Saudi media fall for Obama Muslim joke 
 
 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — When a US satirist joked that President Barack Obama will admit to Congress that he is Muslim in his latest compromise with Republicans, Saudi media took it seriously. 
 
 On Friday the online version of Al-Hayat newspaper and the prominent news website Sabq.org both reported straightforwardly humourist Andy Borowitz's column that began: 
 
 "In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim. 
 
 "In agreeing that he is a Muslim, Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus," Borowitz said in the column posted on the Huffington Post and The Borowitz Report websites this week. 
 
 Both Al-Hayat, one of the Middle East's most influential newspapers, and Sabq, believed to be controlled by the Saudi interior ministry, apparently missed the joke. 
 
 "Obama doesn't mind coming out as a Muslim if that will satisfy the Republicans," the Al-Hayat headline said. 
 
 "Obama: 'I'm ready to announce that I am a Muslim,'" led Sabq. 
 
 Both repeated Borowitz's "quote" of Obama saying:" My place of birth has been, and will always be, negotiable." 
 
 "White House sources indicated today that the president might be willing to meet the GOP (Grand Old Party -- the Republicans) halfway on his birthplace and say that he was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Borowitz joked, 
 
 Despite Obama repeatedly saying he is Christian, because his native-Kenyan father was born a Muslim, and because his middle name is Hussein, many Muslims and even some US Republicans suspect he is secretly Muslim. 
 
 Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim. 
 
 Differences over his religious orientation have been a sore point between the president and his Republican foes for the past two years, but in agreeing that he is a Muslim, Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus. 
 
 "The American people do not want to see us fighting in Washington," Mr. Obama told reporters at the White House. "They want to see us working together to improve their lives, and Allah willing, we will." 
 
 But Mr. Obama's willingness to back down on his claim of being a Christian does not seem to have satisfied his Republican opposition, as GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) today insisted that the President must also agree that he was born in Kenya. 
 
 While Mr. Obama did not immediately agree to Rep. Bohener's demand, he hinted that yet another compromise might be in the offing: "My place of birth has been, and will always be, negotiable." 
 
 White House sources indicated today that the president might be willing to meet the GOP halfway on his birthplace and say that he was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 Elsewhere, moments after his capture in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, "I knew I shouldn't have signed up for Foursquare." More here. 
 
 The Los Angeles Times says Andy Borowitz has "one of the funniest Twitter feeds around." Follow Andy on Twitter here. ||||| WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called on the United States to move from words to actions, and put an end to its persecution of WikiLeaks, its people and its sources. He made the statement during an address to a panel of UN delegates. 
 
 Addressing the representatives of the United Nations' member countries, the WikiLeaks founder spoke of the difference between words and actions, praising US President Barack Obama for his words. 
 
 "We commend and agree with the words that peace can be achieved… But the time for words has run out. It is time for the US to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks, our people and our sources." 
 
 Assange was highly critical of US involvement in the Arab Spring, denouncing Obama as audacious for exploiting it. He added that it is "disrespectful of the dead" to claim that the US has supported forces of change. 
 
 "Was it not audacious for the US President to say that his country supported the forces of change in the Arab Spring? Tunisian history did not begin in December 2010, and Mohamed Bouazizi did not set himself on fire so that Barack Obama could be re-elected," Assange told the panel. 
 
 
 
 "The world knew after reading WikiLeaks that Ben Ali and his government had for long years enjoyed the indifference, if not the support, of the US, in full knowledge of its excesses and its crimes. So it must come as a surprise to the Tunisians that the US supported the forces of change in their country, and it must come as a surprise to the Egyptian teenagers who washed American tear gas out of their eyes, that the US administration supported change in Egypt" 
 
 Julian Assange also spoke at length about Bradley Manning, the US private accused of supplying WikiLeaks with hundreds of sensitive diplomatic and military cables. Assange accused the US government of detaining Manning without charge and mistreating him, even attempting to offer him a deal in exchange for Manning's testimony against Assange. The WikiLeaks founder told the UN panel that Bradley Manning, accused of 'death penalty crimes', was "degraded, abused and psychologically tortured." 
 
 He added that the FBI had produced 42,135 pages of WikiLeaks-related activity, and less that 8,000 concern Bradley Manning, reiterating his belief that the US private is being senselessly detained. 
 
 
 
 Julian Assange made his address from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he took shelter in June after losing a court battle to avoid extradition to Sweden. The WikiLeaks founder fears that Sweden, which wants him for questioning over allegations of sexual assault, will extradite him to the US for his role in leaking thousands of secret diplomatic and military cables. 
 
 
 
 The British Foreign Office maintains that it has a binding obligation to arrest Assange once he leaves the embassy grounds. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, meanwhile, said that allowing Assange to be transferred to the country’s embassy in Sweden would be an acceptable compromise for all parties involved, as he would “remain under our protection while also satisfying the demands of the Swedish justice system.” 
 
 The Ecuador FM also said that Assange's right to freedom must be respected. 
 
 
 
 "I don’t know any case in history where diplomatic asylum did not end in freedom for the person. I hope this will not be an exception in history. Every country must respect the right of the country granting asylum and the person who was granted it." 
 
 Julian Assange told journalists present at the UN GA panel that "both the UK and Sweden have refused to offer guarantees" that he would not be extradited to the US, where both he and WikiLeaks have been declared 'enemies of the state' by the milatary, putting them in the same legal category as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. 
 
 
 
 The UK and Sweden have remained silent on the possibility of a compromise, though both publicly vowed that Assange should not face special treatment, whether better or worse than normal, under their legal systems. 
 
 The full transcript of Julian Assange’s address to the UN is here. 
 
 
 
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 Assange blasts 'absurd McCartyhism' during post-speech Q&A; 
 
 Fairfax Newspapers: The US military officially designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as ‘enemies of the United States’ through declassified US Air Force counterintelligence documents. In light of these reports, do you believe this vindicates your decision to seek asylum in Ecuador, and what do you think this says – the statements made by the Australian and American governments regarding this issue? 
 
 Julian Assange: Those documents are now in full on the WikiLeaks website, just released tonight. They formed a part of the submission that we made to Ecuador. We had those documents for some months and of course were very concerned about them, but it was necessary to conduct, because of the sensitivities of some of the people involved in that investigation, to prevent their release until more recently. But yes, I encourage everyone to read those. It is an unusual position that I am in and the organization is in, and yes, it is difficult sometimes. 
 
 But it is also completely absurd. I mean, these claims against us are absurd. For example, that the US military should designate me and / or WikiLeaks as ‘the enemy’ in its formal investigation – investigation which carries a death penalty offense – into a person who was alleged to have come to my extradition hearing. And in the same document, it speaks about the victim being that of society, when there is no allegation that any documents have been released or published by us. 
 
 So I think that goes to the… to really quite sort of absurdist, neo-McCarthyist fervor that exists with some of these government departments in the US. I am hopeful that the White House over time is starting to shed that, but enormous wheels have been set in motion, as I described before, with over a dozen different US intelligence and investigative organizations churning through this, and it’s a very difficult process to stop once it starts. Even once everyone sees that it is completely absurd and counter to the values that the US should be trying to present to the world. 
 
 David Miller of Bloomberg News: If Sweden can guarantee that you won’t be extradited to the US, are you willing to give yourself up to the police? 
 
 JA: So, I understand that there was a question on the guarantees that had been asked of Sweden. Thus far, both the UK and Sweden have refused to give any guarantee in any measure at all. And the US and my home country Australia have even refused to assist in asking them, rather unfortunately. These countries are part of a strong intelligence and military alliance. It’s just part of the reality of dealing with them – that they do not like to put any roadblocks in front of the US, and I think it will be quite a hard battle to do that. I think it would be correct and right that those countries do so. But the state-to-state negotiations are of course a matter for Ecuador, which I and my legal team of course make representations [with]. Ultimately it’s a matter between states. 
 
 I’m about to lose satellite time. I understand that Kristinn Hrafnsson, a handsome looking gentleman with white hair, is up the front there somewhere. He is the WikiLeaks spokesperson and he can answer questions in relation to me and the organization.
– Sarcasm doesn't always translate well. When satirist Andy Borowitz wrote this column at the Huffington Post headlined "In Latest Compromise With GOP, Obama Agrees He Is a Muslim," the Saudi media utterly missed the joke. A respected newspaper, Al-Hayat, and website, Sabq.org, reported it as straight news, notes AFP. "Obama doesn't mind coming out as a Muslim if that will satisfy the Republicans," read the newspaper's headline, while the website went with, "Obama: 'I'm ready to announce that I am a Muslim.'" If only they'd read to the bottom of Borowitz's column, the "quote" attributed to Julian Assange after his arrest—"I knew I shouldn't have signed up for Foursquare"—might have tipped them off that the whole thing was joke. Or maybe not.