US, Israel lose UNESCO voting rights after missing deadline over debt linked to Palestinians
Washington Post: PARIS — American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow Friday after the U.S. automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world’s cultural agency. The U.S. hasn’t paid its dues to […]
Why I Can Never Be a Proper German
Source: Spiegel: Thilo Rothacker/ DER SPIEGEL Turks make up Germany’s largest ethnic minority, and SPIEGEL reporter Özlem Gezer grew up in the port city of Hamburg as a part of this community. She describes herself as a “model immigrant,” but explains how Germans have made her feel she could never be one […]
Teen Poet Sparks New Debate on Islam in Denmark
COPENHAGEN – Yahya Hassan was about 10 years old when cartoonistKurt Westergaardattracted passionate criticism from Muslims world-wide with his cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban. It ran […]
Turkey’s Chief Justice: If that is Islam, I’m no Muslim
Washignton Post: DALLAS September 29, 2013 – In a lecture entitled “Human Dignity and the Constitution” at Alparslan University, Turkish Chief Justice Haşim Kılıç touched on the violence being perpetrated in […]
Germany Wants to Question Snowden
Source: Spiegel: The German government refuses to grant Edward Snowden political asylum, with authorities instead seeking to establish contact with him in Moscow. The strategy is unlikely to benefit either side. More:
Keeping Church at Arm’s Length From State
Huff Post: A U.S. federal appeals court right now is considering whether for-profit businesses can be exempted from a contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act — a mandate that is tantamount to a “war on Christianity” by the Obama administration, according to at least one elected official. A Christian […]
Islam Indonesian Style? Indonesia’s Tolerant Take on Islam
Source: Spiegel: The Southeast Asian island nation of Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, which practices an open-minded, gentle version of Islam in urban areas. But elsewhere Islamists are […]
It was the embrace that melted hearts worldwide.
Source: CNN Pope Francis, pausing for a moment to pray and lay his hands on a man with a disfiguring disease. The man gently burying his head in the Pope’s chest, his many facial tumors visible. His encounter with the ailing man occurred in Vatican City on Wednesday at the […]
You’re not imagining it, airline seats are generally getting smaller.
Source: CNN.Com But while many airlines have been slimming down their seats over the last few decades, we’ve been bulking up. According to the World Health Organization the global prevalence of obesity has doubled since 1980. “Seats are getting smaller and smaller as airlines look to squeeze revenue from their […]
Poppycock – or why remembrance rituals make me see red – The poppy helps us avoid a search for the meaning of war
ROBERT FISK Thursday 7 November 2013 THE INDEPENDENT On the briefest of visits to London, I was appalled to notice that our television presenters and politicians and dignitaries have almost all resorted to stereotype by wearing those bloody poppies again – even though I suspect most of them would not […]
Is U.S. policy in Syria changing?
STORY SUMMARY by By Rami G. Khouri The Daily Star I was struck a few days ago when I read U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement in Riyadh, after talks with the Saudi Arabian leadership, that the U.S. had neither “the legal authority nor desire” to intervene in Syria. […]
Heavy fighting rocks Libyan capital as rival militia battle
GHAITH SHENNIB AND ULF LAESSING | REUTERS Published — Friday 8 November 2013 ARABNEWS TRIPOLI: Anti-aircraft gunfire and grenade blasts erupted in several parts of Tripoli late on Thursday, the […]
Morocco heading for more prosperity
FAROUK LUQMAN ARABNEWS It is a five-and-a-half hours flight from Jeddah to Casablanca, the largest city of Morocco — one of the most beautiful countries in the world and the […]
Taliban plan wave of revenge attacks in Pakistan
November 8, 2013 – 07:06 By Saud Mehsud DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – The Pakistani Taliban announced on Friday they would orchestrate a wave of revenge attacks against the government after naming hardline commander Mullah Fazlullah as their new leader. The rise of Fazlullah, known for his fierce Islamist […]
Washington keeping lying about Syria CW
The weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) issue has been the excuse of choice for the US administrations in order to threaten some countries, such as Syria or Iran, or invade others, such as Iraq. The common point of all these allegations is their falsehood. Nowadays, everybody knows that Iraq did […]
FAU event spotlights Muslim heroes in Holocaust
By Scott Travis, Sun Sentinel 9:28 pm, November 7, 2013 As a little girl, Johanna Neumann witnessed the brutality of the Nazis and the kindness of a group whose role was less known in the Holocaust: Albanian Muslims. Neumann’s family fled to Albania after Kristallnacht, a series of attacks in […]
European court rules civil unions must be open to gay people
(AFP) – 16 hours ago Strasbourg — Civil unions should not be reserved for heterosexual couples, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Thursday, condemning Greece for creating a “life partner” legal category that excludes gays. Judges in Strasbourg said that authorities in Orthodox Christian Greece had not offered […]
Vaughan’s Ahmadiyya community to sell poppies at Maple mosque
In the lead-up to Remembrance Day, Vaughan’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at community wants you to know they stand up proudly for Canada, their “home and native land”. Members of the community […]
Astronaut Chris Hadfield Learned A Lot About Spirituality In Space
The Huffington Post: During an emotional interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield opened up about his views on space, faith and our place in the universe. When […]