A March 23 commentary from Lebanon’s Daily Star: A foolish new attraction to oppressive Arab nationalism By Rayyan al-Shawaf We are at a critical juncture in the history of the Middle East and North Africa. The continuing and oftentimes violent… Read moreMulticultural Iraq: possible?
How heartwarming to see the new Pontiff lining up with Europe’s current Islamophobic zeitgeist. From the London Times, March 20: Vatican change of heart over ‘barbaric’ Crusades The Vatican has begun moves to rehabilitate the Crusaders by sponsoring a conference… Read moreVatican confab “rehabilitates” Crusades
A March 7 report from Denmark’s notorious Jyllands-Posten, translated and reprinted with evident glee by the openly Islamophobe Agora: The Quran reported to the Police By Kent Olsen, correspondent to Jyllands-Posten in Berlin A broad alliance of grass-roots movements have… Read moreGermany: call to ban Koran
As we observed in the recent case in Nazareth, the choice of religious targets by the “mentally ill” is not so apolitical as it seems. If nothing else, it reflects a zeitgeist. From Reuters, March 25: Thai Muslim killed after… Read moreReligious violence in Thailand
Of course while the increasingly paranoid world media lavish attention on Israel’s imaginary hold over US foreign policy, the Israeli state’s real crimes against the Bedouin ethnic minority go virtually unreported. This March 22 alert from the Association for Defence… Read moreIsrael destroys Bedouin homes
He knows how to play to a heartland audience. It’s the Jews who are gonna make me sacrifice your sons on the killing fields of Iran. Never mind that Iran’s growing sway over the Baghdad regime poses a threat to… Read moreBush: I’ll attack Iran to “protect Israel”
This commentary in Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly gets it just right. The incredibly sad irony is that Al-Ahram’s editors obviously didn’t read it! The introdek they appended to it assumes the piece is making the same tired point about how the… Read moreArab scholar: “Jewish lobby” scapegoat for imperial interests
The countdown continues: how long before the idiot left in the West starts rallying around Lukashenko? From AP, March 24: MINSK, Belarus – Police stormed the opposition tent camp in the Belarusian capital early Friday and rounded up hundreds of… Read moreBelarus: police break opposition protests
From Knight-Ridder, March 21: BOGOTA, Colombia – It’s pretty easy to tell when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is angry. The bespectacled president usually airs his grievances in public, particularly against errant generals in his army. Since taking office in 2002,… Read moreColombia: Uribe rift with military?
From the AP, March 22: WASHINGTON — The United States charged 50 leaders of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group with sending more than $25 billion worth of cocaine around the world to finance their fight at home, a federal indictment that… Read moreColombia: US indicts FARC leaders
The Basque separatist ETA has announced a permanent ceasefire after nearly 40 years and some 800 killings. Now, as this report from IOL notes, legal proceedings against accused ETA collaborators may be reconsidered. Note that Arnaldo Otegi faces prison time… Read moreSpain: ETA ceasefire throws internment into question
From AP, March 22: ROME — Italian police said Tuesday they have arrested five people suspected in the killing of a local politician who was shot last year at a polling station in southern Italy where he was voting in… Read moreCalabrian ‘Ndrangheta Europe’s leading crime machine —legacy of Kosova war?
