By any objective standard, the wave of deadly gunplay in Saudi Arabia in recent days is an internecine dispute between rival Wahhabi fundamentalist factionsâalthough that is not how it is being portrayed in the media. Today’s claims by Saudi authorities… Read moreInternecine Wahhabi violence in Saudi Arabia
Reads an AFP report that seems to have been picked up exclusively by the Kurdish Media website: A musician from Turkey’s Laz minority group said the country’s public television refused to allow him to perform his songs, claiming that new… Read moreTurkey’s Laz minority face cultural exclusion
The German-based pro-Kurdish Flash-Bulletin website has posted a Feb. 16 letter from a group of Ezidi academics protesting that Ezidi children in eastern Turkey are being forced to study Islam in school by local village authoritiesâa practice they charge is… Read moreEzidis face “Islamization” in Turkey
A powerful bomb tore through a shopping mall in the Christian area north of Beirut March 23, killing three Asian immigrant workers and bringing Lebanon closer to chaos weeks before general elections. (Reuters, March 23) It is the latest outburst… Read moreAnother bomb blast in Lebanon
At least six were wounded by a car bomb which wrecked the front of a government building in a predominantly Christian suburb of Beirut March 19. The motive and target of the attack in New Jdeideh were not immediately clear,… Read moreBeirut blast raises civil war fears
Amidst ongoing pro- and anti-Syria protests in Lebanon, Damascus is beginning to call home some units stationed in the countryâstarting with the intelligence agents in Beirut and Bekaa Valley. Faced with this partial success, Bush has adopted a somewhat softer… Read moreAnti-Syria violence in Lebanon
Following days of protests by predominantly Christians and Druze for Syria to pull out of Lebanon (their demands backed by the US and Israel), thousands of mostly Shi’ite demonstrators led by Hezbollah rallied in Beirut March 8 in support of… Read moreLebanon crisis could mean civil war for Syria: Uri Avnery
A friend writes, translating from the Feb. 27 edition of the Turkish journal Aksam: At the moment Turkey wishes to enter into Europe, the ideological book of AdolfHitler entitled "Mein Kampf," forbidden in Germany, is a success in Turkey. One… Read moreMein Kampf best-seller in Turkey
Thomas Friedman in his March 3 New York Times column, "Brave, Young and Muslim," hails restive and modern-minded reformers in the Islamic world, and especially singles out Irshad Manji, Canadian Muslim feminist author of The Trouble with Islam Today. Friedman… Read more“Muslim Refuseniks” make op-ed page
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Omar Karami has resigned follwing a wave of angry protests in Beirut. "I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honour to head. May God preserve Lebanon," Karami said. Lahoud was a close ally… Read moreLebanon’s government resigns
“Peak oil” theorists will be vindicated by a Feb. 20 report on al-Jazeera that Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil producer, has past its peak of production and may have in fact damaged its own extractable reserves through over-production. Writes al-Jazeera: As… Read moreSaudi Arabia at “peak oil”?
With Lebanon possibly next in the US crosshairs following the Valentine’s Day car-bomb assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, the Hezbollah militia movement marked the Shi’ite holy day of Ashura with a massive rally in Beirut. Amid requisite chants… Read moreHezbollah next US target?
