Friday, April 03, 2015
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Israeli Officials: Iran Deal an 'Historic Mistake'
Left and right in Israel were on Thursday night united in their opposition to the new framework agreement reached between Iran and six world powers on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Israeli government officials said that the framework deal will be remembered as a "historic mistake".
"If an agreement is reached on the basis of this framework, it is an historic mistake which will make the world far more dangerous," said the officials, briefing journalists on condition of anonymity.
"It is a bad framework which will lead to a bad and dangerous agreement. The framework gives international legitimacy to Iran's nuclear program, the only aim of which is to produce a nuclear bomb," they added. » | Elad Benari | Friday, April 03, 2015
Obama’s Folly in Iran Needs a Page from Reagan’s Playbook
The administration won’t portray it that way, of course. They will say they have succeeded in slowing down Iran’s program. They will offer the usual Obama straw man argument -- it’s a choice between this deal and war with Iran. And nobody wants another war in the Middle East. » | K. T. McFarland | Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Iran Militia Chief: Destroying Israel Is ‘Nonnegotiable’
The commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable,” according to an Israel Radio report Tuesday.
Militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatened Saudi Arabia, saying that the offensive it is leading in Yemen “will have a fate like the fate of Saddam Hussein.”
Naqdi’s comments were made public as Iran and six world powers prepared Tuesday to issue a general statement agreeing to continue nuclear negotiations in a new phase aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord by the end of June. » | Lazar Berman | Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
Boehner: Iran Has 'No Intention' of Keeping Its Word on Nuclear Deal
Iran has “no intention” of keeping its word on an agreement being negotiated in Switzerland over its nuclear programme, House speaker John Boehner said on Sunday.
The top Republican’s comments came as negotiations in Lausanne approached the 31 March deadline for the drafting of a framework for a deal, under intense criticism from Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
Speaking on CNN, Boehner said he had serious doubts about the talks. “We’ve got a regime that’s never quite kept their word about anything,” he said. “I just don’t understand why we would sign an agreement with a group of people who have no intention of keeping their word.”
If there was no agreement, Boehner said he would move “very” quickly to impose new sanctions on Iran.
“The sanctions are going to come and they are going to come quickly,” he said. » | Dominic Rushe in New York | Sunday, March 29, 2015
Rechtspopulist Geert Wilders in Wien: “Freie Ausreise für Jihadisten”
“Wenn ein Jihadist gehen will, lasst ihn gehen, aber hindert ihn, daran zurückzukehren”, sagte der Islamkritiker bei einer Pressekonferenz mit FPÖ-Bundesparteiobmann Heinz-Christian Strache in Wien.
Er wolle nicht, dass Jihadisten irgendwo Verbrechen begingen, aber wenn sie es schon tun müssten, “dann ist es mir lieber, die Verbrechen werden in Syrien oder im Irak begangen, als in meinem eigenen Land”, so der Niederländer. » | APA/Red | Freitag 27. März 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Salafismus in Deutschland
Gäste: Katharina Fegebank (Grüne Hamburg), Abdullah Uwe Wagishauser (Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat), Usman Naveed Ahmad (Imam aus Hannover) und Petra Loztkat (Amt für Arbeit und Integration in der Sozialbehörde) moderiert von Sami Khokhar.
Diese Sendung wurde am 02. Februar 2015 auf TIDE TV sowie Radio TIDE live ausgestrahlt.
Iran Nuclear Deal Progress: Sudden Thaw in Decade-long Atomic Standoff
EXCLUSIVE: Twisted Obsessions of Killer in Cockpit: Lubitz Trawled 'Dark Side' of the Web
The 27-year-old also had problems with his eyesight and tore up sick notes from his doctors after fearing his mental state could lose him his job.
Just weeks before crashing the Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 plane, killing 149 passengers, he had learned he could also face a big pay cut and changes to his company pension.
A police source in Dusseldorf said: “We have a team disassembling his computer, and that of his girlfriend, because the information that we received was that he trawled the dark side of the web visiting, among other things, sites containing gay porn, suicide themes and sexual perversions.”
Lubitz also endured the nickname “Tomato Andy”, a German term for repressed homosexuals and a dig at his previous job as a flight attendant.
Reports have suggested he was troubled by his sexuality and also seeking treatment for vision problems. Last year he scared a girlfriend with remarks that showed his mind was in a dark and secretive place. » | James Murray and James Fielding | Sunday, March 29, 2015
Andreas Lubitz's Father 'Devastated... a Man Whose Life Has Broken Down'
The father of the Germanwings co-pilot who allegedly deliberately crashed his plane into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board, is “devastated, completely shattered” by his son’s act, a French official who spoke to him said.
“He is carrying on his back the entire weight of the drama. He is a man whose life has broken down,” said Bernard Bartolini, the mayor of Prads-Haute-Bléone, a small town near the site of the crash.
The parents of Andreas Lubitz have not spoken in public since the crash on Tuesday. They were questioned by French police during their stay in France and German police were due to talk them when they returned to Germany.
Mr Bartolini said he met them when they visited the crash site and attended a memorial ceremony nearby on Thursday along with families of the passengers and crew who died. » | Rory Mulholland, in Paris | Saturday, March 28, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
The New Statesman Special Report - The Great Koran Con Trick
The news that a recent scientific paper on the common genetic roots of Jews and Palestinians had been suppressed by learned journals, because of the political sensitivity of its conclusions, made for depressing reading. Findings that might have provided reason for hope, or even for solidarity between the Arab and Israeli peoples, were instead considered too hot to handle.
The furore over the geneticists' discoveries will have come as no surprise to other academics in the Middle East and the Muslim world, where even the most apparently dispassionate research can be swept up in the blinding ideological sandstorms that choke reasoned dialogue. Such is the intensity of feeling that many who work in highly charged areas of scholar- ship - history and archaeology, for example - choose to keep a low profile, circulating their work only in trusted academic circles. Thus the censorship that plagues the Middle East seeps into every corner of intellectual life.
Nowhere is this more true than in the study of the origins of Islam, where some of the conclusions being drawn are potentially even more explosive than the argument that Israelis and Palestinians have common ancestors. Tucked away in the journals and occasional papers of the world of Islamic studies is work by a group of academics who have spent the past three decades plotting a quiet revolution in the study of the origins of the religion, the Koran and the life of the Prophet Mohammad. The conclusions of the so-called "new historians" of Islam are devastating: that we know almost nothing about the life of the Muslim prophet Mohammad; that the rapid rise of the religion can be attributed, at least in part, to the attraction of Islam's message of conquest and jihad for the tribes of the Arabian peninsula; that the Koran as we know it today was compiled, or perhaps even written, long after Mohammad's supposed death in 632AD. Most controversially of all, the researchers say that there existed an anti-Christian alliance between Arabs and Jews in the earliest days of Islam, and that the religion may be best understood as a heretical branch of rabbinical Judaism. » | Martin Bright | Monday, December 10, 2001
‘You Are Always Close to Me’: Unity Mitford’s Souvenirs of Hitler
The English aristocracy has had its fair share of misfits, and one of the most far-fetched was Unity Mitford. No novelist would dare invent the story of a young woman of 19 who settles in Germany in 1933, determines to captivate Hitler, and succeeds. Eva Braun, the long-term mistress whom Hitler married in the last days of his life, gives way in her diary to jealousy and spite. There is evidence provided either by Unity herself or Nazi officials that Hitler held her hand, stroked her hair and called her ‘Kind’ (child). During his preparation for world war in the summer of 1939, he found time to arrange for a Jewish couple to be dispossessed from their apartment in Munich in order for Unity to have it. He also paid various expenses. » | David Pryce-Jones | Saturday, March 28, 2015
Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Minister Has Dared to Tell the Truth about Saudi Arabia. What Happens Now Concerns Us All
If the cries of ‘Je suis Charlie’ were sincere, the western world would be convulsed with worry and anger about the Wallström affair. It has all the ingredients for a clash-of-civilisations confrontation.
A few weeks ago Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. As the theocratic kingdom prevents women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians, and as girls can be forced into child marriages where they are effectively raped by old men, she was telling no more than the truth. Wallström went on to condemn the Saudi courts for ordering that Raif Badawi receive ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for setting up a website that championed secularism and free speech. These were ‘mediaeval methods’, she said, and a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’. And once again, who can argue with that?
The backlash followed the pattern set by Rushdie, the Danish cartoons and Hebdo. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador and stopped issuing visas to Swedish businessmen. The United Arab Emirates joined it. The Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, which represents 56 Muslim-majority states, accused Sweden of failing to respect the world’s ‘rich and varied ethical standards’ — standards so rich and varied, apparently, they include the flogging of bloggers and encouragement of paedophiles. Meanwhile, the Gulf Co-operation Council condemned her ‘unaccept-able [?] interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, and I wouldn’t bet against anti-Swedish riots following soon.
Yet there is no ‘Wallström affair’. Outside Sweden, the western media has barely covered the story, and Sweden’s EU allies have shown no inclination whatsoever to support her. A small Scandinavian nation faces sanctions, accusations of Islamophobia and maybe worse to come, and everyone stays silent. As so often, the scandal is that there isn’t a scandal. » | Nick Cohen | Saturday, March 28, 2015
'There's a Great Deal of Mistrust in Iran towards Washington'
Confused? Shiites in Iraq Armed by US, Shiites in Yemen Bombed with US Help
Die seltsam schnelle Festlegung auf eine Wahrheit
Der Ablauf widerspricht allen Regularien einer neutralen Aufklärung eines Flugzeugabsturzes. Keine 48 Stunden nachdem Unglücksflug 4U9525 von Germanwings gegen einen Berg in Südfrankreich prallte, scheint der genaue Ablauf festzustehen. » | Samstag 28. März 2015
Quand Gérard Depardieu était musulman
Pro-Hassan Rouhani Iranian Editor Defects While Covering Nuclear Talks in Lausanne
A close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has sought political asylum in Switzerland after travelling to Lausanne to cover the nuclear talks between Tehran and the West.
Amir Hossein Motaghi, who managed public relations for Mr Rouhani during his 2013 election campaign, was said by Iranian news agencies to have quit his job at the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA).
He then appeared on an opposition television channel based in London to say he no longer saw any “sense” in his profession as a journalist as he could only write what he was told.
“There are a number of people attending on the Iranian side at the negotiations who are said to be journalists reporting on the negotiations,” he told Irane Farda television. “But they are not journalists and their main job is to make sure that all the news fed back to Iran goes through their channels.
“My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this manner any more.” Mr Mottaghi was a journalist and commentator who went on to use social media successfully to promote Mr Rouhani to a youthful audience that overwhelmingly elected him to power. » | Ahmed Vahdat and Richard Spencer | Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
Yemen Bombed: 'Crisis Could Deepen to All-out Sunni-Shia Religious War, Real Aim Is to Stop Iran'
US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel's Nuclear Program
In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.
But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.
The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu's March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.
Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document. » | Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Saudischer Blogger Badawi: "Auf wundersame Weise 50 Peitschenhiebe überlebt"
Wie überlebt man eine Auspeitschung? Wie fühlt sich der Alltag in einem saudischen Gefängnis an? Erstmals seit seiner Verhaftung meldet sich der saudische Blogger Raif Badawi per Brief zu Wort - nach fast drei Jahren in Haft. In dem Schreiben, das der SPIEGEL in Auszügen nachdruckt, berichtet er von seinen Eindrücken und Erfahrungen. Er schreibt, dass er auf "wundersame Weise fünfzig Peitschenhiebe überlebt" habe, während er umringt gewesen sei "von einer jubelnden Menge, die immerzu Allahu akbar rief". Und weiter schreibt er: "All dies grausame Leid ist mir nur widerfahren, weil ich meine Meinung ausgedrückt habe." » | Freitag, 27. März 2015
What Religion Was Andreas Lubitz? Debate Grows over Germanwings Pilot's Background
Close friends of the 28-year old Germanwings pilot remember him as a "rather quiet, but a friendly young man."
Many on social media, however, refuse to believe the explanation that the German pilot, whose full name is Andreas Guenter Lubitz, had no terror links and in fact "had no reason to do it."
During the news conference, French prosecutor Brice Robin refused to give information on Andreas Lubitz's religion, saying: "I don't think it's necessarily what we should be looking for."
But that has not stopped many from counter-arguing that the religion of the pilot, who deliberately crashed the Germanwings Flight 9525 killing all 150 people onboard, is an important cue to investigate the motive of the "mass murderer." » | Johnlee Varghese | Friday, March 27, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
As ‘Woman in Gold’ Premieres, Meet the Man Who Battled for the Klimt
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| Gustav Klimt's 1907 'Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I' (Public domain) |
NEW YORK — The Neue Galerie, a mid-sized museum on Fifth Avenue and East 86th Street in Manhattan, gets pretty crowded around lunch. The Café Sabarasky (named for the institution’s co-founder Serge Sabarasky, who opened the Neue in late 2001 with Ronald Lauder) is a hot draw, but the artwork lingers longer than the pastries.
On the second floor of this converted mansion, designed by legendary Gilded Age architects Carrère and Hastings and once owned by Grace Vanderbilt, there hangs the portrait of a woman who died 90 years ago. Her story is still being told.
Adele Bloch-Bauer was part of a prominent Austrian-Jewish family, patrons of the arts whose belongings were plundered by the Nazis. Among the works stolen were two portraits of Adele by Gustav Klimt, commissioned by her husband. The first – with gold leaf applied directly to the canvas – is the more famous. “A painting sold on refrigerator magnets” as Charles Dance’s character, a lawyer skeptical about restituting the work to its rightful owner, reminds us in the new movie “Woman in Gold.”
After World War II, surviving members of the Bloch-Bauer family escaped to the United States. Their artwork remained behind – the “last prisoners of war.” The case of “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” made international headlines (and has been the subject of documentaries) but “Woman in Gold” is the first time it has been dramatized. » | Jordan Hoffman | Thursday, March 26, 2015
Suite Française: Official Trailer (2015)
Yémen : la grande peur de l'Arabie saoudite
La hantise de l'enfermement est souvent facteur d'interventionnisme pour les pays qui se rêvent en puissances régionales. C'est le cas du Pakistan, qui tente depuis longtemps de satelliser l'Afghanistan, de peur qu'il ne tombe dans l'orbite indienne. Ça l'est également de l'Arabie saoudite, engagée depuis plusieurs années dans une lutte d'influence à la fois géopolitique et religieuse avec l'Iran, aujourd'hui motif de son intervention au Yémen.
Ces deux pays ne sont pas seulement les uniques puissances régionales, l'Irak et la Syrie étant livrés au chaos ou à la guerre civile ; ils sont également les porte-étendard des deux grandes subdivisions de l'islam : sunnite pour l'Arabie saoudite, chiite pour l'Iran. Or le vent de l'histoire souffle en ce moment dans le sens du chiisme, pourtant minoritaire dans le monde musulman, et de Téhéran, qui a déjà des obligés à Bagdad, Damas, Beyrouth, d'où la nervosité dont Riyad fait preuve ces derniers temps. » | Par Yves Cornu | jeudi 26 mars 2015
Ex-Muslims: Three Stories of Losing Faith in Islam (Newsnight, November 29, 2013)
Jindal Talks Tough on Islam
One of the problems faced by each of the last two American presidents — George W. Bush and Barack Obama — has been how to discriminate rhetorically between Muslims in general, who constitute 23 percent of the world's population and encompass many countries that the United States is allied with, and the kind of militant Islamic movement that America has been struggling against on a variety of battlefronts since at least September 11, 2001.
Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a potential presidential candidate and one of several who are likely to appear in Memphis before the GOP nomination is decided in 2016, was in town on Friday to address local Republicans at a closed "Leadership Event" fund-raiser at the Racquet Club.
He told reporters at a preliminary press conference at the Signature Air terminal that the dilemma was less real than it seemed, and, further, that the Obama administration, in particular, was guilty of mincing words in the struggle against radical Islam.
"You've got an administration whose officials, like [Attorney General] Eric Holder, saying things like 'We're not in a type of war.' You've got a State Department saying, 'We're not going to kill our way to victory," said Jindal. "This is nonsense. This is ridiculous. These are terrorists who are beheading and killing. ... They're Muslims. They're not a religious minority. ... The reality is that this is an enemy we must defeat. We must hunt them down and kill them." » | Jackson Baker | Thursday, March 26, 2015
Snub Speculation: White House Can’t ‘Find Time’ to Meet NATO Chief
Germanwings Crash Raises Security Threat Posed by Insiders
Evidence that the co-pilot on the Germanwings flight that crashed in France on Tuesday locked the pilot out of the cockpit is raising fresh concerns about a danger that aviation and security regulators consider among the least controllable: the potential threat posed by insiders.
The pilot of the Germanwings Airbus A320 jet, which crashed in the French Alps with 150 people on board, had left the cockpit just before the plane began its descent, French prosecutors said on Thursday. The pilot was unable to re-enter the cockpit and the plane crashed roughly 10 minutes later. » | Daniel Michaels | Thursday, March 26, 2015
Saudi Leads Ten-nation Sunni Coalition in Bombing Yemen's Shia Rebels
Ten Sunni-led Arab states have joined in air strikes and other military operations against an Iran-linked Shia militia in Yemen, plunging the Middle East into an openly sectarian regional war.
Overnight, Saudi Arabian jets, advised by the United States, bombed positions of the Houthi rebel group which has seized much of western Yemen and driven the Sunni, western-backed President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi into flight.
Reports from the scene said that as well as military positions, one missile hit a civilian area near Sana'a international airport, killing six to eight members of two families. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least 18 civilians were killed and 24 others were wounded.
Britain also said it was supporting the action, citing the Houthis' "disregard for the political process". It was not clear if British forces were participating in any way.
Egypt, Sudan and Jordan confirmed they were supporting the operation and were discussing sending air, navy and ground forces to support their Saudi allies and financial backers.
Al-Arabiya television station, which is close to the Saudi authorities, said that besides the internationally recognised Yemeni government loyal to Mr Hadi, Morocco, Sudan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain had also joined the coalition and sent planes. » | Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor | Thursday, March 26, 2015
Richard III 'Given Dignity Denied in Death' as He Is Laid to Rest
The burial of a king began with the words of a Queen.
Her Majesty did not attend the service to reinter one of her most divisive predecessors but her 142-word message to Richard III greeted the congregation as they arrived at Leicester Cathedral.
As tributes went, it was hardly glowing. Her words, printed in the order of service, spoke not of honouring Richard III, but “recognising” a king “who lived through turbulent times”.
But then this was not a funeral. It might have featured the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, a poem composed by the Poet Laureate and members of the royal family, but it was technically a service of reinterment. For the king had already been given a funeral, presided over by Franciscan monks in the days after he died on the battlefield at Bosworth in 1485. » | Tom Rowley, Special Correspondent, in Leicester Cathedral, video from ITN | Thursday, March 26, 2015
IS Stones To Death Man & Woman In Mosul For Adultery
Abu Mohammad al-Lahibi, the shop owner, said the woman was in her 20s and married. Lahibi was not sure if the woman was given a fair trial since none was held before the stoning.
The two were handcuffed, while the woman wore a full face veil called niqab. Twelve IS militants stood before the condemned couple and had bags filled with stones. They started to throw stones on the two. On the third stone, the “adulteress” was killed, while the man died after her, recounts Lahibi. » | Vittorio Hernandez | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
ISIS Presents Conversion to Islam of Christian Captured in Syria
THE JERUSALEM POST: Unconvincing ISIS video shows Assyrian captive converting to Islam » | Ariel Cohen | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Related »
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Erdoğan Plan for Super-presidency Puts Turkey's Democracy at Stake
Turkey’s strongman leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is facing unexpectedly spirited, across-the-board resistance to his plan to create a Putin-style super-presidency, a move that opposition parties warn could spell an end to parliamentary democracy and result in a virtual dictatorship.
Erdoğan, the founding leader of the neo-Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP), has ruled Turkey in increasingly authoritarian fashion since becoming prime minister in 2003. Barred under party rules from seeking a fourth term, he switched to the presidency last August and has been manoeuvring to increase his executive powers ever since.
The strategy looks similar to Vladimir Putin’s successive shifts from the Russian presidency to prime ministership and back again, which have kept him in overall charge in Moscow since 2000. The now deposed Pervez Musharraf pulled off a similar trick in Pakistan, bolstering his presidential authority at the expense of the prime minister and parliament.
Ever choleric, Erdoğan appears oblivious to these precedents, and to his growing reputation for harsh crackdowns on popular dissent, street protests and independent journalism. This week saw the jailing of two Penguen magazine cartoonists who dared to poke fun at him.
He is counting instead on his high profile and personal popularity among religious-minded working-class and rural voters to give the AKP a big majority in national elections due on 7 June. In theory, the necessary constitutional changes he wants could then be pushed through. » | Simon Tisdall | Wednesday, March 25, 2015
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