Step 7: Have them threaten to blow something up. Great care must be used in the threat scene. The danger must be clear and immediate. It is best if an innocent protagonist is directly and unknowingly a target of the terrorist attack. In all cases, you must make it clear that the motive has to do with holy war.

Step 8: Have a prayer scene. This follows directly from Step 7. If unsure what the procedure for prayers is, include enough kneeling and prostrating to make it all look believable. Besides, the only ones who would know what the actual prayers look like are the world’s one billion Muslims, and none of those count as your target demographic anyway.

Step 9: If your movie is set in a plane, do not worry, because you can still have the protagonists pray in the aisles.

There has never been open competition for the position of first secretary and president of the party since Mugabe became leader of ZANU PF in 1976. That party has never had a leadership succession.

Mugabe has remained the unchallenged leader of his party for the past 27 years. He has been leader of his party by acclamation since 1976.

But one suspects Mugabe’s popularity within the party, as has happened within the country at large, has also declined appreciably over the years and he has remained at the helm by insulating his position through all manner of stratagems known to authoritarian parties and regimes since Stalin.

[...]

Facing a popular opposition party and massive international pressures to democratise, ZANU PF has to find a way to come up with someone with wider appeal not only to the generality of the ruling party membership but to the country as a whole. It’s no longer who Mugabe wants; rather it’s who the party and ultimately the country want who will succeed him as leader.

It is in this fashion that recent talk about "exit" plans and the denials and other speculations and posturing thereof have to be understood. The blocked transition to democracy in Zimbabwe is leading to democratic pressures within ZANU PF itself as aspirants lean more towards popular appeal than to the incumbent leader.

"He approached the witness and started shouting at Mr Ben-Menashe on top of his voice accusing him of trying to fix Tsvangirai while poking his spectacles with a finger." Cst Bundu said.

"It was at this point that a Central Intelligence Organisation agent intervened and pushed him away," she said.

The conflict between traditional authorities and the courts began last year, when the High Court ruled that 200 people evicted from their ancestral lands because they refused to accept Mswati's older brother as their chief, were illegally displaced. The Court of Appeal ordered that the Commissioner of Police be jailed for contempt of court after he blocked the return of the evictees.

The Appeal Court also ruled that Mswati had no legal power to create laws by decree, without parliament.

[Prime Minister] Dlamini said government would ignore both rulings and blasted the Appeal Court for following the political agenda of an unnamed foreign influence. The six judges, all South Africans on loan to Swaziland, resigned in protest.

Subsequently, the High Court announced it would not handle government cases, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, a Kenyan, was forced to resign after he filed contempt of court charges against the attorney-general...

Were we really the only two Israelis in this large audience who are passionately drawn to the songs of the great Egyptian diva? As it turned out, we were not. As we left the extended concert and walked into Sa'ad Zagloul Square on the island, opposite the stone lions of the bridge, someone greeted us in Hebrew from behind. It was Dr. Gabi Rosenbaum from Hebrew University, who has translated several Egyptian plays into Hebrew and is an expert on Egyptian theater. One of the reasons for his visit to Cairo was to get darbuka lessons from a drummer who is renowned in this field. He was also in Maimonides' synagogue, behind the Khan al-Khalili market. It was once customary for people with troubles to sleep all night in the synagogue.

... in the course of a theological debate between a Jew named Moses and the Coptic Patriarch Abraham in the presence of the Muslim governor, the Jew challenged the patriarch. If the Christian religion is true, the Jews said, let the God of the Christians move Mount Mukatam from its place. The Muslim governor liked the challenge and gave the patriarch three days to move the hill, otherwise his head would be lopped off. On the third day, God spoke to the patriarch and instructed him to go to the market and find Simeon the Tanner, who was blind in one eye and held a pitcher of water in his hand. Simeon instructed the patriarch to stand in front of the hill, cross himself three times and say, "God have mercy." The third time, the hill in fact rose from the ground.

...the Hanafi school is the most flexible on abortion. It specifies that before the fourth month of pregnancy, an abortion may be induced if a woman's pregnancy poses a threat to the life of her already existing infant. The Maliki position prohibits an abortion after implantation has taken place, while the Shafi'i school maintains that at any stage after fertilization the zygote should not be disturbed, and interference with its development would be a crime. The Hanbali school by stipulating the payment of blood wit for causing a miscarriage shows that it regards abortion as a sin.

Moreover, even after ensoulment - at which point, the fetus is regarded as having equal right with its mother - in the case of conflict, "this dilemma is resolved by the general principle of the Shari'ah: choosing the lesser of two evils. Rather than losing both lives, the life of one should be given preference over the other," - i.e., the mother's life.

In principle, the protection of unborn lives is today in the forefront, i.e. modern-day legal scholars judge more conservatively than the authors of the early Islamic legal texts. Exceptions are made in some countries if the life of the mother is endangered, based on Sure 2.233: "A mother should not be made to suffer because of her child.” As a result, abortion is possible for health reasons up to day 90 in many countries. In Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey abortion is fully prohibited (an exception is made if the mother’s life is endangered); this does not imply, however, that abortions are not at all performed. Tunisia’s liberal abortion practice allows for abortions to be performed up to the end of the third month. There, abortions are principally permissible for single as well as married women in the first three months, provided that a registered doctor performs them. The approval of the husband or of a male guardian is not required in Tunisia.

In that long-ago version, businessmen were contacted by someone trying to smuggle the scion of a wealthy family out of a prison in Spain. But of course the wealthy family would shower with riches those who helped secure the release of the boy. Those who were suckered into this paid for one failed rescue attempt after another, with the fictitious prisoner continuing to languish in his non-existent dungeon, always just one more bribe, one more scheme, one more try, away from being released.

'Once in the custody of Brazilians, Toscanino was brought to Porto Alegre where he was held incommunicado for eleven hours. His requests to consult with counsel, the Italian Consulate, and his family were all denied. During this time he was denied all food and water.

'Later that same day Toscanino was brought to Brasilia . . .. For seventeen days Toscanino was incessantly tortured and interrogated. Throughout this entire period the United States government and the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York prosecuting this case was aware of the interrogation and did in fact receive reports as to its progress. Furthermore, during this period of torture and interrogation a member of the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was present at one or more intervals and actually participated in portions of the interrogation . . .. (Toscanino's) captors denied him sleep and all forms of nourishment for days at a time. Nourishment was provided intravenously in a manner precisely equal to an amount necessary to keep him alive.

Reminiscent of the horror stories told by our military men who returned from Korea and China, Toscanino was forced to walk up and down a hallway for seven or eight hours at a time. When he could no longer stand he was kicked and beaten but all in a manner contrived to punish without scarring. When he would not answer, his fingers were pinched with metal pliers. Alcohol was flushed into his eyes and nose and other fluids . . . were forced up his anal passage. Incredibly, these agents of the United States government attached electrodes to Toscanino's earlobes, toes, and genitals. Jarring jolts of electricity were shot throughout his body, rendering him unconscious for indeterminate periods of time but again leaving no physical scars.

[T]he beginning of the "rough" treatment was what prompted [DEA agents] Kuykendall and Maxwell to leave. As Maxwell candidly put it:

"It was getting plenty rough. It was something that I was not accustomed to. It scared the fire out of me and we left. Not only did we leave, we left afoot and we walked some 10 to 15 blocks back to the Mexican Federal Judicial Police Headquarters to get Mr. Kuykendall's vehicle and then we drove across."