There is no good in much of their secret conferences save (in) whosoever enjoineth charity and fairness and peace-making among the people and whoso doeth that, seeking the good pleasure of God, We shall bestow on him a vast reward.
(Al-Nisa, 4:114).
WELCOME :: MAIN MENU MOVED TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS BLOG
AlJazeeraEnglish | November 28, 2010 - As Egyptians vote for parliamentary elections on Sunday, stone-throwing street battles in the city of Alexandria have erupted outside a polling station between supporters of rivaling political factions.
The violence came as many members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition party, accuse the ruling party of vote rigging and intimidation.
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from Alexandria, a Brotherhood stronghold.
RussiaToday | November 27, 2010 - After decades of waiting, Iran has switched on its first nuclear power plant. It will take a while though before the Russian-built Bushehr reactor begins pumping electricity to the national grid.
It's about America wanting Iranian Oil!
RussiaToday | November 27, 2010 - After years of waiting, Iran has switched on its first nuclear power plant. The country's atomic chief says the Russian-built Bushehr reactor will soon begin pumping electricity to Iranian cities. For more insight, RT talks to journalist Afshin Rattansi- Is the sanction working?
The other day a volunteer in the Amnesty media office where I work said “there’s always violence” in Egypt when they have elections. She was in the country for the 2005 elections, she said, and “We didn’t go out of the house. It was too dangerous”.
A sad indictment, but surely a bit exaggerated? Not really.
In 2005 violence on the streets, mass arrests of political candidates, supporters and even election monitors, and a general feeling of instability were – unfortunately – part and parcel of the elections in Egypt. Perhaps not surprisingly, less than a quarter of Egypt’s registered voters turned out to vote. (Compare this to the UK’s own 2005 election: 61% of registered voters voted and even this led to a bout of hand-wringing over falling electoral turn-outs).
AlJazeeraEnglish | November 26, 2010 - Egyptians will vote in parliamentary election on Sunday, but rights groups say the vote will be neither free nor fair.
There have been a series of government crackdowns against the media and opposition supporters ahead of the poll.Despite resistance from the government, young Egyptians are beginning to agitate for change.
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland has the story in Alexandria.
:: Egypt offers more seats for women
AlJazeeraEnglish | November 26, 2010 - Egypt has specified quotas for the number of parliamentary seats for labourers, farmers and other professionals.
Now more room is being made for women. Just in time for the election.
Only four women were elected in 2005. This time around, the Egyptian government has designated 64 seats solely for women. But critics say this is a ploy for the National Democratic Party to gain more seats rather than a genuine desire to give women more rights.
RussiaToday | November 24, 2010 - On this edition of Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk, his guests Alan Dershowitz and Gideon Levy face off regarding Obama's failed MidEast peace process.
Vid 2 :: U.S. To Boost Weapons Stockpile In Israel
theGlobalReport | November 20, 2010 - The United States is to significantly increase the amount of military equipment held in Israel as part of a move to upgrade security ties between the two allies. The move will see an extra 400-million-dollars worth of smart bombs and other precision weaponry and equipment moved to Israel over the next two years.
Vid 1 :: Price of 'Peace': 20 F-35 stealth jets to bribe Israel?
RussiaToday | November 14, 2010 - The U.S. is desperately trying to revive the stalled Middle East peace talks, by enticing Israel to extend its construction moratorium in occupied Palestinian territories.Washington's put 20 stealth fighter jets worth $3 billion on the table - and a pledge to fight any international resolutions against Israel. In exchange, it wants Israel to halt construction in the West Bank for three months, with a U.S. promise not to ask to prolong it further. Palestinians are criticising the plan, saying the proposed freeze will not apply to East Jerusalem.
PressTVGlobalNews | November 09, 2010 - This episode of Press TV's "A Simple Question" is about nuclear weapons; a strategic deterrent that responsible countries should have and should keep, or a threat so great that they should abolish altogether.
The US tested the world's first nuclear bomb in New Mexico, 1945. On the 6th of August that year, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 3 days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The US justification for these actions was that dropping the bomb was necessary to end the 2nd world war.
The dropping of the Hiroshima bomb heralded the start of the atomic age. The USSR developed its first weapon in 1949, the UK in 1952, France in 1960, and China in 1964. These nations and many more signed the NPT in an attempt to control nuclear weapons at the international level. The treaty consists of 3 central pillars:
- First, all nuclear states agreed not to help non-nuclear states acquire nuclear weapons.
- Second, all nuclear states would move towards disarming their own nuclear weapons.
- Third, all countries -- both nuclear and non-nuclear -- were granted the right to develop their own nuclear energy programs.
Pakistan and India developed nuclear weapons with the support of the US. In 2006, North Korea tested its first nuclear missile. Israel officially has a policy of ambiguity; it neither confirms nor denies whether it has nuclear weapons. The US and a number of other countries accuse Iran of covertly trying to make nuclear weapons and as a result, the US, UN, and EU have all placed economic sanctions on Iran. But Tehran rejects the west's double standards and insists its nuclear program is just for peaceful purposes; it's enriching uranium to meet its energy needs.
In the UK and around the world resistance to nuclear weapons continues.
theGlobalReport | November 20, 2010 - Foreign-policy hard-liners are stepping up efforts to press the Obama administration to take a tougher stance -- and perhaps even launch an attack -- on Iran. After the Republican made inroads in the recent mid-term election.
itnnews | November 20, 2010 - David Cameron has addressed the NATO summit praising an agreement for Afghan forces to take control of their country's security.
Thousands protest Afghan war in London :
itnnews | November 20, 2010 - As Cameron set a date at the NATO summit for British troop withdrawal protesters marched in the capital over Afghanistan war.
Egyptian security forces have arrested another 300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood across the country, less than 10 days before the legislative elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition group in Egypt, said on Friday that the arrests took place in several towns, including Alexandria, on Friday. Almost half of the arrests were in the port city of Alexandria, where dozens were also injured.
However, Egyptian security forces say they have only detained around 100 opposition members for planning to cause disturbances and for holding group meetings.
Investigations by both Human Rights Watch and the UN concluded that “the massacre and sexual violence committed on September 28 at the stadium appeared to be both organized and pre-planned.” Both investigations further revealed the extensive efforts by the government to cover up the scale of the killings, with troops visiting hospital morgues to take away and dispose of the bodies of the dead before they could be properly registered.
The full extent of this atrocity may never be known but it has been confirmed that at least 150 to 200 people were killed and scores of women raped.
AlJazeeraEnglish | November 16, 2010 - The US has imposed economic sanctions against Iran for nearly 30 years and the trade barriers have created problems for Iranian businesses.
The import and export sector is among the most affected, including in some unusual areas such as the carpet industry.The latest round of sanctions has made trading in Persian rugs illegal, which by extension will hurt the traditional weavers in Iran.
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New Jersey.
PressTVGlobalNews InFocus | November 15, 2010 - Kashmir as one of the most dangerous clash points is located partly in Indian and Pakistani border.Kashmir's unrest continues to be unresolved after more than six decades.
Both India and Pakistan who claim full control of the region have fought two of the three wars in Kashmir and the area has remained at the heart of enmity between the two nuclear rivals.
In this edition of InFocus, Press TV's correspondent Shahana Butt takes a look at how the people in Kashmir are caught up in this long disputed between India and Pakistan.
Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, has been moved from a hospital to his home.
The 82-year-old has been in a coma since 2006, when he suffered a massive stroke.
Doctors say the hope is that he will eventually be able to remain at his house with a full medical team to care for him.
The medics said the process of moving him to his home - a farm in southern Israel - was gradual.
On this first, carefully rehearsed, journey from the hospital the former leader was accompanied by the medical team, and all the necessary respiratory machinery to keep him alive.
Dispatch: Oil Revenue Complicates South Sudan's Referendum
STRATFORvideo | November 08, 2010 - Analyst Mark Schroeder examines how the fight over oil revenues will complicate South Sudan's goal of becoming an independent nation in an early 2011 referendum on independence.
Iraq will finally get a new government on Thursday after politicians hammered out a late-night deal to end eight months of wrangling following an indecisive election.
The country's 249 days of impasse set a new world record, and led to fears in America and among its neighbours that it could descend into civil war.
The nationalist Iraqiya party, headed by the pro-western secular former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, agreed under heavy pressure to back a national unity coalition.
AlJazeeraEnglish | November 09, 2010 - Iraqis frustrated by party leaders' failure to form a unity government after eight months of political deadlock, have staged a massive rally in Baghdad, calling on officials to speed up the process of reaching a power-sharing deal.
Much of the public anger stems from soaring economic costs the country accrued since March's general elections failed to yield a leadership because not a single bloc won enough seats.
Many complain that the impasse has caused a standstill in the country, freezing job growth and public services. They also say officials' salaries, which are many times more than the average Iraqi's pay, are a major waste of money.
RT, Nov 2010 - He explained that the Iraqis had little say in how things functioned, how the government was formed or where things would even be placed. The Iraqi government was ill prepared to transition to power and unable to run the nation adequately.
A Yemeni woman walks past UPS office in Sanaa, Yemen. The glaring weakness of the cargo shipping system has been laid bare by the Yemen-based mail bomb plot
It is true that graduates of the Saudi-financed Salafi schools spread throughout the poverty-stricken country can be recruited easily by extremist groups. "Graduates of these schools are almost ready to be Al-Qaeda members," Said Obaid, chairman of the Al-Jemhi Centre for Researches and Studies, a think tank specialised in Al-Qaeda affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Obaid mentioned in particular the first ever Dammaj Centre in Saada which was founded by the late Salafi cleric Mukbel Al-Wadi who graduated from the Saudi Wahabi schools. Nearly 4,000 schools now are offspring of Dammaj which was founded in late 1980s.
"The top leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, Nasser Al-Wahaishi, graduated from such a school," said Obaid, who studied for a while in Dammaj before he became a researcher and the author of the book Al-Qaeda in Yemen. "The leader of Al-Qaeda in Mudia Jamil Al-Ambori, who was killed in a security operation last March and other prominent members are alumni."
Shahrzad Mir-Qolikhan was arrested in the US in December 2007. Her ex-husband, Mahmoud Seif, had allegedly tried to export night-vision goggles to Iran from Austria. She was sentenced to five years in prison by a Florida federal court in his absence. Her mother said that Shahrzad had been trial in Austria and had been exonerated but the US court in Miami annulled the verdict and ordered a re-trial.
