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.
By Reuters – Apr 21,2016 – JORDAN TIMES President Barack Obama, with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman (right), speaks after a Gulf Cooperation Council session at the Diriyah Palace during the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday (AP photo) RIYADH — The United States will deter and […]
Israel PM wants to send Russia a message that it will not be forced into peace talks with Syria A UN peacekeeper holds a position near the border with Syria in Golan Heights.Image Credit: AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (centre) poses with ministers.Image Credit: AFP ( 1 of 2 […]
The information came from a Daesh defector who handed over some 11,000 personnel files to US television network NBC Image Credit: AP Thousands of apparent Daesh registration documents were leaked in January to a Syrian opposition news website and in March German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Published: 12:20 April 20, 2016 […]
Interview Conducted by Maximilian Popp AFP A bombed out building in Diyarbakir, a Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey. Kurdish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtas, 43, says that his HDP party wants a cease-fire in the ongoing battle between Turkish troops and Kurds in southeastern Turkey. But, he says, Turkish President Erdogan […]
BY MICHAEL LIPKA AND ANGELINA E. THEODOROU What you wear can say a lot about who you are and what you believe. In Israel, for instance, the type of kippa – or lack thereof – worn by an Israeli Jewish man often is strongly correlated with his religious identity as […]
APR 20, 2016 – swissinfo.ch The Yemeni civil war has been raging since early 2015 (Keystone) Swiss arms exports will resume to the Middle East, excluding weapons that could either be used in the Yemen conflict or by states to repress their own citizens. Wednesday’s cabinet decision partially lifts […]
COURTESY: SCIENCEANDQURAN.COM Published — Friday 15 April 2016 Allah Almighty says: “And the Moon is eclipsed, and the Sun and the Moon are fused together, on that Day man will ask: “Where can I run?” No indeed! There will be no safe place. That Day, the only resting place will […]
MARK LEONARD ARABNEWS.COM Published — Thursday 21 April 2016 We have entered the age of migration. If all the people who live outside the country of their birth united to form their own — a republic of the rootless — it would be the fifth-largest country in the world, […]
By Reuters – Apr 19,2016 – JORDAN TIMES Cars drive on a road where workers construct a section of the Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank city of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, on Monday (Reuters photo) WASHINGTON — US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday acknowledged “overwhelming frustration” […]
Apr 20,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – MICHAEL JANSEN The world cannot afford to waste time over ending the war in Syria. When US President Barack Obama leaves the White House in January, peacemaking could come to an abrupt halt. His successor, motivated by the desire to curb Russian and Iranian […]
Harry Farley Junior Staff Writer – 19 April 2016 Recent analysis of pottery fragments by researchers at Tel Aviv University caused a spate of headlines along the lines of “The Bible is much older than we thought.” The researchers claim the discovery that inscriptions, dated to around 600 BCE, were […]
Yasri Khan. Photo: Marc Femenia/SCANPIX Published: 20 Apr 2016 A Swedish Green Party politician, who ignited a storm of controversy after refusing to shake hands with a female reporter on grounds that it violated his Muslim faith, announced on Wednesday that he was quitting politics. Yasri Khan is the second […]
Since 2013 Swiss women can legally keep their surname after marriage. Photo: Gary Minnaert Tradition still sways married Swiss women Published: 04 Apr 2016 12:20 GMT+02:00 Only one in five women married in Switzerland since 2013 chose to keep her maiden name after marriage since the law changed to allow […]
Reuters International Apr 20, 2016 – ROME (Reuters) – Up to 500 migrants might have drowned in the Mediterranean last week when human traffickers crammed people onto an already overcrowded ship, causing it to sink, the U.N. refugee agency said on Wednesday. Somalia’s government said on Monday about […]
Saudi Arabia’s million barrel a day output, plus its strategic location in the Middle East, means the West must pay obeisance to the regional head-choppers Robert Fisk @indyvoices President Barack Obama shakes hands with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman at the start of a bilateral meeting at Erga Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, […]
Apr 19,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Hasan Abu Nimah I did not pay much attention to a recent news report quoting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that Israel will never leave the Syrian Golan Heights. His statement was made on the occasion of holding an Israeli Cabinet meeting on the […]
An election poster in Hesse reads “realists vote AfD” in March. Photo: DPA Muslims label AfD ‘Nazis’ over plan to ban minarets Published: 18 Apr 2016 10:46 GMT+02:00 Updated: 18 Apr 2016 13:35 GMT+02:00 The Central Council of Muslims responded in unequivocal terms to a hard anti-Islam stance announced by […]
Photo: Martin Abegglen Published: 18 Apr 2016 The family of the two Muslim schoolboys who refused to shake hands with their female teachers has applied for Swiss citizenship, a local […]
APR 18, 2016 – swissinfo.ch So-called guest workers, mainly from Italy, supplied Switzerland’s need for labour after the Second World War (RDB) Switzerland is still wrestling with the thorny question of how to reconcile immigration quotas with the accord on the free movement of people. History may hold some answers – or […]
APPLICATION SUSPENDED APR 18, 2016 Shaking hands at school has become a topic of international interest (Keystone) The family of the two teenagers, who refused to shake their female teachers’ hands for religious reasons, have had their application for citizenship suspended. Shaking hands with the teacher before and after class […]