Once again Twin Cities shocked by Muslims' demands
Some Muslim cashiers at Target refuse to handle pork, setting off another debate over the place of religion in society.

Beryl Dsouza was late and in no mood for delays when she stopped at a Target store after work two weeks ago for milk, bread and bacon.

So Dsouza was taken aback when the cashier -- who had on the traditional headscarf, or hijab, worn by many Muslim women -- refused to swipe the bacon through the checkout scanner.

"She made me scan the bacon. Then she opened the bag and made me put it in the bag," said Dsouza, 53, of Minneapolis. "It made me wonder why this person took a job as a cashier."

In the latest example of religious beliefs creating tension in the workplace, some Muslims in the Twin Cities are adhering to a strict interpretation of the Qur'an that prohibits the handling of pork products.

Instead of swiping the items themselves, they are asking non-Muslim employees or shoppers to do it for them.

It has set off a firestorm of comments -- more than 400, as of Tuesday evening -- on the Star Tribune's community blog, Buzz. People called the newspaper from as far as Tokyo to voice their opinion.

It remains unclear how many Muslim cashiers in the Twin Cities are declining to ring up pork sales. Customer service and faith clash at registers by Chris Serres and Matt McKinney

Hat tip: Jihad Watch

Mark Alexander

OECD to investigate Britain’s commitment to clean deals
Britain's commitment to fighting bribery is to be investigated by a prominent anti-corruption group.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's move is prompted by the UK's decision to drop a probe into defence firm BAE Systems. Fresh criticism over BAE inquiry

Al-Yamamah Scandal

BAE System’s Dirty Dealings

Al Yamamah Bribery

’Government should be stripped of power to halt prosecutions’

Aljazeera on Britain's dropping of BAE Systems fraud inquiry


BAE: Al-Yamamah and National Security


Al Yamamah III


Mark Alexander

New Iranian banknote depicts atomic symbol

Image courtesy of the BBC

BBC: Iran has put its determination to complete the nuclear fuel cycle on paper, with a bank note depicting an atomic symbol.

The 50,000 rial note shows electrons in orbit around an atom on a map of Iran. Iran defiant with atomic banknote

Mark Alexander

No prizes for guessing what lies behind this heinous crime!
THE GUARDIAN: A taxi driver was today jailed for life for bludgeoning his wife and three children to death with a rounders bat over her affair with a married man.

Rahan Arshad, 36, committed the murders and then fled on a pre-booked flight to Thailand, leaving the bodies to remain undiscovered in the family home at Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, for almost a month.

He beat his wife with the bat more than 23 times in their bedroom before attacking his children. Pathologists needed dental records to confirm the identities of the four victims.

Arshad, who worked as a driver for Tripps taxis, murdered Uzma Rahan, 32, their sons Adam, 11, eight-year-old Abbas and daughter Henna, six, because of his wife's affair with a married man named Nikki, Manchester crown court heard.

The jury took two hours and 15 minutes to find Arshad guilty of four counts of murder. He showed almost no reaction as the verdicts were read out. Taxi driver guilty of bludgeoning family to death

Mark Alexander

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Real Time with Bill Maher


Mark Alexander

Demand for fallout shelters in Israel surges as fears of nuclear attack grow
THE TIMES: As world leaders debate sanctions to curb Iran’s nuclear programme, hundreds of Israeli families are already installing bunkers in their homes to protect against radioactive fallout from a possible attack.

Thousands of private homes have been equipped with nuclear-proof equipment ranging from air filters to water-decontamination systems. But builders and contractors say that the demand in the past few months for fully fledged atomic shelters has surged, fuelled by speculation that Iran is building a nuclear weapon that it would not hesitate to use against Israel.

Atomic shelters range in price from £70,000 to £500,000. They feature 70cm thick blast-proof doors, ballistic windows, water and air-decontamination systems, which promise to sustain life for up to six months. Bunker mentality as Israelis prepare for nuclear fallout

Mark Alexander

The US problem few politicians have the stomach to do anything about
When a Dallas pizza chain began accepting Mexican money, its owner received a flood of hate mail. The Times reports on the rise of Hispanic America and the ‘culture war’

THE TIMES: Antonio Swad presses a button on his answerphone. A deep male voice fills his office. “F*** you,” it says slowly and deliberately. “Your attempt to Mexicanise our country is an insult to all of us...I and my buddies in the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and all the other organisations I belong to are going to spread the word and do all we can to f*** you. You have insulted this wonderful country.” Mr Swad, a trim 50-year-old American of Italian-Lebanese descent, merely laughs. He has become used to such abuse since announcing in early January that Pizza Patron, his Dallas-based chain of pizza shops, would accept Mexican pesos. He has been deluged with similar messages from across the US.

“Pizza for pesos” was meant to be nothing more than a promotional stunt to curry favour with the Latinos who are Pizza Patron’s core market, and to soak up the loose change that Mexican workers bring back to the US after Christmas visits home. In fact it provided a new rallying point — and a fresh source of outrage after last year’s row over the Spanish version of The Star-Spangled Banner — for the legions of white Americans who believe that Hispanics are overrunning their country, destroying their culture and threatening their Anglo-Saxon dominance.

At most Swad expected a few paragraphs in the trade press. But after The Dallas Morning News ran a story on his offer one Saturday morning, he found reporters and television trucks beseiging his outlets with their “Aceptamos pesos” signs.

The story made the national news, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Colbert Report. CNN gave it 20 minutes. It was picked up by Rush Limbaugh. “This stuff doesn’t go away,” fumed America’s leading right-wing chat-show host. “It’s just like gay marriage. It’s like illegal immigration...It’ll grow.” Soon abusive e-mails, irate calls and even death threats were pouring in to Pizza Patron’s headquarters. No matter that countless countries around the world accept US dollars, or that the Canadian dollar is accepted along America’s northern border, or that pizza is a foreign import. The sheer hatred of the e-mails — 5,400 at the latest count — was remarkable.

“You’re catering to illegal immigrants and promoting Mexico over the US...damn you to Hell and take your freaking wetback illegals with you when you go!!!!!,” said one. “You absolutely sicken us taxpaying citizens that want these cockroaches OUT OF THIS COUNTRY,” said another. Yanqui doodle dandy by Martin Fletcher

Mark Alexander

In pursuit of bin Laden
THE TELEGRAPH: America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qa'eda leader.

US officials said that the mission is intended to intensify the pressure on the terrorist leader, who turns 50 tomorrow, and perhaps force him into making a mistake. He is widely believed to be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan.

Satellite photographs and details of communications intercepts were given to President Musharraf of Pakistan last week by Stephen Kappes, deputy director of the CIA, as part of a strategy to persuade him to give US intelligence agencies more assistance.

Mr Kappes, a Middle East specialist who has served in Pakistan, travelled to Islamabad to brief Gen Musharraf along with Vice President Dick Cheney. His detailed presentation showed evidence of al-Qa'eda building its strength on Pakistani soil.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," an American official said afterwards. "We are very much increasing our efforts there." US sends spies into Pakistan to kill bin Laden by Toby Harnden and Thomas Coghlan

Mark Alexander

The changing House of Saud
THE TELEGRAPH: Just what has come over the Saudis? For as long as anyone can remember, the House of Saud has been a model of discretion and reticence in its dealings with the outside world. Whenever the royal family has found itself having to deal with some unpleasant local difficulty, such as Saddam threatening to overrun their oil fields, or Osama bin Laden plotting to murder the king, its time-honoured response has been to reach for the chequebook and buy its way out of trouble. No publicity, no fuss.

Well, that was then. Nowadays, if you look at any of the key issues affecting the region, whether it is Iraq, Iran or the stalemate over Israel/Palestine, you'll invariably find the Saudis spear-heading some bold initiative to find a solution.

Take the talks they hosted last month to persuade the rival Hamas and Fatah Palestinian factions to stop the bloody infighting that nearly brought Gaza to the brink of all-out war.

Had it not been for the personal intervention of King Abdullah, the rival Palestinian groups would still be trying to resolve their differences through violence. But after he managed to persuade Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, and Mahmoud Abbas, the veteran Fatah activist who is nominally the Palestinians' president, to get together in the Saudi holy city of Mecca, the two sides agreed to patch up their differences and form a government of national unity - albeit one that still declines to recognise the right of Israel to exist.

Even more daring was the Saudi initiative this week to try to talk some sense into the nuclear-obsessed Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Saudi Arabia's hardline Sunni regime has always been a source of friction for the Shia zealots who seized control of Iran during the 1979 revolution, so much so that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were blamed by the Saudis for training the al-Qa'eda terror group that blew up the Americans' military base in Dhahran in 1996, killing 19 people and wounding 500.

Yet the new-look Saudis have been able to ignore the bad blood and laid on a lavish welcome for Mr Ahmadinejad. And, if Saudi reports are to be believed, the summit achieved a tangible result, with the Iranian president, who normally makes impassioned speeches calling for Israel's destruction, actually supporting an Arab peace plan to end the Israel-Palestinian crisis (although there was, strangely, no mention of this historic volte face in the official Iranian media). Prince Bandar shows the House of Saud how to punch its weight by Con Coughlin

Mark Alexander

A perfectly accurate assessment of Europe today
“Islam itself is the problem. Islam is a violent religion. The Prophet Mohammed was a violent man. The Quran is mostly a violent book. We should invest in Muslim people but they have to first get rid of half the Quran and half of their beliefs.” – Geert Wilders

“It [the burqa] is a medieval token of a barbaric time, of how not to treat women, even if they want to wear it themselves.” "Allowing Muslims to wear the burqa in the Netherlands, or to have segregated swimming sessions so as not to offend religious sensitivities, amounts to 'religious apartheid'". – Geert Wilders

Photo courtesy of Google Images

THE TELEGRAPH: An anti-immigrant politician is making a meteoric rise with his call on the Dutch - once one of the most tolerant nations in the world - to stop Islam taking over Europe.

Geert Wilders, the 43-year-old leader of the Freedom Party, is convinced that governments are being forced to accommodate a 'tsunami of Islamisation' that is fundamentally incompatible with European social values.

"Islam itself is the problem. Islam is a violent religion," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The Prophet Mohammed was a violent man. The Koran is mostly a violent book. We should invest in Muslim people but they have to first get rid of half the Koran and half of their beliefs," he said.

The Freedom Party has jumped from six to 10 per cent in opinion polls since November. His passionate campaign for a ban on the Islamic veil, or burqa, in public places is gaining such momentum that the country's new coalition government could be forced to introduce the ban it does not support.

On the burqa, Mr Wilders is adamant: "It is a medieval token of a barbaric time, of how not to treat women, even if they want to wear it themselves," he argues.

Allowing Muslims to wear the burqa in the Netherlands, or to have segregated swimming sessions so as not to offend religious sensitivities, amounts to "religious apartheid" he says. Islam is taking over, says Dutch politician by Bruno Waterfield

Mark Alexander

Yet again, Iran demonstrates its commitment to women’s rights!
”The Iranian authorities marked International Women’s Day by attacking hundreds of people who had peacefully assembled to honor women’s rights. Once again, Iran’s government has signaled that it is ready to use violence to suppress peaceful public assembly of any sort.” - Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

Police in the Iranian capital Tehran have prevented protesters from taking part in a rally outside parliament to mark International Women's Day.

The authorities deployed large numbers of riot police and plain clothes officers in front of the parliament.

A few people tried to gather but were dispersed. One women was seen lifted up and carried away by female officers. Iran police stop women’s protests

Watch BBC video: Iranian women's protest ban

International Women’s Day (March 8, 2007)


Mark Alexander

The fanaticism of Islam
Is it racist to condemn fanaticism?
THE TIMES: Once I was held captive in Kabul. I was the bride of a charming, seductive and Westernised Afghan Muslim whom I met at an American college. The purdah I experienced was relatively posh but the sequestered all-female life was not my cup of chai — nor was the male hostility to veiled, partly veiled and unveiled women in public.

When we landed in Kabul, an airport official smoothly confiscated my US passport. “Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,” my husband assured me. I never saw that passport again. I later learnt that this was routinely done to foreign wives — perhaps to make it impossible for them to leave. Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.

In our two years together, my future husband had never once mentioned that his father had three wives and 21 children. Nor did he tell me that I would be expected to live as if I had been reared as an Afghan woman. I was supposed to lead a largely indoor life among women, to go out only with a male escort and to spend my days waiting for my husband to return or visiting female relatives, or having new (and very fashionable) clothes made.

In America, my husband was proud that I was a natural-born rebel and free thinker. In Afghanistan, my criticism of the treatment of women and of the poor rendered him suspect, vulnerable. He mocked my horrified reactions. But I knew what my eyes and ears told me. I saw how poor women in chadaris were forced to sit at the back of the bus and had to keep yielding their place on line in the bazaar to any man. How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam by Phyllis Chesler

Mark Alexander

”No military solution to Iraq”
THE TIMES: The new US commander in Iraq has admitted that insurgents have intensified their attacks during the security crackdown in Baghdad, as he warned that there was no military solution to the nation’s bloody conflict.

General David Petraeus, appointed last month to oversee the White House’s fresh plan for Iraq, said that his troops were limited in what they alone could achieve and that some of the militant groups causing violence in the country would have to be engaged in political discussions. No military solution to Iraq, warns new US commander

Mark Alexander

What the Mullahs and Ayatollahs don't want you to know about
The Gay Scene in Egypt
Part 1:



Part 2:



The Gay Scene in Iran
Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Iran: Have a sex change on us!



Mark Alexander

Greek and Turkish YouTube users trade insults on Web
A holding page on YouTube informs users in Turkey that "Access to this site has been denied by court order!"

A court in Istanbul has issued an order denying access to the video-sharing website YouTube. The state owned Turk Telecom implemented the ban today after an escalating dispute between Greek and Turkish users of the site.

The court order was issued yesterday and most internet users logging onto the site in Turkey are met with a holding page with a

Turkish message, which translates as: “Access to this site has been denied by court order ! ...”.

Greek and Turkish YouTube users have been trading video insults over the past few months, attracting much coverage in the Turkish press. Greek videos reportedly accused the founding president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of homosexuality; a Turkish user responded by calling Greece the birthplace of homosexuality. YouTube banned in Turkey after video insults by Nico Hines

Mark Alexander

Muslim protestor found guilty at the Old Bailey
A man demonstrating against cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed has been found guilty of soliciting to murder.

Abdul Muhid was convicted on two counts at the Old Bailey.

Muhid, from Whitechapel, east London, led the crowd in chanting "bomb, bomb the UK" and produced placards with slogans, the court heard. Cartoon protest man found guilty

Mark Alexander

Have German bishops gone over the top?
A group of German bishops sparked controversy yesterday when they compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis' maltreatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

The comments were made by the 27-strong German Bishops' Conference after its tour of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Several of the bishops were upset by the Jerusalem Wall, the 30ft high concrete barrier illegally built by Israel to separate Palestinian suburbs from the rest of the city.

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, said he had been particularly incensed. 



"This is something that is done to animals, not people," he said referring to the wall and heavily fortified checkpoints where Palestinians are subjected to intrusive questioning and demands for Israel-approved documentation.

The Archbishop was brought up in Communist-controlled East Germany.

"For me it is a nightmare. I didn't think I would see such a wall again in my life," he said.

"Just like they brought the Berlin Wall down, so too will this wall come down. It will not endure." German bishops compare Israel to the Nazis

Mark Alexander

Wafa Sultan on the Glenn Beck Show
Glenn Beck seems to think that Islam can be reformed. It is my belief that Islam cannot be reformed. Islam is what it is, and it will remain as it has always been. It would appear that Wafa Sultan is of the same opinion as I.

Islam hasn’t been reformed in over fourteen hundred years. In any case, how can a religion be reformed when not a single vowel in the Qur’an has been changed in all those 1400 years? The message of Islam has been written in stone, so to speak. Further, the Qur'an are thought, by Muslims, to be the actual words of Allah. Who would dare try and change those words? Devout Muslims would consider any such attempt to change the Qur'an to be sacrilege. This is hardly a good starting point for a reformation. Add to this the propensity of Muslim Arabs to accept things literally - Arabs are not given to abstract thought and metaphor – and we have a poor basis for change. ©Mark Alexander


Mark Alexander

Wafa Sultan Accepts Award at Secular Islam Summit


Mark Alexander

Secular Islam Summit: The St. Petersburg Declaration


Mark Alexander