Die Reise des Gläubigen | IMANTALK

Uns besuchte Martin der Leiter vom Projekt "Betreuung Neuer Muslime". Der Konvertit sprach über seine Shahada im Jahr 2006, warum er den Weg zum Islam gefunden hat und was ihm besonders als Neuer Muslim gefehlt hat. Deswegen betreut Martin jetzt neue Muslime bei IMAN und besucht mit die Reise des Gläubigen, wo neuen Muslime eine persönliche Betreuung angeboten wird. Wie das aussieht erzählt er uns bei #IMANTALK

Dies ist ein interessantes Gespräch mit einem Österreicher aus Wien, der sich vor etlichen Jahren zum Islam bekehrte. Er spricht über sein neues Leben und Glauben als Muslim. – ©Mark

UK Banks Given Six Months to Prepare for Negative Interest Rates

THE GUARDIAN: Bank of England’s monetary policy committee votes to keep rate at 0.1% but gives banks six-month deadline

The Bank of England took a step closer to introducing negative interest rates for the first time on Thursday, after it gave lenders six months to prepare for such a move.

Threadneedle Street’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted unanimously to keep the official interest rate at historically low levels while it agreed to set the deadline for banks to prepare themselves after policymakers said they were ready to make negative lending rates part of their toolkit.

According to the minutes of the MPC meeting, officials were split over asking lenders to put in place the measures needed to facilitate negative rates on loans and mortgages, with some fearing it would signal to investors that the central bank planned to move ahead in the next few months. » | Phillip Inman | Thursday, February 4, 2021

The Caliph P1: Foundation | Featured Documentary

The Caliph - Part 1: Foundation - Featured Documentary

For almost 13 centuries, from the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 to the overthrow of the last Ottoman caliph in 1924, the Islamic world was ruled by a caliph.

Translated from the Arabic ‘Khalifa’, the word ‘caliph’ means successor or deputy. The caliph was considered the successor to the Prophet Muhammad.

It is a term that has, at times, been abused.

In June 2014, a militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (known as ISIL or ISIS) declared the establishment of a caliphate and proclaimed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a caliph. This proclamation was rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world’s Muslims.

ISIL had attempted to appropriate a title imbued with religious and political significance – and in doing so had cast a dark shadow over a rich history.

This is the story of the caliph, a title that originated 1,400 years ago and that spanned one of the greatest empires the world has ever known.

In this episode of the Caliph, Al Jazeera tells the story of the caliphate, providing a fascinating insight into how the first caliphs of Islam built and expanded their empire.

Director: Husein Alrazzaz

Conway: We're Watching Moral Collapse of Republican Party

CNN's Anderson Cooper speaks with conservative lawyer George Conway about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has pushed continued claims of election fraud and conspiracy theories about school shootings and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, CNN's Ryan Nobles reports on what actions the Republican Party may take against Taylor Greene.

Canada Designates Proud Boys as Terrorist Organization beside Isis and Al-Qaida

THE GUARDIAN: Move follows allegations that the rightwing group played a role in the mob attack on the US Capitol in January

Canada has designated the far-right Proud Boys group as a terrorist organization alongside Isis and al-Qaida, amid growing concerns over the spread of white supremacist groups in the country.

On Wednesday Bill Blair, public safety minister, also announced the federal government would designate the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups the Atomwaffen Division, the Base and the Russian Imperial Movement as terrorist entities. The federal government also added offshoots of al-Qaida, Isis and Hizbul Mujahedin to its list.

“Canada will not tolerate ideological, religious or politically motivated acts of violence,” Blair said. » | Leyland Cecco in Toronto | Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Jeff Bezos to Step Down as Amazon Chief Executive

BBC: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is to step down as chief executive of the e-commerce giant that he founded in his garage nearly 30 years ago.

He will become executive chairman, a move he said would give him "time and energy" to focus on his other ventures.

Mr Bezos, the world's richest man, will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud computing business.

The change will take place in the second half of 2021, the company said.

"Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it's consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it's hard to put attention on anything else," Mr Bezos said in an [sic] letter to Amazon staff on Tuesday.

"As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions."

"I've never had more energy, and this isn't about retiring. I'm super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have," he added. » | BBC | Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Russland: Kreml-Kritiker Nawalny zu mehr als zwei Jahren Straflager verurteilt | WELT Analyse

Der Kreml-Kritiker Alexej Nawalny ist in Russland zu mehr als zwei Jahren Haft in einem Straflager verurteilt worden. Das zuständige Gericht in Moskau entschied am Dienstag, dass der 44-Jährige eine bereits verhängte dreieinhalbjährige Bewährungsstrafe nun in einer Strafkolonie ableisten müsse. Allerdings werde ein früherer Hausarrest von der Zeit abgezogen.

Die im Hausarrest verbrachte Zeit gelte als abgeleistete Haftstrafe, sagte Richterin Natalja Repnikowa. Nach Angaben von Nawalnys Team würde dies etwa zweieinhalb Jahre Haft im Straflager für ihn bedeuten. Das Gericht machte zur genauen Zeitspanne zunächst keine Angaben.

Unmittelbar nach Bekanntgabe des Urteils riefen Anhänger des wichtigsten Widersachers von Präsident Wladimir Putin zu einer sofortigen Demonstration in Moskau auf. "Wir ziehen ins Zentrum von Moskau", schrieben sie im Online-Dienst Twitter und riefen die Menschen auf, sich ihnen anzuschließen.

Nawalny hatte sich in der Anhörung vehement gegen eine drohende Gefängnisstrafe gewehrt und die Russen zum weiteren Widerstand aufgerufen. Hauptziel des juristischen Vorgehens gegen ihn sei es, "Millionen Menschen Angst einzujagen", sagte der 44-Jährige vor Gericht.

Nawalny war 2014 wegen des Vorwurfs der Unterschlagung zu dreieinhalb Jahren Haft verurteilt worden, die Strafe wurde aber zur Bewährung ausgesetzt. Diese Aussetzung auf Bewährung wurde nun zurückgezogen, weil Nawalny gegen Bewährungsauflagen verstoßen haben soll.

Nawalny war direkt nach seiner Rückkehr aus Deutschland in sein Heimatland am 17. Januar am Flughafen in Moskau festgenommen und im Eilverfahren zu 30 Tagen Haft verurteilt worden. Es war eine von bereits mehreren kürzeren Haftstrafen gegen Nawalny, lange Zeitstrecken wie die nun drohenden zweieinhalb Jahre war er aber noch nie in Haft.

Die Festnahme am Moskauer Flughafen hatten die russischen Behörden bereits mit Verstößen gegen Bewährungsauflagen begründet: Nawalny sei unter anderem während seines Aufenthalts in Deutschland seiner Pflicht nicht nachgekommen, sich zweimal monatlich bei den Behörden zu melden. In Deutschland war der 44-Jährige nach einem Giftanschlag in Sibirien behandelt worden, durch den er beinahe getötet worden wäre und für den er den Kreml verantwortlich macht.

Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Jailed for Two Years and Eight Months

THE GUARDIAN: Court locks up Putin’s foe despite threat of protests and international condemnation

A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure.

Navalny, who has accused the Russian president and his allies of stealing billions, was jailed for violating parole from a 2014 sentence for embezzlement in a case he has said was politically motivated.

The court’s decision makes Navalny the most prominent political prisoner in Russia and may be the most important verdict against a foe of Putin’s since the 2005 jailing of the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

After a judge read the verdict, subtracting the 10 months he had spent under house arrest from his original three-and-a-half-year sentence, Navalny and his wife Yulia stared at each other across the court room. She took off her mask, smiled, waved, and then shrugged. “Don’t be sad! Everything’s going to be alright!” he yelled to her. She declined to comment as she walked out of the courtroom, looking straight ahead.

Minutes before he had drawn a heart on the glass surrounding the dock as a message to her. » | Andrew Roth in Moscow | Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Impeachment Managers: 'Trump’s Responsibility for the Events of January 6 Is Unmistakable'

THE GUARDIAN: The House impeachment managers have filed a brief outlining their argument for Donald Trump’s conviction ahead of the former president’s second Senate impeachment trial.

“In a grievous betrayal of his Oath of Office, President Trump incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol during the Joint Session, thus impeding Congress’s confirmation of Joseph R. Biden, Jr. as the winner of the presidential election,” the brief says. “President Trump’s responsibility for the events of January 6 is unmistakable.” » | Joan E Greve (now) and Martin Belam (earlier) | Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Americans Smoking More Cigarettes during COVID-19 Pandemic

NEW YORK POST: Smoking has made a comeback as the stress of the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll — with cigarette sales rebounding in 2020.

Sales rose by 0.4 percent last year — reversing a decades-long steady decline — as people in lockdown lit up more often and vapers switched back to tobacco over health concerns, according to data released by Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc.

Bored Americans who weren’t able to travel or dine out regularly also had more disposable income to spend on smoke sticks, the tobacco maker said.

An FDA spokeswoman said changes in cigarette smoking can’t be tied to one specific event, but admitted the pandemic has played a role.

“COVID-19 has created a drastic change in daily life, including increased stress and anxiety, that may contribute to a smaller-than-expected reduction in cigarette sales,” she told the Wall Street Journal. » | Jesse O'Neill | Friday, January 19, 2021

Notturno, Op. 27: No. 2 in D-Flat Major

Notturno, Op. 27: No. 2 in D-Flat Major · Maurizio Mastrini | Chopin & Liszt: Immortal Piano

Truss: Asia Pacific Countries 'Where the Big Markets Are'

BBC: International trade secretary Liz Truss says Asia Pacific countries "will provide big markets" in the future for British products.

The UK is applying to join a free trade area made up of 11 Asia and Pacific nations, under its post-Brexit plans. » | BBC | Sunday, January 31, 2021

Dumb is as dumb does! – Mark

In Russia, Economic Slump Erodes Consensus That Shielded Putin

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The rally-around-the-flag effect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s assertive foreign policy known as the Crimea consensus is unraveling with the economy.

KALININGRAD, Russia — Aleksandr Dobralsky took to the streets to protest the arrest this past month of Russia’s most prominent opposition leader. But he had other grievances as well.

“It’s like somebody stepped on your toe and said, ‘Just be patient with this for a little while,’” Mr. Dobralsky, a lawyer, said of the country’s economic woes. “How can you just wait for it to be over?”

Opinion polls have for a few years been tracking a pivot in the national mood, away from what was called the “Crimea consensus” of wide support for President Vladimir V. Putin for annexing the Ukrainian peninsula. Now, people are focused on their disappointment over slumping wages and pensions.

In Russia, the competition between the rally-around-the-flag effect of Mr. Putin’s assertive foreign policy and anger over the sagging economy is often referred to as the battle between the television and the refrigerator: Do Russians pay attention to the patriotic news on TV or notice their empty fridges? » | Andrew E. Kramer | Sunday, January 31, 2021

Thousands Arrested at Fresh Protests in Support of Kremlin Critic Navalny

Chanting slogans against President Vladimir Putin, tens of thousands took to the streets Sunday across Russia to demand the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, keeping up nationwide protests that have rattled the Kremlin. More than 4,700 people were detained by police, according to a monitoring group, and some were beaten.

Much of Western Australia Goes into Five-day Lockdown after Hotel Guard Tests Positive to UK Covid Variant

THE GUARDIAN: Restrictions imposed in Perth, Peel and South West, with schools suspended and residents only allowed to leave home for essential reasons

Western Australia has imposed a five-day lockdown in metropolitan Perth, the Peel region and the state’s South West amid fears a hotel quarantine worker who has tested positive to Covid-19 has contracted the highly contagious UK variant.

The state premier, Mark McGowan, said the “full lockdown” would begin at 6pm on Sunday, meaning residents could only leave their homes for essential grocery shopping, medical reasons, to care for the vulnerable or exercise within their neighbourhood.

Schools were due to return on Monday but will now remain closed; masks will become mandatory during the lockdown’; and venues including bars, pubs, clubs, gyms and places of worship will need to close. Restaurants and cafes will be limited to takeaway service. Elective surgery has also been suspended. » | Luke Henriques-Gomes | Sunday, January 31, 2021

Brexit 'Teething Problems' Endemic and Could Ruin Us, Say UK Businesses

THE GUARDIAN: Ease of trading is key measure of success, say cross-channel businesses, not lack of lorry traffic

It was billed as a deal that would secure tariff-free access to the EU, that “sunlit uplands” would follow initial disruption to trade.

But one month since the Brexit trade deal came into force, businesses are warning that the “teething problems” Boris Johnson described in a visit to Scotland last week are in fact symptomatic of endemic disruption that will force many businesses to restructure and will mean the end of some British businesses altogether.

“The last month has been like Dante’s fifth circle of hell” for importers and exporters unable to move supplies because of new red tape, said Ben Fletcher, the policy director of Make UK, which represents manufacturers across the UK.

One internationally renowned car manufacturer had “1,000 cars sitting in their car park partially built because they could not get the parts in time,” said Fletcher. “They said this has never happened ever before.” » | Lisa O’Carroll, Brexit correspondent | Sunday, January 31, 2021

Brexit is for fossils and fools! – Mark

Paris, Shuttered, Must Be Imagined

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The pandemic has enshrouded and dimmed the City of Light. But there are many reasons to soldier through the fog.

PARIS — “We’ll always have Paris.” Turns out perhaps the most famous line in the movies was wrong.

Paris is gone for now, its lifeblood cut off by the closure of all restaurants, its nights silenced by a 6 p.m. curfew aimed at eliminating the national pastime of the aperitif, its cafe bonhomie lost to domestic morosity. Blight has taken the City of Light.

Taboos fall. People eat sandwiches in the drizzle on city benches. They yield — oh, the horror! — to takeout in the form of “le click-and-collect.” They dine earlier, an abominable Americanization. They contemplate with resignation the chalk-on-blackboard offerings of long-shuttered restaurants still promising a veal blanquette or a boeuf bourguignon. These menus are fossils from the pre-pandemic world.

Gone the museums, gone the tourist-filled riverboats plying the Seine, gone the sidewalk terraces offering their pleasures at dusk, gone the movie theaters, gone the casual delights of wandering and the raucous banter of the most northern of southern cities. In their place, a gray sadness has settled over the city like fog. » | Roger Cohen | Published: Saturday, January 30, 2021; Updated: Sunday, January 31, 2021

Amtsenthebung: Donald Trump verliert vor Verfahren seine Anwälte

ZEIT ONLINE: Kurz vor Beginn des Amtsenthebungsverfahrens muss sich der frühere US-Präsident laut Medienberichten neue Verteidiger suchen. Grund dafür seien strategische Differenzen.

Kurz vor Beginn des Amtsenthebungsverfahrens gegen Donald Trumpim Senat sind dem früheren US-Präsidenten Medienberichten zufolge seine Verteidiger abhanden gekommen. Wie unter anderem der Nachrichtensender CNN berichtete, würden die fünf vorgesehenen Anwälte den Republikaner in dem Verfahren nun doch nicht verteidigen. Unter ihnen seien auch die beiden Anwälte Butch Bowers und Deborah Barbier, die eigentlich Trumps Verteidigung im Senat hätten anführen sollen. » | Quelle: ZEIT ONLINE, dpa, AP, AFP, msk | Sonntag, 31. Januar 2021

Russie : plus de 4 400 arrestations lors d’une nouvelle journée de manifestations à l’appel de l’opposant Navalny

LE MONDE: Des rassemblements ont notamment eu lieu à Moscou, Saint-Pétersbourg et Iekaterinbourg. Selon l’Union des journalistes russes, au moins 35 professionnels de la presse ont été arrêtés.

Malgré la pression croissante des autorités russes, qui ont multiplié les mises en garde et les procédures judiciaires, les partisans d’Alexeï Navalny manifestaient, dimanche 31 janvier, lors d’une nouvelle journée de mobilisation pour appeler à la libération de l’opposant emprisonné. La police russe a déployé un important dispositif et fermé l’accès au centre de plusieurs villes pour empêcher les protestataires de participer à ces réunions non autorisées.

D’après l’organisation OVD-Info, spécialisée dans le suivi des manifestations, au moins 4 407 personnes ont été interpellées dans 85 villes, principalement à Moscou (1 357) et Saint-Pétersbourg (950). Selon l’Union des journalistes russes, au moins 35 professionnels de la presse ont été arrêtés. » | Le Monde avec AFP | dimanche 31 janvier 2021

Reputations - Coco Chanel

…There are some ”...missing sound clips - YouTube automatically strips out music/soundtracks that has copyright issues also stripping out the narration.” …