Rafiq A. Tschannen is a Swiss national. He converted to Islam and joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at the age of 16 after reading the German translation of the Holy Qur'an. He worked in 15 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, first as Finance Director in the private industry and later as Chief Executive Officer of NGOs and International Governmental Organizations. He is now devoting his time to The Muslim Times as Editor for Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Switzerland and as Associate Chief Editor.
Reuters International FEB 9, 2017 – By Emily Wither and Girish Gupta ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – At a training course in northern Iraq, people displaced by the wars in Mosul and neighbouring Syria are learning how to code. Some are already being sought by global companies even though they […]
Reuters International FEB 9, 2017 – U.S. Army General John Nicholson, Commander of Resolute Support forces and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, speaks during a memorial ceremony to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul, Afghanistan September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani (reuters_tickers) By Phil Stewart and Idrees […]
Reuters International FEB 10, 2017 – 04:02 Iranian citizen and U.S green card holder Cyrus Khosravi (L) greets his brother, Hamidreza Khosravi (C), and niece, Dena Khosravi (R), 2, after they were detained for additional screening following their arrival to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to visit Cyrus, during a pause […]
Reuters International FEB 10, 2017 – (reuters_tickers) By Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa JAKARTA (Reuters) – As a few hundred protesters held a rally outside his home in an upscale Jakarta neighbourhood this week, Indonesia’s former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took to twitter to vent his […]
Feb 09,2017 – JORDAN TIMES – RAMI G. KHOURI Monday was a rough day for moral clarity in the Middle East. We heard from the respected Amnesty International that up to 13,000 Syrian prisoners were tortured and hanged in a government jail. The American president promised to expand military spending […]
EXPLAINER By Stefania Summermatter, Marc-André Miserez FEB 9, 2017 – The construction industry is heavily reliant on foreign workers (Keystone) On February 9, 2017, a deadline expired to implement immigration quotas approved in a nationwide vote three years earlier. With a solution still a long way off, we look […]
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON FEBRUARY 9, 2017 Escape the cold during Welcome Weekend, presented by RBC, which will offer free admission to the Aga Khan Museum on February 11 and 12, 2017. Visitors will have access to Syria: A Living History, a highly acclaimed exhibition that illuminates Syria’s rich and […]
Image copyrightAPImage captionArmy Captain Matthew Ball (R) hugs his former interpreter Qismat Amin at San Francisco International Airport A US Army officer has brought his former Afghan interpreter to live with him in America amid fears he could fall foul of new immigration restrictions. Capt Matthew Ball paid for Qismat […]
They might get the US embassy moved to Jerusalem – but they might also be very worried that Steve Bannon is going to provoke a war with Iran. What did the US government mean, when it said Iran was ‘on notice’ after its recent missile test? Was that a warning […]
by Tamim Mobayed Abu Zayd al-Balkhi was a 9th century Muslim polymath, whose writings touched on subjects as varied as geography, medicine, philosophy, theology, politics, poetry, ethics, sociology, grammar, literature and astronomy. Born in 849 CE (235 AH) in the Persian village of Shamisitiyan, within the Balkh (from which he gets […]
by IlmFeed When 7 year old Jack Swanson heard that the Islamic Center of Pflugerville in Texas had been vandalised, he decided to donate all of his savings – $20 dollars – to the mosque. Vandals had torn pages of the Qur’an, covered it in faeces and left it outside the […]
AFP January 26, 2017 Muslim pilgrims walk past the crane that collapsed the day before at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s holy Muslim city of Mecca on September 12, 2015 (AFP Photo/-) More Riyadh (AFP) – A Saudi court on Thursday dismissed charges against 13 accused over a crane collapse […]
There’s more to this Sufi mystic than meets the eye. 01/27/2017 Carol Kuruvilla Associate Religion Editor More than seven centuries after his death, Rumi’s poetry still has the capacity to fascinate his readers. The 13th century Sufi theologian and poet Jalal al-Din Mohammad Rumi is one America’s best-selling poets. His […]
VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — A fire that destroyed a South Texas mosque has been ruled arson, but there’s no evidence of a hate crime at this time, federal investigators said Wednesday. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Houston did not reveal the nature of the evidence that […]
We have become so rigid in our beliefs that we have forgotten the basic message of Islam: peace. Every time we declare someone an infidel, are we promoting peace? February 06, 2017 Nirvaan Nadeem Aamir Liaqat, apologies, ‘Dr.’ Aamir Liaqat was, for a brief period, officially banned. That it took […]
NABEEL ANWAR DHAKKU CHAKWAL: Dulmial resident Malik Zahid Hameed was shocked when he received a transfer order stating that he was being transferred to a primary school in Lari Shah Nawaz on Jan 6. Mr Hameed, 47, is a primary school teacher who taught at a school in his hometown […]
Jonathan Power | Published — Wednesday 8 February 2017 What does US President Donald Trump think about NATO? Twice during his election campaign he rubbished it publically, saying it was “obsolete.” Yet this month, when he met UK Prime Minister Therese May, he told her he supported NATO 100 percent. […]
MELIH ALTINOK @melihaltinok U.S. President Donald Trump speaking at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Jan. 21, 2017. CIA Director Pompeo’s visit to Ankara is likely to aid Trump’s efforts in […]
FRENCH PRESS AGENCY – AFP LONDON AFP Photo British Foreign minister Boris Johnson, who was born in New York, has renounced his U.S. citizenship, a United States Treasury Department document said on Wednesday. Alexander Boris Johnson figured in the Treasury list of people who had given up their U.S. citizenship […]
By AFP – Feb 09,2017 – JORDAN TIMES A picture taken on Sunday from the West Bank city of Hebron shows a general view of the nearby Israeli settlement of Givat Harsina (AFP photo) OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli and Palestinian rights groups petitioned the supreme court on Wednesday […]