Sunday, April 03, 2011
KHALEEJ TIMES ONLINE: The UAE’s population has grown exponentially to 8.26 million in mid-2010, a growth of 64.5% in four years, as strong economic growth attracted workers from all over the world.
According to latest population estimates put out by the National Bureau of Statistics on last Thursday, the population of Emiratis have increased by 96,833 to 947,997, or 11.47 per cent, in the last four years.
The bureau has based its estimates on administrative records of the Ministry of Interior and data on births and deaths obtained from the Ministry of Health.
Abu Dhabi, the largest emirate in terms of land mass, has the biggest population of 404,546, or 42 per cent, of the UAE nationals also. » | Saturday, April 02, 2011
KUWAIT TIMES: ANKARA: Turkey plans to build a coastal nuclear power plant close to an earthquake-prone area, dismissing neighbors' fears that Japan's nuclear disaster shows that the new plant could be a risk to the whole Mediterranean region. Greece and Cyprus say the move is a gamble that could cause catastrophe and want the European Union to scrutinize the EU candidate's plan in a debate fraught with political and historical baggage. Turkish officials insist the plant is safe and necessary to keep the country's strong economy going. » | Sunday, April 03, 2011
KUWAIT TIMES: MUSCAT: Omani police shot dead a protester yesterday in the port of Sohar, north of Muscat when they opened fire to disperse demonstrators demanding the release of prisoners, witnesses told AFP. It was the second death in the port during the current wave of unrest sweeping across the region, after police killed a protester at the end of February in Sohar, an industrial area some 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the capital Muscat, particularly badly hit by unemployment.
Police tried to disperse a crowd of protestors who were hurling stones at them and fired on the crowd when the victim was hit, a witness said. "Dozens of Omanis emerged from mosques in Sohar after Friday prayers to protest and demand the release of jailed relatives" detained during protests earlier this week, one witness said. "One protester, Khalifa Al-Alawi, was hit in the head by a bullet during confrontations with the police and died immediately," the witness said. » | Saturday, April 02, 2011
KUWAIT TIMES: MUSCAT: Security forces detained between 50 and 60 protesters in clashes in the Omani industrial town of Sohar, witnesses said. The violence on Friday during a fifth week of protests involved the use of knives, stones, teargas and rubber bullets, Oman's general prosecutor said. It came three days after a crackdown against protesters to clear a Sohar roundabout where about 100 people had camped out. A 25-year-old man injured by a rubber bullet in Friday's clashes died in hospital. Activists told Reuters security forces used teargas and beat some protesters with batons. » | Sunday, April 03, 2011
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Terry Jones, the radical pastor who oversaw the burning of a Koran in his Florida church last month after a mock court hearing, may put the Islamic prophet Mohammed on trial in his next 'day of judgement', he told The Sunday Telegraph.
"It is definitely a consideration to stage a trial on the life of Mohammed in the future," he said in interview on Saturday.
Such an inflammatory move would almost certainly trigger further violent protests in the Muslim world. But Mr Jones struck an unapologetic stance, insisting that his actions bore no responsibility for the murders in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The pastor had first threatened to burn a pile of Korans on last year's ninth anniversary of the Sept 11 terror atrocities.
But he backed down under intense pressure, including interventions from President Barack Obama, defence secretary Robert Gates and Gen David Petraeus, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan who warned that such a stunt would endanger American lives.
Indeed, Mr Jones said then that a Koran would never be burned in his church.
But he claimed that last month's Koran-burning was different as the Islamic holy book had first been put on trial and was then set alight as punishment after it was found guilty of "crimes against humanity". » | Philip Sherwell | Saturday, April 02, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: As his country erupted in the kind of unrest not seen in Syria for nearly 30 years, Bashar al-Assad last week gave the impression of a leader plagued by self-doubt, dithering as the tide of history threatened to wash over him.Only two months before, the Syrian president had seemed so much more sure-footed, confidently predicting that the wave of revolution sweeping aside the old order elsewhere in the Middle East would never reach his shores.
But his own people, drawing inspiration from their Arab brethren to take on one of the region's most repressive regimes, confounded him.
On the streets, Mr Assad's forces responded in predictable fashion. In the south, in and around the dusty city of Deraa, protesters were mown down in their scores.
North of Damascus, in the coastal city of Latakia close to the tribal seat of the Assad family, loyalist snipers took up positions on rooftops and balconies to pick of unarmed demonstrators one by one.
Yet of the president himself there was no sign. A man whose every move, no matter how insignificant or mundane, is normally covered in breathless tones by state television appeared to have vanished at precisely the moment many of his people yearned to see him. » | Loveday Morris | Saturday, 02 April 2011
THE ECONOMIST: Religion is a growing force in the Arab awakening. Westerners should hold their nerve and trust democracyTHE sight of corrupt old Arab tyrants being toppled at the behest of a new generation of young idealists, inspired by democracy, united by Facebook and excited by the notion of opening up to a wider world, has thrilled observers everywhere. Those revolutions are still in full swing, albeit at different points in the cycle. In Tunisia and Egypt they are going the right way, with a hopeful new mood prevailing and free elections in the offing. In Libya, Syria and Yemen dictators are clinging on to power, with varying degrees of success. And in the Gulf monarchs are struggling to fend off demands for democracy with oil-funded largesse topped by modest and grudging political concessions.
So far these revolts have appeared to be largely secular in character. Westerners have been quietly relieved by that. Not that they are all against religion. Many—Americans in particular—are devout. But by and large, they prefer their own variety to anybody else’s, and since September 11th 2001, they have been especially nervous about Islam.
Now, however, there are signs that Islam is a growing force in the Arab revolutions (see article). That makes secular-minded and liberal people, both Arabs and Westerners, queasy. They fear that the Arab awakening might be hijacked by the sort of Islamists who reject a pluralist version of democracy, oppress women and fly the flag of jihad against Christians and Jews. They worry that the murderous militancy that has killed 30,000 over the past four years in Pakistan (see article) may emerge in the Arab world too. Islam on the rise » | Leaders | Thursday, March 31, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: Violence mars demonstration in Afghan city the day after mob killed seven at UN compoundNine people have been killed and 81 injured in the Afghan city of Kandahar during a demonstration against the burning of a Qur'an by Christian extremists in the US.
Violence erupted as hundreds of demonstrators marched through Kandahar a day after seven foreigners were killed when an angry mob stormed a United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. Hundreds of people took part in the protest. Gunfire was heard and cars were set on fire.
In a statement, the Kandahar governor's office claims demonstrators were incited by the Taliban. Authorities say 17 people, including seven armed men, have been arrested.
But the Taliban have rejected the accusation. "The Taliban had nothing to do with this, it was a pure act of responsible Muslims," spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Reuters.
The UN mission in Afghanistan has been plunged into jeopardy after the violent protest in Mazar-e Sharif. » | David Batty and agencies | Saturday, April 02, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: On April 11th the French Republic will give birth to two new crimes: hiding one’s face in public and encouraging another to hide her face. On March 2nd the prime minister sent a circular to the head of each of France’s regional departments to explain the rationale of the new law. “The French Republic,” he proclaimed, “does not live with a hidden face.”
While the French president has made it clear that Muslim women who hide their faces are not welcome in France, the new law is not limited to Muslims. For the French government now believes that “to hide the face breaches minimal needs of social life.”
So on April 11th hiding one’s face in public will become a misdemeanor, with a €150 fine and/or civic training to teach the criminal the need to show her face. The prosecutor must prove that (a) the face was hidden and (b) the person was in a public space. He need not show intent to violate the law. If one encourages another to hide her face, one risks a year in prison and a €30,000 fine, two years and a €60,000 fine if the person encouraged is under 18. » | Ronald Sokol* | I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor | Friday, April 01, 2011
*Ronald Sokol is a lawyer in Aix-en-Provence, France. He taught at the University of Virginia Law School and is the author of “Justice after Darwin.”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: BBC presenter Michael Buerk has criticised the corporation for being "out of touch" with public opinion.The veteran journalist accused BBC staff of making the left-wing Guardian newspaper their “bible” and political correctness "their creed”.
Mr Buerk, who presents Radio 4’s Moral Maze, was reviewing the memoir of his former colleague, Peter Sissons, who also attacks the BBC for having “institutional bias”.
Writing in political magazine Standpoint, Mr Buerk said: “What the BBC regards as normal and abnormal, what is moderate or extreme, where the centre of gravity of an issue lies, are conditioned by the common set of assumptions held by the people who work for it.” Continue reading and comment » | Saturday, April 02, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: BAGHDAD — The violent suppression of the uprising in Bahrain has become a Shiite rallying cry in Iraq, where the American war overturned a Sunni-dominated power structure much like the one in place in Bahrain.Ahmad Chalabi, an erstwhile American partner in the period before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a Shiite member of Parliament, on Friday denounced what he called a double standard in the Western powers’ response to the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East — particularly in Bahrain, where a Sunni minority dominates a vast and restive underclass made up of his Shiite brethren.
“They called for international action in Libya,” Mr. Chalabi said in a meeting hall on the grounds of his farm outside Baghdad. “But they kept their mouths shut with what is happening in Bahrain.”
The Iraqi Parliament briefly suspended its work to protest Bahrain’s crackdown on largely peaceful protesters, and the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, also a Shiite, recently said in an interview with the BBC that the events in Bahrain could unleash a regional sectarian war like the one that menaced Iraq just a few years ago. » | Tim Arango | Friday, April 01, 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Before a Koran was burned at his modest church here on March 20, the pastor Terry Jones held a self-styled mock trial of the holy book in which he presided from the pulpit as judge. The prosecutor was a Christian who had converted from Islam. An imam from Dallas defended the Koran.Sitting in judgment was a jury of 12 members of Mr. Jones’s church, the Dove World Outreach Center. After listening to arguments from both sides, the jury pronounced the Koran guilty of five “crimes against humanity,” including the promotion of terrorist acts and “the death, rape and torture of people worldwide whose only crime is not being of the Islamic faith.”
Punishment was determined by the results of an online poll. Besides burning, the options included shredding, drowning and facing a firing squad. Mr. Jones, a nondenominational evangelical pastor, said voters had chosen to set fire to the book, according to a video of the proceedings.
Mr. Jones said in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Friday that he was “devastated” by the killings of 12 people in a violent protest in Afghanistan when a mob, enraged by the burning of a Koran by Mr. Jones’s church, attacked the United Nations compound in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. “We don’t feel responsible for that,” he told the news service. » | Lizette Alvarez and Don Van Natta Jr. | Friday, April 01, 2011
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