Bismillah [IslamCity] American Jewish groups must speak up over Gaza
Richard Silverstein: It is a sensitive subject, but the movement for Gaza accountability needs full Jewish participation American Jewish groups must speak up over Gaza Monday 20 April 2009 09.00 BST When Israeli forces left Gaza in January, they left behind 1,400 Palestinian dead, 4,000 homes destroyed, universities and government buildings flattened, and tens of thousands homeless. The Israeli and world press documented IDF atrocities including the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus in densely populated urban areas, the assault on United Nations humanitarian facilities, the shelling of civilian homes, and the shooting in cold blood of unarmed civilians. Israeli human rights groups have called for war crimes investigations of IDF actions. In the last few weeks, on-the-ground reports supported by eyewitness testimony have become available. They paint an even more damning picture. The attacks on UN facilities spurred the Palestinian Authority to call for a security council investigation. Officials announced they are investigating whether the international body has jurisdiction, but it seems likely that US opposition will doom such an avenue of redress. The UN human rights council has just appointed a distinguished jurist, Richard Goldstone, to head an investigation of both IDF and Palestinian actions in Gaza. The council made a wise choice in Goldstone, who served as chief prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda: he has an impeccable record in his field and can be expected to issue a fair, balanced and thorough report. Last week, Judge Balthazar Garzon announced the investigation of six Bush-era officials for devising a scheme that justified torture of terror suspects. With this development, it became clear there was a new method to hold violators accountable for their alleged crimes, and I am certain activists are already preparing dossiers for submission. Earlier this month, an international assemblage of individuals announced the formation of the Russell tribunal on Palestine. Modelled on the Russell tribunal on war crimes in Vietnam, and named after philosopher and peace campaigner Bertrand Russell, it aims to bring to bear international law as a force for adjudicating and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The tribunal will hear a legal case prepared by volunteer experts from around the world. A jury of respected individuals will hear evidence from both sides and announce its finding of guilt or innocence to the world. There is one important consideration that should encourage Israel to participate. If it truly believes Palestinian rocket attacks constitute war crimes, then it should vigorously make this point. The tribunal has already taken pains to point out that this is a part of its mandate: "Do the means of resistance used by the Palestinians violate international law?" However, I would imagine that Israel will not participate. While Israel's savage assault against Hezbollah in Lebanon during the 2006 war generated an uproar, one wonders whether the massacres that occurred in Gaza crossed a moral threshhold. Can an effort to end Israeli impunity have real impact, both in terms of influencing world opinion and of impacting on Israeli behaviour? Israel has become an expert at wearing down its opponents, honing such skills during 40 years of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The question is: what, if anything, can the peace community do differently this time? Each time the world witnesses another humanitarian tragedy resulting from Israeli military action, the outcry is louder. For example, the UN has never before entertained the possibility of investigating Israeli war crimes. The EU has informally made known that it intends to freeze a planned upgrade in relations with Israel and cancel of visit of Israel's prime minister as an indirect result. American universities such as Hampshire College and church denominations such as the Presbyterians contemplate ever more seriously the issue of divestment. Gaza crossed a red line. Now, new methods of protest and new means of ensuring accountability must be devised. Horrors such as the Gaza war also breathe new life into movements like the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions initiative. Recently, Naomi Klein and Rabbi Arthur Waskow engaged in a provocative debate at In These Times about BDS. The Gaza war made Klein a believer. Recently, Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote words that many in the American Jewish community might find heretical, that BDS could be a legitimate expression "of a weaker, dispossessed, disempowered people". There can be no doubt that horrors such as Gaza serve as moral ice-breakers in the psyche of diaspora Jews. Ideas that hitherto might have been taboo or "anti-Israel" become suddenly legitimate. As Israel drifts farther to the right, American Jews are challenged to respond morally. In this context, the forbidden becomes acce
Bismillah [IslamCity] Blears facing Muslim legal move
Blears facing Muslim legal movePress Assoc. - 1 hour 4 mins ago A bitter dispute between the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the Government escalated when the group's deputy secretary-general launched legal action against Communities Secretary Hazel Blears. More »
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk’s World: Now I've really lived. I've gone on a movie set and shouted 'Action!'
* Robert Fisk’s World: Now I've really lived. I've gone on a movie set and shouted 'Action!'
Bismillah [IslamCity] New evidence of alleged Israeli's Gaza war crimes revealed!
1. 2. Watch the three Guardian video reports 3. Gaza war crimes investigation 4. Israeli war crimes allegations: what the law saysEditorial: A case to answerUK to Israel: War crimes law unchangeable now * * * End this culture of Israeli impunity 2. 'IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza'* * * * * * * * * Israel's Barak faces showdown over coalition deal * * * 2. Don't judge Israel's 'war crimes' 3. Will Israel be brought to book? 4. Why Israel went to war in Gaza 5. Israel-Palestine revisited 6. The options before Israel 7. White phosphorus in Gaza: the victimsRiots break out in Arab Israeli town during ultra-nationalist Jewish marchNetanyahu and Barak draft Israel coalition pactIsraeli right-wingers spark clashesDemo triggers clashes in Israeli Arab town Israelis told to fight 'holy war' in GazaIsraeli soldiers admit intentionally killing Palestinian civiliansIsraeli soldiers admit to deliberate killing of Gaza civiliansTroops tell Gaza tales on T-shirtsDead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashionNew bill seeks to worsen conditions of incarceration for terroristsIsrael bows to U.S. pressure, lifts food restrictions on GazaEvidence of alleged Israeli war crimes
Bismillah [IslamCity] Why Lieberman is the worst thing that could happen to the Middle East
1. Robert Fisk: Why Lieberman is the worst thing that could happen to the Middle East 2. Robert Fisk: As usual in the Middle East, only Arabs are terrorists 3. Avigdor Lieberman - branded Arab-hating racist - set to be Israeli foreign minister
Bismillah [IslamCity] The End of Israel's Impunity?
* The End of Israel's Impunity?
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel annexing East Jerusalem - EU : 'You don't have a house any more'
1. Israel annexing East Jerusalem - EU 2. 'You don't have a house any more'
Bismillah [IslamCity] Must Jews always see themselves as victims? & A Christian painter who could not see the light in Palestine
1. Antony Lerman:Must Jews always see themselves as victims? 2. Robert Fisk: A Christian painter who could not see the light in Palestine
Bismillah [IslamCity] Examine the Pope's words. There's only one conclusion
Examine the Pope's words. There's only one conclusion Robert Fisk: Benedict will demean other religions to prove Christianity’s ‘superiority.’
Bismillah [IslamCity] Pakistan imposes sharia law in Malakand : On the trail of Pakistan's Taliban
1. Pakistan imposes sharia law in Malakand 2. On the trail of Pakistan's Taliban 3. Pakistan: Suspected US Drone Attack Kills 30 4. Sharia law in Pakistan
Bismillah [IslamCity] The writing is on the synagogue wall
The writing is on the synagogue wall
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel is trapped, and the chance of peace is ever more remote
Bruce Anderson: Israel is trapped, and the chance of peace is ever more remote
Bismillah [IslamCity] Re: The flying Dutchman
Comment from someone regarding this subject: Labour bares its appeaser’s teeth to unbending Muslims http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article5733899.ece From: Arif Sent: Saturday, 14 February, 2009 15:56:25 Subject: The flying Dutchman Finally, a good job from our Govt. Arif Editorial: The flying Dutchman http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/13/free-speech-geert-wilders
Bismillah [IslamCity] TURKEY-ISRAEL TRADE VOLUME RISES BY 135% UNDER AKP
TURKEY-ISRAEL TRADE VOLUME RISES BY 135% UNDER AKP (ANSAmed) - ANKARA, FEBRUARY 2 - The trade volume between Turkey and Israel has reached to 3.3 billion dollars in 2008 from 1.4 billion dollars in 2002 when the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development came to power, daily Hurriyet reports. The official data showed that Turkey's exports reached 1.9 billion dollars in 2008 from 1.6 billion dollars in 2007. Turkey's imports from Israel rose 36% in 2008 to 1.4 billion dollars. One of the main trade items between two countries is the defense industry. Turkey had auctioned the modernization of the M-60 tanks to the Israel Military Industries (IMI) for 668 million dollars. The IMI also won the modernization of the 300 military helicopters for 57 million dollars. Turkey signed three other deals with Israel for the modernization of war jets. The financial amount of these agreements is 850 million dollars. The tension rose between Turkey and Israel after Ankara harshly criticized the Israel's operations in the Gaza Strip which left more than 1,300 people killed. The Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's reaction to storm out of the Gaza session in Davos is unlikely to effect the mutual relations, experts say. (ANSAmed). 2009-02-02 13:48 ansamed
Bismillah [IslamCity] 'Pashtunistan' holds key for Obama
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/15/afghanistan-pakistan-obama 'Pashtunistan' holds key to Obama mission
Bismillah [IslamCity] The flying Dutchman
Finally, a good job from our Govt. Arif Editorial: The flying Dutchman http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/13/free-speech-geert-wilders
Bismillah [IslamCity] Bashir Ahmad: The Scottish Parliament's first Asian member
Bashir Ahmad was a man of extraordinary grace, kindness and decency. The Scottish Parliament, in which he served all too briefly as its first Asian and first Muslim member, is much the poorer for his passing. Bashir Ahmad: The Scottish Parliament's first Asian member http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bashir-ahmad-the-scottish-parliaments-first-asian-member-1609209.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Master of Arts and Scholarships at Qatar University
Master of Arts and Scholarships at Qatar University Dear friends, Are you interested in learning more about Islam? Have you been searching for a golden opportunity to do so? Well, I'd like to inform you of the following... The Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS) is offering full-scholarships for the following programs: 1. Master of Arts in Islamic Studies with a specialization in Contemporary Fiqh 2. Master of Arts in Islamic Studies with a specialization in Religions and Contemporary thought 3. Master of Arts in Public Policy in Islam 4. Master of Science in Islamic Finance 5. Diploma in Islamic Finance 6. Diploma in Islamic Studies Note: only the first two programs require a bachelors of religious studies as a pre-requisite Scholarships include tuition, housing etc. for international students Deadline for applying: 31 March, 09 Deadline for submitting language results (TOEFL & Arabic test): 13 August, 09 Please visit the website for the admissions and scholarship forms and for further details. Contact Information: Admissions Office Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies P.O Box 34110 Doha, Qatar Phone: +974 4546560 / +974 4546559 email: nalmerikhi @ qfis. edu.qa website: http://www.qfis. edu.qa If you are interested for more education info please email to arif1964uk @ yahoo.co.uk
Bismillah [IslamCity] Iran: A nation still haunted by its bloody past - Robert Fisk
Iran: A nation still haunted by its bloody past Robert Fisk: 11 February 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini ushered in a regime that was at once brutal and naive, provocative and dangerous. Please click on the above link to read the full article
Bismillah [IslamCity] Rise of the moderates
Rise of the moderates Out of the rubble of Gaza, global Jewish dissent could be emerging as a more potent force * * * Antony Lerman * The Guardian, Friday 6 February 2009 Each and every Jew who protested as a Jew against the Gaza war had a personal Jewish imperative for doing so. Some simply expressed dismay; most demanded action to end the carnage. To say that we failed is neither an expression of despair nor a statement that dissent wasn't worthwhile. Realism suggests that it was inevitable. Let's be clear: diaspora and Israeli Jewish support for the war was extensive - and extremely dispiriting. It raises the question: critical Jewish voices may have increased, but can we ever trigger decisive change in mainstream Jewish opinion? An unsentimental look at developments may give reason for hope. First, there's been activity in many countries and support for Jewish peace groups has increased. European Jews for a Just Peace, a 10-country federation of such organisations, reports numerous initiatives in Europe. Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other UK groups demonstrated, lobbied, placed newspaper ads and joined demonstrations. IJV groups in Canada and Australia issued statements. Jewish and Israeli protesters in Toronto, Montreal and Boston occupied Israeli consulates. US peace groups have been increasingly active. Together with activity by Israeli groups, this amounts to an undercurrent of protest that is rattling establishment Jewish leadership. Second, some groups of Jews have taken significant stands. On 11 January, the Observer made front-page news of a letter from rabbis, academics and prominent community figures at the centre of UK Jewish life, calling for a ceasefire. In Germany, a letter from 35 supporters of the group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace, demanding an end to "the murder in Gaza", was published on 17 January in the Süddeutsche Zeitung - a major newspaper in a country where expressing public criticism of Israel is difficult for anyone, let alone a group of Jews. But most significant was the strong anti-war stand taken by J Street, the new American liberal "pro-peace, pro-Israel" lobby, which is effectively challenging the influential, rightwing Israel lobby Aipac. Heavily criticised by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a prominent US peace camp leader, for being "profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment", J Street stuck to its guns and attracted increased support. It then warmly welcomed President Obama's appointment of George Mitchell as Middle East envoy, positioning itself to have clout in Washington. The positive consequences for further legitimising Jewish dissent in the US and beyond could be crucial. Third, there are signs of underlying disquiet in the middle ground of normally solid pro-Israel Jewish opinion. On 2 January, Anshel Pfeffer wrote in Ha'aretz: "Extremely disturbed and hurt by the level of civilian deaths and destruction ... [these Jews] say, there must, there has to be another way of doing this. And they live with those doubts, often unexpressed, even among families and close friends, because the worst thing they find is that others around them don't seem to discern between the different nuances, and can't find in themselves compassion for the dead and wounded on the other side." Pfeffer is not alone in sensing this mood, which suggests Israel is perilously close to the line beyond which even some of its strongest supporters cannot go. Two encouraging conclusions can be drawn. First, although it seems most Jews shrink from the truth and embrace the Orwellian "war is peace" propaganda, doubts are growing. For Jewish dissenters who seek an appropriate language to persuade mainstream Jewish opinion that Israel is going in the wrong direction, the effort may produce results. Second, dissenting peace groups can be stubbornly independent and make a virtue out of minor differences. But effective coordination during the Gaza war proved empowering. It's surely worthwhile attempting to create a critical mass, united around key objectives, and expressed in language that can connect with mainstream Jewish opinion. Israel is heavily dependent on what Jews think. Its leaders turn to their support whenever they face an internal crisis or need cover for some new military adventure. But it's now not too far-fetched to think Jewish opinion could turn decisively against Israel's current path. This would shake the government and help change Middle East realities. So, out of the rubble of Gaza and the political failure it represents, Jewish dissent may emerge a more potent force. A final cautionary note: Jewish opposition to the Gaza war was not qualitatively different from anyone else's. And it's not more important than the horrendous experience of the people of Gaza. But were that opposition to be translated into a rolling tide of Jewish opinion, it may have a moderating influence on Israel. This would benefit Palestinians, who de
Bismillah [IslamCity] UK activists boycott Israel
UK activists boycott Israel UK will import many of its Valentines flowers from Israel Saturday, 07, Feb 2009 12:03 By Laura Miller Demonstrators are planning nationwide protests today to boycott the sale of Israeli goods on UK high-streets. The national Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG) campaign, led by a coalition of pro-Palestine and anti-war groups, aims to impact on Valentines Day sales of flowers, many of which Israel exports to the UK. David Wilson, spokesperson for Stop the War, one of the groups supporting the campaign, told politics.co.uk: "Valentines Day is the perfect day for love to all, and for people to remember those suffering abroad." He compared the action to the boycott of South African goods during apartied. "Apartied herded one people into a caged area of the country. What is Gaza if it's not comparable to that?" he said. The largest protest is expected in Middlesex at Carmel-Agrexco, the Israeli national exporter of fruit and vegetables and importer of large quantities of flowers to the UK. All the large supermarket chains will be targeted, as well as Barlays bank and Marks and Spencers, which has incurred heavy criticism in the past from pro-Palestine campaigners over claims the company's owner, Phillip Green, supports Israel through business deals and investments. Speaking to politics.co.uka spokesperson for M & S denied claims the chain has a political interest in importing goods from Israel. "We don't have a special relationship with Israel, we have a relationship with individual farmers," she said. "At the moment we don't even source very much from Israel, maybe ten out of 500 lines." Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the main organisers of today's protests, is also backed in the BIG campaign by the Jewish Boycott Israeli Goods group. Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust, an organisation that acts to prevent and record violence against British Jews, said that while Jewish participation in the BIG campaign helped represent the community's diversity, it also added to the negative affect such campaigns have on British Jews. "British Jews have no control or influence over what's happening in the Middle East. Campaigns like this can have the best motives in the world but it doesn't change the negative impact of the Jewish community," he told politics.co.uk. "The involvement of a small number of vocal Jews allows others to point the finger at the large silent, blameless majority. This affects Jewish morale, because it encourages people to regard Jews as moral reprobabtes." Outside No 10 Downing Street on Sunday a separate protest, "Children for the Children of Gaza", has been organised to show solidarity with the children in Gaza and Palestine on the whole.
Bismillah [IslamCity] Antisemitism : Language and history
Antisemitism Language and history * Editorial * The Guardian, Saturday 7 February 2009 Distinguishing between anti-Zionism and antisemitism has become a growth industry for every university department of cultural criticism. It is time the debate came out into the open, away from the classrooms and the academic journals. On average, there is an antisemitic attack of some kind every single day in the UK: graffiti, vandalism, arson and occasionally actual physical assault. Jewish schools have been granted extra protection. The Community Security Trust, which monitors incidents, issues frequent advice and warnings. According to the Trust the number of such incidents has risen again since Christmas, and the assault on Gaza. The government acknowledges that there is a growing problem. Responding to a two-year investigation by an all-party committee, it was decided that from this April, every police force will be required to keep a record of antisemitic offences. This is not because - as some extremists on the right and possibly the left might claim - the government is in the pocket of a "Jewish lobby". There is no "Jewish lobby" in the conspiratorial sense that the slur implies, and to assert that there is can only be the result of the kind of racism that has scarred Europe from tsarist Russia to the fascists and Stalinists of the 1930s through to the jihadists now. To present all Jewish people as conterminous with Israel and its supporters is a mistake with potentially terrible consequences. It aligns ethnicity with a political perspective, and it is simply racist. The government has also recognised that there are "specific indications that, unlike other forms of racism, antisemitism is being accepted within parts of society instead of being condemned." The left fought a long and honourable battle for racial equality, but some within its ranks now risk sloppily allowing their horror of Israeli actions to blind them to antisemitism. There is an ill-considered tendency to reach for the language of Nazism in order to excoriate Israel, regardless of its impact on the climate of tolerance. Last month, a rally in defence of the people of Gaza that included verbal attacks on the so-called "Nazi tendencies" of Israel was followed by actual attacks on Jewish targets in north London. That is not, of course, to say we should not criticise Israel and judge it by the same criteria as any other state. It is chilling to see "kill Arabs" graffitied on homes in Gaza. But the style in which that is condemned must not create the climate that allows scrawling "kill Jews" on synagogues in Manchester. For that is what is at stake: what might merely be insensitivity can, cumulatively, erode the conditions that foster racial tolerance. For they depend not only on the laws, but on a respect for all people's sensitivities.
Bismillah [IslamCity] Barack Obama: The action we need
Last year Barack Obama wrote an article and was published in the same newspaper but that article was removed from the web site of this newspaper on the same day. Now here is another article from him and do not know if this newspaper removes this article from the web site very soon.Arif The action we need Barack Obama: America has a choice: to back my recovery plan, or return to the bad old ways that led to disaster Barack Obama The Guardian, Friday 6 February 2009 By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs they worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring. What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the sense of urgency they feel in their daily lives - action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis. If nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. The US economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse. That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95% of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come. This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending - it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are spent. In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis - the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of healthcare and still expect our economy and our country to thrive. I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our healthcare costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail. Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage, and to computerise the healthcare records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process. Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75% of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years. Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans. And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding crumbling roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway. We have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles - and a sense of purpose above narrow partisanship. © Washington Post http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/06/obama-recovery-plan
Bismillah [IslamCity] All faiths must stand together against hatred
All faiths must stand together against hatred National Holocaust Memorial Day matters because it is not just about Jewish victims, but all those who are touched by atrocity Jonathan Sacks When the Archbishop of Canterbury and I led a mission of leaders of all the faiths in Britain to Auschwitz in November, we did so in the belief that the time has come to strengthen our sense of human solidarity. For the Holocaust was not just a Jewish tragedy but a human one. Nor did it happen in some remote corner of the globe. It happened in the heart of Europe, in the culture that had given the world Goethe and Beethoven, Kant and Hegel. And it can happen again. Not in the same place, not in the same way, but hate still stalks our world. Full Article >> No comments from me. Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] Sir David's hate mail battle
Certainly there is a God, a supreme power. It is OK for some who think there is no Gods, I am not with them and do not believe what they believe; let’s consider on behalf of them that they are right but what if there is a God? If the answer is yes, then what’d happen to those who do not believe in God and someday they will meet Him hereafter, and they cannot help themselves! In New and Old Testaments, and in Last Testament (Koran) God warned us to obey Him, therefore to believe Him or we will face punishments. Charles Darwin introduced a new form of Atheism, I do not know if Darwin has already met the God or not. We have a problem here, we cannot communicate with Darwin or cannot post an email to his new address, if there is any, to know his current position; otherwise we could pick a way of life to stick with! I am shocked to hear Attenborough said, evolution is not a theory; it is a fact. He is a good presenter and educated person but I cannot and do not respect him. Sending hate mails is reflection of someone’s action, good or bad. Attenborough can spread atheism but cannot prove it. BBC must stop him and such programmes. Because of so many problems among followers, priests, from different religions, atheists seized the situation as a good chance to spread this wrong idea to overturn many people’s paths and those atheists will never take the responsibilities of those they have spoiled, when they meet God and face punishments. Our society lost it respect for itself, because of this so-called wrong fact. Proper practise of any religion can bring peace and cohesion in communities, and a religious person cannot hate another religion, followers of another religion. All religious people must unite against these atheists. I do believe in God because no one can prove there is no Gods. Do you believe in God or can you prove there is no God? Please help. Arif Sir David's hate mail battle Veteran broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has revealed he receives hate mail from angry viewers. Tue Jan 27 11:54AM by TV Editor Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he gets hate mail from viewers for not crediting God in his documentaries. The veteran broadcaster, who is presenting a new series on Charles Darwin, said that he has received letters telling him to burn in hell because of his views on evolution. He told Radio Times that he is often asked why he does not credit God when talking about some of the creatures featured on his shows: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. "The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator." He also revealed that he doesn't think creationism should be taught alongside evolution in schools and added: "It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five. "Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066." Are you shocked to hear that Sir David receives hate mail? What do you think of his views?
Bismillah [IslamCity] BBC & The Gaza Appeal: Right & Wrong
The Gaza Appeal The BBC's decision to refuse the charity request is mistaken The death and suffering in Gaza is entirely the fault of Israel. That is a biased statement. The death and suffering in Gaza is entirely the fault of Hamas. That is a biased statement. There has been death and there is suffering in Gaza. That is a simple statement of fact. It is worrying that the the BBC is not able to make this distinction. The BBC's decision not to screen the appeal for funds for humanitarian aid is an error. First, it elevates bizarre media preoccupations about the Corporation's image above the need to help people in an emergency. The BBC is choosing an odd moment to demonstrate concern that its Middle East coverage be seen as balanced. Second, the fear expressed that footage of the conflict might confuse viewers is patronising. Viewers are easily able to tell the difference between a humanitarian appeal and a news report. And, third, the BBC's market power is such that it needs to be very careful when using it in such circumstances. It has the ability to deny the consortium of charities access to a large part of their audience. It ought only to refuse such a request when it feels it entirely unreasonable. However, the most important reason why the decision is a mistake is not without irony. The BBC is evidently concerned that to show pictures of the suffering, and plead for assistance, is to take sides, presumably against Israel. But this reveals that they believe that, once you have seen the suffering, you can only take one side. Naturally, this is not true. The point is that people are suffering, terribly. Giving aid to Gaza is something that can and should be done, whoever you think is to blame for the conflict. Editorial, The Times The charities are guilty, not the BBC The Corporation is right not to run the Gaza appeal. Oxfam and others are clearly anti-Israel Andrew Roberts Full Article >> No comments from me. Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] A decisive loss for Israel
A decisive loss for Israel Hamas has emerged from the war stronger. Now we look to Obama to repair the errors of silence * Mousa Abu Marzook * The Guardian, Thursday 22 January 2009 Full Article
Bismillah [IslamCity] Shoe-throwers give Bush the boot
Shoe-throwers give Bush the boot Video (1min 23sec), From the Middle East to Mexico, protesters say goodbye to former US president Watch here >>
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn't it time for a war crimes tribunal?
Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn't it time for a war crimes tribunal? Monday, 19 January 2009 Mr Ban said it would not be up to him to launch a war crimes tribunal. It was pathetic It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza. Please click here to read the full article
Bismillah [IslamCity] Gaza - Obama speaks out about white phosphorus weapons (photo NOT for the weak)
See what is going on there in Gaza! Something you cannot find from controlled Media. I heard on trains people share jokes, saying, oh look to this picture, indicating a picture, how nice way Israel is backing the future terrorists! I was lost there! We may have problems and we may fight but we cannot enjoy killing or burning children, whoever it is! Did you notice, how cute a baby crocodile or a baby Cobra or a baby Tiger is, can you kill any them, the future killers? Sick! May Allah, the only God, destroy them! Contains very disturbing pictures, weak people should not try for this. Arif Received from: Gerald Ali, with thanks Tuesday, January 13, 2009 Click below: Gaza - Obama speaks out about white phosphorus weapons
Bismillah [IslamCity] Demonstrators in anti-Hamas protest
Yesterday, we were there, outside Israeli embassy and today the Zionists are in Trafalgar Square, London. It is normal, human for human and Zion for Zion! Yesterday, Police beaten demonstrators badly and I heard a rumour and many believed it that Police department selected Jews Police personals who overreacted, feeling their job was to support and protect their holy land and against their enemy. Many known non-Zion anti-Zion Jews joined the demonstration yesterday; I liked it. While returning home, a man on a train asked us, why we were supporting Palestine, what was the point? Adding, they got a point to support Israel, Israel is a Jewish State and any non-Israeli Jew can support that country, considering Israel as their 2nd country, why we support Palestine as we are not Palestinian and Palestine is not an Islamic country? When I replied that Jewish State is forbidden by Judaism and it is a sin supporting Israel being a Jew, they murmured, said nothing. They knew this and we were able to see guilty feelings among them. Then I added, if you all non-Israeli Jews can believe that Israel is your 2nd country then why we all non-Palestinian Muslims cannot consider Palestine as our 2nd country? At that time train was standstill and we heard no sounds, lips remained zipped, big silent we observed! Also, if you are in Britain, please TEXT the word CEASEFIRE to 81819 from any phone. Guardian Newspaper are running a poll on Gaza. Forward to all. Its free to text. Thank you. Arif Here I have added a news item: Demonstrators in anti-Hamas protest 39 mins ago * Thousands of pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered in London's Trafalgar Square to "reclaim the public space" from their political opponents. Details >>
Bismillah [IslamCity] Please sign the petition: To STOP the UK sending weapons to Israel.
Dear friends,Please click here to go to the main petition page. I have just received a message from a friend of mine; regarding signing up the petition to ask the British Prime Minister to do everything in his power to impose an arms embargo on Israel in light of the recent Israeli offensive. I wish to share this with you. This message is for everyone but you must be a British citizen or resident to sign the petition. Please ACT now! – Deadline to sign up by: 27 January 2009 – The petition was created by Yusuf Ibrahim and reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to do everything in his power to impose an arms embargo on Israel in light of the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip and to apply pressure on countries supplying Israel with arms that breach international agreements with the intention of restoring lasting peace to the region.'May God destroy Zion, Israel and their supporters! Zion are the worse and common enemy of human race! Jewish State is forbidden by Judaism. Israelis are not Jews, atheist Zion! All the best. Thank you, Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] UNRWA requires: Senior External Relations & Project Officer, P-4 for Palestine Refugees.
Yesterday I watched a TV report where I learnt that most aid workers are fleeing from Palestine. UN needs support from us to support innocents. Please check if you can help them. Arif UNRWA requires: Senior External Relations & Project Officer, P-4 United Nation Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Closing date: 18 Jan ‘09 Please check details from this website: Jobs at UNRWA or UNRWA
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk: Keeping out the cameras and reporters simply doesn't work
Robert Fisk: Keeping out the cameras and reporters simply doesn't work Monday, 5 January 2009 What is Israel afraid of? Using the old "enclosed military area" excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game – in Jenin in 2000 – it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers – and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported. Please click here to read the full article
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk: The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act
It is now known that Gaza assault and killing of one Hamas leaders boosts Ehud Barak in polls. Oh! What a great achievement! A good reply to those who argue knowing everything! This is what they were after, don't they? No doubt Hamas did some mistakes but Israel could avoid this attack finding other ways to solve this problem. Instead they used this chance to boost their election. One Guardian columnist said it best: Israel has plenty of tactics for war, but none for peace. This article is also a good reply to those who have attacked me (not form all groups). Please read this article to soothe you. These all discussions are not Hamas , Israel or Fatah related but the ordinary people from both sides. They are dying horribly, especially people in Gaza . Mr. Bush also gave a green signal for this attack, what more! Now I am bit confused (and it is possible) if Hamas was bribed by Israel for the purpose they were heading for! Who knows! Because of my previous posting/s regarding Gaza and Israel , I received many replies from members of groups where I posted these mails. Some to groups and most to me personally. Thanks to you all. I am sorry I have no times to reply to everyone separately. Here is a common reply to all: I am not against ordinary or Hebrew Jews. The so called Promised Land was a part of conspiracy to control the Arab world and it wealth. It is against Judaism. Whenever I say this no one makes a sound but argues for other topics. Jews from around the world were lured to live and work in Israel, most of them are innocents. Rulers and supporters of the Israeli authority are Zion and they are not Jew. They are atheists and using a religious cover to deceive everyone including themselves! They even hijacked the symbol of Prophet David (PBUH). Israel must back to the border allocated by donors countries (by saying this I do not accept an Israeli State). Also, if they really want to live in a country why not they select a place somewhere in Europe or in America , Hawaii ! I am not supporting Hamas, Fatah or Israel, all I am saying is for the innocent people and whoever and wherever they are. As part of Arab, Muslims and monotheist Jews I feel the heat as well and it is normal my postings burn the souls of them who suppport Zion or part of them. No more. Thanks for your time and contacts. Please find few more articles below Arif Robert Fisk's World: What's in a name? Quite a lot, where the military is concerned Churchill objected to names of a frivolous nature and banned Operation Bunnyhug Saturday, 3 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article Robert Fisk: The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act There was a day when we worried about the "Arab masses" – the millions of "ordinary" Arabs on the streets of Cairo, Kuwait, Amman, Beirut – and their reaction to the constant bloodbaths in the Middle East. Please click here to read the full article Adrian Hamilton: Pure politics is driving this war The bombing happened because it was in the interests of all parties concerned Thursday, 1 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article Donald Macintyre: Lessons of Lebanon return to haunt Israel Livni adopts hardline stance against truce as candidates seek votes in Israeli elections Thursday, 1 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article Anne Penketh: Tehran's links with Hamas could spark retribution How long will it take Iran to enrich enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon? Saturday, 3 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article Hamas accuses senior Palestinian aides of spying for Israelis Thursday, 1 January 2009 Hamas has accused senior aides of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, of spying for Israel, underscoring an intensification of Palestinian infighting even in the face of Israel's bombardments in the Gaza Strip. Please click here to read the full article Gazans face ‘humanitarian crisis’ as raids intensify Aid agencies warn of looming disaster with supply shortage inflicting more suffering on families. Please click here to read the full article Social networking sites enter Gaza conflict Friday, 2 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article Protesters demand Egypt opens Gaza border By Robert Dex, PA Friday, 2 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article
Bismillah [IslamCity] German Chancellor Merkel defends Israeli onslaught on Gaza
How painful is this! She is a Zion. She is not alone and this is fact! It is rather impossible to think that some people even supporting this manslaughter job by Israel! Israel is killing people surrounded by fence!I wonder, how these people support this assault to find a solution. What a weird world! I have added some similar articles in this message regarding Gaza. Arif German Chancellor Merkel defends Israeli onslaught on Gaza By Dietmar Henning 2 January 2009 Please click here to read the full article The assault on Gaza offers the best hope of peace There is no excuse for the loss of life, but Israel is right to seek the destruction of Hamas, says Con Coughlin. By Con Coughlin Last Updated: 9:46AM GMT 02 Jan 2009 Please click here to read the full article Hamas is the obstacle to Middle East peace 31/12/2008 | By Ron Prosor | comment Israel's critics have got it wrong - extremists in Gaza must be defeated before a better future can be built, writes Ron Prosor, Israel's Ambassador to the UK. Please click here to read the full article Hamas: the betrayal of the Palestinian cause In contrast, Hamas has dislodged. the Palestinian cause from its foundations, and turned ... betrayal of the Palestinian cause, but they would have ... Please click here to read the full article
Bismillah [IslamCity] MSc Scholarships for Israel and Palestine Students, Study of Human Rights
MSc Scholarships for Israel and Palestine Students, Study of Human Rights MSc Human Rights Scholarship Programme 2009 for Israel and Palestine Students: New scholarship to promote human rights in Israel and Palestine/Occupied Territories The Centre for the Study of Human Rights is delighted to announce the Sir Siegmund Warburg Scholarship available to students joining the MSc Human Rights programme in October 2009. This new scholarship, which will be available every year from 2009, will offer Palestinian and Israeli students the opportunity to undertake full-time postgraduate human rights study at LSE. The MSc Human Rights programme offers a concentrated, twelve-month engagement with human rights. The core course ‘Approaches to Human Rights’ provides students with an overview of the various philosophical, sociological and legal approaches to the subject. The core course is designed to give a strong intellectual underpinning to the MSc, which is then built on further through the choice of optional courses and dissertation subject which each student makes. More information about the MSc Human Rights is in the graduate prospectus. The scholarship will cover the tuition fee (£13,992) and living expenses of £1000 per month (for up to 12 months). One scholarship will be awarded each year. Welcoming the scholarship, the Director of the Centre of theStudy of Human Rights at LSE Professor Conor Gearty, who also convenes the MSc programme, warmly thanked the anonymous funder whose generosity had made the scholarship available. ‘The academic study of human rights is not only about ideas and intellect, it is also about practice, about making a difference, and nowhere is this a more important goal than in the Middle East. I am very optimistic that over time the holders of this scholarship will make a real difference for the better in that troubled region.’ How to apply Applicants interested in the scholarship must first make a formal application to LSE to the MSc Human Rights via the online LSE application form. Eligible students (those resident in Israel, Palestine/ Occupied Territories or Palestinian camps in Syria, Jordan or Lebanon) may then apply for the Sir Siegmund Warburg Scholarship via the Financial Support Office at LSE. Applicants are required to submit a personal statement in which they should explain how they meet the criteria set out for the Scholarship and how they envisage putting their study programme to practical use. The criteria Applicants must be resident in Israel, Palestine/ Occupied Territories or in Palestinian camps in Syria, Jordan or Lebanon. They must be able to demonstrate both financial need and the potential to engage in, promote and set high standards for human rights work in the region. Applications must be submitted to the Financial Support Office by Friday 24 April 2009. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by Friday 22 May 2009. As scholarship applications can only be accepted by those who have already been offered a place on the MSc Human Rights, candidates are urged to apply to the MSc Human Rights as early as possible. The Sir Siegmund Warburg Scholarship has been made possible by the generosity of an anonymous donor. Further Scholarship Information and Application
Bismillah [IslamCity] Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! Revellers in New Zealand already enjoyed the New Year, perhaps Japanese as well. Click here to know moreclick here to read. When people enjoy fire works I can clearly see the same fire works were enjoyed by our (British) and USA soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan and now the Israeli soldiers are enjoying in Gaza. The real fire works! I only can see the reflections of our bombardments in many countries. The differences: people enjoy fire works to perk them up, to cheer and the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza scream, the real fire works shatter their souls. To support people in Gaza do not enjoy or join fire works. It is hard to turn the TV or Computer on or grab a newspaper! I wish someday these arrogant oppressors know that they are human being as well. Please stop the attack now, this is unbearable! Fortune-tellers predicted some good and bad things, Though it is not possible but wish no more wars.- Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] Conference: "Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Agenda: The First Year"
Conference: "Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Agenda: The First Year" SETA CONFERENCE Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Agenda: The First Year By Robin WRIGHT, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Date / Time: November 26, 2008 Wednesday / 16.00–17.30 Venue: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, ANKARA We are pleased to invite you to a conference entitled "Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Agenda: The First Year” to be held in SETA Foundation on Wednesday, November 26, 2008. We very much hope you will be able to attend this special conference by Robin Wright. SETA FOUNDATION FOR POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH Resit Galip Caddesi Hereke Sokak No: 10 GOP, Cankaya 06700 Ankara, Turkey Tel: +90 312 405 61 51 Fax: +90 312 405 69 03 website email: info @ setav.org Contact: Hilal Barýn, Tel: 405 61 51 * 210 P.S.: The language of the conference will be English. No translation services will be provided. Robin Wright has reported from more than a 140 countries on six continents for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times of London, CBS News and The Christian Science Monitor. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and others. Her foreign tours include the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and several years as a roving foreign correspondent. She has covered a dozen wars and several revolutions. She most recently covered U.S. foreign policy for The Washington Post. Among several awards, Wright received the U.N. Correspondents Gold Medal, the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for coverage of African wars. As an author, Ms. Wright has been a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, Yale University, Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Among her books, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran was selected as one of the 25 most memorable books of the year 2000. She is also the author of Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World, and In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade. Currently she is writing a book on Turkey. Website
Bismillah [IslamCity] Zardari: An Accidental President
Man in the News: Asif Ali Zardari By James Lamont and Farhan Bokhari Published: December 5 2008 18:48 | Last updated: December 5 2008 18:48 When Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, arrived in Islamabad this week, Asif Ali Zardari’s daughter, Aseefa, was presented to her at the presidential palace. Your mother was an inspiration, Ms Rice told the 15-year-old in an aside from telling Pakistan to give no quarter to those responsible for last week’s terror attacks on Mumbai. >> More
Bismillah [IslamCity] Baghdad deadline
Baghdad deadline A deal on a US forces pullout must be matched by the region's embrace of Iraq
Bismillah [IslamCity] Lessons from the Mumbai tragedy
Lessons from the Mumbai tragedyFull of rich foreigners and the local elite, smart hotels are prestige targets for terrorists. The only long-term solution, says India under fireThe attacks have exposed an urgent need for security improvements and underscored the fact that the country faces terrorist threats both from within and from without - Dec 1 2008 US intelligence warned India of attacks US intelligence passed warnings to India that Pakistan-based terrorists would infiltrate its territory by sea to attack Mumbai landmarks, including the Taj Mahal hotel. Also: * Thousands of Israelis mourn Jews killed in India New: Mumbai gunman was 'terrorist for cash' Azam Amir Kasab, 21, a Pakistani national from the Punjab, said his father was paid for introducing him to Lashkar-e-Taiba Also: * Mumbai attacks - five terrorists 'missing' * Security agencies search for scapegoats Gideon Rachman, is to strengthen the civilian politicians who realise that Pakistan’s past support for jihadist movements has backfired - Dec-01
Bismillah [IslamCity] 'Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate government'
'Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate government'Robert Fisk As he leaves Afghanistan, our correspondent reflects on a failed state cursed by brutal fundamentalism and rampant corruptionThursday, 27 November 2008 reflects on an Afghanistan cursed by brutal fundamentalism and rampant corruption.
Bismillah [IslamCity] The Big Question: Should children be taught in single-sex classrooms?
The answer is: YES! The Big Question: Should children be taught in single-sex classrooms? By Richard Garner, Education Editor Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Bismillah [IslamCity] UK militant 'killed in Pakistan strike'
UK militant 'killed in Pakistan strike'ITN - 44 mins ago A British Islamist militant has reportedly been killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan. More »
Bismillah [IslamCity] New book : Islam in Inter-War Europe
New book : Islam in Inter-War Europe Islam in Inter-War Europe Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (eds) In the enormous literature on the Muslim world, one of the few gaps in our knowledge is the status of Islam in inter-war Europe, an imbalance this book aims to address. The Muslim population of Europe in the period from 1918-1939 was not one of isolated islands of belief and practice. Rather, there was far more interaction between Muslim communities than had hitherto been imagined. For example, there was much correspondence and exchange of ideas between the Ahmadi-Lahori missions of Berlin and Woking, near London, and Albanian religious leaders. Other topics discussed in this book include the earlier than imagined emergence of notions of a distinctly ‘European’ Islam, the fraught interplay of politics and Islam, especially the development by some governments of Muslim ‘agendas’, the richness and importance of debates within Europe’s Muslim community, the attempts by the Nazis to foment ‘jihad’ and the modus operandi of trans-national networks. London, Hurst New York, Columbia University Press *Contents* *Introduction* ; *i: Muslim networks in Christian lands;* Making Transnational Connections: Muslim networks in early Twentieth-century Britain – Humayun Ansari; Between National and Religious Solidarities: the Tatars in Germany and Poland in the Inter-War Period – Sebastian Cwiklinski; The first Muslim Missions on a European Scale: Ahmadi-Lahori Networks in the Inter-War Period – Eric Germain; *ii: Towards the Building of a ‘European Islam’ Behind the Veil*; The Reform of Islam in Inter-War Albania or the Search for a ‘Modern and ‘European’ Islam – Nathalie Clayer; Shakib Arslan’s Imagining of Europe: The Colonizer, the Inquisitor, the Islamic, the Virtuous, and the Friend – Raja Adal; European Neo-Sufi Movements in the Inter-war Period – Marc Sedgwick; *iii: From state control to Foreign Policy; * Islam in the Service of Social Control: Arab Seamen in Britain – Richard Lawless; The Reform of Shari’a Courts and Islamic Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 1918-1941 – Fikret Karcic; Euro-Islam by ‘jihad Made in Germany – Wolfgang Schwanitz; *iv: Minorities Between acculturation and identity Claim;* Farewell to the Ottoman Legacy? Islamic Reformism and Revivalism in Inter-war Bosnia-Herzegovina – Xavier Bougarel; The Muslim Minority in Macedonia and its Educational Institutions during the Inter-War Period – Muhammed Aruci; The Episode of the Turkish Spelling Mistakes in Greek Thrace, 1929– Yannis Bonos Nathalie Clayer UMR 8032 Etudes turques et ottomanes CNRS-EHESS 54 Bd Raspail 75006 Paris tél. : 01 49 54 23 02 10 Avenue Paul Appell 75014 Paris tél. : 01 43 20 23 90 ---
Bismillah [IslamCity] Family courts can accept sharia law
Family courts can accept sharia law 2 hours 1 min ago Decisions reached according to Islamic law can be accepted by English family courts, it has emerged. Although sharia law officially has no jurisdiction in England, a ruling passed on a separating couple by a sharia council can be submitted to a formal family court. There, the principles of the sharia judgment, embodied in a consent order, may be rubber-stamped by a judge. The situation became clear when Justice minister Bridget Prentice told MPs: "If, in a family dispute dealing with money or children, the parties to a judgment in a sharia council wish to have this recognised by English authorities, they are at liberty to draft a consent order embodying the terms of the agreement and submit it to an English court. "This allows English judges to scrutinise it to ensure that it complies with English legal tenets." A consent order can deal with the division of money, property, savings and child maintenance, according to the compactlaw.co.uk website. The court will "rubber-stamp" the order if it decides the agreement reached is fair, and the order will then act as a contract between the couple. If the court is not happy with the consent order it may ask for more information or for the couple to attend a hearing. In the written answer to MPs, Ms Prentice stressed: "Any order in a family case is made or approved by a family judge applying English family law." But Robert Whelan, of the Civitas think tank, told the Daily Mail: "Women who live in some communities may have no option but to go to the sharia court. The case is then rubber-stamped by a family court without any of us knowing how the decision was reached." http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20081025/tuk-family-courts-can-accept-sharia-law-6323e80.html --- Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] The Washington insider who made Obama rich
The Washington insider who made Obama rich By D.D. Guttenplan Published: October 24 2008 22:53 | Last updated: October 24 2008 22:53 The Financial Times Limited 2008 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35d28f90-9f13-11dd-98bd-77b07658.html?nclick_check=1 --- Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] Muslims for America
Muslims for America Colin Powell's declaration – 'So what if Obama is a Muslim?' – was an overdue repudiation of Republican smears Wajahat Ali guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008 Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a writer and attorney, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders is the first major play about Muslims living in a post 9/11 America. He is the Associate Editor of Altmuslim.com More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/22/mccain-obama-muslim-powell --- Arif
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: Translators needed for poem
FROM: Linda Please contact jocklerouque@ yahoo.com directly if you can translate this! Hi, I'm looking for translators -- Spanish, Arabic, French, German, etc. (Italian's taken care of :) Thanks, Jock "The Revolution Will Not Be Organized" The revolution will not be organized, the revolution will not be organized .com, the revolution will not be Yahoo Grouped, Meetuped, downloaded, uploaded, QWERTY'd, or blogged. The revolution will not be handled by webmasters, think-tankers, authors of policy position papers, authors of anti-policy position papers, secretaries, executives, executive assistants, insiders, whistle-blowers, informants, counter-informants, committees or sub-committees. Your neighbor with excellent leadership qualities will not lead you into, through, or out of the revolution. The revolution will not be inspired, instigated, managed or controlled by him, her, or them. The revolution will not be organized. No matter if you eat at McDonald's and can barely walk, no matter if you drive an S.U.V. and rarely walk, no matter if you were public school indoctrinated, vaccinated, humiliated, ostracized, terrorized, minimized, no matter if you live in a house owned by BofA, no matter if you eat cat food, dog food, Puppy Chow for your inner child, no matter if you shop at Salvation Army, Saks, TJ Maxx, when the Cold Hand of Power touches you, it touches revolution. They will come to chip you, rape you, tell you you are theirs, imprison you in FEMA camps because you spoke out, because you doubted the official story, because you looked with your own eyes, spoke from your own heart. They will come for you in black uniforms, black helmets, swinging black batons, symbols of the New Authority, and you will say, "No, my children and I will not come with you." You will say no -- not because Charlie Sheen inspired you one night on FOX News to look more closely at falling towers. You will say no -- not because Alex Jones led you through the darkness with a bullhorn. You will say no -- not because Howard Zinn handed you the Book of Truth on a silver platter. You will say no because you are your own star of truth shining the way. At your unique hour, in the dark, beneath a burning paper currency moon, the Cold Hand of Power will touch you and revolt you. At your unique hour, when they come for you because you asked questions, because you did not lower your eyes, because you did not bow down, at your unique hour, in your unique circumstance, you will find yourself in the grip of a courage you have not known but which you are. You will stand in front of black helmets with invisible faces, and you will say, "No, my children and I will not come with you." Daughters and sons of revolutionaries, blood burning for freedom, eyes set toward tomorrow, each of you alone in the darkness, beneath tender constellations burning gold and silver, each of you will remember the path to take when the Cold Hand of Power comes for you, each of you will make your way without direction or encouragement, as those before you made their way without direction or encouragement, forging history, embracing destiny. You will not march in file. You will not march. The revolution will not be organized. In your darkest hour, beneath the burning moon, you will pledge allegiance to the truth, as those before you pledged allegiance to the truth. The truth cannot be organized. * * * * "The Revolution Will Not Be Organized" written by Jock Doubleday on September 24, 2008 http://therevolutionwillnotbeorganized.org/ http://freedetainees.org
Bismillah [IslamCity] Asian Youth Fellowship (AYF)
Asian Youth Fellowship (AYF)ayf @ asiaseed.org More info : http://www.asiaseed.org/ayfj/ Asian Youth Fellowship (AYF) Program aims to nurture human networking among ASEAN countries, Bangladesh and Japan. The AYF preparatory course before entering Japanese Graduate School as Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) scholarship student is offered by The Japan Foundation. AYF program is open to university graduates in the region who wish to contribute to regional cooperation after obtaining a Master and/or Ph. D. Degree in Japanese Graduate Schools as follows: Features of the Asian Youth Fellowship ProgramAYF consists of the following component: Co-ordination of a host professor and research plan development during the preparatory course in Japan Preparatory course (Japanese Language and cultural activities) Follow ups after completing the preparatory course The scholarship grantees shall receive a preparatory course in the Japanese language for approximately 7 months, at The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai, Japan. The preparatory course is developed for people who have never learned Japanese language before. Grantees are provided with dormitory. Accompanying family is NOT allowed during the preparatory course. After completing the preparatory course, grantees will be proceeding to Japanese graduate schools as Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) scholarship students (principally Research Student) . Field of Study Any of the fields in Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering and Natural Science is acceptable.. Students pursuing study areas that would contribute to his/her country or region will be given preference. * Technical training course is excluded. Qualifications Nationality: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand or Vietnam.AgeAcademic BackgroundsOther requirements: a. Good proficiency in English is required. b. Military men and military civilian employees registered on the personnel list are excluded. c. Applicants should be in good health. d. The applicant whose spouse has already won a Japanese Government scholarship will not be selected as a grantee, and likewise in the case of a couple applying at the same time. e. The applicant who has been awarded a Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) scholarship in the past will not be selected as a grantee unless he/she has had a few years' research or teaching experience after returning to his/her country. Grant Coverage during the Preparatory CourseExpenses Meals Accommodation Overseas travel insurance Round-trip, economy-class airline between the nearest international airport from the residence and Kansai International Airport (Osaka, Japan) on the most direct and economical route.Japanese visa as a trainee *The above terms of the grant will be effective for the period of the preparatory course. After completing the AYF Program, grantees will proceed to Japanese universities as the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) scholarship students. Allowances, accommodations, and other status are subject to Monbukagakusho’s regulations. Selection Japanese diplomatic missions concerned, in cooperation with the foreign governments concerned, will select preliminary candidates from among applicants by means of a review of the documents submitted. Those who have been selected as the preliminary candidates will be recommended to Asian Youth Fellowship Committee, Tokyo, Japan. The Committee will select grantees from among the preliminary candidates by means of an interview made in their respective countries by a mission member assigned and dispatched by the Committee. Final announcement in writing will be provided by the Embassy of Japan after the AYF Committee. The grantees of the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho) scholarship will be finally selected, on condition that they have completed the AYF preparatory course successfully, after the university placement has been made. Application Procedure Applicants must submit the following documents according to the instruction given by the Embassy of Japan in their own country by the date appointed. The documents submitted will not be returned. Cambodia Asia Science and Education for Economic Development Institute E-Mail : (Asia SEED)Shanghai Building 6F, 1-24-12 Shinkawa, Chuo-kuTokyo 104-0033, JapanTel: 81-3-5566-0072 Fax: 81-3-3552-7986: Embassy of JapanAmbassade du Japon, No.194 Norodom Road,P.O. Box 21, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tel: 855-23-217161Fax: 855-23-216162for disease and injury for the duration of the program(a single room) at the Instituteduring the program (partly in the form of cash allowances) and a set amount of allowances to cover miscellaneous living expenses.necessary for participation in the official curriculum (transportation, teaching material, etc.): university or college graduates with a bachelor’s degree or Master’s degree (those who will graduate from
Bismillah [IslamCity] The face of 9/11
No comments! The face of 9/11 By Demetri Sevastopulo Published: August 15 2008 18:03 | Last updated: August 15 2008 18:03 The Financial Times Limited 2008 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ee1c1194-68d0-11dd-a4e5-779fd18c,s01=1.html Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk's World: A region boiling with tales of kings, gangs and war
Robert Fisk's World: A region boiling with tales of kings, gangs and warIndependent, Saturday, 16 August 2008 Two groups from Moscow fought it out with Kalashnikovs amid Dubai's architectural masterpieces I call it the back of the book, the ream of reports and stories that pile up in my reporters' notes which cannot be used; because the sourcing isn't quite good enough for every detail or because there simply isn't enough information to make it long enough to get into the paper. It's an enraging situation since the "back of the book" often turns out to be true – usually bursting into the papers when I'm on holiday or flying back to Beirut from Los Angeles, or, most awful of all, when I'm marching into The Independent office in London for a rare visit. This is one reason why journalists are often more interesting to talk to than to read. The other reason is that American reporters are so fearful of being criticised by Israel that their work is bland to the point of incomprehension; if you want to know what The New York Times or The Washington Post knows, you've got to talk to one of their correspondents. But I'm tired of these conventions. When I hear something in Dubai, then I hear it again in Qatar and then, a week later, over lunch in Beirut – and then on the phone from a friend who's just returned from a holiday in Casablanca – you, the reader, should hear the same. So here goes. The Middle East is currently boiling with rumours about the state of the monarchy in Morocco. Where is King Mohammed V!? In Qatar, they say he has spent two months' holidays in the Far East (Thailand is the favourite) and this would account for his absence at President Sarkozy's Bastille Day bash last month. The King, it is said in Dubai, simply doesn't want to be king any more – I always thought kings liked being kings, but no matter – and that he wants his brother to take the throne. And I suppose we shall never prove that £4bn have left a Moroccan account for Europe... Let's go to the Gulf for a while. Dubai is, as we all know, busy producing the largest, tallest, smallest, deepest buildings in the world. The highest one, however, appears to be a favourite haunt of the Russian mafia and, earlier this year – so Dubai's Indian expatriate community insists – two rival gangs from Moscow fought it out with pistols and Kalashnikovs amid the towering architectural masterpieces. The police had to storm this most famous of all the Gulf's pearls in order to end the battle. Or that's what they say. Oh yes, and then there's the little matter of the new railway line from Dubai city centre, aimed to terminate – for now, at least – at the emirate's new international airport. There's a problem, however. Engineers in Dubai have apparently noticed that the carriages on the largely overhead track will be so narrow that passengers will not be able to carry baggage on them. To Beirut now, and the almost totally unreported – and totally unexpected – arrival in the city of General David Petraeus, the US commander who has turned anarchic Iraq into a tourist paradise with just one surge and a lot of walls (or "fences" as we would have to call them if they were built in Israel). Petraeus saw Lebanon's new President, Michel Sleiman, and the acting commander of Lebanon's army, General Shawki el-Masri, with whom he discussed how to "strengthen the army's defensive capabilities, training and logistics". Petraeus, the most popular general in American journalism, is to take charge of US central command, which will give him overall command of the Middle East, but you might have thought Lebanon was some way down his list of priorities. Not so. For when you remember that the Lebanese army fought one of al-Qa'ida's satellite groups, Fatah al-Islam, for months last year – last week's bomb in Tripoli that killed nine Lebanese soldiers might have been the group's revenge – Petraeus has good reason to turn up in Beirut. Many of the suicide bombers who have assaulted Petraeus's men in Iraq started their journey from the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon whose perimeters are guarded by Lebanese troops. Since 2006, the US has given about £170m in military assistance to Lebanon – Israel, of course, gets £1.5bn year – which includes Humvees, ammunition and lots of new blue police cars. And there's just one more thing. Less than a week after Petraeus's visit, Sleiman was to pay his first presidential visit to Damascus, Did the American general perhaps have a few requests to make of President Bashar al-Assad via Sleiman? A word of thanks, perhaps, for improving security along Syria's border with Iraq? A plea for a little more help in restraining the insurgents, perhaps even paving the way for good relations with the next US president? It will, obviously, take a bit longer before President Petraeus arrives in the White House... Yet still the Middle East debates whether Israel or the US will bomb Iran. Personall
Bismillah [IslamCity] Man in the News: Mikheil Saakashvili: The return of the great powers: Moscow warns it could strike Poland over US missile shield
Man in the News: Mikheil Saakashvili By Quentin Peel Published: August 15 2008 18:27 | Last updated: August 15 2008 18:27 The Financial Times Limited 2008 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33a7495e-6aed-11dd-b613-779fd18c.html Rupert Cornwell: The return of the great powers Russia lost the original Cold War, but the United States is now weaker than it was 20 years ago Independent, Saturday, 16 August 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-the-return-of-the-great-powers-898997.html Moscow warns it could strike Poland over US missile shield · US condemns 'bullying' of Georgia · Russian general threatens nuclear attack * Ian Traynor in Brussels, Luke Harding in Tbilisi and Helen Womack in Moscow * The Guardian, * Saturday August 16 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Bismillah [IslamCity] Mikhail Gorbachev: A Path to Peace in the Caucasus: We had no choice
A Path to Peace in the Caucasus: We had no choice By Mikhail Gorbachev Washington Post Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A13 MOSCOW -- The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all. The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. This turned out to be a time bomb for Georgia's territorial integrity. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force -- both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar -- it only made the situation worse. New wounds aggravated old injuries. Nevertheless, it was still possible to find a political solution. For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground. Through all these years, Russia has continued to recognize Georgia's territorial integrity. Clearly, the only way to solve the South Ossetian problem on that basis is through peaceful means. Indeed, in a civilized world, there is no other way. The Georgian leadership flouted this key principle. What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity. Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia. In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position. Hostilities must cease as soon as possible, and urgent steps must be taken to help the victims -- the humanitarian catastrophe, regretfully, received very little coverage in Western media this weekend -- and to rebuild the devastated towns and villages. It is equally important to start thinking about ways to solve the underlying problem, which is among the most painful and challenging issues in the Caucasus -- a region that should be approached with the greatest care. When the problems of South Ossetia and Abkhazia first flared up, I proposed that they be settled through a federation that would grant broad autonomy to the two republics. This idea was dismissed, particularly by the Georgians. Attitudes gradually shifted, but after last week, it will be much more difficult to strike a deal even on such a basis. Old grievances are a heavy burden. Healing is a long process that requires patience and dialogue, with non-use of force an indispensable precondition. It took decades to bring to an end similar conflicts in Europe and elsewhere, and other long-standing issues are still smoldering. In addition to patience, this situation requires wisdom. Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development. Nothing is more important than that. The region's political leaders need to realize this. Instead of flexing military muscle, they should devote their efforts to building the groundwork for durable peace. Over the past few days, some Western nations have taken positions, particularly in the U.N. Security Council, that have been far from balanced. As a result, the Security Council was not able to act effectively from the very start of this conflict. By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its "national interest," the United States made a serious blunder. Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in everyone's interest. But it is simply common sense to recognize that Russia is rooted there by common geography and centuries of history. Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate inte
Bismillah [IslamCity] Greencard scheme in Denmark
Greencard scheme in Denmark: Please click on the link: http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/work/greencard-scheme/greencard-scheme.htm Forward and share with your friends/contacts. __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk: The broken promise of Obama: New actor on the same old stage
Robert Fisk: The broken promise of Obama: New actor on the same old stage If Obama is elected he will be enmeshed in the Middle East tragedy and forced to take sides I was in the studios of al-Jazeera – the Qatar satellite channel so democratic in the eyes of Colin Powell that Bush later wanted to bomb it – while Barack Obama was performing his theatricals in the Middle East. "Theatre" is what I called it on air while the anchor desperately tried to suck some Arab hope out of the whole ridiculous fandango. No such luck, I told him. It isn't going to make the slightest difference to the Arabs whether Obama or McCain wins. Westerners believe that Obama appeals to the Arabs because of his middle name or because he's black. Untrue. They like him – or liked him – because he grew up poor. Like them, he understood – or rather, they thought he understood – what oppression was about. But they quickly found out where they stood in the food chain. Forty-five minutes in Ramallah vs 24 hours in Israel was the Obama equation. Yes, I know the old saw. Every US presidential candidate has to make the pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall, to Yad Vashem, to some Israeli town or village that has taken casualties (albeit minuscule in comparison to those visited upon the Palestinians), to talk about Israel's security, etc. That doesn't mean, we are always told, that Israel is going to have it easy once the US president is elected. Wrong. Israel is going to have it easy. Because no sooner is he elected than he will be enmeshed in the Middle East tragedy and be forced to take sides – Israel's, of course – and then it will be time for the next election, so the president's hands will be tied again and he'll be talking about Israel's security (rather than Palestinian security) and we'll be back on the same old itinerary. It's like the Lebanese, who keep believing that a Labour government is better than a Kadima or a Likud government in Israel; a clever idea, but – whoever runs Israel – the bombs keep falling on Lebanon. It's not that US presidents shouldn't understand the immensity of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust – it's a pity the Arabs still won't acknowledge it – but the Second World War is over and, right now, Israel continues to build colonies for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Of course, Obama made the usual references to Jewish settlements not being helpful to peace, just as Gordon Brown did a few days earlier. And the Israelis showed what they thought of both men by announcing further colony-building within 24 hours of Obama's departure. But hasn't anyone realised that Obama has chosen for his advisers two of the most lamentable failures of US Middle East policy-making? There, yet again, is Dennis Ross, a former prominent staff member of Aipac, the most powerful Israeli lobby in America – yup, the very same Aipac to which Obama grovelled last month – and the man who failed to make the Oslo agreement work. And there is Madeleine Albright who, as US ambassador to the UN, said that the price of half a million dead children under sanctions in Iraq was "worth it", and who later announced that Israel was "under siege". This must be the only time – ever – that a US politician thought Palestinian tanks were on the streets of Tel Aviv. But this dreary old stage play doesn't end there. No one follows the narrative any more because it is so repetitive. Take Nouri al-Maliki, the PMIGZ – Prime Minister of the Iraqi Green Zone – who's suddenly gone from being the Democrats' favourite target to being their election buddy-buddy, as Max Boot sagely noted in The Washington Post. Maliki suggested to Obama that Iraq will be ready to assume responsibility for its own security by 2010. Bingo. This chimes in perfectly with Obama's promises. But wait a minute. In May, 2006, Maliki announced that "our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year and a half". Five months later, the PMIGZ said that it would be "only a matter of months" before Iraqi security forces "take over the security portfolio entirely and keep some (sic) multinational forces only in a supporting role". Then in January, 2007, Maliki boasted that "within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down". Four months later, he was at it again, claiming that Iraqi forces would control all security "in every province" within eight months. Quite apart from the idea that there is a security "portfolio" in Iraq, his own military chums don't agree with any of this bumph. The PMIGZ's own defence minister claims his forces can't assume responsibility until 2012, while the Iraqi commander in Basra wants US troops to stay until 2020! Even if we ignore all this drivel, what does Obama want to do with his soldiers once he withdraws them from Iraq? He's going to send the poor devils back to Afghanistan, that graveyard of foreign armies where the Taliban were so
Bismillah [IslamCity] Palestinians capture violence of Israeli occupation on video
Palestinians capture violence of Israeli occupation on video In a graphic and hard-hitting film Peter Beaumont speaks to Palestinians filming abuse from settlers and Israeli armed forces * Peter Beaumont in Ni'ilin * guardian.co.uk, * Wednesday July 30 2008 Link to this video An Israeli child from a far-right settler group in the West Bank city of Hebron hurls a stone up the stairs of a Palestinian family close to their settlement and shouts: "I will exterminate you." Another spits towards the same family. Another settler woman pushes her face up to a window and snarls: "Whore!" They are shocking images. There is footage of beatings, their aftermath, and the indifference of Israel's security forces to serious human rights abuses. There is footage too of those same security forces humiliating Palestinians – and most seriously – committing abuses themselves. They are contained in a growing archive of material assembled by the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem in a remarkable project called Shooting Back. The group has supplied almost 100 video cameras to vulnerable Palestinian communities in Hebron, the northern West Bank and elsewhere, to document and gather evidence of assaults and abusive behaviour – largely by settlers. "We gave the first video camera out in Hebron [in January 2007]," says Diala Shamas a Jerusalem-based researcher with B'Tselem. But the project took off in earnest, however, in January this year. The video is sometimes chaotic, jumpy. Sometimes only the audio is captured and a pair of soldiers' boots. But what it documents in all its rough reality is the experience of occupation on a daily basis for the most vulnerable families and communities – giving a voice to those who have been voiceless for so long. "Right now we have about 100 video cameras," adds Shamas. "The largest number are in the Hebron region where the most frequent complaints of settler attacks are. And recently in the northern area and the region next to the [building] of the [separation] wall where there are demonstrations." She explains the reason for introducing the Shooting Back project. "The project started as response to the need to gather evidence. We were constantly filing complaints to no avail on the basis of lack of evidence, or … we don't know the name of the settler. "Now we are going back and forth with our video-cassettes to [Israeli] police station begging them to press rewind, freeze… it is the bulk of our work. The value of the footage is not only evidential. It also has had a remarkable value in terms of advocacy and campaigning. 'We quickly realised the media value of this footage. It is maybe an overstatement but we started bridging this gap between what was happening in the occupied Palestinian territories and what the Israeli public can see. "There was a conspiracy of silence surrounding settler violence in particular. This footage is shocking to Israelis.' And in particular it has been two pieces of video, shot by Palestinians this year and released by B'Tselem, that have gained massive international attention by throwing the issue of human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories back into the spotlight. The first was footage of a group of four hooded settlers from the settlement of Susya armed with what look like pickaxe handles brutally beating a group of Palestinian farmers. The second – not taken as part of Shooting Back programme – but supplied to B'Tselem by a 17-year-old schoolgirl from the village of Ni'ilin earlier this month showed a protester against the building of the West Bank barrier on his village's land being shot in the foot by an Israeli soldier with a plastic bullet as he was held blindfold and bound. The protester was Ashraf Abu Rahma, aged 27. The video was shot by Salam Kanaan aged 17. A constant presence at the demonstrations in the Palestinian villages in the rocky hills of the West Bank, Ashraf is employed by the villages as a watchman on land that is threatened with being taken from the Palestinian villages for the building of the West Bank barrier. He says he was unaware of what was happening to him until almost the moment before he was shot and wounded in the foot. It is only when he saw the video too that he was able to understand what happened to him. Arrested during a demonstration against the West Bank barrier in Ni'ilin on July 7 he recalled last week being almost immediately blindfolded. "They had rounded up the foreigners [from the International Solidarity Movement] and arrested me and another guy separately. "They put me in a jeep and started cursing me, hitting me and using bad language in Hebrew and Arabic. It had never occurred to me that they would shoot. "They held me in the sun for a long time. Later I heard them discussing what they were going to do with me. "I recall hearing a conversation about how to shoot me. What I recall is the words rubber bullet, rubber bu
Bismillah [IslamCity] National insecurity - The Pakistani army must change its tactics against the militants if it is to halt a descent into chaos
National insecurity The Pakistani army must change its tactics against the militants if it is to halt a descent into chaos * * Martin Woollacott * The Guardian, * Wednesday July 30 2008 >From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, the armed forces of the states >located in the world's most intense conflict zone are stacked together like a >dangerous house of cards. They plan, plot and puzzle, as embattled military >establishments always do. Yet the most important decisions are arguably those >that face the army least often mentioned in discussion - that of Pakistan. For the Pakistani army has to decide how to save itself and the country it has dominated for so long. In the struggle across the region, it could even be said that decisions made in Rawalpindi, the army's headquarters, may turn out to be more important than those made in Washington, Baghdad, Tehran or Tel Aviv. And this army is highly autonomous. It has frequently been the government, and remains by far the most powerful institution in the country. The regional war on whose name nobody can agree - terror, occupation, invasion - has shifted its shape in recent years. In western eyes, anyway, it was in the beginning about Afghanistan, then Iraq was its epicentre, until the focus shifted to Iran and its nuclear ambitions, and then back to Afghanistan. Pakistan always figured when Afghanistan was in the spotlight because failure to deal effectively with the Taliban and al-Qaida in the border areas puts Nato forces at a disadvantage. Pakistan was seen as a dimension of the Afghan problem, and was again presented in those terms yesterday when the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Galani, assured George Bush in Washington that Pakistan would strive to secure the Afghan border. Now you could put it the other way round. As insurgents have moved from the border strip to some settled areas of Pakistan in recent months, it is at least an open question as to which country is the sideshow and which the main event. Without demonising these movements - which mix tribalism, jihadism, Pashtun national feeling and criminality, and are also the product of social breakdown resulting from decades of war - it cannot be right that parts of Pakistan are ruled by parallel governments, judged by parallel courts, and make war on their own terms whenever they wish. Militants are even now encroaching on the environs of Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province. In Mohmand, the Taliban controls economic enterprises. The number of foreign fighters entering Pakistan is said to be now much higher than those entering Iraq. And they are coming to Pakistan not only to fight in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan itself. The Pakistani army, however, is still following a strategy of negotiations and ceasefires, punctuated by well-signalled and often bloodless sweeps by the local Frontier Corps. True, this is also the policy of the new national government and of the Peshawar provincial government. It is also true that heavy-handed military operations are not the best counter to insurgency. But in the army's case, the softly, softly approach has been shaped by the defeats and setbacks it suffered in earlier efforts to deal with insurgents and by its own involvement in backing extremist movements. Such movements were useful tools in the confrontation with India in Kashmir, and in influencing events in Afghanistan. It is less a question of the army's tactical choices than of whether it still cannot give up the idea of "keeping" the militant movements as a card in future conflicts. But the militants are out of control. They tried to kill Parvez Musharraf, they probably killed Benazir Bhutto, they have bombed army offices and even the headquarters of Inter-Services Intelligence. The attempt to outwit India, the rationale of the Pakistani armed forces since independence, is outdated. As Ahmed Rashid says in his book on the regional crisis, Descent into Chaos: "The army's insecurity has now come full circle, for Pakistan's very future is at stake as extremists threaten to undermine Pakistan itself." That threat comes at a time when Pakistan is otherwise in a process of renewal, as evidenced by the success of liberal and secular candidates in recent elections. An expanding urban middle class wants a new kind of country, and feudal and tribal dominance in rural areas is fading. Overprivileged and muddle-headed, the army needs to follow suit. If it does so, the moment of opportunity for extremism in Pakistan will be brief - and that could have a transforming effect on the rest of the region. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/30/pakistan __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Iraq's unseen violence - The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq war
Iraq's unseen violence The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq war * * Dan Kennedy * guardian.co.uk, * Tuesday July 29 2008 Even by the squeamish standards of the American media, the photographic record of the war in Iraq is remarkably antiseptic. The paradigmatic images are not of combat or of bodies in the street but, rather, the digital snapshots taken by US soldiers of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated at Abu Ghraib - that is, a consequence of war rather than the thing itself. To an extent not appreciated by the public, the shortage of photographs depicting the dead and dying is not an accident. This past Saturday, the New York Times reported on the plight of Zoriah Miller, a freelance photographer who was banned from covering the Marines because he posted several photos of their dead bodies on his website. Miller, the Times added, is hardly alone in being pressured not to show the world anything too graphic. Questions about war photos are as old as photography itself. More than a century ago, Mathew Brady and other photographers shocked a nation with their images of dead soldiers in the American civil war. More recently, it has become an article of faith on the political right that grisly images of the Vietnam war - including the famous pictures of a street-side execution and of a naked young girl running from a napalm attack - undermined public support and led to the American defeat. Subsequent administrations have made it increasingly difficult for journalists to cover war in all its horror. That effort has reached its nadir during the presidency of George Bush. And though its roots lay in the White House's desperate attempts to maintain some level of support for its failed policies, its censorious campaign is now being waged on behalf of Bush's preferred successor, John McCain. Unpopular as the war is, it would be more unpopular still if the public could truly see it. Think back to the early, triumphant days of the Iraq war, leading up to the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco. War was reduced to a video game, with action figures racing through the desert and streaks of light aimed toward Baghdad. Once the insurgency began, the war became so dangerous for journalists to cover that they became dependent on the American military units with which they were embedded - a very different scenario from Vietnam, where reporters and photographers were able to operate with little interference. More than 4,000 American troops have died to protect their country from Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, but you'd never know it from the nightly news. In a break with longstanding tradition, the White House even banned the media from observing the flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers when they arrive at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware. Contrary to conventional wisdom, bloody images of war do not necessarily undermine public support. I recently had an opportunity to view newsreel footage from the second world war, and a silent clip from the first world war, that were astonishingly graphic in their depiction of violence suffered by both the good guys and the bad guys. The difference is that the second world war, especially, enjoyed near-universal popular support. Terrible images of troops felled in a war for survival only toughened the national resolve. Images of dead American troops in Iraq, by contrast, would - like those pictures from Vietnam - only serve to deepen public anger. Just before I wrote this, I paged through a book of Iraq war photos by Ashley Gilbertson called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Gilbertson, whose pictures have often appeared in the New York Times, is not one to indulge in violence for violence's sake. There is as much blood and death in the brief slide show of Zoriah Miller's work as there is in all 264 pages of Gilbertson's book. Still, Gilbertson's images are difficult to look at because they are so real. His is not the Iraq of General David Petraeus, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the surge-emboldened Sunni Awakening. Rather, we see courageous American troops, terrified civilians and an oppressive, overwhelming sense that it's all going to end badly. Gilbertson closes with the 2005 Iraqi elections, itself a bittersweet victory. He, and we, know that some of the worst violence occurred later on. As it occurs still. On Monday, at least 53 people were killed and another 240 wounded in separate suicide attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk. McCain can repeat "the surge is working" as much as he likes. Iraq remains an incredibly dangerous and fragile country. Interviewers frequently ask Barack Obama if he'll admit he was wrong about the surge, but they rarely ask McCain if he was wrong about the war. In large measure that is because the American public cannot see the full consequences of this tragic mistake - a mistake
Bismillah [IslamCity] 2009 Mexican Government Scholarship for Foreigners
2009 Mexican Government Scholarship for Foreignerswww.anuies.mxScholarship Description and Availability This scholarship is offered to an unspecified number of people.Open for applications until August 7, 2008. This award is to be used for research. This scholarship is paid unspecified. Research Information This scholarship is for any field of research. Application Details You can download a PDF with more information about the scholarship here. Terms and conditions are subject to change. Web Address: Payment Information The value of this scholarship is unspecified (total may vary).http://becas.sre.gob.mxwww.edumexico.orgwww.conacyt.mxThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico has officially opened its Call of Scholarships to receive applications from Non-Mexican citizens interested in applying for any of the following types of activities for the calendar year 2009: Masters Degree, Doctorate Degree, medical Specialisation; Research Fellowships; Post-doctoral Study; Visiting Professors; Specialisation; Artistic Fellowships; Expert Conferences; Research on Mexican Studies; Research on the Mexican Revolution; Research on the Mexican Independence. Please refer to PDF for further details. Other information websites about Mexican educational institutions are: __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] The concept of international justice will be on trial, too
The concept of international justice will be on trial, too Serbs will now look to The Hague for a kind of closure, but it is always better for a nation to seek atonement within itself * * Simon Jenkins * The Guardian, * Wednesday July 23, 2008 The capture of Radovan Karadzic is unqualified good news. Despite yesterday's queue of Balkan pundits eager to destroy any hope of his getting an unadulterated trial, he was half the duumvirate that oversaw the worst atrocities committed on European soil in half a century. The other half, Ratko Mladic, is still on the run. Quite what Karadzic's defence might be is obscure, unless it is that brutality, revenge and the fog of war have long been commonplace in the Balkans. It is not an argument that will appeal to the thousan ds of Muslim and Croat victims of his fraudulent Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Atrocities also committed against Serbs by Croats, notably in Krajina, in no way excuse the systematic Serb killings, especially in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. That Karadzic and Mladic have roamed free for 13 years since their indictment by The Hague tribunal in 1995 has been a disgrace both to the international rulers of Bosnia, including Britain's Paddy Ashdown, and to Serbia itself. But now, with a newly elected government in power, a sort of closure is in sight. Visitors to Belgrade during the 1990s were baffled by the contrast between the European civility of its Serb citizens and their blank refusal to see wrong in what was happening in their name in the federated states of Bosnia and Kosovo. It was like the dismissive attitude of many Britons to colonial peoples in Africa and Asia. After the fall of Tito's communism, the Yugoslav cosmopolis disintegrated into its former parts. The release of hatred was appalling. All who care for peace in the Balkans must now hope that Serbia can put the past behind it. It has paid an awful price for voting for Milosevic in 1990, including the recent loss of Kosovo and Montenegro. It has had to watch regional neighbours such as Slovenia, Croatia and Bulgaria join the European Union while its European credentials remained beyond the pale. This year the Serbs rejected, admittedly by a narrow margin, a return to introspective chauvinism, electing a president and government of pro-western inclinations. The early capture of Karadzic may well have been precipitated by the prospect of European enlargement coming to a halt after the Irish veto. Serbs may not desperately want the EU, but they desperately want to be loved. Not only Karadzic and Serbia are now on trial. So is the concept of international justice at The Hague, reduced to bureaucratic farce by the handling of Slobodan Milosevic in 2002. That trial was supranational jurisdiction at its most flatulent and inert, a monument to the maxim that slow justice is no justice. The prosecution case took three years, and by the end in 2006, both the judge and the defendant were dead. What the court really achieved in the case of Milosevic and the 44 other Serbs brought to trial must be moot. He died in captivity, but the process did much to stir fury among the Serbs that Croats and Kosovans - who could be no less cruel in their ethnic cleansing - had got off lightly at The Hague. The case for war crimes justice in its present internationalised form remains in question. A burgeoning army of jurists points out that "international" crime against humanity is a meaningful concept and that many countries lack the security or the competence to conduct criminal trials, which is true. They also claim that the prospect of a Hague indictment deters the worst of dictators from the worst of atrocities, though it is hard to see this deterrence in practice. Defenders of the international criminal court in The Hague also protest its infancy. As the lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has written: "It has been a long and difficult struggle, legal, political and diplomatic, to hold political and military leaders accountable for crimes against humanity." The concept of impunity for atrocities within sovereign states is now an acknowledged wrong but, says Robertson, it is one that will take time to establish. This defence is wearing thin. It may well be that the world needs a lofty tribunal to enforce agreed standards of behaviour in war, and to call dictators to account. But every murder is a crime against humanity. The glamour of Nuremburg still hovers over a process that has become bureaucratic and trespasses on conflicts that should be dealt with nationally. It is tempting to add that international lawyers who so conspicuously fail to put their professional house in order can hardly expect sceptical statesmen to give them free rein. The existence of The Hague is said to have complicated peace negotiations in Zimbabwe, Congo, Uganda and Sudan. Leaders are reluctant to step down from power without a promise of immunity fr
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: Video: Israeli soldier arrested for shooting prisoner
Video: Israeli soldier arrested for shooting prisoner Anne Barrowclough An Israeli soldier has been arrested after being caught on camera shooting a bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner in the foot. In the video, the Palestinian, Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, is seen being led, handcuffed and blindfolded, to a Jeep by a high ranking officer of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). While the officer, a lieutenant-colonel, grips his arm, a second soldier aims his gun at Abu Rahma’s legs and fires a rubber bullet at him from about 1.5 metres away. The incident took place on July 7 in Ni’lin, a West Bank village which has been the scene of near daily demonstrations by stone-throwing protesters against the construction of the West Bank security fence, according to the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem, which has published the video. The demonstrator says that the bullet hit his left toe. "I closed my eyes and I don’t remember anything," he told the Palestinian television channel that screened the video on Sunday. "It felt like my leg was gone." He said he had been held for about 30 minutes and had been beaten by soldiers before being shot. After the shooting he said he received treatment by an army doctor and was then released. The video was shot by a 14 year old girl who filmed it from her house in the village, and sent it to B’Tselem. After the video was screened, The IDF launched an investigation into the conduct of the soldiers. The Israel Defence Forcecs (IDF) said the soldier, who has not been identified, had been detained. "The soldier has been detained for questioning. Once the investigation is complete measures will be taken," an army spokesman told the AFP news agency. In a statement, the Army called the incident "grave" and in "direct contradiction of IDF values and principles." "Military law forbids inflicting harm on detainees and obligates soldiers to show them respect and ensure their safety," it said. "Incidents when detainees are harmed are, in accordance with IDF policy, forwarded to the Military Police for investigation. As in this case, after reviewing the videotape, JAG Brig-Gen Avichai Mandelblit ordered the opening of a probe into the incident." But an Israeli army spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, added that the film raised several questions. She said it was "clear the images were not filmed in one go," adding: "Where are the missing sequences? What did they contain?" Ms Leibovich said the man went home with an injured toe and did not file a complaint. The army says five border guards, three soldiers and two labourers working on the wall were injured during protests against the barrier in June. Israel says the barrier is needed to stop potential attackers from infiltrating Israel and Jewish West Bank settlements, but Palestinians say it is a land grab aimed at undermining the viability of their promised state. >From Times Online, July 21, 2008 For Video please click below http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4370366.ece __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Out of Iraq, into the White House?
Out of Iraq, into the White House? The Iraqi prime minister's support of Barack Obama's troop exit plan is the biggest story of the election campaign so far * * Michael Tomasky * guardian.co.uk, * Monday July 21, 2008 Boy would I have liked to have been tapping the phone lines between Washington and Baghdad on Saturday afternoon. I would love to know exactly what people in the Bush White House were saying to one another, and more importantly what they were saying to Baghdad, after Der Spiegel published its now-famous interview with the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in which he in essence endorsed Barack Obama's withdrawal timetable. Bush officials acknowledged on Sunday that they did indeed call the Maliki government for, ah, clarification. I bet they did. A Maliki spokesman walked the statement back that same day, but unpersuasively. The New York Times made it a point to get the tape from Der Spiegel and provide its own translation in today's editions. The Times says Maliki said: "Obama's remarks that – if he takes office – in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq … Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq." If that's not a functional endorsement of one candidate's position over the other, then there's no such thing. But don't take my word for it. Take Bush's. On Saturday morning, when Reuters first moved a story based on the Der Spiegel interview, the White House – which commonly sends emails to journalists flogging news stories that defend its positions or actions – mistakenly sent its press list an email based on the Reuters piece with the subject heading: "Iraq PM backs Obama troop exit plan." Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic had the right read on the importance of this over the weekend: "This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? To argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing." Ambinder received an email from "a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to McCain" who wrote, simply: "We're fucked." Not sure about the f-bomb, but "precarious" is certainly hard to argue with. The McCain campaign tried to spin Maliki's comments by saying that Obama is on the side of "unconditional withdrawal" while McCain and Maliki believe withdrawal must be based on "facts on the ground." This is an argument, as MSNBC put it, that "many independent analysts would find questionable" – Obama is not for unconditional withdrawal. That argument won't fly. Longer term, McCain's problem here is that whenever the question of withdrawal comes up – as it will, most notably in the fall debates – Obama can just say something like, "The prime minister – George Bush's prime minister – supports my plan. President Bush and others, including you, have often said that when the Iraqis are ready to stand up, we'll stand down. Mr Maliki says they're ready. Now, John, who's more connected to the reality on the ground?" But there are potential pitfalls here for Obama, who must tread very cautiously for the remainder of this trip. He arrived in Baghdad this morning. He will meet with American commanders soon, including General David Petraeus, who has, it's safe to say, demonstrated through his past congressional testimony that he, like Maliki, is willing to drop political hints. Where Maliki seems to lean Democratic, though, Petraeus goes GOP. If anything can submarine Obama's trip, it's a leak from the military brass suggesting that they met Obama and were unimpressed. Second, Obama needs to be on his watch once he hits Israel. The administration and McCain have many friends there, and Obama does not. We've always known that the European part of Obama's tour should be the easy part – he'll be loved there, and it's hard to picture him tripping up in such a supportive environment. Israel will be a different matter, and I suspect GOP-friendly operatives in the country are thinking about how to lay a land mine or two right now (maybe with some encouragement from Washington). Whatever happens over the course of this trip, Maliki's statement is the biggest story so far in this general-election campaign. It will resonate through the fall, and it started Obama's trip off on a more positive note that he could have dared to imagine, and that frankly he did little to deserve, aside from not being involved with the strategic mistakes made during this war. Apparently, to Maliki, that's enough. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/21/iraq.barackobama __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.
Bismillah [IslamCity] Islam and the pluralist state
Islam and the pluralist state Editorial, The Independent, Saturday July 19, 2008 It would be easy to criticise the Government's plan to fund a new independent board of Islamic theologians to advise the Muslim community about the tricky issues faith provokes in a modern pluralist society. Hardline secularists yesterday trotted out familiar arguments about the separation of church and state while, at the other extreme, Muslims such as Azzam Tamimi – who has sought to justify suicide bombings – were accusing ministers of trying to create state-sponsored Islam. It is not, of course, for the Government to dictate on matters of religious teaching. But that is not what is being proposed. Ministers are merely responding to the call within Muslim communities for a forum in which stronger leadership can be demonstrated on what are often controversial issues. Islam is not like mainstream Christianity with its hierarchies or centres of authority. There is no Muslim pope, nor even the Islamic equivalent of the infamously dispersed authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. But it is not an interpretative free-for-all, as some suggest; it is a faith structure which makes clear appeals to authority. If taxpayers' money is to be spent bringing together a diverse range of British Muslim voices to reflect authoritatively on Islam in a modern context – and in the process show young British Muslims that their faith is compatible with the shared values that go with being a British citizen – that is a powerful public service. The fact that this is to be done in a religious context is a plus rather than a minus. Secularist solutions will not hold much sway with the Muslim community. Indeed, many disenchanted young British Asians need more Islam, not less: unless they have a proper understanding of what Islam is really about, they can all too easily become easy prey for the distortions of jihadists later in life. That is what happened to Britain's 7 July suicide bombers, all of whom had been to secular schools. Mosques are therefore an apposite place in which to hold the new citizenship classes. They will help young Muslims to break out of narrow ethnic or sectarian backgrounds. They will improve their ability to compete for jobs and influence in British society. And they will equip them to play a more active leadership role in their communities. The initiative is to be applauded. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-islam-and-the-pluralist-state-871775.html __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Helping Pakistan: Pakistan’s troubles demand unity
Helping Pakistan: Pakistan’s troubles demand unity Pakistan is rising rapidly up the global risk register. The hopes generated by the elections of February 18, when Pakistanis rejected religious extremists' parties, are evaporating. The country, a nuclear power, and its 165m people are beset by a deepening political and economic crisis, of which yesterday's riot at the stock exchange is but a small manifestation. Yet elected politicians seem unwilling or unable to do anything about it. In some respects, the politicians have been unlucky. It is not their fault that they took over the reins of power just as global food and energy prices were exploding. Subsidies on fuel and food - increased by General Pervez Musharraf, the country's military ruler - made matters worse, forcing the government to choose between two unpalatable alternatives, letting prices rip or watching government finances spiral out of control. At the moment, they have the worst of all worlds: inflation of 12 per cent and accelerating, and a budget deficit already equal to 7 per cent of gross domestic product. It would be serious enough if this were the only issue the government has to confront. But developments in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan are heightening tensions with its neighbours, and preoccupying the US and its Nato partners. Pakistan's army appears to have resumed confrontation with religious militants in these areas, but the extremists have taken advantage of recent ceasefires to launch bolder incursions into Afghanistan. These have already led to hot pursuit missions over the border into Pakistan, which, if they continue and intensify, can only strengthen religious extremists inside the country. The outside world can help Pakistan with finance for development. Yet, the solutions really lie at home. There has been a worrying vacuum at the centre, which has meant that the government has hardly moved to address these gathering problems. The reason has been that the heads of the main political parties, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, have failed to set aside their personal rivalries and thirst for power to govern together to help manage the crisis. Fortunately, so far, the head of the army, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has shown no desire to step in to "solve" the gathering problems. Indeed, military government provides no real answer, as recent history shows. But unless the party leaders come together for the sake of their country, Pakistan's elected party leaders may find that the crisis consumes them too. Editorial: The Financial Times Limited 2008 Published: July 18 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 18 2008 03:00 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d4c4a2a-5461-11dd-aa78-77b07658.html __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Iran and Israel build up their bluffing game
Iran and Israel build up their bluffing game The warlike posturing would be more frightening if there were much likelihood of an Israeli attack - but there isn't Gerard Baker When governments undertake grand gestures in the full glare of public attention, the only thing you can be sure of is that they do not mean what they appear to mean. That's a useful rule of thumb to apply to any exercise in public diplomacy but it's especially helpful when trying to fathom the volatile politics of the Middle East. There has been a certain choreographed quality to events in the skies over the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf in the last month. This week Iran fired a volley of medium-range missiles into the skies over the Gulf, demonstrating its capacity to hit targets in Israel. A month ago, Israeli warplanes carried out large and fearsome warplane exercises over the Mediterranean that looked like a practice run for a bombing raid on Iranian nuclear facilities. It's clear what we are supposed to think. Israel is sufficiently agitated now by the Iranian nuclear threat that it is in the military-strike-planning stage, flying sorties that match in range precisely the distance between Israeli air bases and Tehran. Iran in response makes clear it has the missile capability to take out Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But appearances can be deceptive. In Iran's case at least part of the deception has already been exposed - to mildly comical effect. It turns out that the picture of the launch of four Iranian missiles that appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world yesterday was itself a fake. If you look carefully at the picture, you'll notice that the missile second from right has clearly been pasted in - its launch contrail is identical to that of the one to the left and the cloud of desert sand in its wake is identical to that on the right. Original copies of the photo have now established that the fourth missile failed to fire and so, to cover up the embarrassment, and presumably to protect the promotion prospects of some hapless officer in the Revolutionary Guards, a fairly crude construct was sent to foreign news agencies. Bad news: clearly some of the most sophisticated and effective Western technology has fallen into Iranian hands after all. Good news: it's Photoshop. But if the Iranian military's efforts to deceive are cruder, they may be no less opaque than the cloud of smoke around Israel's own superficially plausible warning shot. The simple reality is that, for all its sabre-rattling, Israel cannot carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on its own. An Israeli strike would require the active co-operation of the US. Israeli F15 and F16 warplanes would not only have to fly and be refuelled in Iraqi airspace - controlled by the Americans - but the whole operation would require logistical support from US bases on the ground in Iraq. Support helicopters would need to be based in Iraq and rescue teams needed to evacuate any downed Israeli pilots would have to operate inside Iraq. In short this would be in effect a joint US-Israeli mission. The catch is that Washington has no intention of joining in any attack any time soon. The military leadership is opposed. Last week Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that an Israeli strike would open up a “third front” for the US - after Iraq and Afghanistan - and suggested it could break an already stretched military. The political leadership at the Pentagon is opposed. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, rarely misses an opportunity to caution in private about the risk associated with an attack on Iran. His senior aides are focused hard on building on the improving stability in Iraq - something that has been achieved at least in part with some covert co-operation between the pro-US Iraqi Government and the Iranians. The Treasury is opposed. Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, not only fears the damage to the US economy and markets that a strike would have as the price of oil rose to at least $200 per barrel. There is also growing optimism at the Treasury that the financial sanctions that it is co-ordinating against the Iranian regime are starting to bear fruit. Though German companies unscrupulously continue to shop around for business in Tehran, officials say, other European companies are increasing co-operating. This week's decision by Total, the French oil giant, to pull out of a possible investment in Iran is seen as a signal victory. And of course the State Department is opposed. Cynics might suppose this is because it's always opposed to anything that might involve someone getting hurt, but that would be unfair. Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues are genuinely confident that they have toughened European resolve and that their diplomacy is working. It is, of course, possible that George Bush would defy his Secretary of State, Treasury Secretary, Defence Secretary
Bismillah [IslamCity] Drug Trade: Afghanistan-Iran-NATO: Consider the poppies
Drug Trade: Afghanistan-Iran-NATO: Consider the poppies A joint Nato-Iran venture tackling the Afghan drug trade could deliver great political fruits for allRoger Howard The Guardian, Friday July 11, 2008 Despite rising casualties and shattered dreams, Nato's Afghan mission need not turn out to be entirely futile. After all, events of recent years have proved Afghanistan to be a land full of surprises, and it might now have some dramatic, and wholly unexpected, political fruits to bear. Although the architects of the campaign doubtlessly never dreamed it, Nato's intervention opens a window of diplomatic opportunity. For just as tensions have been fuelled so dramatically by Iran's test-firing and by talk of impending Israeli or US military action, Afghanistan offers a means by which the Tehran regime and the west can finally reach out to each other. If Nato is to have any hope of curbing Afghanistan's poppy trade it will have to cooperate with Iran - more than half of the country's poppy production seeps through the long, porous Iranian border towards its international market places. But the drug runners would find life much tougher if Nato patrols worked with their Iranian counterparts, pooling their severely stretched resources. At the moment cooperation is non-existent. Yet calls for very much closer dialogue with Nato would be warmly received by Iran, where drug addiction is an even more serious problem than in the west. And Tehran would recognise that closer patrolling of the Afghan frontier would also check the flow of the Sunni insurgents, weapons and refugees that it, like the west, regards as a threat. The potential to establish such a joint venture emerged in the wake of 9/11 when, in a series of secret meetings, Iranian officials met US counterparts. Colin Powell knew that Iranian help was vital, and President Khatami offered Washington its full cooperation - even the use of Iranian airbases. But it wasn't long before this ground-breaking dialogue was torpedoed by Washington hawks and Israeli allegations that Tehran had shipped a vast arsenal to the Palestinian Authority. By January 2002, Iran had been named as part of the "Axis of Evil". Six years on, the prospect of a Nato-Iranian joint venture could play a pivotal role in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. At the very least it would help address Iran's security concerns. It would reduce the deep, lingering sense of mutual mistrust between Iran and the US, reinforcing the vital message that both countries have some complementary aims, and need each other's cooperation. Above all, it would face up to the deeply held Iranian ambition to be treated as a key regional power, a role that Tehran sees not just as a way of maintaining its territorial security but, most importantly, of gaining a certain prestige in the eyes of the watching Arab world. It is this ambition that lies behind its drive to acquire nuclear weapons - or at least maintain its "right" to enrich uranium "without discrimination". A joint venture in Afghanistan might well bestow this status upon the Iranians, making them more willing to renounce their nuclear ambitions. Western governments have hitherto tried to dissuade Tehran with "incentives" based on aid and trade, but these reflect our own, highly materialistic, priorities rather than Iran's particular concerns. The viability of Nato's mission in Afghanistan, and the organisation's wider credibility, are being called into question. At the same time, Israeli ministers and defence chiefs are talking about an "unavoidable" military campaign. So when he visits Tehran later this month, Javier Solana, the EU's high representative, will have nothing to lose, and no time to waste, in trying to coax Iran with promises of a joint Afghan venture. · Roger Howard is the author of Iran in Crisis? and Through the Looking Glass: Foreign Policy and Political Correctness, to be published this month __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel's impasse
Analysis: Israel's impasse By Tobias Buck Published: July 9 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 9 2008 03:00 As the former head of Mossad, Israel's secret service, Danny Yatom is not a man easily ruffled. Yet halfway through his second term in the Israeli parliament, where he served as a deputy for the Labour party, Mr Yatom found he could take no more. Dismayed by the latest backroom deal to preserve the life of the current government for another three months, he announced his decision to retire from politics last week. "The leadership in Israel has made political survival its only goal. Moral and ethical codes that were once fundamental have been eroded," Mr Yatom declared. While he placed the primary blame on Ehud Olmert, Israel's embattled prime minister, Mr Yatom also took aim at his own party, which forms part of the governing coalition: "Olmert failed . . . but he is not alone. As a Knesset member in a coalition party, I feel as though I am a partner in the deterioration when I vote in favour of the government." Israel's former top spy is far from alone in voicing dismay at the state of Israeli politics. According to polls, three out of five Israelis want Mr Olmert, who is the target of an embarrassing corruption probe, to resign immediately. Despite his personal travails and his chronically weak and fractious coalition, the prime minister has shown no intention of heeding such pleas: although he has agreed to hold primaries aimed at electing a new leader of his Kadima party by September, no one is counting out Mr Olmert as he continues his gravity-defying battle to stay in office. Unpopular governments are hardly un-usual in Israel, where prime ministers have repeatedly been hounded out of office only to be voted back into power again a few years later. But a growing number of Israelis believe that the country faces not so much another coalition collapse but something larger: a full-blown crisis in the country's political system that is sapping the ability of political leaders to tackle crucial challenges - from reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians to facing down the threat of an increasingly hostile Iran. The three symptoms of the country's political malaise are easy to spot: exceedingly low levels of trust in politicians and democratic institutions, the chronic instability of Israeli governments and the fragmentation of parliament and political life in general. Mr Olmert's turbulent tenure is a case in point: his botched war in Lebanon two years ago and a string of corruption allegations have increased voter disillusionment; at the same time, the fragmented nature of Israeli politics forced him into an unwieldy coalition and left him exposed to constant political blackmail. The need to satisfy the narrow and often contradictory wishes of his coalition partners made it almost impossible for Mr Olmert to pursue coherent policies and deliver on promises such as reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians. An example of the limitations placed on the prime minister is his inability to negotiate the status of Jerusalem - one of the keys to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shas, the biggest ultra-orthodox religious party and a member of Mr Olmert's coalition, has warned repeatedly that it will pull out of the government if he even discusses handing back occupied East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. One factor hindering political cohesion in the country is its electoral system, which leads to a highly fragmented parliament. Unlike the winner-takes-all of some western democracies such as the UK or the percentage threshold required by others before a party can enter parliament, Israel elects its MPs through pure proportional representation. Seats in parliament are allocated according to the percentage that a party achieves. There are no direct run-offs in constituencies and districts and candidates are selected by political party lists. Signs of voter disillusionment can be found everywhere, but a good starting point is the country's annual Democracy Index, a survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute. The most recent study found only 17 per cent of Israelis have trust in the prime minister, while the Knesset fared little better with 29 per cent. Even the Supreme Court - hitherto seen by respondents as the body that "best safeguards Israeli democracy" - saw its rating plunge by 12 points to just 49 per cent. Voter turnout at general elections has also fallen steadily, reaching a new low of 63 per cent two years ago. Opinion polls, meanwhile, make grim reading not just to Mr Olmert but to most of his political rivals as well - a reflection, perhaps, of the fact that nine in 10 Israelis believe the country is "tainted with corruption", according to the same survey from the Israel Democracy Institute. Such ratings, says Ari Shavit, a political analyst and commentator for Haaretz newspaper, mean Mr Olmert has no chance of pulling
Bismillah [IslamCity] Former head of MI5 says 42-day detention plan is 'unworkable'
Former head of MI5 says 42-day detention plan is 'unworkable' By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent Independent.co.uk, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 Reuters Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller took the highly unusual step of using her maiden speech in the House of Lords to denounce the plans Plans to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days are neither practical or principled, the former head of MI5 warned yesterday. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who stood down as the director general of Britain's domestic intelligence agency last year, took the highly unusual step of using her maiden speech in the House of Lords to denounce the plans. It was the first time she had spoken on the subject. "I don't see on a practical basis, as well as a principled one, that these proposals are in any way workable," she told peers. The comments by Lady Manningham-Buller, an anti-terrorism specialist who led MI5 during the London Tube bombings three years ago, represent a serious blow to Gordon Brown's anti-terror laws, which were forced through the Commons on the votes of Democratic Unionists (DUP) last month after a major rebellion by Labour MPs. She told peers: "I have weighed up the balance between the right to life – the most important civil liberty – the fact that there is no such thing as complete security, and the importance of our hard-won civil liberties. Therefore, on a matter of principle, I cannot support 42 days' pre-charge detention. I do understand different views and that there are judgements honestly reached by others, and I respect these views." Peers are expected to vote overwhelmingly to defeat plans to extend detention without trial when the anti-terror Bill faces detailed scrutiny in the autumn, and will trigger a damaging new round of trench warfare for Mr Brown in the Commons. Yesterday, a string of eminent figures in the Lords vented their anger at the proposals, attacking them as an affront to civil liberties and a recruiting sergeant for extremists. Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor and one of Tony Blair's closest allies, said: "I'm absolutely clear that there is no advantage to fighting terrorism that will be gained by extending pre-charge detention to 42 days." He criticised the Government for relying on the DUP to get the Bill through the Commons, adding: "We in this country determine whether people should be detained on the basis of a judge's view. I find it worrying that someone could be detained in prison on the basis of a deal done with another political party." Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, also condemned the proposals, telling peers that "you cannot keep somebody for as long as it takes." He added: "I dealt with the plots which we believed were being uncovered in the summer of 2006. "I flew back from my holiday. I stayed with the prosecutors and got detailed briefings through that period. I was anxiously considering and wanting to know whether a longer time was necessary. It wasn't. "I asked the prosecutors, 'If you had had longer than 28 days, would you have used it?' 'No', they said. "I cannot support this. I believe that detention without charge for a long period would undermine fundamental freedoms on which this country is based, of which this country should be proud, of which I will say my party ought to be proud. I will not undermine them in this way." But Lord West of Spithead, the Security minister, insisted the new powers were needed. He said: "The question we all have to face is whether there is a potential need for more than 28 days. I have looked at this in depth and I believe there is. It is better for us to legislate on a precautionary basis than find ourselves scrambling for emergency legislation in the heat of a serious operation." __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: Islamophobia: Swiss far right seeks vote on minarets ban
Islamophobia: Swiss far right seeks vote on minarets ban * Ian Traynor, Europe editor * The Guardian, * Wednesday July 9, 2008 The minaret of the Mahmud mosque is pictured close to a Christian church in Zurich, Switzerland. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters Switzerland braced itself for a troubled campaign of Islamophobia yesterday after the far right drummed up enough support to force a national vote to ban minarets. In a country that is home to more than 300,000 Muslims but boasts only three minarets, a series of court cases and votes in regional parliaments has recently dismissed attempts to have minarets outlawed. But a campaign, led by the rightwing populists of the Swiss People's party, to enshrine a ban on minarets in the Swiss constitution yesterday mustered more than enough signatures to warrant a referendum on the sensitive issue. Disputes over mosque and minaret-building are rife across Europe, with controversies in Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands. In Switzerland, Christoph Blocher's anti-immigrant Swiss People's party, which won the national elections last year after a campaign branded racist by UN monitors, has repeatedly used the building regulations and zoning laws to try to prevent minarets being built. It has failed, as in Zurich, last month. Last year a Turkish association won a supreme court case authorising it to put a minaret on a mosque in the village of Wangen.. By yesterday People's party activists had gathered 115,000 signatures, more than the 100,000 needed under Switzerland's direct democracy system. The campaign demands a constitutional amendment, stating: "The building of minarets in Switzerland is forbidden." The government has already opposed the demand and may try to prevent the referendum, citing reasons of national security and the impact on the country's international relations and interests. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/09/religion.islam __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Wife-beating? That's fine – unless you're a Muslim
Mark Steel: Wife-beating? That's fine – unless you're a Muslim The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were "distorted". But they're not doing themselves justice. They weren't distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication. But if reporters are allowed to make up what they like, that one should be disciplined for displaying a shocking lack of imagination. He could have continued, "The driver has now won a case at the Court of Human Rights that his bus route should be altered so it only goes east. This means the 37A from Sutton Coldfield will no longer stop at Selly Oak library, but go the wrong way up a one-way street and carry on to Mecca. Local depot manager Stan Tubworth said, 'I suggested he only take it as far as Athens but he threatened a Jihad, and a holy war is just the sort of thing that could put a service like the Selly Oak Clipper out of business'." Then there was a story about "Muslim thugs" in Windsor who attacked a house used by soldiers, except it was another invention. But with this tale the reporter still claims it's true, despite a complete absence of evidence, because, "The police are too politically correct to admit it." This must be the solution to all unsolved crimes. With Jack the Ripper it's obvious – he was facing the East End of London, his victims were infidels and he'd have access to a burqua which would give him vital camouflage in the smog. But do the pro-Muslim police even bother to investigate? Of course not, because it's just "Allah Allah Allah" down at the stations these days. Maybe Muslim newspapers should retaliate by publishing their own made-up stories. So it will be reported that "Barmy PC teachers in Leicester have banned children from playing Noughts and Crosses, claiming the cross reminds Church of England kiddies of the suffering undertaken by Lord Jesus. A spokesman for the Board of Education said, 'We have to be sensitive. Which is why we've replaced the game with 'Noughts and Hexagons'. We did look into calling it 'Noughts and Crowns of Thorns' but decided Hexagons was more appropriate." Or, "Doctors have been told that patients are no longer to be referred to as 'stable', as this is offensive to followers of Jesus, who was said to have been born in one. So medical staff have been informed they must use an alternative word, or if they can't think of one just let the patient die." The most common justification for ridiculing Islam is that the religion is "backward", particularly towards women, as a fundamental part of its beliefs. The Sun's old political editor suggests this as a defence of his newspaper's stance, saying that under Islam, "women are treated as chattels". And it's true that religious scriptures can command this, such as the insistence that, "a man may sell his daughter as a slave, but she will not be freed at the end of six years as men are." Except that comes from the Bible – Exodus, Chapter 21, verse 7. The Bible is packed with justifications for slavery, including killing your slaves. So presumably the Sun, along with others who regard Islam as a threat to our civilisation, will soon be campaigning against "Sunday Schools of Hate" where children as young as seven are taught to read this grisly book. And next Easter they'll report how, "I saw a small child smile with glee as he opened a Cadbury's egg filled with chocolate buttons. But behind his grin I couldn't help but wonder whether he wanted to turn me into a pillar of salt, then maybe sprinkle me on his menacing confectionary treat." In his defence of making stuff up, the Sun's ex-political editor spoke about the amount of domestic violence suffered by Muslim women. But there's just as much chance of suffering domestic violence if you're not a Muslim, as one of the 10 million such incidents a year that take place in Britain. Presumably the anti-Islam lobby would say, "Ah yes, but those other ones involve secular wife-beating, which is not founded on archaic religious customs, but rational reasoning such as not letting him watch the snooker." And finally the Sun's man defends the line of his paper by saying that, after all, these Muslims "are trying to bomb our country". So it's their civic duty to make stuff up – the same as keeping a look-out for spies during the Second World War. So we should all do our bit, and every day send in something, until the press is full of stories like "Muslims in Darlington have been raising money for semtex by organising panda fights." Or "In Bradford all nurseries have been ordered to convert their dolls' houses into miniature mosques so that Muslim teddies have somewhere to pray." Independent, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-
Bismillah [IslamCity] Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror
Do you think Baker is right? - Moderator, Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror Al-Qaeda and the Taleban are in retreat, the surge has worked in Iraq and Islamism is discredited. Not a bad haul Gerard Baker Gerard Baker is United States Editor and an Assistant Editor of The Times. He joined in 2004 from the Financial Times, where he had spent over ten years as Tokyo correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief. His weekly oped column appears on Fridays "My centre is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack!" If only our political leaders and opinion-formers displayed even a hint of the defiant resilience that carried Marshal Foch to victory at the Battle of the Marne. But these days timorous defeatism is on the march. In Britain setbacks in the Afghan war are greeted as harbingers of inevitable defeat. In America, large swaths of the political class continues to insist Iraq is a lost cause. The consensus in much of the West is that the War on Terror is unwinnable. And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!" Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years. Afghanistan has been a signal success. There has been much focus on the latest counter-offensive by the Taleban in the southeast of the country and it would be churlish to minimise the ferocity with which the terrorists are fighting, but it would be much more foolish to understate the scale of the continuing Nato achievement. Establishing a stable government for the whole nation is painstaking work, years in the making. It might never be completed. But that was not the principal objective of the war there. Until the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was the cockpit of ascendant Islamist terrorism. Consider the bigger picture. Between 1998 and 2005 there were five big terrorist attacks against Western targets - the bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005. All owed their success either exclusively or largely to Afghanistan' s status as a training and planning base for al-Qaeda. In the past three years there has been no attack on anything like that scale. Al-Qaeda has been driven into a state of permanent flight. Its ability to train jihadists has been severely compromised; its financial networks have been ripped apart. Thousands of its activists and enablers have been killed. It's true that Osama bin Laden's forces have been regrouping in the border areas of Pakistan but their ability to orchestrate mass terrorism there is severely attenuated. And there are encouraging signs that Pakistanis are starting to take to the offensive against them. Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? What characterised Islamist terrorism before the Afghan war was increasing sophistication, boldness and terrifying efficiency. What has characterised the terrorist attacks in the past few years has been their crudeness, insignificance and a faintly comical ineptitude (remember Glasgow airport?) The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling. The "surge", despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution. Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias. Basra is more peaceful and safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year. The third and perhaps most significant advance of all in the War on Terror is the discrediting of the Islamist creed and its appeal. This was first of all e
Bismillah [IslamCity] Pak-US Relation: Pentagon treads softly as tensions rise - FT
Pak-US Relation: Pentagon treads softly as tensions rise By Daniel Dombey and Demetri Sevastopulo US military commanders were quick to tout General Ashfaq Kiyani as "his own man" after he replaced Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, as the country's army chief of staff last November. The Pentagon hoped Gen Kiyani would develop a counter-insurgency force to help tackle Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists operating along the border with Afghan-istan. But their relationship has run into trouble just as the US prepares to send a handful of trainers for the force to Pakistan this summer. The biggest concern in the US is the Pakistani government's negotiations with tribal leaders in areas along the border, which Washington says act as safe havens for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. Those tensions heightened in the wake of a US airstrike this month which Islamabad says killed 11 Pakistani troops in an area bordering Afghanistan. The US has not confirmed if the strike killed the Pakistani soldiers, adding that its actions were directed against Taliban attacking Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Pakistani government and military must negotiate the difficult fact that Pakistanis favour negotiations with both al-Qaeda and Pakistani extremists. A recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based group, found that 50 per cent of Pakistanis believed their government should negotiate with al-Qaeda, while 70 per cent opposed US military action against both al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The alleged killing of Pakistani troops in the US airstrike has not made that situation any easier. Gen Kiyani was already treading a difficult path. Much as the US military has struggled to adapt to a new counter-insurgency mission in Iraq, Gen Kiyani must accomplish the difficult task of weaning his military off its preoccupation with India. Aware that too much overt support could lead to charges that Gen Kiyani is too pliant to US demands, American officers have toned down their praise. The Pentagon has also played down concerns about the tribal peace deals to avoid complicating life for Gen Kiyani, who must balance his relationship with the new civilian government. "My sense is if we tried to get in the middle of those politics we'd be wielding a sledgehammer inside of a surgery room," one senior US military official said. Another reason the Pentagon has been less critical is that it is not clear who is pushing the peace deals. Some Pakistanis stress that the deals were in the works before the new government took office in February. General Dan McNeill, who has just returned from commanding Nato forces in Afghanistan, says Gen Kiyani showed no interest in peace deals when they met shortly after he took over as Pakistan's army chief. "The suggestion from him was that they were looking for some help to get their force trained to be a good counter-insurgency force. I don't recall the term or the expression [peace deal] coming up," Gen McNeill said. But others have suggested that Gen Kiyani has since realised that military action in itself will not be sufficient to clamp down on extremism in the lawless border regions. Gen McNeill has also been less reluctant than other US military officers to criticise the peace deals and call on Pakistan to act more strongly against the extremists, who he says pose a domestic threat to Pakistan. The tensions on the border were on show again recently when Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, threatened to send troops into Pakistan to deal with the insurgents. But Husain Haqqani, the new Pakistani ambassador to Washington, says Islamabad "has made a political decision that we want to improve the co-ordination with Afghanistan, Pakistan and coalition forces in the border areas". Additional reporting by Daniel Dombey Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008 Published: June 26 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 26 2008 03:00 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a40b922a-4317-11dd-81d0-779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Exposed: the arms lobbyist in British Parliament
Exposed: the arms lobbyist in British Parliament 'We'll ask the questions that you can't, without your fingerprints,' he tells clients By James Macintyre A senior arms lobbyist is gaining access to ministers, MPs and peers inside Parliament using a research assistant pass allotted to a member of the House of Lords who benefits financially from one of his companies, The Independent has learnt. Robin Ashby, who is chairman of a defence consultancy firm that offers to ask questions of government on behalf of its clients "without your fingerprint being evident", includes among his acquaintances the Defence Secretary, the Chancellor and the Chief Whip. Mr Ashby's firm, Bergmans, lobbies on behalf of more than a dozen large defence and aerospace companies including BAE Systems, Northern Defence Industries, UK Defence Forum, Boeing and Rolls-Royce, which has been criticised for its past links to the Burmese regime. Mr Ashby's name features on an official staff list that was published by the House of Lords for the first time last night following pressure from media outlets including The Independent. As Bergmans' key lobbyist, Mr Ashby enjoys unfettered access to the Palace of Westminster. With his pass, he can bring several colleagues or members of the public into Parliament's numerous entertainment venues, including the Lords' terrace bar overlooking the Thames where he "frequently" meets Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and other ministers. Mr Ashby can also use the pass, which is allotted to Baroness Harris of Richmond, to access the House of Commons library, which offers valuable research facilities at no cost. Lady Harris is a Liberal Democrat whip and spokesman on the police and Northern Ireland. She receives a "regular" income from a separate company run by Mr Ashby, Great North News Service, for which the peer acts as an "adviser", according to her parliamentary declaration of financial interests. Meanwhile her "researcher" gains access to the Palace of Westminster's corridors of power and a string of top-level ministers. As well as submitting Freedom of Information questions to government, Bergmans offers insider information about how the British Government works to a host of foreign countries including the Bahamas, Bahrain, the USA and Russia. On Bergmans' website, Mr Ashby is shown meeting, among others, Tony Blair, his former press secretary Alastair Campbell, the Chancellor Alistair Darling, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the Chief Whip Geoff Hoon and Mr Browne. MPs have been required to supply full information about their staff since 1985, but members of the Lords were exempt from the rule until last night. On his entry, Mr Ashby names Bergmans but describes it as "a research and public affairs consultancy that campaigns to urge MPs and peers to keep manifesto promises to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty". He does not mention its host of defence and arms clients. Mr Ashby told The Independent that he felt "iffy" about whether or not he should have a pass, "because there is substantial potential for misunderstanding". "It is quite possible for you to make me look bad," he said. Mr Ashby said his "primary" reason for holding a pass was to provide "security" advice to Lady Harris. She told The Independent that Mr Ashby "advises me from time to time but not that frequently". She added that if she wants advice, she can call on him. Lady Harris admitted that she "occasionally" contributed to the Great North News Service, run by Mr Ashby. She added that she takes "an interest" in defence matters. Mr Ashby said he "compartmentalises" his roles while in Parliament. "I am very clear with ministers – I informally declare my interests to senior ministers," he said. He added that he did not use his pass to bring clients into Parliament and photos taken of him with ministers were taken outside the Palace of Westminster. The lobbyist said he frequently met the Defence Secretary at events on the parliamentary terrace. "I see Des Browne every time we have a welcome home for troops and he says nice things about me. He appreciates what I've done," Mr Ashby said. The services offered by Bergmans – which has a specific defence subsidiary run by Mr Ashby – include: "Opinion polling, focus groups, fundraising advice, governance, manifesto writing, socio-economic research, campaigning, visual images, and lobbying." But, the company's website adds, "many organisations are concerned that by asking for information they may prejudice their relationship with government, especially where the departments in which they are interested are also their potential customers. "Bergmans Research therefore offers a confidential FoI [Freedom of Information] service – we'll ask the questions ... that you can't, without your 'fingerprint' being evident. In the past few months we've asked and had answers to questions about planning studies, past purchasing decisi
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: UK Vacuum Bombs in Afghanistan
Message # 1 UK Vacuum Bombs in Afghanistan IslamOnline. net & TheSunday TimesJune 22, 2008 CAIRO — Britain has used and will continue to use one of the world's most brutal weapons, which creates a pressure wave that sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies, in Afghanistan, The Sunday Times reported on June 22, 2008. (Check the copy of the report from The Times, after this item) "We are conscious of the controversial aspects [of this weapon] but it is being used sparingly and under strict circumstances where it is deemed appropriate by the commander on the ground," confirmed the Ministry of Defense (MoD). It has decided to equip British helicopters in Afghanistan with the Hellfire AGM-114N missiles early 2008 after repeated complaints from pilots against the ineffectiveness of normal weapons in the fight against Taliban. The MoD admitted to using the thermobaric weapon, also known as vacuum bombs, on several occasions, including against a cave complex. It has decided to extend the use of the weapon to be fired by unmanned drones, added the spokesman. The laser-guided missile has a warhead packed with fluorinated aluminum powder surrounding a small charge. When the missile hits the target, the charge disperses aluminum powder throughout the target building. The cloud then ignites, causing a massive secondary blast that tears throughout any enclosed space. The blast creates a vacuum which draws air and debris back in, creating pressure of up to 430lb per sq. The cloud of burning aluminum powder means victims often die from asphyxiation before the pressure shreds their organs. Thermobaric weapons were first combat-tested by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s and used by Russian forces against Chechen civilians in the 1990s. According to The Sunday Times, American Apache pilots used the thermobaric Hellfire in Iraq. Hypocrisy Human Rights Watch has condemned and called for a ban on using thermobaric weapons worldwide. The New York-based group describes them as "particularly brutal" and that their blast "makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter." However, the British government decided to go around the ethical problem by secretly redefining them. "We no longer accept the term thermobaric [for the AGM-114N] as there is no internationally agreed definition," said an MoD spokesman. "We call it an enhanced blast weapon." But British MPs denounced the government for its secret decision to use the lethal weapon. "It is staggering the MoD has added these weapons to Britain's arsenal in cloak-and-dagger secrecy," said Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defense spokesman. "Parliament has never assented to their use," he said, accusing the government of hypocrisy. "(Prime Minister) Gordon Brown claimed the moral high ground when Britain supported a ban on cluster munitions but leaving a loophole for these weapons casts a different picture on the true position." Message # 2 Army 'vacuum' missile hits Taliban Michael Smith British forces in Afghanistan have used one of the world's most deadly and controversial missiles to fight the Taliban. Apache attack helicopters have fired the thermobaric weapons against fighters in buildings and caves, to create a pressure wave which sucks the air out of victims, shreds their internal organs and crushes their bodies. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted to the use of the weapons, condemned by human rights groups as "brutal", on several occasions, including against a cave complex. The use of the Hellfire AGM-114N weapons has been deemed so successful they will now be fired from RAF Reaper unmanned drones controlled by "pilots" at Creech air force base in Nevada, an MoD spokesman added. Thermobaric weapons, or vacuum bombs, were first combat-tested by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s and their use by Russia against civilians in Chechnya in the 1990s was condemned worldwide. The secret decision to buy the Hellfire AGM-114N missiles was made earlier this year following problems attacking Taliban fortified positions. British Apache pilots complained that standard Hellfire antitank missiles were going straight through buildings and out of the other side. Even when they did explode, there were limited casualties among the Taliban inside, particularly when a building contained a number of rooms. American Apache pilots overcame the problem in Iraq with the thermobaric Hellfire. The weapons are so controversial that MoD weapons and legal experts spent 18 months debating whether British troops could use them without breaking international law. Eventually, they decided to get round the ethical problems by redefining the weapons. "We no longer accept the term thermobaric [for the AGM-114N] as there is no internationally agreed definition," said an MoD spokesman. "We call it an enhanced blast weapon." The redefinition has allowed British forc
Bismillah [IslamCity] US removes its nuclear arms from Britain
US removes its nuclear arms from Britain · Exit of 110 gravity bombs ends 54-year presence · Change happened secretly over years, say scientists Julian Borger, diplomatic editor The US has removed its nuclear weapons from Britain, ending a contentious presence spanning more than half a century, a report will say today. According to the study by the Federation of American Scientists, the last 110 American nuclear weapons on UK soil were withdrawn from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk on the orders of President George Bush. The report's author, Hans Kristensen, one of the leading experts on Washington's nuclear arsenal, said the move had happened in the past few years, but had only come to light yesterday. He described the withdrawal of the B-61 "freefall", or "gravity", bombs as part of a general strategic shift since the end of the cold war. "The northern front is not very relevant any more for these deployments. The US nuclear posture is almost entirely focused on the southern region, in Incirlik [in Turkey] and Aviano [in Italy]." Movements of the US arsenal are shrouded in secrecy. Kristensen said the first signs the bombs had left Lakenheath emerged in a US airforce document dated January 2007 on nuclear inspections. The document lists inspections of US nuclear sites, but above an annexe listing emergency drills carried out at the sites, it notes "not applicable to Lakenheath". Kristensen's report is posted today at fas.org/blog/ssp. He says the removal of bombs from Lakenheath follows the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Greece in 2001, and that removal of such weapons from two Nato countries in less than a decade undercuts the argument for continuing deployment in other European countries.The removal from Britain would reduce the US arsenal in Europe to about 250. Once officially declared, it could defuse current tensions with Moscow and possibly trigger matching cuts in the Russian stockpile. Kristensen said last night: "It's so puzzling why Nato goes about the reduction in total secrecy. Keeping this secret completely undercuts our foreign policy interests." The FAS was founded in 1945 by former scientists on the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb, as a means of spreading information about the dangers posed by the new weapons. Paul Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council, said last night: "This is a win-win situation for Nato and disarmament, and for rapprochement with Russia. Nato's future and the transatlantic alliance is tied up with operations in Afghanistan far more than with ageing freefall bombs that have no military relevance." Greg Mello, the head of a nuclear watchdog the Los Alamos Study Group said: "The nuclear weapons themselves don't serve any military purpose. They are mostly about cementing a political bond that ties Europe interests to US interests." The FAS study is being published a few days after Kristensen published a leaked US air force internal report saying that most European bases where US nuclear weapons were stored had inadequate security. The report, which was ordered after the US air force lost track of six nuclear cruise missiles last August, found that "support buildings, fencing, lighting and security systems" were in need of repair. In some cases, conscripts with less than nine months' experience were being used to guard the nuclear weapons. Elsewhere private security guards were used. The report recommends that the US nuclear arsenal in Europe be consolidated to "reduce vulnerabilities". That would involve the withdrawal of significant numbers of US nuclear weapons. The Guardian, Thursday June 26, 2008 __ Not happy with your email address?. Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Review: The eternal present tense
- Forwarded Message Sent: Saturday, 21 June, 2008 4:55:07 PM Subject: Review: The eternal present tense The eternal present tense Tarif Khalidi's new English edition of Islam's sacred book offers valuable perspectives, says Ziauddin Sardar Saturday June 21, 2008 The Guardian Buy The Qur'an: A New Translation at the Guardian bookshop The Qur'an: A New Translation by Tarif Khalidi 530pp, Penguin Classics, £25 We look for two things in any new translation of the Qur'an. How close does it get to communicating the meaning of the original, that inimitable oral text, the very sounds of which move men and women to tears and ecstasy? And does it offer something more: a new perspective, perhaps; or an innovative rendering? Tarif Khalidi, a professor of Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut, scores high on both these criteria. He manages to capture the allusiveness of the text, as well as something of its tone and texture. While being faithful to the original, he succeeds in conveying linguistic shifts, from narrative to mnemonic, sermons to parables. And there is an innovative component: it is the first translation that tries to capture both the rhythms and the structure of the Qur'an. The best way to demonstrate its newness, and how close it is to the original text, is to compare it with an old translation. The translation I have in mind is Khalidi's predecessor in the Penguin Classics: The Koran, translated with notes by NJ Dawood. First published in 1956, Dawood's translation has been republished in numerous editions. It has been a great source of discomfort for Muslims, who see in it deliberate distortions that give the Qur'an violent and sexist overtones. It is the one most non-Muslims cite when they tell me with great conviction what the Qur'an says. The change can be detected with the name of the sacred text itself: we move from "Koran", the older anglicised form, to the new "Qur'an", which is now accepted as the correct Arabic transliteration and pronunciation of the word. This is not just a trivial matter of linguistics; it signals a shift from the old Orientalist way of presenting the Qur'an in English to a new inclusive way that takes Muslims' appreciation of their sacred text into account. Subtle differences in chapter headings signal significant change. The opening chapter of the Qur'an in Dawood is "The Exordium". In Khalidi, and indeed universally among other translations, it is "The Opening". Dawood translates Az-Zumar (chapter 39) as "The Hordes", suggesting bands of barbarian mobs; Khalidi renders it as "The Groups". While Dawood's translation presents the Qur'an as a patriarchal, sexist text, Khalidi brings out the gender-neutral language of the original. A good example is provided by 2:21. In Dawood we read: "Men, serve your Lord." In Khalidi, it becomes: "O People! Worship your Lord." Dawood's translation of the famous verse 2:25, frequently quoted, is largely responsible for the current misconception that Muslim paradise is full of "virgins" - despite the fact that the Qur'an explicitly denies any carnal pleasures in paradise. This is because we find "men" in Dawood's translation in the garden of paradise who are "wedded to chaste virgins". Khalidi renders it correctly: "In these gardens they have immaculate spouses." The old Penguin translation uses rather obscurantist images throughout to give the impression that the Qur'an is full of demons and witches. For example, in 31:1, Dawood has God swearing "by those who cast out demons". Khalidi translates the same verse as: "Behold the revelations of the Wise Book." So this translation is a quantum leap ahead of the old Penguin version. But it also has a rather special character. Khalidi is not interested in providing the context of the verses of the Qur'an. We therefore do not always know who the Qur'an is addressing at various junctures or who is speaking to whom in its internal dialogues. Here M Abdel-Haleem' s translation (OUP, £7.99), published in 2004, is more useful. Neither is Khalidi all that concerned with providing the reader with help. Footnotes, for example, would have been useful for occasional explanation of what is happening in a particular passage. Instead, he takes a rather unusual attitude to the Qur'an. It is "a bearer of diverse interpretation" , he says; and its ambiguities are deliberately designed to stimulate thinking. Let the reader be "patient of interpretation" and read at will. All that is needed is to approach the text with sympathy. Khalidi wants the reader to enjoy the experience of reading the Qur'an. Of course, he wants to communicate the majesty of its language, the beauty of its style, and the "eternal present tense" of its grammar. But he also wants the reader to appreciate the Qur'an's unique structure, how the language changes with the subject matter, how it swirls around and makes rhythmic connections. He wishes to show ho
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: Author's Life: Sex and the Saudi girl
- Forwarded Message Sent: Friday, 20 June, 2008 3:46:29 PM Subject: B] Author's Life: Sex and the Saudi girl Author's Life: Sex and the Saudi girl The writer who brought chick-lit to Arabia tells about passion behind the veil Lesley Thomas Saudi Arabia has a new minister for women. She’s 25, likes designer labels, lipstick and cars. Rajaa Alsanea is, of course, not in government, for in her country it’s not really the done thing for females to air their opinions. They are not allowed to drive, let alone have employment or voting rights. Alsanea, however, has captured a vast constituency. She is a bestselling author, the only chick-lit one from the Arab world, and as such she has become a sort of spokeswoman for 21st-century Saudi women. Her book, Girls of Riyadh, about to be published in Britain by Fig Tree, tells the stories of four middle-class young women searching for love and just a little bit of fun in a suffocating culture. It’s hardly Jilly Cooper – the references to sex are coy with lots of talk of yearning and disappointment – but with tales of the girls drinking (very small sips of Dom Pérignon) and – gasp – sitting in the driver’s seat of a car, it caused a scandal. This is a country, remember, where a woman might be stoned for kissing a man in public. Alsanea has received death threats by e-mail and many tried to suppress her book. At one point, black market versions of this Arabic version of Sex and the City changed hands for £300. “I didn’t think about breaking any taboos or being a rebel. I wanted to describe how people find ways to get around some of the traditions. Young women I know want to be modern, hip, stylish and fall in love, the same as women everywhere. I was never trying to cause a scandal,” she tells me over tea at the Dorchester hotel in London. Alsanea is modestly and fashionably turned out in expensive, loosely cut jeans, a white fitted jacket and a coordinating white, silken hijab. There are a couple of lightly Wagish touches – a diamond watch with a pink strap, a Gucci bag and a French manicure – but she is a class act. In an American accent she speaks softly, in perfect English with impeccable sentences: “I started writing when I was 18 and I knew I wanted to be a published author. I have been blessed with a very supportive family and we were encouraged to express ourselves.” Her father, who worked for the information ministry in Kuwait, died when she was eight and Alsanea and her five older siblings were raised by her mother in Riyadh: “As I got older, I wanted to write something I would enjoy reading. I just wrote about what I saw around me – what the girls I knew were like.” After her book was eventually published in 2005, young women began to see Alsanea as their mouthpiece: “At one point I was getting 1,000 e-mails a day. Women who were divorced, women who were married in an arranged way and didn’t like their husbands; those who were struggling with their families were reaching out. Girls came up and hugged me and wanted to take pictures with me. All of a sudden I felt it was my duty to take care of these people. “I knew that no one had really written about modern life in Saudi but – perhaps because I was young – I didn’t think it would be sensational.” It’s hard to imagine this smart and beautiful girl ever being naive. Last year she was voted the Arab world’s premier intellectual by Elaph, the online magazine. All her siblings are either physicians or dentists and she is a graduate student in dentistry, arguing that there is no money in being a Saudi writer (I suspect she is an exception to this rule). She was savvy enough not to send her manuscript to the Saudi information ministry, where all books must be vetted before publication. Instead, she got her brother to take it to publishers in more liberal Lebanon. When she didn’t hear from them immediately, she boldly sent her book to her favourite writer, the poet Ghazi al-Gosaibi, a former UK ambassador and now a Saudi government minister: “He is an idol of mine and when he called me to say he liked the book I was, like: call me back in five minutes. I need to freak out.” It was his endorsement that prompted the buzz across the Middle East and the book deal. And it was only then that she let her family read her work. “My brother was worried for me. He asked whether I really wanted to publish it under my own name. He thought it might affect my chances of marriage, that there would be men who wouldn’t want to marry me.” She raises an eyebrow – precisely threaded to Hurleyish perfection – and shrugs: “I just thought, hey, I wouldn’t want to marry them, either. It’s a good way of weeding some out.” Alsanea is no man hater: “A lot of men don’t really stop and think about what life is like for Saudi girls. My brothers were all raised to respect their sisters and their opinions but my book was still a revelation for them. Fathers have been influenced by it and
Bismillah [IslamCity] UK becomes largest exporter of arms
- Forwarded Message Sent: Wednesday, 18 June, 2008 3:25:05 PM Subject: UK becomes largest exporter of arms UK becomes largest exporter of arms By Stephen Fidler, Defence and Security Editor Published: The Financial Times, June 18 2008 03:00 Britain became the world's largest arms exporter last year, according to government figures released yesterday, overtaking the US which normally occupies the top slot. The UK won £10bn of new defence orders in 2007 from overseas, giving it a 33 per cent share of the world export market, according to figures released yesterday by the Defence and Security Organisation, set up to promote Britain's defence exports. Export orders totalled £5.5bn in 2006. The 2007 figures were helped by a large order from Saudi Arabia for Typhoon aircraft, valued initially at £4.3bn. They were further aided by orders from Oman and Trinidad and Tobago for offshore patrol vessels. Orders from North America were also significant - the US imported more weapons from the UK than from any other country, the DSO said. UK Trade and Investment, the department of which the DSO is a part, could not immediately supply data for other countries in 2007 or detailed year-on-year comparisons. However, the figures reflect arms orders - which can cluster in particular years and may or may not be completed - rather than arms deliveries, a more precise measure of exports. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which collates data on arms deliveries, the UK was the sixth largest supplier of defence equipment in 2007 - after the US, Russia, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Over a five-year period it was the fifth largest. But according to the DSO figures, last year's orders mean the UK has been the second largest exporter of arms over the previous five years, after the US. Cumulative exports from the US were $63bn (£32bn), the UK $53bn, Russia $33bn, France $17bn, and Germany and Israel with $9bn each. Saudi Arabia was the largest importer over the period - $31bn, followed by India with $18bn and the US $17bn. Three countries - Australia ($11bn), Canada ($10bn) and Pakistan ($6bn) - moved up the import rankings, it said. Lord Jones, trade and investment minister, said: "As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first class defence industry with some of the world's most technologically sophisticated companies." Ian Godden, chief executive of the Society of British Aerospace Companies, said: "We are proud that the UK defence industry remains a world leader. This success is built on investment made in the 1990s and, if we are to continue to reap these economic benefits in the future, this investment will need to be maintained." The DSO is the successor to the Defence Export Services Organisation, which was moved by the government out of the Ministry of Defence last year following alleged arms export scandals. Its new head, Richard Paniguian, is a former senior BP executive who had been involved in developing a code of conduct for extractive industries. __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Fw: Live Vote: Should Bush be impeached? - Politics- msnbc.com
- Forwarded Message From: Mary Kaye Live Vote: Should Bush be impeached? - Politics- msnbc.com http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/ * Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. - Dwight D. Eisenhower * Lily Tomlin said it best. "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up." __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] We must talk to the enemy - Peter Hain
We must talk to the enemy By Peter Hain [Peter Hain is MP for Neath and former secretary of state for Northern Ireland. A longer lecture on this subject, delivered today in New York, will be available at irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu] Northern Ireland offers a model for peace that can help other regions still locked in bitter conflict Observing Northern Ireland today, it's hard to recognise what was, just a decade or so ago, the theatre for such horror, barbarity, hate and bigotry. For 14 months now, old enemies have worked together - and even smiled at each other - when they had never exchanged a courtesy before. Last year's historic agreement has so far stuck, and I believe will stick through ups and downs, precisely because it was brokered between the two most politically polarised positions - Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party and Gerry Adams' Sinn Féin. But what are the lessons for international policy in other areas still locked in similarly bitter conflict and crippled by terrorism? First, a need to create space and time, free from violence, in which political capacity can develop; second, identifying key individuals and constructive forces; third, the importance of inclusive dialogue at every level, wherever there is a negotiable objective; fourth, the taking of risks to sustain political progress, including by talking with enemies; fifth, the need to align national and international forces; sixth, avoiding or resolving preconditions to dialogue; seventh, gripping and micro-managing conflict resolution at a high political level, not intermittently but continuously, whatever breakdowns, crises and hostilities get in the way. In the Middle East, the conflict has not been gripped at a sufficiently high level, over a sufficiently sustained period. Initiatives have come and gone, and violence has returned to fill the vacuum. International forces have not been aligned. Preconditions have been, and now are, a crippling bulwark against dialogue. However, despite the intensity of bitterness and hatred between Hamas and Israel, neither can militarily defeat the other - they will each have to be a party to a negotiated solution that satisfies Palestinian aspirations for a viable state and Israel's need for security. Addressing Palestinian grievances - from security to jobs to housing - as we did in Northern Ireland, can create more fertile ground for a political process to complement engagement. However, al-Qaida terrorism is fundamentally different. It is not rooted in political objectives capable of negotiation, but rather in a reactionary, totalitarian ideology completely opposed to democracy, freedom and human rights. Negotiation with al-Qaida and its foreign jihadists is, therefore, politically and morally out of the question. Yet, offering individuals attracted to al-Qaida a non-violent, political avenue to address their concerns could conceivably help produce change in years to come. Northern Ireland's chief constable, Hugh Orde, only last week told the Guardian that discussions with al-Qaida "wouldn't be unthinkable, the question will be one of timing". When the IRA's bloody armed campaign was raging more than 30 years ago, nobody in the British government could stomach talking with republican leaders except in surrender terms, since they were regarded as beyond the pale. Yet, in the middle of all this bloodshed and mayhem, contact was initiated which much later came to fruition. Similar issues arise in Afghanistan, although the situation there of warlords attached to the Taliban for tactical reasons on the one hand, and the presence of al-Qaida leaders on the other, make the whole process especially complex. The west urgently needs to match its commitment to global security with a commitment to global justice and global conflict resolution. The Northern Ireland experience, horrendous as it was, points to a rebalancing of foreign policy that can overcome horror with hope. __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Reasons to be cheerful, pt 1
Reasons to be cheerful, pt 1 The equipment is shoddy. Morale is low. The war is unwinnable. This is the received wisdom about Afghanistan, but is it fair? After a tour of Helmand, one writer thinks not By Julian Glover Britain's war in Helmand is being fought in real time on six big plasma screens, which dominate a dark room at a base in the desert town of Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan. It is a digital response to a primitive insurgency, as if a city trading floor had landed to govern a medieval land. Soldiers, sent out among adobe-walled compounds and poppy fields, report by text to a military chatroom about the explosive devices that destroy limbs. Commanders watch the combat from the skies, filmed by unmanned drones and shown in black and white. The reality of war is disguised by the watch keeper's jargon; his talk of what happens "if it ends up going kinetic". That means bullets are being fired and bombs are exploding and it is not what the army wants. Travelling with the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, and granted a level of access I would not have gained as a journalist, I hear an officer tell Clegg that his men and women intend "non-kinetic activity". The intention often fails. When British troops were sent to Helmand in large numbers in 2006, on a mission never explained to the public or parliament, the defence secretary, John Reid, foolishly said he hoped not "a single shot" would be fired. Instead, in the first year of the operation, more than 4m bullets were used. The stretcher cases in the front cabin of our RAF TriStar flight home showed the results. There is plenty of talk in Britain of Afghanistan being lost, and about Helmand being a noble failure at best and an imperial folly at worst, an attempt to wash away the bloodstains of Iraq by doing good where no good can succeed. Evidence to back up this view is not hard to find: not just the insecurity that makes even a short trip a matter of flak jackets and helicopters, and nearly killed the governor of Helmand province when his Chinook was hit by rocket fire last Saturday, but the total failure too to prevent opium poppies being grown and the strangulated efforts at redevelopment. If not wasted, the last two years have been a standstill, at huge cost to Afghan lives, foreign forces and British taxpayers. Politicians, the Lib Dem leader included, talk smoothly of the terrible consequences of defeat. But viewed from Britain, defeat looks close at hand. It does not seem that way in Helmand. To see the operation on the ground is to encounter something far larger than the British government chooses to admit. This is no small peacekeeping mission turned nasty. The canvas is large, the sense of purpose captivating. In his office at Lashkar Gah, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith commands the Helmand operation with the assurance of one born to rule. Class matters in the army, where the officers all seem well-spoken. An old Illy coffee tin full of dried opium poppy heads sits on Carleton-Smith's desk; there is an espresso pot on a Primus stove in the corner. The battle against one stimulant is being fuelled by another. The brigadier's office is dominated by a three-dimensional map of the province, which sweeps 300 miles from the desert on the border with Pakistan to a great, ungoverned mountain range in the north. Where the roads stop, the Taliban begin. Yet much has changed, he says, since 2006 and the heavy hand-to-hand fighting last year, in a war that has so far cost 96 British lives. When Britain went to Helmand it was ill-prepared. Now Task Force Helmand, and the British forces who support it from an airbase in neighbouring Kandahar, claim to be advancing. Their fear is of a collapse in political support back home. In Kabul, there is confusion between aid efforts and distrust of President Hamid Karzai's government - the city's former mayor tells us that "high officials are involved in drug trafficking". In Helmand, the overriding impression is of ordered determination in the face of a difficult, perhaps impossible, task. British troops know that voters question their presence here. Televisions in every room at the base show Sky News when they are not showing football. It must be dispiriting to fight a war with rolling news in the background telling you that you are losing. But morale seems good. There are complaints about hours, and pay, and especially the fact that leave begins when soldiers go off duty, rather than when they reach Britain. But no one admits to thinking the mission pointless. "It is very difficult to measure progress in weeks and months, but I look back on where we were two years ago and it is better," says Colonel Neil Hutton, the deputy commander of Task Force Helmand. In a briefing room full of plans for aid efforts, he argues that "we are beating the Taliban and are winning". It is a bold claim given that the streets of Lashkar Gah, a few yards beyond the
Bismillah [IslamCity] News: UK poised to become first western country to issue Islamic bonds
UK poised to become first western country to issue Islamic bonds By David Oakley, Capital Markets Correspondent Britain will announce today its determination to launch the first Islamic bonds by a western government, in the clearest sign yet that long-running doubts over costs and pricing have finally been put to rest. Kitty Ussher, the UK's economic secretary to the Treasury, will say there is a "powerful momentum" behind the plans, which will cement London's position as the leading western centre for Islamic finance. The government unveiled hopes to issue Sharia-compliant bond, or sukuk, to much fanfare in April 2007. Since then, the initiative has been hotly debated, with some civil servants raising concerns over the costs of issuing sukuk , which are far higher than for conventional bonds because of the complexity in the way they are structured to avoid paying interest in line with strict religious laws. The government is convinced the political and financial benefits far outweigh worries about cost. It also believes the bonds can be priced competitively to attract buyers, another concern of some civil servants. Ms Ussher spoke to the Financial Times ahead of a seminar on Islamic finance today, where she will outline the government's position. "This is an important market for Britain, which we are committed to growing," she said. "Although we don't see this as a competition between financial centres, London is now established as the most important western centre for Islamic finance. New York has missed the boat. "We are determined to issue Islamic bonds. It will bring money to London and send out a strong positive signal to the Muslim community." Bankers say a sovereign UK Islamic bond would be a milestone for the $80bn sukuk market, one of the fastest-growing in the world, as it would boost liquidity and encourage other western governments and institutions to follow suit. So far, the only western issuers of sukuk are a Texas-based oil group, a German state and the World Bank, collectively representing a tiny fraction of the market. The bulk of issues have come from the Middle East and Malaysia, making up about 90 per cent of the market. Bankers predict the bond will be launched next year and be of benchmark size, which means about £500m. A bond of this size would help Islamic banks by giving them the ability to buy safe triple A rated paper, which will improve their balance sheets and provide them with collateral for other lending operations. Published: The Financial Times, May 19 2008 03:00 | Last updated: May 19 2008 03:00 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ccdcd48-253b-11dd-a14a-77b07658.html __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Re: Dutch Bishop: Christians should refer to God as 'Allah'
Salaam and thanks for this article. I knew this, in Bible, Torah, and in all religious books, including Hindooism and Booddaism, God was written as Allah. Later, some people changed it to God. It is true there is no God but Allah! Sadly, some Muslims translate this sentence as - there is no God but God, which does not make any sense! Christians and Jews living in Arabia speak Arabic. I met some of them in the UK who used to say Soobhanallah, Alhamdolillah, even some do use Bissmillah before they start anything! All of them agreed that these are not only Isslamic terms but also Arabic, related to Arabic language and culture. All of them agreed that Allah was the term used in their religious books at first! The fact is whether we believe or not, there is no God but Allah! This is universal truth and denying this is just acting against the law of nature! The funniest thing is, those who have deliberately misled their fellows are not able to stand for the responsibilities and mishaps have happened. Also, those who realised that they were misled and are not embracing the truth will remain responsible for their own acts! - Arif Bhuiyan >From the UK - Original Message From: Erooth Mohamed Sent: Sunday, 18 May, 2008 10:21:12 AM Subject: Dutch Bishop: Christians should refer to God as 'Allah' Muskens believes that God knows His name in all languages Dutch bishop: Call God 'Allah' Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:25:52 Source: Agencies http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=10124 Dutch Bishop: 'Allah' is a very beautiful word to use instead of the word 'God' A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding among religions. Amsterdam, Aug 15, 2007 / 09:15 am (CNA).- Bishop Martinus Muskens of Breda, Netherlands, suggested in an interview with Radio Netherlands that Christians should refer to God as Allah, which would promote better relations with Muslims. The 71-year-old Bishop, Tiny Muskens, told Radio Netherlands that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where he had spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass. Bishop Muskens "Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah?" The bishop, who had worked in Indonesia, noted that even Christians use the term Allah for God there. The Dutch should learn to get on spontaneously with different cultures, religions and behavior patterns: "Someone like me has prayed to Allah yang maha kuasa (Almighty God) for eight years in Indonesia and other priests for 20 or 30 years. In the heart of the Eucharist, God is called Allah over there, so why can't we start doing that together?" he was quoted as saying. Some Dutch Muslims welcomed his comments as a valuable gesture of support coming just days after a far-right Dutch politician insulted the Holy Quran. Geert Wilders called for the Quran to be banned in the country. Wilders, whose new party won nine seats out of the 150 in parliament in last November's elections, is well known for his negative remarks on Islam. Bishop Muskens admitted that he did not think his suggestion would be welcomed readily and that it would take about 100 years before Catholics would feel comfortable calling God "Allah". In an interview broadcast on Monday's edition of current affairs show "Netwerk," Muskens said he had worked in Indonesia where God is referred to as Allah in Christian services. But a spokesman for one of the capital's leading mosques said he was not happy with the statement. "We didn't ask for this, a spokesman for the Moroccan Mosque in Amsterdam told De Telegraaf. "Now it is as if we have a problem between Muslims and Christians." Gerrit de Fijter, chairman of the General Synod of the Dutch Protestant Church, also rejected Muskens' suggestion. "I applaud every attempt to encourage dialogue with Muslims, but I doubt the sense of this maneuver," De Fijter told De Telegraaf. Neither De Fijter nor Muslim community leaders returned calls seeking comment Wednesday. Speaking to a local television network Wednesday, Muskens said he was pleased his comments had sparked debate. "That they are interested in how to get along with God, that is a positive result," he told Omroep Brabant. Muskens is known for controversial statements. In 1996, he declared that it was acceptable for the hungry to steal bread. He also advocated condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS and urged the abolition of celibacy for priests. In June, Muskens requested Pope Benedict XVI to grant him retirement from the bishopry. Muskens, aged 71, was appointed Bishop of Breda in November 1994. +++ Allah http://www.godallah.com/index.php The w
Bismillah [IslamCity] Age of Terror
Age of Terror Peter Taylor examines the start of Al-Qaeda’s Jihad on the West with a study of the events that fight brought Osama Bin Laden to the world’s attention. Last in series. Watch the Video from the link: (Available for 5 more days from today) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b6wd4.shtml?filter=txdate%3A06-05&filter=txslot%3Aevening&start=1&scope=iplayerlast7days&version_pid=b00b6wcf Also, check other programmes in the series from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/ April 15: Terror International April 22: 10 Days of Terror April 29: The Paris Plot May 6: War on the West Age of Terror Q&A Award-winning BBC journalist Peter Taylor has been reporting on global terrorism for over 35 years. His recent series, Age of Terror, investigated notorious terror attacks over the last three decades and explored their repercussions. Viewers were invited to put their questions to Peter about terrorism and a selection of the best and most representative comments are shown below. al-Qaeda Northern Ireland UK response to terrorism Western response to terrorism Terrorism and the media General questions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/7386245.stm Journey through terror Having covered everything from the IRA to al-Qaeda in four decades of journalism, few people in Britain have spent as much time as the BBC's Peter Taylor with the people behind political violence. Here he reflects on some of his experiences. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7347154.stm Ambassador's Embassy security worries Prudence Bushnell was the US Ambassador to Kenya at the time of the Nairobi Embassy bombing in 1998. She was thrown across the room of a neighbouring high rise building when the bomb went off. She had previously made repeated requests to Washington to improve security. Episode 4: War on the West was broadcast on 6 May, 9pm on BBC Two. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/age_of_terror/7367735.stm BBC __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear
Article # 1 Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear Scientist's reply to sell for up to £8,000, and stoke debate over his beliefs James Randerson, science correspondent The Guardian, Tuesday May 13 2008 Albert Einstein, pictured in 1953. Photograph: Ruth Orkin/Hulton Archive/Getty Images "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own. A little known letter written by him, however, may help to settle the argument - or at least provoke further controversy about his views. Due to be auctioned this week in London after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as "childish superstitions". Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since. In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel's second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God's favoured people. "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them." The letter will go on sale at Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair on Thursday and is expected to fetch up to £8,000. The handwritten piece, in German, is not listed in the source material of the most authoritative academic text on the subject, Max Jammer's book Einstein and Religion. One of the country's leading experts on the scientist, John Brooke of Oxford University, admitted he had not heard of it. Einstein is best known for his theories of relativity and for the famous E=mc2 equation that describes the equivalence of mass and energy, but his thoughts on religion have long attracted conjecture. His parents were not religious but he attended a Catholic primary school and at the same time received private tuition in Judaism. This prompted what he later called, his "religious paradise of youth", during which he observed religious rules such as not eating pork. This did not last long though and by 12 he was questioning the truth of many biblical stories. "The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression," he later wrote. In his later years he referred to a "cosmic religious feeling" that permeated and sustained his scientific work. In 1954, a year before his death, he spoke of wishing to "experience the universe as a single cosmic whole". He was also fond of using religious flourishes, in 1926 declaring that "He [God] does not throw dice" when referring to randomness thrown up by quantum theory. His position on God has been widely misrepresented by people on both sides of the atheism/religion divide but he always resisted easy stereotyping on the subject. "Like other great scientists he does not fit the boxes in which popular polemicists like to pigeonhole him," said Brooke. "It is clear for example that he had respect for the religious values enshrined within Judaic and Christian traditions ... but what he understood by religion was something far more subtle than what is usually meant by the word in popular discussion." Despite his categorical rejection of conventional religion, Brooke said that Einstein became angry when his views were appropriated by evangelists for atheism. He was offended by their lack of humility and once wrote. "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." Article # 2 What he wrote The Guardian, Tuesday May 13 2008 An abridgement of the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954, translated from German by Joan Stambaugh. It will be sold at Bloomsbury auctions on Thursday ... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human communit
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel's celebration remains a Palestinian catastrophe
Israel at 60 Israel's celebration remains a Palestinian catastrophe Neither side will ever agree on the narrative of the conflict, and the prospects for peace in the Middle East are slim Ahmad Samih Khalidi Ahmad Samih Khalidi is a senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford, a former Palestinian negotiator and the co-author, with Hussein Agha, of A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine (Chatham House, 2006). The Guardian Monday May 12 2008 As Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its establishment, an inescapable counter-reality lingers over the occasion that is inextricably twinned with it. It is the nakba or catastrophe, the 60th anniversary of the destruction of Arab Palestine in 1948. Despite a public discourse that often claimed the opposite, the Zionist movement set out to build a Jewish state in Palestine with a Jewish majority. This could only come about at the expense of the local inhabitants, the vast majority of whom were Palestinian Arabs - both Muslim and Christian. From this perspective, neither the Zionists' intentions nor the reactions of the Palestinians are at issue: Israel could not have been built as a Jewish state except on the ruins of Arab Palestine. In 1948, about 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly driven out of their homeland, creating what still stands today as the world's largest and most longstanding refugee problem. The nakba created an entirely new politico-demographic reality. From a longstanding majority on their own soil, the Palestinians became a small, vulnerable minority and a tattered, broken nation living in exile or under foreign rule. Nothing can convince the Palestinians that what happened to them 60 years ago was right and proper. They cannot be expected to hail the events that led to their own destruction and dispossession. They cannot be expected to extend their benediction to the establishment of Israel, or internalise its legitimacy. There can be no conceivable circumstances in which the Palestinians can concede their history in favour of the Zionist narrative, for to do so would be to deny their own. But the conflict is not just over narratives. It is also about fundamental shifts in attitude and political perception. Almost all the major transformations have come in the wake of cataclysmic and usually unforeseen events. There is no need to welcome violence to understand its impact, neither does it follow that violence on its own necessarily leads to peace, but the history of the struggle over the land of Palestine stands in stark contrast to the adage that violence gets you nowhere. The sad truth is that violent convulsions have always been part of the process of change in the political, psychological and material terms of the conflict. The 1948 war, including pre-state Jewish terrorism, established the state of Israel. The June 1967 war led to an Arab realisation that Israel was an irreversible reality. The 1973 war eventually brought peace with Egypt, and set the background for the Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution. The 1982 Lebanon war resulted in the first comprehensive Arab peace offer to Israel. The 1987 Palestinian intifada drove Israel to talk to the PLO, culminating in the 1993 Oslo agreement. Furthermore, Israel's decision to withdraw from south Lebanon in 2000 was the result of a realisation that staying put was not worth the sacrifice. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a direct consequence of the second 2000 intifada. The current debate about the need to engage Hamas is more a reflection of the Islamic movement's military prowess than any real conviction that it is a potential partner in peace. Today, the prospects of a final resolution of the conflict based on the two-state solution are fading as it comes up against settlement realties, Palestinian domestic divisions and the structural weaknesses of Israel's political system. But even if such an agreement were to be reached, it would have to be ratified, implemented and sustained, and there is precious little to suggest that either side can see this through. The alternative is unlikely to be yet another stab at a final status settlement. There is no real safety net that will allow for the process to proceed after such a failure, nor any agreed guidelines for doing so. The Palestinain Authority (PA) and its Israeli partner have no plan B, neither has the US, the putative sponsor of the process, with the international community in tow. Yet stasis is ahistorical and unsustainable. The history of the conflict suggests other alternatives, most of which point to a slide towards further and more extensive violence as an eventual catalyst of change. As things stand, and in a situation where the vast majority of Israelis are impervious to the horrors of the occupation and shielded from its consequences, and where Palestinian aspirations are being dissipated by the daily changes on the
Bismillah [IslamCity] Open PhD positions 2008: The Hartmut Hoffmann-Berling International Graduate School of Molecular and Cellular Biology
The Hartmut Hoffmann-Berling International Graduate School of Molecular and Cellular Biology Open PhD positions 2008 Please click here: http://www.hbigs.uni-heidelberg.de/main_opnen_positions.html#up
Bismillah [IslamCity] Jimmy carter: A human rights crime
# 1 A human rights crime The world must stop standing idle while the people of Gaza are treated with such cruelty By Jimmy Carter · Jimmy Carter, a former president of the United States, is founder of The Carter Center project-syndicate.org The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers. Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity government with Hamas and Fatah and now, after internal strife, Hamas alone controls Gaza. Forty-one of the 43 victorious Hamas candidates who lived in the West Bank have been imprisoned by Israel, plus an additional 10 who assumed positions in the short-lived coalition cabinet. Regardless of one's choice in the partisan struggle between Fatah and Hamas within occupied Palestine, we must remember that economic sanctions and restrictions on the supply of water, food, electricity and fuel are causing extreme hardship among the innocent people in Gaza, about one million of whom are refugees. Israeli bombs and missiles periodically strike the area, causing high casualties among both militants and innocent women and children. Prior to the highly publicised killing of a woman and her four children last week, this pattern had been illustrated by a report from B'Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights organisation, which stated that 106 Palestinians were killed between February 27 and March 3. Fifty-four of them were civilians, and 25 were under 18 years of age. On a recent trip through the Middle East, I attempted to gain a better understanding of the crisis. One of my visits was to Sderot, a community of about 20,000 in southern Israel that is frequently struck by rockets fired from nearby Gaza. I condemned these attacks as abominable acts of terrorism, since most of the 13 victims during the past seven years have been non-combatants. Subsequently, I met with leaders of Hamas - a delegation from Gaza and the top officials in Damascus. I made the same condemnation to them, and urged that they declare a unilateral ceasefire or orchestrate with Israel a mutual agreement to terminate all military action in and around Gaza for an extended period. They responded that such action by them in the past had not been reciprocated, and they reminded me that Hamas had previously insisted on a ceasefire throughout Palestine, including Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel had refused. Hamas then made a public proposal of a mutual ceasefire restricted to Gaza, which the Israelis also rejected. There are fervent arguments heard on both sides concerning blame for a lack of peace in the Holy Land. Israel has occupied and colonised the Palestinian West Bank, which is approximately a quarter the size of the nation of Israel as recognised by the international community. Some Israeli religious factions claim a right to the land on both sides of the Jordan river, others that their 205 settlements of some 500,000 people are necessary for "security". All Arab nations have agreed to recognise Israel fully if it will comply with key United Nations resolutions. Hamas has agreed to accept any negotiated peace settlement between the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, provided it is approved in a referendum of the Palestinian people. This holds promise of progress, but despite the brief fanfare and positive statements at the peace conference last November in Annapolis, the process has gone backwards. Nine thousand new Israeli housing units have been announced in Palestine; the number of roadblocks within the West Bank has increased; and the stranglehold on Gaza has been tightened. It is one thing for other leaders to defer to the US in the crucial peace negotiations, but the world must not stand idle while innocent people are treated cruelly. It is time for strong voices in Europe, the US, Israel and elsewhere to speak out and condemn the human rights tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people. Published: Guardian, May 08, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/08/israelandthepalestinians # 2 Israel: celebrating 60 years of what? Facing the uncomfortable facts! Is 60 years of this really something to celebrate? Learn more: www.nakba60.org.uk __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] I wanted to report on where the silence was
'I wanted to report on where the silence was' Texas-born Dahr Jamail was outraged that the US media were swallowing the Bush administration's line on Iraq and so, with just $2,000 and no previous journalistic experience, he set off to find out what was really happening in the country. He talks to Stephen Moss In the spring of 2003 Dahr Jamail, a fourth-generation Lebanese-American with a taste for adventure, was up a mountain in Alaska, climbing and earning a living by working as a guide. He was, though, following news of the invasion of Iraq, and what he read and heard made him so furious that he decided to leave the mountains - "my church", as he calls them - and head for that newly subjugated land, armed only with a laptop and a digital recorder. In a world of gung-ho, embedded, flak-jacketed US reporters telling the tale from the military angle, he had decided to try to find out what was happening to the Iraqis, who seemed absent from the story, which was odd considering there were 29 million of them in the country, dodging the bombs and the bullets. Or not. "I wanted to report on where the silence was," he says. "There's this huge story going on and nobody's talking about it. How are Iraqis getting by, what's their daily life like?" Jamail, a spruce 39-year-old who is the author of a new book, Beyond the Green Zone, says the supine nature of the US media encouraged him to act. "With a few exceptions, most of the US mainstream was just stenography for the state," he says. "It wasn't journalism; it was writing down what the Bush administration was telling them. I was amazed and outraged. I felt that the lack of clear information was the biggest problem I could see in the US, so I decided I should go over and write about it." It took him until November 2003 to get the money together - $2,000, everything he had - and make some contacts, via the internet, in Iraq. He flew to Amman in Jordan, found a driver and an interpreter - he spoke no Arabic - and took a car to Baghdad, accompanied by a young couple from the UK who intended to spend a few days there "for the experience". The border was unguarded, US troops notable by their absence. The war had been fought at long range; now there was a vacuum. Jamail visited hospitals and went to the town of Samarra, 50km north of Baghdad, to check out a "firefight" in which the US military said they had been attacked and had killed 54 Iraqi fighters. Jamail found the locals telling a different story: two Iraqi fighters had attacked a detachment of US troops guarding a delivery to a bank, and the soldiers had responded by firing indiscriminately, killing and wounding many civilians. At first he had no intention of trying to compete with the mainstream media. "For the first two weeks [of a nine-week stay] I was just sending emails back home," he says. "I had a list of a little over a hundred friends, mostly in Alaska. I would go out in the day with an interpreter - I found someone to work with me who was really cheap because I didn't have much money - and interview people, take amateur photos, and then go back to the hotel and write it up. It was essentially blogging, but I didn't know what blogging was and I didn't have a blog, of course. I was just sending out two, three, four, five pages a night with a few photos attached to friends. "After about two weeks someone suggested, 'Hey, you should post on this website electroniciraq.ne.' They wanted posts from people on the ground. I did that for about a month and then towards the end of my trip, with about two weeks to go, I was contacted by the BBC to do a little bit of work with them. A start-up website in New York also contacted me to start doing some stories. I actually got paid to do some work, and that's when it became clear I could actually come back and work as a journalist." I try to probe why Jamail should have made this extraordinary gesture: was there something in his make-up that led him to take this stand? Born and raised in Texas, the son of a grocery store owner, he says that there is a streak of unpredictability in his family. He is the youngest of three: his sister is a pilot, his brother is a police officer. "My parents have always had their hands full and were broken in a bit, so I guess they weren't completely shocked when I started to do my thing," he says. He means climbing, but what about Iraq? How did they and others close to him react? "Most people thought I was crazy. My closer friends supported it. They felt, 'If this is what you think, and you really want to do it, then all power to you.' I decided, wrong or right, not to worry my parents about it until I got in there, so I waited and wrote [to] them after I reached Baghdad. Fortunately they were open to it; they were shocked, but they were open to it." Before he headed for Alaska in 1996, Jamail had worked as a chemical technician on Johnston Island, an atoll in the Pacific where the U
Bismillah [IslamCity] As it turns 60, the fear is Israel has decided it can get by without peace
As it turns 60, the fear is Israel has decided it can get by without peace This nation was forged in refuge, not imperialism. But its people have grown cynical about hopes for a deal with Palestinians By Jonathan Freedland In the wee small hours on Israeli television, they show reruns of what was once a staple form of mass entertainment: kibbutz choirs - the men in pressed work shirts, the women in peasant skirts - singing Hebrew folk melodies exalting the Land of Israel, while a smiling audience joins in. The pictures were black and white, the sets cardboard, and the programmes interminable - a socialist-realist tableau of a simple farming nation engaged in wholesome, patriotic amusement. Visiting Israel last month, I sat transfixed when I stumbled across the public service channel that replays those old shows. Tonight the national celebrations will be more up to date, as Israel marks its 60th anniversary with street parties this evening and beach barbecues tomorrow. Yet if the world is watching, trying to understand the place Israel was and what it has become, it could do worse than start with those cheesy TV specials. For one thing, too many critics like to depict the establishment of Israel in May 1948 as little more than an act of western imperialism, inserting an alien, European enclave into the mainly Arab and Muslim Middle East. In this view, the Jewish Israelis of today, with their swimming pools and waterside restaurants, are no different from their counterparts in other settler societies - the whites of Australia or, more painfully, South Africa. A look at the faces of Jewish Israel is one easy rebuttal: the new nation that has formed by mixing Moroccan and Russian, Ethiopian and Kurd, is one of the most ethnically diverse in the world. But there is a more substantial counter-argument, one that can be picked up even on those old TV singalongs. A favourite in the patriotic repertoire is Ein Li Eretz Acheret (I Have No Other Land). In a way, no other sentence conveys the tragedy of Israel and Palestine more concisely - because of course, and with good reason, the Palestinians feel exactly the same way. They too have nowhere else. Yet this Zionist anthem articulates something very deep in Israelis' sense of themselves: they are a nation formed by those who had no other place to live. The Holocaust, inevitably, looms large in this: the establishment of a Jewish state just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz was no coincidence. After 2,000 years, the world was finally persuaded that the Jews deserved what every other people regarded as a basic right: a place of their own. A poignant reminder that Jews really had no other place - because the rest of the world did not want them - came with the death last month of Yossi Harel, captain of the Exodus, the leaking, rusting ship that carried 4,500 Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine in 1947, only to be sent back - by the British - first to France and then, incredibly, to Germany. This, surely, gives the Israeli experience a different texture to the founding of, say, New Zealand, Argentina or the US. Those enterprises were fuelled chiefly by ambition and appetite for material resources. Even if those who landed on Plymouth Rock were fleeing religious intolerance, the circumstances of America's pioneers were not those of the Jews in the 1940s. The moral difference between the Jews and the white settlers of America, Africa and Australasia is the difference between a homeless man who needs a roof over his head and the landowner who fancies a second home. Those who lazily brand Zionism as imperialism should be able to tell the difference - and to remember that those who boarded those battered ships felt less like imperialists than refugees desperate for shelter. The old TV shows provide another, related corrective. They are a reminder that in some ways early Israel was less Rhodesia than it was East Germany, a small country with socialism as the state religion. Back in the 1970s, all Israeli floors looked the same: the tiles were mass produced and there was only one style. Every toilet seat was made by a single kibbutz. Foreign investors were told they were welcome - so long as they were happy to sell a 51% stake in their company to the Histadrut, Israel's TUC. That collectivism is all but gone. Most of the kibbutzim have privatised: individual members now own their own houses and earn different wages from each other. The kibbutz was never Israel, but it stands as a metaphor for what is happening in the wider society. Israel itself is privatising, as its people withdraw from the collective sphere and retreat into their own, individual lives. Many speak of the bu'ah they construct for themselves, the bubble in which they can hide away from the fears and angst of Israel's "situation". Polling reveals the dichotomy: while nearly 40% believe the country faces a "serious threat of destruction
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel: A state of uncertainty
Israel: A state of uncertainty By Tobias Buck Israel turns 60 tomorrow and the government is putting on a brave effort to make the anniversary a joyful affair. Streets are decked out in tens of thousands of blue-and-white national flags. A cheerful television spot shows a boy living through the - abundant - moments of drama that shaped the country's history. As part of the celebrations, Israelis are even able to pick a national bird, from a list that includes the graceful warbler and the Palestine sunbird. As they plunge into the festivities, Israelis have many reasons to look back with satisfaction and look ahead with confidence. The country is more populous, more secure and wealthier than it has ever been. Through ties with Washington it enjoys a rock-solid alliance with the world's most powerful nation, while its own military prowess towers over that of neighbours and regional rivals. Israel's links with leading European countries are much improved. Relations between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbours have recently soured again but remain infinitely better than during the war-torn early decades of Israel's existence. At home, Israel has built a robust democracy and welded a disparate collection of Jews from eastern Europe and north Africa, from the Soviet Union and Yemen, from France and the US into a squabbling but cohesive nation. Its universities produce world-class research and its technology companies are among the most innovative. "Israel today is in a vastly better strategic, military and economic situation than it has ever been in its 60 years of existence. We have peace treaties with two Arab rivals [Egypt and Jordan], we have excellent relations with Europe, China and India. Our economy is flourishing. It shows just how remarkably resilient Israel is: in 60 years there has not been one nanosecond of peace," says Michael Oren, an Israeli historian and senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based think tank. Yet a distinct air of gloom and disillusionment hangs over the event. As Mr Oren notes, "the mood here is not terrific". Shimon Peres, the country's president and the éminence grise of Israeli politics, puts it differently but comes to a similar conclusion. "The situation", he says, "is better than the mood". The two men's impressions are confirmed by professional followers of Israel's collective psyche, such as Camil Fuchs, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a veteran opinion poll analyst. What is wrong, then? Prof Fuchs insists the apparent sourness is only half the story. "The fact is that Israelis are today quite content with their lives. They feel their life is good, their standard of living is good," he says. "But if you were to ask, as they do in the US, whether people believe the country is heading in the right direction, a large majority would say the country is on the wrong track. The general mood is bad." Tom Segev, one of the country's best-known historians and a columnist for Haaretz newspaper, agrees: "There is a feeling that 'I'm OK but the country is not OK'. There is a feeling that the country is going in the wrong direction." This contradiction between how Israelis feel as individuals and how they feel about their country can be found in many places. While five years of rapid economic growth have made the majority better off, many are concerned at a widening social divide and growing inequality. According to one telling recent poll, Israelis regard the fight against poverty and inequality as even more important than reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Though most Israelis live lives far more comfortable than anything experienced by earlier generations, many bemoan the loss of the egalitarian spirit that marked Israel's pioneering years. The ambivalence extends to the political sphere. True, Israelis of all ages show a remarkable readiness to serve their country, not least in its cherished armed forces. Although the number who try to evade military service is on the rise, when Israel was last forced to call up its reserves during the 2006 Lebanon war the response was more than 100 per cent - even soldiers who were not on the call-up list showed up to fight. But this individual commitment is at odds with the dismay with which Israelis see their politicians and the country's democratic institutions. Political polls are exercises in despair, as ministers and opposition leaders vie for the least bad ratings. Public perceptions of Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, are a case in point: according to Dahaf, a Tel Aviv-based polling institute, only 10 per cent of Israelis say he has succeeded in his job. Prof Fuchs says citizens are "enormously disillusioned" with the political system and the country's leadership. "Israelis have no confidence in the government and no confidence in the Knesset [parliament]. There is a belief that they are corrupt and that causes great despair." The collapse of publ
Bismillah [IslamCity] Ireland is at peace?
Some News/Articles I believe you will find interesting! Do you think that Ireland is in peace? 'Ireland is at peace' IRELAND is at peace. With those four words, Bertie Ahern ended his political career on the highest stage and signalled the hour of his country's coming of age. 'Drumcondra Mafia' turn out to support the Grandfather The great day of hope has dawned Plea is encouraging for the illegal Irish Taoiseach's hotel suite is evacuated in fire alert A remarkable delivery of what was probably the speech of his life Washington visits reveal a history of the Troubles The speech of his life Civil service must be transformed to meet demands of modern State __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Israel's Pride and Prejudice at 60
Article # 1 Israel's Pride and Prejudice at 60 By Dominique Moïsi The writer is a senior adviser at France's Institute for International Relations If 60 is for an individual the age of maturity, it is a very young age for a state. Israel remains, for the lack of a better word, an adolescent state, the young incarnation of a very old dream. It is an adolescent torn between pride and resentment on one hand, and hope and fear on the other. That combination of pride and resentment was most visible in Warsaw two weeks ago during the ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the insurrection of the Ghetto. Three years ago, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Israeli military aircraft had flown over the site of the camp. This time, in the Royal Opera House of Warsaw, young Israeli soldiers in uniform were present in large numbers, strolling past walls adorned with hundreds of photographs of the faces of Polish Jews who had disappeared during the war. A vanished eastern European world had been replaced by a vibrant and defiant western presence in the Middle East. Poles, some of them in black tie, looked on baffled at this uniformed presence in the midst of a Beethoven concert designed to celebrate the reconciliation between Poland and (not its Jews, for they have mostly disappeared) the state of Israel. The message was clear. The spiritual heirs of the leaders of the Ghetto insurrection were back in Warsaw full of both pride for what they had been able to achieve - a state guaranteeing the security of its citizens - and continued resentment for what had taken place. If they had been there 65 years ago, millions of Jewish lives would have been saved. Are Palestinians today paying a price for the resentment still felt by Israelis towards Europe, in a transfer of ire of the most detrimental nature? Yet the presence of these Israeli soldiers in the Warsaw Opera was a clear illustration that 60 years after its creation the very existence of the state of Israel remains nothing short of a miracle: a miracle of human will, determination and ultimately of hope. In less than three generations and in spite of extremely difficult conditions, Israelis have managed not only to survive but also to create a rich and original culture; to achieve spectacular results in science and medicine; and to create a technological hub in the region. But hope should not be confused with self-delusion. Israel cannot dream of ever becoming the democratic Singapore of the Middle East if it remains in an ethnic and religious war with its immediate neighbours, the Palestin-ians. More than 30 years ago some of Israel's strategic thinkers dreamt of an alliance with the non-Arab countries of the Middle East, Iran and Turkey. In their eyes the triangle between Tehran, Ankara and Jerusalem held the key to creation of a new balance of power in the Middle East. Today, this diplomatic dream has evolved and is taking the shape of a new configuration of forces in the region. It consists of an alliance between moderate Sunni Arab regimes and Israel against the alliance of fundamentalist forces behind Iran. There is something in that logic but for the former alliance to emerge there needs to be real progress and at least a truce between the Israelis and all Palestinians, including Hamas. Strategically many Arab leaders fear the prospect of a nuclear Iran as much as, if not more than, Israel but emotionally their people would not ratify efforts to stop Iran without real progress in -Palestine. Demographically, strategically, politically, ethically and even economically, Israelis cannot put the Palestinian problem to one side. They should not give in to resignation because all previous peace attempts have failed, or because Palestinians have not produced a leader of the quality of Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. As long as Palestinians arein despair the Israeli miracle will remain, like Schubert's eighth symphony, unfinished. Israelis and Palestinians could have provoked the best in each other. Unfortunately their interactions have led to the opposite result. David Ben-Gurion, the first and so far best leader of Israel, dreamt of an Israel that would act as a bridge between the developed north and the underdeveloped south. The African continent loomed large in his vision of the world. But the Israelis did not have to look that far afield for an economically undeveloped region to engage with. Their Africa was next door and after 1967 it became, through occupation, part of them. It may be that the goal of peace with its most reluctant Arab neighbour is simply too tough for Israel to realise, at least in the foreseeable future. Separately, America's goal of democratisation for the regionhas also provedtoo ambitious. Instead, it would be better to set more realistic goals: for Israel, ensuring peace by truce with the Palestinians and for the US, seeking the rule
Bismillah [IslamCity] Anti-terror law is absurd, unfair and a breach of human rights
Judges V Ministers Anti-terror law is absurd, unfair and a breach of human rights #1. Freezing assets of terror suspects ruled unlawful by High Court Asset-freezing orders imposed by the Treasury on terror suspects have been ruled unlawful Sean O'Neill, Crime and Security Editor Anti-terrorism legislation was condemned as poorly thought-out by a senior High Court judge yesterday as he declared that the Treasury’s powers to freeze suspects’ bank accounts were unlawful. Mr Justice Collins said that terrorist financial orders — introduced by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor — were absurd,unfair and a breach of fundamental rights. The judge, who has lengthy experience of dealing with terrorism cases, said: “It was, frankly, another example of an immediate reaction without it being thought through properly — which is rather the pattern with the anti-terrorism measures.” The Times revealed this week that the judge was preparing to criticise the asset-freezing regime in the latest of a series of rulings that have exacerbated tensions between the judiciary and the Government. There are now 59 people living in Britain on the Treasury sanctions list, including the radical clerics Abu Hamza al-Masri and Abu Qatada, who are both in jail. The Bank of England has frozen 274 accounts, containing £656,000. Abu Qatada had £180,000 cash in his home when it was raided in 2001 and, despite the sanctions, Abu Hamza made £120,000 on a property transaction while in prison. Ruling on an appeal brought by five terrorist suspects — referred to in court as A, K, M, Q and G — the judge said that the sanctions had had “the most drastic effect” on them and their families. People on the terrorist list have to apply to the Treasury for a licence to spend money on groceries and anyone who provides them with “an economic resource” is liable to a criminal conviction and a jail sentence. The judge said the situation was “an absurdity” and recommended that two measures — the Terrorism Order and the al-Qaeda and Taleban Order — should be quashed. They will, however, remain in place pending an appeal that the ministers said the Government would pursue urgently. The measures were adopted to give effect in British law to two United Nations Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on people alleged to be funding terrorism. The judge was critical that they were introduced as Orders in Council rather than through an Act of Parliament and were therefore not subject to debate by MPs and peers. He also criticised the absence of a procedure for suspects who wanted to challenge their listing as terrorists. The Government, he added, should consider introducing measures in the Counter-terrorism Bill to provide for a tribunal at which people on the Treasury’s list could challenge the financial sanctions. The judge told government lawyers: “You are going to have to legislate at some stage, otherwise the State will not be able to put before the court the incriminating or allegedly incriminating material.” He said he had “real concerns” that the orders had introduced a criminal offence, of assisting a listed person, without consulting Parliament. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said that the High Court had left Mr Brown’s asset-freezing regime “in tatters”. He added: “When you make laws in a hurry that are unfocused and arbitrary, the result is neither firm nor fair — just fragile.” Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said that she was “very disappointed” with the ruling. Jane Kennedy, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: “The Government continues to be fully committed to defending and maintaining our asset-freezing regime which makes an important contribution to our national security by helping to prevent funds being used for terrorist purposes and is central to our obligations under successive UN Security Council Resolutions to combat global terrorism.” But Jules Carey, solicitor for G, said that the importance of the judgment could not be overstated. He said: “It is the sovereignty of Parliament that is at stake here, the foundation block of the British constitution. If Government can, without consulting Parliament, give itself powers to create criminal offences and take away fundamental rights then we are watching the sun set on democracy.” >From The Times, April 25, 2008 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3806031.ece # 2. Judges will carry on holding ministers to account - because that’s their job Frances Gibb: Analysis Yesterday’s court rulings highlight the delicate relationship between the executive and the judiciary — one in which judges increasingly hold ministers to account, and find them wanting. The two cases are not isolated. In recent weeks, ministers have suffered a series of judicial hammer blows — from deporting terrorist suspects to powers to block the release of offenders on parole. So are our judges getting restive? Tension between the judiciary an
Bismillah [IslamCity] The art of war
The Art of war: John Hoyland: Blood on the canvas, by a modern master John Hoyland has been called Europe's answer to Mark Rothko. On a visit to his London studio, esther walker discovers why the celebrated painter has turned to Robert Fisk of The Independent for inspiration in his latest artworks "I borrow anything from anything," says the artist John Hoyland. "I'll borrow from other people's work, nature, flowers – anything." In his latest exhibition, Greetings of Love, Hoyland borrows from a more unlikely source, perhaps: a photograph of blood-spatter on the floor of a hospital in Lebanon, accompanied by a piece, about the 33-day conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel in 2006, by The Independent's Robert Fisk. "I've always liked Robert Fisk's writing and I admire him. I thought the piece that he had written was rather moving, and I looked at the photograph that went with it and it looked just like one of my paintings." The piece, published in August 2007, was a reflection on the previous year's war in Lebanon and, in part, a review of the book Double Blind by the Italian photographer Paolo Pellegrin. Pellegrin's picture, taken in Tyre's main hospital, shows a large splash of blood on the black-and-white tiled floor of a hospital; the victim had been badly injured in an Israeli rocket attack on 6 August, 2006. "I hate wars," reads Fisk's piece. "I was thinking this over as I pawed through Double Blind, from which these photographs are taken. Its terrible, rage-filled, blood-spattered pages are an awful memory to me of last year's war in Lebanon. It began on my birthday – my 60th birthday – when a dear friend called me up and told me what a terrible birthday I was going to have, and I asked why, and she told me that two Israeli soldiers had been captured by the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and I asked Abed, my driver, to head south, because I knew that the Israelis would bomb across Lebanon. And I was right." The resulting work by Hoyland is a powerful, richly coloured image, with the artist's trademark layers of thick paint, rivers of colour running down the canvas, and his nerve-cell-like central focus. But Hoyland insists that the piece is not deliberately political. "I don't see Lebanon as a political piece, although the title would indicate that. I was simply struck by the constant threat to people living in the Middle East and the sheer horror of the things that happen. I suppose my sympathies would always be with the victims and the underdog, so I suppose in that way it is political." Lebanon is part of a wider exhibition inspired by loss. Both Patrick Caulfield and Piero Dorazio, both artists and close friends of Hoyland's, died in 2005 and Greetings of Love is, in part, a farewell. He has referred to the paintings for Dorazio, Poem for Piero, and Caulfield, Souvenir for Patrick, as "letters to friends" and "elegies". "I spend a lot of time looking for structures and looking for things to hang a painting on," says Hoyland. "You've got to have a structure otherwise you'll just paint chaos. But at the moment I'm in this thing where I'm not painting sexy or structured pictures, I'm just surprising myself with what comes out. And I've done a lot of paintings recently that, without thinking about it, turn out to be about loss." Hoyland, now 73, is regarded as the leading abstract artist of his generation, and is sometimes referred to as Europe's answer to Mark Rothko. "I don't think he would have liked that comparison," says Hoyland, laughing. "I knew him a little bit and he didn't really like other people following him at all." Hoyland is part of a band of post-war "Mod Brit" artists such Albert Irvin, Alan Davie and Bridget Riley who , after briefly falling out of fashion, have enjoyed a recent return to popularity. Last year Davie sold a work for £234,000, and Hoyland's bright creations have been selling for £50,000 each. . V C War and conflict are a subject close to Hoyland's heart. National Service was scrapped the year that Hoyland was due to be called up. "I was lucky that I never had to confront that. I would never have gone into the forces if I had been called up, even though some of my contemporaries seem to have enjoyed it. And the whole purpose of becoming an artist is to be an individual; the idea of going somewhere and being given a number and doing everything you're told doesn't appeal to me. I just don't go in for all this shooting people who you don't know; it sounds crazy to me." The war in Iraq, Hoyland feels, was similarly inexplicable. "I've always been 150 per cent against the war, the folly of it and the lack of wisdom on behalf of our leaders. I mean, they might be smart people but they've got no wisdom. They're just like smart lawyers. But I'm older than them so maybe that makes a difference." Hoyland was born in Sheffield in 1934 and attended the Sheffield School of Art and then came down to London to study at t
Bismillah [IslamCity] Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army
more than 10 systems a month.' Something like this. "'I'm already going bankrupt.' He was so miserable. Guys in our unit used to sell these things back home, make deals with people. People are so stupid." The military said that Israeli Defence Forces soldiers operate according to "a strict set of moral guidelines" and that their expected adherence to them only "increases wherever and whenever IDF soldiers come in contact with civilians". It added that "if evidence supporting the allegations is uncovered, steps are taken to hold those involved to the level of highest judicial severity". It also said: "The Military Advocate General has issued a number of indictments against soldiers due to allegations of criminal behaviour ... Soldiers found guilty were punished severely by the Military Court, in proportion to the committed offence." It had not by last night quantified such indictments. In its introduction to the testimonies, Breaking the Silence says: "The soldiers' determination to fulfil their mission yields tragic results: the proper-normative becomes despicable, the inconceivable becomes routine ... [The] testimonies are to illustrate the manner in which they are swept into the brutal reality reigning on the ground, a reality whereby the lives of many thousands of Palestinian families are at the questionable mercy of youths. Hebron turns a focused, flagrant lens at the reality to which Israel's young representatives are constantly sent." A force for justice Breaking the Silence was formed four years ago by a group of ex-soldiers, most of whom had served in Israel Defence Forces combat units in Hebron. Many of the soldiers do reserve duty in the military each year. It has collected some 500 testimonies from former soldiers who served in the West Bank and Gaza. Its first public exposure was with an exhibition of photographs by soldiers serving in Hebron and the organisation also runs regular tours of Hebron for Israeli students and diplomats. It receives funding from groups as diverse as the Jewish philanthropic Moriah Fund, the New Israel Fund, the British embassy in Tel Aviv and the EU. Published: The Independent, Saturday, 19 April 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/our-reign-of-terror-by-the-israeli-army-811769.html [Jewish State is forbidden by Judaism but not by Zionism! Jewish State was formed to use innocent Jews as guinea pigs and to disturb the Muslims/Arabs and the main goal is to take control of Middle East from the unrest situations, therefore, to get control of the wealth of that area! Jews must united against this Propaganda State and for their better future. They must realise that their Govt. is against them and threw them in danger! The 2nd World War was a tool used against Jews to give birth of an illegitimate nation! Place your comments on the subject/article. Thank you. Arif Bhuiyan, from the UK] __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
Bismillah [IslamCity] Robert Fisk: Painters love martyrs and prophets
Painters love martyrs and prophets Saint Sebastian's death – arrows puncturing skin – is straight out of Shia martyrology By Robert Fisk Nothing annoys me more than a magnificent Renaissance painting which carries the deadly label "school of". Why any of the great masters would let some junior copy or finish off his martyrdoms and crucifixions perplexes me, although – in an age when paintings were commissioned by popes and dukes – speed and commercial success were probably more important than artistic pride. Indeed, it was only when I began to examine the provenance of Hizbollah "martyr" portraits in Lebanon that I discovered the same principle applied. The top painter of Hizbollah's dead – those young men invariably shot, blown up or bombed to death by Israel – is a man called Shelala. But when I tracked his studio down in the Jnah suburb of south Beirut, I found that he would instruct a team of enthusiasts how to paint the "martyr''s face – how big his beard should be, whether the tulips should be on the right or left of his head – and let them get on with the work. He would drop by later to touch up an eye or a pair of spectacles on the dead man's face before the finished product was carted off to be strung on an electric pylon or a cemetery wall in southern Lebanon. "School of Shelala". I have to say that Pinturicchio of Perugia – Bernardino di Betto di Biagio for Renaissance scholars – is a cut above Shelala. His 15th-century virgins and saints have that luminescent quality and perspective that most Renaissance painting exults, and the Umbrian city's exhibition of his work – along with the confusingly named Perugino of Castel della Pieve (Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci) – is a claustrophobic but dutiful collection of religious pretension and obedience. Yet I had forgotten the degree to which these two men – along with their "schools" and countless other minor artists across Italy – focused their attention on martyrs and anchorites, lonely old hermits who live out their days in grim contemplation of God's goodness and cruelty. The martyrs are familiar enough. Christ's body and blood are set pieces, the red fountains always pouring from identical wounds, the feet bleeding into little piles of gore where miniature but obsessive monks can be seen staring at the stuff with unbecoming enthusiasm. The violence of the age marries perfectly into the Shia martyrology of the imams Ali and Hussein, whose blood-boltered features dominate the posters beside the great mosques of Najaf and Kufa and Kerbala. Indeed, St Sebastian's death – all arrows puncturing white skin – is straight out of Shia martyrology. One altarpiece I came across in Perugia this week showed a remarkably pristine version of the crucifixion, with scarcely a sign of holy wounds, until, at the bottom right-hand corner, I espied the head of St Peter with what looked like a meat cleaver in the top of his skull, from which rained the inevitable blood. His face, eyes squinting in pain, bore the expression of a man who, well, who has just been bashed over the head with a meat cleaver. A violent time, the Renaissance. But a time of contemplation. Repeatedly, old St Jerome turns up in Pinturicchio's work. Over and over again, the ancient hermit can be seen kneeling or stooping in front of a cave amid barren mountains, shaggy-bearded – sometimes ginger, sometimes pepper and salt – staring at some distant vision. That this was painted at a time when Ferdinand and Isabella's Spanish cartoonists were obscenely portraying another holy man – Mohamed by name – who received another message from God, only marks the thin line between devotion and hatred. Yes, late 15th-century Spanish artists far outdid the puerile cartoons of 21st-century Denmark. But it was not just the Prophet whom St Jerome reminded me of. Who else comes to mind? Well, I can think of another man, his long beard growing whiter with age, who lives in caves and believes in visions and messages. I've even met him beside just such a cave. A night on the bare mountain must be just as bleak in Pushtunistan as it was in Umbria although the effects, as we know, can be catastrophically different. In an age when we are still supposed to believe in the "clash of civilisations" – how anyone was taken in by Huntingdon's preposterous book is still a mystery to me – and in "faith" foundations created by equally preposterous former prime ministers, it does no harm to look at the work of my old Palestinian friend Tarif Khalidi who lives just round the corner from me in Beirut. When he first turned up to teach at Cambridge, I pointed out of the window of his apartment and asked him if he didn't feel a bit far from home with the towers of King's College opposite his home. "But what do they remind you of, Fisky?" he asked. I thought for a moment before the obvious dawned on me. Minarets, I asked? "Exactly, Fisky!" he roared. And so I turn to his seminal book,
Bismillah [IslamCity] How Arabs have been driven out of Hebron
How Arabs have been driven out of Hebron By Mario Vargas Llosa. Hebron is the image of desolation and pain. I'm talking of the H-2 sector, the oldest part of this ancient city, which is under Israeli military control and where some 500 colonos – settlers – live in four settlements. It is one of the holiest places of Judaism and Islam, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where in February 1994, the settler Baruch Goldstein machine-gunned Muslims at prayer, killing 29 and wounding dozens. To protect these settlers, the zone bristles with barriers, camps and military posts, and is overrun by Israeli patrols. But such mobilisation will soon be unnecessary because this part of Hebron, subject to ethnic and religious cleansing, will soon have no Arab residents. Its centuries-old market, which was once as multi-coloured, varied and bustling as that of Jerusalem, is now empty and the doors of all the shops are sealed. Travelling around, you feel in limbo. So too when you walk through the surrounding deserted streets, with shopfronts shuttered with metal sheets and on whose roofs you glimpse military posts. The walls of this entire semi-empty neighbourhood are filled with racist inscriptions: "Death to the Arabs". Some 25,000 residents have been cleared from their homes in H-2 zone in five years. In the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood alone, where there is a settlement of the same name, barely 50 out of 500 Arab families remain. The extraordinary thing is that they haven't already gone, subjected as they are to systematic and ferocious harassment by settlers, who stone them, throw rubbish and excrement at their houses, invade and destroy their homes, and attack their children when they return from school, to the absolute indifference of Israeli soldiers who witness these atrocities. No one told me this: I saw it with my own eyes and heard with my own ears from the victims themselves. I have a video of the hair-raising scene of children from Tel Rumeida settlement stoning and kicking Arab schoolchildren and their teachers who, to protect themselves, returned home in groups instead of individually. When I told Israeli friends this, some looked at me with incredulity and I saw they suspected I exaggerated or lied, as novelists often do. It turned out that none had ever set foot in Hebron. Translated by Elizabeth Nash. This is an edited extract of an article that appeared in El Pais Published: The Independent, Saturday, 19 April 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mario-vargas-llosa-how-arabs-have-been-driven-out-of-hebron-811770.html __ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
