeting the jets but put on trial again to face charges of conspiracy to murder, based on "martyrdom videos" they recorded threatening attacks on western targets.

"Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan and Waheed Zaman were actively working alongside other men on a plot to cause death and injury on a massive scale," said prosecutor Sue Hemming.

"They were cleared in the previous trial of being aware of the ultimate targets of the plot, but we say that they were committed to the principle and practice of violent jihad to the point of targeting innocent people in an attempt to further their cause."...............

........Al-Shabab, an Islamist militia waging a campaign of terror across Somalia, has banned soccer in many areas it controls.
The al-Qaeda-linked militia, along with Hezb-i-Islam, a rival group, prohibited broadcasts of the World Cup, describing the sport as ''a satanic act'' that corrupts Muslims.

In the past month, militants have killed at least five people and arrested scores more for watching the World Cup.
They have detained and tortured local soccer club owners on charges of misguiding youth...........

THEY may call it the "Land of the Pure", but Pakistan turns out to be anything but.

The Muslim country, which has banned content on at least 17 websites to block offensive and blasphemous material, is the world's leader in online searches for pornographic material.

Google ranks Pakistan No.1 in the world in searches for pornographic terms, outranking every other country in searches per person for certain sex-related content, FOXNews.com said.

Pakistan has ranked No.1 in searches per-person for "horse sex" since 2004, "donkey sex" since 2007, "rape pictures" between 2004 and 2009, "rape sex" since 2004, "child sex" between 2004 and 2007 and since 2009, "animal sex" since 2004 and "dog sex" since 2005, according to Google Trends and Google Insights, features of Google that generate data based on popular search terms.

The country has also been No.1 in searches for "sex", "camel sex", "rape video" and "child sex video".........

MUSLIMS must not wear the famous Manchester United red jersey because of the "devil" emblem on its team crest, Malaysian clerics said today.
Manchester United and the rest of the English Premier League are massively popular in Muslim-majority Malaysia and the rest of the Asian region, but conservative religious scholars said the jersey is un-Islamic.

Also off limits are the shirts of teams including Brazil, Portugal, Barcelona, Serbia and Norway, all of which carry images of the cross on their team emblems.

"This is very dangerous. As a Muslim, we should not worship the symbols of other religions or the devils," said Nooh Gadot, a top Islamic cleric from the southern Johor state.

"It will erode our belief in Islam. There is no reason why we as Muslims should wear such jerseys, either for sports or fashion reasons," said Mr Nooh, an advisor to the Johor religious council..............

Four men were jailed for life in Britain on Tuesday for the murder of a couple in a bungled Muslim "honour killing" arson attack.

The four, all from London, had intended to kill a Muslim man they believed was having an affair with a married woman by setting fire to his house.

But they targeted the wrong house on the man's street in Blackburn, northwest England, and killed Abdullah Mohammed, 41, and his 39-year-old wife wife Aysha instead.

The couple was overcome by smoke and fumes after petrol was poured through their letterbox and set alight. They later died in hospital.

Their two children, aged nine and 14, survived the blaze.

Ringleader Hisamuddin Ibrahim, 21, whose sister was said to be the one having the affair, was jailed for a minimum of 28 years at Preston Crown Court.

Habib Iqbal, 25, Sadek Miah,23, and Mohammed Miah, 19, were given 25, 21 and 19 years in jail respectively.

"These were shocking and terrible murders," judge Richard Henriques said.

"It is nearly impossible to imagine a worse case of arson than this. You have wreaked devastation on a blameless, devout family.

"They just happened to live at an address one digit removed from your intended target."

A MAN and woman have been stoned to death in northern Afghanistan after being accused by the Taliban of having an affair, a witness and an official said Monday.

The 23-year-old woman and 28-year-old man were killed because "they had an affair," said Mohammad Ayob, the governor of Imam Sahib district in Kunduz province.

"Two people were stoned to death by Taliban in Mullah Quli village late yesterday," he said. The village is under the control of the Taliban.

Mullah Quli resident Abdul Satar said about 100 people, most of them Taliban insurgents, gathered in the village on Sunday evening as a statement was read out saying the pair had confessed to their affair.

He said the man was married to someone else, and the woman was engaged.

"The Taliban convicted both to stoning to death, some from the crowd started throwing stones at the couple until they died," Mr Satar said.



The couple had their hands bound behind their backs and were forced to stand in an empty field as their sentence was carried out, he said.

A local Taliban commander, who contacted media but refused to give his name, confirmed the killings.

"The couple confessed they had eloped together and based on their confession they were stoned to death," he said.

Under Islamic Sharia law, sex between unmarried people is punishable by public beatings, while punishment for those caught in extra-marital affairs is death by stoning.

Earlier this month, the Taliban publicly flogged and then killed a pregnant widow for alleged "adultery" in western Badghis province.

The killings are a grim reminder of the Taliban's harsh 1996-2001 rule, when apparent crimes were brutally punished after summary trials.

As well as lashings and death by stoning for alleged adulterers, people accused of theft regularly had their hands or feet amputated.
In regions that have come under Taliban control as the war drags towards the end of its ninth year, rough justice is meted out in the same manner, and includes execution of people accused of "spying" for foreign forces.