Transatlantic Love Affair

Photo courtesy of The Telegraph

It may not have been the swansong of the Bush-Blair show, but it certainly felt like it.

There were moments in their White House double act early yesterday morning when they assumed their familiar roles.

They marched down the red carpet to the podium in the East Room as confident as ever. They filled in each other's lines and swapped jokes and smiles.

George W Bush gazed admiringly at the Prime Minister as he launched into an impassioned defence of the Iraq war.

"I'm going to say that was a great answer," said Mr Bush. The audience laughed. How many times over the past few years has his "good friend" Tony been the perfect foil to his rougher-hewn Texan style? It's beginning to feel like the end of a beautiful relationship by Alec Russell, in Washington

Mark

Weddings by the galore!

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

RAS AL KHAYMAH, United Arab Emirates — The wedding lights sparkled, a brass band played the national anthem and the banquet was fit for a king. But as Rashid al-Kabali and his friends put on their ceremonial wedding cloaks for the event this month, the grooms were stoically aware of the battle they were waging for Emirati identity.

Mr. Kabali was among 47 grooms marrying that evening in an all-male mass wedding ceremony in the parking lot of a convention center. (The brides would celebrate in separate ceremonies a few days later.)

It was a curious scene, but one with deep social implications. In this nation of five million, of whom only about 10 percent are native citizens, the battle for cultural survival begins with "I do."

"This is about preserving our ways and our culture," Mr. Kabali said, as he scanned the grooms seated in a row. "We must marry within our society as our ancestors did, or we will lose our way." Here Comes the Bride (but Not From Afar, Emirates Hope) by Hassan M. Fattah

Mark Alexander

Defeating Islam

Ali Sina of Faith Freedom fame has written this excellent piece on Defeating Islam. Please read it. It makes excellent reading, and eminent good sense.

Mark Alexander

Mahmoud Abbas: Terrorists "Our Heroes"

Just two days after PM Olmert called him a "very decent human being" who is "opposed to terror," PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas call Palestinian terrorists "our heroes."

While Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, takes on the position of "moderate" and attempts to convince Hamas to accept Judea and Samaria for now, his words to audiences at home present a different picture. Abbas Calls Terrorists "Our Heroes" by Hillel Fendel

Mark Alexander

Radical Islam in Europe

I have found this rather shocking video on You Tube on radical Islam in Europe. I'd like to share it with you. To view it, please click HERE.

Mark Alexander

Turkey: Honour & Suicide

A United Nations envoy has arrived in Turkey to investigate a reported surge in the number of young women committing suicide.

Yakin Erturk, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, travelled yesterday to the eastern Turkish city of Batman to follow up on reports in local media that up to 36 women had killed themselves since the start of the year. This figure is already much higher than the number for the whole of last year.

Many of the women who have died were allegedly the victims of "forced suicides", where husbands or relatives pushed them into killing themselves to cleanse a perceived offence against family honour. UN investigates 'forced suicides' in Turkey by Daniel Howden

Mark Alexander

At Last! Somebody Speaks Some Sense!
The former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger has re-floated the idea of containment. This is exactly what I proposed in my book, The Dawning of a New Dark Age. I suggested that an 'Iron Veil' be dropped between our two worlds. This is another way of stating that Islam should be contained.

Naturally, I am very pleased that Henry Kissinger should have come to the same conclusion as I.

Photo courtesy of the BBC

When Tony Blair and George Bush meet at the White House for dinner on Thursday, they will be contemplating the beginning of the end of a relationship that has seen their policies dominate the world scene but which have left them weakened at home for their final years in office.

In one of its perhaps less elegant wordplays, the Economist magazine declared that the two now constituted as "an axis of feeble."

Their common cause in Iraq has not delivered the success they believed was assured.

On this visit, they will seek to justify that cause but they know that some are withholding judgment until events deliver their own verdict.

Others have made their judgment anyway.

And as the curtain prepares to come down, there are already voices being heard offstage calling for an end to the policies of intervention that have characterised the approach of both men.

A return to the past?

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently seemed to be re-floating the old Cold War policy of containment. Final curtain for Bush and Blair by Paul Reynolds

©Mark Alexander

Ehud Olmert ready to negotiate peace

Photos courtesy of the BBC

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but not until Hamas rejects violence and recognises Israel.

"I extend my hand in peace to Mahmoud Abbas, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority," Mr Olmert said in a keynote speech to the US Congress.

But Israel "will not give a terrorist regime a veto over progress or allow it to take hope hostage," he said.

Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organisation.

Hamas, which dominates the PA, has refused to recognise Israel. It won elections in January and formed a government. Olmert urges Palestinian action

Mark Alexander

The brains behind Al-Qaeda

FROM hideouts in South Asia, the Spanish-Syrian al-Qaeda strategist published thousands of pages of internet tracts on how small teams of Islamic extremists could wage a decentralised global war against the US and its allies.

With the Afghanistan base lost, he argued, radicals would need to work primarily on their own, though sometimes with guidance from roving operatives acting on behalf of the broader movement.

Last October, Pakistani agents seized Mustafa Setmariam Nasar in a friend's house in the border city of Quetta and turned him over to US intelligence operatives, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. With Spanish, British and Syrian interrogators lining up to question him, he is a prize catch: he is not a bombmaker or operational planner but one of al-Qaeda's prime theorists for the post-September 11, 2001 world. Revealed: the mastermind behind al-Qaeda's plan to wage global jihad by Craig Whitlock in Madrid

Mark Alexander

Letter to Ahmadinejad

"Ah, the good old days, when our leaders had a sense of humor and didn't mind making fun of our enemies." - Michael Leeden

Yesterday evening, I was alerted to this interesting 'Letter to Ahmadinejad [Michael Leeden]' by a friend in Australia. I'd like to share it with you...

Dear President Ahmadinejad,

Please forgive this tardy response to your letter of early May. We did not reply at first because we doubted the letter’s authenticity. We suspected that someone was trying to play a trick on you. The discourse, you must admit, is unusual for a communication between heads of state. However, now that you have openly admitted that the letter is yours, I will respond.

Thank you for your invitation to accept Islam. As you know, I am a Christian. Throughout your letter you accuse me of being a bad Christian, which leaves me puzzled as to why you think I might make a good Muslim. However, before you proselytize outside your own country, you might want to address the condition of the Islamic faith in Iran.

I am genuinely sorry to hear that so many Iranians, especially the young, have lost their faith because of their profound disillusionment with theocratic clerical rule. Apparently, there is no way for them to distinguish between their religion and your rule. That is understandable since you claim there is none, that your authority comes directly from God and you are ruling in his name. It is no wonder you disdain “liberalism and Western style democracy.” Under it, you would be answerable not only to God, but to the Iranian people, to whom God gave certain “unalienable Rights” that you and the mullahs have chosen to ignore. How ironic that, in the name of God, you deny your people’s God-given rights. Read the rest here!

Mark Alexander

Tancredo on illegal immigration into the US

Congressman Tom Tancredo has campaigned throughout the US in support of tighter border controls and immigration reduction

Americans are rightly outraged by our broken immigration system: there are roughly 12 to 15 million illegal aliens in the US, and hundreds of thousands sneak across our borders each year. Tancredo's views, Tancredo's solution

Mark Alexander

If Al Gore says it, it must be right!

Photo courtesy of the BBC

Former US vice-president Al Gore, who is at the Cannes Film Festival, has warned the world is facing a "planetary emergency" due to global warming.

A documentary based on the politician's environmental campaigning is being screened at the festival.

Mr Gore said the world faced a stark choice between the end of civilisation and a future for its children. Politician Gore appears at Cannes

Mark Alexander

Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? Heresy or Irrelevance?

Image courtesy of The Jerusalem Post

For the second time in three years, Hollywood is looking on in suspense as a film connected to the life and crucifixion of Jesus arrives in theaters amidst a global barrage of controversy. The Da Vinci Code, the film adaptation of Dan Brown's massive worldwide bestseller, premieres in theaters across the globe this weekend and opened in Israel on Thursday, with little but promotional trailers and the novel itself available to suggest what the movie might contain.

That, of course, hasn't stopped Catholics and other observant Christians around the world from protesting the new movie, which cost an estimated $125 million and would surprise few show business insiders if it matched the soaring box office totals of The Passion of the Christ, the previous religiously-themed movie to spark rancorous debate with its take on Jesus' last days.

And while Israel has so far been spared the demonstrations and legal protests that have taken place as far away as South Korea and India, interest in the film is running high, despite the country's Jewish-majority population. Brown's 2003 novel has topped local bestseller charts in both Hebrew and English, indicating that Israel has done its part in contributing to the book's phenomenal international sales, which, according to the author's website, have now topped 60 million copies. Fact or fiction?

And then this:

With less than two weeks before the release of the Sony Pictures version of Dan Brown's megaselling The Da Vinci Code, worries continue to mount among traditional Christians about both the book's and the movie's impact. But should non-Christians be concerned?

Yes, we should. Jews in particular need to be aware of the gift Dan Brown has given, in all innocence, to anti-Semites.

As everyone knows by now, Brown uses a gripping suspense story set in the present to inform us that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that he has descendants living in Europe today. Furthermore, the members of this surviving Jesus family have been protected for centuries by an altruistic secret organization, the Priory of Sion, which is locked in combat with a sinister, violent Catholic group, Opus Dei.

That latter seeks to keep the secret of Jesus' paternity from getting out. Behind Opus Dei stands the Catholic Church. For millennia, the church has perpetrated what the film calls "the biggest cover-up in human history." Should non-Christians be concerned?

Mark Alexander

Iran blocks the airwaves

Photo courtesy of the BBC

The authorities in Iran are reportedly making new plans to disrupt broadcasts from abroad after earlier efforts failed to stem the tide sufficiently.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), a hardline body guarding the gains of the 1979 Islamic revolution, intends to increase the number of jamming stations in Tehran and other cities from 50 to 300 within two years, an Iranian online paper has reported.

The independent online paper Rooz says new technology will be used in an attempt to block specific satellite channels broadcasting from abroad.

The move comes at a time the Bush administration is planning to expand TV broadcasts to Iran, to augment Persian-language broadcasts by Voice of America. Iran targets foreign broadcasters

Mark Alexander

A sneak peek: What the trendy Muslimah will be wearing this summer! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Photos courtesy of Google ImagesMark

Protecting Iran's Muslim Identity

Photo courtesy of The Jerusalem Post

A draft law being considered by Iran's parliament encourages the wearing of Islamic clothing to protect the country's Muslim identity, according to a copy of the bill obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday.

The 13-article bill, which received preliminary approval a week ago, makes no mention of requiring special attire for religious minorities.

On Friday, a Canadian newspaper, The National Post, quoting Iranian exiles, said the law would force Jews, Christians and other religious minorities to wear special patches of colored cloth to distinguish them from Muslims. Iran bill addresses women's clothing

And this from the National Post:

Several experts are casting doubt on reports that Iran had passed a law requiring the country's Jews and other religious minorities to wear coloured badges identifying them as non-Muslims.

The Iranian embassy in Otttawa also denied the Iranian government had passed such a law.

A news story and column by Iranian-born analyst Amir Taheri in yesterday's National Post reported that the Iranian parliament had passed a sweeping new law this week outlining proper dress for Iran's majority Muslims, including an order for Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to wear special strips of cloth. Iranian embassy denies dress code

Mark Alexander

Die Niederlande und die Toleranz gehen nicht mehr Hand in Hand

Foto dank Google Images

Die Niederlande nach dem Wirbel um die Islamkritikerin und Frauenrechtlerin Ayaan Hirsi Ali

«Niederländer sind wie die Riesen in Homers Odyssee», sagte jüngst ein grossgewachsener Amerikaner in einer Kneipe in Tanger zu mir. «Sie schauen mit einem Auge in die Welt.» Er legte eine Hand auf das linke Auge, um das beklemmende Gefühl zu demonstrieren, das einen überkommt, wenn man so unerbittlich in die Welt schaut. «Die Niederlande sind das Land der Zyklopen.» Dieser Amerikaner hat Recht bekommen. Hirsi Magan ist auf dem Weg in die Vereinigten Staaten, um sich dort am intellektuellen Diskurs zu beteiligen, und die Niederlande haben ihren grössten intellektuellen Trendsetter seit langem verloren. Dieses Drama enthüllt etwas über den zutiefst konservativen, protestantischen Charakter dieses Landes, das Menschen, die über die Masse hinausragen, nicht ertragen kann. Der Weggang von Ali ist Teil einer langen Tradition. Das Ende der Toleranz? von Abdelkader Benali

The Eternal Refugee by Val MacQueen

Mark Alexander

Evil is as evil does!

Photo courtesy of The Jerusalem Post

A new dress-code law reportedly passed in Iran this past week mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities - Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians - will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public, the Canadian National Post reported on Friday.

Under the new law, which still awaits final approval from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones.

If the law is approved, it is scheduled to go into effect at the beginning of next year.

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter responded to the new law Friday night, saying, "Whoever makes Jews anywhere wear the yellow star again, will find themselves in a coffin draped in black." New Iranian law to require Jews to wear yellow band

Mark Alexander

Madness is as madness does!

Photo courtesy of The Jerusalem Post

"The whole world is moving towards God," Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to his American counterpart George W Bush. "Would Your Excellency not wish to join?"

Initially, the letter was supposed to be a private message from the Islamic Republic to the Bush administration. But once Washington had dismissed it as irrelevant to the issues at hand, its text was leaked to reporters in Teheran.

To some in Washington, Ahmadinejad's epistolary exercise may look like another of his quirks. But it is based on a long historic tradition and fits into a framework of religious practice developed by Muslims over the past 14 centuries. Eye of the Storm: Reading between the lines by Amir Taheri

Mark Alexander

Heads you win, tails you win!

Photo courtesy of the BBC

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah plans to set up a risk-free investment fund in a bid to attract small investors to the country's flagging stock market.

Saudi citizens will be able to invest up to 500,000 riyals ($133,000; £70,600), in the bourse - buying and selling on the market for two years.

The individuals can keep any gains but the state will absorb losses. Saudi king plans 'risk-free fund'

Mark Alexander