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.
An Editorial by Klaus Brinkbäumer SPIEGEL.DE REUTERS A boat full of refugees on the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece. What would we do in their situation? The debate over refugees in Germany has grown divisive. Those in favor are unwilling to recognize the difficulties ahead while those opposed too […]
Rachid Nekkaz: on crusade for state religious ‘neutrality’. Photo: Denis Charlet/AFP Businessman vows to pay burqa ban fines Published: 11 Dec 2015 11:00 GMT+01:00 A ban on wearing niqabs or burqas in public has yet to be implemented in the canton of Ticino but an Algerian businessman is already vowing […]
ARAB NEWS Published — Monday 21 December 2015 JEDDAH: The Shoura Council will vote on Monday (today) on a proposal to identify tasks of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Haia) by issuing specific guidelines for the body’s members. A Shoura member who proposed […]
Dec 20,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – EDITORIAL According to a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds of Palestinians surveyed support the wave of knife stabbings of Israelis and view an armed Intifada as “serving the Palestinian national interests in ways that negotiations would […]
By Khetam Malkawi – Dec 20,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – Khetam Malkawi AMMAN — Following the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution that supports international efforts to seek a political solution in Syria, local analysts differed in forecasting the scope and influence of Jordan’s role in these efforts. The […]
Dec 20,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – Jeffrey D. Sachs The United States, the European Union and Western-led institutions such as the World Bank repeatedly ask why the Middle East cannot govern itself. The question is asked honestly, but without much self-awareness. After all, the single most important impediment to good governance […]
Voices Meet the British physicist who ignored Taliban death threats to teach in the badlands of Pakistan David Gosling spent four years as principal of University of Peshawar – “When you have education in its totality, it enables our students to see what should be obvious: we are all one” Robert […]
December 18, 2015 At least 43 unaccompanied refugee children have gone missing from various asylum centers in Norway this year alone, and 25 have died since 2006. Several of those missing were as young as nine years old, and the numbers of refugee children in Norway are now increasing dramatically. Around 4,000 refugee children are […]
Story tools New Canadian Media, News Feature, Beatriz Paez, Posted: Dec 18, 2015 When Syrian refugee children arrive in Canadian classrooms for the very first time, the anxiety they feel might be more than simply first-day-of-school jitters, say humanitarian relief workers and health-care providers. Many may be experiencing the trauma […]
GERMAN PRESS AGENCY – DPA BERLIN Published December 17, 2015 Refugee children should attend school within three months of arriving in Germany in order to speed up integration efforts, a commission of experts said on Thursday. The Robert Bosch-funded commission – tasked with reviewing refugee policy – said that efforts to […]
Dec 19,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – The Disi Water Conveyance Project was set to be the dream saviour for Jordanians until the middle of the next decade. Before 2011, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation had announced several times that with the Disi project there would be a complete shutdown […]
Dec 19,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – WALID M. SADI Not too long ago, Republican candidate for the White House Marco Rubio prophesied that terrorist attacks in Jordan are imminent. The leading Democratic candidate in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton, made a similar forecast about the security and […]
Dec 19,2015 – JORDAN TIMES – MUSA KEILANI No amount of Vienna meetings or Geneva communiqués can stop the war in Syria unless the root causes of the conflict are addressed. A new round of negotiations took place in New York this week, but it did not tackle the conundrum of […]
By Khetam Malkawi – Dec 19,2015 – JORDAN TIMES Refugees are seen at the Zaatari camp in this photo taken earlier this year. The camp, some 90km northeast of Amman, is currently home to 79,253 (File photo) AMMAN — Although the number of refugees from different nationalities in the […]
DAILY SABAH ISTANBUL Published December 18, 2015 Photo: Wikimedia Commons Some citizens of the small Swiss town Oberwil-Lieli have recently established a committee and named the possible arrival of six refugees “an invasion,” calling for a referendum to redeem the municipality from the obligation to admit the refugees, various Swiss […]
DAILY SABAH ISTANBUL Published December 18, 2015 AFP Photo This year saw an unprecedented rise in the number of refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty, nearing above 60 million. Though the number continues to rise at an alarming rate, especially for those heading to Europe whose number approaches to 1 million […]
İBRAHIM KALIN @ikalin1 Remembering Rumi today can go a long way in healing many of the spiritual wounds that we have inflicted upon ourselves. His teachings can liberate us from […]
DAILY SABAH ISTANBUL The Ottoman palace features a huge garden with an ornamental pool and various types of trees as well as a second garden with 27 different corridors that have a cooling effect on hot summer days. The Palace of Ahmet Bey in Constantine, Algeria stands as a […]
Dec 19th 2015 | ISTANBUL Source: Economist ORHAN OSMANOGLU cradles a French handkerchief embossed with the letter H. “This is all I have left that’s my great-great-grandfather’s, the caliph’s,” he […]
Palestinian families hope for justice at ICC A group of cases related to Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza were recently submitted to the International Criminal Court. Creede Newton | 18 […]