Saudi women to drive for change

Women2Drive is an initiative demanding the right for women to drive and travel freely in Saudi Arabia.Saudi Arabian women encouraged to drive FridayManal al Sharif is part of Women2Drive campaignShe claims woman are not breaking the law by driving in Saudi ArabiaReligious edicts limit activities of women

(CNN) -- Saudi women are being encouraged to challenge the status quo and get behind the wheel Friday.

Though there are no traffic laws that make it illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, religious edicts are often interpreted as a ban against female drivers. One female motorist spent more than a week in custody in May, supporters said.

The day is expected to be a test of wills -- and authority -- between police and the campaign, which has been publicized by Facebook, Twitter and other social media. It was not clear late Thursday how many would participate.

A Saudi woman told CNN her mother drove her and her sisters down Riyadh's main street on Thursday.

The woman, who asked not to be named because she was worried about harassment and possible reprisals, said no one bothered them.

"I believe there will be women driving (Friday)," she said. "This is important for women here -- this is one of our rights."

Read Isobel Coleman's piece on the largest protest by Saudi women

This is important for women here -- this is one of our rights.
--Unnamed Saudi woman

Authorities stopped Manal al Sharif, 32, for driving a car May 21 and detained her the next day. She said she was forced to sign a form promising not to drive again and spent a week in jail.

Al Sharif has not been charged, but the case remains open and she may be called back, according to human rights activist Waleed Abu Alkhair.

Al Sharif is part of Women2Drive, an initiative demanding the right for women to drive and travel freely in Saudi Arabia.

In an interview with CNN before her detention, al Sharif said she was determined to speak out.

"We have a saying," she said. "The rain starts with a single drop. This is a symbolic thing."

Hundreds of women have joined the campaign to begin driving Friday. Some women with international licenses, such as al Sharif, began driving earlier.

Alkhair, speaking Thursday from London, said he encouraged his wife to drive in Jeddah on Friday.

"I think after what the police and the interior ministry did to Manal al Sharif, a lot of women became afraid," he said. "The Interior Ministry has put a lot of police on the street. They want to send a message to all women."

Strict segregation by sex means women in Saudi Arabia can't travel without a male relative or take public transportation. Many women hire expensive drivers or taxis to get around.

Since al Sharif's detention, several Saudi women have uploaded their videos onto the web.

Amnesty International said Saudi women should be allowed to seek more freedoms.

"Saudi Arabian authorities must stop treating women as second-class citizens and open the kingdom's roads to women drivers," the organization said.

CNN's Atika Shubert contributed to this report.

CNN

Greeks get details of painful austerity drive (AP)

ATHENS, Greece – Greece's finance minister is to outline details of a new round of painful austerity measures, a day after the country's Cabinet approved the plans and submitted them to Parliament.

Greece has been slipping on reform targets of its euro110 billion ($160.75 billion) international bailout, and the new austerity drive is essential for the debt-ridden country to continue receiving rescue loans.

Plans to be detailed Friday include tax hikes and spending cuts, including extra income, fuel, property and car taxes. Civil servants and pensioners will suffer more income cuts, while health, education, defense and social spending will be further curtailed.

They include euro6.4 billion in remedial austerity this year, a euro22 billion package for 2012-2015 and a euro50 billion privatization program.

Yahoo! News

One battle: Firefight on Hells Gate Drive

The firefight on Hells Gate Drive -- one battle in a blazing war By Ed Lavandera, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTSLone Camp firefighters face off against a roaring wall of flamesTheir mission is to keep the fire from jumping Highway 16With backfires, plows and air drops, the battle goes on for hours Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas (CNN) -- Sweating and exhausted, the volunteer firefighter stared at the mountain ridge from Hells Gate Drive and knew a wave of furious flames was just minutes away.

Through a wall of thick gray smoke, Bozo Henderson could see the bright red flames shooting out from the tree tops. A sight that makes him say to anyone close enough to hear, "It's about to get real ugly around here."

Henderson relishes the fight as much as he enjoys telling people about his name. "People been calling me Bozo since I was a little kid, nobody knows me by any other name," Henderson told CNN as he prepared for a late afternoon firefight on the southern edge of Possum Kingdom Lake. It's the site of one of the biggest fires raging in Texas, where blazes in the past week have scorched about a million acres of land.

CNN on Tuesday afternoon witnessed one of the many dramatic battles that are unfolding every hour as thousands of firefighters try to get what's being called the Possum Kingdom Complex fire under control.

The "PK Complex" is actually made up of roughly five large wildfires close to each other and constantly threatening to merge into one massive super fire. As of Wednesday morning it had burned more than 147,000 acres, the Texas Forest Service said. It has burned more than 100 homes and is threatening 600 more.

Henderson is one several volunteers from the Lone Camp Fire Department in Palo Pinto. For days, this firefighting crew has jumped from hotspot to hotspot. The mission right now is to keep one part of the fire complex from coming down the mountainside and merging into a larger fire across Highway 16.

"If it jumps Highway 16, I don't know what's going to happen," Henderson says. "It's hard to stop. The ground is all dry, there's no moisture anywhere. There's nothing slowing it down."

As flames top the mountain ridge, Lone Camp Assistant Fire Chief Brandon Thornburg gets his crews moving. They call in heavy plows to move several thousand yards of dry brush out of the fire's path. The dry grass is made-to-order fuel for the swelling blaze.

"The flames are just racing," Thornburg says. "The one down below is coming our way."

A call for help comes in over the radio. "We gotta get to a safety zone!" blares the voice over the fire truck's radio. "Can I have an engine here at this house?"

With that call Henderson and his partner, Ted Hale, jump into their truck and speed to a point down the road.

"With the winds they're calling for it's going to be rough," Thornburg says as we watch the flames roll closer. "It's going to get extremely hot."

He says the flames are now leaping up to 100 feet over the treetops and temperatures inside the fiercest spot of the wildfire probably reach "well in excess of 3,000 degrees."

The fire has now come down the mountain and is up against Hells Gate Drive and Highway 16. Several dozen firefighters are setting "back fires" to help slow down the attacking flames.

Through the smoky haze a military aircraft drops down, low to the ground, spraying a long line of a rust-colored fire suppressant.

The fight goes on for hours. In the end, the firefighters manage to hold back the flames. The fire doesn't jump across Highway 16 and Hells Gate Drive. But the efforts take a toll on the crews.

"It's been bad. Everybody has been out here 24 hours the past week and a half. Everybody is tired," Henderson says.

This battle is won. But the fire war continues. With no time to rest, the firefighting crew from Lone Camp is off to the next hotspot.

Henderson laughs and says, "It looks like we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We get into certain areas, we do our thing and then something breaks out and we have to go do it again."

Hale says volunteer firefighters take these efforts to stop a wall of fire personally. At the end of a long day, he looks back at the battle won on Hells Gate Drive and concedes, "It's one of the few we actually won today."

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