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.
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM Thoughts turn to revolution in Davos By Matthew Allen JAN 20, 2016 – 11:00 “Waiter”! While improving lives, robots may also take jobs. (Reuters) Intelligent robots and drones, 3D printers, self-driving vehicles, data mountains, smart production lines, fintech and blockchain – the fourth industrial revolution is […]
By DAN BILEFSKYJAN. 20, 2016 LONDON — It is being called the “meatball war.” To be precise, pork meatballs and other pork dishes such as roasts have become the latest weapons in the culture wars playing out in Europe over immigration after a Danish town voted this week to require […]
by MICHAEL WELTON Imagine thousands of people cheering and shouting for Israel in the huge Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. On stage, Ehud Olmert, the mayor of Jerusalem, proclaims: “God is with us. You are with us.” The crowd hollers, whoops and some blow the shofar. But none of […]
Behlül Özkan Become a fanAssistant professor at Marmara University; Author Turkey, the U.S. and Europe Are All Partly to Blame for the Festering Syria War Posted: 01/14/2016 12:46 pm EST Updated: 01/14/2016 4:00 pm EST Tweet ISTANBUL — On Tuesday, 10 German tourists lost their lives when a bomb […]
JAN 15, 2016 – 21:30 Ahead of Syria peace talks in Geneva, top officials are meeting in Switzerland to prepare the way (Keystone) The top diplomats for the United States and Russia will meet in Zurich next week for talks on Syria and Ukraine just ahead of the World Economic […]
Forecast DECEMBER 28, 2015 | 12:56 GMT With old geopolitical realities resurfacing across Eurasia and commodity prices stuck in a slump, 2016 is shaping up to be an unsettling year for much of the world. A logical place to begin is the country that bridges Europe and Asia: Turkey. […]
dw.com © Provided by Deutsche WelleThe Cambridge professor said that humans had to be “careful” for the next 100 years to ensure survival. His statement follows a 2015 warning on the risk of using artificial intelligence in conflicts.World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has once again issued a warning on technological […]
By Talat Masood Published: January 19, 2016 rime Minister Nawaz Sharif meets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on January 19, 2016. PHOTO: PM OFFICE The current toxic rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is another manifestation of the deep decay that has set in the Muslim world. The two […]
APPRECIATION: The 76-year-old Sri Lankan driver Watti with the family at the farewell party. ARAB NEWS Published — Tuesday 19 January 2016 RIYADH: Members of a Saudi family went out of their way to give a warm farewell party to its non-Muslim Sri Lankan private driver after 33 years of […]
YOUSUF MOHAMED Published — Tuesday 19 January 2016 MADINAH: Pilgrims during their visit to the Prophet’s Mosque are keen to visit the Rawdah, a place located between the Prophet and Aisha’s house, peace be upon them, and between the Prophet’s Minbar (or pulpit). “Between my house and my pulpit […]
Tim Buxton, his wife Sarah, and their three small children moved to Iraq The family moved from Brisbane to the Kurdish area in north Iraq in 2014 ISIS invaded the day the Buxton’s landed in the war-torn country In the past 18 months they have helped hundreds of refugees find […]
By Muath Freij – Jan 19,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – By Muath Freij AMMAN – The influx of Syrian refugees heading to Europe is a result of the lack of attention paid to the region in the past five years, the president of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) Mogens Lykketoft […]
From the sectionAsia Media captionThe BBC’s Shahzeb Jillani: “The gun battle was intense. Blasts were heard” A gun attack on a university in north-west Pakistan, has killed at least 19 people and injured 50, officials say. Nearly three hours after the attack began, an army official said firing had stopped […]
Jan 20,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Ramzy Baroud When Daesh militias swept into Mosul, Iraq, in June 2014, Ibrahim Mahmoud plotted his flight, along with his whole family, which included 11 children. Once upon a time, Mahmoud was himself a child escaping another violent campaign carried out by equally angry militias. […]
Jan 20,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – Editorial The future of the projected peace talks on Syria, scheduled for January 25, hangs in the balance as both sides of the conflict are making demands that may thwart negotiations even before they start. The initiative to hold peace talks was unanimously endorsed […]
Last week, President Obama decided to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States. But there’s another group of foreigners who deserve our help much more – the 50,000 men and women who served as interpreters for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. During my two deployments, I worked with […]
BUSINESS POLITICS Law and order Reuters International JAN 19, 2016 – 13:27 By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) – A British inquiry into the death of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London a decade ago with tea laced with a rare radioactive isotope, is likely to conclude Russia was responsible […]
JIHADISM 2016 – 12:40 Naim Cherni, right, maintained his innocence before the media in December (Keystone) Documentary or propaganda? The Swiss attorney-general’s office says it is “irritated” over YouTube’s reluctance to take down two videos about jihadists in Syria produced by a member of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland. […]
STIFF OPPOSITION JAN 19, 2016 – 12:02 Construction work on the extension of the Zurich Museum of Fine Arts in November (Keystone) More than 100 rabbis have protested in front of the Swiss consulate in New York against a planned extension of the Zurich Museum of Fine Arts. They say […]
Britain’s increasingly unwelcoming approach to those fleeing war and persecution – highlighted by figures analysed by The Independent – is labelled ‘woefully inadequate’ Harry Lambert @harry_2016 96 comments If the UK had accepted its fair share of refugees, the Calais Jungle would not exist. Getty The UK has let in 170,000 fewer […]