Flogging

Re "Flogging Carried Out Over Premarital Sex," Jan. 23: To amend your report on the flogging of 17-year-old Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, Nigerian authorities did not "override" international condemnation in carrying out this punishment. Basic human rights cannot be overridden, only ignored. JAMES SCOTT Hermosa Beach

"I sometimes drink 'til I am empty, grab another from the shelf," begins a verse from the Flogging Molly song "The Cradle of Humankind. " It concludes with the couplet, "Never listened to much reason, 'til I hear it's last call / When I notice that my ghost is still dancing on its own. " "Cradle" is one of the highlights off the seven-piece band's angry, beautiful, politically charged CD "Speed of Darkness," a raucous, punk-folk collection that...

Face down before a crowd, the teenage girl shrieks and writhes, begging for mercy. But the three masked men holding her down merely tighten their grip while a fourth man whips her again and again. The video of a 17-year-old girl being publicly flogged by the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat Valley has galvanized the nation, drawing protests from human rights groups, denunciations from the central government and expressions of revulsion from many Pakistanis.

Anatomy of a trade (story): These days the best trades are those ESPN makes up, like its one-day Carmelo Anthony - Andrew Bynum blockbuster with as much basis in fact as Bigfoot. Here's what happened: Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak asked Denver GM Masai Ujiri what they wanted for Anthony. In the NBA version of "Mission: Impossible's" self-destructing messages, each GM says the other called him, standard practice since the invention of the telephone.

A 35-year-old man was publicly flogged Wednesday for possession of alcohol, banned under the country's Islamic laws. Witnesses said several hundred people came to a sports stadium to see Noor Mohammed beaten on the buttocks with a cane.

With each stroke of the teenage Taliban militant's lash, the girl's muffled cries pierced the air of this Swat Valley town. The men in the crowd watched silently, aching to intervene but frozen by gunmen pacing in front of them with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. A year later, those men say the images from that day remain etched in their memories. The teenage militant wore white. The girl, a 17-year-old named Chand Bibi, stood behind a hastily made screen of sheets and shawls as she was flogged.

Overriding international condemnation, Nigerian authorities lashed a 17-year-old Muslim girl 100 times with a cane for having premarital sex, the government said. The flogging of Bariya Ibrahim Magazu, who said she was pressured by her father to have sex with three men, was carried out Friday in the northern state of Zamfara. She was in pain afterward but appeared to suffer no major injuries, local reporters said.

A British engineer serving a 2 1/2-year jail sentence in Saudi Arabia for making beer and wine received a flogging of 50 strokes with a cane, a Foreign Office official said Thursday. The flogging at Al Khobar Prison in eastern Saudi Arabia was the first installment of 250 lashes ordered by a court last year when it sentenced John Kelly, 43. He also was fined the equivalent of $21,400.

The mother of American teen-ager Michael P. Fay on Friday denounced the caning of her son a day earlier as torture after a briefing by a U.S. consular officer who was allowed to visit him in prison. "I can only say that I am extremely disturbed. I'm extremely upset," said Randy Chan, 46. "This was torture." Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, received four lashes with a thin rattan cane Thursday afternoon as part of a sentence for spray-painting cars and other offenses allegedly committed in October.

Tame Impala: Not only is it probably one of the better band names in recent memory, but this Australian trio has also delivered one of the best records of 1969 that happened to be recorded some 40 years later. Fuzzy yet irresistably catchy, "Innerspeaker" at times resembles some hazy record clerk daydream of John Lennon fronting Blue Cheer, yet somehow never sounds like just another psych-rock tribute act. Tune in, turn on, rock out. 'Blood Simple' (1984): Recently re-released on Blu-ray, the Coen brothers' noirish debut often gets overshadowed by the ongoing cult of "Lebowski" and the nihilistic Oscar winner "No Country for Old Men. " With a remake on the way from the director of "House of Flying Daggers," now is a perfect time to revisit its humid, amoral world, featuring the great M. Emmet Walsh, Frances McDormand and the most startling newspaper delivery ever filmed.

With each stroke of the teenage Taliban militant's lash, the girl's muffled cries pierced the air of this Swat Valley town. The men in the crowd watched silently, aching to intervene but frozen by gunmen pacing in front of them with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. A year later, those men say the images from that day remain etched in their memories. The teenage militant wore white. The girl, a 17-year-old named Chand Bibi, stood behind a hastily made screen of sheets and shawls as she was flogged.

Saudi Arabia's king waived the flogging sentence of a female journalist charged with involvement in a risque TV show, the second such pardoning in a high-profile case by the monarch in recent years. King Abdullah's decision to waive 22-year-old journalist Rozanna Yami's sentence of 60 lashes follows intense international media attention. Yami was charged with helping coordinate a talk show on a Lebanese channel featuring a Saudi man describing what appeared to be his active sex life.

Many a Hollywood cause has been built around film, but no one in the Feminist Majority Foundation ever expected that one of their most powerful recruiting tools would be a few minutes of cellphone video shot in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The Feminist Majority is one of the oldest of the industry-connected organizations concerned with women's issues.

Face down before a crowd, the teenage girl shrieks and writhes, begging for mercy. But the three masked men holding her down merely tighten their grip while a fourth man whips her again and again. The video of a 17-year-old girl being publicly flogged by the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat Valley has galvanized the nation, drawing protests from human rights groups, denunciations from the central government and expressions of revulsion from many Pakistanis.

Four youths were publicly whipped in the Somali capital Monday after an Islamic court found them guilty of gang rape, underscoring the government's inability to administer justice in the war-ravaged nation. Judge Abdul Haq insisted that the punishment would deter other would-be rapists, but two of the youths smiled and laughed as they were punished. The lashing was administered over the clothes of the accused and did not break their skin.

First the Lakers melt down, and now this. USC's football program has been the pride of Los Angeles, at least for sports fans outside of Westwood, ever since Shaquille O'Neal left the Southland for South Beach and Kobe Bryant started making more headlines with his mouth than his jump shot.