Forward.com: Indonesian human rights activists are protesting an American Jewish organization’s plans to give Indonesia’s president an award for religious freedom — a freedom that human rights monitors say has sharply deteriorated under his rule.

The annual award, given by Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Appeal of Conscience Foundation, has no significant profile in the United States. But in Indonesia, Schneier’s decision to give the award to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been the subject of street protests, newspaper articles, and angry statements by major national figures.

“He has laid down the legal infrastructure of the discrimination against religious minorities,” said Andreas Harsono, a Jakarta-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, of Yudhoyono.

According to recent Human Rights Watch reports, persecution against religious minorities, including non-Sunni Muslims and Christians, has burgeoned under the current president’s leadership. A recent U.S. State Department report faulted the Indonesian government for failing to protect religious minorities.

More: 

Huff Post: by Zach J. Hoag:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5)

I begin with this passage for one reason: I believe in the “ministry of reconciliation.”

And I want to frame everything that follows here in the gospel that truly reconciles. I have no interest in contradicting that gospel. I have no interest in abandoning it. I aim to give my life to experiencing and sharing in that very same message.

But here’s the thing: There’s a false gospel on the loose in the evangelical church.

And it is nothing less than a diabolical doctrine that comes clothed in a bright, angelic, counterfeit message of “reconciliation.” It is a word entrenched in institutional power and amplified by hierarchies reaching up into the halls of religious academia and pressing deep into the world of prestigious publishing. Far from a message that subverts the empire of selfish power and control by reweaving justice and peace, this gospel is one that glorifies the way of empire, often calling it “God” and claiming to be his ambassadors. Then, when injustice strikes, instead of healing there is worse abusing; instead of honesty and advocacy, complicity.

More: 

Huff Post: The Council of Nicaea called by the Emperor Constantine met in 325 C.E. to establish a unified Catholic Church. At that point no universally sanctioned Scriptures or Christian Bible existed. Various churches and officials adopted different texts and gospels. That’s why the Council of Hippo sanctioned 27 books for the New Testament in 393 C.E. Four years later the Council of Cartage confirmed the same 27 books as the authoritative Scriptures of the Church.

Wouldn’t you assume that the newly established Church would want its devotees to immerse themselves in the sanctioned New Testament, especially since the Church went to great lengths to eliminate competing Gospels? And wouldn’t the best way of spreading the “good news” be to ensure that every Christian had direct access to the Bible?

That’s not what happened. The Church actually discouraged the populace from reading the Bible on their own — a policy that intensified through the Middle Ages and later, with the addition of a prohibition forbidding translation of the Bible into native languages.

More: 

Do young people in Switzerland think they drink too much when they go out? During an info event held in Bern they answered that question themselves.

Summary
The battle for the Syrian city of Al-Qusayr, which came under regime artillery fire May 19, is actually part of a larger battle for the highly coveted Homs governorate. As we noted in 2012, the battle has wide-reaching ramifications for the Syrian rebels since Al-Qusayr sits along a major transit point for rebel supplies and reinforcements coming in from Lebanon. But it is equally important to loyalist forces. If the Syrian regime loses control of the Orontes River Valley and its major road junctions, Damascus will be largely cut off from Aleppo and the Alawite-dominated coast, which would limit the regime’s access to supply lines from port cities.

The regime’s renewed offensive against Al-Qusayr was made possible by support from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. However, geography will determine which side holds the advantage. In northern and eastern Syria, the regime remains on the defensive; in the core, the advantage clearly belongs to the loyalists. With the country squarely divided, the Syrian civil war will continue to be a protracted conflict — even as the regime prevails in Al-Qusayr.

Analysis
Supported by Hezbollah fighters, loyalist forces began their offensive against Al-Qusayr with a barrage of artillery fire. Given that the rebels are entrenched in static positions throughout the city, massed artillery fire can have a particularly devastating effect. Regime forces are largely deployed to the north and east of the city, while fighters affiliated with Hezbollah are reportedly advancing on the city from the south and west.

Hezbollah has long been involved in the fight over Homs, but the May 19 offensive marks a clear escalation in Hezbollah’s involvement. Tensions in Lebanon have grown alongside this increased involvement. For example, rebels struck the Lebanese town of Hermel with rocket artillery on May 19. And the anger Lebanese Sunnis feel toward Hezbollah threatens to spill over into a full-blown armed conflict.

External Support

Al-Qusayr is not the only theater in which al Assad has received considerable external support. Iran and Russia continue to deliver much-needed material and equipment, including spare parts needed to maintain the regime’s critical advantage over the rebels: the air force. Tehran and Moscow also have reportedly played a major role in giving economic support, which is used to fund the war effort and pay hefty salaries to security forces.

External help also enabled Syria to create a new militia, known as the National Defense Force, to offset the losses incurred by the army. With the help of Iranian and Hezbollah advisers, the regime was able to rapidly train and deploy members of this militia. The National Defense Force has brought reliable manpower to the loyalist cause, but equally important, it has helped free up the conventional army to execute difficult offensive operations.

Bolstered by this external aid, the loyalist forces have been increasingly able to crack down on rebel positions within the Syrian core, which extends from Damascus to the Alawite coast and passes through the Homs governorate. This division creates problems for both sides. Al Assad’s forces are currently incapable of launching comprehensive offensives to relieve their positions in the north and the east. For their part, the rebels are also finding it almost impossible to relieve their beleaguered comrades in Homs city and Al-Qusayr.

In fact, over the past few months, fighting has regressed to battles of exhaustion and campaigns of attrition. Instances where the rebels could quickly seize a major city in only a few days — as they did in Raqqa — are the exception rather than the norm.

Controlling Homs

In the battle for Homs, external support gives the regime the military edge. But despite this superiority, the regime probably will not stamp out the rebel resistance entirely, even if it retakes Al-Qusayr. Time and again the rebels have demonstrated a talent for retreating from areas in which the regime musters overwhelming force. The regime has been careful to surround Al-Qusayr from all directions, but the rebels will continue to escape through regime gaps into the countryside or to other rebel strongholds in Homs, such as Rastan and Talbiseh.

However, thanks to considerable Hezbollah aid, the regime has largely subdued rebel operations in the Homs governorate, a goal it has tried to achieve since the early stages of the rebellion. Control over Homs will enable al Assad to rapidly move forces from the north to the south to meet emerging rebel threats. It will also provide a key avenue of retreat to the Alawite coast in the event that he needs to flee Damascus.

| Stratfor

Reuters | May 21, 2013 | JORDAN TIMES

KHARTOUM — Lebanese farmland investor GLB Invest plans to invest up to $800 million in Sudan to produce animal feed to be sold to Saudi Arabia, its president said on Tuesday.

Arab investors have launched farmland and livestock projects in the vast African country, prized for its fertile soil and easy access to irrigation water from the Nile, to help arid Gulf oil producers secure food supplies.

Firas Badra, president of Beirut-based GLB Invest, said the firm had leased 78,000 hectares of land 130km north of Khartoum to produce and export 40,000 tonnes annually of animal feed from January to Saudi Arabia.

“We are starting now with 40,000 tonnes for the time being and the project will have a maximum capacity of 750,000 tonnes by 2019,” Badra told Reuters on the sidelines of an Arab food investment conference in the Sudanese capital.

“Next year we are going to reach 250,000 tonnes,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is a market of 4 million tonnes.”

The Sudanese pound has more than halved in value since South Sudan’s secession in 2011 deprived Sudan of most oil production, the main source for dollars and state revenues.

GLB had so far spent $200 million in Sudan and would increase investment up to between $750 million and $800 million by 2019, he said.

As a second project, GLB planned to plant 200,000 sun flower seeds which would be crushed to make sun flower oil to be sold inside Sudan, he said, adding that part of it would be exported to neighbouring countries.

He said the investment climate in Sudan was good despite central bank restrictions on repatriating profits in hard currency, a common complaint from foreign investors.

“We can find solutions for that,” he said.

The Sudanese pound has more than halved in value since South Sudan’s secession in 2011 deprived the country of most oil production, the country’s main source of dollars.

Epigraph: O ye who believe! wine and the game of hazard and idols and divining arrows are only an abomination of Satan’s handiwork. So shun each one of them that you may prosper. Satan desires only to create enmity and hatred among you by means of wine and the game of hazard, and to keep you back from the remembrance of Allah and from Prayer. But will you keep back? (Al Quran 5:91-92)

Source: May 21, 2013 – swissinfo.ch

Alcohol plays a role in many cases of domestic violence in Switzerland. Almost every second woman who is subject to abuse says that alcohol consumption is a problem in her relationship, according to a study.

The research project assessed for the first time how many victims of actual or threatened physical, psychological or sexual violence in Switzerland are directly or indirectly also affected by alcohol problems. The authors conclude that more weight should be attributed to the duality of the set of problems.

“Many women who get victim consultation or call a women’s refuge have a partner who is violent and at the same time has an alcohol problem,” the authors wrote. “And many men who visit an abuse counselling centre or participate in a programme against domestic violence also have a problem with alcohol and violence.”

A number of studies conducted outside Switzerland have pointed out that there is a general correlation between alcohol consumption and violence towards a partner. Not all alcoholics are violent, and not all abusers have a drink problem, but it is a fact that alcohol abuse and violence sometimes occur together.

The study authors, sociologists Daniela Gloor und Hanna Meier from research institute Social Insights, assessed the link between violence and alcohol abuse based on questionnaires, discussions and workshops. Their goal was to outline the main problems arising during counselling in order to support abuse victims more effectively.

Violence and alcohol abuse affect people at every age and in all walks of life, according to the research commissioned by the Federal Office of Public Health. Still, about a quarter of the people who get counselling also have other troubles; they are jobless or receive social benefits, a disability annuity or an old-age pension, the study showed.

Consumption a problem

The World Health Organization reported in 2002 that domestic violence seriously harms physical and mental health and the way the people affected by abuse cope with everyday life.

In particular, a problematic alcohol consumption accentuates domestic violence, the authors said. In a quarter of abuse cases, one of the partners had been drinking before violence was exercised. If the consumption is a problem, the share of abuse cases increases to a half, the study showed.

The Swiss survey entitled Violence in the Partnership and Alcohol showed that in nine of out ten abuse cases it is the men who are drinking, and two out of three victims were women. The authors only assessed cases where the men were the perpetrators, because this is the case four times out of five.

Children live in two out of three households affected by domestic violence. Half of them are below the age of ten.

Both problems – alcohol consumption and violence – are very gender-specific, meaning that the behaviours and views of men and women may differ a lot, the authors said.

Almost half of female abuse victims have a violent partner who also has alcohol problems. But only in 4.3 per cent of cases it is both partners who have an alcohol problem and in 0.6 per cent it is the women only.

Lack of support

Problematic alcohol consumption aggravates domestic violence (Keystone)

The researchers found that there is still a considerable lack of support that combines advice for both problems.

Many counselling centres specialise in just one field, and the counsellors often also lack guidelines on how to tackle dual problems. And there is only a limited offer for men who have used violence against their partners.

The government has said that until now not counselling in Switzerland has not taken into account enough the existence of a correlation. The first projects, which better coordinate support efforts for people affected by both issues, are taking place in cantons St Gallen and Basel Country. They illustrate the way to go forward, the health office said.

The researchers studied 1,500 cases from counselling centres. The findings were published as part of a campaign by the National Alcohol Programme, which aims to reduce the negative effects of alcohol consumption.

Every fifth person in Switzerland drinks too much, too often or at the wrong time, the government has said.

Reference

BY JO BIDDLE ARABNEWS
Wednesday 22 May 2013

MUSCAT: US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Oman yesterday aiming to help finalize an estimated $ 2.1 billion deal to supply a US-made air-defense system to the Gulf nation.

One of the main focuses of Kerry’s trip was to applaud the signing of a letter of intent between Muscat and US manufacturer Raytheon ahead of talks to negotiate the final contract, officials told reporters on the flight to Oman.
“In January the Omanis made a decision to buy a ground-based air defense system produced by Raytheon … something that the secretary advocated for when he was in the Senate,” a senior State Department official said. Kerry had strongly backed the bid by the company based in his home state of Massachusetts, before taking office as the new top US diplomat on Feb. 1.

“Part of the goal of this is to push US commercial interests, to demonstrate to Oman that these are important to this administration,” the official added.

After arriving, Kerry first headed for talks with Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos, at his vast beige and white palace complex, an oasis of green and palm trees set against a backdrop of mountains in the desert landscape.

The final details of the Raytheon deal have yet to be worked out, but officials said the contract expected to be signed on Wednesday would be worth an estimated $ 2.1 billion.

“It will further integrate the defensive systems in the Gulf, which is something we have been working on quite a bit within the GCC,” the official said, referring to the GCC.

“There are similar systems elsewhere in the Gulf,” she said.

“Oman has also recently brought a second tranche of F-16s so this is a way of continuing our relationship in the defense arena and will have pluses in terms of interoperability.”

US officials said the deal to supply 12 F-16s was sealed in 2011 for delivery through 2014
.
Kerry will also discuss the war in Syria with Oman.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, right, is greeted by Oman Foreign Minister Yusuf Bin Alawi in Muscat on Tuesday. (AP)

http://arabnews.com/news/452422

By JOSHUA MITNICK WALL STREET JOURNAL

RAWABI, West Bank—A project to build what would be the first modern Palestinian city here has stumbled over an issue that has become an enduring obstacle to efforts to boost the territory’s economy: access to Israeli-controlled lands that surround it.

Cranes with Palestinian flags mark the massive construction site at Rawabi, 5½ miles north of Ramallah, where truck drivers navigate rows of midrise buildings and prospective homeowners use iPads to select apartments. Some 3,000 people are at work on the city, and the first residents are expected to move in within a year. Rawabi, on a hilltop with a view to the Mediterranean, is slated to have a population of 40,000, its own schools, shopping mall, mosques and an office complex.

But developers said the city, which investors say will cost $1 billion to build, is in jeopardy because of Israel’s refusal to authorize a permanent access road for construction crews and residents to cross to Rawabi through Israeli-held territory.

Investors want Israel to allow construction of the permanent road, and to let the Palestinians control it. Israel’s government, under pressure from Jewish settlers on surrounding land, has demurred.

The impasse highlights one of the challenges facing Secretary of State John Kerry as the U.S. weighs an initiative to boost the sagging Palestinian economy to help restart peace negotiations: getting Israel to relinquish control over West Bank lands to allow for Palestinian economic expansion.

“It’s stuck in politics,” said Bashar Masri, the Palestinian entrepreneur whose investment firm, Masar International, is backing Rawabi along with Qatari Diar, the real-estate arm of Qatar’s sovereign-wealth fund. “If we slow down, we’ll lose most of those jobs. If we get access approval, we can add 3,000 jobs.”

Israeli considers the temporary access road currently in use sufficient for now, said an Israeli official. “Israel has taken steps to support the Palestinian economy, but transferring land to Palestinian control is a political issue,” the official said. “I assume that when we see progress [on peace talks] we will see movement on the building of the road to Rawabi as well.”

In recent years, Israel loosened the reins on the Palestinian economy by removing military checkpoints and giving Palestinians more permits to work in Israel.

Now the U.S. is focusing on helping Palestinians find a way to push ahead with building projects, many of which are still on paper because they are slated for West Bank territory off limits to Palestinians, said a Western official familiar with the diplomacy. Mr. Kerry said at the end of a visit to the region on April 9 that he wanted to “move rapidly toward increased business expansion” in the West Bank.

Allowing Palestinians to develop lands under Israeli control would enable the expansion of agriculture, telecommunications and energy networks and the development of new tourist attractions, the World Bank said in a 2012 report.

In the 1990s, Israel and the Palestinians divided the West Bank into three zones: Areas A and B were Palestinian cities and villages, where they were granted self-rule. Area C comprised Jewish settlements and their access roads, military bases and all open lands, which Israel held as a security buffer and as bargaining chips in negotiations. Israel maintains full control over 60% of West Bank land.

“If you are going to jump-start the Palestinian economy, the place to do it is Area C,” said a Western diplomat. “It’s the largest area of contiguous land.”

The World Bank warned in September, in a report on the importance of economic development in Area C, that uncertainty over access to Rawabi could deter future investment in large projects in the West Bank.

Rawabi has attracted a stream of foreign dignitaries because it is seen by the international community as a flagship project of a future Palestinian state.

To reach the site today, cement mixers and trucks traverse a shoulderless two-lane road that curves through an olive grove. The road is temporary and the permit for it needs to be renewed every several months, said Mr. Masri. The Palestinians want their own road linking Rawabi with Ramallah.

Rania Maree, a spokeswoman for Rawabi, said investors are moving ahead despite frozen peace talks. “We can’t wait for the peace process to be done, because apparently it isn’t going to happen anytime soon.”

Turning over West Bank land would be a politically sensitive concession for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Jewish settlers—a key constituency of Israel’s right-leaning government—consider widened Palestinian presence a security threat.

It seems the government has little leeway. The Israeli army needs to control about 50% of West Bank land to protect road networks between the dozens of settlements scattered across the West Bank, said Shaul Arieli, a former Israeli colonel and former adviser to Israeli governments on peace negotiations. But the West Bank’s 163 Palestinian cantons must be linked together for a Palestinian state to function, Mr. Arieli said.

The Israel government is discussing Rawabi as well as other Area C access issues with the U.S., according to an Israeli defense official with knowledge of talks regarding access to Area C. The official suggested that if Palestinians dropped conditions for returning to peace talks, Israel would be willing to give more access to Area C.

But trust is low. The Palestinians, for now, haven’t dropped preconditions because they suspect Israel will keep building settlements while stalling on peace compromises, said an official close to the negotiations.

And the Palestinians suspect Israel will only allow economic aid that they can control, stopping well short of enabling a sovereign Palestinian economy, the Palestinian official said.

At a sleek showroom that looks out to the Tel Aviv skyline and the Mediterranean, Palestinians walk through neighborhood models and computerized illustrations of a high-end shopping center, an amphitheater, and a belt of tiny parks linking the city’s 21 neighborhoods.

More than half the 700 apartments in the first phase have been reserved, the developers said.

“This is a Palestinian city with a modern twist,” said Ms. Maree. “We need to build five or six cities like this.”

A version of this article appeared April 29, 2013, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: New Palestinian City Caught in Land Spat.

Construction in Rawabi this month; the first residents are expected to move into the city within a year

A good chance, then, for comfortable Christians from western Europe to give heart to their co-religionists in tougher places further east? Well, some such messages of solidarity were conveyed, and prayers were offered for the two Syrian bishops kidnapped on April 22nd.  But my strongest impression was different; I was struck by the resilience and practicality of the Middle Eastern clergy, and the sense of grievance and frustration articulated by Christian speakers from Europe.

Source: The Local

People don’t always make the best choices, even if their aims are honest. Realizing this can be painful but it doesn’t debase our common morality. We have to try to do what’s right without presuming that our choice would automatically be so.

The Germans collectively made themselves so guilty for what happened between 1933 and 1945 that they’ve been trying to avoid being blamed for anything else ever since. They can’t stand to leave any trace of their existence and are compelled to calculate their choices decades in advance. It’s a particular form of German angst that was long confused with a general fear of concrete catastrophes. But aversion to nuclear energy, environmental destruction, global warming, war, contaminated food, and even having children are all based on the same fearful foundation: How do I avoid contributing to calamity?

This question at first sounds honourable enough. In times of war, in Afghanistan for example, the Germans hardly care what happens to their own soldiers, but are intensely worried about what their troops do to others. While the military brass in America, Britain and France usually have to justify their own heavy casualties, the biggest scandal in Germany revolves around a botched air strike called in by a German colonel that left scores of Afghan civilians dead. Other nations consider this a particular form of self abuse – the Germans love to flagellate themselves.

More:

Source: Asiatimes.

THE ROVING EYE
Assad talks, Russia walks
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wasted a golden opportunity in an interview to explain to the Western public, even briefly, why petro-monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, plus Turkey, have the hots for setting Syria on fire. While he was talking, Russia was walking, sending a message it is ready to go where the Pentagon and others fear to tread.

More:

Source:Asia Times.

By Matthew J Walton

Many outside observers have been shocked to see Buddhists in Myanmar leading recent violent actions against Muslims. Our recollections of tens of thousands of Buddhist monks chanting loving-kindness while demonstrating peacefully against the former military government in 2007 clash with recent images of monks using their sermons to advocate for a boycott of Muslim businesses and in some cases even leading mobs to destroy mosques and physically attack Muslims.

What would lead a Buddhist monk like U Wirathu to exhort his followers to practice discrimination rather than follow the Buddha’s example of compassion for others?

More:

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

In a country that is increasingly polarized politically and religiously, it’s always a breath of fresh air to encounter a group or a movement that strays from the social norm. Enter the Facebook page/movement “The Christian Left.”

TCL has gained national and international notoriety as a movement of Christ-following believers that shirk the right-wing political “norm” so commonly experienced within the evangelical community. It’s calling card, a mixture of political satire and spiritual discipleship, helmed by four men who believe that the world needs to experience more than the typical Tea Party-esque brand of Christianity that saturates the political landscape.

I discovered The Christian Left a year ago, and have watched in awe as the once small Facebook page has exploded to more than 135,000 members!

Charles Toy:

I’ve always been a Christian. Frankly, I was embarrassed by what the public face of Christianity had become. It didn’t seem to have much to do with anything Jesus taught. I just couldn’t stand to see my faith hijacked by the political right wing.

Read the rest @ huffingtonpost.com

It is crucial that all sides approach June’s international conference with hope as well as caution

When Ban Ki-moon opens the promised international conference on Syria in Geneva next month, the war-ravaged country will experience the first sliver of hope it has dared to feel for months. A year has gone by since Russia and the United States approved guidelines for a transition to a more democratic and pluralistic Syria and it is a tragedy that so many lives have been wasted without any effort to implement the guidelines.

It has required several U-turns to bring about a new conference to discuss the issue. The US has dropped its precondition that Bashar al-Assad step down in advance of talks. Unlike Hillary Clinton, John Kerry seems to realise that Assad’s forces cannot be defeated without full-scale US intervention – a prospect that Barack Obama will not permit – and that prolonged conflict only strengthens al-Qaida and the other jihadis who have swarmed into Syria. For his part, Assad has dropped his demand that the armed opposition lay down its guns before he sends his people to meet them. His prime minister and several other ministers are expected in Geneva.

The Syrian opposition is the obstacle, or at least some of them. The secular nationalists in the National Co-ordination Body for Democratic Change promoted the Geneva idea and will attend keenly. The Syrian National Coalition, which is backed by western governments as well as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is still reluctant to turn up without a commitment that Assad’s departure is assured. To their credit, British and other western diplomats are urging them not to boycott and thereby hand Assad a propaganda victory.

A joker in the pack remains the British and French wish, matched by some senior officials in Washington, to lift the embargo on arms supplies to the rebels. Here too a U-turn is needed. Otherwise, there may be a temptation to tell the rebels that as long as they attend and behave with dignity they will get their weapons if the conference fails. This would be a recipe for disaster and an obvious invitation for the rebels to sabotage the conference by being unreasonable.

Far better to kick the arms issue into the long grass and concentrate on ensuring that the Geneva conference is not a one-day jamboree but the start of a serious process. A war that has taken so many lives, involves so many disparate armed groups, and is compounded by so much foreign interference cannot be ended in 48 hours. So the Geneva meeting needs to create working committees that will concentrate patiently on constitutional reform, humanitarian access, detainee release, local ceasefires and the re-introduction of UN observers. These steps can lead to a reduction of violence and the gradual return of displaced people to rebuild their homes.

Fairly early in the process there needs to be a coalition government of national unity that includes ministers from the opposition as well as from the current regime, as last year’s guidelines spelt out. This will take political courage on all sides, since al-Qaida and the other fundamentalists who have joined the fight are likely to denounce rebels who take part as collaborationists, or even assassinate them. The hardliners are in Syria for the long haul and even if the main opposition groups were to make a peace agreement, Syria is probably doomed to face a long-term armed insurgency in parts of the country, as well as regular suicide bombings in its main cities, for years to come. The precedent of today’s Iraq is all too likely to affect Syria too.

But, while the Geneva conference has to be viewed with caution as well as hope, it is crucial that all sides treat it properly as a genuine chance for change. Looking to score propaganda points or undermining it so as to renew the armed struggle with greater intensity will not serve Syria’s interests or those of its neighbours.

A quarter of the country’s people have lost their homes. Nearly 100,000 have lost their lives. The time for a more far-sighted approach is now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/this-syrias-great-chance-change

By Craig Considine

Although they are typically seen to represent overwhelming opposites, the Prophet Muhammad and America’s founding fathers shared many common characteristics and beliefs, which can be seen in historical documents. By comparing the speeches and texts that they left behind, we can learn of the similar viewpoints that Muhammad and the founding fathers held on issues pertaining to equal rights and religious liberty.

Prophet Muhammad and the American founding fathers shared an interest in protecting people regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. Muhammad, for example, received revelations from God, who directed him to celebrate diversity and cherish it as a staple of Muslim society. Muhammad’s encounter with God would later be recorded in the Quran, which states, “O mankind, We created you from male and a female and made you into tribes and nations that you may get to know each other.”

Furthermore, in his final sermon at Mount Arafat in 632 AD, Muhammad left a code of equality for Muslims to follow. “An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab,” he stated, “nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab… a white person has no superiority over black nor does a black have any superiority over white except by piety and good action.” The Quran and Muhammad’s final sermon show his apathy for judging people based on their beliefs or skin color and his indifference to a homogenous society based on exclusive requisites for belonging.

Read further

Source: Buffalo News

By Matt Spina | News Staff Reporter

Right off the bat, the moderator agreed they were about to discuss “not too pleasant a topic for a sunny Sunday afternoon” – domestic violence and its ugly extreme, honor killings.

Domestic violence involves one person out to control another, said Deborah Schnitzer, the domestic violence coordinator and a counselor at the YWCA of the Tonawandas and an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work. The control starts with expressions of love and caring and then gets nastier, until all charm disappears – and the cycle starts over again, she said.

Throw in some misinterpreted religion, the misplaced notion of honor and an attempt to control the rest of the family, and you approach honor killings, explained matrimonial mediator and UB Law School professor Nadia Shahram, who moved to the United States from Iran in 1980.

Schnitzer and Shahram were among a panel of four women who spoke Sunday in Cheektowaga’s Millennium Hotel to an audience of about 70 people, most of them women, to call attention to extreme violence against women and to see how they and the crowd could prevent it, at least in and around Buffalo.

“There is a big distinction between domestic violence and honor killings,” Shahram said. “Domestic violence is about, of course, power and control over the victim, no question …

“But not all domestic violence ends in the killing of the victim, whereas honor killing is about killing the victim – not to teach the victim a lesson, because the victim is dead. Honor killing is about teaching your immediate household, your extended family, the community that you are living at, how girls and females should behave.”

In the area’s best-known honor killing, Muzzammil Hassan beheaded his wife, Aasiya, in Orchard Park the week after she filed for divorce in 2009. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

In another upstate example of “honor” violence, a 22-year-old man living in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta stabbed his 19-year-old sister for wearing immodest clothing and attempting to move to New York City in May 2008. Waheed Allah Mohammad, who according to media accounts called his sister a “bad Muslim girl,” is serving a prison sentence for attempted second-degree murder.

Religion, Islam in particular, often gives rise to honor crimes, the panelists acknowledged. But nothing in the Quran “directs a believing man or a woman to commit such horrific acts against any other human being, even on their own family members,” said Shanaz Tejani-Butt of Philadelphia, Pa., a professor and an adviser to community service organizations.

“There is no recorded quotation nor practice of Prophet Muhammad that sanctions such crimes,” she said. “The teachings of Islam are intended to create peace and order, not chaos and violence, no matter whether you are talking at the individual level, the communal level or the global level.” She said she knew of no religion that condones such violence.

Read further

Source:RADIO FREE EUROPE VIA WASIM SR

Ahmadi community members carry a coffin during a funeral ceremony in 2010 for victims of a militant attack on one of the sect’s prayer halls, which killed some 80 people. According to a new report by the U.S. State Department, the religious minority Ahmadis are still the target of frequent sectarian violence.

May 21, 2013

Source: NY Times

They call themselves Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed cadre of priests and nuns who say the Roman Catholic Church is still protecting sexual predators.

Read more

Ahmadiyah Board Up Their Mosque in East Java
By Camelia Pasandaran, The Jakarta Globe:
Police and residents in Tulungagung, East Java, allegedly forced a member of an Ahmadiyah community to board up his mosque in order to create the illusion of a voluntary closure, a local religious leader said on Tuesday.

Before being wrecked

After

Aminullah, who heads the Ahmadiyah Kediri branch overseeing the beleaguered Baitul Salam mosque in Gempolan village, told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday that Japar, member of Ahmadiyah community, was pressured to put a sealing board in front of the only Ahmadiyah mosque in Tulungagung district on Monday.
“I told Japar not to agree with the request to shut down the mosque,” Aminullah said. “Japar said that he was forced to seal the mosque himself. The media took his picture when he put the sealing board on, creating a wrong impression that the Ahmadis agreed with it.”

Japar said that hundreds of police officers were waiting in front of his house to intimidate him into closing the mosque, according to Aminullah.
“No one will shut down their own houses of worship without reason. Japar, who lives near the mosque, has to deal with the police officers, his relatives, his neighbors and others who forced him to seal the mosque,” Aminullah said.
“The police officers told him to shut down the mosque himself for the sake of security. At the beginning, he disagreed, but then he was intimidated with the presence of police officers in front of his house. He could not do anything freely with their presence.”

Sealed

Japar did not say many words when asked by journalists about the mosque closure. “I shut down this mosque for good,” he said.
Antara news agency reported that the Tulungagung chapter of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and local residents were happy that the mosque was closed.
“Don’t wrongly spread the news, the closure was done by an Ahmadiyah member, not by residents [of the village],” MUI Tulungagung secretary Abu Sofyan told Antara. “This mosque has been sealed by the owners, as [Japar] placed the sealing board and barrier on the mosque’s main door.”
Gempolan village chief Lamini also welcomed the decision. He said that the village would be more peaceful because of the mosque closure.
Prior to the mosque closure, a mob of more than 100 people, mostly youths from Gempolan and neighboring areas, hurled rocks at the mosque last Thursday, causing extensive damage to the building that was built in 2007. Ahmadiyah members agreed not to file lawsuit against the attackers.
Reference:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/ahmadiyah-board-up-their-mosque-in-east-java/

Source: The Daily Star

A top leader of Hefajat-e Islam has told a court in Dhaka that the group’s May 5 Dhaka siege programme was designed to oust the Awami League-led alliance government, according to court sources.

The BNP-led 18-party opposition combine financed the programme, Hefajat Secretary General Junaid Babunagari said in his confessional statement made before the Court of Chief MetropolitanMagistrate, Dhaka Tuesday, said the sources.

According to him, Dhaka city unit BNP convenor Sadek Hossain Khoka coordinated the whole programme and handed over the money to Hefajat leaders.

 Read More

This May 7 photo shows law enforcers taking Hefajat-e Islam Secretary General Junaid Babunagari to a court in the capital. Star file photo

The Express Tribune: by Rana Tanveer.

Moeed Ayaz, Asmatullah, Razaullah and Ghulamullah, employees of Black Arrow Printing Press, were arrested by Islampura police on January 7. On Friday, their bail petitions under Sections 295B (defiling the Holy Quran) and 298C (an Ahmadi calling himself Muslim or preaching his faith) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 24A of the Press and Publications Ordinance were heard at the Lahore High Court.

The courtroom was full and some lawyers had to stand while the judge heard the arguments, after which he approved the bails for the suspects. This announcement nearly caused a riot in the courtroom and the judge had to withdraw the order barely two minutes after he had pronounced it. He then referred the case to the chief justice for fixing it before another judge. The judge withdrew the order after harsh remarks from a lawyer who was part of a group of 35 lawyers who had appeared before the court to argue the case against the Ahmedis. Some jurists said it was ‘improper’ for the judge to withdraw his order, whether verbal or written.

More

Source: NY Times

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — Countries around the world, including allies of the United States, have used laws on blasphemy and apostasy to suppress political opponents, the State Department said on Monday in an annual report chronicling a grim decline in religious freedom that has resulted in rising bigotry and sectarian violence.

Read more

“Excerpt from the report: In Pakistan, the law prohibits Ahmadi Muslims from identifying themselves as Muslims or risk imprisonment for up to three years and a fine. Those wishing to be listed as Muslims on their national identity card, which is needed to vote, must swear their belief that the Prophet Muhammad is the final prophet, and denounce the Ahmadi Muslim movement’s founder as a false prophet and his followers as non-Muslim. This provision prevents Ahmadi Muslims from obtaining legal documents and puts pressure on members of the community to deny their beliefs to enjoy citizenship rights, including the right to vote.”

Source: CNN Money

By Emily Jane Fox

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Anu Mandavilli is joining a protest against Gap, at the clothing company’s annual meeting on Tuesday.
Her beef: Gap doesn’t do enough to improve worker safety in Bangladesh.
“I own Gap clothing and I don’t think it’s acceptable that this is the cost,” Mandavilli said.
Protesters like Mandavilli are being galvanized into action by labor and socially conscious groups in the wake of the deadly garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,200 people last month.

Even though Gap wasn’t linked to any of the factories housed in the building, the company is one of the largest American importers of clothing from Bangladesh.

Read more

Huff Post: Rabbi Menachem Creditor.

What is it about bedtime? On the one hand it’s an in-between moment: Daylight is fading, eyelids are drooping — a gentle goodnight seems natural. On the other hand, there is the “simple task” of getting a child to bed, tucking them in, and finally going to take care of “grown-up stuff.” How difficult it is to preserve this escapable sacred experience.

More

Epigraph: ”And We (Allah) have sent thee (Muhammad) not but as a mercy for all the worlds.” (Al Quran 21:108)

Humming bird

Prophet Muhammad’s Kindness to Animals

By Aisha Stacey (© 2010 IslamReligion.com) Published on 22 Mar 2010

The Holy Prophet Muhammad was the embodiment of mercy, he showed compassion to all those around him, family, orphans, friends, strangers and even enemies.  He also treated the environment and animals with respect and mercy.  He taught his followers that because animals were part of God’s creation they should be treated with dignity and due care.

The traditions of the Prophet Muhammad remind us that humankind was put on this earth to be the custodian of God’s creation.  Treating animals with kindness and mercy is just one of the responsibilities embedded in that custodianship.  Prophet Muhammad’s words and behavior make it clear that causing defenseless creatures pain and suffering is not only completely unacceptable, but we will also be answerable to God for such actions.

“If someone kills a sparrow for sport, the sparrow will cry out on the Day of Judgment, “O Lord!  That person killed me in vain!  He did not kill me for any useful purpose.”[1]

The Prophet, may peace be on him, said, “Whoever kills a sparrow or anything bigger than that without a just cause, God will hold him accountable on the Day of Judgment.”  The listeners asked, “O Messenger of God, what is a just cause?”  He replied, “That he will kill it to eat, not simply to chop off its head and then throw it away.”[2]

Islam expects humankind to treat all animals (all living creatures – birds, sea creatures, and insects) with respect and dignity.  Prophet Muhammad continuously advised people to show kindness.  He forbade the practice of cutting tails and manes of horses, of branding animals at any soft spot, and of keeping horses saddled unnecessarily.[3]  If the Prophet saw, any animal over-burdened or ill fed he would speak mildly to the owner and say, “Fear God in your treatment of animals.”[4]

Read further to find additional Hadiths on the subject

References

[1] Sunnan An Nasai

[2] Ibid

[3] Saheeh Muslim

[4] Abu Dawood.

TOKYO — After years of grinding malaise, Japan suddenly has some of its bling back.

A humbled Sony — once a titan of Japan Inc. — recently sprang back into the black for the first year in five years, courtesy of a plunging yen. Honda, another corporate icon, triumphantly announced a return to Formula One racing, rejoining an exclusive club of high-performance carmakers after having slinked away when cash ran low.  Read more

LARISSA CAHUTE, VANCOUVER DESI

British Columbia’s Ahmadiyya Muslim community finally has a place to call home.

The local and Canada-wide community raised $8 million for their new mosque on Delta’s River Rd. and nearly 5,000 people — including Ahmadiyya Muslim leader from the U.K., Mirza Masroor Ahmed — came out Saturday for the grand opening of one of the province’s largest mosques.

The 33,000 sq.ft. building took just over a year to build and will serve as a destination point not only for the Delta community but for Ahmadiyya Muslims across the province, with a daycare and gym as well as prayer space.

“We wanted to have our own mosque for a number of years, so my community members can enjoy this spiritual gathering under one roof,” said community member Rizwan Peerzada.

According to Peerzada, before the mosque was built, the community had to find make-shift prayer spaces like community centres or sharing with other faith’s mosques.

“We are different from other Muslims and for that reason we needed to have our own place,” he said.

The Ahmadiyya movement dates back 120 years and has tens of millions of followers across the globe. According to Peerzada, the community wishes to differ itself from other Muslim practices because of their service to humanity and condemnation of any kind of violence.

“It’s important for this sect of Islam — they should have their own mosque also to freely practice their religion,” he said.

The mosque is officially open to the community and located at 9570 River Rd.

http://www.vancouverdesi.com/news/b-c-s-ahmadiyya-muslim-community-finally-has-its-own-mosque/557962/

STORY SUMMARY

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki listens to a question during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed)
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Editorial/2013/May-21/217775-us-mess-in-iraq.ashx#ixzz2TuX6yapT
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

A country that was lecturing Iraqis on good governance was busy mismanaging things on a grand scale, such as losing around $11 billion to waste, instead of putting it to work to make a better Iraq.

But when it comes to the recent string of bloody developments in Iraq, with the U.S. having largely withdrawn, there is little point today in shifting attention from the government of premier Nouri al-Maliki.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Editorial/2013/May-21/217775-us-mess-in-iraq.ashx#ixzz2TuWkFRWq
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

STORY SUMMARY

Hezbollah was drawn deeper into Syria’s civil war as 28 fighters from the group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, opposition activists said Monday.

The Hezbollah involvement – several funerals for group members were held Monday in Lebanon – edges the war further toward a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

A Lebanese official close to Hezbollah told AP the death toll figures were “exaggerated”. He added, however, that 14 Hezbollah members from southern Lebanon had been killed in the fighting Sunday, adding that the bodies of some of the fighters were still in Syria.

Regime troops and Hezbollah fighters, who laid siege to Qusair weeks ago, launched an offensive Sunday to regain control of the city, with fighters advancing from the east and south, a Syrian opposition figure said

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/May-21/217817-hezbollah-role-in-syria-grows-more-prominent.ashx#ixzz2TuTkybDO
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

JEDDAH: IRFAN MOHAMMED & KHALED AL-SUBIANI ARABNEWS

Sri Lankan workers stand in a long queue under the sun at the deportation center in Jeddah on Monday. (AN photoby Irfan Mohammed)

Chaos prevailed yesterday across deportation centers in Jeddah as expatriates rush to register for repatriation. Thousands returned unsuccessfully after waiting the entire day to scan their fingerprints.

Existing resources cannot match the huge crowd of expatriates.

According to sources, only three counters with a capacity of 200 people were operating. Officials are currently able to process only 50 applications per country on specific days.

At such a rate, Indian nationals alone will not be able to complete procedures within the grace period.

Hundreds of Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Egyptian expatriates lined up yesterday for scanning biometrics, with some arriving as early as 6 a.m. Scores of Sudanese nationals were also not able to make it inside and Yemenis were told to bring their consulate representatives. Hundreds of Sri Lankan and Pakistani nationals stood for hours under the sun. One elderly Pakistani woman fainted after nearly four hours of waiting.

In addition, officials have warned that extensive exposure to heat can hamper the results of biometric scanning. On the other hand, around 80 percent of Egyptians were able to complete deportation procedures before noon with the help of consulate representatives.

Mohammed Amjad Hussain, a Pakistani national, said: “I have been here since 5 a.m. and have waited for six hours even though I came here with an advisory from the Pakistan Consulate.”

With Tuesday allotted for Indian nationals, there will be a significant backlog of Pakistani and Sri Lankan nationals who were sent by their consulates yesterday but have not been able to complete the process.

Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai and Sri Lankan Consul General Adambawa Uthumalebbe visited the deportation center yesterday to meet with its director. A Pakistani consular team also visited the center.

Early yesterday morning, residents in Abrug Al-Raghama inundated the Passports Department seeking legalization of their work status.

Hussein bin Yahya Al-Harthi, director of the Passports Department in Makkah, said the department is accepting applicants between 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily, adding that extensive resources have been allocated to the department to facilitate the processing of applications.

Al-Harthi called on everyone to abide by regulations. “We have designated Dallah company offices and the Passports Department as locations where applicants can process their requests.”

He said that the presence of the new sponsor or the sponsor’s legal representative (who should possess power of attorney) is a prerequisite for the transfer of sponsorships, adding that there are also separate prerequisites for legalizing the status of household workers.

These include the fact that the worker must have entered the Kingdom before July 2008, be under 60 years of age, registered in the biometrics system, have filled out the required form and undergone medical examination.

A worker must also be accompanied by a sponsor who must produce a bank statement dating back six months or a letter from their employee.

Household workers legalization procedures also incorporate foreign recruitment conditions

http://arabnews.com/news/452379

Israel on Monday barred a UN commission from visiting Jerusalem to investigate ongoing violations of religious freedom against Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land.

An Israeli security officer stands infront of Al Haram Al Sharif in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. Israelis frequently prevent Muslims from praying and launch attacks against non-Jewish worshippers. AFP Photo

Israel in late-April agreed that the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization could assess the state of the Old City of Jerusalem, the first such monitoring mission since 2004.

Palestinians had urged for the visit after an escalation of Israeli attacks on non-Jewish worshippers in the Old City in recent weeks.

Israel said it decided to cancel the visit because it feared Palestinians wanted to “politicize” the issue.

“The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings. The visit was supposed to be professional, (but) they were taking measures that showed they were politicizing the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it,” the official said.

Israeli forces as recently as Saturday used tear gas and rubber bullets to attack a demonstration after right-wing Israelis raided al-Aqsa mosque two days earlier.

Tensions have been high around the mosque in recent weeks, as Israel has limited access to Palestinian worshipers while allowing Israelis to tour the compound under armed guard.

And earlier this month religious groups condemned Israel for attacking Orthodox Christians celebrating their easter in the Old City.

Tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians had gathered in the streets around the holy sites where clashes erupted after police blocked them from entering certain areas.

The Palestine Liberation Organization last week denounced Israel for causing “countless difficulties” for Palestinian Christians and Muslims to reach their holy sites.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki on Thursday announced that the UNESCO would spend five days in Jerusalem before returning to its headquarters in Paris to submit a detailed report.

Maliki said that Israeli assaults against holy places in Jerusalem were part of a systematic policy crystallized recently.

http://www.albawaba.com//news/israel-jerusalem-unesco-493149

Editor’s note: Please note that this is taken from an Islamophobic website to illustrate thier approach and twist on these issues.

FrontpageMAG.com: A recent decision by the United Nation’s (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination(CERD) foreshadows an ominous future for free societies should Muslim entities like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) achieve their goal of having “Islamophobia” defined internationally as a form of prejudice.

Former German central bank board member Thilo Sarrazin has got himself in trouble with the UN, as the Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg (Türkischer Bund in Berlin-Brandenburg or TBB) stated with satisfaction in an April 18, 2013, German-language press release.  The spokesman of this German-Turkish interest group, Hilmi Kaya Turan, praised a February 26, 2013, “historic decision” by the CERD condemning Germany for not having prosecuted Sarrazin’s criticism of Arab and Turkish immigrants.

 

Sarrazin, a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands or SPD), produced a storm of controversy with his August 2010 book Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab: Wie Wir Unser Land aufs Spiel Setzen (“Germany Abolishes Itself:  How We Are Risking Our Country”).  In the context of this controversy, CERD’s detailed 19-pagedecision extensively excerpted in English translation a fall 2009 interview with Sarrazin.  In the interview, the Berlin magazine Lettre International discussed some of the upcoming book’s themes.

More; 

Time: Mari Pangestu is a symbol of a new Indonesia. The economist turned technocrat, who now serves as Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism and creative economy, was born into a country rife with anti-Chinese sentiment. Under the strongman Suharto, Chinese-Indonesians like her were effectively banned from publicly celebrating their holidays and discouraged from studying the Chinese language. In May 1998, amid a wave of unrest that would ultimately toppled President Suharto, violent anti-Chinese riots swept the capital, Jakarta, and other cities. “If you had asked me in 1998, or before 1998, whether I could see myself in government, I’d say, no,” says Pangestu.  But in the years since “everything changed so much.”

Today, May 21, 2013, marks 15 years since President Suharto stepped down, ending 32 years of authoritarian rule and ushering in Indonesia’s era of reform, or reformasi. Southeast Asia’s most populous country is no longer wrecked by economic crisis or hobbled by austerity measures. Indeed, the country’s economy has been growing steadily, at an average rate of 5.7% over the past 10 years.

More: 

ET: WASHINGTON: 

The United States on Monday denounced what it called a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia, pointing to restrictions and violence against Muslims including the faith’s minority sects.

Releasing a wide-ranging annual report on religious freedom, Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced alarm at what he called rising anti-Jewish sentiment, and filled a position of special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.

The State Department report, which covered 2012, said that “anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions were clearly on the rise – particularly in Europe and Asia.”

“Government restrictions, which often coincided with societal animosity, resulted in anti-Muslim actions that affected everyday life for numerous believers,” it said.

More: 

Dunya News: SWAZILAND (Web Desk) – A 22-year-old woman fled to Britain from the southern African nation of Swaziland and is seeking asylum after refusing to join the harem of 13 wives of Swazi king Mswati III.
Tintswalo Ngobeni fled to Britain after she caught the attention of the millionaire monarch, known for his lavish lifestyle, the Daily Mail reported.
As part of Swazi custom, the 45-year-old king is permitted to choose a new bride every year. He is father to 27 children.
The king s sixth wife escaped from the royal harem last year, citing years of “emotional and physical abuse” by her husband.

More: 

Moore, Oklahoma (CNN) — Rescue workers raced against time and the oncoming night Monday looking for survivors after a powerful tornado blasted an area outside of Oklahoma City, leveling homes and killing at least 51 people.

At least seven of the dead were children from Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, which lay directly in the path of the monster storm’s wall of wind.

Seventy-five students and staff members had been huddled at the school when the storm hit, CNN affiliate KFOR reported.

As nightfall approached, determined searchers in hard hats dug in the debris for students possibly trapped, but authorities described the work as a recovery, not rescue, effort.

A father of a third-grader still missing sat quietly on a stool. Tears fell from his eyes as he waited for news of his son.

Read further and watch videos

Source: Press Release

Majlis Ansarullah Hertfordshire UK Branch, the auxiliary wing of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association UK, is holding their Regional Ijtema 2013, On Sunday 26th May 2013 at Chells Pavilion Chells Way Gressley Road Stevenage, Hertfordshire UK. Members will be coming from Cambridge, Luton, Milton Keynes, Stevenage and Watford areas.

It is expected that the National President Mr. Wasim Ahmad Choudhry of Majlis Ansarullah UK along with some of his senior deputies will be joining us on the day.

After the registration, the main program starts at 10:00am and is scheduled to conclude at 5:00pm. Program includes Academic and Sports Competitions. Lunch will be served after the Zuhr Prayers, and then the rest of the program will continue. Finally, after the prize distribution to the winners of the Academic and Sports competitions, the Regional President will present his Annual Report followed by the keynote speech by the National President. The program will conclude with the silent prayers.

Any visiting Ansar from overseas, who happens to be in Hertfordshire Region, will be welcomed, if they wish to join us on the day please contact the Regional President (Acting) Zafar M Syed by email: zedemmess@gmail.com, for the invitation.

NYTimes.com
RUK, Pakistan — Resplendent in his gleaming white uniform and peaked cap, jacket buttons tugging his plump girth, the stationmaster stood at the platform, waiting for a train that would never come. “Cutbacks,” Nisar Ahmed Abro said with a resigned shrug.

Ruk Station, in the center of Pakistan, is a dollhouse-pretty building, ringed by palm trees and rice paddies. Once, it stood at the junction of two great Pakistani rail lines: the Kandahar State Railway, which raced north through the desert to the Afghan border; and another that swept east to west, chaining cities from the Hindu Kush mountains to the Arabian Sea.

Now it was a ghost station. No train had stopped at Ruk in six months, because of cost cutting at the state-owned rail service, Pakistan Railways, and the elegant station stood lonely and deserted. Idle railway men smoked in the shadows. A water buffalo sauntered past.
Nisar Ahmed Abro. Click to Enlarge
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

Nisar Ahmed Abro. Click to Enlarge

Mr. Abro led the way into his office, a high-ceilinged room with a silent grandfather clock. Pouring tea, he mopped sweat from his brow. The afternoon heat was rising, and the power had been down for 16 hours — nothing unusual in Pakistan these days.

Opposite him, Faisal Imran, a visiting railway engineer, listened sympathetically to the mournful stationmaster. This was about more than just trains — more than the decrepit condition of the once-mighty state railway service, Mr. Imran said. It was about Pakistan itself.

“The railways are the true image of our country,” he said, sipping his tea in the heat. “If you want to see Pakistan, see its railways.”

For all the wonders offered by a train journey across Pakistan — a country of jaw-dropping landscapes, steeped in a rich history and filled with unexpected pleasures — it also presents some deeply troubling images.

At every major stop on the long line from Peshawar, in the northwest, to the turbulent port city of Karachi, lie reminders of why the country is a worry to its people, and to the wider world: natural disasters and entrenched insurgencies, abject poverty and feudal kleptocrats, and an economy near meltdown.

The election last weekend was a hopeful moment for a struggling democracy, with the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif winning a huge mandate amid record voter turnout of nearly 60 percent. But the voting left undecided the larger battle against popular disillusionment. In a country forged on religion, Pakistanis are losing faith. People are desperate for change — for any improvement their proudly nuclear-armed government could make, yet has not.
Passengers crossed railroad tracks in central Pakistan. Click to Enlarge
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

Passengers crossed railroad tracks in central Pakistan. Click to Enlarge

Chronic electricity shortages, up to 18 hours per day, have crippled industry and stoked public anger. The education and health systems are inadequate and in stark disrepair. The state airline, Pakistan International Airlines, which lost $32 million last year, is listing badly. The police are underpaid and corrupt, and militancy is spreading. There is a disturbing sense of drift.

This failure is the legacy of decades of misadventure, misrule and misfortune under both civilian and military leaders, but its price is being paid by the country’s 180 million people.

To them, the dire headlines about Taliban attacks and sterile arguments about failed states mean little. Their preoccupations are mundane, yet vitally important. They want jobs and educations for their children. They want fair treatment from their justice system and electricity that does not flicker out.

And they want trains that run on time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/pakistans-railroads-sum-up-nations-woes.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130519&_r=1&

Baitur Rahman Mosque in Vancouver

Source: Press Release

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad was addressing reception marking opening of the Baitur Rahman Mosque in Vancouver

On 18 May 2013, the Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat and Fifth Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, addressed a Special Reception held to celebrate the opening of the Baitur Rahman Mosque in Vancouver, Canada.

During his address, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad reassured the audience that they had no reason to fear Ahmadiyya Mosques because they were built only for the worship of God and for the sake of serving humanity.

Speaking about the new Mosque, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

I would like to proclaim and declare that this Mosque will prove to be a source of spreading love, affection, peace and brotherhood for all people irrespective of whether they are Ahmadi or non-Ahmadi or whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim. The doors of our Mosque will always be open to the people of all religions, because this Mosque is a means of manifesting God’s Grace, Mercy, Love and Compassion for mankind.

The Khalifa also addressed the issue of Jihad by explaining that when permission for defensive war was given to the early Muslims, it was given as a means to protect all religions and all places of worship.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

In essence, it can be said that the first ever ‘Charter for the Protection of Religion and Religious Rights’ is found in the Holy Quran and it has been associated directly to the Mosque. In other words, whenever a new Mosque is built, a new chapter for religious freedom is opened.

The world leader also used his address to congratulate the Canadian Government for recently opening an ‘Office of Religious Freedom.’

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

In my view, the Government deserves praise and congratulations for opening a designated ‘Office of Religious Freedom’. We fully support the Government of Canada in this endeavor. We will fully cooperate with them in every possible effort to establish religious freedom throughout the world.

Prior to the keynote address a range of politicians and dignitaries also took to the stage.

Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Associate Minister for Defense, read out a message on behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulating the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat on the opening of the new Mosque.

Dr Andrew Bennett, Ambassador of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom said he was amazed “by the message of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat and its commitment to Love for All, Hatred for None.”

Lois Jackson, Mayor of the Corporation of Delta said the Mosque had become “an instant landmark”. She said it was “a great honour to have Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad in the city.”

Mobina Jaffer, Senator from British Columbia read out a message from Justin Trudeau, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party in which he called the Mosque “a welcome addition”to British Colombia and Canada at large.

Judy Sgro, Member of Parliament, said the fact that so many dignitaries were in attendance illustrated “the love and respect we all hold for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.” She said the Ahmadiyya Community was “an example for the entire world.

Jinny Sims, Member of Parliament, said that if the Ahmadi motto of ‘Love for All, Hatred for None’ was adopted by all “the world will be a better place”.

Jim Karygiannis, Member of Parliament, said that the persecution faced by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat “should not be forgotten.” He said it was imperative that all parties worked together to ensure religious freedom for all people.

Rob Norris, Member of Legislative Assembly, said he was “humbled and honoured to take part in the celebration.” He said that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat “enriches our entire country.”

Manmeet Bhullar, Member of Legislative Assembly, said meeting Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad marked a “profound moment” in his life. In a message to the Ahmadiyya Community he said “we are with you, just as you are with us.”

Marilyn Iafrate, Councillor City of Vaughan, said the local community was “very blessed” to have Ahmadi Muslims amongst them. She said the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat was “totally devoted to giving back to their community.”

Ron Starr, Councillor City of Mississauga, announced that his Council had decided to recognise May 18 as “Ahmadiyya Day”. He said that in Ahmadi Mosques there is “peace, hope and a recognition that by working together will make the world a better place.”

Prior to the event, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, answered questions during a 30 minute press conference.

Amongst the media outlets included were ‘CBC’, ‘CTV’, ‘Global TV’ as well as ‘The Province’ and ‘Vancouver Sun’ newspapers.

Related: Reception Video

MARCH 7, 2013
Source: Huffington Post UK /

CIA, Mossad and Blackwater agents are involved in military violence in the Homs district, an Arab news agency exclusively reports.

According to Al-Manar, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group and political party, a coordination office with agents from the three branches of intelligence is in operation in nearby Qatar.

Salim Harba, a Syrian expert in strategic affairs, told Al-Manar the office was established: “Under American-Gulf sponsorship. The office includes American, French, and Gulf – specifically from Qatar and Saudi Arabia – intelligence agents, as well as CIA, Mossad, and Blackwater agents and members of the Syrian Transitional Council.”

He added: “Qatar has also made deals with Israeli and American companies to arm the armed groups, and Gulf countries have been financing the agreements.”

The revelations come as the agency reported around 700 Arab and Western gunmen had surrendered in Baba Amr, leaving the region under the control of the Syrian army. Israeli, American and European-made weapons were also seized in the district.

According to Harba, the captured gunmen were variously from the Gulf, Iraq, Lebanon, Qatar, Afghanistan, Turkey and France.

The website quoted a source as saying: “Huge and critical surprises will be uncovered in the coming few days… such as the kinds of arms seized, as well as the military tactics the armed groups followed, and the sides that supervised operations.”

Harba claims the Syrian security forces have paperwork that could “harm everyone who conspired against Syria.”

He added: “The significance of the security operation in Homs is due to the high expectations that regional and international sides had from the armed gangs in Baba Amr … they wanted Homs to be turned into a new Benghazi.”

According to state news agency SANA, President Bashar Assad insists he will continue to confront “foreign-backed terrorism.” Since the uprising began last March, he has blamed armed gangs and foreign terrorists for the unrest, not protesters seeking change.

Western powers however have categorically denied any military involvement in Syrian internal conflict, Russia Today reported.

http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-uprising-mossad-blackwater-and-cia-led-operations-in-homs

By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAAD THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 19, 2013

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese fighters from the militant group Hezbollah pushed Sunday into parts of Qusayr, a strategic city long held by rebels, according to an antigovernment activist and pro-government news channels. If the advance holds, it would be a serious setback for opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both sides called it one of the war’s most intense ground battles. The fight seemed likely to inflame regional tensions as Hezbollah plunges more deeply into the conflict in Syria, increasing fears of a regional conflagration.

The Syrian military hammered Qusayr, on the Lebanon border, with airstrikes and artillery, killing at least 52 people and wounding hundreds as civilians cowered, unable to flee the city, activists said. By day’s end about 60 percent of the city, including the municipal office building, was under the army’s control for the first time in months, one activist said. Residents said rebels kept fighting into the night in Qusayr, killing a number of Hezbollah and government fighters.

Syrian state television said the army had “tightened the noose on the terrorists,” the government’s term for its armed opponents, by attacking from several directions. State news media said the army had “restored security and stability” to most of the city, killing many rebel fighters and capturing others.

READ MORE HERE:

Source: phys.org

Narratives of Conversion to Islam – Female Perspectives. Credit: University of Cambridge / Homepage picture credit: Beth Rankin

A ground-breaking report examining the experiences of nearly 50 British women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths (or no faith) – who have all converted to Islam – was launched in London yesterday by the University of Cambridge.

Converts have the potential to be a powerful and transformative influence on both the heritage Muslim community and wider British society

Yasir Suleiman: Project Leader and Director of CIS

A ground-breaking report examining the experiences of nearly 50 British women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and faiths (or no faith) – who have all converted to Islam – was launched in London yesterday by the University of Cambridge.

Reference

Read more @ phys.org

Listen to a radio talk show on this issue.

The whole of the report can be read here.

Source: www.factspod.blogspot.in

Each has got his/her own favorite: The girl in orange dress has got a real cool neck tie, wana try?

Play the flute please, dear little charmer…

Please Click on the Image twice to zoom it

By Ezra Sihite on 6:00 am May 18, 2013.

Criticism against recognizing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as a champion of religious freedom was part of democracy, a presidential spokesman said on Friday.

Responding to claims that the president was not a worthy winner of a religious freedom prize bestowed on him recently by the US-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, foreign affairs advisor Teuku Faizasyah said that the criticism was part of an open democracy, and that the foundation likely had valid reasons to award the president.

“[The criticism is] just part of the dynamics in our democracy,” Faizasyah said in Jakarta on Friday, adding that the president takes every criticism and aspiration offered by the public into consideration.

He said the public should ask the institution, and not the State Palace, about the award. “Go ahead and ask the institution [about the award] because we’re not the ones that initiated the process to get the acknowledgement,” he said.

Philosopher and Jesuit priest Franz Magnis Suseno previously sent the ACF a letter questioning their decision to honor the president.

“This is very embarrassing, it’s embarrassing for you. It discredits every claim you made as an institution with moralistic intentions,” he wrote.

“How could you make this decision without asking the Indonesian people? Hopefully you didn’t make the decision based on the encouragement of certain government officials or the presidential circle.”

Imam Shofwan, the son of a Nahdlatul Ulema cleric, launched an online petition on Friday calling on the ACF to postpone its granting of the award. Imam asked people to endorse Magnis’s letter and sign and circulate the petition.

“I was raised in a Nahdlatul Ulama family. As a Muslim, I agree with Magnis. I believe that a crime committed in the name of religion is the greatest crime against religion,” Imam said, quoting ACF’s motto.

Imam said that protection of minority groups is the president’s constitutional obligation rather than being the role of regional governments.

In his letter, Magnis said it was increasingly difficult for Christians in the country to obtain a permit to build a place of worship and that there were a growing number of churches being forced to close and more regulations that made it difficult for minorities to perform their religious activities.

Rights activists said last week that the president must show that he deserves the award by doing more for victims of persecution.

Reverend Palti Panjaitan, whose congregation in Bekasi has for years been fighting for the right to worship at its own church, said he wanted to remind the president that he has failed to protect the rights of minority groups to worship peacefully.

“We’re here as victims and there are bound to be more victims. We came to say that he has never resolved the religious conflicts in the country and has focused more on foreign issues,” Palti said on May 10.

In their open letter to the president, representatives from the Solidarity for Victims of Religious Freedom Violations (Sobat KBB) called for the president to “immediately afford [them] protection and end all forms of discrimination that [they] continue to face to this day.”

Previous winners of the ACF World Statesman Award include Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

[WebEd: A previous version of this story misrepresented Teuku Faizasyah's quotes. He said that criticism, not religious intolerance, was part of democracy. The Jakarta Globe regrets this error.]

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD from Wikipedia

Epigraph: “O ye people! fear your Lord, Who created you from a single soul and created therefrom its mate, and from them twain spread many men and women; and fear Allah, in Whose name you appeal to one another, and fear Him particularly respecting ties of relationship. Indeed, Allah watches over you.” (Al Quran 4:2)

Catherine pleading her case against divorce from Henry. Painting by Henry Nelson O’Neil

Queen Catherine of Aragon was the daughter of Queen Isabella of Spain and the first wife of King Henry VIII.

What does she or her biography have to teach us about the family values, especially the contrast of Christianity and Islam or the Bible and the Quran?

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects and in supporting and financing Christopher Columbus‘ 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the “New World.” Isabella was granted the title Servant of God by the Catholic Church in 1974.

On 2 January 1492 Isabella and Ferdinand entered Granada to receive the keys of the city and the principal mosque was reconsecrated as a church.^[83] The Treaty of Granada was signed later that year, and in it Ferdinand and Isabella gave their word to allow the Muslims and Jews of Granada to live in peace. However they broke their promise soon after, and then began the Inquisition.

Isabella and Ferdinand had seven children. Five survived infancy and lived to adulthood.  Queen Catherine of Aragon was the youngest.

She was the first of the six wives of King Henry VIII, whom he married one after another.

His six wives are six opportunities to contrast the teachings of Islam and Christianity about Family Values.

The six women to hold the title “queen consort” of King Henry VIII, between 1509 and 1547, were:

1. Catherine of Aragon (marriage annulled; died while detained under guard at Kimbolton Castle);
2. Anne Boleyn (executed);
3. Jane Seymour (died days after giving birth, widely believed to be following birth complications);
4. Anne of Cleves (marriage annulled);
5. Catherine Howard (executed);
6. Catherine Parr (widowed).

A common mnemonic device to remember the fates of Henry’s consorts is:

‘Divorced Beheaded Died;

Divorced Beheaded Survived.’

There is also a rhyme:

King Henry the Eighth,

to six wives he was wedded.

One died, one survived,

two divorced, two beheaded.

However, Henry did not “divorce” two wives; he had the marriages annulled.

This article is about his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

She has two lessons to teach us in our comparison of Islam and Christianity, regarding family values, as will become apparent during the reading of this article.

She was the youngest surviving child of Ferdinand and Isabella, the joint rulers of Spain, who successfully defeated and pushed out the last of the Muslims or the Moors from Spain.  As was common for princesses of the day, her parents almost immediately began looking for a political match for her. When she was three year old, she was betrothed to Arthur, the son of Henry VII of England. Arthur was not even quite two at the time.

When she was almost 16, in 1501, Catherine made the journey to England. It took her three months, and her ships weathered several storms, but she safely made landfall at Plymouth on October 2, 1501. Catherine and Arthur were married on 14 November 1501 in Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

After the wedding and celebrations, the young couple moved to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border. Less than six months later, Arthur was dead, possibly of the ‘sweating sickness.’  She insisted all her life that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated.

She had to do that to justify her marriage to Arthur’s younger brother, King Henry the VIII, as there was a prohibition in the Old Testament, against marrying a brother’s widow:

If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless. (Leviticus 20:21)

When King Henry VII died in 1509 one of the new young king, Henry VIII’s first actions was to marry, his widow sister-in-law, Catherine. She was finally crowned Queen of England in a joint coronation ceremony with her husband Henry VIII on June 24, 1509.

Prince Henry was born on January 1, 1511 and the was christened on the 5th. There were great celebrations for the birth of the young prince, but they were halted by the baby’s death after 52 days of life.

On February 1516, she gave birth to a daughter named Mary, who later became queen.

But there were no sons from the marriage.

Henry was growing frustrated by his lack of a male heir, but he remained a devoted husband, for all royal purposes.

He had at least two mistresses that we know of: Elizabeth “Bessie” Blount and Mary Boleyn. By 1525 though, he had begun to separate from Catherine because he had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, who was sister of his former mistress Mary Boleyn and later became his second wife.

It was in 1520s that the lives of Henry’s first and second wives begin to interweave. By the time his interest in Anne became common knowledge, Catherine was 42 years old and was no longer able to conceive.

Henry’s main goal now was to get a male heir, which his wife was not able to provide.

Somewhere along the way Henry began to look at the texts of Leviticus which say that if a man takes his brother’s wife, they shall be childless. He thought it to be self serving, in a climate, when monogamy was the law and divorce was not allowed.

As evidenced above, Catherine and Henry were far from childless, and still had one living child. But that child was a girl, and didn’t count in Henry’s mind.

The King began to petition the Pope for an annulment. At first, Catherine was kept in the dark about Henry’s plans for their annulment and when the news got to Catherine she was very upset. She was also at a great disadvantage since the court that would decide the case was far from impartial.

Catherine then appealed directly to the Pope, which she felt would listen to her case since her nephew was Charles V of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor.

The political and legal debate continued for six years. Catherine was adamant in that she and Arthur, her first husband and Henry’s brother, did not consummate their marriage and therefore were not truly husband and wife. Catherine sought not only to retain her position, but also that of her daughter Mary.

Proponents of the divorce, led by Henry’s lawyers and loyal clerics insisted that the marriage had been illegal from the beginning based on several passages in the Bible, particularly two passages from Leviticus.  One has already been quoted and the other is Leviticus 18:16, “Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.”

If polygamy had been allowed this legal wrangling, which consumed most of Europe and Catholic Church, for several years, would have been totally unnecessary.  The Holy Quran says about limiting the numbers of wives to four:

And if you fear that you will not be fair in dealing with the orphans, then marry of women as may be agreeable to you, two, or three, or four; and if you fear you will not deal justly, then marry only one or what your right hands possess. That is the nearest way for you to avoid injustice.  (Al Quran 4:4)

As noted before, in 1525, Henry VIII became enamored by Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine who was 8 years younger than Henry. Henry began pursuing her;^[39] Catherine was no longer able to bear children by this time. Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation from the Bible, which he interpreted to say that if a man marries his brother’s wife, the couple will be childless.^[40][7] Even if her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated (and Catherine would insist to her dying day that she had come to Henry’s bed a virgin), Henry’s interpretation of that biblical passage meant that their marriage had been wrong in the eyes of God.^[23] Whether the Pope at the time of Henry and Catherine’s marriage had had the right to overrule Henry’s claimed scriptural impediment would become a hot topic in Henry’s campaign to wrest an annulment from the present Pope.^[23] It is possible that the idea of annulment had been suggested to Henry much earlier than this, and is highly probable that it was motivated by his desire for a son. Before Henry’s father ascended the throne, England was beset by civil warfare over rival claims to the English crown, and Henry may have wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession.^[41]

It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry’s desires to secure an annulment.^[42] Catherine was defiant when it was suggested that she quietly retire to a nunnery, saying, “God never called me to a nunnery. I am the King’s true and legitimate wife”.^[43] He set his hopes upon an appeal to the Holy See, acting independently of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, of England, whom he told nothing of his plans. William Knight, the King’s secretary, was sent to Pope Clement VII to sue for an annulment, on the grounds that the dispensing bull of Pope Julius II was obtained by false pretenses.

As the Pope was, at that time, the prisoner of Catherine’s nephew, Emperor Charles V, following the Sack of Rome in May 1527, Knight had difficulty in obtaining access to him. In the end, Henry’s envoy had to return without accomplishing much. Henry now had no choice but to put this great matter into the hands of Thomas Wolsey, and Wolsey did all he could to secure a decision in Henry’s favor.^[44]

Catherine and Henry’s daughter The Lady Mary

Wolsey went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England with a representative of the Pope presiding, and Henry and Catherine herself in attendance. The Pope had no intention of allowing a decision to be reached in England, and his legate was recalled. (How far the pope was influenced by Charles V is difficult to say, but it is clear Henry saw that the Pope was unlikely to annul his marriage to the Emperor’s aunt.^[45] The Pope forbade Henry to marry again before a decision was given in Rome. Wolsey had failed and was dismissed from public office in 1529. Wolsey then began a secret plot to have Anne Boleyn forced into exile and began communicating with the Pope to that end. When this was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey’s arrest and, had he not been terminally ill and died in 1530, he might have been executed for treason.^[46] A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her old rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, the Boleyn family’s chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, was appointed to the vacant position.^[47]

When Henry decided to annul his marriage to Catherine, John Fisher became her most trusted counsellor and one of her chief supporters. He appeared in the legates’ court on her behalf, where he shocked people with the directness of his language, and by declaring that, like John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry was so enraged by this that he wrote a long Latin address to the legates in answer to Fisher’s speech. Fisher’s copy of this still exists, with his manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared Henry’s anger. The removal of the cause to Rome ended Fisher’s role in the matter, but Henry never forgave him.^[48][49] Other people who supported Catherine’s case included Thomas More, Henry’s own sister Mary Tudor, Queen of France – though as a member of the Tudor family and of royal blood, she was safe from any punishment and execution – Maria de Salinas, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Pope Paul III and Protestant Reformers Martin Luther^[50] and William Tyndale.^[51]

Aragonese, Valencian and Sicilian Royalty House of Trastámara

Ferdinand I    Alfonso V    John II    Eleanor, Queen of Portugal Alfonso V John II    Charles IV of Navarre    Blanche II of Navarre    Eleanor I of Navarre    Ferdinand II    Joan, Queen of Naples Ferdinand II    Isabella, Queen of Portugal    Joanna I, Queen of Aragon    John, Prince of Asturias    Mary, Queen of Portugal    Catherine, Queen of England Joanna I

Upon returning to Dover from a meeting with King Francis I of France in Calais, Henry married Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony.^[52] Some sources speculate that Anne was already pregnant at the time, but others testify that Anne (who had seen her sister Mary Boleyn taken up as the king’s mistress and summarily cast aside) refused to sleep with Henry until they were married. Henry defended the legality of their union by pointing out that Catherine had previously been married. If she and Arthur had consummated their marriage, Henry by canon law had the right to remarry.^[53]On 23 May 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of Henry’s marriage to Catherine, declared the marriage illegal, even though Catherine testified she and Arthur had never had physical relations. Cranmer ruled Henry and Anne’s marriage valid five days later, on 28 May 1533.^[54]

Until the end of her life, Catherine would refer to herself as Henry’s only lawful wedded wife and England’s only rightful queen, and her servants continued to address her by that title. However, Henry refused her the right to any title but “Dowager Princess of Wales” in recognition of her position as his brother’s widow.^[52]

Catherine went to live at The More castle in the winter of 1531/32.^[55] In 1535 she was transferred to Kimbolton Castle. There, she confined herself to one room (which she left only to attend Mass), dressed only in the hair shirt of the Order of St. Francis, and fasted continuously. While she was permitted to receive occasional visitors, she was forbidden to see her daughter Mary. They were also forbidden to communicate in writing, but sympathizers discreetly ferried letters between the two. Henry offered both mother and daughter better quarters and permission to see each other if they would acknowledge Anne Boleyn as his new Queen. Both refused.^[55]

In late December 1535, sensing her death was near, Catherine made her will, and wrote to her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, asking him to protect her daughter. She then penned one final letter to Henry, her “most dear lord and husband”:^[56]

My most dear lord, King and husband,
The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I ouge [owe] thou forceth me, my case being such, to commend myselv to thou, and to put thou in remembrance with a few words of the healthe and safeguard of thine allm [soul] which thou ougte to preferce before all worldley matters, and before the care and pampering of thy body, for the which thoust have cast me into many calamities and thineselv into many troubles. For my part, I pardon thou everything, and I desire to devoutly pray God that He will pardon thou also. For the rest, I commend unto thou our doughtere Mary, beseeching thou to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat thou also, on behalve of my maides, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all mine other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I makest this vouge [vow], that mine eyes desire thou aboufe all things.
Katharine the Quene.

Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle on 7 January 1536.^[57] The following day, news of her death reached the king. At the time, there were rumors, that she was poisoned,^[58][59][60] possibly by Gregory di Casale.^[61] According to the chronicler Edward Hall, Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning, which has been interpreted in various ways; Polydore Vergil interpreted this to mean that Anne did not mourn.^[62]

The Holy Quran does not put brother’s widow in the prohibited list:

Forbidden to you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your fathers’ sisters, and your mothers’ sisters, and brother’s daughters, and sister’s daughters, and your foster-mothers that have given you suck, and your foster-sisters, and the mothers of your wives, and your stepdaughters, who are your wards by your wives unto whom you have gone in — but if you have not gone in unto them, there shall be no sin upon you — and the wives of your sons that are from your loins; and it is forbidden to you to have two sisters together in marriage, except what has already passed; surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful. (Al Quran 4:24)

The Bible has contradictory opinions on this issue.

To support the idea of prohibition for marrying brother’s widow from the Old Testament there is a passage from the New Testament, where John the Baptist rails against King Herod for marrying his brother’s wife. Mark 6:17-19 For Herod had sent soldiers to arrest and imprison John as a favor to Herodias. She had been his brother Philip’s wife, but Herod had married her. John kept telling Herod, “It is illegal for you to marry your brother’s wife.” Mar 6:19 Herodias was enraged and wanted John killed in revenge, but without Herod’s approval she was powerless.

Yet on the other side of the argument there are passages which just as strongly insist that a brother should take the widow of his brother to wed, especially if they have all been living in the same household.

Deuteronomy 25:5-10 If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.
And there is more support from Genesis:

Then Judah said to Er’s brother Onan, “You must marry Tamar, as our law requires of the brother of a man who has died. Her first son from you will be your brother’s heir.” (Genesis 38:8)

How persuasive were the arguments on either side of validity of Catherine’s marriage? The Pope was asked to grant the divorce. He dallied and dithered because he did not want to offend either Henry VIII nor the powerful relatives of his wife. The Pope’s indecision caused Henry to break his whole country off from the Catholic Church and order the Archbishop of Canterbury to grant him his divorce…and so began the Church of England.

Two Quranic verses, quoted in this article, would have prevented all of social, political and religious wrangling, about Catherine’s marriage or lack there of, which stretched over a decade and consumed many lives.

Kimbolton Castle: dying place of Catherine

Source: The daily Beast:

The Muslim Times’ Editor’s comment: We have changed the title.

By Daniel Pipes - Published May 14, 2013 – FoxNews.com

We who focus on Islamism see World War II and the Cold War as models for subduing the third totalitarianism. We understand that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution. 

What motives lay behind last month’s Boston Marathon bombing and the would-be attack on a VIA Rail Canada train?

Leftists and establishmentarians variously offer imprecise and tired replies – such as “violent extremism” or anger at Western imperialism – unworthy of serious discussion.

Conservatives, in contrast, engage in a lively and serious debate among themselves: some say Islam the religion provides motive, others say it’s a modern extremist variant of the religion, known as radical Islam or Islamism.

As a participant in the latter debate, here’s my argument for focusing on Islamism.

Those focusing on Islam itself as the problem (such as ex-Muslims like Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) point to the consistency from Muhammad’s life and the contents of the Koran and Hadith to current Muslim practice.

Agreeing with Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, they point to striking continuities between Koranic verses and jihad actions. They quote Islamic scriptures to establish the centrality of Muslim supremacism, jihad, and misogyny, concluding that a moderate form of Islam is impossible.

They point to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan‘s deriding the very idea of a moderate Islam.

Their killer question is, “Was Muhammad a Muslim or an Islamist?” They contend that we who blame Islamism do so out of political correctness or cowardliness.

To which, we reply: Yes, certain continuities do exist; and Islamists definitely follow the Koran and Hadith literally.

Moderate Muslims exist but lack Islamists’ near-hegemonic power.

Erdoğan’s denial of moderate Islam points to a curious overlap between Islamism and the anti-Islam viewpoint.

Muhammad was a plain Muslim, not an Islamist, for the latter concept dates back only to the 1920s. And no, we are not cowardly but offer our true analysis.

And that analysis goes like this:

Islam is the fourteen-century-old faith of a billion-plus believers that includes everyone from quietist Sufis to violent jihadis. Muslims achieved remarkable military, economic, and cultural success between roughly 600 and 1200 c.e.

Being a Muslim then meant belonging to a winning team, a fact that broadly inspired Muslims to associate their faith with mundane success. Those memories of medieval glory remain not just alive but central to believers’ confidence in Islam and in themselves as Muslims.

The modern Muslim trauma begins: Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids, 1798, as imagined by Antoine-Jean Gros.

Major dissonance began around 1800, when Muslims unexpectedly lost wars, markets, and cultural leadership to Western Europeans.

It continues today, as Muslims bunch toward the bottom of nearly every index of achievement.

This shift has caused massive confusion and anger. What went wrong, why did God seemingly abandon His faithful? The unbearable divergence between premodern accomplishment and modern failure brought about trauma.

Muslims have responded to this crisis in three main ways.

- Secularists want Muslims to ditch the Shari’a (Islamic law) and emulate the West.

- Apologists also emulate the West but pretend that in doing so they are following the Shari’a. Islamists reject the West in favor of a retrograde and full application of the Shari’a.

- Islamists loathe the West because of its being tantamount to Christendom, the historic archenemy, and its vast influence over Muslims. Islamism inspires a drive to reject, defeat, and subjugate Western civilization.

Despite this urge, Islamists absorb Western influences, including the concept of ideology. Indeed, Islamism represents the transformation of Islamic faith into a political ideology.

Islamism accurately indicates an Islamic-flavored version of radical utopianism, an “-ism” like other “-isms,” comparable to fascism and communism. Aping those two movements, for example, Islamism relies heavily on conspiracy theories to interpret the world, on the state to advance its ambitions, and on brutal means to attain its goals.

Supported by 10-15 percent of Muslims, Islamism draws on devoted and skilled cadres who have an impact far beyond their limited numbers. It poses the threat to civilized life in Iran, Egypt, and not just on the streets of Boston but also in Western schools, parliaments, and courtrooms.

Our killer question is “How do you propose to defeat Islamism?” Those who make all Islam their enemy not only succumb to a simplistic and essentialist illusion but they lack any mechanism to defeat it.

We who focus on Islamism see World War II and the Cold War as models for subduing the third totalitarianism. We understand that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution.

We work with anti-Islamist Muslims to vanquish a common scourge. We will triumph over this new variant of barbarism so that a modern form of Islam can emerge.

Reference

Additional Reading about: Separation of Mosque-Church and State

• Solomonic wisdom needed to establish Separation of Mosque-Church-Synagogue and State
• Violence in the Bible and Jihad in the Quran
• Religion, Politics and Human Rights
• Sharia Law: Concept of Enforcement?
• How Shariah, an Intended Compass for Peace, Became a Tool of Oppression
• An invitation to other religions: demonstrating human rights and Universal Brotherhood from your scriptures
• ‘Let the Muslim be my Master in Outward Things.’ References to Islam in the Promotion of Religious Tolerance in Christian Europe
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Islam!

Source: CNN Money

By Tami Luhby

Poverty is growing faster in the suburbs than anywhere else in the United States, soaring 64% over the past decade.
That was more than twice the growth rate of the urban poor population, according to the Brookings Institution, which released a book Monday titled Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. There are now almost 16.4 million suburban residents living below the poverty line, nearly 3 million more than in the cities.
The poverty line for a family of four was $23,021 in 2011, the latest Census figures available.

Click here for interactive Charts

Read more

Source: BDNews 24

A Dhaka court has remanded three Hifazat-e Islam activists for four days to police custody in two cases filed over the May 5 violence in capital Dhaka’s Motijheel.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Erfanullah also rejected bail petitions of the detainees on Monday.

Police on Sunday detained Hifazat’s Joint Convenor Mizanur Rahman, Kafrul Thana unit’s convenor Abul Bashar Nomani and Emran Majari.

The detainees are leaders of the Chittagong-based organisation which is believed to be backed by Jamaat-e-Islami.

Read more

By Camelia Pasandaran, The Jakarta Globe:

Police have halted an investigation into last week’s attack on an Ahmadiyah mosque in Tulungagung, East Java, citing an agreement by the victims to stop worshipping in their mosque.
“The victims have promised not to file a lawsuit,” Tulungagung Police chief of detectives Adj. Comr. Lahuri told Tempo.
Lahuri said that Ahmadiyah congregation members also agreed to stop worshipping in their mosque, located in Gempolan village.
A mob of more than 100 people, mostly youths from Gempolan village and neighboring areas, damaged the Baitul Salam mosque on Thursday. The mosque, built in 2007, had its windows and entrance door destroyed after the mob threw stones and bricks at the structure.

Prior to the attack, residents, police and the local Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) met with mosque attendant Japar, Ahmadiyah member Edi Susanto and Ahmadiyah preacher Rizal Fazli, to request that they shutter the mosque and stop spreading Ahmadiyah teachings.
Aminullah, an Ahmadiyah cleric who oversees the Tulungagung area, told the Jakarta Globe that Ahmadiyah members in the village were intimidated by the police and residents.
“Our members were under pressure,” Aminullah said on Monday. “They’re not well educated, seeing police with their uniforms in their village makes them scared. They would agree whatever the police said.”
Aminullah said that he suggested Ahmadiyah members make peace with the local residents. However, he said he did not realize that the agreement would force members to close their mosque.
“I did not know that detail,” Aminullah said. “But I believe they will be able to use it again later through a discussion. The most important is they’re not taking over our mosque.”
He said that he told the Ahmadiyah community not to fight back because previous experiences showed that Ahmadiyah lose most legal cases, even if they were the victims.
“We’re minority and they [legal enforcers] don’t care,” Aminullah said.
Firdaus Mubarik, spokesman of Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), told the Jakarta Globe that religious freedom laws have failed to protect the minority Muslim group.
“If they’re prohibited to worship in the mosque, it means the police are siding with the attackers,” Firdaus said. “Police are protecting the interest of the perpetrators.”

Source:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/police-terminate-investigation-into-attack-on-ahmadiyah-in-east-java/

The Jakarta Globe:
About 20 members of the beleaguered Ahmadiyah sect in Tasikmalaya, West Java, supposedly embraced Sunni Islam on Monday and declared their devotion to Indonesia’s most popular religious sect during a ceremony at a mosque.
“They pledged allegiance to their [new] faith three times. [The event] was witnessed by the Minister of Religious Affairs and the Tasikmalaya district head,” Nurul Mubin, the head of the Islamic Defender’s Front (FPI) in Tasikmalaya, said on Monday, as quoted by Detik.com.

In addition, the Ahmadis were required to recite the syahadat — an affirmation that there is only one god and that Muhammad was his last prophet.
Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali said that he was so proud that he “began to cry when they recited the syahadat.”
The minister also promised to provide school scholarships for the children of the newly-converted Ahmadis.
Meanwhile, Nurul claimed that prior to these new converts, a total of 728 Indonesian Ahmadis have accepted mainstream Sunni Islam.
“This is not a new development,” Firdaus Mubarik, a spokesman for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), said. “It’s normal that the government would bring up the issue of Ahmadiyah conversions after recent attacks on Ahmadiyah mosques.”
He was skeptical of the validity of the supposed conversions, and in his view, there were two possible scenarios that could have unfolded.

One possibility is that these Ahmadis were forced to convert to Sunnism on threat of being expelled from their villages with their families, as what happened in Cianjur, West Java, in March 2012.
“The second possibility is that they’re actually the same people who claimed to embrace [Sunni] Islam several months or even years ago. Journalists should seek out the data and find out if they have truly converted,” he said.
Firdaus went on to recommend that the government make available the list of Ahmadis who supposedly converted to Sunni Islam.

MORE

Epigraph:

“Indeed, We Ourself have sent down this Exhortation (the Quran), and most surely We will be its Guardian.” (Al Quran 15:10)

Gospel of Thomas

Source: The Huffington Post

By Hal Taussig: Author, ‘A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts’

More than 75 otherwise unknown documents from the early Christ movements of the first and second centuries have been discovered in the sands of Egypt, the markets of Cairo, or in unprocessed sections of European and Near Eastern libraries in the past 150 years. As these documents have been translated and studied by scholars, it has become clear that many of them belong to the very heart of Christian beginnings. Unfortunately the public knows little about these documents and churches almost never read them.

As I have taught these documents over the past 20 years in seminaries, colleges, the church where I pastor, and many groups around the country, I have regularly heard some version of the following remarks:

“When I read this material, I feel like I have discovered a long lost sister or brother.”

“Why don’t I know about these works? Why aren’t they in my Bible?”

As hundreds and then thousands of people responded in this manner, I began to think that the larger public really needed to have a chance to read the most valuable of these new discoveries alongside the powerful works of the traditional New Testament. Indeed, it had long been clear to me that these more recent discoveries complemented and supplemented the established Scriptures.

It is true that some of these new works have already been published in collections of what are often called the “lost books of Christianity.” But this cordoning off of them into special collections has only encouraged their segregation into one of two categories. They are treated either as heretical versions of early Christianity or secret teachings that are far better than the traditional Scriptures.

I reject both of these alternatives. These documents are neither the perfect Scriptures nor despicable heresy. Rather, they contain the same and different stories, new and old teachings, powerful prayers and fresh imagery.

So with the support of my publisher, in 2011-2012, I convened 19 nationally recognized spiritual leaders to study a wide range of ancient literature from the early Christ movements and to decide which of them would be valuable spiritually for 21^st century American readers. In late February of 2012 this council of Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Jewish and yogic leaders chose to add 10 books to the traditional New Testament. These additions are spliced into the regular order of the traditional books so that the new and the old can be read alongside each other. It is my hope that this New New Testament can provide both new spiritual depth and new understanding for a wide range of readers.

See a slide show in the Huffington Post.

About the author: Professor Hal Taussig received the A.B. in Religion from Antioch College in 1965, the M.Div. from Methodist Theological School in Ohio in 1973, and the Ph.D. from Union Institute in 1975. He has taught Masters and Ph.D. studies at Union Theological Seminary for the past 11 years as Visiting Professor of New Testament Studies and is also Professor of Early Christianity at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. Dr. Taussig previously taught at Chestnut Hill College, St. Joseph’s University, the School of Theology at Claremont, and Albright College.

the electronic intifida: Peder Egenaes. (Berit Roald / AFP/Getty Images)

Oslo Freedom Forum founder’s ties to Islamophobes who inspired mass killer Anders Breivik

by Max Blumenthal, The Electronic Intifada, New York City 14 May 2013

An Electronic Intifada investigation uncovers evidence that Thor Halvorssen, the founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, receives significant funding from the same financiers who support the Islamophobes who inspired anti-Muslim Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik. Despite being presented with this evidence, the Norwegian government and Amnesty International are embracing Halvorssen, a long-time far-right activist and the scion of a politically-connected family tied to Venezuela’s US-backed opposition.

This week in Oslo, hundreds of people from around the world are gathering for the fifth annual Oslo Freedom Forum, a human rights conference billed as “a three-day summit exploring how best to challenge authoritarianism and promote free and open societies.”

Produced by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (humanrightsfoundation.org), the event is sponsored by, among others, Norway’s Labor Party government (in the form of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the City of Oslo, and Amnesty International Norway. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide is scheduled to deliver prepared remarks at the forum.

Oslo is still scarred by the murderous rampage carried out by the right-wing extremistAnders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian citizen who fashioned himself as a crusading knight on a mission to save Europe from the scourge of Muslim immigration.

More: 

Youtube: TED Talks by Haroon Moghul: The Huge Overlapp between the Idea of America and the Idea of Islam

Watch in Youtube.

ISLAMABAD / GILGIT-BALTISTAN: Two young siblings achieved rare mountaineering glory for themselves on Saturday by becoming the first Pakistani woman and only the third Pakistani man to set foot on the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal.

Through their feats, 21-year-old Samina Baig and her 29-year-old brother Mirza Ali ensured that their country’s flag fluttered on the world’s highest summit.

An ecstatic Samina informed her family about her successful ascent via satellite phone.

More: 

لندن ( مرزا نعیم الرحمان سے ) میٹروپولیٹن پولیس نے متحدہ قومی موومنٹ کے قائدالطاف حسین  کی موومنٹ محدود کردی ہے ۔ ذمہ دار ذرائع کے مطابق  برطانوی پولیس نے الطاف حسین کیخلاف یہ کارروائی اسے موصول ہونے والی شکایات کی روشنی میں کی ہے اور ان کی نگرانی دراصل ایک قسم کی گرفتاری ہے۔ بتایا گیا ہے کہ لندن کی میٹروپولیٹن پولیس نے الطاف حسین  سے تھانے میں تفتیش کی جس دوران  تحریکِ انصاف کی رہنما زہرہ شاہد کے قتل اور الطاف حسین کے  متنازع بیان کے بارے میں پوچھ گچھ کی  More

by Marc H. Ellis on May 17, 2013

Joseph Massad is at it again. He never seems to go away. Good for him!

Massad is a Jordanian-born, Palestinian and a professor at Columbia University. He gained notoriety in a tenure battle that featured a ferocious below the belt campaign against him.

Massad is a subversive intellectual. He takes no prisoners.

I have been writing about him in my new book, Future Prophetic. There I focus on an explosive essay he published in Al-Ahram on the 60th anniversary of the Nakba in 2008 – “Resisting the Nakba.” It’s a long essay and I quote his powerful words extensively. Massad needs to be heard on his own terms.

I just ran across Massad’s contribution to the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, this time published on Al Jazeera’s website – “The Last of the Semites.” The subtitle is telling: “It is Israel’s claims that it represents and speaks for all Jews that are the most anti-Semitic claims of all.”

I met Massad briefly in Oslo, Norway at a conferencing analyzing the Oslo Accords on its 15th anniversary. The conference wasn’t high quality though some of the guests were certainly high profile. Included were several of those Norwegians who helped negotiate the Accords – they were underwhelming to put it mildly – and Martin Indyk – former American Ambassador to Israel. He was underwhelming, too.

I spoke on a panel with Indyk and when I mentioned the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, he winced. Or was it a groan. Anyway, his reaction was immediate. He doesn’t want to be associated with such a politically charged historical thought. He hopes his attempts to sell Palestinians down the river will be hidden from view.

In a private discussion, Indyk spoke softly as if we were on the same team holding a sidebar discussion during a negotiating session. He whispered how close “we” were to solving the Israel/Palestine issue when he was at the negotiating table.

I remember thinking that if I were a Palestinian, Indyk would be the last person I’d want helping me out of the ongoing Nakba jam. As a Jew, if I was in the proverbial foxhole I’d choose Massad as a partner over Indyk any day of the week. Whatever my disagreements with Massad, I know he’d level with me.

It’s a double humiliation for Palestinians to be “served” by the diplomats who facilitate the endless peace process. I’m not sure who is worse, the Israelis who have no time for Palestinians or those who pretend to negotiate with their interests at heart.

I heard Massad speak at the conference and was impressed. Later, I saw him at a restaurant. I was seated alone, he was with friends. When I left the restaurant, I walked over to his table and shook his hand. I thanked him for his words.

Massad’s 65th anniversary essay differs markedly from his 60th anniversary effort. His previous essay hardly mentions Jews or Jewish history. He seemed intent on emphasizing that for Palestinians, Jews are neither here nor there. The issue for Palestinians is Palestine. What Jews do with their history is up to them. Just stop trespassing in Palestine.

The Holocaust reference in Massad’s 60th anniversary piece is limited to the Jewish Councils of Europe that governed the ghettos the Nazis created. Massad inverts the reference. He believes that the Jewish Councils collaborated with the Nazis – as the Palestinian Authority collaborates with Israel.

Massad is on the hunt again this year but this time his focus is on Jews, Jewish history and Zionism before and after the creation of the state of Israel. His article is broken down into four subheadings which provide a sense of the direction he takes: Assimilating Jews into European culture; Anti-Semitic chain of pro-Zionist enthusiasts; The pro-Zionist policies of the Nazis; Commitment to white supremacy; Euro-American anti-Jewish tradition.

Massad’s argument is wide-ranging and covers epochs of Jewish history in relation to Europe, the United States, the Arab world and Palestine. Suffice it to say that Zionism comes off as a fascist force with colonial designs, colonial backings and colonial practices. The idea of redeeming Zionism from its colonialism is laughable – and criminal. Here are some other themes:

Anti-Jewishness is Western as is Zionism.

Zionism is the product of collaboration between Jews who wanted out of Europe – to dominate others – and the Western powers that wanted Jews out of Europe.

Nazi policies in relation to Jews aren’t foreign to the West, they continue today – for the Nazis as well as Europeans today its best for Jews to be outside of Europe.

Israeli and Jewish leadership are in the Nazi boat, capitalizing on Nazi attitudes and displaying their own version.

The Jewish masses may have been hoodwinked by Zionism but they also benefit from white supremacy and enjoy their elevation to this prized, though criminal status.

On Jews, white supremacy and a continuation of Nazi-like policies toward colonized people, Massad is brutal. He analyzes and quotes from Aimé Césaire’s seminal work, “Discourse on Colonialism:”

Aimé Césaire understood this process very well. In his famous speech on colonialism, he affirmed that the retrospective view of European Christians about Nazism is that:

It is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before [Europeans] were its victims, they were its accomplices; and they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimised it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilisation in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.

That for Césaire the Nazi wars and holocaust were European colonialism turned inwards is true enough. But since the rehabilitation of Nazism’s victims as white people, Europe and its American accomplice would continue their Nazi policy of visiting horrors on non-white people around the world, on Korea, on Vietnam and Indochina, on Algeria, on Indonesia, on Central and South America, on Central and Southern Africa, on Palestine, on Iran, and on Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The rehabilitation of Nazism’s victims as white people” – that is, Jews. Massad doesn’t say this directly but the implication is clear: Jews becoming white, well, is there much or any difference today between Jews and the Nazis who persecuted them?

Becoming white and being accepted as such, “visiting horrors on non-white people around the world” becomes routine. Massad believes this has become the acceptable, even normative Jewishness.

Or is this a specific European- American Jewishness seen from the perspective of the non-Jewish non-white world and the non-white Jewish world?

Harsh thoughts with so many implications it requires much more analysis. Is Massad overreaching? Perhaps. Is Massad wrong? Even if he is partially right, the Jewish condition is dire.

Massad closes his essay on the issue of anti-Semitism:

Today, Israel and the Western powers want to elevate anti-Semitism to an international principle around which they seek to establish full consensus. They insist that for there to be peace in the Middle East, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims must become, like the West, anti-Semites by espousing Zionism and recognising Israel’s anti-Semitic claims. Except for dictatorial Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority and its cronies, on this 65th anniversary of the anti-Semitic conquest of Palestine by the Zionists, known to Palestinians as the Nakba, the Palestinian people and the few surviving anti-Zionist Jews continue to refuse to heed this international call and incitement to anti-Semitism. They affirm that they are, as the last of the Semites, the heirs of the pre-WWII Jewish and Palestinian struggles against anti-Semitism and its Zionist colonial manifestation. It is their resistance that stands in the way of a complete victory for European anti-Semitism in the Middle East and the world at large.

Well, with Massad we’ve come a long inverted way. He sees the Jewishness that most Jews celebrate as colonial and – criminal.

Massad stops short – I think – of a Euro-American Jewish Zionist conspiracy to dominate the world.

Understanding Jewishness at war with the world and with Jewishness itself. It’s a tough sell.

Massad takes no prisoners.

SOURCE: MONDOWEISS http://mondoweiss.net/2013/05/prophetic-massad-strikes.html

Africa’s ‘Arc of Instability’
From Markham to Mogadishu and London to Nouakchott: A Toronto Star investigation into Africa’s “Arc of Instability” and why westerners are joining the jihad.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA—Everyone in Mogadishu knew an attack was imminent. Double agents within Al Shabab had warned Somalia’s security services that something spectacular was coming. Shabab spies within Somalia’s security service were tracking the warnings.

Spying and talking, talking and spying, in a city where storytelling is legendary and fact and fiction become inextricably intertwined. Yet, there was no doubt Al Qaeda’s East African group was about to make a deadly statement. The British government issued a warning on April 5: “Terrorists are in the final stages of planning attacks in Mogadishu.”

No doubt.

Even so, a small group of men in khaki military uniforms were waved through the checkpoints and walked toward Mogadishu’s courthouse in the noonday sun on April 14.
Photos View gallery

Bullet holes mark the door at the entrance of Mogadishu’s courthouse. An April assault by a team of Shabab commandos, led by Canadian Mahad Dhore, killed 29. zoom

Abdisalam Ali Matan, a Radio Mogadishu journalist known by the nickname “Daahad,” which means “honest,” remembers turning to stare at the men, wondering why they were coming to the courthouse on foot. “Two of the men were cuffed, like prisoners,” Daahad says. “People were asking themselves, ‘Who are these people?’”

According to four law enforcement and intelligence sources, the man leading the group, the one some described as wearing the shoulder lapels of a colonel, was a 29-year-old Canadian named Mahad Dhore .

In another life, Dhore was an average Canadian immigrant-turned-citizen. He grew up in a mixed income pocket of leafy suburbia in Markham, Ont.; he played high-school basketball and worked at the No Frills. He was a good friend, a kind sibling, a favourite of his “mama,” the elderly aunt who brought him to Canada from Somalia when he was 9; he was a young father and a history major at York University.

“Fortunately, some of the court officers inside had guns and this slowed them down — stopped (the Shabab) from killing everyone, because they were well-armed.”

A senior security source discussing the April attack on a Mogadishu courthouse

But in 2009, Dhore left Canada, travelled to Nairobi to visit an ailing grandmother and then slipped into Somalia, finding the Shabab and rising up the ranks to become a “logistics chief” in the Hiraan region, intelligence sources say.

Omar Hammami, the Alabama-born fugitive in Somalia, who has a $5-million (U.S.) bounty on his head for his Shabab involvement, knew Dhore and some of the other Canadian recruits. Throughout March and early April, Hammami wrote to the Toronto Star in private online exchanges. The correspondence ended on April 20. Two weeks later, on May 7, there were unconfirmed reports of Hammami’s death.

Hammami said he lived near Dhore for a period — although he couldn’t remember if it was 2010 or 2011. He said they resided north of Mogadishu in Suuq Xoolaha, an area known as the livestock market. Hammami knew Dhore by his nickname “Farhan.”
More

MAP: Africa’s ‘Arc of Instability’

VIDEO: London mosque in the aftermath of terror revelations

“He used to carry 20L jugs of water to my house for my wife when the water pipes busted,” Hammami wrote in a private Twitter message. “Quiet, reserved guy.”

Dhore and the other men in uniform — at least four of them, maybe more — walked up the driveway to the tin gates of the three-storey legal compound on that April Sunday. The lead men passed their guns to the guards, as is normal procedure, Daahad recalled. Then the men behind began shooting. “The ‘prisoners,’ who had looked like they were cuffed, took (the guards’) guns,” Daahad said. “They got inside, closed the gate and that was when I heard an explosion.”

From London to Nouakchott

Aaron Yoon had hoped his family would not discover where he was. They knew he was far from his London, Ont., home, in Mauritania on Africa’s northwest coast. The 24-year-old had left for Morocco in the spring of 2011 with two high-school friends, telling his family he wanted to study Arabic and the Qur’an.

He seemed an unlikely convert to Islam, recalled David Hassan, the former executive director of the London Mosque, where Yoon prayed in 2010. He was, Hassan said, the first Korean who had joined the mosque. Knowing the transition to a new faith can be difficult, especially for those from devout Christian families, Hassan wanted to know why he chose to become Muslim.

Yoon said he wanted to be a better member of society, wanted the sense of community. It was a usual response for converts, Hassan said.

The same characteristics, added Hassan, could be attributed to Yoon’s friend Xris Katsiroubas , the quiet, lanky kid who donned a hooded sweatshirt every day. The hood was always up and he was never without a pair of bulky headphones blaring hip-hop. Katsiroubas went by the name Mustafa after he adopted Islam late in high school.

Katsiroubas, Yoon and another high-school buddy, Ali Medlej, were inseparable and they stuck together after arriving in Morocco. From there, they crossed the desert into Mauritania. Their names all appear on the registry at Al Sindibad, a seedy hotel in Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott. But soon after, they went their separate ways.

Yoon’s family didn’t know that in July 2012 Yoon had been sentenced in Mauritania for conspiring to join a terrorist group. He had convinced them during cellphone conversations from prison since his arrest in December 2011 that he was free and studying religion.

His lie began to unravel in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 16, when heavily armed militants loyal to an offshoot of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) shot their way into a well-guarded compound surrounding the Tiguentourine gas plant at In Amenas, Algeria, near the Libyan border.

The terrorists, dressed in military garb, gunned down those who tried to flee and took hundreds hostage. For four days, they laid siege to the sprawling gas installation , demanding the withdrawal of French forces from Mali, where they were battling Islamist extremists, including AQIM.

Irish survivor Stephen McFaul and others told reporters how their captors had tied Semtex plastic explosives around their necks, turning them into human bombs. Terrified hostages hid under beds, in false ceilings, wherever they could to remain undetected and make whispered calls to loved ones.

Amid the chaos, they heard one of the attackers calling out in perfect English.

About 30 hours after the siege began, the Algerian government ordered a special forces team to move in. Military helicopters attacked a convoy of trucks carrying hostages. In the chaos, many fled to freedom. The counterassault continued for three days, a brutal battle that left at least 37 civilians dead. All but one of the victims were foreign workers, from eight different countries, including Japan, France, the United States and Britain. Three surviving terrorists were arrested, as the bodies of the other 29 militants were counted.

As brazen as the attack was, what came as a shock was word that Canadians were involved. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal had gone public, telling an internationally televised news conference: “A Canadian was among the militants. He was co-ordinating the attack.”

Sellal called the Canadian by only one name — Chedad or Shaddad. No officials would clarify. Canadian authorities suspect, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation, that Chedad was Yoon’s friend Medlej, a Beirut-born Canadian citizen. His passport, as well as one belonging to 22-year-old Katsiroubas, was found in the fiery carnage. An RCMP forensic team later identified their remains.

British Prime Minister David Cameron would later say the attack had clearly been planned well before French forces arrived in Mali, and authorities now suspect Canadians had a hand in those plans. Hostages said the attackers knew the facility’s layout well and moved with precision. One unconfirmed report states that Medlej had worked at the gas plant. A Canadian source says Medlej had taken a pipefitter course in Canada.

Yoon has maintained his innocence and denies any connection to his friends’ actions. His family was stunned to learn he was in jail. “Nothing he said made us think he was in trouble,” Yoon’s brother told the Star. “He was calling us pretty regularly, and he sounded OK on the phone.”

In a Mauritanian court this week, where prosecutors are trying to increase Yoon’s two-year sentence to 10, Yoon again professed his innocence. He repeated what he has said since his arrest. “I wanted to go to Mauritania because I was attracted by Mauritania’s reputation for the qualities of its (religious) schools and of the curriculum taught there,” he told police in 2012, according to notes of his interrogation viewed by the Star.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/05/18/africas_arc_of_instability.html

Source: Spiegel

In a SPIEGEL interview, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, 51, discusses the search for a political solution to the Syrian civil war, controversial German arms exports and how his family’s experiences in World War II inform his positions today.

More:

Source: The Local.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn deepened diplomatic tensions with Germany after comparing the policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Nazi military invasion of his country ordered by Adolf Hitler.

More:

Source:The Local.

The Federal Criminal Police Office is warning of a new type of Islamist terrorist threat from the air that could attack both passenger and cargo planes as well as airport facilities, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported.

More:

Source: The Local

An American appeals court has denied a fundamentalist Christian family from Germany the right to asylum in the US. The family claimed they were being persecuted for not being allowed to homeschool their children.

More:

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have long been regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although not without controversy. It seems that the Gardens have also been regarded as purely legendary, with no evidence that this ancient site ever existed in Babylon.

For centuries, historians, archaeologists and others have imagined what the Hanging Gardens may have looked like and several artists, most notably Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck in the 16th century painted his concept of the Gardens, complete with the Tower of Babel in the background.

Now, a historian with Oxford University may have cracked the case wide open, potentially solving centuries-old theories of the Hanging Gardens.

Dr. Stephanie Dalley, of Oxford’s Oriental Institute, said the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon were not actually located in Hillah and were not built by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. In fact, she says the site was not even in Babylon at all, but rather 300 miles north in Nineveh, and built by the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib.

According to The Independent, Dalley first proposed the idea in 1992 and has spent the better part of two decades piecing the mystery together. Now, after working diligently for so long on the project, she is set to reveal the findings in a book to be released later this month.

Poring over historical documents and descriptions of the legendary Gardens, Dalley has discovered that a nineteenth century bas-relief from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh showed trees growing atop a colonnade exactly as described by earlier accounts. She also found evidence that the Assyrian capital became known as ‘New Babylon’ after Assyria conquered Babylon in 689 BC. Dalley also uncovered several places in the region that were known by the name Babylon.

She also uncovered evidence that after the successful invasion of Babylon, the gates of Nineveh were renamed for those traditionally used for Babylon’s city gates. Furthermore, through geographical assessments of the flat land surrounding Babylon, it would have been impossible for a water delivery system to be implemented in that region. And Dalley found descriptions of the Gardens that were written by historians who actually had visited the Nineveh region, making it more likely that the Hanging Gardens actually existed in Nineveh.

Dalley found historical documentation that tells of Alexander the Great, whose army camped near the city in 331 BC, close to one of the great aqueducts that Dalley believes had carried water to the real site of the legendary Gardens.

Dalley told David Keys of The Independent that it has “taken many years to find the evidence to demonstrate that the gardens and associated system of aqueducts and canals were built by Sennacherib at Nineveh and not by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.”

“For the first time it can be shown that the Hanging Garden really did exist,” she added.

Dalley noted that a German team spent nearly 20 years last century looking for remnants of the Hanging Gardens, but never found a single clue confirming that Nebuchadnezzar built the site in Babylon. “To their dismay, they could not find any possible location with enough space in the vicinity of the palaces, nor did they dig out any written confirmation from the many texts they unearthed,” Dalley remarked in a statement to The Telegraph.

In the end, Dalley concludes that the Hanging Gardens were built in a different century, in a different location, and by a different king leading a different civilization.

Source: Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Below I am giving you ‘the latest News from Reuters’ as copied from swissinfo.ch website. Militant news and bad news make most of the headlines.

Did any International News Agency for instance pick up the News of the opening of the Vancouver Mosque? Not interesting, because it is non-violent. “Only” a message of peace was delivered.

Sad, sad, media world …

Rafiq A. Tschannen

Imran Khan’s party wins revote in Karachi, protests expected 05:32
North Korea fires fifth missile in three days 10:01
Chinese Premier Li seeks trust in India, border issue irks 09:14
Car bombs kill at least 31 in Iraq 09:38
Gunmen storm Egyptian security post in lawless Sinai Peninsula 09:38
Thirty Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria’s Qusair – activists 08:44
Obama walks a fine line with Myanmar president’s landmark visit 00:09
Venezuela says taking steps to restore U.S. diplomatic ties 04:00
Exclusive – Bangladesh factory banned by Wal-Mart still makes Wrangler shirts 22:06
Protesting Egyptian police block Israel border crossing 20:14
Hezbollah steps up Syria battle, Israel threatens more strikes 23:11
Indonesia’s nationwide healthcare plan stumbles at first hurdle 22:12
Pakistan army will be watching Sharif’s cosying up to India 22:18
Insight – Despite curbs, China’s vast hot money triangle flourishes 22:01
North Korea fires short-range missiles for two days in a row 11:21
Analysis – Little sign Abe can shake up Japan’s inbound FDI 22:25
Tunisian Islamist protester killed in clash with police 19:13
India gripes over border, trade woes on Li’s first foreign trip 19:59
AP chief says phone probe makes news sources reluctant to talk 18:53
One killed in northern Lebanese city of Tripoli 21:45
Nigeria offers amnesty to insurgents who surrender 19:16
Two Egyptian journalists, critical of Mursi, face trial 19:22
Obama to discuss al Qaeda, drones, Guantanamo Bay in Thursday speech 18:35
Dubai labourers stage rare strike for more pay 18:58
Humala’s approval rating in Peru slips to six-month low 17:52
Afghanistan’s Karzai seeks Indian military aid amid tensions with Pakistan 13:31
Protesting Egyptian police block Israel border crossing 18:02
With president ailing, Algeria prepares for end of an era 16:14
Bangladesh court orders action against factory owner in November fire 15:13
Netanyahu takes aim at weapons ‘leakage’ in Syria 17:01
Syrian army, Hezbollah attack rebels in border town – opposition 14:40
Upmarket Pakistan district votes again as Imran Khan decries killing 09:07
Canadian prime minister’s top aide quits over expenses scandal 15:50
South Africa finds collusion, manipulation in Gupta scandal 15:53
Analysis – Airline emissions deal may not come before EU deadline 15:09
EU says worried by Russia’s human rights record 14:12
Pope warns Church against closing in on itself 14:36
Germans blame euro zone crisis for Eurovision debacle 14:23
After crushing Mali Islamists, France pushes deal with Tuaregs 13:41
Egyptian police block Israel border crossing in fury at kidnapping – sources 12:40

by Frédéric Burnand in Geneva, swissinfo.ch
May 20, 2013 – 11:01

The intensive use of drones by the Obama administration is feeding a wave of protest and criticism which reaches Geneva next week when a coalition of NGOs will call for a halt to the race to build technology for autonomous killing robots.

The Taranis, named after the Celtic god of thunder, is a British military drone prototype (Keystone)

The increasing robotisation of military hardware is a new and worrying development that the defenders of human rights and guardians of the Geneva Conventions are attempting to curb. Campaigners are talking two distinct approaches.

The first concerns the use of drones in the international fight against the elusive al-Qaida – a programme launched after the September 11 attacks and heavily used since the arrival to power of United States President Barack Obama.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a non-profit organisation based in London, estimated that drone attacks between 2004 and 2013 caused between 2,500 and 3,000 deaths (including hundreds of civilians and close to 200 children) and more than 1,000 injuries in Pakistan alone.

Pressure on Obama

To determine whether the Geneva Conventions have been violated, the Human Rights Council tasked British lawyer Ben Emmerson, United Nations special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, to investigate the issue.

According to Emmerson, the central goal of this investigation is to evaluate if the drone attacks have caused a disproportionate number of civilian casualties, which is contrary to existing international humanitarian law.

Emmerson is due to present the results of his investigation in September at the 68th UN General Assembly.

Under pressure from public opinion, the Obama administration is weighing up the problem, and there is talk of moving the programme for the elimination of terrorist groups from the CIA to the slightly more transparent Pentagon, according to the Daily Beast (a news website associated with Newsweek).

“This transfer is still just a rumour. Nothing official has been announced. But this change goes in the direction of our demands,” Andrea Prasow, of Human Rights Watch, told swissinfo.ch.

In parallel, Christof Heyns, UN expert on extra-judicial executions, summary or arbitrary, will present a new report to the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29. This document, centred on “lethal autonomous robots”, calls for an international moratorium on the development of these instruments of war.

Preventive action

On the fringes of the session, the campaign ‘Stop Killer Robots’, officially launched in London in April by a coalition of NGOs, is organising a press conference at the European headquarters of the UN to call for the ban on such arms.

They aim to follow a process similar to that which led to the convention on the banning of anti-personnel mines, in force since 1999. Except this time – as a first – the ban being sought concerns weapons which do not yet exist.

“Semi-automatic systems like drones are controlled and piloted by human beings, albeit at a distance,” Andrea Bianchi, professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva told swissinfo.ch.

“Through interpretation it is possible to apply the existing rules of international humanitarian law. In contrast, completely autonomous combat systems distance man more and more from the machine.”

Humans out of the loop

In his report, Heyns makes a similar analysis: “Given the increased pace of warfare, humans have in some respects become the weakest link in the military arsenal and are thus being taken out of the decision-making loop.”

However, security expert Alexandre Vautravers believes we are far from this point. “You have to distinguish between the sensational and the systems which are being assisted or which have a certain autonomy.”

“Today we have systems which can organise between themselves, how to fly in formation to provide radio coverage by relay, or a complete field of vision of a certain area.

The Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has laboratories which are working on this kind of system,” he said.

“But the Terminator is not about to arrive. All the more so as the military budgets of the countries most advanced in this area, beginning with the US, have been revised downwards.”

In his report, Heyns claims it is urgent to regulate. “Technology is developing exponentially, and it is impossible to predict the future confidently. As a result, it is almost impossible to determine how close we are to fully autonomous robots that are ready for use.”

“Military documents of a number of States describe air, ground and marine robotic weapons development programmes at various stages of autonomy. Large amounts of money are allocated for their development.”

Perpetual war

One thing is certain. The nature of war has changed since the advent of drones at the beginning of the 1990s.

“The experience with UCAVs [unmanned combat air vehicles] has shown that this type of military technology finds its way with ease into situations outside recognised battlefields,” Heyns’ report says.

Heyns is concerned about the danger that the world will be seen as a single, large and perpetual battlefield.

“The nature of robotic development generally makes it a difficult subject of regulation, especially in the area of weapons control. Furthermore, there is significant continuity between military and non-military technologies.”

“The same robotic platforms can have civilian as well as military applications, and can be deployed for non-lethal purposes or be equipped with lethal capability.”

Which is why Bianchi is calling for a serious debate about these questions.

“It would be good to put together the different actors in this dossier – not only the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], the UN and the states but also the scientists and the experts in international humanitarian law – for the most honest possible reflection.”

“The advancement of technology is such that international law cannot allow itself to be left behind,” said Bianchi.

This is also the first effect that can be seen from the campaign Stop Killer Robots: the opening of a public debate on a subject until now the preserve of experts and the end users, the military.
Frédéric Burnand in Geneva, swissinfo.ch
(Adapted from French by Clare O’Dea)

Drones and the ICRC

In an interview published on the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on May 10, its president Peter Maurer explains how and under what conditions international humanitarian law is applicable to the use of armed drones.

After recalling the main principles of international humanitarian law such as the distinction between civilian and military and the proportionality required in the use of force, Maurer stresses the potential interest of a weapon like a drone.

“From the perspective of international humanitarian law, any weapon that makes it possible to carry out more precise attacks, and helps avoid or minimise incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects, should be given preference over weapons that do not.”

Maurer adds this point on the use of armed drones outside war zones. “If and when drones are used in situations where there is no armed conflict, it is the relevant national law, and international human rights law with its standards on law enforcement, that apply, not international humanitarian law.”

“The question is whether lethal force may lawfully be used against such a person and under what legal framework. Opinions diverge. The ICRC holds the view that international humanitarian law would not be applicable in such a situation, meaning that this person should not be considered a legitimate target under the laws of war.”

“Advising otherwise would mean that the whole world is potentially a battlefield and that people moving around the world could be legitimate targets under international humanitarian law wherever they might be.”

Source: ICRC

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says militants from 29 different countries are now fighting against the government in different parts of the country.

Assad made the remarks in a lengthy interview with Argentina’s Clarin newspaper and the Argentine state news agency Telam on Saturday in Damascus, the official SANA news agency reported on Sunday.

“Recent credible reports show that there are approximately 29 nationalities of foreign fighters engaged in terrorism activities within Syria’s borders,” he said.

Assad stated that foreign intervention is the most important factor aggravating the situation in Syria.

When he was asked that what has made the Syrian crisis so complex and protracted, Assad said, “Firstly, numerous factors have influenced the Syrian crisis both internally and externally, the most significant of which is foreign interference. Secondly, the calculations of confrontational states that intervened in Syria have now proven incorrect. These states perceived their plan would succeed within weeks or months; this has not materialized. What has transpired is that the Syrian people have resisted, and continue to resist and reject all forms of external intervention. For us, it is a matter of safeguarding Syria.”

Assad also accused the West and the US of interfering in his country’s internal affairs.

“We do not believe that many Western countries really want a solution in Syria. And we don’t think that the forces that support the terrorists want a solution to the crisis,” he noted.

The Syrian president said that any decision on the country’s future is up to the Syrian people and that the US has no right to decide for his nation.

“I don’t know if [US Secretary of State John] Kerry or anyone else has received the power of the Syrian people to talk in their name about who should go and who should stay. That will be determined by the Syrian people in the 2014 presidential elections,” Assad said. “To resign would be to flee.”

“The Syrian people will decide whether I remain in office or not. As a president, it is not for me to decide whether I stay or go, this is the decision of the electorate. It is impossible to lead when you are not desired by the public; this is essentially common sense and doesn’t need much debate. Through the constitution and the presidential elections in 2014, the people will decide,” he added.

The Syrian leader also played down an upcoming Western-sponsored conference on his country.

“We have received the Russian-US approach well and we hope that there will be an international conference to help Syrians overcome the crisis,” Assad said.

“We reiterate our support for all steps that would entail stopping the violence in Syria and lead to a political solution. However, the cessation of violence is paramount to reaching a political settlement,” Assad emphasized.

He said that any decision on his political future must be made in elections, and not during such meetings.

The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

GJH/AS

SOURCE: PRESSTV.COM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) speaks during an interview with the Argentine newspaper Clarin and the Argentine state news agency Telam in Damascus on May 18, 2013.

A former US assassination drone pilot says he quit the force after feeling “numb” about seeing a child and other civilians blown away in his remote bombing of targets in Afghanistan and realizing he has unconsciously developed a desire to kill.

Please click here to see the video

Since leaving the controversial US targeted-killing program over two years ago, the young ex-terror drone operator, who was recruited by the military after graduating at the top of his class, has become homeless and detected with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is commonly associated with US soldiers in warfronts, according to US-based National Public Radio (NPR).

In a recent NPR interview, the former drone pilot, identified as 27-year-old Brandon Bryant, offered some graphic details about feeling troubled after witnessing the immediate outcome of his bombings in Afghanistan on video screens beside his control buttons inside a windowless trailer ‘somewhere in a western US state,’ from where he fired off the missiles mounted on the assassination drones flying some 10,000 miles (16,000 km) away.

Describing his “first shot” out in Afghanistan, Bryant said he was specifically “ordered” to target a group of suspected militants that where (idly) sitting on a hill, rather than another group of militants that were “firing at US soldiers” nearby.

“We fired the missile, and 1.2 seconds after the missile fires, it sonic booms. And so the sonic boom gets there before the missile does… and then the missile hits. And after the smoke clears, there’s a crater there. You can see body parts of the people,” he explained. “I watched him (one of the men) bleed out. The blood rapidly cooled to become the same color as the ground, because we were watching this in infrared.”

Bryant then remembered thinking regretfully about the bombing, believing that that the targeted men were just local folks “that had to protect themselves… and I think we jumped the gun.”

The ex-drone pilot then went on to describe his next bombing in Afghanistan in which, he says, he bombed a home of suspected militants but noticed a child running around the house (on his video monitor) just before the missile hit the target.

“We just aim at the corner of the building,” Bryant explained. “We’re going to fire, and we do. And there’s about six seconds left before the missile impacts, and something runs around the corner of the building. And it looked like a small person… It was a small, two-legged person. And the missile hits. There’s no sign of this person.”


Further elaborating on the aftermath of that bombing, he added, “So we lock our camera on there, and I ask the screener, who disseminates the video feed,… who was that thing that ran on the screen?… and comes back and says, oh, that was a dog.”

But Bryant insists, “It was a person. It was a small person. Like, there was no doubt in my mind that that was not a – an adult.”

“I felt really numb,” he further emphasized, recalling his thoughts after realizing he had blown away a small child with a missile he fired off of a US assassination drone flying over Afghanistan. “I didn’t feel distraught, like I felt my first shot. I felt numb because this was the reality of war… and innocence can die as well.”

According to the NPR reporter that interviewed Bryant, shortly after that bombing, he decided to leave the [targeted-killing] program, boasted by the Obama administration as its prime mean to root out suspected anti-US militants in Muslim nations.

Bryant also explained that back in late 2010 he found himself really disturbed about his thought of which militant he is going to kill today, after looking at a poster in his work area of “five top al-Qaeda leaders,” but then having second thoughts of “that’s just not who I am. I don’t think like that… I was taught to respect life” and that if human life was to be taken in a war, “it should be done with respect.”

He then underlined that he “tried to talk” to people about his feelings but “one of the weird things about the whole [assassination] drone community is that you don’t talk about anything that you’ve done. You just don’t. So I just shut up and didn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling or how I was doing.”

According to the NPR report, Bryant eventually quit the targeted-killing program and has become homeless and “staying with friends” while attending college in northwestern US state of Montana.

While noting that Bryant has also been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the NPR reported pointed to the growing realization that PTSD can also affect terror-drone pilots, even though they “haven’t’ been on the battlefield.”

The development comes while despite the rising controversy over the legality of the secret assassination drone strikes and the high number of civilian casualties caused by aerial bombings, as part of the US targeted killing program, the Obama administration insists on continuing the lethal effort to take out what it regards as anti-US “terror suspect” in Muslim nations.

MFB/MFB

Tuesday 21 May 2013 ARABNEWS.COM

BEIJING: A 28-year-old Chinese man who was kidnapped 23 years ago and sold to a family 1,500 km from his home, has met up with his biological parents again thanks to Google Maps, Hunan TV said. Hazy childhood memories plus the popular search engine Google allowed Luo Gang to find his family in the central province of Sichuan after living most of his life with adoptive parents in the southeastern region of Fujian.

Luo, who for years searched for his real family, recalled that his hometown had two bridges, and with that detail and a few others drew a rough map of the place he lived when he was little, which he then posted on a Chinese web site dedicated to reuniting families. Other users of the site suggested to Luo several villages in China which might possibly be the place where he was kidnapped, so the young man devoted himself to looking for them on Google Maps.

Finally, when Luo came upon one called Yaojiaba, his memories blossomed, he had no doubt that this was it, the hometown of his childhood, and traveled there for an emotional reunion with his parents and grandparents that was broadcast on Hunan TV.

Source:ET

ISLAMABAD: Officially, little came out from Saturday’s meeting between the incoming premier, Nawaz Sharif, and army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The Express Tribune, however, learnt on Sunday that the two sides agreed to ‘overhaul’ the country’s national security and foreign policies.

During the meeting, which lasted three-and-half hours, at Sharif’s Model Town residence in Lahore, the PML-N chief told Kayani that he plans to revisit the policies of the previous administration that have “not only damaged Pakistan’s relations with other countries but also hurt its national interest”.

A close aide to Nawaz told The Express Tribune that the security establishment will hold a detailed briefing on major national security and foreign policy issues for the new government once it is formally sworn in.

More:

Source.Press Desk AMJ London-UK
PRESS RELEASE

“The first ever ‘Charter for the Protection of Religion and Religious Rights’ is
found in the Holy Quran”

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad addresses Reception marking opening of the Baitur
Rahman Mosque in Vancouver

On 18 May 2013, the Worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat and Fifth
Khalifa, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, addressed a Special Reception held to
celebrate the opening of the Baitur Rahman Mosque in Vancouver, Canada.

During his address, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad reassured the audience that they
had no reason to fear Ahmadiyya Mosques because they were built only for the
worship of God and for the sake of serving humanity.

Speaking about the new Mosque, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

“I would like to proclaim and declare that this Mosque will prove to be a source
of spreading love, affection, peace and brotherhood for all people irrespective
of whether they are Ahmadi or non-Ahmadi or whether they are Muslim or
non-Muslim. The doors of our Mosque will always be open to the people of all
religions, because this Mosque is a means of manifesting God’s Grace, Mercy,
Love and Compassion for mankind.”

The Khalifa also addressed the issue of Jihad by explaining that when permission
for defensive war was given to the early Muslims, it was given as a means to
protect all religions and all places of worship.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

“In essence, it can be said that the first ever ‘Charter for the Protection of
Religion and Religious Rights’ is found in the Holy Quran and it has been
associated directly to the Mosque. In other words, whenever a new Mosque is
built, a new chapter for religious freedom is opened.”

The world leader also used his address to congratulate the Canadian Government
for recently opening an ‘Office of Religious Freedom’.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad said:

“In my view, the Government deserves praise and congratulations for opening a
designated ‘Office of Religious Freedom’. We fully support the Government of
Canada in this endeavour. We will fully cooperate with them in every possible
effort to establish religious freedom throughout the world.”

Prior to the keynote address a range of politicians and dignitaries also took to
the stage

Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Associate Minister for Defence, read out a message on
behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulating the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Jamaat on the opening of the new Mosque.

Dr Andrew Bennett, Ambassador of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom said he
was amazed “by the message of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat and its commitment to
Love for All, Hatred for None.”

Lois Jackson, Mayor of the Corporation of Delta said the Mosque had become “an
instant landmark”. She said it was “a great honour to have Hazrat Mirza Masroor
Ahmad in the city.”

Mobina Jaffer, Senator from British Columbia read out a message from Justin
Trudeau, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party in which he called the Mosque “a
welcome addition” to British Colombia and Canada at large.

Judy Sgro, Member of Parliament, said the fact that so many dignitaries were in
attendance illustrated “the love and respect we all hold for the Ahmadiyya
Muslim Community.” She said the Ahmadiyya Community was “an example for the
entire world.

Jinny Sims, Member of Parliament, said that if the Ahmadi motto of ‘Love for
All, Hatred for None’ was adopted by all “the world will be a better place”.

Jim Karygiannis, Member of Parliament, said that the persecution faced by the
Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat “should not be forgotten.” He said it was imperative
that all parties worked together to ensure religious freedom for all people.

Rob Norris, Member of Legislative Assembly, said he was “humbled and honoured to
take part in the celebration.” He said that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat
“enriches our entire country”.

Manmeet Bhullar, Member of Legislative Assembly, said meeting Hazrat Mirza
Masroor Ahmad marked a “profound moment” in his life. In a message to the
Ahmadiyya Community he said “we are with you, just as you are with us.”

Marilyn Iafrate, Councillor City of Vaughan, said the local community was “very
blessed” to have Ahmadi Muslims amongst them. She said the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Jamaat was “totally devoted to giving back to their community.”

Ron Starr, Councillor City of Mississauga, announced that his Council had
decided to recognise May 18 as “Ahmadiyya Day”. He said that in Ahmadi Mosques
there is “peace, hope and a recognition that by working together will make the
world a better place.”

Prior to the event, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, answered questions during a 30
minute press conference. Amongst the media outlets included were ‘CBC’, ‘CTV’,
‘Global TV’ as well as ‘The Province’ and ‘Vancouver Sun’ newspapers.

Further information: press@ahmadiyya.org.uk < mailto:press@ahmadiyya.org.uk>

Source:cbc.ca

Hundreds of people are attending the opening of the Baitur Rahman mosque in Delta, described as the largest Ahmadiyya Muslim house of worship in B.C. The Ahmadiyya movement —a branch of Islam —was founded 100 years ago, originating with the teachings of Indian villager Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and is renowned today for promoting a peaceful coexistence with people of all faiths and cultures. The community’s world leader, His Holiness Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, inaugurated the mosque on Friday by delivering his weekly sermon from Delta. More than 3,000 worshippers attended the sermon, many of whom had travelled across Canada to attend the opening, said a statement from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat (Community) Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/05/18/bc-ahmadiyya-mosque-delta.html

Epigraph: “Indeed, man is born impatient and miserly. When evil touches him, he is full of lamentation. But when good falls to his lot, he is niggardly, except for those who pray.” (Al Quran 70:20-23)