The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have strongly condemned the killing of a British soldier in Woolwich, London. “This brutal act is rejected by all religions and deserves every condemnation and denunciation,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said. Sheikh Abdullah also expressed the UAE’s solidarity with Britain in combating …
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We’re going into the three-day Memorial Day weekend here in the US; I
may have a post or two later, but let’s do a weekend nostalgia post in
case I don’t. Here are some videos of key moments in King Farouq of Egypt’s life, in brief clips (apparently previews) of British newsreels (not responsible for the narrator’;s commentary):
Farouq’s return to Egypt from the UK after the death of his father, Fuad I, in 1936:
Farouq’s marriage to Queen Farida (Safinaz Zulfiqar), January 20, 1938 (Farouq divorced Farida in 1948:
Farouq’s second marriage, to Queen Narriman (Narriman Sadek,a commoner), May 6, 1951:
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BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah’s deputy chief says the European Union would be making a “big mistake” to label the Lebanese Shiite militant group “terrorist.”
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BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's government has agreed to attend a U.S.-Russian-brokered peace conference, according to Moscow. While this development might seem at first glance to be a step toward ending the civil war, strong skepticism persists on both sides.
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Here is a photo gallery from my visit on May 9, 2013, to the Iraqi National Museum, courtesy the Ministry of Culture. Ancient Iraq or Mesopotamia was, of course, the cradle of civilization, and the treasures on display are breathtaking.
Donald Rumsfeld allowed thousands of items to be looted from the museum in 2003. (US soldiers watched the looting happen but were ordered not to intervene). Many artifacts have been recovered but 3000 – 7000 are still missing. Most of the really important and striking pieces are back on display. Some things, including precious cuneiform tablets chronicling the dawn of civilization, were forever destroyed. The damage to the museum and its collection is yet another black mark against the Bush administration and, sorry, the United States of America, which by its illegal and brutal invasion and occupation diminished our store of knowledge about a crucial period of world history.
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Over the past week the Tunisian government has pursued a active campaign against the Salafi Ansar al-Shari‘a movement, having moved to break up the movement’s attempt to hold its annual conference in Kairouan, Tunisia’s historic religious center. After clashes between the movement and security forces, the government arrested hundreds, though some of these were subsequently released.
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The government, dominated by the Al-Nahda (Annahda) Party, itself moderate Islamist, has in the past been accused of being soft on some radical Salafi movements, but that is clearly no longer the case. The government has declared Ansar al-Shari‘a an illegal organization, blocked its meeting in Kairouan, and claimed that some plotters arrested for planning terrorist attacks had links to the movement.
The clashes in Kairouan between authorities and followers of the movement appear to mark a new determination on the part of the government to check the growing assertiveness of Ansar al-Shari‘a, a Salafi movement sometimes described as a jihadi movement.
Adding to the explosiveness of the situation last week in Kairouan, during the confrontation Femen activist Amina Tyler was arrested in Kairouan, allegedly for planning to disrobe in front of the Ansar al-Shari‘a.
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Nabil goes in: A British Muslim responds to the Woolwich murder in which Lee Rigby, 25, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was butchered by clearly unbalanced persons. Our hearts go out to the Rigbys.
h/t reddit.com, where it went to the top today.
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The next time you hear politicians campaigning on “lower taxes,” you should realize two things.
First, they don’t intend to lower your taxes, which are probably mostly social security. In fact, they might like effectively to raise those taxes by extending the retirement age. They mean they intend to lower taxes for rich people and corporations.
Second, what they really mean is that they intend to deny you basic social services of the sort government provides through your taxes, such as upkeep of roads and bridges. They want to allow the trucking and other corporations who use those resources to escape paying for them (most road degradation is caused by trucks), and pass the cost on to you, either in the form of tolls or of deteriorating infrastructure. I.e., when they campaign on lower taxes they are actually promising you that your bridges will collapse. Like the one in Washington state.
12% of bridges –i.e. thousands and thousands of them– in the United States are “structurally deficient.”
“An I-5 bridge over the Skagit River in Mount Vernon[, Washington,] collapsed Thursday evening, sending cars and people into the water. Three people were rescued from the water and taken to hospitals.”
AP interviews a survivor:
The implications for other states:
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