Österreichische Staatsbürgerschaft immer seltener verliehen
DIE PRESSE: Nach der Verschärfung des Staatsbürgerschafts-Rechts durch die alte Koalition wird die österreichische Staatsbürgerschaft immer seltener verliehen. Im ersten Quartal 2007 wurden um zwei Drittel weniger Personen eingebürgert, als im ersten Quartal 2006. Zahl der Einbürgerungen sinkt weiter stark (mehr)

Mark Alexander

Jalal Talabani: Too Well-Fed By Half
KUWAIT TIMES: BAGHDAD: Tired and battling obesity, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani flew to the United States yesterday for rest and help in tackling his weight problem. Talabani, in his early 70s, left from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya in northeastern Iraq for a trip that could take several weeks. His office denied local media reports that Talabani was suffering from any specific illness and said he was in general good health apart from his weight.

It issued a statement quoting the president from a news conference on May 15. "I don't have any health problems except my obesity and I will treat it, God willing," the statement quoted Talabani as saying. "I will go ... to the United States of America to undergo general medical checks to reduce my weight." The former Kurdish rebel leader returned to his office in mid-March after two weeks in a Jordanian hospital, vowing that he was with Iraqis "until the final breath". Overweight Iraqi president heads to US to lose weight(more)

Mark Alexander

Everyone, Regardless of Faith, Will Soon Have to Eat Halal in the UK as Multinationals Target the Untapped Muslim Market
TIMESONLINE: McDonald’s has been testing halal chicken burgers at its diner in Southall, West London. Boots is running a trial of halal baby food in 30 stores. Tesco, which, like other supermarkets, sells meat certified by Islamic organisations at some stores, is looking to include new products, such as ready meals. All are chasing what could be, according to the advertising agency JWT, Britain’s biggest untapped niche market.

A survey commissioned by JWT, believed to be the first of its kind to focus on the needs of two million Muslim consumers in the UK, says that businesses should strive to understand Islam and how the religion influences its followers’ spending habits.

The agency argues that the Muslim market in the UK is certain to grow: it comprises 3 per cent of the population, is Britain’s second-largest faith group and has the youngest age profile. Although Muslims are among the most deprived groups in Britain, collectively they have an estimated spending power of £20.5 billion. There are also more than 5,000 Muslim millionaires holding assets worth at least £3.6 billion. Business is urged to see opportunity in Muslim community (more)

Mark Alexander

Carter “increasingly irrelevant”, says White House

Photo of Jimmy Carter courtesy of Google Images

BBC: The White House has dismissed former US President Jimmy Carter as "increasingly irrelevant", following his sharp criticism of President George W Bush.

Mr Carter on Saturday said the administration's impact on the world had made it "the worst in history".

A White House spokesman responded by saying that Mr Carter had engaged in "reckless personal criticism". White House hits back at Carter (more)

Mark Alexander

Demonstrations for Secularism in Turkey Again
BBC: Tens of thousands of Turks have massed in the city of Samsun in the latest demonstration in support of secularism.

The crowds waved national flags and chanted slogans opposing any change to Turkey's secular political model.

The protest in Samsun, a port on the Black Sea, followed huge rallies in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. New rally for Turkish secularism (more)

NZZ:
Erneut Grossdemonstration in der Türkei: Kundgebung gegen Islamisierung

Mark Alexander

Italian University Closes Because of Holocaust Denial
BBC: An Italian university has closed down one of its campuses to prevent a planned lecture by a controversial French professor and Holocaust denier.

Robert Faurisson has been convicted five times in France for denying crimes against humanity.

He was due to speak at the University of Teramo in central Italy as part of a Masters course in Middle East studies.

But the university decided to close part of the campus to prevent him addressing students.

It said the "climate of tension" might endanger the safety of its students. University shut in Holocaust row (more)

Mark Alexander

The Rôle of Saudi Women: A Non-Committal Response from a Non-Committal Saudi Princess

Mark Alexander

Wafa Sultan dit la verité sur l’islam


TIME:
Wafa Sultan By Asra Q Nomani

NYT:
For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats

WAFA SULTAN.ORG:
Wafa Sultan

MEMRI.ORG:
Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century

Mark Alexander

Identität zu definieren: Ist es die Rolle des Staates?
DIE PRESSE: Es sei nicht die Rolle des Staates, die Identität zu definieren. Außenminister Kouchner wurde aus der PS ausgeschlossen.

Einen Tag nach der Bekanntgabe der neuen französischen Regierung ist bereits ein Streit um das neue Ministerium für Immigration und nationale Identität entbrannt. Menschenrechtsvereinigungen warnten am Samstag vor einer "Ausländerfeindlichkeit per Gesetz". Aus Protest gegen das neue Ministerium traten acht der zwölf Historiker zurück, die im Komitee des Museums für Immigration saßen.

"Es ist nicht die Rolle eines demokratischen Staates, die Identität zu definieren", erklärten die Historiker. "Die Nennung der beiden Begriffe Immigration und nationale Identität in einem Atemzug ist nicht zu akzeptieren." Frankreich: Streit um Ministerium für Immigration (mehr)

Mark Alexander

Saudi Arabien: Gnade von den Richtern
SPIEGELONLINE: Rettung in buchstäblich letzter Minute wurde einem Todeskandidaten in Saudi-Arabien zuteil. Der Mann sollte enthauptet werden. Als der Henker schon das Schwert zückte, fand der Verurteilte Gnade vor den Richtern. Enthauptung in letzter Minute gestoppt (mehr)

Mark Alexander

Asmaa Stokes Controversy in Denmark with Her Hijab Demands
KUWAIT TIMES: COPENHAGEN: With a headscarf elegantly draped over her hair, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Palestinian-born Dane, has sparked a heated debate in Denmark by declaring that she would wear her veil in parliament if elected in 2009. A member of the ex-communist Unity List, Abdol-Hamid has a good chance of becoming what could be the first veiled Muslim in Europe to be voted into parliament. The 25-year-old social worker and former television host from the Danish city of Odense is known for her commitment to politics and equal rights, as well as her headscarf and her refusal to shake hands with men. But the prospect of a woman in parliament wearing the traditional headscarf, or hijab, has further disrupted sensitibilities in Denmark, a country still shaken by last year's Mohammed cartoons row that swelled from a domestic Danish affair into a worldwide crisis pitting Muslim values against Western ideals. Headscarf controversy rocks Denmark’s election Campaign (more)

Mark Alexander

Enge Beziehung zwischen London und Washington wird unter Druck kommen
SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG: Großbritanniens designierter Premierminister Gordon Brown will Zeitungsangaben zufolge eine Kehrtwende in der Irak-Politik vollziehen und die britischen Soldaten rasch abziehen. Die Position der USA dürfte damit stark geschwächt werden.

US-Präsident George W. Bush sei von Beratern gewarnt worden, dass der Nachfolger von Tony Blair bereit sei, die traditionell besonders engen Beziehungen zwischen London und Washington durch einen baldigen Abzug der bislang noch 7100 britischen Soldaten zu gefährden, berichtete die konservative Zeitung The Sunday Telegraph. Panik im Weißen Haus (mehr)

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH:
Bush gets ready for Iraq U-turn by Brown

Mark Alexander

Tout n’est pas rose pour les gays: “Les gays ont des difficultés à progresser dans une structure hiérarchique traditionnelle…”, souligne Ben Summerskill de Stonewall
LE MONDE: Peu regardante sur l'origine des richesses qu'elle gère à bon escient, la City a toujours été une "vieille dame permissive". En revanche, la première place financière européenne se montre stricte en matière de moeurs, en particulier sur l'homosexualité. Dans la haute finance, le gay n'est pas toujours rose. La mésaventure survenue à Lord Browne, contraint de quitter le 1er mai la direction générale du géant des hydrocarbures BP après la révélation par la presse tabloïde d'une liaison avec un prostitué, souligne la persistance de l'homophobie ordinaire dans la vie britannique des affaires.

Les penchants de M. Browne étaient certes connus du microcosme industriel. La presse présentait le patron de la troisième compagnie pétrolière au monde comme "un célibataire endurci", façon de dire sans le dire qu'il était gay. Mais l'intéressé avait choisi de ne jamais parler de sa vie privée aux médias. S'il avait avoué son homosexualité, Lord Browne n'aurait jamais pu gagner l'ultime marche du piédestal de la multinationale. En effet, rares sont les patrons britanniques à avoir franchi le pas en avouant leur orientation sexuelle. Ceux qui en ont eu le courage étaient en fin de carrière, comme le président fondateur de la compagnie aérienne BMI, Michael Bishop, ou étaient des entrepreneurs, à l'instar de Lord Alli, le magnat de l'audiovisuel. Homophobie ordinaire à la City, par Marc Roche (encore)

Mark Alexander

Iran’s Global Ambitions
THE BOSTON GLOBE: Iran, in its effort to become a regional and global power, is reaching out across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, exhorting Muslims worldwide to tolerate their differences -- and march under one Islamic banner.

TEHRAN -- Hamid Almolhoda, deputy director of the Center for Rapprochement of Islamic Schools of Thought, wears the white turban of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric. His budget comes from the world's only Shi'ite theocracy, the Iranian government, better known for bristling revolutionary rhetoric than for sunny public outreach. But Almolhoda's message of brotherhood wouldn't sound out of place at an ecumenical church breakfast.

His mission, approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government, is to convince the world's Muslims that the increasingly violent divide between Sunnis and Shi'ites -- on lurid display in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East -- is no big deal, just a matter of minor theological differences.

"Let's cooperate on what we have in common," he says. "Regarding our differences of opinion, we can tolerate each other."

In a campaign that is little-noticed in the West, Iran is trying to convince Sunni Muslims that Shi'ism, the form of Islam practiced by 90 percent of Iranians but only 20 percent of Muslims worldwide, is not the heresy that many Sunni hard-liners have branded it, nor a dangerous subversion of their faith, but just another legitimate school of thought within a unified Islam. Across the divide (more)

Mark Alexander

Hans Küng: The Dreamer
Hans Küng is the Catholic who wants to unite all religions
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Tony Blair will “declare himself Roman Catholic” once he leaves Downing Street. That’s the reported view of Father Michael Seed, who is without peer in luring high-profile figures into the church. But another Catholic priest, hundred of miles away in the German town of Tübingen, may yet have a far more influential role in Blair’s future.

Professor Hans Küng is widely regarded as the most influential living Christian theologian. Although, where the Vatican is concerned, for influential read dangerous: after his 1971 book questioning the doctrine of papal infallibility Küng was stripped of his licence to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian. The turbulent high priest who has Blair’s ear (more) By Martin Wroe

Mark Alexander

The French Prime Minister’s Wife
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: “I'm just a country peasant, this is not my natural habitat," laughs Penelope Fillon. It seems a somewhat unlikely claim from a woman who is this weekend moving into the Hotel Matignon, the 18th-century official residence of the French prime minister.

And yet there is no denying that Mrs Fillon, whose husband François has been elevated to the office by France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has come a long way. She was raised Penelope Kathryn Clarke, in a large and close-knit family in Abergavenny. She’ll always have Paris… (more)

Hôtel Matignon: The residence of the Prime Minister of France >>>

An inside view of the salon >>>

Wikipedia: Hôtel Matignon >>>

Presidentielles : François Fillon soutien Nicolas Sarkozy

Photo of St Bartholemew's Church at Llanover where the Fillons were marriedMark Alexander

Bloomberg Ruffles Some Feathers Over Guns
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire mayor of New York who is considering a self-financed run for president as an independent, is lauded in his home city for the crackdown on guns that has helped slash crime there.

But firearms enthusiasts who gathered at a "Bloomberg Gun Giveaway" near Washington last week had a very different view. In a show of defiance, the Virginia Citizens Defence Group, a gun rights lobby, was raffling tickets for weapons to support two local gun dealers who are being sued for alleged illegal arms sales. Gun lobby takes aim at ‘Yankee’ Bloomberg (more) By Philip Sherwell

Mark Alexander

The Neocons Sail Into the Night
Paul Wolfowitz’s departure from the World Bank signals the end of an ideological era in Washington

THE SUNDAY TIMES: As Tony Blair was bidding farewell to President George W Bush in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the World Bank was preparing to kick out Paul Wolfowitz as president. Allies to the left and right in the Iraq war were falling by the wayside that day.

Was he responsible for Blair’s departure from office, Bush was asked. There had to be a reason why a prime minister who had never lost an election was being dumped. “Could be . . . I don’t know,” the president mused above the distant chant of war protesters outside the White House gates.

And what did he make of Wolfowitz’s likely resignation? “I respect him a lot and I’m sorry it has come to this,” Bush said, leaving the World Bank head to his fate. Decline and fall off the neocons (more) By Sarah Baxter

Mark Alexander

Evil Behind the Veil

Photo courtesy of the GLOBE AND MAIL

This is the sinister ‘face’ of Islam: Women have to hide their faces and their identity in Islam; and this allows them to perpetrate all kinds of evil deeds in the name of Islam. How much easier it is to do bad things, to commit evil deeds, when we can hide our faces!

©Mark Alexander

Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s Foreign Minister: Removing a Country From the Map is Not Possible

Photo of Manouchehr Mottaki courtesy of Google Images

HAARETZ: Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday that no country could be removed from the map, contradicting a previous statement made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

"Every primary school student knows that it is not possible to remove a country from the map and that is very clear," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a conference in Jordan when asked about Ahmadinejad's controversial remarks. Iranian FM: It isn’t possible to remove a country from the map (more)

Mark Alexander