US deploys forces as deadly Muslim anger spreads
KHARTOUM, Sept 15 (AFP) -Washington said it was deploying forces to cope with violence in as many as 18 different locations as deadly Muslim anger spreads over a US-made movie that mocks Islam. Two US marines were killed in Afghanistan when insurgents armed with guns and rockets stormed a heavily fortified air base late on Friday [...]
China’s Xi finally appears in public amid rumours over health
BEIJING, Sept 15 (Reuters) – China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping appeared in public on Saturday for the first time in about two weeks, visiting a Beijing university in what appeared to be an effort to dispel rumours of serious illness and a troubled succession. In a brief English-language report, the Xinhua news agency said Vice President [...]
Brahimi meets Syria’s Assad
DAMASCUS, Sept 15 (AFP) -International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned after meeting President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday that the worsening conflict in Syria poses a threat to the region and the world at large. “The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world,” [...]
Saddam lookalike attacked by gang
An Egyptian Saddam Hussein lookalike claims an Iraqi gang tried to kidnap him and force him to make a pornographic film impersonating the late dictator. Mohamed Bishr, who comes from Alexandria, said the group hoped to sell their video as exclusive erotic footage of the former leader. He claims the gang beat him severely when [...]
Elephants play truant from Copenhagen circus
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Two elephants said goodbye to the circus and took a walk along a Copenhagen street packed with rush-hour traffic on Wednesday, one following the other with trunk linked to tail. Sonia, 31, and Vana Mana, 41, star turns at the Circus Benneweis, strolled down the multi-lane Borups Alle in the Danish capital [...]
The British child brides: Muslim mosque leaders agree to marry girl of 12
British Muslim clerics are willing to carry out sharia marriages involving child brides as young as 12, an investigation has found.Two imams said they would be prepared to officiate at the wedding of an underage girl to a man in his twenties, despite fears the pair would later have sex. The revelations have led the [...]
Topless Kate photos cause new storm for British royals
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – French magazine Closer unleashed a new media tornado on the royal family on Friday with a five-page splash of photos showing the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, sunbathing topless with Prince William in the south of France. Closer, a weekly round-up of celebrity gossip, ran a dozen shots of the Duchess as [...]
People power for lasting peace
The Arab awakening was initially spontaneous, but now it is being directed from various capitals. Has it been hijacked? I don’t think anyone can hijack the Arab Spring. It is going in the right direction. However, certain negativities are normal after the revolution. It cannot be hijacked because it is built on the people’s power. [...]
China and US ‘secretly tested genetically modified rice on children’
China’s health authorities are investigating allegations that genetically modified rice has been tested on Chinese children as part of a research project. A recent scientific publication suggested that researchers, backed by the US Department of Agriculture, fed experimental genetically engineered golden rice to 24 children in China aged between six and eight years old.The environmental [...]
Apple’s iPhone 5 bigger, faster but lacks
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s new iPhone goes on sale on Friday with a bigger screen and 4G wireless technology, as the company seeks to safeguard its edge over rivals like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Google Inc. The iPhone 5 fulfilled many of the expectations laid out by gadget geeks and technology analysts [...]
NAM in Teheran: Only power and influence matter
NEW DELHI – Nowadays, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is no longer much of a movement. Since the Cold War’s end, it has fractured into a far more heterodox grouping whose members range from leftist regimes, as in Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela, to the conservative monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar) of the Persian Gulf. So [...]
Is it time to come home for the
Is it not long past time to do a cost-benefit analysis of our involvement in the Middle and Near East? In this brief century alone, we have fought the two longest wars in our history there, put our full moral authority behind an “Arab Spring” that brought down allies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and [...]
The provocateurs know politics and religion don’t mix
So another internet clever-clogs sets the Middle East on fire: Prophet cartoons, then Quranic book-burning, now a video of robed “terrorists” and a fake desert. The Western-Christian perpetrators then go into hiding (an essential requisite for publicity) while the innocent are asphyxiated, beheaded and otherwise done to death – outrageous Muslim revenge thus “proving” the [...]
