Lebanon controlled by 'terrorist spy': Bahraini FM

BEIRUT: Lebanon is controlled by a "terrorist agent," Bahrain's Foreign Minister said Friday in reference to Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah, while criticizing the country's "fake unity."

“Lebanon is a great country that was ruled by respectful men and sheikhs such as Bechara al-Khoury, Camille Chammoun, Saeb Salam and Rafik Hariri but today, unfortunately, it is controlled by a terrorist agent,” Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said on his Twitter page.

“The Arab League’s statement concerning the terrorist Nasrallah is clear as day,” he added, one day after Arab foreign ministers condemned last week's speech by Nasrallah in which he criticized Bahrain's recent arrest of Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of the country’s main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq.

Hezbollah's opponents frequently accuse the group's leader of being an Israeli agent.

In a statement after a special meeting held in Cairo Thursday, the Arab League deemed Nasrallah's remarks a “repetitive interference in the internal affairs of Bahrain.”

Bahrain earlier this week also summoned Lebanon's envoy over the speech.

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil rejected the Arab League statement, saying Lebanese national unity was more important that Arab solidarity.

In his Twitter response Friday, Khalifa said that the Lebanese delegation to the Arab League favors “fake national unity” over Arab unity, claiming that the Gulf Cooperation Council has saved Lebanon from strife and never failed to support it.

Bahrain has been in turmoil since 2011 when authorities, backed by a Saudi-led Gulf force, crushed a pro-democracy movement.

A backer of the uprising, Nasrallah in a speech last week accused the Bahraini government of being “tyrannical and oppressive.”

He also compared the Bahraini government’s behavior to the "Zionist project" which established Israel, accusing it of naturalizing Sunnis from across the region to change the country’s majority-Shiite demographic, who form the bulk of the opposition.

Commenting on the affair Friday, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt criticized Nasrallah's Bahraini-Zionist comparison.

“This comparison is unacceptable, irrespective of the depth of political differences,” he said in a statement released by the party's media office.

The PSP chief noted the heavy presence of Lebanese expats in Bahrain, warning that “political positions” would have a negative impact on the Lebanese diaspora.

This Is What It Feels Like to Fight Fires

Dozens of brushfires have swept through the Adelaide Hills of South Australia in recent weeks, and one firefighter captured this video of his crew responding to a call. The video was reportedly taken on January 2 by photographer and volunteer firefighter Ben Wilson, who shot the footage by strapping a GoPro to his fireman's helmet.

Watch the video below, and read Sean Flynn's gripping Esquire feature from July 2000, "The Perfect Fire," which offers an intimate look at the infamous Worcester Cold Storage fire of 1999.

[H/T: Playboy ]

Saudis Postpone 2nd Round Of Public Flogging For Jailed Blogger Raif Badawi

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was due today to receive the second of 10 rounds of 50 lashes, is getting a temporary reprieve. A doctor who examined Badawi found his wounds from last Friday's public flogging in Jiddah hadn't healed and he would be unable to withstand another round. The doctor recommended the punishment be postponed by a week.

"Not only does this postponement on health grounds expose the utter brutality of this punishment, it underlines its outrageous inhumanity," Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Program, said in a statement.

The human rights group was the first to announce the delay of Badawi's punishment.

As we have reported, Badawi was convicted last year of insulting Islam on Free Saudi Liberals, a now-shuttered website he created.

Elham Manea, a spokeswoman for Badawai, told NPR's Melissa Block on Thursday that Badawi wrote about "secularism, about what it means to have a free society, freedom of expression.

"When you think about it, he was just stating what many countries are living," she said. "He just wanted that in Saudi Arabia."

Badawi was sentenced to a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes – 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks — and ordered to pay about $266,000 in fines. A court had originally sentenced him to 600 lashes and seven years in prison, but a judge increased the sentence after an appeal.

Flogging is prohibited under the Convention against Torture, a law to which Saudi Arabia is party. The kingdom, a major ally of the U.S., is also a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The case has drawn widespread international criticism, including from the U.S. and the U.N.

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Obama Urges Congress To Make Paid Sick Leave Mandatory

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approximately 9:00 a.m. ET.

President Obama says employers should offer more generous leave policies, including paid sick leave for the 43 million American workers who don't have it. Obama is urging Congress to require that.

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