Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Monday, May 02, 2011
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE – BLOGS – DANIEL WARNER: The death of Osama bin Laden is a major event, perhaps more important in its symbolism than in the reality of the end of Al Qaeda and terrorism. Ten years after the attacks in the United States, the "leader" of the group credited with the attacks has been killed by American forces in Pakistan.Bin Laden had been personified as the head of the Axis of Evil. But, that is to assume that the nebulous network called Al Qaeda was organized in a hierarchical structure as a traditional military organization. It is also to assume that the War on Terror was a traditional war against a traditional enemy who could be overcome by military force.
Amid the chest-pounding satisfaction of the American people that justice has finally been done remains the fundamental question of what drove suicide bombers into the Twin Towers. The root causes of the terrorist acts around the world have been neither identified nor properly dealt with. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a stalemate, with a forthcoming announcement of a Palestinian state in September looming on the horizon. Continue reading and comment » | Daniel Warner | Monday, May 02, 2011
ARAB NEWS: DAMMAM: Prominent Riyadh-based Saudi journalist Jamal A. Khashoggi, who fought alongside Afghans and other Arabs including Osama Bin Laden in the war against the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 1980s, described Bin Laden’s killing as no big news. “If you ask me, it is no news because I expected this to happen a long time ago,” he told Arab News in an exclusive interview.Khashoggi said the fact that Osama survived for this long after Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was the real story. “It was a big failure of US intelligence,” he said.
According to him it is a very peculiar thing to happen in a very peculiar year. “The news of his killing comes at a time when the Al-Qaeda ideology has been completely rejected by the Arab world. Al-Qaeda was in eclipse … to be very specific it was buried in January 2011 in Tahrir Square in Cairo,” he said, referring to the massive people’s movement that swept aside longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak.
“In a sense it is the right ending for Osama because the recent development in the Arab world clearly indicated that there was no place for him or his ideology,” said Khashoggi. “The rise of the nonviolent movement in the Arab world was the complete rejection of the Al-Qaeda philosophy.”
Khashoggi said he felt sorry that Bin Laden chose the wrong path when he was at the crossroads of history. “He hijacked our religion and chose the path of violence. I remember how we were all in the grip of violence in the early and mid-2000s, here in Saudi Arabia, Algeria … there were suicide bombings, bomb blasts, killings. His ideology did not conform with my understanding of Islam,” he said. » | Siraj Wahab | Arab News | Monday, May 02, 2011
CNN MONEY: NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks are poised for a higher open, as investors cheer news that Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces Monday.
The founder and leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed by U.S. forces in Abbottabad, north of Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
In an address to the nation Sunday night, President Barack Obama called bin Laden's death, "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda." » | CNNMoney staff | Monday, May 02, 2011
TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – CON COUGHLIN: Rejoice! It’s taken ten long, hard years, but the Americans have finally got their man. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, is dead. As Ronald Reagan once said of a former bunch of Islamist terrorists, you can run, but you can’t hide.Perhaps the most remarkable feature of bin Laden’s death is that he was found hiding in a modern complex outside one of Pakistan’s most prestigious military colleges.
I have always maintained that bin Laden, who has suffered from a severe kidney condition for many years, could not have survived on the run for so long without outside help and support. My personal hunch was that he was being protected by elements within Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, which previously enjoyed a close relationship with bin Laden.
The fact that the American special forces that tracked bin Laden to his bolt-hole could not even tell the Pakistani authorities what they were up to tells you all you need to know about the level of Pakistani complicity in bin Laden’s survival for so many years after the worst terrorist attack in world history. Read on and comment » | Con Coughlin | Monday, May 02, 2011
REUTERS: The body of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was taken to Afghanistan after he was killed in Pakistan and was later buried at sea, the New York Times reported on Monday. [Source: Reuters] | Reuters | WASHINGTON | Monday, May 02, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
EURASIA REVIEW: One of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s sons died in a Tripoli hospital of suffering severe burn wounds, a German website reported on Monday.
Khamis, aged 32 and Gaddafi’s sixth son, was allegedly injured on Saturday when a Libyan Air Force pilot deliberately ploughed his jet into a compound in Tripoli where Gaddafi and some of his family were staying, the Deutsch-Tuerkische Nachrichten said.
The news comes as Western forces launched a second wave of air strikes on Gaddafi’s positions under a UN resolution authorizing military action to protect Libyan civilians.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday called the resolution “defective and flawed,” but it remains unclear why Russia, which opposed Western intervention in Libya from the start, did not use its power to veto the move. » | Ria Novosti | Monday, March 21, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, November 20, 2010
ARAB NEWS: MINA: Although many foreign pilgrims, especially the elderly and the sick, come for Haj with an innermost desire to die in the holy land, only a select few see their wishes realized.
Such people are honored with being buried in Jannat Al-Mala in Makkah or Jannat Al-Baqi in Madinah. Their relatives and friends then return home once the pilgrimage is complete. A number of pilgrims said they are envious of pilgrims who die while performing Haj or in the vicinity of the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah.
Egyptian pilgrim Abdul Shafi Saeed came for Haj from Cairo and was accompanied by another pilgrim, Sayyid Khaleel Hassan, who died while in supplication at the plain of Arafat, the climax of the annual pilgrimage.
“Sayyid Khaleel breathed his last in his seamless white ihram while chanting Labbaik. He was blessed and fortunate to die at the most sacred place for Muslims on earth while performing the main ritual of the pilgrimage. Every pilgrim wishes to die such a death,” said Saeed. >>> Galal Fakkar, Arab News | Saturday, November 20, 2010
Haj 1431: To the photo gallery >>>
Thursday, July 08, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Belgian undertakers have drawn up plans to dissolve the corpses of the dead in caustic solutions and flush them into the sewage system.
The controversial new method is said to be less expensive and more environmentally friendly than running highly polluting crematoria or using up valuable land for graves.
The departed would go into the sewage systems of towns and cities and then be recycled in water processing plants.
The proposals are being studied by the EU and if approved, it would mean the procedure could be used across Europe.
However, opponents of the plans say it smacks of a Frankenstein callousness towards the dead and one survey in Belgium found many people found the idea "disturbing." >>> Allan Hall, in Berlin | Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Monday, July 13, 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Victims tell of arrests, threats and beatings / Two women among five killed by officers
They came in the small hours, just as the dormitories were settling down for the night. Outside, Tehran was still in ferment, a city gripped by fury two days after a "stolen election". Inside the dorms on Amirabad Street, students were trying to sleep, though nerves were jangling; just hours earlier several had been beaten in front of the main gate to the university.
What happened next developed into one of the seminal events of Iran's post-election unrest: police broke locks and then bones as they rampaged through the dormitories, attacked dozens of students, carted off more than 100 and killed five. The authorities still deny the incursion took place. But the account pieced together from interviews with five of those present tells a different story.
"We were getting ready to go to sleep when we suddenly heard them breaking the locks to enter our rooms," said one of the 133 students arrested that night. "I'd seen them earlier beating students but I didn't imagine that they would come inside. It's even against Iranian law."
Forty-six students from one dorm were arrested and taken to the basement of the interior ministry on nearby Fatemi Street. It was there, on the building's upper floors, that the vote-counting and – claim opposition supporters – the rigging, was going on. Another 87 were taken to a security police building on Hafez Street. Students spoke of torture and mistreatment.
Five died: they were Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Shoaee and Mohsen Imani – buried the following day in Tehran's famous Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, reportedly without their families being informed. Their names were confirmed by Tahkim Vahdat, a student organisation.
Witnesses said the two women and three men were repeatedly beaten on the head with electric batons. Their families were warned not to talk about their children or hold funerals – like the parents of Neda Soltan, whose face became synonymous with the protest movement after she was filmed being shot dead in the street. >>> Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Sunday, July 12, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: When Jörg Haider died in a car crash last year, many Austrians mourned the complex, fast-living populist. He may have been an admirer of Hitler’s employment policies, but he seemed to many rightwingers, frustrated with the Vienna Establishment, to hold the key to a new Austria.
Now pressure is growing to reopen the investigation into his death, and at least one investigative reporter is asking whether the 58-year-old politician was murdered.
“There are too many open questions,” said Gerhard Wisniewski, the author of the book Jörg Haider: Accident, Murder or Assassination? that has been selling quickly in Austria since it was launched last Tuesday. “After eight months of research I am convinced that it is highly probable that Haider was the victim of a politically motivated assassination.”
Neither the Haider family nor his political associates go quite that far, but they have been appealing this week for a more thorough look at the events of the night of October 10 last year.
“This case has to be reopened with an independent prosecutor . . . and with the involvement of international experts,” said Stefan Petzner, the former spokesman for Mr Haider and a leading figure in the right-wing BZOe party, the Alliance for the Future of Austria. He is threatening to mobilise a referendum on the issue unless the Justice Minister complies.
Mr Haider’s wife, Claudia, has also joined in the critical chorus, questioning the narrative provided by the police investigation team in the week after the crash. The police version, much of it leaked to the press before the official report, was that Mr Haider had visited various bars, including a reputedly gay hangout, on the night of Saturday October 10, in the town of Klagenfurt. He had drunk the equivalent of a bottle of vodka, according to blood sampling, and had driven at 142 kilometres per hour. >>> Roger Boyes in Berlin | Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Around the country and the world Friday, legions of grief-stricken fans of the King of Pop mourned the sudden death of Michael Jackson with spontaneous flower-laden memorials and emotional tributes, as the autopsy to determine the cause of his mysterious death was scheduled to begin in Los Angeles.
The autopsy would take several hours Friday, but toxicology results could take six to eight weeks, the Los Angeles County assistant chief coroner Lt. Ed Winter told reporters.
Mr. Jackson’s brother Jermaine said on Thursday that the preliminary cause of death was cardiac arrest. The singer, 50, had been rushed to the hospital, a six-minute drive from the rented Bel-Air home where he was living, shortly after noon local time by paramedics for the Los Angeles Fire Department. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 pm.
The Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation, as a formality and because of Mr. Jackson’s enormous celebrity, a police spokesman said, and detectives began their search of Mr. Jackson’s house Thursday.
Brian Oxman, a former lawyer of Mr. Jackson’s and a family friend, gave interviews expressing his concerns about Mr. Jackson’s health, and saying that prescription drugs might have been a factor in his death Thursday. >>> Sharon Otterman and Liz Robbins | Friday, June 26, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Michael Jackson's Family Feared Morphine Overdose
THE TELEGRAPH:
Michael Jackson 'Converts to Islam and Changes Name to Mikaeel' >>> Graham Tibbetts | Friday, November 21, 2008
TIMES ONLINE: Michael Jackson: Martin Bashir Interview Damaged Him Deeply
When Michael Jackson agreed to give the television journalist Martin Bashir unprecedented access to his personal life, he believed that it would help him win public sympathy and repair a reputation that had become heavily tarnished over the years.
It had, after all, worked with Diana, Princess of Wales, a figure with whom Jackson identified closely and who had scored a momentous public relations coup with her Panorama interview with Bashir in 1995.
It was to prove a calamitous error of judgement on Jackson’s part.
The admissions he made in the interview about sleeping with children at his Neverland ranch in California would eventually lead to criminal charges and a trial which, despite his acquittal, would cause him a level of damage from which he would never recover.
Jackson was initially persuaded to let Bashir become part of his entourage for eight months by his friend Uri Geller, who said: “Michael liked Martin and he was happy to have him around. I said to him, ‘Michael, maybe it’s time to open up to the world.’”
Jackson did exactly that; and the world did not like what it heard. >>> Valentine Low | Friday, June 26, 2009
YOUTUBE: Thriller
YOUTUBE: Moon Walk
YOUTUBE: Dirty Diana
YOUTUBE: Billy Jean
YOUTUBE: Bad >>>
YOUTUBE: Black or White >>>
YOUTUBE: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough >>>
YOUTUBE: Off the Wall >>>
YOUTUBE: In the Closet >>>
YOUTUBE: Dangerous >>>
YOUTUBE: Liberian Girl >>>
Saturday, December 27, 2008
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Samuel P. Huntington, an influential political scientist and longtime Harvard University professor, died at the age of 81 on Wednesday, according to an obituary on Harvard’s Web site. Mr. Huntington’s most famous thesis – that world conflicts stem from the competing cultural identities of seven or eight “civilizations” – became a fundamental, if controversial, premise of post-Cold War foreign policy theory. His emphasis on ancient religious empires, as opposed to states or ethnicities, gained even more cache after the Sept. 11 attacks. >>> Sarah Wheaton | Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>
Friday, December 05, 2008
TIMESONLINE: Patriarch Alexiy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, died this morning, aged 79.
Russia's first post-Soviet Orthodox leader died at his residence outside Moscow, a church spokesman said. The cause of death was not given, although the Patriarch had been in poor health for some time and diplomats in Moscow have said that he was suffering from cancer.
Alexiy II was elected head of the Orthodox Church in 1990 and oversaw its restoration to a dominant role in Russian society thanks to open support from the Kremlin under Boris Yeltsin and in particular Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer.
Patriarch Alexiy's links with the Kremlin were clouded by allegations that he himself had been a long-serving KGB agent codenamed "Drozdov" (the thrush), who had been awarded a "certificate of honour" for his service by the Soviet authorities in 1988. He was accused of providing information on dissident priests, and the KGB even sent him to England in 1969 on a mission with a church delegation.
As Patriarch, however, he oversaw the restoration of the Church's authority in Russia after the fall of Communism as churches were rebuilt and reopened across the country. He was seen as a unifying national figure,his moral strictures and benevolent appearance offering certainty at a time of extreme economic hardship and political upheaval.
Alexiy II also presided over a reunification ceremony at Christ the Saviour cathedral in Moscow last year that ended an 80-year schism with the Orthodox faithful whose families had fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
His death after an 18-year reign is likely to prompt an outpouring of grief in Russia, which has experienced a profound religious revival since the collapse of the Soviet Union. State television screened images from Alexiy's life, accompanied by the sound of tolling church bells, immediately after the announcement of his death. >>> Tony Halpin, Moscow | December 5, 2008
LE FIGARO: Le patriarche de l'Église orthodoxe russe est mort
Proche du premier ministre Vladimir Poutine, Alexis II avait rétabli, avec l'appui du Kremlin, l'influence de la plus grande Eglise othodoxe du monde, après 70 ans d'athéisme soviétique.
Le patriarche de Moscou et de toutes les Russies, Alexis II, chef de la plus grande église orthodoxe au monde, est décédé vendredi matin à l'âge de 79 ans dans sa résidence de Peredelkino, près de Moscou. Les raisons de son décès n'ont pas été rendues publiques par l'Eglise orthodoxe, mais le religieux souffrait depuis longtemps d'une maladie cardiaque.
«Je suis bouleversé, j'ai du mal à trouver des mots. J'éprouvais un immense respect à son égard», a déclaré le père de la Perestroïka et ex-président soviétique, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, réagissant parmi les premiers à l'annonce de sa mort.
Proche du Premier ministre et ex-président Vladimir Poutine, Alexis II était depuis 1990 le chef de la plus grande Eglise orthodoxe au monde. Il a rétabli, avec l'appui du Kremlin, l'influence de l'Eglise orthodoxe en Russie, après 70 ans d'athéisme soviétique.
Le visage orné d'une imposante barbe blanche, la voix grave, Alexis II était un personnage très respecté des Russes et très présent au plan politique et médiatique. Il officiait à toutes les grandes liturgies à la cathédrale du Christ-Sauveur à Moscou, en présence souvent des dirigeants du pays. >>> | 5.12.2008
NZZ Online: Russisch-orthodoxer Patriarch Alexi II. Gestorben: Todesursache noch unklar - Oberhaupt von 150 Millionen Gläubigen
Das Oberhaupt der russisch-orthodoxen Kirche, der Moskauer Patriarch Alexi II, ist am Freitag im Alter von 79 Jahren gestorben. Dies teilte ein Sprecher seines Büros mit. Die Todesursache wurde zunächst nicht genannt.
(sda/afp/Reuters) Der Deutschbalte starb am Morgen in seiner Residenz nahe Moskau. Der Geistliche hatte seit einigen Jahren an Herzproblemen gelitten. Mehrere Male wurde er deshalb im Spital behandelt, unter anderem im vergangenen Jahr in der Schweiz.
Der Patriarch war für eine schrittweise Annäherung an die katholische Kirche. Dennoch sprach er sich gegen eine Reise des Papstes nach Russland aus. Er fürchtete, der Vatikan wolle dabei im Land missionieren. >>> | 5. Dezember 2008
BBC: Double Life of Russia's Patriarch
Patriarch Alexiy II, who died on Friday, had an extraordinary career, in which he switched from suppressing the Russian Orthodox Church to being its champion.
A favourite of the KGB, he was promoted rapidly through the Church hierarchy, doing the Kremlin's bidding at a time when dissident priests were thrown into jail.
As the Church's effective foreign minister, he helped cover up the repression of Russian Christians, defending the Soviet system to the outside world.
He rose quickly through the ranks, being elected head of the Russian Orthodox Church at a crucial time, in 1990, with the Soviet Union on the path to collapse.
Surprisingly, perhaps, he seized the moment, and went on to oversee the revival and flowering of the Church, exuding moral authority and inspiring devotion among his followers.
Born free
Born Alexei Ridiger in 1929 in Estonia, which was then independent, he had some taste of freedom before the country was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II.
But his mother was Russian, and he found he had some sympathy with the Soviet cause. >>> | December 5, 2008
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Des milliers de Russes rendent hommage à Alexis II
MOSCOU | Plus de 10 000 fidèles se sont recueillis devant la dépouille du patriarche de l'Eglise orthodoxe, exposée dans une cathédrale de la capitale.
Des milliers de fidèles se pressaient aujourd'hui pour rendre un dernier hommage au patriarche de Moscou et de toutes les Russies Alexis II. Sa dépouille était exposée dans une cathédrale de la capitale.
Plus de 10 000 fidèles se sont recueillis devant le cercueil du patriarche orthodoxe depuis qu'il a été transporté samedi soir à la cathédrale du Christ-Sauveur à Moscou. >>> AFP | Dimanche 07 Décembre 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)
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