Two stories of note from the MidEast

MEMRI provides insight into the Arab mind with a story about a reform seminar in Egypt that triggered the ire of the Muslim clerics.

He further said, "The participation of Western [research] centers in a discussion of Islam and its legal sources is a mark of shame and a disaster which society and its leaders need to prevent… It is an obligation to forcefully intercede so as to prevent [these] affronts. This is a group of [religious] deviants, one of whom has already been indicted on charges of treason; thus it is forbidden to deal with them and it is an obligation to consider them insignificant in society."

Fine fellows, these Muslim clerics.

In a second story it looks like John Kerry's brilliant idea to provide the Iranians with nuclear fuel isn't going to work after all.

Recently, the three European countries, France, Germany, and the UK, initiated (in the talks between the EU and Iran in the past two years) a new proposal where nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes would be provided to Iran by European countries as part of an incentive package. Iran principally refused the offer. In the next few days, the three foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the UK are expected to arrive in Tehran for talks, in which they will officially submit the offer.

So much for innovation.