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.
Jan 14,2017 – JORDAN TIMES – Elizabeth Drew With Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States fast approaching, the strangest — even craziest — post-election transition in US history is about to come to an end. This period has provided a clear demonstration of how unpredictable life with President […]
Jan 14,2017 – JORDAN TIMES EDITORIAL Syrian President Bashar Assad was recently quoted by the Syrian state news agency SANA as having told French media, following a visit by French MPs to the liberated Aleppo, that he was “ready to discuss anything” at the projected peace conference in the Kazakh […]
Jan 14,2017 – JORDAN TIMES – Mohamed Yahya Africa bears the brunt of lives lost, economies ruined and relationships fractured by terrorism. It is the continent where Al Qaeda launched its war against the United States in 1998, by bombing the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; […]
The Local news@thelocal.ch 12 January 2017 Photo: SBB Members of the public are calling on Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to remove controversial posters from its railway stations just days after right-wing campaigners launched their provocative publicity campaign. The poster, unveiled in railway stations on Monday, shows a woman wearing a […]
WALTER IOOSS JR. Why I converted to Islam It’s not easy being Muslim in America, but my choice was a spiritual transformation March 29, 2015 2:00AM ET by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar @kaj33 I was born Lew Alcindor. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The transition from Lew to Kareem was not merely a […]
Mall visitors in UAE and Gulf donate toys, books, clothes and money to children Image Credit: Majid Al Futtaim More than 9,550 books, 10,200 toys, and 3,450 kilograms of clothing and electronics were collected during the campaign. Published: 16:22 January 12, 2017 Staff Report Dubai: More than 30,000 toys, […]
WORKFORCE INTEGRATION JAN 13, 2017 – Asylum seekers help in a kitchen this year at a restaurant in canton Valais employing people getting social assistance (Keystone) Swiss social aid administrators are calling on the government to act in the face of increasing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers who must […]
MIDDLE-EAST HANI HAZAIMEH | Published — Friday 13 January 2017 Palestinian children in the village of Kfar Qaddum, occupied West Bank, carry placards during a demonstration on Friday against proposed plans by US President-elect Donald Trump to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. (AFP) JEDDAH: In a […]
REUTERS GENEVA Refugees wait in line to receive a plate of free food during a snowfall outside a derelict customs warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia, Jan. 11. Europe’s recent cold spell left refugees and migrants in dire conditions and governments must do more to help them rather than push them back […]
MERYEM İLAYDA ATLAS@miailayda Illustration by Necmettin Asma Hegemonic masculinity continues to remain a chronic dogma within societies regardless of being secular or traditional. Thus studies have a lot to overcome When we say gender studies, we mean studies on the issues of women, men and LGBTQ. Gender studies, however, everywhere […]
Jan 12,2017 – JORDAN TIMES – Jonathan Power President Barack Obama steps down at the age of 55. He will probably live, given his healthy lifestyle, until he is over 90. So what on Earth is he going to do for the next 40 years? Realistically, we do not know and […]
VICTOR KWAWUKUME 13 JANUARY 2017 Alhaji Maulvi Mohammed Bin Salih (left), Ameer and Missionary In -charge, Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission Ghana, presenting a Quran to President Akufo-Addo. President Nana Addo […]
Source: The Independent I talked to Iraqi defectors in the 1990s who claimed to have plenty of information about WMDs and gossip about Hussein’s family affairs. It did not take long to work out that they were making it up when they produced convincing but uncheckable details By Patrick Cockburn […]
How, for example, would you tweet the start of World War Two? Amid the abuse of social media, how would you convince readers that, yes, the Nazis really are about to invade Poland? Robert Fisk @indyvoices What would Clare Hollingworth, who died this week, have made of Donald Trump? Or […]
GENEVA PEACE TALKS JAN 12, 2017 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (centre), flanked by Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades (right) and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci (left) (Keystone) The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the talks in Geneva to resolve the division of the ethnically-divided island of Cyprus […]
By Rana Husseini – Jan 12,2017 – JORDAN TIMES Prime Minister Hani Mulki addresses a meeting where a new refugee response plan was agreed with donors in Amman on Thursday (Petra photo) AMMAN — The government and the international community on Thursday endorsed a $7.6-billion three-year Jordan Response […]
By Reuters – Jan 12,2017 – JORDAN TIMES Displaced Iraqi children fleeing the Daesh group stronghold of Mosul eat in the town of Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq, on Thursday (Reuters photo) MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi soldiers kicked in the gate of a home in eastern Mosul and […]
SHOULD MUSLIM GIRLS SWIM? JAN 11, 2017 – How do schools cope with Muslim families who want to prevent their daughters from attending swimming lessons? Swiss public television, SRF, talked to school principals and an imam about the controversy. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights upheld a […]
DATA PROTECTION By Susan Misicka JAN 11, 2017 – These Google servers in Oklahoma are subject to surveillance by US intelligence services. How much Swiss personal data is stored on them? (Keystone) The Swiss cabinet has established a new framework for transferring personal data from Switzerland to companies based in […]
NATURALISATION CONTROVERSY By Sibilla Bondolfi JAN 11, 2017 – 11:59 Naturalisations by municipality voting, such as this one in canton Schwyz, are controversial (Keystone) Dutch-born Nancy Holten has lived in Switzerland since she was eight, speaks fluent Swiss German, has three children with Swiss passports, has no criminal record, […]