What we don't want to know, because they're just raghead muslims.right?

Somali woman stoned to death for alleged adultery.

Somali Islamists have stoned to death a woman accused of adultery in the first such public killing by militants in about two years, witnesses said.

The 23-year-old woman was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution late on Monday in front of hundreds of people in a square in the southern port community of Kismayu, which the Islamist insurgents captured in August.

Stones were hurled at her head, and she was brought out of the hole three times to see if she had died.

When a relative and others surged forward, guards opened fire.

"A woman in green veil and black mask was brought in a car as we waited to watch the merciless act of stoning," one local resident, Abdullahi Aden, told Reuters.

"We were told she submitted herself to be punished, yet we could see her screaming as she was forcefully bound, legs and hands. A relative of hers ran towards her, but the Islamists opened fire and killed a child."

'Irreligious and illogical'

The Islamists last carried out public executions when they ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for half of 2006. Allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces toppled them at the end of that year, but they have waged an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign since then, gradually taking territory back.

The Islamists now controlling the Kismayu area are again providing much-needed security, but also imposing fundamentalist practices such as banning entertainment seen as anti-Islamic.

Relatives of the woman executed in Kismayu, whom they named as Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, were furious.

"The stoning was totally irreligious and illogical," said her sister, who asked not to be identified. "Islam does not execute a woman for adultery unless four witnesses and the man with whom she committed sex are brought forward publicly."

Islamist leaders at the execution said the woman had breached Islamic law. They promised to punish the guard who had shot the child in the melee around the execution.

"We apologize for killing the child. And we promise we shall bring the one who opened fire before the courts and deal with him accordingly," an unnamed Islamist leader told the crowd.

When a man is stoned to death, he is buried waist-deep in the ground, and can go free if he manages to escape. Women are buried deeper to stop stones from hitting their breasts.

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Aussie prisoner vows not to scream.

By Mark Dunn

ROBERT Thomas suffered in silence as he endured 250 lashes with a 1m cane in a Saudi prison.

He vowed they would never hear him scream at his regular floggings - 50 blows almost every fortnight - wielded by a prison official with a copy of the Koran under his arm.

The Melbourne man faces another 50 lashes in coming days and 10 more months of jail.

Mr Thomas revealed his pain and torture in a series of letters to family.

"(The lashing) is to humiliate and control and I draw a large crowd as I am one of those Western ungodly people, but they shall never hear me yell," Mr Thomas wrote on January 20 to his friend, Hilary Ash, in Melbourne.

"When it starts I think of all the websites I have visited and count them as I count the hits."

Mr Thomas said his fate was not as helpless as 30 other inmates who were on death row - and that 12 more had been executed since his arrival at the Bisha region prison in September.

Under sharia court order, the Islamic holy book is held under the official's arm while he lashes Mr Thomas.

This restricts the beatings to a wrist and forearm action because Mr Thomas is a Westerner.

On December 10, Mr Thomas, 56, formerly of Caulfield, penned another letter to his daughter, Sarah Munro.

"Lorna (his wife) and I have started our corporal punishment - caning - have received first 50 strokes, not pleasant but bearable even though the religious leader from the hospital made them hit me quite hard," he wrote.

Mr Thomas told his daughter prison guards and fellow inmates had pressured him to convert to Islam so his prison sentence would go easier.

"They continue to pump everybody with Islamic tapes, like brainwashing," he wrote.

Mr Thomas, who is not religious, is sharing a cell with five Nigerians.

Mr Thomas was jailed in a "guilt by association" finding of the Saudi court because the judge could not believe Lorna Thomas was able to commit a crime of theft without her husband being aware of it.

Filipino-born Lorna had stolen surgical equipment from the hospital where they both worked, Lorna as a nurse and Robert as an anaesthetic technician.

She sent the equipment back to the Philippines. It is believed Saudi officials claim Mr Thomas had knowledge or, as a husband, should have had knowledge, of that package being sent back to the Philippines.

Mr Thomas moved to Saudi Arabia from Caulfield 10 years ago because the Arabic kingdom was offering lucrative salaries.

Saudi hospitals are offering anaesthetic technicians about $60,000, tax-free, to work in the country, with annual free trips home.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday said consular officials from Australia's Riyadh embassy had regular contact with Mr Thomas.

Despite the floggings, Mr Thomas was in good health and spirits.

Ms Munro, 27, who spoke to her father a month after he was sentenced, said he had decided to end his five-year marriage with Lorna because of the ordeal.

"Dad believes that Lorna did commit the crime," she said. "He is upset, he feels betrayed and he won't be seeking to bring her home to Australia when he is released."

© Queensland Newspapers

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The Mercury, Hobart, Tasmania,

Another Aussie faces flogging

By Mark Dunn

A SECOND Australian faces a public whipping at the hands of Saudi Arabian authorities.

The Queenslander, 38, is facing charges of running an illegal alcohol operation - an offence punishable by imprisonment and flogging under strict Islamic laws.

"The penalty could involve corporal punishment," a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said.

"It was a considerable amount of alcohol, it wasn't just one bottle."

It is believed the man was arrested this week.

The Saudi kingdom, with an almost 100 per cent Muslim population, strictly prohibits alcohol.

A Saudi community spokesman in Melbourne said while alcohol use is a lighter offence, trafficking in large quantities would be viewed harshly in court.

The Queenslander's case follows that of Melbourne man Robert Thomas, who has been flogged 250 times and faces another 50 lashes for a crime his wife committed.

Despite reports Mr Thomas intended leaving his wife for the trouble she had caused, the Caulfield man, 55, appears to have forgiven her and is engaging in weekly jailhouse liaisons.

As part of Islamic rights, Mr Thomas is entitled to weekly conjugal visits with his wife while serving his 16-month sentence.

A source said he was exercising those rights and visited his wife as recently as Wednesday.

Mr Thomas, a visiting anaesthetic technician at a Saudi hospital, was arrested after sending stolen medical equipment to the Philippines.

The package was given to him by his Filipino wife, Lorna, a nurse.

Mr Thomas was sentenced on guilt by association and was told by the Islamic judge he should have known about his wife's theft.

Despite the whippings, Mr Thomas is being housed in an air-conditioned cell with TV at the Bisha region prison.

A DFAT spokeswoman said the nature and level of Australian Government appeals were dictated by Mr Thomas's wishes after he had earlier indicated he was willing to accept his punishment without further appeal.

Australian diplomatic staff had formally expressed opposition to the whippings and asked for a pardon, which was ignored by Saudi officials.

If the Queensland man suffers a similar fate the Government would make similar protests.

Mr Thomas's daughter, Sarah Munro, said she was unsure why the medical supplies had been stolen and posted.

"I imagine she was sending it back for some altruistic reasons ... if she was sending them back to sell, it would have been to help her family," she said.

"Dad was going out to send mail on this day and she (Lorna) said can you take this package and send it," Ms Munro said.

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Ethiopian Christian women are noticeable for their bright headscarves

A growing number of girls are being recruited in Ethiopia to work as domestic servants in nearby Yemen. Once there, they're often kept locked in the house, and are sometimes subjected to physical, mental and even sexual abuse. Amsterdam-based anthropologist Marina de Regt has been providing help to Ethiopian women like Helen, whose employment agent beat her with a stick two days after she arrived in Yemen. Helen is painfully thin. She beams as she tucks into a large plate of food in an Ethiopian restaurant in the centre of the Yemeni capital Sana'a. She's had a good week, says her Ethiopian friend, social worker Kirubel Belete Lemma. But she has a lot of bad weeks, he explains, when she is depressed and has no appetite. Then she relives the pain she endured two years ago, when she visited her Yemeni employment agent, her Ethiopian recruiters' contact, to say she couldn't stand her work. "He was angry and took a stick and beat me over and over again here," says Helen, pointing to her kidneys. "The force of the beating was terrible. Afterwards I couldn't stand up or sit down."

Helen who went to Yemen for work

Well-paid job Helen - only 18 at the time - had just been persuaded to go to Yemen to do what was described to her as a well-paid job with reasonable working hours and good prospects. She was approached by a young woman who she met by chance in a shared taxi. Many women are recruited in this way, in the street or outside of school. The economic situation in Ethiopia is so depressed that many girls are tempted by stories of a good wage in the Middle East. "They enter the country on a temporary visa and end up as domestic workers with Yemeni families. It's a hard life that awaits them,"says anthropologist Marina de Regt. "They often know they are going to do domestic work, but not how little they will be paid or how much work they will be expected to do. They work seven days a week, from six o'clock in the morning to one o'clock at night. They are often locked in the house, are mentally and physically abused, and are sometimes even raped." Children According to Kirubel Belete Lemma, who leads an aid project started by Dr De Regt, women are sometimes "beaten so hard they are no longer able to bear children".Nevertheless, the flow of women from Africa to Yemen is increasing. There are an estimated 50,000 women from Ethiopia and other African countries living in Yemen. In the streets of Sana'a the Ethiopian women, most of them Christian, are easily recognised by the colourful headscarves they wear instead of the black niqabs worn by Yemeni Muslim women.

Many women also go to other countries like Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or Syria in search of a better life. But according to Dr De Regt, who originally went to Yemen to do anthropological research among the Ethiopian women, many girls choose Yemen because of horror stories in the media about other countries in the region.

Aid organisations regularly sound the alarm about the appalling working conditions of domestic workers in these countries, and the words rape, exploitation and slavery come up in every report. But similar stories about Yemen are conspicuous by their absence. While it is true that the situation in the country is not as bad as it is elsewhere, according to Belete Lemma, the Ethiopian government does its best to suppress the negative stories. "The Ethiopian government has a long history of friendly relations with Yemen, and wants to maintain it. Ethiopia is also partly dependent on Yemeni investors."

Soaring Food Costs Force Ethiopian Children Out of School (Telegraph 09/20/08)

Ethiopian Needy 'Not Getting Aid' (BBC 09/19/08)

Aid to Ethiopia Never Appears to Reach It's Intended target: Ethiopia Starving Somalis (PR-Inside 09/19/08)

Ethiopian Rebels Call for Ogaden Aid Corridor (Reuters 09/19/08)

UN Says Drought Worsening in Ethiopian Restive Region (AFP 09/16/08)

Dr Marina de Regt