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.
As a witness to the massacre of 1982, I went back often to this place of memories and ghosts, to talk to the survivors Robert Fisk @indyvoices 3 comments Sabra and Shatila were the scene of war crimes. In September of 1982, Israel’s Lebanese Christian allies – watched by Israeli […]
The regime has lost over 60,000 men since the war began, but new Russian equipment is helping turn the tide Robert Fisk You can see the Syrian army’s spanking new Russian T-90 tanks lined up in their new desert livery scarcely 100 miles from Isis’s Syrian “capital” of Raqqa. There are […]
Hysterical claims about ‘predatory male refugees invading Britain’ don’t really stack up when, in fact, 34 per cent of asylum seekers are children – and almost all contribute positively to the economy Yasmin Ahmed 8 hours ago 136 comments The new quarterly migration figures which were released by the Office for National […]
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE http://tp.srgssr.ch/p/inline?urn=urn:swi:video:41965588 EMBED CODE FEB 26, 2016 – 09:00 The Swiss will be going to the polls this weekend to vote on four separate issues. It was only 45 years ago this month that men voted in favour of women’s suffrage. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) Despite Switzerland’s democratic tradition, the country was […]
FOOTBALL FEB 26, 2016 – 18:05 Gianni Infantino is a Swiss citizen from canton Valais, with a long career in football administration (Keystone) UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino has been voted in as FIFA’s new president, replacing Swiss compatriot Sepp Blatter. “We will revive the image and respect of FIFA and […]
By Reuters – Feb 23,2016 – JORDAN TIMES ANKARA — A DNA report from a suicide bombing that killed 29 people in the Turkish capital Ankara last week suggests the main perpetrator was Turkish-born, not Syrian as initially stated by the government, a senior Turkish security official said on […]
Feb 25,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – George S. Hishmeh As expected, the current front runners in the American presidential elections, much as the leaders in the Middle East, are missing the boat as they voice their mediocre views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that started in 1948 when the British mandate ended. […]
By Mohammad Ghazal – Feb 25,2016 – JORDAN TIMES AMMAN — The summit His Majesty King Abdullah held with US President Barack Obama this week “testifies to the credibility and balanced positions of Jordan” on regional crises and issues of global nature. In particular, analysts referred in phone interviews […]
Feb 25,2016 – JORDAN TIMES EDITORIAL US President Barack Obama lauded the strategic alliance between Jordan and the US and praised His Majesty King Abdullah’s and Jordan’s constructive role in various regional files in statements to the media at the White House, following the two leaders’ summit on Wednesday. The […]
By JT – Feb 26,2016 – JORDAN TIMES His Majesty King Abdullah meets with representatives of American Jewish organisations in Washington on Wednesday (Photo courtesy of Royal Court) AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday met with representatives of several leading American Jewish organisations over ways to […]
By Maryam Qarehgozlou TEHRAN — Imam Abdul Alim Musa (Clarence Reams), the director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington D.C., believes that the policy that the new rulers in the Saudi kingdom has adopted is “suicidal”. “Saudi Arabia has built a road to its own destruction,” Alim Musa, an African-American Muslim […]
An architect’s model of the mosque planned for the Leipzig plot where the dead piglet was found. Photo: DPA Published: 25 Feb 2016 14:51 GMT+01:00 An empty lot in Leipzig where a local Muslim community plans to build a mosque was the target of an apparent Islamophobic attack on Wednesday, […]
Economists have been calling on authorities to speed up the integration process by offering training more swiftly. Photo: DPA Published: 20 Feb 2016 THELOCAL.DE The 24-year-old, who spent months on the road after fleeing the Taliban, told AFP: “I’ll do anything to not go mad.” VIDEO: ‘hate mob’ chants […]
Feb 24,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – DAOUD KUTTAB In the battle of wills between Israel and the international community there comes a time and a place where this will is tested. The Israeli occupation and colonisation of Palestine is a creeping endeavour largely built on the attempt to wear out […]
By AFP – Feb 25,2016 – JORDAN TIMES A Palestinian teacher leads a class of Palestinian bedouin children from the Abu Anwar community near the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim (background), in the West Bank city of Al Azariya, east of Jerusalem, on Wednesday (AFP photo) OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s […]
‘England is helping Isis and an English reporter is here asking for information’ Robert Fisk @indyvoices Tuesday 23 February 2016 28 comments We knew who they were the moment they approached us on the front line outside Aleppo. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards – no longer merely advisers but fighting troops […]
Reuters International FEB 24, 2016 – 13:18 PARIS (Reuters) – French special forces and intelligence commandos are engaged in covert operations against Islamic State militants in Libya in conjunction with the United States and Britain, the French newspaper Le Monde reported on Wednesday. It said President Francois Hollande had authorised […]
In this April 11, 2007 file photo, Egyptian cleric Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents off the streets of an Italiancity and taken to Egypt where he said he was tortured, talks on his mobile phone as he walks in […]
•KSA envoy urges Beirut to retain its ‘Arabness’ Lebanese children in battle gear ride a vehicle during the funeral of a Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon in this January 20, 2015 photo. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have banned their citizens from travel to Lebanon in view of the hostile […]
Feb 23,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Kailash Satyarthi It is a blot on the face of humanity that we have yet to eradicate slavery — of children, no less. Not only does child slavery persist; the number of child slaves, 5.5 million, has remained constant in the last two decades. They […]